Price is Right

[clemon79]

[quote name=\'mcsittel\' post=\'181820\' date=\'Mar 18 2008, 02:18 PM\']The probability of winning the 5-digit 3 Strikes in the older version with three strike chips in the bag is an abysmal 0.15.[/quote]
Did you take into account that in the old version a strike chip is taken out of the game when it's pulled?

[mcsittel]

[quote name=\'clemon79\' post=\'181822\' date=\'Mar 18 2008, 04:22 PM\']
[quote name=\'mcsittel\' post=\'181820\' date=\'Mar 18 2008, 02:18 PM\']The probability of winning the 5-digit 3 Strikes in the older version with three strike chips in the bag is an abysmal 0.15.[/quote]
Did you take into account that in the old version a strike chip is taken out of the game when it's pulled?
[/quote]

Indeed...
 
if ( chip[pick] == 0 )
{
   strikect++;
   nchips--;
   if ( strikect == 3 ) { cout << "Game over." << endl; }
}

[GS Warehouse]

[quote name=\'MikeK\' post=\'181356\' date=\'Mar 14 2008, 01:59 PM\']I'll take Pick a Number, and I have to fill in the first digit.[/quote]
You just described the modern-day Balance Game.

Here's one for the people who have a lot of free time on their hands: Cliff Hangers.  Here's what we know about the small prizes:
1) They're always between $10 and $50 in price.  (They didn't use to be, but they are now.)
2) Each one is higher than the one before it.
That said, if three prizes are chosen completely at random among 41 prizes that have prices ranging from $10-$50 with no duplicates, how often can you keep [Drew]Yodelman[/Drew] safe if you just guess 20-30-40 every single time?

[mcsittel]

[quote name=\'GS Warehouse\' post=\'181961\' date=\'Mar 19 2008, 06:30 PM\']
Here's one for the people who have a lot of free time on their hands: Cliff Hangers.  Here's what we know about the small prizes:
1) They're always between $10 and $50 in price.  (They didn't use to be, but they are now.)
2) Each one is higher than the one before it.
That said, if three prizes are chosen completely at random among 41 prizes that have prices ranging from $10-$50 with no duplicates, how often can you keep [Drew]Yodelman[/Drew] safe if you just guess 20-30-40 every single time?
[/quote]

I guess I resemble that remark, although it only took about 15 minutes to code up and run 10,000,000 trials.

The probability I came up with: 0.732.

[MikeK]

[quote name=\'GS Warehouse\' post=\'181961\' date=\'Mar 19 2008, 07:30 PM\']
[quote name=\'MikeK\' post=\'181356\' date=\'Mar 14 2008, 01:59 PM\']I'll take Pick a Number, and I have to fill in the first digit.[/quote]
You just described the modern-day Balance Game.[/quote]
But for a car, the first digit shouldn't be too hard to pick.

I really shouldn't have to explain this...

[Mr. Armadillo]

[quote name=\'Robert Hutchinson\' post=\'181588\' date=\'Mar 15 2008, 10:08 PM\']However, since we've discussed some games that are not regularly played for cars, I nominate Bullseye--IF you have a contestant who, in addition to not knowing any prices at all, is trying simply to maximize their chances. Just pick 1 of each of the three products, and you've given yourself a 60% chance to win. Start adding in "tricks" that don't necessarily involve pricing knowledge (for instance, I don't recall there ever being a grocery item that you needed only 1 of to get to $10-$12) and you can bump those odds up even further.[/quote]
I believe the last playing of Bullseye had the $11.68 SlowMag in it.

Also, Dice Game isn't too hard to calculate, if you always go with the odds.

If you roll a 1 or a 6 on any die, you will be correct on that digit 100% of the time.
A 2 or 5 will succeed as long as the digit is not 1 or 6 (respectively), meaning you will be correct 83.3% of the time.
A 3 or 4, similarly, gives you 66.7%.

Thus, any given die will be correct (1/3)(1) + (1/3)(5/6) + (1/3)(2/3) = 5/6 of the time.
Which makes the probability of winning .8333^4, or 0.4823.

Oh, and Safe Crackers for a car is pretty sweet.