Zou and Chou are practicing their -meter sprints by running races against each other. Zou wins the first race, and after that, the probability that one of them wins a race is if they won the previous race but only if they lost the previous race. The probability that Zou will win exactly of the races is , where and are relatively prime positive integers. Find
Solution
For the next five races, Zou wins four and loses one. Let and denote a win and a loss, respectively. There are five possible outcome sequences for Zou:
We proceed with casework:
Case (1): Sequences #1-4, in which Zou does not lose the last race.
The probability that Zou loses a race is and the probability that Zou wins the next race is For each of the three other races, the probability that Zou wins is
There are four sequences in this case. The probability of one such sequence is
Case (2): Sequence #5, in which Zou loses the last race.
The probability that Zou loses a race is For each of the four other races, the probability that Zou wins is
There is one sequence in this case. The probability is
Answer
The requested probability is from which the answer is
~MRENTHUSIASM