Rules flaws, etc...

[tvwxman]

[quote name=\'Matt Ottinger\' post=\'209059\' date=\'Feb 28 2009, 09:43 AM\']
[quote name=\'Craig Karlberg\' post=\'209048\' date=\'Feb 28 2009, 03:54 AM\']All the versions of High Rollers had a flaw that stuck out like a sore thumb, it would lead to an automatic gane over.  That being if a player leaves a 1 on the board, game ends right then & there though it's more common in the Big Numbers round than the main game.  That's why it's always a good idea to discard the 1 as quickly as possible to avoid that flaw.[/quote]
This is -- unsurprisingly -- wrong on several levels.  As far as the bonus round is concerned, it's not really a flaw of the game for the '1' to be left alone, but a combination of (mostly) bad luck and (maybe) bad strategy.  In the main game, leaving the '1' isn't a flaw at all and doesn't end the game "right then & there".  You just have to be sure you answer that last question correctly, then it's over.

From my point of view, the bigger problem with High Rollers is that the main games usually end not because one player was successful, but because the other player failed.  You typically want a game to end with a winning moment.  That can't always be helped in some games, but the High Rollers structure meant that most of the time the game ended because somebody made a bad roll.
[/quote]
I often wonder, since we'll likely never hear a rebuttal from Craiggers, if he has just blocked every single person here who has criticized his postings.

I less than often wonder, if Craiggers thinks that the GSForum has 9 members, since if the above is the case, that's all he can read from at this point.

[TravisP]

Some from over the pond.

Chain Letters and their tie the leader round sums it up.

Name That Tune, the winner in the golden medley plays for the car regardless how much they win in earlier rounds.

Keynotes, rounds were £30, £60 & £120. So winning round 3 guarantees the team to come back as returning champions.

1 Vs 100, if you decide to dodge on a question but wipeout all 100 people you win the £50,000 without any risk. In return your current winnings before that is cut in half.

Strictly Come Dancing and their mathmatical confusion in late 2008 with the judges scores.

[BrandonFG]

Also, the one strike Triple round from the first four seasons of Feud. They at least corrected that at the start of the 2003 season...even if it did result in a now-outdated catchphrase. :-P

[Matt Ottinger]

[quote name=\'GameShowGuru\' post=\'209063\' date=\'Feb 28 2009, 10:15 AM\']You just answered a question that I had for years regarding the remaining 1 in a main game round: If a 1 is the last number remaining on the board, it is essentially a tie game.  The toss-up question serves as the tie-breaker whereby whoever "wins the question" will win the game by default.[/quote]
In the spirit of full disclosure, I can't say I ever saw it happen.  Still, how else could they possibly do it?  Any time there is ANY number left on the board, the game isn't over.  Since a '1' is an impossible roll, there's no need to make somebody actually roll the dice, but it should still come down to asking that last question.

[Ian Wallis]

As for the daily "$10,000 Pyramid," I always felt sorry for the contestants whenever Peter Lawford showed up, because he was such a poor player. But I also remember a young man who was such a powerhouse, he kept winning round after round, even though he was saddled with Lawford half the time. And finally, the young man won the Pyramid after something like a dozen tries, much to the joy of the other contestants who were slated to follow him.

I remember that.  He won something like 12 games in a row, and oddly enough always played against a woman contestant.  For some reason, Pyramid never liked to have two men play each other - even if one went on a long winning streak.  I can't remember what happened after he won, but the next woman champion probably played several male contestants in a row.

[colonial]

As far as recent shows go....

IIRC, if contestants on both 5th Grader and Lyrics make it to the million-dollar level with lifelines/helps on the table, they lose the lifelines if they want to go for the final question or song.  Never liked that rule -- if you were able to get to the top of the chain without using all your helps, you should be able to use remaining helps on the $1M question/song.

[Jimmy Owen]

On the hour-long TPIR, you can play your pricing game perfectly and still not go on to the showcase, while someone who totally bombed out gets in.

[Don Howard]

[quote name=\'Jimmy Owen\' post=\'209081\' date=\'Feb 28 2009, 12:08 PM\']
On the hour-long TPIR, you can play your pricing game perfectly and still not go on to the showcase, while someone who totally bombed out gets in.
[/quote]
On the half hour long TPiR, all three can play their pricing games perfectly and still one wouldn't go to the Showcase through a combination of either the One Bid not being worth that much or (most likely) the pricing game award not retailing for very much.

[Kevin Prather]

[quote name=\'colonial\' post=\'209080\' date=\'Feb 28 2009, 09:07 AM\']
As far as recent shows go....

IIRC, if contestants on both 5th Grader and Lyrics make it to the million-dollar level with lifelines/helps on the table, they lose the lifelines if they want to go for the final question or song.  Never liked that rule -- if you were able to get to the top of the chain without using all your helps, you should be able to use remaining helps on the $1M question/song.
[/quote]
I don't watch Lyrics, but the way 5th Grader structures it makes it a little more palatable. It's a money tree of 10 questions to $500,000. Once you scale the money tree, you decide if you wanna take a shot at the bonus question for the million. Since it's a bonus question with a completely different set-up (ie: you have to decide whether or not to play before seeing it), I don't think it's so bad that the help rules are different too.

[CJBojangles]

I don't recall the exact rule, but on Identity, wouldn't the "lifeline" that's forfeited at the last level have essentially given the correct answer to the contestant, thus auto-winning them $500K?

[calliaume]

[quote name=\'rjaguar3\' post=\'209035\' date=\'Feb 28 2009, 01:45 AM\']
Until 1985, you could buzz in on Jeopardy! as soon as the clue was revealed.  Thus, the dominant strategy for a good player quickly became buzzing in as soon as each clue was revealed.
[/quote]
Merv might have remembered this from the 1974-75 syndie season, when this first came into common practice.  I don't remember it being used much before that -- anyone else my age or older have conflicting memories?

This reminds me of when a friend of mine and I were in a Krypto tournament (well, an all-day affair against two kids from the next grade up).  We figured out after awhile the safest way to have a chance of winning was to called Krypto the moment the objective card was flipped, and pray you didn't have anything in your hand that would cause problems.

[Jimmy Owen]

IIRC, On Fleming J! you'd usually hear someone ring in as soon as the card was pulled.

[Loogaroo]

[quote name=\'CJBojangles\' post=\'209126\' date=\'Feb 28 2009, 05:53 PM\']
I don't recall the exact rule, but on Identity, wouldn't the "lifeline" that's forfeited at the last level have essentially given the correct answer to the contestant, thus auto-winning them $500K?
[/quote]

Precisely, and that's why that game shouldn't have been played for $500K in the first place.

[Kevin Prather]

[quote name=\'Loogaroo\' post=\'209147\' date=\'Feb 28 2009, 04:31 PM\']
[quote name=\'CJBojangles\' post=\'209126\' date=\'Feb 28 2009, 05:53 PM\']
I don't recall the exact rule, but on Identity, wouldn't the "lifeline" that's forfeited at the last level have essentially given the correct answer to the contestant, thus auto-winning them $500K?
[/quote]

Precisely, and that's why that game shouldn't have been played for $500K in the first place.
[/quote]
It makes me wonder if there was some rule in place on Super Millionaire if a player had their 50:50 and Double Dip at the same time, particularly on the $10M question.

[TLEberle]

[quote name=\'Kevin Prather\' post=\'209120\' date=\'Feb 28 2009, 01:19 PM\']I don't watch Lyrics, but the way 5th Grader structures it makes it a little more palatable. It's a money tree of 10 questions to $500,000. Once you scale the money tree, you decide if you wanna take a shot at the bonus question for the million. Since it's a bonus question with a completely different set-up (ie: you have to decide whether or not to play before seeing it), I don't think it's so bad that the help rules are different too.[/quote] I don't think the $1m question on Fifth Grader is a bonus; it's the eleventh question in the stack that's played by different rules. And there's no earthly reason to have different rules unless you want to discourage people from playing it. On DFTL, you get to the Big Fella, and have to punt $400,000 on the fact that the song is a Number One, and it comes from one of the previous nine questions.

I'm not sure whether it's laziness, apathy or something else on the part of the producers, but I don't understand why they think that having a completely different rule set for a level of the game that isn't reached all that often is a good thing.

[quote name=\'Kevin Prather\' post=\'209156\' date=\'Feb 28 2009, 05:32 PM\']It makes me wonder if there was some rule in place on Super Millionaire if a player had their 50:50 and Double Dip at the same time, particularly on the $10M question.[/quote]I hope not. If you can answer 14 questions without using those two lifelines, knowing that you were risking hundreds of thousands of dollars (and later millions) each time, bully for you. Show the question, cut two wrong answers, invoke Double Dip, pop the confetti bomb. You've earned it.