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Problem 10 (1991 AIME)

AIME 1991
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Understand the scale
Scale 0.5: Easiest math competition problems, often solvable even for early middle school students without experience. 1: Problems strictly for beginners, often at a moderate middle school level. 1.5: Problems for stronger beginner students, on the level of the middling problems in most middle school contests. 2: For motivated beginners, harder questions from the previous categories. 2.5: More advanced beginner problems, hardest questions from previous categories. 3: Early intermediate problems that require more creative thinking. 3.5: Tougher early intermediate problems that consistently stretch into higher-level creative thinking or conceptual knowledge. 4: Intermediate-level problems. 4.5: Upper intermediate problems approaching the upper bound for non-invitational sprint math competitions. 5: More difficult AIME problems or simple proof-based Olympiad-style problems. 6: High-level AIME-styled questions or introductory Olympiad-level questions. 7: Tougher Olympiad-level questions, may require more technical knowledge. 8: High-level Olympiad-level questions. 9: Expert Olympiad-level questions. 9.5: The hardest problems appearing on Olympiads which the strongest students could reasonably solve. 10: Historically notorious problems, generally unsuitable for even very hard competitions because they are exceedingly tedious, long, and difficult.

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Problem

Two three-letter strings, aaaaaa^{}_{} and bbbbbb^{}_{} , are transmitted electronically. Each string is sent letter by letter. Due to faulty equipment, each of the six letters has a 1/3 chance of being received incorrectly, as an aa^{}_{} when it should have been a bb^{}_{} , or as a bb^{}_{} when it should be an aa^{}_{} . However, whether a given letter is received correctly or incorrectly is independent of the reception of any other letter. Let SaS_a^{} be the three-letter string received when aaaaaa^{}_{} is transmitted and let SbS_b^{} be the three-letter string received when bbbbbb^{}_{} is transmitted. Let pp be the probability that SaS_a^{} comes before SbS_b^{} in alphabetical order. When pp is written as a fraction in lowest terms, what is its numerator?

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