Slate\'s Ben Blatt has come up with a handy guide to applying game theory to all the pricing games, including Contestants\' Row, the Big Wheel, and something called the Showcase Showdown, which is distinct from spinning the wheel. You\'d think anyone who spent as much time compiling this cheat sheet as Blatt did wouldn\'t have made such a boo-boo, but he did. It\'s been corrected in the article but not in the cheat sheet. (By the way, the point of this post is not to gripe about that common mistake but to direct people to the article.)
Interesting stuff...haven\'t had a chance to pore over it completely, but he lists the Double Prices strategy as the 1 Right Price strategy (by mistake I imagine), and his theory on Spelling Bee is invalid, because it supposes the contestant knows what letter they have after each pick.
-Jason
Taking away what we know about product descriptions, if there are always two \"Then\", the short version reads like this:
Current contestants win Grand Game about one in three times. He says \"guess randomly,\" which is silly because the game is about finding the least expensive items.
He also says he recommends these strategies when you are unsure of the prices. It\'s safe to say if you know the treadmill is $1500, ignore what he says, and do what it takes to win.
But overall, if people come to the studio with this thinking they have the show beat, a lot of people are going to go home disappointed. Unfairly so, because he makes it clear it\'s not foolproof, but there\'s going to be those folks.
-Jason
Current contestants win Grand Game about one in three times. He says \"guess randomly,\" which is silly because the game is about finding the least expensive items. Using his strategy you\'ll win one in fifteen times. Woo haw.
No, what he\'s saying is that if you employ strategy that has zero to do with guess items, you\'ll win 1 in 15 times. Grand Game is one of the games that requires pricing knowledge to win.
This is why the obvious Cover-Up strategy isn\'t listed; it requires a pricing-based selection. An obvious one, but pricing-based nonetheless.
Note that where some strategy exists, it\'s based sometimes based on observation of habits.
No wonder my teachers were always concerned about reading comprehension.No, what he\'s saying is that if you employ strategy that has zero to do with guess items, you\'ll win 1 in 15 times. Grand Game is one of the games that requires pricing knowledge to win.
\"If you\'re too stupid to know what things cost, good news! I\'ll teach you principles of game theory! You know, the stuff economists and generals spend their lives figuring out!\"
The guy was interviewed on All Things Considered tonight. Most of the stuff he touted as \"game theory\" would be better described as \"common sense\", including the shocking revelation that the person in the fourth position on Contestants Row would probably do pretty well to bid one dollar more than the highest bid among the other three.
The guy was interviewed on All Things Considered tonight. Most of the stuff he touted as \"game theory\" would be better described as \"common sense\", including the shocking revelation that the person in the fourth position on Contestants Row would probably do pretty well to bid one dollar more than the highest bid among the other three.
It\'s been my experience that the people who throw around the term \"game theory\" in an effort to make the information they are presenting seem more important don\'t really have a full grasp of what \"game theory\" really is.
There\'s certainly a difference between exploiting behavior (\"good old rock, nothing beats that.\") patterns and \"If you approach Grocery Game like a hole of golf you have a better chance of winning it.\"It\'s been my experience that the people who throw around the term \"game theory\" in an effort to make the information they are presenting seem more important don\'t really have a full grasp of what \"game theory\" really is.
And I\'m not talking about the utility of any of the tips, some of which I am sure are quite useful. I\'m saying that applying the pretentious term \"game theory\" to it would be like me suggesting that a simple explanation of how farking magnets work is a discussion of \"quantum physics.\"
It would be interesting to see if they stop picking the third digit in \"Squeeze Play.\" And it\'s a darn shame he didn\'t have anything for \"Stack the Deck.\"
And it\'s a darn shame he didn\'t have anything for \"Stack the Deck.\"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOoXwxqeVzg&hd=1
One of my biggest problems was that in the lower right-hand corner of the chart, he interchangeably uses the words \"bid\" and \"bet.\"
I\'d like to know how he came to his Freeze Frame solution of \"stop the wheel after it has rotated four times.\" Primarily because the sources from which he compiled his data don\'t list the starting position of the Freeze Frame board. But also because from first-hand experience, I know that the board operator sometimes rotates the numbers before taping resumes, then starts to continually rotate the numbers as the prize is revealed. And keeps rotating for the duration of the prize description, which varies in length from playing to playing.
He also makes Clock Game sound more complicated than it needs to be.