But your bonus round...

[BrandonFG]

The TPIR Punchboard is pure greed. The standard Barry-Enright endgame is second-rate pure greed.

To an extent, I disagree on these two. There's risk involved on both, but in both cases, there's a higher goal in mind, and the odds are more or less in your favor. If I have anything under $1,000 on the Punchboard, and Drew has three more slips to show me, then yes, I'm going to play on, even if $1K is a lot of money. Now, if I'm down to my last slip, that's a different story. With the Barry-Enright shows, the goal was to hit the milestone and win the prize package. I didn't come all that way to stop at $850, if my goal is the trip to Spain.

As for D/ND, I got a nice laugh out of anyone who said a six-figure offer wasn't enough money, only to go home with <$500. Yes...that's textbook pure greed.

[MSTieScott]

When played properly, Press Your Luck is rarely about greed. Greed is what the show looks like on the surface, and there have been plenty of contestants who have treated it that way, but those who play the game solely as an exercise in "how much is enough" often don't win.

The difference with Press Your Luck, versus almost every other show outside of DoND, is that you watch players go on winning streaks for an extended period of time, then suddenly get burned because of their greed. How often do players contemplate whether to play or pass, then make up their mind to go one more? If anything, you've kinda made the point that Deal and Press are basically 1 and 2 when it comes to greed.

Here's an example from a 1984 episode:

Player A has played eight spins in a row to build his total up to $14,729 with 2 spins remaining (no one else has any spins). Player B, in second place, has $14,410. Player A chooses to spin rather than pass to Player B. Is Player A being greedy?

After landing on $2,000, Player A now has $16,729 and the final spin of the game. Should Player A spin or pass? Does greed factor into the decision at all?

[PYLdude]

To counter, player B didn't get to $14,410 on a magic carpet, though, did he?

[MSTieScott]

To counter, player B didn't get to $14,410 on a magic carpet, though, did he?

Nope. She got to $10,910 because she knew that Player A was waiting to play with 9 spins (she clearly was uncomfortable risking what she had accumulated, but you could see her take Player A's spin total into account before deciding to press her luck -- it wasn't greed that motivated her to keep playing) and then Player C, trailing her by $7,500, passed her a spin because he knew that his only hope to stay in the game was if she hit a Whammy. Instead, she picked up another $3,500.

[tyshaun1]

To be fair, there was a recent Buzzr aired episode where a contestant passed their 2 spins with 3 whammies and $1000. Her opponent had not spun yet, and gets up to $5218 with those 2 passed spins, leaving her with 6 earned spins. She continues to play, getting up to $8718 and 5 spins. The outcome? She keeps playing, stops at a Whammy on her next spin, plays on and gets up to $3432 with 2 spins. Goes again, whammies on her next spin, final spin..... $800. Now I would consider it a case of pure greed that she got up to $8700 and kept going since 1 Whammy by her opponent would've won her the game and 5 spins are pretty good odds it happens, but not so much when she had $3400 with just 2 spins, since a lead of $2400 with 2 spins is easily surmountable. But PYL is a much better strategic game than it's given credit for.

Here is the link to the episode.

[jcs290]

I think everyone in the later seasons of PYL had a target number in mind before they passed their remaining spins.  It always felt that $10,000+ was most people's goal unless they were in distant 2nd place and playing to whammy out the leader.  There were a few times in the last season where Peter would even remark that a player is "over five figures" and asked if they were ready to pass.  By '86 this strategy became more and more obvious.

[alfonzos]

I've never been a fan of bonus rounds that are a complete non sequitur from the main game, like in Blackout or Hot Potato. Just reeks of laziness.

FWIW, I thought Blackout's Bonus game was better that it's competition game.