TPiR Recap - 11/10/2014 (TPiR Season 43 Big Money Week - Day 1)

[mechamind]

What I find strange for a 5/6 show is that no trips were won at all, not even in the Showcase.

[JustBecause]

Here's what I took away from today (besides the $100,000 Rat Race win and the DOB):

The combined value of the 6 IUFB prizes ($17,836) was worth more than the car offered in Lucky Seven ($16,976). When was the last time that IUFB prizes totaled that much?

[Schfifty]

The bad news is...a simple, frequently-won 2-prize game cost us a perfect show. The day also unfortunately ended with a double overbid. I was really excited that Steven made it to the showcases, and I really hoped he would win his. He just overbid on it by less than $3,000.

Gosh, darn it! It's too late to modify the post, but I really meant "just over $4,000." I thought he bid $46,000 even and not $46,800.

[Cephas]

Here's what I took away from today (besides the $100,000 Rat Race win and the DOB):

The combined value of the 6 IUFB prizes ($17,836) was worth more than the car offered in Lucky Seven ($16,976). When was the last time that IUFB prizes totaled that much?

Expensive IUFBs are common in primetime specials (the final MDS's total in 2008 was $22,000-plus), but this might be a record for daytime.

Maybe they are wanting people to win more this week, outside of the big money games.

[SuperSweeper]

Expensive IUFBs are common in primetime specials (the final MDS's total in 2008 was $22,000-plus), but this might be a record for daytime.

Maybe they are wanting people to win more this week, outside of the big money games.

I'm definitely in favor of having prize upgrades outside of the one "Big Money" game.  In the past, it always seemed like such a downer when the prize increase was confined to one pricing game during the special weeks.  If they're going to go big, I'd prefer that they spread the wealth throughout the show.

[Kev347]

However, in my opinion having high one-bids needlessly blows the budget. Yes, I guess it's nice to have a "surprise" high one once in awhile to keep the bidders honest, but it's much more exciting when the budget is allocated to the prizes that aren't required to be won. Today was honestly alarming to me - I thought they'd realized back in Season 38 not to do this. Last Wednesday's show which taped after this had normal one-bids though, so I'm hoping it's just a "big money" thing.

Now that I think about it, Rat Race might have worked better all along as a cash game than a car game. It's too late to change that now, so I'll take what we got today. It felt more true to the spirit of the game, where you might bet to win money based on where the rats came in the race. You wouldn't bet to win a car or a trip I was totally fine with a car game being played for cash once as long as they did include a car game in the same half, and they took care of that today.

Do The Math for 2 trips especially with a standard small <1500 difference is just weird for me. Today was clearly meant to be won, but I can understand why it was lost. The prices of the shows' trips can be random, and asking a contestant to price one trip in the context of another is something that really has never been done before (aside from ME for 3 trips but there you're not worrying at all about the difference between the prizes), and I can certainly understand why that would be confusing. A shame it cost us perfection today though.

[TPIRighteous]

Playing Rat Race as the big money game was a super creative and fun idea! I wish they had come up with increments that added up to a neater number than $175,000 though. Maybe 10-40-100.

Also, I still hate the way they do cash reveals for non-cash games. It's incredibly lackluster. For this one in particular, I thought breaking it up into the three separate prizes in the reveal was a little odd. I think it would have been more dramatic to just announce the combined amount, then explain the breakdown with the rules, and maybe then introduce the shot of the three separate monitors.

[Flerbert419]

Everybody is free to think what they want, but in the recap there is no way we should be calling Rat Race a win.  It was a cash game today.  Cash games are won when the highest announced prize is won - which was $175,000 as shown clearly on the screens.

When are they going to change the rule that getting a prize exactly right results in all three rats?

Lucky $even was a great win.

The credits stated that "a discrepancy was found in the price of a prize and was rectified post taping.  This did not affect the outcome of any game."  This is happening far too often and it's amazing that none of them result in technical wins.

Am I the only one that's getting a little tired of George's cute little asides during the show...Just a little nuisance that wasn't needed when Johnny, Rod or even Rich were doing the announcing.

You forgot the most important part - when Bob was hosting.  Drew has a set routine: where are you from, repeat the name of the place they are from, what do we have for them.  Zero buildup for most prizes, so it has slipped over to George to handle that part.  The ad-libs might be frustrating and sometimes they bomb, but they are better than nothing.

[Swingbatta0]

Everybody is free to think what they want, but in the recap there is no way we should be calling Rat Race a win.  It was a cash game today.  Cash games are won when the highest announced prize is won - which was $175,000 as shown clearly on the screens.

Just like $250,000 Cliff Hangers from last season, Rat Race is an exception. It counts as a win if the 1st place prize is won (case in point, the $100K).

[moneygamelover]

Rat Race is normally defined as won if the car is won even if neither of the other prizes is won. With that being the standard it's only reasonable to consider it won today since the top prize of $100000 was won.

[therealcu2010]

Except in a normal setup, the top advertised prize is the car. In today's setup, the top advertised prize was $175,000.

I'm with Flerbie here. I have trouble calling this a "win".

But I also kinda agree with Kev...Rat Race does work as a cash game better than it does a car game. I'd set it up a bit differently, though, and make it so you only win the prize associated with your best rat finish...if one of your rats wins, you get $25K. Second place gets you $10K, third $5K. Obviously winning all three rats increases your chances of winning the top prize.

[JustBecause]

Everybody is free to think what they want, but in the recap there is no way we should be calling Rat Race a win.  It was a cash game today.  Cash games are won when the highest announced prize is won - which was $175,000 as shown clearly on the screens.

This is why we can't have nice things!!!*

But seriously, count me in the Rat Race was won camp. Today's Rat Race was still the same car game played under the same rules that it's always been played under for cars. The only difference was today, the car and the additional prizes were cash instead.

(*That wasn't directed at Flerb's quote per se, but rather at the debates that seemingly always come up when stuff like this happens.)

[thepriceis_J]

Everybody is free to think what they want, but in the recap there is no way we should be calling Rat Race a win.  It was a cash game today.  Cash games are won when the highest announced prize is won - which was $175,000 as shown clearly on the screens.

The game should be held to the same standards it is when it is played for a car. The only reason they announced the $175K was because it sounds exciting and the game would run short without it since there isn't prize copy for cash like there would be for a saw, a trip, and a car. I think this moment is worthy of an exception only because if Master Key and Rat Race announced the total of their prize packages, all of a sudden those games would have far less "wins" than they already have by definition, no?

1st place in a race is a win. To say 1st place isn't a win is more insane than saying "$10,000 in Plinko isn't a win" or "$10,000 in Punch-A-Bunch isn't a win". Both are true because of the rules of those games, but we're talking about a fundamental that goes back as far as time itself, not the specific ruleset of a game show. 1st place = win.

It's a shame that a perfect show was foiled by a highly reasonable Do The Math. Of all the games on today's show, this one seemed like the least likely to be lost.

I have to imagine that Mike knows what he's doing. I can't believe that he would blow the budget on this week and Dream Car Week to the detriment of the show later in the season. It doesn't seem like sound judgement, so there must be a plan in place. Either he's getting the money for this from other sources or he knows what he's doing. I'll trust him, but he was awfully generous to have the car in Lucky Seven end one-digit from five. I wouldn't mind setups like that more where he has extremes for the 3rd and 4th number and he rewards the survivors with an softball last number.

[Flerbert419]

I really didn't want to respond in order to see what others thought, but JJ directed some questions to me.

I think this moment is worthy of an exception only because if Master Key and Rat Race announced the total of their prize packages, all of a sudden those games would have far less "wins" than they already have by definition, no?

Nope, because a car game is won if the car is won.

1st place in a race is a win. To say 1st place isn't a win is more insane than saying "$10,000 in Plinko isn't a win" or "$10,000 in Punch-A-Bunch isn't a win". Both are true because of the rules of those games, but we're talking about a fundamental that goes back as far as time itself, not the specific ruleset of a game show. 1st place = win.

To borrow from horse racing, that particular horse is a winner.  But if I have a ticket for a box trifecta, then I'm a loser if my horses don't come in 1-2-3.

[mechamind]

Purist (cash game rules) vs. Purist (Rat Race rules). This is gonna be ugly.