Consider a deck of 52 playing cards, in how many ways can you select two face cards?

I think the formula is (x squared + x) / 2 which in this case = 66





Edit; Not 78. That would be the result if you added one more card to the number. You start with 11 matches with one card then when every combo is exhausted the next card will have ten combos with all but the one you started with, etc.





(11 squared plus 11) divided by 2 = 66





using the same formula you can work out that there are 1326 possible combinations of any two of 52 cards. So the odds of selecting any two face cards at random from a full deck is 1326 / 66 or, roughly, 20 / 1.

Consider a deck of 52 playing cards, in how many ways can you select two face cards?
132
Reply:12 * 11 = 132, unless you're looking for unique combinations of two face cards in which case it's 12*11 / 2 = 66. :-)
Reply:Infinity!!!
Reply:Well out of the whole deck, there are 12 face cards (not counting the Ace as one).





So you would multiply 12, times 11 (the number of face cards left after you draw one)





12 * 11 = 132





so there are 132 possible combinations

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