Of course that's a dangerous way to go because after all, it's all random, and that means that there is the possibility that the program will return misleading results even after a thousand simluation runs. (In fact, computer programs cannot really generate random numbers, it's just "pseudo-random", but four our purposes it should be enough.)
The Java applet on this page requires a browser capable of running Java 1.1 (like Netscape Navigator 4.04+, or browsers using a Java plugin, or just load this page in Sun's appletviewer). Using this applet, you can simulate single games or let the program run in a continuous mode and watch how the result develops.
The applet shows that while the overall probability of success for a candidate who decides randomly is 50%, more victories take place after the candidate has switched. So if he would not decide randomly but always switch, his overall probability of success would increase to 66%.
Of course I can tell you anything - maybe I fixed the program to give exactly the results I wanted it to give! So if you are skeptical, just download the source and see for yourself!
If that is not sufficient for you, there's still
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