Possibly a Combination Problem

[Jason76]

You have to kill three of four dragons A, B, C and D dragons in a row before you get to be with your true love (TL). The chances that you kill them are respectively 0.4, 0.6, 0.8 and 0.9. In what order should you fight them so as to maximize your chances of being with TL?

Hints on here at a starting strategy?

 

[HallsofIvy]

Since you only need to kill three of the four dragons, the obvious strategy is to not fight the dragon where you only have a 0.4 chance of winning. The other three can be fought in any order giving you a (0.6)(0.8)(0.9)= 0.432 probability of winning.

 

[I like Serena]

To defeat 3 dragons in a row in 4 fights, we definitely need to defeat the 2nd and the 3rd. So we should pick the highest chances for those.