I try to solve the following problem:
5 cards are dealt from a shuffled deck.
What is the probability that the dealt hand contains exactly 2 aces,
given that we know it contains at least 1 ace?
I have arrived at two potential solutions to this problem, but the obtained results differ.
In the first way I use the Bayes' formula.
Let's #A: the number of aces in the hand.
$P(\#A=2|\#A \ge 1) = \frac{P(\#A \ge 1| \#A=2)P(\#A=2)}{P(\#A \ge 1)}=\frac{1 \cdot P(\#A=2)}{1-P(\#A = 0)}=\frac{\frac{\binom{4}{2}\binom{48}{3}}{\binom{52}{5}}}{1-\frac{\binom{4}{0}\binom{48}{5}}{\binom{52}{5}}}\approx0.12$
In the second way, I assume that 1 ace is already in my hand, and I have to draw additional 4 cards from a deck of 51 cards (3 aces, and 48 non-aces) and then I calculate the probability of drawing exactly 1 additional ace (in order to have 2 aces in my hand in total).
$\frac{\binom{3}{1}\binom{48}{3}}{\binom{51}{4}}\approx0.21$
So I get a different number. I would like to know which solution is the correct one (or maybe they are both incorrect?) and I would also like to know why aren't they equivalent?
Thank you in advance for your help.
Your first answer is correct given the question. As you can see, your work in the first approach only considers number of aces and non-aces and not the order.
If you were to find the conditional probability of being dealt exactly $1$ more ace in next $4$ cards given the first card was already an Ace, the second approach would be correct. I am adding a more elaborate work that would show you how your second answer is answering a different question that I just stated.
If $B$ is the event of first card being Ace and $A$ being the event of exactly two aces in five cards hand,
$P(A \cap B)= \displaystyle \frac{{4 \choose 1} {4 \choose 2} {48 \choose 3} \cdot 2! \cdot 3! }{ {52 \choose 5} \cdot 5!} = \frac{4324}{270725}$
(we know the first card is an Ace. We choose which of the next $4$ cards would be an Ace. We choose $2$ Aces and $3$ non-Aces and we permute Aces within and we permute non-Aces within.)
Also, $ \displaystyle P(B) = \frac{1}{13}$
$ \displaystyle \therefore P(A|B) = \frac{4324}{20825} \approx 0.21$
I hope this clarifies.