Victory on “The Price Is Right” Made Them Change Their System | Hacker News Reader

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

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168 pointsyitchelle76 comments

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.

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."

This is definitely worth looking up on Youtube.

https://youtu.be/_SEL27xiJGQ

He appears to be very excited indeed.

That much caffeine is a serious health risk.

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).

LD50 is 150-200mg per kg, so 480mg from 6 cans of redbull shouldn't be a serious risk.

I drink that much caffeine before noon every day. It's 3 cups of coffee.

edit: I suspect the ~200g of sugar is worse on some level.

The contestant selection for the Price is Right television show isn't random. You're spot on, a producer selects the contestants based on a quick interview with each audience member before the show. Even if the selection process has changed recently this story is from 2008. The article is wrong. And this website appears to be spun click traffic farming site, way to go Hacker News.

Those words link to the FAQ of the show. http://priceisrightlive.com/faqs/

> All contestants’ names are randomly drawn prior to start of show. If a person selected as a contestant is a non-ticket holder, they will be brought inside the venue by producers to await their turn as contestant.

Even if, as you say, this citation is too recent and reflects some more recent change, and the selection wasn't literally random, he'd still have to somehow be chosen, which doesn't seem entirely within his control.

That link is not to the Price is Right TV show. The "Price is Right" brand has a traveling live theater production as well called Price is Right Live. Tickets to that cost money. Tickets for the real TV show in Los Angeles are free. Thanks for playing.

This seems like an excessive level of condescension for a lack of familiarity with the Price is Right expanded universe.

What, "thanks for playing"? It's a sparkling bright opportunity for that joke, not a put-down.

You "corrected" someone out of ignorance who knew your correction was wrong. I think you need to swallow your pride rather than complain about their being condescending; feeling humiliated is your brains way of learning to be more careful in the future.

I expect I made a mistake here too, that would be normal in this sort of conversation.

> feeling humiliated is your brains way of learning to be more careful in the future.

Yeah, I'm really humiliated here. How could I possibly confuse The Price is Right and The Price is Right Live? Gonna be tough to live that one down.

Never thought I’d read the words “Price is Right” and “expanded universe” in the one sentence on HN...

Let me add to the amazement by pointing out that there even seems to be "Price is Right fanfiction" out there [0]. Tho it's hosted on angelfire and the texts are saved as word documents, which is either really odd or really smart, depending on the intentions of the creator.

[0] http://www.angelfire.com/funky/plinkoman/fan_fiction.html

TIL Angelfire is still around.

And here I thought I was being facetious.

Yes, if you go with a big enough group, they guarantee (at least back in 1998) that one person from the group would get on.

TV shows are always like this. Random would mean that really tall people or really fat people would get on, which would look weird — people look bigger on TV, and most TV people tend to be smaller.

Yeah it was like you say. My cousin was on Price is Right. He came with a group of 20, and they were guaranteed that at least one of their group would be in contestants row.

I once went with a group of 20 that was registered in advance and nobody from our group was called (but I think we were guaranteed seats and didn't have to wait in line). I think the 20+ group thing is an urban legend, the producers can really choose whoever they want. However the way the show is done, if a person has a big cheering section that is good for the show, so I imagine if you come in a group your chance of getting selected is a lot higher than if you come alone.

If memory serves correctly they interviewed us in groups of 5, and for the group I was in the whole "interview" lasted about 3 seconds. They lined us up, looked us over, then passed us on. Still quite a fun experience, and though I didn't get called I was still terrified the whole time I might get called so the adrenaline was running.

Yes. I was there with a group of 30. They dismissed most of us in seconds, but took longer to talk with a few of our liveliest members. The one they talked the longest with got called as a contestant.

What do they say? Just small talk like where youre from and whatd you do for a living?

That's the sort of thing they started with. But that was just to have something to talk about. It was much more about tone than content.

Yep, it's still like that now, too! I was on The Price is Right a few months ago, and I got called to "come on down" to be a contestant.

Before the show, producer Stan Blits greets every member of the audience while they're waiting in line. He chats with each audience member (for about 20 seconds) to gauge their liveliness & enthusiasm. As he's chatting with each person, he gives a subtle hand signal to an intern who is standing behind him with a notepad. For each audience member who he thinks might make a good contestant, the intern writes down the person's name on the notepad.

After the audience is seated, he continues to refine the list by standing on the side of the stage and observing the potential contestants in their seats. He checks to see which ones are still energetic and cheering while they're sitting in the audience too.

So that could be easily gamed too is what you're saying.

Well, people smart enough to be the kind of contestant they want, are still fulfilling what the producers want.

Agreed! My step-uncle, an actor and extremely outgoing guy, managed to impress the producer enough to get into the small selection pool of contestants and get on the snow. He won a bunch of stuff, but had to turn it down because he had no space for a bunch of random merch and didn't want to pay taxes on it. It can actually be a big burden on these shows that don't do cash prizes.

cash would mean smaller profit margins and less of a spectacle

A 60 inch TV sounds more impressive than $200

You're missing the biggest reason: advertising. Getting your product on the show is great for brand awareness and probably costs quite a bit, plus free products.

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.

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.

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!

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).

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.

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.

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-pe...

> 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).

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.

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

Particularly relevant to the Jeopardy contestant that buzzed in when he didn't know the answers to block others from getting the cash.

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.

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.

I've always wished there were a big online community that could consistently keep Diplomacy games going smoothly...

There is. Send me an email.

I couldn't find your e-mail address, so I sent you a tweet.

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

I'm looking for hardcore Diplomacy players to fill out the roster of a one-move-a-week, online-only game. Send me an email if you're interested.

Very tempting offer that I passed along to a couple of people. At the moment I'm preparing to change jobs and launch a business simultaneously and I'm trying to reduce any commitments that I have.

Thank you for the offer.

After having gotten my ass kicked (figuratively) a few times in real life business situations where I was too smug for my own good and thought I could get an advantage using my (limited) knowledge of game theory, and watching discussions of shows like Survivor and how people play 'strategically', I've wondered - are there any resources on real life applications of game theory? Things like war gaming (the real military kind, not c&c) sort of go there sometimes but I'm not a general so military applications are of limited use to me. Anyone know of business oriented literature for those of us to whom street smarts doesn't come natural?

Yes! I never watched Survivor, but my mom and brother are both die-hards. They've talked about this before. During the first season, no one was _playing to win_ except for Richard. Then, in all of the later season, the players were much savvier and the strategy was much more deliberate.

The contrast between the later seasons and the first season sounds fascinating.

>Particularly relevant to the Jeopardy contestant that buzzed in when he didn't know the answers to block others from getting the cash.

But this isn’t how Jeopardy works. If you get the question wrong, I still get the opportunity to get it right.

Can you explain this in more detail?

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.

> 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.

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.

>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?

> 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.

But that has nothing to do with:

>buzzing in when he didn't know the answers to prevent other contestants from winning money

Yeah, I think it's just a misunderstanding/probably a mis-edit.

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.

The wording is confusing at best, flat out incorrect at worst if that’s what they meant there.

Are the Daily Doubles not randomly-placed? How do you "hunt" them?

They're actually not distributed evenly, so it is possible to hunt and find them with a reasonably high probability of success. This has probably been discovered multiple times by people independently, but was most widely publicized by Flowing Data two years ago. I don't know if the producers ever explained why Daily Doubles are more likely to appear in certain places. Perhaps they intend for observant contestants to be able to guess at their locations.

http://flowingdata.com/2015/03/03/where-to-find-jeopardy-dai...

>buzzing in when he didn't know the answers to prevent other contestants from winning money

How does buzzing in when you don’t know the answer (not betting less when you’ve uncovered a daily double) keep others from winning money?

When you buzz in and get the answer wrong it doesn’t affect my ability to buzz in and get it right.

>> 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?

No, others didn't get the chance to answer for Daily Doubles. He would take away daily doubles when possible and bet low on categories he didn't know the answers.

> Also how did he win a Southeast Regional Emmy for working in Las Vegas?

The article doesn't say he received those while working in Las Vegas. He got them in Atlanta.

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

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.

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

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/...

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.

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.

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.

I wonder if there is a javascript Hot Spot detector you could use to identify it.

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.

Coin mining?

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