In a twoteam basketball playoff the winner is the first team

In a two-team basketball play-off, the winner is the first team to win m games. Show that the total number of different outcomes (sequence of wins and losses) is

Solution

easy to see

playoff can end in m ,m+1,.......2m-1 matches

and the winner is the one who wins last match

no of ways if it ends in m matches is m-1 Choose m-1

multiply it by 2 as any one can be the winner

and all other cases are similar.

Comment if not understood