Golden-Road.net
Studio 33 - Price is Right Discussion => The TALK Is Right => Topic started by: ooboh on April 27, 2018, 10:13:16 PM
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So, my “most hated games” thread inspired me to come up with what I believe to be the hardest and easiest games to win. Disclaimer: A win is when the game is completely won.
My ten easiest games to win (in no particular order):
- Double Prices
- Switch?
- Bonkers
- Clock Game
- 2 For the Price of 1
- Easy as 1-2-3
- Cliff-Hangers
- One Right Price
- Bonus Game
- Bullseye
My ten hardest games to win (in no particular order):
- Pay the Rent
- 3 Strikes
- Golden Road
- Punch-A-Bunch
- Plinko (remember what a statistical win is)
- That’s Too Much!
- It’s in the Bag
- Lucky Seven (at times)
- Stack the Deck!
- Time Is Money (especially since you’re working against the clock)
What are your thoughts?
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Easiest would probably have to be Double Prices, Coming or Going, Switch? and 1 Right Price. Going with the odds it's a 50/50 shot aside from prize knowledge. Squeeze Play, One Wrong Price, and Most Expensive all have a 1/3 odds of winning (Squeeze play 1/4 when playing for a 5-digit prize). Odds aside, Ten Chances can be super easy to someone who knows the zero rule.
Most difficult is hands down Pay the Rent. I've only witnessed maybe a handful of contestants who realize it is a puzzle situation and don't immediately go for the cheapest product in the mailbox.
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I'd have put Triple Play in the top 10 hardest. Trying to WIN three consecutive quickies is harder than it sounds, and that's how I'd compare Triple Play.
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I would have to say the easiest for me is Bullseye. I mean, Double Prices is easier because you only have a 50/50 chance, but to me, I have always had a hard time with 50/50, like true/false questions on tests. I know more about grocery item prices than prizes or prize packages, so I would have a lot easier time with Bullseye or other grocery games, including Grocery Game.
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I'd have put Triple Play in the top 10 hardest. Trying to WIN three consecutive quickies is harder than it sounds, and that's how I'd compare Triple Play.
I very nearly picked Triple Play, but I almost felt like a really, REALLY smart contestant would have no problem winning the game. It’s not like it’s Pay the Rent, where knowing the prices ALONE won’t get you $100,000; that’s a game within a giant puzzle. I feel like Triple Play is straightforward enough to be won by the smartest contestants.
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I'm going to exclude the 50/50 games since even though they're a 1 out of 2 chance they do depend on how they're set up whether or not they're easy to win. I would say Cliff Hangers is the easiest to win since a contestant can just about always win following the same pattern in pricing of either $20/$30/$40 or $25/$35/$45.
For most difficult, I would say Punch a Bunch since it requires finding 1 $25,000 slip out of 50. After that, Stack the Deck since even with perfect pricing the contestant still needs to guess 2 more digits correctly, Pocket Change, Pathfinder, and the Big 3 car games. To me Pay the Rent definitely isn't easy, but it's a game that a contestant that were to play it the way it should be can win especially when they set it up to have several different winning solutions.
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Clock Game should be won every single time if you know how to deduce the price.
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Ten easiest:
1. Cliff Hangers
2. Bullseye
3. Magic # (in theory)
4. Clock Game
5. Shopping Spree (the cheapest is always the "Danger Price")
6. Ten Chances
7. Double Prices
8. Grocery Game (once again, theory)
9. Pick-a-Pair
10. Safe Crackers
Ten toughest (not including Plinko):
1. Pay The Rent
2. Punch-a-Bunch (mostly due to odds, but still...)
3. 3 Strikes
4. It's In The Bag
5. Time Is Money
6. Stack The Deck
7. Golden Road
8. Triple Play
9. More Or Less (see Triple Play)
10. Hot Seat (they've really tuned it up after the first few playings)
Easiest retired game: Hit Me
Hardest retired game: Bullseye '72 (of course)
Hardest non-car/cash game: Hi-Lo
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In no particular order, these are the ten easiest and hardest games to win for me.
Easiest
Double Prices, Coming or Going, Switch?, Cliff Hangers, Bullseye, Clock Game, 1 Right Price, Pick-a-Pair, 10 Chances, Safe Crackers
Hardest
Golden Road, Triple Play, More or Less, Check-Out, Pay the Rent, Punch-a-Bunch, That's Too Much!, Stack the Deck, Gas Money, Pathfinder
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I would have to say the easiest for me is Bullseye.
I do distinctly remember Bob telling a contestant once that Bullseye was the easiest game on The Price is Right. He might have even cited the winning percentage. I don't remember how the game itself went or anything else about it, but it stood out to me when Bob said that. Does anyone else remember this?
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I'm surprised Now or Then hasn't been mentioned yet. There is a way to guarantee a win in Now or Then 100% of the time with the knowledge of 4 Nows and 2 Thens. Cliff Hangers (20-30-40) and Clock Game (Binary Search with $500-$1000) should be the other two that you have no excuse to lose in if you know how to play it correctly.
I think we covered all the majority of the hard games. Only been mentioned once so far, Check-Out has been hard also, but when I go my preferred $19.32, I win more than half the time, just like $3000 in Magic # practically guaranteeing a win.
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Here's 3 more I'm surprised nobody mentioned either:
Easy- Side By Side, Bargain Game(both 50/50 games)
Hard- Temptation
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Since the games I think are easy to win (Double Prices, 1 Right Price, Coming or Going, Clock Game and historically, Hit Me) have been mentioned, here are the hardest games to win in my opinion.
I’d say Temptation is very difficult to win. Even with the rules being changed to allow contestants to change numbers in the price of the car, there is no room for error in the game.
Hi-Lo is also very difficult because the contestant has to play perfectly. Especially during early playings where the difference between Hi and Lo could be something like 20 cents apart.
3 Strikes is also obviously difficult due to the luck factor involved. You could be two numbers away from winning, only to draw two strike chips and end up winning nothing.
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If I was ever called on stage, no game would thrill me more than to see Ten Chances get wheeled out. As long as you know the zero rule and are halfway decent at pricing, the game is cake.
You need:
- No more than two tries to win the first prize.
- No more than six tries for the second (and often less with an ounce of pricing skill)
- If you can guess the first two numbers of the car, you only need two chances to win the car. Easy peasy.
To drive the point home, I spent a few minutes checking tpirstats.com (the kind soul who runs that site painstakingly has recaps organized by individual pricing game), and learned something remarkable:
No Carey-era contestant has ever obeyed the zero rule and lost. Yep, that's right--EVERY Ten Chances player who lost the game wasted at least one guess on a price not ending in zero. Blew my mind so much that I had to check it again, but it's true.
Zero rule works, folks.
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3 Strikes is also obviously difficult due to the luck factor involved. You could be two numbers away from winning, only to draw two strike chips and end up winning nothing.
You could know the exact price of the car before the game starts and you can still lose due to luck.
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Easiest for me would have to be Cliff Hangers; just go $20-$30-$40, with minor adjustments as needed, and you'll pretty much win every time
Of the current rotation, hardest would be That's Too Much; basically you're shooting in the dark with no help
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TTM is hard on the surface, no question,but it's a lot easier if one observes the "one after the big gap" trick. Most of the increases in the prices are around $1000, but there is always one that's a larger jump of around $2000--this is when they're trying to trick you into stopping. Simply go one more price higher than that one, and you'll win a lot of the time.
(Of course, sometimes the correct answer is the price before the gap, in which case, tough cookies--but the "after" scenario occurs just as often from what I can tell.)
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I would put Hi-Lo and Check Out on the hard side. Like Lucky $even they can be really easy or downright mean with their prices.