Pyramid '03 Changes

[TLEberle]

In watching the new season of Pyramid shows, I've noticed another subtle change besides the choosing who gives in the Winner's Circle.  During a tie-breaker, the first team gets all six, and Donny mentions that they finished in :16, so the other team has to beat that mark.  The other team indeed gets all six, but slower, and off the other team goes to play for the money.

In both cases, what I don't understand is that there seems to be a simpler way to deal with both.  For the Winner's Circle, instead of having the players standing until the player makes their choice, why not have them both in their seats, mentioning that the player chooses to give only when it happens, because it's so rare.  That's another few seconds they could save.

For the tie-break, they could just as easily transfer team A's team over to team B, and play the tie-break like they used to. Both are small changes that would be easy to pull off, and in my opinion, would serve to benefit the show.

-Travis

[Skynet74]

Instead of the typical Tie breaker, they should keep a running total of how many seconds total it takes each team to go through their three turns. If there is a tie in points, then whichever team has the fastest total time for their three turns wins the Game. This would eliminate having to spend extra time on a tie breaker. It would also add some incentive for contestants to haul ass through the regular game since "TIME" would now become a more important element.



John

[clemon79]

[quote name=\'Skynet74\' date=\'Oct 23 2003, 09:41 PM\'] Instead of the typical Tie breaker, they should keep a running total of how many seconds total it takes each team to go through their three turns. If there is a tie in points, then whichever team has the fastest total time for their three turns wins the Game. This would eliminate having to spend extra time on a tie breaker. It would also add some incentive for contestants to haul ass through the regular game since "TIME" would now become a more important element.



John [/quote]
 Wow, would that be difficult to explain to the folks at home.

Plus, what if the game is tied, but neither team gets six out of six over the course of the game? Both teams have a score of 60 seconds.

[Skynet74]

[quote name=\'clemon79\' date=\'Oct 24 2003, 01:04 AM\']
Plus, what if the game is tied, but neither team gets six out of six over the course of the game? Both teams have a score of 60 seconds. [/quote]


 If that's the case then they can go to the kind of tie breaker they do now. But what are the chances that 6 rounds would be played and nobody gets six out of six......... and then the game ends in a tie as well? We are talking very very rare. Possible but rare.




John

[clemon79]

[quote name=\'Skynet74\' date=\'Oct 24 2003, 12:13 AM\'] If that's the case then they can go to the kind of tie breaker they do now. But what are the chances that 6 rounds would be played and nobody gets six out of six......... and then the game ends in a tie as well? We are talking very very rare. Possible but rare. [/quote]
 1) I don't think it's nearly as rare as you think, especially with the 6 in 20 system in place. 18 point games aren't common at all...in fact it's my experience that 13 is usually enough to win. Even if there WERE 6-of-6's in the mix, I think you'll find them evenly distributed enough (like, each team gets one, with 2 seconds left on the clock each), that you would still have more ties than you think. It just wouldn't be enough of a sure thing to justify the tradeoff for the confusion it would create.

2) If you're going to play the standard tiebreaker in those cases, you might as well just play the standard tiebreaker to begin with.

[Skynet74]

[quote name=\'clemon79\' date=\'Oct 24 2003, 11:32 AM\'] It just wouldn't be enough of a sure thing to justify the tradeoff for the confusion it would create.

2) If you're going to play the standard tiebreaker in those cases, you might as well just play the standard tiebreaker to begin with. [/quote]
 
  You are probably right. It was just a thought.


John

[clemon79]

[quote name=\'Skynet74\' date=\'Oct 24 2003, 09:24 AM\'] You are probably right. It was just a thought.
 [/quote]
 Well, and not a paricularly bad one either. But consider the NFL playoff tiebreaker system - here is a sport who quite obviously wants to determine a winner at the end of the regular season without any further play, because they have a set amount of time in which to play games, and while "Coin flip" is at the end of a long list, I don't think they've ever used it. And nobody understands how it works.

Remember when I said that the appeal of game shows is that it's an enclosed simplified world? That's why, I think, the tiebreaker has to be simple and straighforward. People don't want a confusing system just to determine a discrete winner in regulation, because it complicates things. If they wanted complication, they would turn off the TV and go back to real life.

[Jay Temple]

[quote name=\'clemon79\' date=\'Oct 24 2003, 10:32 AM\'] [quote name=\'Skynet74\' date=\'Oct 24 2003, 12:13 AM\'] If that's the case then they can go to the kind of tie breaker they do now. But what are the chances that 6 rounds would be played and nobody gets six out of six......... and then the game ends in a tie as well? We are talking very very rare. Possible but rare. [/quote]
1) I don't think it's nearly as rare as you think, especially with the 6 in 20 system in place. 18 point games aren't common at all...in fact it's my experience that 13 is usually enough to win. Even if there WERE 6-of-6's in the mix, I think you'll find them evenly distributed enough (like, each team gets one, with 2 seconds left on the clock each), that you would still have more ties than you think. It just wouldn't be enough of a sure thing to justify the tradeoff for the confusion it would create.

2) If you're going to play the standard tiebreaker in those cases, you might as well just play the standard tiebreaker to begin with. [/quote]
The trick would be to look not only at the time remaining after getting 6 of 6, but after the last point scored in other rounds.  The following pairs of rounds would be equally good in a tiebreaker:  

A five-point round where 2 sec remained when the 6th item came up + a six-point round where 2 sec were unused =
A five-point round where 4 sec remain when #6 comes up + A six-point round where the last point is scored at the buzzer =
 A six-point round with 4 sec unused + A five-point round with 5th point scored at buzzer  (If you wanted, you could also subtract time spent on words not gotten.)

I had the idea many years ago of adding something like 1/10 of a point for each second left after getting (then) 7/7.  Thankfully, they never had the same idea.

[clemon79]

[quote name=\'Jay Temple\' date=\'Oct 24 2003, 10:19 AM\'] The trick would be to look not only at the time remaining after getting 6 of 6, but after the last point scored in other rounds. [/quote]
 Right. I'm not saying you couldn't devise some kind of system. I'm saying, there comes a point where it would have to be so convoluted to be able to work, why would you? And in the game-show world it doesn't take much to get that convoluted.