Price is Right

[tpirfan28]

[quote name=\'fostergray82\' post=\'181364\' date=\'Mar 14 2008, 03:39 PM\']
[quote name=\'Joe Mello\' post=\'181346\' date=\'Mar 14 2008, 02:41 PM\']
[quote name=\'fostergray82\' post=\'181325\' date=\'Mar 14 2008, 01:33 PM\']
-Card Game...long as I draw the $2000 card. :-P[/quote]
So if you draw the $5,000 card, you're screwed?
[/quote]
Can't tell if this is in jest...did they up the high range card?
[/quote]
They did on May 11, 2005...also made the starting bid $12,000.  Really screws with the game, because you could draw the $5,000 card, immediately stop, and win (with the right car, of course).

[Matt Ottinger]

[quote name=\'beatlefreak84\' post=\'181353\' date=\'Mar 14 2008, 02:56 PM\']First off, yes; I did acknowledge that the chances of winning a car in Switcheroo were 1/5 (reread my original post!);[/quote]
Please.  I didn't miss anything in your original post.  I was commenting further that it's one in five no matter what you do.

[quote name=\'beatlefreak84\' post=\'181353\' date=\'Mar 14 2008, 02:56 PM\']It's just that "gray area" in the middle where you don't know for sure that scares me about the game.[/quote]
And I understand that as well.  Short of getting a zero on your first try, the second round of Switcheroo never made much sense to me. But for a post that started out being about math and probabilities, it just surprised me that the math teacher marked as his "least favorite" a game that has much, much better odds than most car games.

[jmangin]

I would say Master Key as the game I'd like to play for a car.  Assuming you had no problems guessing the actual prices of the small prizes, am I correct in calculating that you will have a 30% chance of picking either the master key or the key that opens the car lock?  

3/5 odds of picking a key that doesn't open the car lock
x
2/4 odds of picking the car key or the master key
=
6/20
=
3/10

The game I'd hate to play for a car is Money Game.

[Steve Gavazzi]

[quote name=\'MikeK\' post=\'181356\' date=\'Mar 14 2008, 02:59 PM\']I'll take Pick a Number, and I have to fill in the first digit.[/quote]
Oooohhhhhhhh, so sorry, Mike...that digit doesn't rise. :-)

[clemon79]

[quote name=\'Steve Gavazzi\' post=\'181372\' date=\'Mar 14 2008, 01:38 PM\']
Oooohhhhhhhh, so sorry, Mike...that digit doesn't rise. :-)
[/quote]
"I'll show you a digit that rises, Trebek!"

[Fedya]

Is it me, or has nobody selected Three Strikes yet?  That one's not easy to win even if you know the exact price of the car.

[MikeK]

[quote name=\'Steve Gavazzi\' post=\'181372\' date=\'Mar 14 2008, 04:38 PM\']
[quote name=\'MikeK\' post=\'181356\' date=\'Mar 14 2008, 02:59 PM\']I'll take Pick a Number, and I have to fill in the first digit.[/quote]
Oooohhhhhhhh, so sorry, Mike...that digit doesn't rise. :-)
[/quote]
Then give it some Viagra.

[beatlefreak84]

My apologies if I gave the impression that I wouldn't play Switcheroo strictly based on the probability...Matt's absolutely correct (as if we doubted it... ) that, regardless of the situation, theoretically, you have a 1/5 chance of winning the car.  So, in that sense, yes; it is a great game to play (and better than my choice of "Pass the Buck!").  What would scare me about it is simply that "second chance;" I'd certainly be apt to switch, but that doesn't necessarily increase my chances of winning unless I had 0 right....

So, I'll call a mea culpa on my part and replace my original answer with the one that I actually had in mind when I wrote the assignment, "Lucky Seven."  You really don't have all that much leeway, and, without any knowledge of prices, being able to guess four digits 0-9 to save that leeway is very hard (heck; even having an idea how much a car costs doesn't make that game easy, either!).  "Switcheroo" was one that I thought of after I had graded the assignment (and, rest assured, they were not graded on whether I agreed with their arguments or not; they got points simply for giving the correct rules of the game and a plausible argument for their viewpoint).

But, since "Shell Game" and "Five Price Tags" have come up, I've thought about something with these games:  In each, you have to call four items on essentially a 50/50 shot.  However, I've never seen a "Shell Game" playing where all 4 were higher or all 4 were lower (same goes with "Five Price Tags;" just replace those with true or false).  So, if I had absolutely no idea about prices, I think I would probably just say the same thing for all four, figuring I'd get at least one right.  For those with more familiarity with the show:  Have they ever had a playing of one of these where all four were the same answer?

Anthony

[Matt Ottinger]

[quote name=\'beatlefreak84\' post=\'181380\' date=\'Mar 14 2008, 05:25 PM\']So, I'll call a mea culpa on my part and replace my original answer with the one that I actually had in mind when I wrote the assignment, "Lucky Seven."  [/quote]
As an absolutely random exercise, yeah, Lucky Seven would suck, as would Three Strikes (which is hard enough as it is).

One of the hundreds of things that makes TPIR so fascinating is this very discussion of probabilities, because in most of the games (as we've been discussing on another thread about Plinko) you've got the part that's absolutely mathematical, and you've got the part that's absolutely not.  With any of the guess-the-digits car games, you almost always go into it knowing for sure the first digit, which dramatically changes the odds.  And with any of the games that have you choose prizes for additional chances, there's no way to say for certain what the odds are on guessing those prizes right.

And those who are more philosophical than mathematical will say that even the Showcase Showdown, which would seem the most pure game of probability in Studio 33, isn't really because of the physicality of the wheel, the occasional effort by a good player to control the spin, and probably a dozen other factors.

[Joe Mello]

Thought the Card Game rule made it around long enough for most people to get it.  Sorry.

While it's doesn't necessarily fall under what the OP asked in his question, I wouldn't mind playing More or Less.

/Why is this a pricing game?
//And why has it only been won twice?

[Dbacksfan12]

I'd like to play Danger Price from the Gametek PC game.

[TLEberle]

[quote name=\'beatlefreak84\' post=\'181312\' date=\'Mar 14 2008, 09:37 AM\']However, one of the questions asked them to look at the rules of the car games (on gscentral.net), and, assuming they didn't know anything about the prices of items, which game would they most like to play for the new car, and which game would they least like to play for the new car, and why?[/quote]Pass the Buck, Spelling Bee and Let 'em Roll seem designed to be games where the car is almost a gimme. Lucky Seven is playing roshambo with Roger, and hoping you make the right call (picking middle digits when the car has middle digits, picking outliers when he did...)

[Mike Tennant]

Lucky Seven, it seems to me, was easier to win in the four-digit days for the simple reason that guessing the first digit in the price is easier than guessing the second digit.  Often contestants would nail the first digit or miss it by just one, leaving them more leeway for later digits.  Now that the contestant has to start with the second digit, he's less likely to have dollars left over by the time he gets to the last digit (if he even gets there).  It would be interesting to see the win/loss record of this game over the years to find out if it's had fewer winners on average since going to five digits.

[Frank15]

I'm surprised there has not yet been any mention of Money Game for easiest car game.  Assuming there are three possibilities for the first two digits, and six possibilities for the last two digits, and assuming the contestant does not pick a first-two digit combination for the last two digits--and most contestants don't--that's a 50% chance of winning with everything else being random guessing!  And if I did my math right, there are 35 out of 126 possible 5-out-of-9 combinations that would win the car, even with the most random of guessing, which is about a 27.8% chance to win.  Any sort of knowledge about what cannot realistically be the first two numbers only increases those already pretty good odds.

[Craig Karlberg]

Any game with simple odds(Double Prices, Switch?, Bonus Game, Shell Game & 5 Price Tags as well as One Right Price) are the most likely games I'd like to play for a car.

As for the worst, 3 Strikes & Spelling Bee as well as the Range Game based on long odds.  Even with 5 numbers & the strike chip being thrown back in after it's pulled, I often wonder how contestants continue to screw up that game by picking the same number & trying that digit AGAIN when they know it wasn't right the first time baffkes me.  Spelling Bee requires spelling C-A-R out of 30 cards(11 Cs, 11 As & 6 Rs as well as the 2 CAR cards).  Spelling C-A-R & the 2 CAR cards n one felt swoop has the longest odds(something like 11,000+:1).  Unless I guess one of the 3 small prizes correctly, this might make an impossible game to win even if you put the $1M tag for getting C-A-R-CAR-CAR in one felt swoop.