The Game Show Forum
The Game Show Forum => Game Show Channels & Networks => Topic started by: clemon79 on January 19, 2011, 02:26:40 PM
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I just turned on the TV, so I'm not sure what led up to this, but:
It's Round 2 of Catch 21. Dude who just won question has a 19. His only remaining opponent has 11. He has the option to freeze, but he takes a hit. (Upon retrospect, not the worst move.) The card is a 10. Instead of conceding it to his opponent for a 21, he busts himself.
Either way his opponent wins the round, and since his score is lowest, he goes home, fine. But isn't there some sort of bonus for hitting 21 on the nose? Did the guy deny the other dude a bonus just to be a dick?
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[quote name=\'clemon79\' post=\'255045\' date=\'Jan 19 2011, 11:26 AM\']Either way his opponent wins the round, and since his score is lowest, he goes home, fine. But isn't there some sort of bonus for hitting 21 on the nose? Did the guy deny the other dude a bonus just to be a dick?[/quote]
Depends. If it's a Season 2 or later game, there's a prize bonus for being the first to Catch 21 in the main game. However, if the first 21 has already been caught, there's no bonus.
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[quote name=\'clemon79\' post=\'255045\' date=\'Jan 19 2011, 11:26 AM\']I just turned on the TV, so I'm not sure what led up to this, but:
It's Round 2 of Catch 21. Dude who just won question has a 19. His only remaining opponent has 11. He has the option to freeze, but he takes a hit. (Upon retrospect, not the worst move.) The card is a 10. Instead of conceding it to his opponent for a 21, he busts himself.
Either way his opponent wins the round, and since his score is lowest, he goes home, fine. But isn't there some sort of bonus for hitting 21 on the nose? Did the guy deny the other dude a bonus just to be a dick?[/quote]
If he has 19 and his opponent has 11, there's all sorts of ways that his opponent can overtake him. Any face or 10 is 21. Any 9 is 20. Little cards give him redraws to 20 or 21. He was probably throwing caution to the wind, figuring that a stay would be waving a white flag, so his only hope was to hit and pray. If he does hit the miracle Ace or Deuce, he stays alive.
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[quote name=\'Kevin Prather\' post=\'255053\' date=\'Jan 19 2011, 01:48 PM\']If he has 19 and his opponent has 11, there's all sorts of ways that his opponent can overtake him. Any face or 10 is 21. Any 9 is 20. Little cards give him redraws to 20 or 21. He was probably throwing caution to the wind, figuring that a stay would be waving a white flag, so his only hope was to hit and pray. If he does hit the miracle Ace or Deuce, he stays alive.[/quote]
That would be the "upon retrospect, not the worst move" part I said before. I know WHY he chose to hit. I am speaking specifically to him choosing to bust himself rather than pass it to the other guy for 21 when they are equivalent outcomes for him. As Hastin said, if it's Season 2 (and, thinking about it, it is, because the cards and Power Chips weren't branded) and that's the first 21 of the day, all it did was deny the other guy a bonus prize.
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[quote name=\'clemon79\' post=\'255054\' date=\'Jan 19 2011, 02:05 PM\']I am speaking specifically to him choosing to bust himself rather than pass it to the other guy for 21 when they are equivalent outcomes for him.[/quote]
Because as you acknowledged, they might not be equivalent outcomes. He doesn't know the next card out. Hindsight being 20/20, yes, he may have screwed the opponent, but that's not his concern at the moment. There was still a chance for him to win. If the writing was 100% on the wall, then he should concede to the opponent so he can get the bonus.
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[quote name=\'Kevin Prather\' post=\'255055\' date=\'Jan 19 2011, 02:12 PM\']If the writing was 100% on the wall, then he should concede to the opponent so he can get the bonus.[/quote]
Which it was. He has 19, his opponent has 11, he drew a 10, he has to decide what to do with it. He has two choices:
1) Give the other guy the 10, giving him 21, an automatic win, and a bonus prize if it's the first 21 of the day. He is eliminated by virtue of having the low score.
2) Take the 10 for himself, busting. Other guy wins round, same as he would if he'd gotten the 21, except there is no possibility of a bonus prize. He is eliminated by virtue of having the low score.
Note how those last two sentences are the same. That is because they are equivalent outcomes *for him*.
That's the only decision I am talking about here.
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[quote name=\'clemon79\' post=\'255058\' date=\'Jan 19 2011, 02:42 PM\'][quote name=\'Kevin Prather\' post=\'255055\' date=\'Jan 19 2011, 02:12 PM\']If the writing was 100% on the wall, then he should concede to the opponent so he can get the bonus.[/quote]
Which it was. He has 19, his opponent has 11, he drew a 10, he has to decide what to do with it. He has two choices:
1) Give the other guy the 10, giving him 21, an automatic win, and a bonus prize if it's the first 21 of the day. He is eliminated by virtue of having the low score.
2) Take the 10 for himself, busting. Other guy wins round, same as he would if he'd gotten the 21, except there is no possibility of a bonus prize. He is eliminated by virtue of having the low score.
Note how those last two sentences are the same. That is because they are equivalent outcomes *for him*.
That's the only decision I am talking about here.
[/quote]
Oh oh oh. Mea culpa. I had it in my head that he had to either take the card or pass BEFORE seeing the card. I forgot that he gets to see the card, THEN decide what to do with it.
In that case, total dick move. If he loses anyway, give the guy the face. Only exception would be if he had a lead, and his opponent getting the 21 would give him the lead.
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[quote name=\'Kevin Prather\' post=\'255060\' date=\'Jan 19 2011, 02:44 PM\']In that case, total dick move. If he loses anyway, give the guy the face. Only exception would be if he had a lead, and his opponent getting the 21 would give him the lead.[/quote]
Even then, doesn't matter. Guy gets 500 points for winning the hand no matter what. The only thing he controlled was whether the other guy won with 21 or won with 11.
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[quote name=\'clemon79\' post=\'255061\' date=\'Jan 19 2011, 02:46 PM\'][quote name=\'Kevin Prather\' post=\'255060\' date=\'Jan 19 2011, 02:44 PM\']In that case, total dick move. If he loses anyway, give the guy the face. Only exception would be if he had a lead, and his opponent getting the 21 would give him the lead.[/quote]
Even then, doesn't matter. Guy gets 500 points for winning the hand no matter what. The only thing he controlled was whether the other guy won with 21 or won with 11.
[/quote]
Right. I haven't seen the show in a while. Does the guy get additional bonus points for having 21, or is it just the bonus cash?
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[quote name=\'Kevin Prather\' post=\'255062\' date=\'Jan 19 2011, 02:48 PM\']Right. I haven't seen the show in a while. Does the guy get additional bonus points for having 21, or is it just the bonus cash?[/quote]
Just the prize, from what I understand. Obviously if the 21 carried extra points with it, it would at least alter the decision to one if whether Bust Dude wanted to be a kingmaker or not.
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I believe on Adam Nedeff's show, the left contestant decided to bust herself instead of giving Adam 21. (The other contestant was frozen at 19.) Adam did not beat 19, so the third contestant won the 500 points. Incidentally, had the left contestant given Adam 21, she would have advanced to round 3, for the 500 points that the third contestant won in round 1 as a result were enough for her to advance over the left contestant.
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If I was in that situation, I would not willingly help another contestant win if I could avoid it, and I wouldn't consider myself a d--- for doing that, either. Just sayin'.
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But he's going to win whether you help him or not. The only say you have is "Does he win a $600 vacuum set by my hand?"
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The obvious solution is to allow a player who wins a question not to give the card to anybody. (Likely, that would get edited out for time.)
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[quote name=\'BillCullen1\' post=\'255287\' date=\'Jan 22 2011, 08:50 AM\']If I was in that situation, I would not willingly help another contestant win if I could avoid it, and I wouldn't consider myself a d--- for doing that, either. Just sayin'.[/quote]
Except you can't avoid it in this case. He's gonna win the round, and you're done for the day, those are givens, there are no ways to avoid either of those. The only question is whether you let the guy win a bonus prize on the way out the door. That's it.
Do you still screw him?
(I can see one single argument for screwing him: kingmaking. There's still a third round to be played and the other player who is advancing would still have a shot to win that bonus prize for herself. I don't think it's a good argument, though. If you can guarantee the prize is paid out to someone as opposed to "maybe," and you have no chance to win it yourself, I think the right thing to do is to ensure it's paid out.)
[quote name=\'Fedya\' post=\'255293\' date=\'Jan 22 2011, 09:33 AM\']The obvious solution is to allow a player who wins a question not to give the card to anybody. (Likely, that would get edited out for time.)[/quote]
Well, technically the option is still there: dude has the option to freeze immediately instead of taking a card. He chose not to do so and at that point takes his life into his own hands. (And I can see the argument since the other guy is going to have a crack at that card no matter what - if he freezes, the other guy just starts drawing cards, and beats him when that 10 comes up anyhow.)
What he can't do is say "Oh, I just wanted the points; no card, play on." And I'm fine with that, because that would be stupid.
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[quote name=\'Fedya\' post=\'255293\' date=\'Jan 22 2011, 09:33 AM\']The obvious solution is to allow a player who wins a question not to give the card to anybody. (Likely, that would get edited out for time.)[/quote]Do you discard the card and award the points, or just give him the points and keep the card?
Do you see how silly this sounds now?
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I forgot that they award points for the questions. I haven't watched Catch 21 in a while.
But there's still something about getting the question right and still having a forced loss that bothers me.
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[quote name=\'Fedya\' post=\'255340\' date=\'Jan 22 2011, 05:08 PM\']I forgot that they award points for the questions. I haven't watched Catch 21 in a while.
But there's still something about getting the question right and still having a forced loss that bothers me.[/quote]It's a game of luck, isn't it?
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[quote name=\'Fedya\' post=\'255340\' date=\'Jan 22 2011, 05:08 PM\']But there's still something about getting the question right and still having a forced loss that bothers me.[/quote]
What Travis said. In addition, to my way of thinking, the loss isn't forced. The guy had the option to freeze before he drew a card. As it happens, the game state was such that he was screwed no matter what he did, but that's with the benefit of hindsight.
Also, things had to happen before the game got to that state. The guy could have answered every question right and controlled where all of the cards went. I think you would be extremely hard pressed to find a shuffle of the cards which, if one player gets to draw and assign every card (save for the first three, of course), can't be assigned in such a way that the player ends up winning the round, if indeed such a permutation exists. (And if it does, your next task is to prove to me that there are enough of them so as to be statistically significant...say, convince me that it could happen 0.01% of the time, making it likely to happen in at least one round of a 65-episode season.)
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And even if you can prove such a thing, those things are part of what make game shows exciting and unpredictable. Rolling a 2 to win the round. Spinning three jokers to save your bacon. Passing control to your opponent who turns over Ace-Two-King-Three to win the game and send you packing. Just a day ago the top winner in the Showcase Showdown "earned" her spot by accepting the Temptation prize package, even though someone else won his game through skill or pricing knowledge, but the prize he won was less than the gifts mentioned earlier. Sometimes things just stack up that way, and I'm willing to let something like that slide due to bad luck, misfortune or whatever you want to call it.
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...and this, although, rare, takes away some of the strategy that Gambit had that Catch 21 doesn't. In Gambit, even after you're opponents are frozen, you still have to answer questions correctly, although unopposed, to get more cards. The guy with the 19 may have been more inclined to freeze under those old rules regardless of how simple the trivia is.
But looking at this event without mention of Gambit, the guy was being a dick. The only difference in outcome, as mentioned, was whether the guy with 11 was gonna get a free vacuum cleaner or not. But then again, you never know what sort of predisposition the players have towards one another in the green room- maybe some bad blood was formed then.
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[quote name=\'Jeremy Nelson\' post=\'255360\' date=\'Jan 22 2011, 09:22 PM\']The only difference in outcome, as mentioned, was whether the guy with 11 was gonna get a free vacuum cleaner or not.[/quote]
Yeah, but on Catch 21's budget, it's gonna have an improper amount of suction.
But then again, you never know what sort of predisposition the players have towards one another in the green room- maybe some bad blood was formed then.
Even at that, it's a petty douche move.
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Is it just me, or do the points for answering questions just throw everything off-balance (similar to getting words right on Lingo)? Why not just give points based on highest scores, 300/200/100 from high to low, and a bonus for getting 21/Blackjack?
/I know, because it's not my show
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[quote name=\'fostergray82\' post=\'255365\' date=\'Jan 22 2011, 09:48 PM\']Why not just give points based on highest scores, 300/200/100 from high to low, and a bonus for getting 21/Blackjack?
/I know, because it's not my show[/quote]Notwithstanding that 200-100-0 accomplishes the same thing, but I would think that awarding placement points would lead to more kingmaking. If you play a bunch of rounds, and whoever wins the most of 'em goes on to the bonus round, that's certainly an improvement, but there are still some other big fixes that need to be made.
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[quote name=\'clemon79\' post=\'255361\' date=\'Jan 22 2011, 11:36 PM\']
But then again, you never know what sort of predisposition the players have towards one another in the green room- maybe some bad blood was formed then.
Even at that, it's a petty douche move.
[/quote]
So you're telling me that if you're end up playing the smug bastard from your green room that told everybody that he was going to win, and he shoots you one of those s--- eating grins when you pull that 10, part of you isn't going to want to deny him some sort of satisfaction, even if it is a vacuum cleaner? If not, you're a better man than I- I'd at least contemplate it.
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[quote name=\'Jeremy Nelson\' post=\'255379\' date=\'Jan 23 2011, 12:36 AM\']So you're telling me that if you're end up playing the smug bastard from your green room that told everybody that he was going to win, and he shoots you one of those s--- eating grins when you pull that 10, part of you isn't going to want to deny him some sort of satisfaction, even if it is a vacuum cleaner? If not, you're a better man than I- I'd at least contemplate it.[/quote]
Considering that he's going to win anyhow, and doing that just makes me look like a douche on national TV, while not doing it takes the high road, yeah, that's what I'm telling you.
(Would I be rooting like hell for the other person to beat him in the final once I'm off-camera? Sure.)
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[quote name=\'clemon79\' post=\'255380\' date=\'Jan 23 2011, 02:43 AM\'][quote name=\'Jeremy Nelson\' post=\'255379\' date=\'Jan 23 2011, 12:36 AM\']So you're telling me that if you're end up playing the smug bastard from your green room that told everybody that he was going to win, and he shoots you one of those s--- eating grins when you pull that 10, part of you isn't going to want to deny him some sort of satisfaction, even if it is a vacuum cleaner? If not, you're a better man than I- I'd at least contemplate it.[/quote]
Considering that he's going to win anyhow, and doing that just makes me look like a douche on national TV, while not doing it takes the high road, yeah, that's what I'm telling you.
(Would I be rooting like hell for the other person to beat him in the final once I'm off-camera? Sure.)
[/quote]
Fair enough. Point taken.
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[quote name=\'TLEberle\' post=\'255367\' date=\'Jan 23 2011, 12:59 AM\'][quote name=\'fostergray82\' post=\'255365\' date=\'Jan 22 2011, 09:48 PM\']Why not just give points based on highest scores, 300/200/100 from high to low, and a bonus for getting 21/Blackjack?
/I know, because it's not my show[/quote]Notwithstanding that 200-100-0 accomplishes the same thing, but I would think that awarding placement points would lead to more kingmaking. If you play a bunch of rounds, and whoever wins the most of 'em goes on to the bonus round, that's certainly an improvement, but there are still some other big fixes that need to be made.[/quote]
The issue I have with both of your scoring systems is that you can end up with a 200-200-200 tie, or 400-400-400 in Brandon's case. In such cases, you'd have to deal with Catch 21's inane "high card advances" tiebreaker, but that's another thread for another day. How about 10 points per points on the cards in your hand, either an extra 100 or the round score is doubled for a 21 or having the high hand, and a flat 50 or 100 points for busting? The system rewards the best hands on a game which is clearly centered more around luck than smarts.
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And at this point I would say to just wholly revive Gambit and do an end-run around points and all this stuff. If they can find pairs of people to play Lingo, they can find pairs of people to play Gambit.
(And yes, the "high card advances" deal is just about the nadir of "makes for a good TV game show")
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Since we're all making suggestions -- I'd like to eliminate the mandatory placement of the first three cards in the bonus round. Let the contestants build their own hands from scratch.
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[quote name=\'chrisholland03\' post=\'255446\' date=\'Jan 23 2011, 06:25 PM\']Since we're all making suggestions -- I'd like to eliminate the mandatory placement of the first three cards in the bonus round. Let the contestants build their own hands from scratch.[/quote]
Hmm. Sell me on how this improves the endgame. (Enough so to budget the extra minute or so that placing those three extra cards would cost, and enough so to merit breaking the convention of dealing the first card for free immediately that is used on the rest of the show.)
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[quote name=\'clemon79\' post=\'255462\' date=\'Jan 23 2011, 08:22 PM\']Hmm. Sell me on how this improves the endgame. (Enough so to budget the extra minute or so that placing those three extra cards would cost, and enough so to merit breaking the convention of dealing the first card for free immediately that is used on the rest of the show.)[/quote]I'm not terribly keen about getting the first card for free in the main game, especially when the cards go 10-3-2. But I also don't mind having to work around getting dealt three tens in the main game. Money ain't free.
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[quote name=\'MikeK\' post=\'255390\' date=\'Jan 23 2011, 11:26 AM\']How about 10 points per points on the cards in your hand, either an extra 100 or the round score is doubled for a 21 or having the high hand, and a flat 50 or 100 points for busting? The system rewards the best hands on a game which is clearly centered more around luck than smarts.[/quote]
That works just as well, if not better. High card gets the points, 21 gets the prize.
I don't watch the show enough, but a "high card" advancing is just inane. Would a buzzer battle really be that difficult?
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[quote name=\'fostergray82\' post=\'255469\' date=\'Jan 23 2011, 09:01 PM\']I don't watch the show enough, but a "high card" advancing is just inane. Would a buzzer battle really be that difficult?[/quote]No, but is it an improvement? I take it as a failure of the format where you have a round settled in that fashion. Gambit never had that problem. Ain't no ties on Gambit.
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[quote name=\'TLEberle\' post=\'255470\' date=\'Jan 24 2011, 12:17 AM\'][quote name=\'fostergray82\' post=\'255469\' date=\'Jan 23 2011, 09:01 PM\']I don't watch the show enough, but a "high card" advancing is just inane. Would a buzzer battle really be that difficult?[/quote]No, but is it an improvement? I take it as a failure of the format where you have a round settled in that fashion. Gambit never had that problem. Ain't no ties on Gambit.
[/quote]
No, not an improvement, and I find their current tiebreaker to be a lazy copout. Honestly, the points system is completely unnecessary.
Just play to 21, with the top two players advancing, and of course allow Freezes. If two players Freeze, then just like in Gambit: Original Recipe and I believe Top Card, the third player* has to keep answering correctly to get cards, but loses if he or she a) answers incorrectly or b) Busts. Why re-invent the wheel?
*Or second player in subsequent rounds
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[quote name=\'fostergray82\' post=\'255475\' date=\'Jan 23 2011, 10:01 PM\']No, not an improvement, and I find their current tiebreaker to be a lazy copout. Honestly, the points system is completely unnecessary.
Why re-invent the wheel?[/quote]I'm going to go with "we can't just wholesale move the format 38 years into the future without making changes. What can we do that will still be the essence of trivia blackjack?
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[quote name=\'clemon79\' post=\'255348\' date=\'Jan 22 2011, 08:45 PM\']The guy could have answered every question right and controlled where all of the cards went. I think you would be extremely hard pressed to find a shuffle of the cards which, if one player gets to draw and assign every card (save for the first three, of course), can't be assigned in such a way that the player ends up winning the round, if indeed such a permutation exists. (And if it does, your next task is to prove to me that there are enough of them so as to be statistically significant...say, convince me that it could happen 0.01% of the time, making it likely to happen in at least one round of a 65-episode season.)[/quote]
I got bored while watching the Steelers mop the floor with the Jets on Sunday evening and wrote a monte carlo simulator. After numerous tweaks of the strategy during the week, I got up to a 99.7% win rate. For one run with 10,000 simulations, 9 of the 29 losses were the result of one or both opponents starting with an ace followed by multiple face cards off the top of the deck (a scenario which is impossible to win AFAICT), so that gives a conservative estimate of 0.1% of games that were unwinnable. I'm reasonably sure that at least some of the others couldn't be won either, but I didn't feel like sorting through all the possibilities. The rest looked like cases of bad luck - the algorithm made the right move for the situation, but that move turned out to be a bad idea in hindsight.
If you use the 0.29% loss rate I found and 130 rounds a season with three players, that works out to one game every 2.65 seasons where a person with a very good strategy and 100% skill on the buzzer won't win a game.
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Good stuff, and point made on the aces+faces thing. (And it becomes easier in a two-player situation since A - 10 - 10 - 10 is a screwjob also.)
But I think we also agree that having it bite you in the butt every third season (or even once per if you include the two-player rounds) isn't enough to declare the game broken. :)
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My two cents: Top Card got it right. You get a prize for winning the round. If you win the first round, you sit out the second rounds and play its winner in the third.
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[quote name=\'parliboy\' post=\'255841\' date=\'Jan 29 2011, 12:23 AM\']My two cents: Top Card got it right. You get a prize for winning the round. If you win the first round, you sit out the second rounds and play its winner in the third.[/quote]I liked it when Mr. Klauss mentioned it in an IM. I still like it here, though I think the only improvement is if you got rid of players starting with a card each. I still don't like that fillip, four series later.