A strange Card Game question...

[Steve_Bier]

Has there ever been an instance in Card Game, where the contestant scored the $5,000 card....and refused to pick a card at all?

I only ask, because there have been one or two occasions where something like this could be entirely feasible.

Example: car up for grabs is a $17,000 Tiddlywink 5000.

Drew gives a starting price of $15,000

I pull the $5,000 card.

Would I even need to draw a card at that point?

[goldroadfanatic]

Contestants are allowed to end the game without drawing a single card.  But I don't think any of them realize it; they feel compelled to draw at least one card to play the game.

[MSTieScott]

I know that it's never happened since the special deck was increased to $5,000.

However, my hunch is also that the car's price has never been less than $1,000 away from the opening bid. So even though the contestant can stop at any point, since the host has told them to draw a card and everybody is expecting them to do so, they might as well give in to peer pressure, right?

[Kev347]

An addendum to this: I believe the playing here ( http://www.golden-road.net/index.php?topic=6512.0 ) is the least above the starting bid the Card Game car has ever been. Combined with increasing the starting bid on this playing, in my opinion this is one of the most evil forced losses in the history of the show

[SilverFirePrime]

What I don't get is with the max of $5000 and the starting bid of $15000, why  even bother playing for sub $21,000 cars?.    Only thing I can think of is it's just a way to cut down on gameplay time and make room for more commercials -_-

[Kyle]

Only thing I can think of is it's just a way to cut down on gameplay time and make room for more commercials -_-

*dinging bells*

You look at a show like Wheel of Fortune where they can potentially edit out three spins or more if all the players fail to call correct letters in the puzzle and no one goes bankrupt. Not that easy with the Card Game - they would have to show every draw of the cards, otherwise there would be an inexplicable jump in the price from draw to draw. The $15,000 opening bid is a conscious effort to speed the game up.

[Off_trak]

I don't see a reason why they couldn't / wouldn't play for a car valued under $20,000. Assuming the contestant draws the $1000 margin card, and draws anything but a 10 or face card, the game could go 4 or 5 minutes before they get to the $19,000 - $20,000 level. Playing for a car in that price range, and drawing the $5000 margin card, would be practically the same as drawing an ace on the first pick. As always, it's up to the contestant to correctly estimate the value of the prize, and base their strategy on that. It would end up being a pretty unique set of circumstances, as the $5000 has made few appearances since it was introduced.

[Teddy]

I've always thought you had to draw at least one card, and that was perhaps true in the early years, as you had no starting bid to work with then. This would be the same as advancing at least one price in That's Too Much, or pushing at least one block off the table in Push Over, and I'm sure there are many other examples of this.

[Brian44]

*dinging bells*

And yet the new car reveal, graphics and sound effects actually add a good bit of time to the game play.