Golden-Road.net
Studio 33 - Price is Right Discussion => The TALK Is Right => Topic started by: priac on January 29, 2019, 02:55:19 PM
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For me it's Grand Game. A lot of people seem to find this easy. Not so much for me. Although, grocery products is not my strong suit.
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Ten Chances. Half the time, the zero rule does me in.
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Now Or Then.
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Grocery Game
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For me, it's Grand Game. There's always one product that appears to be well below the target price, but is then deceivingly expensive. It's also the only game where you can wipe out and still win $1.00 more than someone who picks three of the four products that are under the target price correct, then picks a higher priced item on the final selection. I know the bailout option is still there, but opt outs seemed more common back in the '80s when $1,000.00 could buy you a decent used car. Today, that same amount won't buy some phones.
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The comicial answer here, of course, as Barker liked to point out with every playing, Check Game.
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When it was in the rotation, Hit Me. It took me YEARS Not so much finding the products with the Ace and the 10, but understanding the multiplication aspect of the other products. I used to watch the show with co-workers at lunch, and that was the only game in the rotation everyone had a problem understanding no matter how many time I explained it to them.
Poker Game was another because Bob was always telling contestants to find a price that had a lot of nines...which made no sense to me when I was young in the late 70s/early 80s when 9s were rarely a factor in that game! That, and a product that cost $555 might be much more useful than one that is $995.
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Any car game (Cover Up, Lucky Seven, Line Em Up, etc.) when the difference between success and failure comes down to the tens/ones digit of a car.
Lol please, I'm playing "guess my favorite number" at that point.
(This is one thing I really like about Stack the Deck--when it's set up properly, a good player can make the need to know those digits irrelevant.)
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When it was in the rotation, Hit Me. It took me YEARS Not so much finding the products with the Ace and the 10, but understanding the multiplication aspect of the other products. I used to watch the show with co-workers at lunch, and that was the only game in the rotation everyone had a problem understanding no matter how many time I explained it to them.
Poker Game was another because Bob was always telling contestants to find a price that had a lot of nines...which made no sense to me when I was young in the late 70s/early 80s when 9s were rarely a factor in that game! That, and a product that cost $555 might be much more useful than one that is $995.
Goodness gracious, Hit Me. That's one of Bob's worst game explanations--as a kid it took me FOREVER to figure that game out.
Bob's explanation always went like this:
Bob: "Now, (contestant), Have you ever played blackjack before?"
Contestant: "Yes!"
Bob: "OK, cut these cards...here's the house card. The house hits at 16 and stays on 17..."
Then the game would continue and I'd have NO IDEA what was going on.
Hey Bob, what if some of us at home haven't played blackjack before? What in the world is the goal here? What's a "hole" card--why are some cards facedown and some faceup? Why is Bob calling that card a "ten" when it's clearly a king? Why is the ace being treated as 11 when it was attached to the product that was the right price? Who decided the house stands at 17, why would the house stop drawing when they know I'm beating them? Shouldn't they get another draw to try to beat you without going over like in the Big Wheel?
And that's before getting into the multiplication aspect...
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Poker Game was another because Bob was always telling contestants to find a price that had a lot of nines...which made no sense to me when I was young in the late 70s/early 80s when 9s were rarely a factor in that game! That, and a product that cost $555 might be much more useful than one that is $995.
Quite a few times, the best possible hand ended up being 4 zeroes.
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Ten Chances. Half the time, the zero rule does me in.
Huh?
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Not me, but Magic # seems to have been a major one for the past lot of contestants, who've been seemingly trying to set the Magic # to the price of the cheaper prize instead of trying to set it somewhere even remotely close to the middle.
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Quite a few times, the best possible hand ended up being 4 zeroes.
Then, of course, another problem with Bob's hint was how on Earth was anyone supposed to know what prize had a lot of 9s in it? You could have picked something you thought was $999 and it ended up being $980. Don't even ask how someone knew if something was $499 or $599. To me, that game was more blind guessing than any real pricng strategy.
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Growing up in the 90s, I always found Buy Or Sell to be very confusing when it was played on our Australian version.
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They should bring back Poker Game in a Texas Hold 'Em format. You pick one prize for yourself and one for the house, while the other two prizes make up the community cards. It will never happen because there are many people out there who don't understand five card draw poker let alone "Hold 'Em"
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Goodness gracious, Hit Me. That's one of Bob's worst game explanations--as a kid it took me FOREVER to figure that game out.
The game was won quite often though. I rather miss it.
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The game was won quite often though. I rather miss it.
That the funny thing about Hit Me: It was easy to win, but not so easy to understand. Many wins came from just shear luck.
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Yeah, I agree with all the posts about Hit Me. That was my least favorite game when I was a kid because I didn't know how the heck to play it.
Interestingly, I remember that it was just a few months after Hit Me was retired that I learned the rules of Blackjack and then the game all made sense to me.
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That the funny thing about Hit Me: It was easy to win, but not so easy to understand. Many wins came from just shear luck.
It really came down to knowing one thing about math and one about prices.
The math being knowing that multiplying any number by 10 results in a zero at the end (which, at least most of the time there was only one item that had that, thus a guaranteed 10).
The pricing being knowing what item had a posted price that was right (though there were times that knowing a second math thing, that certain #'s couldn't be divided evenly and thus had to be the right price would have worked as well).
Occasionally there was something that could have been right but wasn't (say a price like $9.98 that was really $4.99 x 2), but often times you'd realize that the others were too much to be right and had to be a multiple.
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That the funny thing about Hit Me: It was easy to win, but not so easy to understand. Many wins came from just shear luck.
Barker also spoon fed many contestants too, moreso than any other game, really
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Another thing that rubbed me the wrong way about Hit Me is a little more abstract--it's hard to get exciting moments from the game.
Price's most memorable, exciting moments IMO are when the unexpected happens. When the odds are stacked against an event happening, but it happens anyways.
- It's an exciting moment when somebody needs a dollar to beat a 95 at the big wheel--and lo and behold it happens!
- It's exciting in 3 Strikes when somebody pulls two strikes early on but goes on to win the game against all odds.
- It's incredibly exciting in the showcase reveal when they reveal the first player's difference is, like, $800--and the other showcase bid ends up being even CLOSER than that.
- Heck, it's even exciting when a player biffs it in something like Shell Game, where they win one shell but finds the ball anyways. It's not satisfying to see them blow the pricing portion, sure, but the end sure can be exciting and memorable if they win unexpectedly.
Hit Me is exactly the opposite. When the unexpected happens, that's BAD.
It's only a little exciting when the game is played perfectly, cause it happens so often, it looks pretty much the same every time, it's trivially easy if you know how to do it, and often Bob's practically winning the game for them.
It's only kinda exciting when the house gets a 14, draws again, and busts, since that's the expected outcome when hitting at 14.
And when the house has a 14, draws again, and gets a 7, that's surprising and unexpected! But it's exciting in a negative way, cause it's bad! The contestant loses!
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THEN: May 1992
Confusing game: Poker Game
It was a toss-up between this and Hit Me, but with Hit Me at least I knew that you had to look for a price that ended in zero, since whatever the rule was included "multiplied by 10" and you wanted that card.
NOW: February 2019
Confusing game: Pay the Rent
I'm far from a math whiz, so it's hard for me to understand how there's more than one winning combination to this game. (About the only thing I do get is that the least expensive item doesn't necessarily go in the mailbox, but no matter how many times I see this game I still don't quite get why.)
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That's my weakness in PTR as well. Math is not my strong point.
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Anyone that needs help in math, math teacher here. I will happily dispense any odds necessary for anyone.
Back on topic, yes, Hit Me and Poker Game, nice games, but they are hurt by the fact that you do have to come into the game with a basic knowledge of actually PLAYING those card games. Otherwise, no guiding from Bob would be very helpful.
Tangent to that last thought: I know from my time hosting game shows at anime conventions that there were certain games my old partner wanted to do because they were so iconic that "everyone knows those shows". That's all fine and good, but he kept forgetting two things that I tried futilely to drill into him:
1) We weren't playing to an audience of game show hardcores.
2) Even if someone in the audience has seen Pyramid, Password, etc. on TV, that doesn't mean they know how to actually play it if put to task on the spot, and giving them a 5-minute lesson in how to play won't suddenly make them a master.
With Hit Me & Poker Game, same thing.
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NOW: February 2019
Confusing game: Pay the Rent
I'm far from a math whiz, so it's hard for me to understand how there's more than one winning combination to this game. (About the only thing I do get is that the least expensive item doesn't necessarily go in the mailbox, but no matter how many times I see this game I still don't quite get why.)
With Pay the Rent it's best to work backwards. Start with the item that is most expensive and put it on top rather than thinking first what item should go in the mailbox. Once you pick the most expensive item, then put the second most expensive and the least expensive item together in the row underneath so that it will be just under the cost of the most expensive item. The second floor and mailbox items are a little more interchangable. Unforuntately the rules of the game make it so you must pick the mailbox item first which makes most contestants fall into the trap of choosing the least expensive item first because it makes it seem like you are simply ordering the items from least to most expensive.
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Unforuntately the rules of the game make it so you must pick the mailbox item first which makes most contestants fall into the trap of choosing the least expensive item first because it makes it seem like you are simply ordering the items from least to most expensive.
Isn't that the entire reason why the game is designed that way, to specifically lead contestants into that trap?
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Goodness gracious, Hit Me. That's one of Bob's worst game explanations--as a kid it took me FOREVER to figure that game out.
Hey Bob, what if some of us at home haven't played blackjack before? What in the world is the goal here? What's a "hole" card--why are some cards facedown and some faceup? Why is Bob calling that card a "ten" when it's clearly a king? Why is the ace being treated as 11 when it was attached to the product that was the right price? Who decided the house stands at 17, why would the house stop drawing when they know I'm beating them? Shouldn't they get another draw to try to beat you without going over like in the Big Wheel?
Sometimes, even Bob had to be explained the rules - and in one case, a contestant lost because Bob interpreted a rule wrong. I wouldn't be surprised if that was one of the reasons it was retired.
One time, a player stopped on something like 15 for some reason; the house had 16, and Bob announced that the player had lost. One of the producers said the house had to take another card, and Bob replied, "Why? The house has already won!"; eventually, Bob caved in, the house bust, and the player won.
Another time, the player stopped on (let's say) 20, and the house had an Ace and an 8. Under normal blackjack rules, the house has to count that as a 19 and stop, so the player wins. Bob's rules: "The house chooses to count it as a 1," and draws a 3, then a 9 for 21. (Note that, on the Vegas Strip as of the early 2000s, the house having Ace-6 is counted as 7 instead of 17.)
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Yeah, Hit Me was a Standards and Practices nightmare waiting to happen. Part of me is amazed it lasted in the rotation as long as it did with its loosey-goosey rules. Even though it was retired before Bob left I'm positive that it would have been given the axe when Drew took over, probably without even Drew having a chance to host it.
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I actually understood blackjack because I watched Hit Me for all those years
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Hi-Lo always seems to baffle me more than even Grand Game.
Now Or Then.
At one time, the strategy was: The THEN GPs were the non-sponsored ones. They played Now...or Then on my show in 1996 and it was quite obvious which ones were THEN based on Rod's shorter, somewhat generic description (even though the brand names were still mentioned at that point). Example from my show: "Crisco Vegetable Oil. The light taste is perfect for all of your cooking and baking needs." I think somewhere in the FAQs it is mentioned that they picked the THEN items from supermarket ads from the THEN time period.
Then at some point after Drew took over, as fewer GPs were sponsored, the strategy changed to the THEN GPs being ones actually used on the show during the THEN date.
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While not confusing, I find Line 'Em Up to be very difficult, and seems to be pretty random guessing. The other prizes don't add anything to the game play, they just make the game stand out slightly from other car-digit-selectors like, say, Cover Up.