Author Topic: Catch 21 situation.... (Read 13443 times)

clemon79 · « **Reply #30 on:** January 23, 2011, 11:22:22 PM »

[quote name=\'chrisholland03\' post=\'255446\' date=\'Jan 23 2011, 06:25 PM\']Since we're all making suggestions -- I'd like to eliminate the mandatory placement of the first three cards in the bonus round. Let the contestants build their own hands from scratch.[/quote]
Hmm. Sell me on how this improves the endgame. (Enough so to budget the extra minute or so that placing those three extra cards would cost, and enough so to merit breaking the convention of dealing the first card for free immediately that is used on the rest of the show.)

TLEberle · « **Reply #31 on:** January 23, 2011, 11:50:41 PM »

[quote name=\'clemon79\' post=\'255462\' date=\'Jan 23 2011, 08:22 PM\']Hmm. Sell me on how this improves the endgame. (Enough so to budget the extra minute or so that placing those three extra cards would cost, and enough so to merit breaking the convention of dealing the first card for free immediately that is used on the rest of the show.)[/quote]I'm not terribly keen about getting the first card for free in the main game, especially when the cards go 10-3-2. But I also don't mind having to work around getting dealt three tens in the main game. Money ain't free.

BrandonFG · « **Reply #32 on:** January 24, 2011, 12:01:14 AM »

[quote name=\'MikeK\' post=\'255390\' date=\'Jan 23 2011, 11:26 AM\']How about 10 points per points on the cards in your hand, either an extra 100 or the round score is doubled for a 21 or having the high hand, and a flat 50 or 100 points for busting? The system rewards the best hands on a game which is clearly centered more around luck than smarts.[/quote]
That works just as well, if not better. High card gets the points, 21 gets the prize.

I don't watch the show enough, but a "high card" advancing is just inane. Would a buzzer battle really be that difficult?

TLEberle · « **Reply #33 on:** January 24, 2011, 12:17:58 AM »

[quote name=\'fostergray82\' post=\'255469\' date=\'Jan 23 2011, 09:01 PM\']I don't watch the show enough, but a "high card" advancing is just inane. Would a buzzer battle really be that difficult?[/quote]No, but is it an improvement? I take it as a failure of the format where you have a round settled in that fashion. Gambit never had that problem. Ain't no ties on Gambit.

BrandonFG · « **Reply #34 on:** January 24, 2011, 01:01:59 AM »

[quote name=\'TLEberle\' post=\'255470\' date=\'Jan 24 2011, 12:17 AM\'][quote name=\'fostergray82\' post=\'255469\' date=\'Jan 23 2011, 09:01 PM\']I don't watch the show enough, but a "high card" advancing is just inane. Would a buzzer battle really be that difficult?[/quote]No, but is it an improvement? I take it as a failure of the format where you have a round settled in that fashion. Gambit never had that problem. Ain't no ties on Gambit.
[/quote]
No, not an improvement, and I find their current tiebreaker to be a lazy copout. Honestly, the points system is completely unnecessary.

Just play to 21, with the top two players advancing, and of course allow Freezes. If two players Freeze, then just like in Gambit: Original Recipe and I believe Top Card, the third player* has to keep answering correctly to get cards, but loses if he or she a) answers incorrectly or b) Busts. Why re-invent the wheel?

*Or second player in subsequent rounds

TLEberle · « **Reply #35 on:** January 24, 2011, 09:04:05 PM »

[quote name=\'fostergray82\' post=\'255475\' date=\'Jan 23 2011, 10:01 PM\']No, not an improvement, and I find their current tiebreaker to be a lazy copout. Honestly, the points system is completely unnecessary.

Why re-invent the wheel?[/quote]I'm going to go with "we can't just wholesale move the format 38 years into the future without making changes. What can we do that will still be the essence of trivia blackjack?

Unrealtor · « **Reply #36 on:** January 28, 2011, 12:22:53 AM »

[quote name=\'clemon79\' post=\'255348\' date=\'Jan 22 2011, 08:45 PM\']The guy could have answered every question right and controlled where all of the cards went. I think you would be extremely hard pressed to find a shuffle of the cards which, if one player gets to draw and assign every card (save for the first three, of course), can't be assigned in such a way that the player ends up winning the round, if indeed such a permutation exists. (And if it does, your next task is to prove to me that there are enough of them so as to be statistically significant...say, convince me that it could happen 0.01% of the time, making it likely to happen in at least one round of a 65-episode season.)[/quote]

I got bored while watching the Steelers mop the floor with the Jets on Sunday evening and wrote a monte carlo simulator. After numerous tweaks of the strategy during the week, I got up to a 99.7% win rate. For one run with 10,000 simulations, 9 of the 29 losses were the result of one or both opponents starting with an ace followed by multiple face cards off the top of the deck (a scenario which is impossible to win AFAICT), so that gives a conservative estimate of 0.1% of games that were unwinnable. I'm reasonably sure that at least some of the others couldn't be won either, but I didn't feel like sorting through all the possibilities. The rest looked like cases of bad luck - the algorithm made the right move for the situation, but that move turned out to be a bad idea in hindsight.

If you use the 0.29% loss rate I found and 130 rounds a season with three players, that works out to one game every 2.65 seasons where a person with a very good strategy and 100% skill on the buzzer won't win a game.

clemon79 · « **Reply #37 on:** January 28, 2011, 12:32:09 AM »

Good stuff, and point made on the aces+faces thing. (And it becomes easier in a two-player situation since A - 10 - 10 - 10 is a screwjob also.)

But I think we also agree that having it bite you in the butt every third season (or even once per if you include the two-player rounds) isn't enough to declare the game broken.

parliboy · « **Reply #38 on:** January 29, 2011, 03:23:38 AM »

My two cents: Top Card got it right. You get a prize for winning the round. If you win the first round, you sit out the second rounds and play its winner in the third.

TLEberle · « **Reply #39 on:** January 29, 2011, 11:18:45 PM »

[quote name=\'parliboy\' post=\'255841\' date=\'Jan 29 2011, 12:23 AM\']My two cents: Top Card got it right. You get a prize for winning the round. If you win the first round, you sit out the second rounds and play its winner in the third.[/quote]I liked it when Mr. Klauss mentioned it in an IM. I still like it here, though I think the only improvement is if you got rid of players starting with a card each. I still don't like that fillip, four series later.