How do I make a coin flip race in getting two heads and two tails consecutively in Java

Question

I just started coding with more complex methods than the main method. I was given an assignment to make a race with three coins. Whichever coin flips 2 heads and 2 tails first in that order wins. I coded an if else statement to determine which coin wins but neither of the if statements are ever executed. Please tell me if you see an error in my if else statements or somewhere else. I also have to other programs of code that include other methods.

public class FlipRace
{



public static void main (String[] args)
   {
  final int GOALHEAD = 2;
  final int GOALTAIL = 2;
  int count1 = 0, count2 = 0, count3 = 0, count10 = 0, count20 = 0, count30 = 0;

  // Create three separate coin objects
  Coin coin1 = new Coin();
  Coin coin2 = new Coin();
  Coin coin3 = new Coin();

  while (count1 <= GOALHEAD && count10 <= GOALTAIL || count2 <= GOALHEAD && count20 <= GOALTAIL || count3 <= GOALHEAD && count30 <= GOALTAIL)
  {
     coin1.flip();
     coin2.flip();
     coin3.flip();

     // Print the flip results (uses Coin's toString method)
     System.out.print ("Coin 1: " + coin1);
     System.out.println ("   Coin 2: " + coin2);
     System.out.println ("      Coin 3: " + coin3);

     // Increment or reset the counters
     if (coin1.isHeads())
        count1++;
     else
        count10++;
     if (coin2.isHeads())
        count2++;
     else
        count20++;
     if (coin3.isHeads())
        count3++;
     else
        count30++;
  }

  // Determine the winner
  if (count1 == GOALHEAD && count10 == GOALTAIL)
     System.out.println ("Coin 1 wins!");

  else if (count2 == GOALHEAD && count20 == GOALTAIL)
   System.out.println ("Coin 2 wins!");

  else if (count3 == GOALHEAD && count30 == GOALTAIL)
   System.out.println ("Coin 3 wins!");

       else
        System.out.println ("It's a TIE!");


 }
}

Here is my output:

    Coin 1: Heads   Coin 2: Heads
      Coin 3: Tails
Coin 1: Heads   Coin 2: Heads
      Coin 3: Heads
Coin 1: Heads   Coin 2: Tails
      Coin 3: Heads
Coin 1: Heads   Coin 2: Heads
      Coin 3: Tails
Coin 1: Heads   Coin 2: Tails
      Coin 3: Heads
It's a TIE!// this message comes up every time because something is wrong

Answer 1

try changing your comparison to

if (count1 >= GOALHEAD && count10 >= GOALTAIL)
     System.out.println ("Coin 1 wins!");

  else if (count2 >= GOALHEAD && count20 >= GOALTAIL)
   System.out.println ("Coin 2 wins!");

  else if (count3 >= GOALHEAD && count30 >= GOALTAIL)
   System.out.println ("Coin 3 wins!");

       else
        System.out.println ("It's a TIE!");

of course another way would to simply debug your code and inspect the values

Answer 2

I don't understand how your code would solve the problem. If I understand it right, you want the first coin that shows the combination HHTT. Now, you are counting the heads and tails in ANY order. So, if you have HTHT for the first coin and HHHT and HTTT for the second and third respectively, the first one wins.

In order to solve the problem considering the order of heads and tails, I think you should change the if-else statement for each coin (I'll make it only for coin1 here):

if (coin1.isHeads()) {
  if (count1 < 2 && count2 == 0) { //less than 2 heads and zero tails
    count1++;
  } else {
    count1 = 0;
    count10 = 0;
  }
} else { //tails
  if (count1 == 2 && count10 < 2) { //we already have two heads and 0 or 1 tail
    count10++;
  } else { // either less than two heads or too many tails - we have to restart!
    count1 = 0;
    count10 = 0;
  }
}

You should also change the while statement... You want to stop when you have two heads ant two tails for any coin. So, it'd be something like this: while (!(count1 == 2 && count10 == 2) && !(count2 == 2 && count20 == 2) && ....) {...}