10 ms·

Victory on “The Price Is Right” Made Them Change Their System

168 points by yitchelle 9y ago

stevewillows 9y ago
re: Michael Lawson, This American Life has a great piece on his story both before and after Press Your Luck. https://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/412/million-dollar-idea?act=4#play https://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/412/...
fjsolwmv 9y ago
Short version: TPIR used to recycle prices/products, so with studying it is easy to guess prices of products on the show. Many contestants and avid fans know this, and one of them got extra lucky in the showcase showdown by guessing the exact price, at about 1/1000 odds (after accounting for common sense and attentiveness) , which is likely to happen eventually for a daily show like TPIR. (Or possibly he was cheating or plain lucky after all. The article claims that showcases are generally $24k, and the winner's was $23743, but the opponent had a $30k showcase and bid it within $550 accuracy) Now they randomly vary the products/prices slightly, as they should have done all along.
- anthony_romeo 9y ago
  Showcases are generally $24,000, but one showcase is typically more valuable than the other. There may have been a bit of memorization by both players!
- ambrosite 9y ago
  Here's a little psychological trick I always wanted to try, if I ever got to the showcase showdown on TPIR. Suppose the other contestant passes the first showcase to me, and I believe it is the lower valued of the two showcases. I bid one dollar. If the other contestant is not paying attention, they just might bid two dollars on their showcase. That strategy works on contestant's row when everyone is bidding on the same item, but it will fail during the showcase showdown, because my bid of one dollar will be closer to the actual price of my showcase than their bid of two dollars will be to the actual price of their showcase. I don't know if I would have the guts to really try it but I think it might actually work (assuming the host didn't interfere and tip off the other contestant).
  - noitsnot 9y ago
    How likely is someone to do the $2, though? My guess is they would be really confused by the $1 bid then just bid as they would normally.
    - ambrosite 9y ago
      It's risky, sure. You would have to have a good read on the other contestant, like maybe someone who bid $1001 to get out of contestant's row, so you know they are inclined to use the plus-one-dollar strategy. I probably wouldn't have the guts to try it myself, but if someone did and pulled it off it would be legendary.
- paulcole 9y ago
  They were both (perhaps) being signaled by an audience member. This article is much more thorough: http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a7922/price-is-right-perfect-bid-0810/ http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a7922/price-is-right-pe...
- emodendroket 9y ago
  > Now they randomly vary the products/prices slightly, as they should have done all along. That's less than clear to me. It may be judged that the risk of this was low enough (it went on for decades without this happening!) that it was worth the risk to make the show more appealing to viewers (it seems to me like a shift, as they say, to products likely unfamiliar to the show's core audience might make the show less appealing).
scrubby 9y ago
It might be different now, but I'm pretty sure back in the Bob Barker era contestant selection wasn't random. The entire audience had to introduce themselves to the producer one by one and answer his questions about where they were from, what they did, and if they were there with anyone. The people selected were fairly attractive and charismatic. The selection also leaned toward people who came with larger groups. I assume so they could get camera shots of cheering and helping during the games.
- colmvp 9y ago
  Given your comment, I wonder if there's an interesting list of people who have been on the Price is Right. For example, one person I can think of is Aaron Paul (Jesse Pinkman from Breaking Bad) who said: "It looks like I'm on some serious crack. I downed about six cans of red bull because I knew they wanted people with energy. It worked, but I could not sit still. It was not healthy."
  - laretluval 9y ago
    This is definitely worth looking up on Youtube.
    - jaytaylor 9y ago
      https://youtu.be/_SEL27xiJGQ https://youtu.be/_SEL27xiJGQ He appears to be very excited indeed.
  - jacquesm 9y ago
    That much caffeine is a serious health risk.
    - stordoff 9y ago
      Six cans of Red Bull is about 480mg caffeine (assuming six 250ml cans at 32mg/100ml caffeine). Not exactly recommended (and may be unpleasant), but it shouldn't be a serious risk to the average person either (it's about the same as three strong cups of coffee).
c3534l 9y ago
I'm only surprised no one did this sooner. It's not a hard system to beat, the whole show is based around if you remember what a gallon of milk costs.
- qdpb 9y ago
  The whole story is shockingly boring. It's like a counting cards except you don't even need to know probabilities.
paulcole 9y ago
>buzzing in when he didn't know the answers to prevent other contestants from winning money Can anybody explain this part of Arthur Chu’s Jeopardy strategy? Don’t they still get the chance to answer? Or is his strategy that he’ll figure it out within the allotted time? Also was anyone else unimpressed by the main character in the articles uncanny ability to predict weather in Las Vegas? Let me guess, it will be hot. Also how did he win a Southeast Regional Emmy for working in Las Vegas?
- eropple 9y ago
  > Can anybody explain this part of Arthur Chu’s Jeopardy strategy? Don’t they still get the chance to answer? Or is his strategy that he’ll figure it out within the allotted time? As I recall, he went hunting for Daily Doubles to take them off the board and away from other players who might be able to answer them. Only the finder gets to pose a question for those.
  - paulcole 9y ago
    But that has nothing to do with: >buzzing in when he didn't know the answers to prevent other contestants from winning money
    - eropple 9y ago
      Yeah, I think it's just a misunderstanding/probably a mis-edit.
    - emmelaich 9y ago
      I think it does. He chose daily-doubles when I didn't know the answer and bet low. It denies the others the D-D and means he didn't lose much. This is explained in detail later on. It's not the most felicitous of phrasing but it makes sense to me.
      - fullshark 9y ago
        The wording is confusing at best, flat out incorrect at worst if that’s what they meant there.
paulcole 9y ago
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a7922/price-is-right-perfect-bid-0810/ http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a7922/price-is-right-pe... This esquire article adds a layer of intrigue about a guy signaling from the audience and helping everyone on that episode win.
davb 9y ago
I've no idea what's going on on this page, but my iPhone got really hot and Firefox (on my desktop) warned me that the page was running slow. The profiler on Chrome hung when trying to profile the page and I had to kill the tab in task manager.
- em3rgent0rdr 9y ago
  Privacy Badger on my Chrome Windows shows 22 trackers and uBlock Origin blocked 49 requests. That's a lot of bloat that is probably eating the CPU.
  - davb 9y ago
    I’m not convinced it’s the volume alone. I’m using ad blockers on all of my devices, and I’ve seen mainstream media sites with more than that. It could be an errant script that’s not being caught by an ad blocker and has wound up in an infinite loop.
    - em3rgent0rdr 9y ago
      I wonder if there is a javascript Hot Spot detector you could use to identify it.
- alistproducer2 9y ago
  Sites like that is why I JS whitelist sites on mobile and blacklist on desktop. I'm glad that most sites still work well because the day I'm forced to spin up my fan to read a news article is the day I'll have to reconsider using the web.
- pbhjpbhj 9y ago
  Coin mining?
JoshMnem 9y ago
It's nice to see more websites using Esperanto words. ("Urbo" is the Esperanto word for city.)
RobbyMcCullough 9y ago
This reminds me of a great thought piece that I studied a lot during my gaming years: Playing to Win. http://www.sirlin.net/articles/playing-to-win http://www.sirlin.net/articles/playing-to-win Particularly relevant to the Jeopardy contestant that buzzed in when he didn't know the answers to block others from getting the cash.
- macintux 9y ago
  I'm reminded of the first season of Survivor. I didn't watch, but followed along on (IIRC) a Diplomacy discussion forum of all places; it seemed clear that Richard was playing an extremely strategic game, even deliberately sandbagging an endurance contest when it was down to 3 players, knowing that the woman who won it would have to eliminate the other, much more popular male contestant to have a chance to win the vote of those who'd already been dispatched.
  - busterarm 9y ago
    I believe it. Playing Diplomacy, especially for years on Dipbounced, taught me more about strategy and game theory than any other resource. The community of players are all deep thinkers and incredibly ruthless. We used to have 2-3 day Diplomacy sessions back in college where we'd just do game after game and I miss it sorely. If you were to ask me to pick the most pure strategy games, Diplomacy would be #1 and maybe EVE Online would be #2.
    - CurtMonash 9y ago
      Martin Shubik once claimed to me that he more or less invented Diplomacy. I forget whether this was based on his involvement in So Long Sucker, or whether he claimed a more direct connection. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/So_Long_Sucker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/So_Long_Sucker
    - sdrothrock 9y ago
      I've always wished there were a big online community that could consistently keep Diplomacy games going smoothly...
Digital-Citizen 9y ago
The article claims more than it shows and attributes the contestants successes to the wrong factor. According to the article, host Drew Carey was sure Terry Kneiss was cheating, "When revealing Terry's winning bid, Carey didn’t really celebrate; he was sure that the man had cheated and presumes the source of the host's reaction. Footage of the moment shows Carey's uncharacteristically subdued reaction." and linked to a recording of the show. Later the article claims host Drew Carey had "presumably, unending ire". Neither claim is backed by evidence. Not only is there no information in the article indicating whether Carey was "uncharacteristically subdued" or carrying any ire, but also there's no evidence Kneiss cheated. What Kneiss did was properly called preparation, homework, or research. These are all complimentary terms which properly frame what Kneiss and other winning contestants do. It's poor editing on the article's part to choose the language they did and explain much later in the piece that there was no cheating going on. The article claims that some contestants "exploit the vulnerabilities" of game shows but this language too places the onus on the wrong party, the contestant. I'm reminded of a similarly poor accusation made against people who do well at gambling casinos in card games; they're sometimes said to be "card counting" because they mentally track which cards they've seen played in the game and use that information to compute which hands are likely to come up. This phrase is said in the context of placing the blame on the player, as if they've done something wrong. But what they're being accused of is indistinguishable from what reasonable people call paying attention. Fortune may favor the bold, but luck certainly favors preparation and a keen eye (be it studying recordings of broadcast episodes, watching a show for years on end, tracking what's been played, or taking notes based on broadcast information). If you want to play games with people who pay attention, don't be lazy in setting up the game. Don't do what CBS did on "Press Your Luck" (and certainly don't threaten not to promptly pay out when keen observers win as the article claims CBS initially did). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Press_your_luck#Michael_Larson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Press_your_luck#Michael_Larson has more information on how Larson paid attention and used the information he gleaned to win record winnings.
guywithaphone 9y ago
My show that I've "solved" is cutthroat kitchen. In this show, you don't need to be the best cook until the final round. Before that the object is to "not lose". The solution - buy the sabotages. Give the sabotages to the cook with the most money. Taking everything personal and retaliating hurts your chances of winning because it increases your chance of losing the round -- and if your retaliee loses, the remaining contestants have way more money than you. Caring about how much money is in your hand also hurts your chances of winning because you become less likely to buy the sabotage. Bidding strategy is also interesting.
- kevmo314 9y ago
  > Caring about how much money is in your hand also hurts your chances of winning because you become less likely to buy the sabotage. I haven't seen the show, but if you buy all the way to zero, what's the point of playing then? Is there a prize besides the amount of money you keep? Because if I won and only walked home with $100, it would seem like a waste of time. It does seem like a good strategy on that game would be to intentionally not win though, as you don't want to come across as a strong cook until the very last round.
  - guywithaphone 9y ago
    I hadn't thought of it that way, but that is a good point. You start with $25k, then bid on sabotages.... you take home what you keep. It's usually a few thousand, but once I saw someone take home $25k. If I were an aspiring chef or successful chef -- I see the show as having more risk than possible reward. If you lose, you might be subject to criticism of your cooking, when it should be criticism of game theory.
mjevans 9y ago
Also of interest, the less 'predictable' nature of the show made me completely loose interest in it when they modified the format. I felt like the old format rewarded the contestants for studying and knowing the answers, even if unintentionally by just buying stuff in their life. The luck element was more about where / when you got selected and how well other contestants used their advantages.
stephencoyner 9y ago
Shot out to CJ Wallis who made a movie about this and is showing it at film festivals now. The movie is called Perfect Bid.

168 points by yitchelle 9y ago

re: Michael Lawson, This American Life has a great piece on his story both before and after Press Your Luck. https://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/412/million-dollar-idea?act=4#play https://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/412/...

fjsolwmv 9y ago

Short version: TPIR used to recycle prices/products, so with studying it is easy to guess prices of products on the show. Many contestants and avid fans know this, and one of them got extra lucky in the showcase showdown by guessing the exact price, at about 1/1000 odds (after accounting for common sense and attentiveness) , which is likely to happen eventually for a daily show like TPIR. (Or possibly he was cheating or plain lucky after all. The article claims that showcases are generally $24k, and the winner's was $23743, but the opponent had a $30k showcase and bid it within $550 accuracy) Now they randomly vary the products/prices slightly, as they should have done all along.

anthony_romeo 9y ago
Showcases are generally $24,000, but one showcase is typically more valuable than the other. There may have been a bit of memorization by both players!
ambrosite 9y ago
Here's a little psychological trick I always wanted to try, if I ever got to the showcase showdown on TPIR. Suppose the other contestant passes the first showcase to me, and I believe it is the lower valued of the two showcases. I bid one dollar. If the other contestant is not paying attention, they just might bid two dollars on their showcase. That strategy works on contestant's row when everyone is bidding on the same item, but it will fail during the showcase showdown, because my bid of one dollar will be closer to the actual price of my showcase than their bid of two dollars will be to the actual price of their showcase. I don't know if I would have the guts to really try it but I think it might actually work (assuming the host didn't interfere and tip off the other contestant).
- noitsnot 9y ago
  How likely is someone to do the $2, though? My guess is they would be really confused by the $1 bid then just bid as they would normally.
  - ambrosite 9y ago
    It's risky, sure. You would have to have a good read on the other contestant, like maybe someone who bid $1001 to get out of contestant's row, so you know they are inclined to use the plus-one-dollar strategy. I probably wouldn't have the guts to try it myself, but if someone did and pulled it off it would be legendary.
paulcole 9y ago
They were both (perhaps) being signaled by an audience member. This article is much more thorough: http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a7922/price-is-right-perfect-bid-0810/ http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a7922/price-is-right-pe...
emodendroket 9y ago
> Now they randomly vary the products/prices slightly, as they should have done all along. That's less than clear to me. It may be judged that the risk of this was low enough (it went on for decades without this happening!) that it was worth the risk to make the show more appealing to viewers (it seems to me like a shift, as they say, to products likely unfamiliar to the show's core audience might make the show less appealing).

scrubby 9y ago

It might be different now, but I'm pretty sure back in the Bob Barker era contestant selection wasn't random. The entire audience had to introduce themselves to the producer one by one and answer his questions about where they were from, what they did, and if they were there with anyone. The people selected were fairly attractive and charismatic. The selection also leaned toward people who came with larger groups. I assume so they could get camera shots of cheering and helping during the games.

colmvp 9y ago
Given your comment, I wonder if there's an interesting list of people who have been on the Price is Right. For example, one person I can think of is Aaron Paul (Jesse Pinkman from Breaking Bad) who said: "It looks like I'm on some serious crack. I downed about six cans of red bull because I knew they wanted people with energy. It worked, but I could not sit still. It was not healthy."
- laretluval 9y ago
  This is definitely worth looking up on Youtube.
  - jaytaylor 9y ago
    https://youtu.be/_SEL27xiJGQ https://youtu.be/_SEL27xiJGQ He appears to be very excited indeed.
- jacquesm 9y ago
  That much caffeine is a serious health risk.
  - stordoff 9y ago
    Six cans of Red Bull is about 480mg caffeine (assuming six 250ml cans at 32mg/100ml caffeine). Not exactly recommended (and may be unpleasant), but it shouldn't be a serious risk to the average person either (it's about the same as three strong cups of coffee).

c3534l 9y ago

I'm only surprised no one did this sooner. It's not a hard system to beat, the whole show is based around if you remember what a gallon of milk costs.

qdpb 9y ago
The whole story is shockingly boring. It's like a counting cards except you don't even need to know probabilities.

paulcole 9y ago

>buzzing in when he didn't know the answers to prevent other contestants from winning money Can anybody explain this part of Arthur Chu’s Jeopardy strategy? Don’t they still get the chance to answer? Or is his strategy that he’ll figure it out within the allotted time? Also was anyone else unimpressed by the main character in the articles uncanny ability to predict weather in Las Vegas? Let me guess, it will be hot. Also how did he win a Southeast Regional Emmy for working in Las Vegas?

eropple 9y ago
> Can anybody explain this part of Arthur Chu’s Jeopardy strategy? Don’t they still get the chance to answer? Or is his strategy that he’ll figure it out within the allotted time? As I recall, he went hunting for Daily Doubles to take them off the board and away from other players who might be able to answer them. Only the finder gets to pose a question for those.
- paulcole 9y ago
  But that has nothing to do with: >buzzing in when he didn't know the answers to prevent other contestants from winning money
  - eropple 9y ago
    Yeah, I think it's just a misunderstanding/probably a mis-edit.
  - emmelaich 9y ago
    I think it does. He chose daily-doubles when I didn't know the answer and bet low. It denies the others the D-D and means he didn't lose much. This is explained in detail later on. It's not the most felicitous of phrasing but it makes sense to me.
    - fullshark 9y ago
      The wording is confusing at best, flat out incorrect at worst if that’s what they meant there.

paulcole 9y ago

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a7922/price-is-right-perfect-bid-0810/ http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a7922/price-is-right-pe... This esquire article adds a layer of intrigue about a guy signaling from the audience and helping everyone on that episode win.

davb 9y ago

I've no idea what's going on on this page, but my iPhone got really hot and Firefox (on my desktop) warned me that the page was running slow. The profiler on Chrome hung when trying to profile the page and I had to kill the tab in task manager.

em3rgent0rdr 9y ago
Privacy Badger on my Chrome Windows shows 22 trackers and uBlock Origin blocked 49 requests. That's a lot of bloat that is probably eating the CPU.
- davb 9y ago
  I’m not convinced it’s the volume alone. I’m using ad blockers on all of my devices, and I’ve seen mainstream media sites with more than that. It could be an errant script that’s not being caught by an ad blocker and has wound up in an infinite loop.
  - em3rgent0rdr 9y ago
    I wonder if there is a javascript Hot Spot detector you could use to identify it.
alistproducer2 9y ago
Sites like that is why I JS whitelist sites on mobile and blacklist on desktop. I'm glad that most sites still work well because the day I'm forced to spin up my fan to read a news article is the day I'll have to reconsider using the web.
pbhjpbhj 9y ago
Coin mining?

JoshMnem 9y ago

It's nice to see more websites using Esperanto words. ("Urbo" is the Esperanto word for city.)

RobbyMcCullough 9y ago

This reminds me of a great thought piece that I studied a lot during my gaming years: Playing to Win. http://www.sirlin.net/articles/playing-to-win http://www.sirlin.net/articles/playing-to-win Particularly relevant to the Jeopardy contestant that buzzed in when he didn't know the answers to block others from getting the cash.

macintux 9y ago
I'm reminded of the first season of Survivor. I didn't watch, but followed along on (IIRC) a Diplomacy discussion forum of all places; it seemed clear that Richard was playing an extremely strategic game, even deliberately sandbagging an endurance contest when it was down to 3 players, knowing that the woman who won it would have to eliminate the other, much more popular male contestant to have a chance to win the vote of those who'd already been dispatched.
- busterarm 9y ago
  I believe it. Playing Diplomacy, especially for years on Dipbounced, taught me more about strategy and game theory than any other resource. The community of players are all deep thinkers and incredibly ruthless. We used to have 2-3 day Diplomacy sessions back in college where we'd just do game after game and I miss it sorely. If you were to ask me to pick the most pure strategy games, Diplomacy would be #1 and maybe EVE Online would be #2.
  - CurtMonash 9y ago
    Martin Shubik once claimed to me that he more or less invented Diplomacy. I forget whether this was based on his involvement in So Long Sucker, or whether he claimed a more direct connection. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/So_Long_Sucker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/So_Long_Sucker
  - sdrothrock 9y ago
    I've always wished there were a big online community that could consistently keep Diplomacy games going smoothly...

Digital-Citizen 9y ago

The article claims more than it shows and attributes the contestants successes to the wrong factor. According to the article, host Drew Carey was sure Terry Kneiss was cheating, "When revealing Terry's winning bid, Carey didn’t really celebrate; he was sure that the man had cheated and presumes the source of the host's reaction. Footage of the moment shows Carey's uncharacteristically subdued reaction." and linked to a recording of the show. Later the article claims host Drew Carey had "presumably, unending ire". Neither claim is backed by evidence. Not only is there no information in the article indicating whether Carey was "uncharacteristically subdued" or carrying any ire, but also there's no evidence Kneiss cheated. What Kneiss did was properly called preparation, homework, or research. These are all complimentary terms which properly frame what Kneiss and other winning contestants do. It's poor editing on the article's part to choose the language they did and explain much later in the piece that there was no cheating going on. The article claims that some contestants "exploit the vulnerabilities" of game shows but this language too places the onus on the wrong party, the contestant. I'm reminded of a similarly poor accusation made against people who do well at gambling casinos in card games; they're sometimes said to be "card counting" because they mentally track which cards they've seen played in the game and use that information to compute which hands are likely to come up. This phrase is said in the context of placing the blame on the player, as if they've done something wrong. But what they're being accused of is indistinguishable from what reasonable people call paying attention. Fortune may favor the bold, but luck certainly favors preparation and a keen eye (be it studying recordings of broadcast episodes, watching a show for years on end, tracking what's been played, or taking notes based on broadcast information). If you want to play games with people who pay attention, don't be lazy in setting up the game. Don't do what CBS did on "Press Your Luck" (and certainly don't threaten not to promptly pay out when keen observers win as the article claims CBS initially did). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Press_your_luck#Michael_Larson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Press_your_luck#Michael_Larson has more information on how Larson paid attention and used the information he gleaned to win record winnings.

guywithaphone 9y ago

My show that I've "solved" is cutthroat kitchen. In this show, you don't need to be the best cook until the final round. Before that the object is to "not lose". The solution - buy the sabotages. Give the sabotages to the cook with the most money. Taking everything personal and retaliating hurts your chances of winning because it increases your chance of losing the round -- and if your retaliee loses, the remaining contestants have way more money than you. Caring about how much money is in your hand also hurts your chances of winning because you become less likely to buy the sabotage. Bidding strategy is also interesting.

kevmo314 9y ago
> Caring about how much money is in your hand also hurts your chances of winning because you become less likely to buy the sabotage. I haven't seen the show, but if you buy all the way to zero, what's the point of playing then? Is there a prize besides the amount of money you keep? Because if I won and only walked home with $100, it would seem like a waste of time. It does seem like a good strategy on that game would be to intentionally not win though, as you don't want to come across as a strong cook until the very last round.
- guywithaphone 9y ago
  I hadn't thought of it that way, but that is a good point. You start with $25k, then bid on sabotages.... you take home what you keep. It's usually a few thousand, but once I saw someone take home $25k. If I were an aspiring chef or successful chef -- I see the show as having more risk than possible reward. If you lose, you might be subject to criticism of your cooking, when it should be criticism of game theory.

mjevans 9y ago

Also of interest, the less 'predictable' nature of the show made me completely loose interest in it when they modified the format. I felt like the old format rewarded the contestants for studying and knowing the answers, even if unintentionally by just buying stuff in their life. The luck element was more about where / when you got selected and how well other contestants used their advantages.

stephencoyner 9y ago

Shot out to CJ Wallis who made a movie about this and is showing it at film festivals now. The movie is called Perfect Bid.