a game of cards is played with a hand that consists of 4 cards dealt from a deck of 44 cards. how many different hands of cards are possible?

1 answer

To calculate the number of different hands of cards possible, we need to consider the concept of combinations, as the order of the cards does not matter.

In this case, we want to choose 4 cards out of a deck of 44 cards. The number of combinations can be calculated using the formula for combinations, which is given by:

C(n, r) = n! / (r!(n-r)!),

where C(n, r) represents the number of combinations of choosing r items from a set of n distinct items.

Substituting the values into the formula, we have:

C(44, 4) = 44! / (4!(44-4)!)
= 44! / (4!40!)
= (44 x 43 x 42 x 41) / (4 x 3 x 2 x 1)
= 357,860.

Therefore, there are 357,860 different hands of 4 cards that can be dealt from a deck of 44 cards.