Everyone wants to win a car on TPIR. It’s exciting. And it comes with a load of tax and insurance responsibilities. Who wouldn’t want that? But there are many pricing games in which you can win a car, some better than others. One of my favorites, and one that I feel is often underrated, is Cover Up.
Most contestants, when they play this game, do what’s natural and try to get each number right on the first try. I think this is the wrong strategy, and here’s why. The game is essentially broken into separate rounds, and as long as you get one new number right in each round, the game continues. Thus, when contestants do really “well” by getting, say, 4 out of 5 numbers right on their first try, they’ve actually screwed themselves by only having one chance to get that last digit, and there are often 3, 4, or even 5 numbers to choose from.
My strategy in “round one” would be to try to get the first number right and every other number wrong. The first number is basically a gimme: if a 1 is showing, cover it up with a 2. If it’s a 2, cover-up with a 1. Cars are rarely over $30,000, and it’s usually obvious when they are. If you successfully get every other number wrong, the audience might boo, but that’s great for you. Now, try to get the second number right, and every other number wrong, and continue this process. If you do this successfully, you’ll be eliminating more and more wrong numbers, making the last few digits easier to guess. And, if you’re unsuccessful, the worst that can happen is that you get more digits correct than you were expecting, which isn’t the worst thing in the world. I believe that statistical advantages to this strategy are worth the risk of getting every number wrong in any given round. Plus, it draws out the game, and makes it more fun for everyone!
Agree? Diagree? Am I crazy? Is my amateur statistical analysis totally bogus? Comment on this post and get the conversation started!
NOTE: Coming soon! I’m currently working on creating a database of all the cars given away on TPIR recently. At the moment, I’ve input the most recent 100 cars into the chart. When I get to 200, I’ll begin publishing the results in a new “car prices” series (need help with the name of that series… email priceisblog@gmail.com with suggestions). With this database (which I’ll eventually make public for anyone to analyze), we’ll be able to figure out, for example, what the most common numbers are for each digit of cars on the show, which models are more and less expensive, the price range of specific models based on the included accessories, and more.
This series could arrive as early as tomorrow or as late as never! Check back often!
4 responses so far ↓
A huge fan // May 5, 2009 at 7:47 pm |
Not positive I understand the game correctly, but what about the reverse strategy for round one? Your purposely botch the first digit, and go for all the others, while there are still tons of numbers on the board, and thus a decent chance of striking one). Then, in the second round, you’ll be guaranteed to have that first digit.
priceisblog // May 6, 2009 at 1:17 am |
Thanks for the comment, but I do, in fact, think you are not understanding the game correctly. When there are tons of numbers on the board, it’s actually much harder, not easier, to guess them correctly. The way it works is that you have 2 choices for the first digit, 3 for the second digit, 4 for the 3rd, 5 for the 4th, and 6 for the 5th. It would be very very difficult to get the 2nd through 5th digits correct in round one (though of course not impossible, if you are good at guessing the prices of cars), especially since you need to have each number in the correct spot (”striking one” isn’t really applicable–you may be thinking of a similar game, “Any Number,” in which your strategy makes a lot of sense). Your strategy is DECENT, as it gives you AT LEAST one extra round to work with. I like it better than, for example, going for ALL 5 numbers in the first round. My strategy is an attempt to manipulate the statistics and give you the best ODDS of winning by narrowing down the choices slowly. I like it in theory, but would it really work in practice? Your guess is as good as mine.
The Price is Blog, Right? // May 11, 2009 at 2:36 am |
[...] my theory. It is extremely long, so please feel free to not read it. The basic idea is that my strategy works. Also that if you know more than one number for sure, you should spread them out across [...]
Trist // June 9, 2009 at 3:27 pm |
Yeah, I would agree with the strategy. This could essentially be one of the easier of the price is right games if one knows this strategy.
Today was the first time I actually saw someone get the the first 4 numbers right on the first go.