Author Topic: Catch 21 situation.... (Read 10308 times)

TLEberle · « **Reply #15 on:** January 22, 2011, 03:47:16 PM »

[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?

Fedya · « **Reply #16 on:** January 22, 2011, 08:08:44 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.

TLEberle · « **Reply #17 on:** January 22, 2011, 09:01:52 PM »

[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?

clemon79 · « **Reply #18 on:** January 22, 2011, 09:45:13 PM »

[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.)

TLEberle · « **Reply #19 on:** January 22, 2011, 09:56:37 PM »

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.

Jeremy Nelson · « **Reply #20 on:** January 23, 2011, 12:22:42 AM »

...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.

clemon79 · « **Reply #21 on:** January 23, 2011, 12:36:08 AM »

[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.

Quote

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.

BrandonFG · « **Reply #22 on:** January 23, 2011, 12:48:59 AM »

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

TLEberle · « **Reply #23 on:** January 23, 2011, 12:59:53 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.

Jeremy Nelson · « **Reply #24 on:** January 23, 2011, 03:36:22 AM »

[quote name=\'clemon79\' post=\'255361\' date=\'Jan 22 2011, 11:36 PM\']

Quote

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.

clemon79 · « **Reply #25 on:** January 23, 2011, 03:43:33 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.)

Jeremy Nelson · « **Reply #26 on:** January 23, 2011, 04:38:14 AM »

[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.

MikeK · « **Reply #27 on:** January 23, 2011, 11:26:07 AM »

[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.

TLEberle · « **Reply #28 on:** January 23, 2011, 03:24:38 PM »

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")

chrisholland03 · « **Reply #29 on:** January 23, 2011, 09:25:05 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.