Wheel of a small Fortune

[scottycmh]

Not my question.  My question was 'Once they saw they were sitting on Free Play, did they still call a consonant?'   I realize that people reflexively pick consonants when the wheel stops, which is the only time I've seen a contestant pick one on Free Play.

I'm sorry Pricefan...my brain totally processed the wording incorrectly.  Thank you for rewording it for me; now I can't even look at your original question and process it the way I originally thought!   

[AussieEvil]

Eliminate the first and third Toss-Ups, the contestant interviews, the Prize Puzzles, bring back Free Spin and get rid of Free Play, and bring back BANKRUPT-$10,000-BANKRUPT for round 1 while moving Jackpot to Round 2.

[Scott5114]

My mom and I used to play video game Wheel of Fortune a lot when I was a kid. We came to the conclusion that buying vowels was generally bad strategy, because of how easy it normally is to determine the vowels in a word given enough consonants. (It is generally much easier to fill in the vowels, having the consonants, than the other way around). If you are confident enough a particular vowel's usefulness in filling in a word to buy it, why not keep the information to yourself instead of revealing it right there on the board (at a cost to you, too)? You may be giving yourself an advantage if another contestant hasn't figured that word out yet.  

Of course, in situations where the word could plausibly be "in" or "on", you have to bite the bullet and buy to determine which it is. But that doesn't seem to come up in too many puzzles, and one of your competitors will probably save you the money and buy it out for you, since they won't know what it is either.

[PriceFanArmadillo]

If your competitors are getting turns, then you're doing it wrong.  Probably by spinning the wheel too much because you're picking consonants instead of vowels and hitting Lose A Turns and Bankrupts when you don't need to be.

[WooWho]

Well, yeah, but how much can you control the Wheel?

[imhomerjay]

Buying a vowel when you're reasonably confident of it being in at least one spot is excellent strategy because it may help clue you in on another word you're unsure about, or conversely help you rule out a possibility because it isn't there.  The cost to you is small, and the number of times the difference in 1st and 2nd place is in the $250 range is pretty low.   

And no, you can't control the wheel all that much, but you can control how often you take the gamble to spin to a degree by doing all you can to fill in letters to make your next guess all the more educated.

[PriceFan07]

I acutally think you have a great deal of control with the wheel. After spinning it a few times with the same amount of umph, you know how far the wheel gets around. If you start off on the $2500 space, and you spin it and it lands on the $800 before Lose a Turn, then you have a rough idea of how many spaces you can make the wheel move. If you see that by spinning the wheel with that same amount of energy will net you a Bankrupt, then use less force. Generally people will put all their force into spinning it, so trying to give it more umph might just gurantee you land on Bankrupt. I've never spun the wheel, so I guess what I'm thinking is really just a theory. Maybe some day I'll be able to test it out...