Here's the gist of it:
A bunch of prizes are made available at the MSRP, and those prices are given at the start of the game. (Optimally, no two would have the exact same price.)
Players earn money with which to buy the prizes by answering questions whose value increases with the level of difficulty.
The first player to buy three prizes wins the game.
The dollar values that I'm using here are for illustrative purposes. It could work just as well with higher or lower values.
The prizes are worth between $2,002 and $3,999. At the beginning of the game, each player declares which prize he wants. If two players or even all three want the same prize, they may all do so.
The questions have four values (actually 1,002): $2000, $1500, $1000 and variable. On the last one, the contestant who chooses it specifies the exact dollar value. (Just to be clear, there's no such thing as a $732 question, just questions that are assigned to the variable-value pool.)
For the first question, and whenever no one answers a question, use a $1 toss-up question. Once you have enough money to buy your prize, you do so. You also choose a new prize, and if anyone else was pursuing that prize, they choose a new one.
It is possible under these rules that one or both of the other two players will be forced to choose a new prize and will already have enough to buy one of the remaining prizes. If both players choose a prize for which they already have enough money, the right to buy a prize is based on these criteria, in this order:
1. If it would be the third prize for one and not the other, the other counts first.
2. Failing that, if they choose different prizes, the more expensive prize counts. (This is one reason I would prefer that no two prizes be worth the exact same amount.)
3. If they choose the same prize, the player with more money buys the prize.
4. If they have the same amount of money, a $1 toss-up question determines the right to buy the prize.
Note that because the least valuable prize is at least $2,002, it is not possible to win a prize on the very first question chosen.
The reason for the variable value is a situation like this: I have $2,500 and my prize is worth $2,689. My opponent has $2,000 and his prize is worth $2,500. I want my question to be worth enough so that I can buy my prize if I'm right but not enough for him to buy his prize if he's right.
Note that because there is less than $2,000 difference between the most and least expensive prizes, you will never have enough left after buying one prize to buy another without answering another question.
The player who buys his third prize gets to keep any cash he has left in the game and faces two more opponents.
Details not set in stone:
1. whether the losing contestants get to keep their prizes. If there are seven new prizes in each game, and all of them are plugged at the beginning, I could probably afford to give away all prizes purchased, which is my preference. If they're only plugged when they're won, the prize budget most likely wouldn't allow it.
2. whether prizes not won in the current game are reused in the next. The only way I have a preference is if it affects whether I can give losing contestants the prizes they won.
3. the number of prizes available in a given game. Obviously you need at least seven, but there's no reason you couldn't have more. (Check that: It may be that having exactly seven makes a weird situation less likely at the end after someone buys the sixth prize.)
4. whether a player buying a prize retains control of the board or another toss-up question is used
(ETA) 5. whether a player within $998 of his prize is obliged to take his question for the exact amount needed
I don't have a title for the game, but if you assume the three-prizes-out-of-seven format, you could probably have something catchy with "3" in it.
