In a previous post, we discussed why R is a great choice to simplify your data and statistical analysis. R has a steep learning curve at first, but with practice, the advantages of R far outweigh the initial bumps. In this post, we provide an example of using R to solve a well-known brain teaser – The Monty Hall Problem.

Monty Hall Problem

You are a contestant on a game show. In front of you are 3 doors A, B, and C. Behind one is a cash prize and the other two hide goats. If you can correctly select the prize door then the prize is yours.

The host asks you to pick a door. Regardless if your choice is a prize door or goat door, the host will reveal an unselected goat door. You are then given these options: change your selection to the other unopened door or stay with the original.

What is the right choice? Should you stay or change? Is there even a difference? The answer may surprise you.

We can write a simple R function to answer this question.

Simple R Function

Calculating the win percentage based on staying with the original guess is relatively straight forward. Just determine how often a random guess matches with a randomly generated prize door.

Figuring out the percentage of winning if you switch might seem complicated at first but we actually just need to figure out how often our original guess picks a goat door. When given the choice between staying or switching there is only one goat door and one prize door left. If a goat door was selected originally, then switching will pick the prize door, while if the prize door was selected, switching picks a goat door.

Now let’s run 1000 simulations of the game (nsim=1000), and see what the win percentages are for each strategy.

run 1000 simulations of the game

Not bad. Very close to 1/3 and 2/3. At the start, there is a 1 in 3 chance of selecting the prize door and a 2 in 3 chance of selecting a goat door. The best strategy is therefore to switch your guess. You will have double the chance of winning.

This may seem counter-intuitive, but let’s frame the game in a slightly different manner. If there are 50 doors (49 goat and 1 cash prize). After the host reveals 48 goat doors, would you then switch or stay? Let’s modify the original code above to take the input “ndoors” for how many doors are in the game.

modify the original code

With 50 doors and 1000 simulations the output is as follows:

With 50 doors and 1000 simulations the output is as follows

At the start, there is a 1 in 50 chance of selecting the correct door, or 2% which is about what we got above with 1000 simulations.

Clearly switching is the right strategy!

Make the Best Choice for your Research

Sengi helps small and medium-sized businesses get brilliant ocular health discoveries into the hands of your ideal customer. You don’t need to have a specialized writer in-house to turn your research into reality.

contact sengi data for reporting testing

Contact Sengi

Please let us know your name.

Please let us know your email address.

Please write a subject for your message.

Please let us know your message.

Invalid Input

sengi footer logo

The Sengi team is led by Dr. Brad Hall, a vision scientist and expert medical writer. A regular peer reviewer for several medical and ophthalmology journals, Dr. Hall has authored a multitude of articles personally, is a successful grant writer, medical writer, and master of the art of simplifying data and statistical analysis. Since launching in 2015, Sengi has provided medical writing and biostatistics analysis expertise to SMBs and researchers around the world that lacked the necessary means to share their scientific breakthroughs outside of the lab. Sengi’s work has enabled these companies to put advanced technology into the hands of those who need them most.