A Probability Idea – In story form

Tom really needed to avoid rolling a six with the dice or else he would lose the game but how would he stop himself from rolling a six?

Just then, an idea occurred to him.

“Let me roll the dice a few times in private”, he asked his opponent.

“In private?”, his opponent asked, “Why?”.

“Uh?”, he said, “To bring me luck”.

“Okay”, said his opponent, curious.

So then, Tom rolled the dice as many times as he could until he rolled a 6.

“Right”, he said, turning back to face his opponent. “I’m ready to roll”.

Tom knew that he was unlikely to roll a 6 now because the odds were slim that he would roll a 6 twice in succession.