Thank you Sue Liu of Madras College, St Andrews for this solution.
This could be any 'best of 15 games' contest between two players where
the object is to be the first to win 8 games (called frames in snooker)
and the probability
of winning a single game is constant.
We have to find the probability of player A winning the snooker match
by adding the probabilities for all the possible outcomes.
Player A can win in 8 frames (by winning the first 8 frames outright),
or by winning any 7 of the first 8 then winning the ninth
(when the match lasts 9 frames),
or by winning any 7 of the first 9 then winning the tenth
(when the match last 10 frames),
or similarly player A can win a match which lasts for 11, 12 13 14 or 15
frames. Note that the last game, which decides the contest, must be won by A.
Let
denote the probability of A winning a match with
games in
total.
Let
denote the probability of A winning a 'best of 15' match when
the probability of winning each frame is
.
When
this gives the probability
of A winning a 'best of 15'
match to be 0.2131.
When the probability of A winning each frame is
then the
probability of the opponent winning a frame is
and the
probability
of A winning the match is 0.6535.
When the probability of A winning each frame is
then the probability of A winning the match is 0.5 as expected.