A Probabilistic Two-Pile Game

Abstract

We consider a game with two piles, in which two players take turn to add $a$ or $b$ chips ($a$, $b$ are not necessarily positive) randomly and independently to their respective piles. The player who collects $n$ chips first wins the game. We derive general formulas for $p_n$, the probability of the second player winning the game by collecting $n$ chips first and show the calculation for the cases $\{a,b\}$ = $\{-1,1\}$ and $\{-1,2\}$. The latter case was asked by Wong and Xu \cite{WX}. At the end, we derive the general formula for $p_{n_1,n_2}$, the probability of the second player winning the game by collecting $n_2$ chips before the first player collects $n_1$ chips.