Welcome to Pokemath 301 Advanced Mathematics in Pokemon and the crazy theories

around them.
Today we are looking at the Safari Zone and the infamous Tauros. Tauros has been
known to be one of the
hardest pokemon to catch in Pokemon Red/Blue/Yellow but how hard is it?
In Red/Blue Tauros has a 4% encounter Rate in Zone 4 and 1% in Zone 3,
while in Yellow it has a 10% in both Zone 2 and Zone 4.
The catch rate for pokemon in gen 1 varies slightly based on the HP of the pokemon
and this varies based on IV
The average catch rate for Tauros is as follows:
Red/Blue Zone 3/4: 10.412% per Safari Ball
Yellow Zone 2/4 10.442% per Safari Ball

So what are the odds of finding and catching a single tauros in 1 go?
Let's assume you are in Zone 4 playing in pokemon Red/Blue

(.04)*(.10412)= .0041648 or .41648% chance to find and catch a tauros on the first
ball

Granted once you find the tauros you your chance of catching increases with each
ball,
but that is part of the difficulty.

Ash Ketchum on the otherhand has had some of the most incredible luck in the safari
zone. He caught 30 Tauros.
What are the odds that this could actually happen in the game? You would have to
make your way to the correct zone
then find and catch 30 tauros on the first ball.

Lets look at catching 30 tauros in pokemon yellow in Zone 2.

The odds of finding and catching a single tauros in Yellow are (.1)(.10442)= .
010442 or 1.0442%
Ash does this 30 times in ONE safari run. so we have (0.010442)^30 ~~ 3.66 * 10^-60

Which is really low. However we dont have the luxury to wait around in 1 safari run
for 30 tauros to appear,
due to the 500 step limit. If it takes lets say 45-50 steps to get to the grass in
zone 2
then you only have about 450 steps to encounter tauros. If you encounter a tauros
on average every 10 steps
then you have 45 encounters to get 30 tauros.

Using binomial distrobution we have

N= 45 total encounters
x= 30 Tauros Encounters
p= .1 odds of finding a tauros

so the odds of finding 30 tauros in 45 encoutners is

(N!/(x!(N-x)!))(p^x)(1-p)^N-X

(45!/(30!15!))(.1^30)(.9^15)= 7.101�10^-20 chance of finding 30 tauros in 45

encounters

Now to catch those 30 tauros

N= 45 Encoutners
x= 30 Tauros Encounters
p= .010442 odds of finding and catching that tauros in 1 ball

(45!/(30!15!))(.010442^30)(.989558^15) = 1.078 � 10^-48 chance to find and catch 30

tauros in pokemon Yellow within 45 encoutners

If you were doing this in red/blue in zone 4

(45!/(30!15!))(.0041648^30)(.9958352^15)= 1.254 � 10^-60 chance to find and catch

30 tauros in pokemon red within 45 encounters

So basically Ash is a god.