High Rollers/Las Vegas Gambit Bonus

[Steve McClellan]

In the Big Numbers, say a player had an insurance marker and the 8 and the 1 left. Player rolls an eight. Seeing as though taking the eight off the board results in a guaranteed loss, would someone in this position be permitted to use the marker and try for the nine again? Or do we have: 9=win, 8=loss, anything else=try again?

(Or feel free to pelt me with golden dice for asking such a thing...)

[BrandonFG]

[quote name=\'Steve McClellan\' date=\'Aug 7 2005, 03:47 AM\']In the Big Numbers, say a player had an insurance marker and the 8 and the 1 left. Player rolls an eight. Seeing as though taking the eight off the board results in a guaranteed loss, would someone in this position be permitted to use the marker and try for the nine again? Or do we have: 9=win, 8=loss, anything else=try again?

(Or feel free to pelt me with golden dice for asking such a thing...)

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I'm pretty sure they would have no choice but to use the marker, since as you said, the 8 would be a guaranteed loss, since the 1 would still remain.

Someone please confirm. It's been a while since I've seen the Big Numbers played.

[zachhoran]

[quote name=\'fostergray82\' date=\'Aug 7 2005, 04:10 AM\']

I'm pretty sure they would have no choice but to use the marker, since as you said, the 8 would be a guaranteed loss, since the 1 would still remain.

Someone please confirm. It's been a while since I've seen the Big Numbers played.

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I've seen players lose the bonus round because only the 1 remained on the board. This implies they were forced to remove the other numbers on the board with their last roll. It happened a couple of times on the 1987 version. Don't remember a player using an insurance marker when there were numbers that could be removed from the board.

[tyshaun1]

[quote name=\'zachhoran\' date=\'Aug 7 2005, 07:34 AM\']I've seen players lose the bonus round because only the 1 remained on the board. This implies they were forced to remove the other numbers on the board with their last roll. It happened a couple of times on the 1987 version. Don't remember a player using an insurance marker when there were numbers that could be removed from the board.

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This is Zach's overly inflated way of saying he has no idea either.

Tyshaun

[tvmitch]

I think that the rule was that if you could take numbers off the board, you had to take them off. This meant that the "1" was left over several times. If the contestant has a "7" and "1" on the board and rolls "7," their prize is $800.

[SRIV94]

[quote name=\'fostergray82\' date=\'Aug 7 2005, 04:10 AM\']I'm pretty sure they would have no choice but to use the marker, since as you said, the 8 would be a guaranteed loss, since the 1 would still remain.

Someone please confirm. It's been a while since I've seen the Big Numbers played.

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Went back and checked Usenet, and found a couple of posts (including one from Randy Amasia) that indicated the opposite--you take the 8 and lose the game, since 8 is a valid roll.  That's corroboration enough for me.

EDIT:  Had I not checked dictionary.com to make sure of the spelling of "corroboration", Mitch wouldn't have beaten me to the punch.  

Doug -- and the countdown to 1400 continues

[BrandonFG]

[quote name=\'SRIV94\' date=\'Aug 7 2005, 10:29 AM\']Went back and checked Usenet, and found a couple of posts (including one from Randy Amasia) that indicated the opposite--you take the 8 and lose the game, since 8 is a valid roll.  That's corroboration enough for me.

EDIT:  Had I not checked dictionary.com to make sure of the spelling of "corroboration", Mitch wouldn't have beaten me to the punch. 

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Interesting. Now would this be consider a flaw in the rules, or just bad strategy by the contestant? In other words, play the 1 early!

[JasonA1]

Right - in playing dozens of um..."research trials" over at Flash Games, I personally found it best to use the 1 mid way, before it would cause imminent loss. Unless contestants left it behind because of the "have to remove" rule, which has also happened to me before.

-Jason

[clemon79]

[quote name=\'fostergray82\' date=\'Aug 7 2005, 11:19 AM\']Interesting. Now would this be consider a flaw in the rules, or just bad strategy by the contestant? In other words, play the 1 early!
[/quote]
Jason has the better idea, I think. You don't want to burn off the 1 early, because keeping it around keeps your board that much more flexible for later when you might need it. But at the same time, if you keep it all the way to the end, you run the risk of having the situation we've been discussing come up, which no amount of Insurance Markers will get you out of.

As a rule I find that the 1 usually eliminates itself at the midway point, but if things are going really well (say, I knock off any four of the 5-6-7-8-9 in the first four rolls), I'll start looking to kill the 1 at the next available opportunity.

And, obviously, if you're faced with a situation like 1-6-7, and you roll a 7, you totally take the 1-6, because you need to roll a second 7 to win regardless, and you might as well leave yourself with the option that DOESN'T end the game with a landmine roll of 6.

[Ian Wallis]

There were at least a couple of episodes of the '87 version where a "1" was all that was left, and the contestant still had the insurance marker - so they had to take off the numbers they could and leave the "1", despite having the marker.

I always wondered about the strategy for the Big Numbers.  Most players took off one number at a time - in other words, if they rolled a "6", they'd take off the "6", rather than the "1", "5", or any other combo.  I was always weary of the "1" and would want to take it off at the earliest convenience.  Myabe taking them off one by one left yourself with more options for later rolls, but has anyone ever figured out if taking them off this way was the best strategy?  I wonder if more $10,000 wins would have resulted if they took off as many numbers as they could with each roll.  Maybe there's no way of knowing for sure.

[JasonA1]

Once again, going back to my "research," my prime strategy was to eliminate numbers by themselves for a few rolls, and either stopping that to get rid of the one halfway, or when I couldn't get rid of something naturally. It does leave you more options for later - just be sure to eliminate that stinking one before you get down to the nitty gritty...

-Jason

[uncamark]

My Big Numbers strategy (also used by most contestants, IIRC):

Try to take them off one at a time, to give more possible rolls.  The first time you have to use a combination, use the one that will take the 1 off, if you can.

(In the front game, the original strategy was always take off as many as you can--didn't see enough "Face Lifters" shows to see if the puzzle radically changed the strategy.  In the '78 and '87 version, the object was either to clear the column or make a column clearable, so you adjusted your strategy accordingly.