Not Jeopardy but still...

Price is Right opening bid

2nd lady bids 800
3rd guy bids 1200
4th lady bids .....799

2nd guy ends up with 14801 which is perfect for covering #3. He can't bet 2801, since that doesn't help him much since if a double miss from #1 and #2 still leaves him with too little. #2 is pretty much perfect in his betting.

#3 is the only real doofus. He only wins if #1 and #2 do something horribly stupid (like bet nothing), and he bets enough to cover. Obviously he needs to bet some trivial amount, like 1800. If #2 gets cute, he wins with getting it right if #1 misses. If #1 gets it right, he is screwed. If #2 gets it right but bets small/nothing, #3 can win. If #2 misses and bets what you'd expect, he's in good shape if #1 misses as well, even if he misses.

#3 is actually not that bad a spot for most jeopardy games. It's pretty likely either all 3 get it right or all 3 get it wrong. If you can win by everyone being wrong, you are in great shape.

That is fantastic. How mad would you be if your SO got to be on there and that's the bid they make. It is literally the worst bid you can make.

I saw something like that, and Bob or Drew (forget which) asked something like "are you sure?" And then they said they were definitely sure.

It would be hilarious if it won. And it's not the worst bid, I'd bet 9999 is even worse.

They could cut each player's prize money in half if its a tie or something

i can think of a worse bid

lol just a minute ago in Final Jeopardy the guy answered 'Tim Tebow' I think he was leveling and just didn't know the question.

Answer was: 'Stefan Kanfer's 2008 biography of this star is titled "Somebody", a nod to one of his most famous lines.

When I played in the college tournament, I was leading at the end of my first game but I had done a lot of homework on likely scores and even though the category was near perfect for me (I think it was "American Poetry") I wagered very little on the question, finished second in my game but still advanced.

The number of people who thought I was the biggest idiot on the planet was staggering. I'm not sure they even realized I got to play again.

I also wagered less than face value on a daily double, but the one right before that I wagered almost my whole stack when I was already winning.

Ya I was actually thinking about what the worst bid possible is. Obviously all guesses greater than a certain number are going to be equally bad, whatever that number happens to be (I guess it probably depends on the avg. price of the showcase items or something like that), but once we get below whatever that number is, guessing $1 below anybody else's guess is always going to be the worst possible guess, because you literally have to hit it on the money to win. Obviously guessing $1M is going to be a terrible guess, but in terms of guessing within the realistic range of prices, $1 less than anybody else's guess are all pretty much tied as the worst guesses possible, although I suppose you could then rank them by most likely to be on the money.

I think there was some ****** on there who also tried to bid like $5000 on something that was obviously nowhere near that value.

Then the guy who bid $250,000 on the Showcase is also pretty funny. It's hilarious when the host tries to talk them out of such idiocy but they don't even understand it.

I'm quite amazed how many people don't do $1 or bid + $1 (of the last bettor). I guess they are worried people will do that to them and it is not proper etiquette.

For the 2nd to last person, it's a little bit more interesting of a problem, I'm sure that contestants bid $1 over someone way less than optimally. You need to give yourself the best range that someone won't "steal".

I'd be interested in seeing an analysis of which order contestant wins at what rates. Obviously 4 should have a huge edge, but I wonder how much it actually is.

This would actually be really interesting to see.

If you're going last and you have an idea of what the price is in your mind, your best bet is to simply guess $1 above the person who is closest to but still under the price you're thinking of, right?

betting 799 when someone bets 800 is only slightly better than betting 5000

at least with 799, you have a 0.01% chance of being right on the nose. with 5000, when you know it's going to be in the 0-2000 range, you have 0% chance of winning.


still an epic bid though

right, say they are betting on some furniture that is approx 1000 dollars.


bid 1, 800

bid 2 550

now it's your turn, if you bid 801

guy 4 802


as the third guy, i'd go like 551. so the 4th person wouldn't have an easy cap on my bid, he's have to decide to go 551 or 801

Somewhat. You pick what gives you the best chance of winning, LDO. While similar to what you are thinking, it's not *exactly* the same.

Say you think the price is 895 if you aren't sure, and the previous bets are 700, 850, 900, 1200. You probably go with either 701 or 901. You should absolutely, going last, never bet anything other than $1 more than someone or $1. The only exception is if you absolutely know the price and want to win the bonus for getting it right.

3rd guy wants to leave you a decent range where you won't try to "overbid" him. So if it was 700 and 900, you might bet something like 820 to try make a decent range but chances the guy after you "overbid" someone else. If you bet 701, you'll get screwed when he bets 702.

The 2nd and 1st guys are in a much tougher spot since they are the ones most likely to be "overbid", so I'd probably guess the first guy's bet is to go a little on the high end, so people are scared to go one more than him. 2nd guy should probably pick a small range under the first guy to prevent anyone from wanting that gap.

You also want to lean towards letting someone want to take $1 at the end, since, although it gives them a better chance at winning, it gives you a better shot of having them not take 1 more than you.

I'm sure an economics graduate student has done all of this analysis before if we just search enough. We could probably simulate it where there is a range of prices that we think it's in, with a normal distribution, and then use game theory to work it out backwards where to go.

If you thought the value was 1000 (and thought everyone else thought that), you are probably better off bidding something like 950 (or even 1000). It will be a lot tougher for him to do 951, and the odds of him doing that might be lower than the odds of winning at 550. It's tough to predict what people on that show will do, though.

Yuck. Today (4/26)

1st 10,800
2nd 8,000
3rd 7,400

3rd bet it all
2nd bet 6801
1st bet 5201

They all got it wrong. What is 3rd places plan?

Second player betting was not perfect IMO. First, assume player 1 is going to bet enough to cover player 2. This will not always happen, but it's very common.

Now if you're player 2 you have to decide which thing you want to accomplish:
1) Make sure you cover player 3
2) Make sure you win on a Triple Stumper given player 1's bet

You cannot do both things with the same wager. If you are going to bet enough to cover player 3, you might as well bet it all to maximize the amount you win.

If you're going to try to win on a Triple Stumper, you might as well bet $0.

Player 2 has to decide if a Triple Stumper or lone miss by Player 1 is more likely and bet accordingly.

I wouldn't say Player 2's bet was really that bad or anything, he bet the majority of what he had, evidently deciding the more important thing was to make sure to cover player 3, but in that case he should have bet more since he's effed anyway if he misses.

You are neglecting one small detail, which is the difference in prize money between 2nd and 3rd. Probably not important enough for the analysis, but his chances of getting 2nd are a bit higher if he doesn't bet it all. Of course, that means he should probably bet something like 7842 to win a lot, but get 2nd if #3 bets it all.

Definitely good points on going for the triple stumper or the lone miss. A lot of that depends on the category.

Increasing win rate at the expense of amount won is also a somewhat interesting bet. Although winning can mean winning a LOT more money in the upcoming days, it might be such a dominant factor, it might be worth winning with $1 over a big chance of winning with a huge amount, but a small chance of losing.

Yes, none of what I said factors in the chances of getting second.

It gets really hard to quantify if you want to start putting stuff like that into it, because second and third place are prizes and not money. Frequently second place is a trip or something, while third place is something tangible. If you don't care about the trip, you may very well prefer the hard asset that you can easily sell even if you don't really want it.

(second place was often a trip when I watched a lot, may not be the case now)

2nd is $2000, 3rd is $1000 now (I think). It's definitely cash now, they show it at the end of episodes. I could be wrong on the numbers, but I noticed that the losing contestants scores change to what they actually win. I'm pretty sure this is a new development and it may have used to be prizes and other BS.

Damn, if that's true, it's a lot better than the prizes they used to give.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeopardy!#Cash_prizes

The numbers I gave are correct since 2002, but they don't pay for your transportation, so pretty much the prize covers that.

Some interesting notes in there about the old version of the show where they let everyone keep the prize money they earned. It definitely makes an interesting strategy of people who are too scared to risk a lot to win. The value of coming back is quite high, though, but a lot of people are going to be risk averse on huge dollar amounts. Imagine if 2 people were at $20,000 and $19,000 in the current setup. There is going to be a lot more wagering there than the old setup.

A little OT, but a fun fact for anyone who didn't know:

Mel Gibson's dad was awesome at Jeopardy! (old version) and won the Tournament of Champions.

He also appears to be bat**** insane.

Am I right to think that most people do not risk nearly enough on daily doubles? It seems like the contestants usually know most every answer (or is it question?) and yet they bet marginal amounts on daily doubles even when it is third or fourth question down and a category that they are very comfortable with. It's like wtf are you doing? Take advantage of the opportunity and play to win.

Dude won by 2$ just now

This would actually make sense. I'm a bit surprised they don't do this.