The Ultimate Price is Right Strategy Guide

[JT]

Thank you for this Strategy Guide.  I thoroughly enjoyed it.  Great job!

[RatRace10]

Here's some more insights on 10 Chances.

The game has not used a $20K+ car since since January 13, 2015, though it should be self explanatory to not use something other than 1 for the first digit in a guess if there's no 2, and I'm pretty sure they have never put 1 and 2 in the same set of digits when using a <$20K car. They'll typically use a cluster of higher digits to go with the 1 and 0.

The first prize's digit choices almost-always have a 5 (surely so contestants waste a guess on $X5). However, $50 has not been a correct price for the first prize more often than once per season since Season 44. Also, $90 has not been a correct price since March 2015, although 9 is hardly ever a choice.

For the second prize, they have not used anything under $500 (or $510 for that matter) since November 2, 2011, and every playing since Season 43, with only two exceptions (one each in S43 and 44), has had a 5 and/or 9 among the choices, likely to draw non-LFAT contestants into using them as last digits in their guesses.

Here's the breakdown on how 5's and 9's fared for the second prize from Seasons 40-47 (50 playings):

If 5 was a choice...
The price was $5X0: 12 times
The price was $X50: 6 times
There was no 5: 12 times

If 9 was a choice...
The price was $9X0: 4 times
The price was $X90: 3 times
There was no 9: 6 times

However... Since Season 44, they have since lightened up on dud 5's and 9's. In Season 44, 5 was the dud 3 times and 9 was the dud just once. Since Season 45, 5 and 9 have been a dud only one time each.

If both 5 AND 9 were choices...
The price was $950: 2 times
The price was $590: 1 time
The price was $X50: 4 times
The price was $X90: 0 times
The price was $5X0: 0 times
The price was $9X0: 0 times

Additional note: In all Season 42 playings, 9 was never a choice.


In conclusion, should you get to play 10 Chances in the near future...
- DO NOT GUESS ANYTHING NOT ENDING IN ZERO. (but we know everyone will anyway, and the audience will still chant and cheer with approval for guesses ending in 5 or 9 )
- If 5 is a choice for the second prize, try $5X0 before $X50.
- If both 5 and 9 are choices for the second prize, try $X50 or $950 first. 5 will most definitely be in the price in this scenario.
- Don't guess anything under $510 for the second prize.
- Don't guess anything higher than $19,870 for the car.

[Teddy]

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this guide, and I strongly suggest that any potential contestants read it before signing up to play.

[AvsFan]

A note about Pathfinder, inspired by a playing I recently watched where the contest got to the last digit perfectly but lost by getting the last digit and the subsequent 3 SP guesses wrong: In the last 6 seasons (42-47), there have been 64 playings where all 3 SP prices were revealed, and in only 3 of them- less than 5%- were all the higher prices or all the lower prices were correct. So,

* If there's one SP left and the first two were both higher or both lower, guess the opposite.
* If you're in a situation where you have 2 or more SPs left and you guessed wrong on a 50/50 on the last digit (i.e., you know the last digit, but you need to get a SP right to make it official), if the first one is lower, guess higher for the next two (and vice versa). At least one should be right.

Of course, don't let this statistic get in the way of logic and conventional thinking... if the first two items are lower and the third prize is a Libman mop that's either $10 or $33, break the rule.

[Briguy]

Great job on the blog! I love everything about it.

Going back to Three Strikes, which you had earlier this year, I wonder what the range of the car prices was? From what I can recall in watching shows and reading recaps, most of the cars were in the $40,000-50,000 range, with some going a few thousand higher or lower in either direction; there were the occasional cards that went $60,000 or more. (This, of course, not accounting for the Dream Car weeks were cars worth more than $100,000 were offered.)

Point being:

* After listening to the car description, pay attention to the numbers Drew presents.
* If one of the drawn digits is a 4 or 5, try that in the first (the 10-thousands) spot first; if both are present among the numbers my gut would tell me one of those two numbers is the 10-thousands digit.
** Same strategy goes if a 6 is among the digits (assuming a 3, 4 and 5 are not among the numbers) ... that will probably be the first digit; if a 4, 5 and 6 are all present, the first number will more than likely not be 6.
* From there, I'd try one of the lower numbers in the second (thousands) position first, and from there fill in the price from there.

Brian

[LiteBulb88]

Here's some more insights on 10 Chances.

Excellent stuff! I've linked to your post from my blog post on 10 Chances.

A note about Pathfinder:

Let me suggest a simple strategy based on your data for the case where you get the last digit wrong but you've gotten no numbers wrong up to that point: guess the higher price for all three items. Per your data, the chances of all three items being lower are about 2.5%*. (Of course, you could also guess the lower price for all three items to get the same result.)

*Assuming the 5% you state where all 3 prizes were higher or lower is split evenly between the "higher" case and the "lower" case.

Going back to Three Strikes, which you had earlier this year, I wonder what the range of the car prices was?

From seasons 40-47, excluding dream cars that were over $100k, here were the prices of cars in 3 Strikes:

$30,000-$39,999: 3 cars [none since season 44]
$40,000-$49,999: 11 cars
$50,000-$59,999: 13 cars
$60,000-$69,999: 2 cars
$70,000-$79,999: 2 cars

So I agree that the first digit is by far most likely to be 4 or 5, and if there is no 4 or 5, then 6 is the next best bet. (Those $30k cars haven't appeared in a while and I doubt they're coming back.)

[jhc2010]

Any insights into wheel-spinning strategy? If you spin a 55 and you’re the first spinner, you should spin the wheel trying to avoid the 5 consecutive spaces on the wheel that would put you over.

 5, 100, 15, 80, 35, 60, 20, 40, 75, 55, 95, 50, 85, 30, 65, 10, 45, 70, 25, 90

After spinning a 55 on the first spin, there are 11 bad spaces and 9 good spaces.

If the wheel is spun to avoid that area of the wheel, the contestant still has 9 good spaces and only 6 bad spaces that would put the contestant over.

Any other thoughts on wheel-spinning strategy?

Additionally, there are occasional contestants  that try to aim for a dollar and are often unsuccessful and are booed if they come up short. I don’t think this method is a strategy encouraged by the show.

[LiteBulb88]

I very much like the thought, but this is much much harder than it looks on TV. There are no practice spins and the wheel is heavy, so even trying to aim toward (or away from) a specific segment of the wheel is hard. But if you're the contestant, you have nothing to lose by trying, except perhaps some of your dignity if you don't get the wheel all the way around.

[jhc2010]

An example is Afshin on Monday’s show. He led off the first SCSD with a dollar spin that took two revolutions or 40 spaces. When he came up for his bonus spin, it was practically identical to the first one, traveling 42 spaces and landing on 15. I’m sure if Afshin wanted to, he could have taken a little off or put a little more on his bonus spin if he wanted to and the wheel would have travelled slightly more or less  than 40 spaces thus not landing in the same spot on the wheel.

After watching the wheel spin for decades, I think most fans of the show would be able to pull off what I described in my previous post to decrease odds of going over. The odds of going over on the second spin would decrease from 55% to 40%.

[LiteBulb88]

Check Game

(Blog post: https://stoseontpir.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-ultimate-price-is-right-strategy_6.html)

<snip>

Due to the fact that they increased the range on Check Game to $8,000 to $9,000, the above article is now out of date. I'll need to see at least a season's worth of data before I can say much about how this will affect the strategy, but I will state one thing: due to the "prize floor" of $5,000 in one prize games, you now should not write the check for more than $3,000.

[Guint]

I know it's been almost two years since this thread has been touched, but...any word on strategies for the new games? 

In all seriousness, I was on sabbatical when this happened, and I just want to say that the work done on this is nothing short of amazing. I've definitely made reference to this several times, including an argument on how to set up Check Game.

Because I didn't get to comment on this blog when it first happened, I did note some strategies and some minor errors that I wanted to address. First the errors:

- Magic # debuted in 1992, not 2003.
- You have the rules slightly off about Card Game, specifically how aces are treated...while it was true for much of the game's tenure that aces could be held onto and saved for later, since the 2014 refurb that rule seems to have changed...aces must now be used immediately upon drawing them. You can still continue to draw after using an ace, which I think is fair, especially if you goofed it up and the audience is begging you to draw more cards (though if you use the ace properly, you still should end the game immediately).

And now for some of the tips and things that I've noticed over time:
- Card Game's car is always over $20,000, because they want the contestant to have to draw at least one card, even if the get the $5K card. It used to be when it got later in the season and into budget mode they would reduce this limit down to $18,000 and make extra sure the $5K card didn't get picked, but now the trend has been reversed...they like using far more expensive cars in this game because they know contestants don't like to draw cards for very long and they'll never get that high. So the 18-19K cars have vanished in favor of the 23K-25K cars.
- The last time the blog had an update was to watch for any trends with Check Game's recently updated range. It looks like the strategy still holds up well, but you would have to adjust for the new range and the fact that $7,000 prizes are now fair game (though we've only seen 1 so far).

Prize starts with a 5: $3,000 check
Prize starts with a 6: $2,000 check
Prize start with a 7: $1,000 check
Not sure between 5 and 6? $2,500 check
Not sure between 6 and 7? $1,500 check
You're totally clueless: $2,000 and call it a day

- Pay attention to how prizes like to end their prices in games where you use "prize math", in particular Do the Math and Take Two. For instance, if Prize 1 in Math commonly ends in 0 while Prize 2 may be a pair of something, which likes to end in 8 (ends in 9 + ends in 9), and the difference ends with a 2, you want to go minus. In Take Two this really helps - let's say the target price ends in a 3, it'd be a good idea to have something that ends with a 5 and something that ends with and 8 (the easiest way with price endings to end a price with 3). This becomes especially helpful if you need the second chance, because you know two of the prices and can make your decision easier about which one to keep.

I think I had more at one point, but this is all I can remember for now. Hope this info becomes helpful for some folks!

[pannoni1]

I feel that the two new games are just that- too new to really draw up on a definitive strategy at this point. Since Back to '72 will be short-lived, it may not be viable to even make a post for it. But so far with To The Penny, the only obvious one is to spend all your pennies on the final item if you swept the first four correctly without using any pennies. Just like its predecessor, there isn't really any key trend if a particular choice is correct in terms of the highest or lowest item. That said, the other biggie is that its possible to just bail out with $3000 without even making a single guess (or guessing wrong on the first item and using two pennies on the $3000 item), and also that its impossible to not get the opportunity to bail at $1500 since the worst you can have after that point is three pennies left. But for an easy $6000 followed by bailing, simply find which of the first three items you know the most, use enough pennies to get the chance of guessing it correctly down to 50/50, and then guessing correctly on it, while using pennies on the other two items to ensure of a correct guess. That's still comparable to a few prize packages on some games, and cash of course is a much more desirable prize.

The one big thing I have for Back to '72 is to never guess less than the total amount you have remaining on the final item (e.g., you have $20 left and you guess $19, that's at least $2 wasted right there and probably $10 at least since there's almost never a SP worth less than $10).

[LiteBulb88]

Thanks for the kind words! I'm glad you found this useful, Guint. I've made a couple of updates to my blog posts in the last couple of years but not this thread. Here are some of the things besides what you pointed out:

* Coming or Going broke the "going on a trip" rule a couple of times in season 49. Non-trip prizes were still always "coming".
* One Wrong Price broke both of its former rules in season 49: it had prizes worth less than $1,000 and there were playings were two prizes had the same first digit in their correct price.

I also added the Card Game info you mentioned onto my Card Game blog post--I'd been meaning to make the note about Card Game cars always being $20,000 or more for a while. As for the two new games, it is of course too early to make any definitive strategy calls based on the setup of the patterns. But I can state these based on their rules:

* Back to '72 As pannoni1 mentioned above, your guess for the last item shouldn't be within the number of dollars you have left of either edge for the last item. For example, if you have $37 left and the range for item #3 is $100-$200, you should not select a price of $137 or less or $163 or more (where $163 = $200-$37.)

* To the Penny If you have two or more pennies, continue! You can bail out after any guess, right or wrong. It's not yet clear if you can bail out after using one penny to eliminate a price, so you have to be more careful there.

[troix]

Yes, I haven't replied to anything for a while, and I apologize if this has been mentioned before.

If I were to play Cover-Up, I would *purposely* try to miss the second digit.
And  if it were where 1 and 2 were possible in the first position, i would do 1 in the first and the lower number in the second slot so I'd get one or the other right.
Just seems to be a good way to get at least one extra turn...

And again, sorry if mentioned before.

[TPIRfan#9821]

This whole thread is a great thread. I'd recommend reading it all.

Yes, the "cover up" strategy is mentioned, along with other goodies, like the top right corner hasn't been right in seven seasons.