Hi! What is this, you ask? It's a project that's been ratting around in brain since my appearance on The Price is Right. I used strategy to win Master Key, so what other games have strategy? As a completionist, there's no way I could do this for just a couple of games. Thus, my goal is to create the most comprehensive Price is Right strategy guide anywhere on the Internet. I will include stats and tips about every single game in the current rotation (as of June 2019, there are 77 pricing games). Granted, for some games it will be "there is no strategy, just know the price." But you may be surprised about some of the strategies for some of the games. For example, did you know there's a strategy in Magic # that has guaranteed a win in every single playing of that game since season 43 without knowing anything about the actual prices? Or that contestants play Cover Up so horribly that even though they usually know the first two digits of the car's price, they barely win more than they would if they just picked everything completely randomly? Stay tuned!
My plan is to post one of these every day, six days a week. (Sunday will be a day of rest.) I'll start with three posts for things that happen on every show: items up for bids, the showcase showdowns (a.k.a the wheel), and the showcases. Then I'll go through all 77 games in alphabetical order, for a total of 80 posts after this one. My goal is to be done before season 48 starts in September, though they haven't announced the start date of the new season yet, so we'll see how it goes.
Resources: I would be remiss if I didn't post three key resources I'll be using to come up with my strategies:
Trip rule: The farther a trip is from Los Angeles, the more expensive the price. So if you have to decide which trip is more expensive, New York or Salt Lake City, simply remember the trip rule and you'll choose NYC and be right every time.
The rule of pairs: If you have two of an identical prize (such as two identical motorcycles, two identical surfboards, etc.), then the total price is almost certainly going to end in an even number. The reason is that 2 times any integer is guaranteed to be even! The only reason it might be odd is if the original price is something like $2999.45. The show adds and then rounds to the nearest dollar, not the other way around, so in this case, the total price would be $5999, not $5998, as $2999.45 + $2999.45 = $5998.90, which gets rounded to $5999. But that kind of price is rather rare, so if you have a choice of an even or odd number for the price of 2 of an item and you're not sure, go for the even price.
Paint and fabric protection car option rule: If you're playing for a car, listen to the options that George describes. If you hear paint and fabric protection as one of the options, the price will NOT end in a 0 or 5. If you don't hear paint and fabric protection, there's a chance the price will end in a 0 or 5, though it's not guaranteed.
Pick the end points: If you ever see an arrangement of items, pick the one on the far left or far right! (Yup, that was my Master Key strategy.) Most people find it more comfortable to pick the items in the middle and the producers know this. I'll talk about how this applies in specific games as I go along.
The following two were pointed out at golden-road.net after I posted this article:
Consecutive car digits rarely repeat: With the exception of the first two digits of the price, consecutive digits in a car's price rarely repeat. So $22,136 is a price that could happen, but $21,336 or $24,419 are not likely due to this rule.
Three or more small prizes rarely have the same correct decision: If you have three or four small prizes that you need to guess higher/lower or true/false on, it's extremely rare that all three or four have the same answer. It's almost always a 2/1 split in the case of three small prizes and usually a 3/1 or less commonly a 2/2 split in the case of four small prizes. I'll point out specific stats in those games as I go along.
And finally...
Get inside your own head: The producers are inside your head before you ever make it on to the stage. They know you're more likely to pick numbers 2-5 in Pass the Buck, choose 5's in Lucky $even, or feel the pressure of everyone staring at you while you're pushing the lever in Magic # and thus stop too soon because you feel it just can't be right to take a long time to set the value. If you want to maximize your chances of winning, you need to figure out what you'd be afraid to do while playing a game and go counter to that fear. Magic # is an excellent example--people are afraid of taking too long to push the lever. As a result, the game is never lost by putting the price too high; it's always lost by putting the price too low. (In fact, out of the 67 losses in that game from seasons 32-46, ONE of those losses was by setting the number too high.) If you know this in advance, you'll recognize that fear when you get on stage, be willing to set that price high, and have a much better chance of winning. And the time to figure that out is before you ever go to the show; once you're on that stage, things move so fast you probably won't have time to unpack everything you're thinking.
Good luck out there! And if you do use these strategies to win something on the show, drop me a line--I'd love to hear about it!
*A season of the Price is Right typically runs from September of one year to August of the next. There are some exceptions where a season has spilled into September of the next year, but that's not terribly relevant for the information I'll be posting. Here are some specific seasons and the approximate time frames they refer to:
Season 29: Fall 2000-Summer 2001
Season 30: Fall 2001-Summer 2002
Season 31: Fall 2002-Summer 2003
Season 32: Fall 2003-Summer 2004
Season 33: Fall 2004-Summer 2005
Season 34: Fall 2005-Summer 2006
Season 35: Fall 2006-Summer 2007
Season 36: Fall 2007-Summer 2008
Season 37: Fall 2008-Summer 2009
Season 38: Fall 2009-Summer 2010
Season 39: Fall 2010-Summer 2011
Season 40: Fall 2011-Summer 2012
Season 41: Fall 2012-Summer 2013
Season 42: Fall 2013-Summer 2014
Season 43: Fall 2014-Summer 2015
Season 44: Fall 2015-Summer 2016
Season 45: Fall 2016-Summer 2017
Season 46: Fall 2017-Summer 2018
Season 47: Fall 2018-Summer 2019
My plan is to post one of these every day, six days a week. (Sunday will be a day of rest.) I'll start with three posts for things that happen on every show: items up for bids, the showcase showdowns (a.k.a the wheel), and the showcases. Then I'll go through all 77 games in alphabetical order, for a total of 80 posts after this one. My goal is to be done before season 48 starts in September, though they haven't announced the start date of the new season yet, so we'll see how it goes.
Resources: I would be remiss if I didn't post three key resources I'll be using to come up with my strategies:
- http://www.golden-road.net
THE best site for TPiR information on the internet, bar none. They have very active forums there and people there have come up with many of the patterns I'll be sharing throughout my posts. They also have incredible information about the show's past, insider photos, and so on. I highly recommend it. (My username there is LiteBulb88 should you wish to see my posts.) - http://www.tpirstats.com
This is a fan of the show who has posted TPiR stats since season 29*. Most of the raw data I use to calculate my stats comes from this site. - MATLAB
I'm using MATLAB to do lots of number crunching on the data from the TPiR stats web page. Full disclosure: I worked at the company that makes MATLAB for over 13 years, and I still consult for them. I am a big believer in their products! I don't plan to post the actual code so as not to overwhelm the posts, but I'm happy to share the scripts if anyone asks.
Trip rule: The farther a trip is from Los Angeles, the more expensive the price. So if you have to decide which trip is more expensive, New York or Salt Lake City, simply remember the trip rule and you'll choose NYC and be right every time.
The rule of pairs: If you have two of an identical prize (such as two identical motorcycles, two identical surfboards, etc.), then the total price is almost certainly going to end in an even number. The reason is that 2 times any integer is guaranteed to be even! The only reason it might be odd is if the original price is something like $2999.45. The show adds and then rounds to the nearest dollar, not the other way around, so in this case, the total price would be $5999, not $5998, as $2999.45 + $2999.45 = $5998.90, which gets rounded to $5999. But that kind of price is rather rare, so if you have a choice of an even or odd number for the price of 2 of an item and you're not sure, go for the even price.
Paint and fabric protection car option rule: If you're playing for a car, listen to the options that George describes. If you hear paint and fabric protection as one of the options, the price will NOT end in a 0 or 5. If you don't hear paint and fabric protection, there's a chance the price will end in a 0 or 5, though it's not guaranteed.
Pick the end points: If you ever see an arrangement of items, pick the one on the far left or far right! (Yup, that was my Master Key strategy.) Most people find it more comfortable to pick the items in the middle and the producers know this. I'll talk about how this applies in specific games as I go along.
The following two were pointed out at golden-road.net after I posted this article:
Consecutive car digits rarely repeat: With the exception of the first two digits of the price, consecutive digits in a car's price rarely repeat. So $22,136 is a price that could happen, but $21,336 or $24,419 are not likely due to this rule.
Three or more small prizes rarely have the same correct decision: If you have three or four small prizes that you need to guess higher/lower or true/false on, it's extremely rare that all three or four have the same answer. It's almost always a 2/1 split in the case of three small prizes and usually a 3/1 or less commonly a 2/2 split in the case of four small prizes. I'll point out specific stats in those games as I go along.
And finally...
Get inside your own head: The producers are inside your head before you ever make it on to the stage. They know you're more likely to pick numbers 2-5 in Pass the Buck, choose 5's in Lucky $even, or feel the pressure of everyone staring at you while you're pushing the lever in Magic # and thus stop too soon because you feel it just can't be right to take a long time to set the value. If you want to maximize your chances of winning, you need to figure out what you'd be afraid to do while playing a game and go counter to that fear. Magic # is an excellent example--people are afraid of taking too long to push the lever. As a result, the game is never lost by putting the price too high; it's always lost by putting the price too low. (In fact, out of the 67 losses in that game from seasons 32-46, ONE of those losses was by setting the number too high.) If you know this in advance, you'll recognize that fear when you get on stage, be willing to set that price high, and have a much better chance of winning. And the time to figure that out is before you ever go to the show; once you're on that stage, things move so fast you probably won't have time to unpack everything you're thinking.
Good luck out there! And if you do use these strategies to win something on the show, drop me a line--I'd love to hear about it!
*A season of the Price is Right typically runs from September of one year to August of the next. There are some exceptions where a season has spilled into September of the next year, but that's not terribly relevant for the information I'll be posting. Here are some specific seasons and the approximate time frames they refer to:
Season 29: Fall 2000-Summer 2001
Season 30: Fall 2001-Summer 2002
Season 31: Fall 2002-Summer 2003
Season 32: Fall 2003-Summer 2004
Season 33: Fall 2004-Summer 2005
Season 34: Fall 2005-Summer 2006
Season 35: Fall 2006-Summer 2007
Season 36: Fall 2007-Summer 2008
Season 37: Fall 2008-Summer 2009
Season 38: Fall 2009-Summer 2010
Season 39: Fall 2010-Summer 2011
Season 40: Fall 2011-Summer 2012
Season 41: Fall 2012-Summer 2013
Season 42: Fall 2013-Summer 2014
Season 43: Fall 2014-Summer 2015
Season 44: Fall 2015-Summer 2016
Season 45: Fall 2016-Summer 2017
Season 46: Fall 2017-Summer 2018
Season 47: Fall 2018-Summer 2019
There's a lot of talk about cars ending and not ending in 0 or 5... but what about 9? That digit is used as a fake ending just as much as 0 and 5. There have been plenty of One Away playings where the last digit is a choice between 7/9 with the 7 being correct, and also many Pathfinder setups where 9 is a choice for the last digit and it's always wrong in modern-day seasons. And Cover Up almost-always has 0, 5, and 9 all as choices in the last column in hopes that someone wastes picks on them because they're rarely right.
ReplyDeletePretty much the only time we see cars ending in 9 in games where the price matters is in Lucky $even.
Here's a strategy I use for Money Game that works at least 95% of the time today...
ReplyDeleteAfter finding the front pair, disregard all of the following remaining pairs:
- The other choices meant to be for the front pair (16-24 typically)
- The pair between 90-99 (always present)
- The top-middle pair, which is always the season number
- Any pairs ending in 0, 5, or 9 EXCEPT "El Cheapos" 05 or 10.
This will usually leave you with just two or three choices for the back pair. People are more likely to choose a 9X or X0/X5/X9 ending because they look nice.
Using the June 24, 2019 playing as an example, this was the setup:
20 | 47 | 68
96 | 73 | 19
54 | 18 | 85
??7??
The 18, 19, 20 are the front pair contenders, so for the back, we can eliminate those, plus 96, 85, and the season number 47. This only leaves 68, 73, and 54 as the likely back pair.
The correct front pair was 20 and the correct back pair was 68 in this example. Sometimes on specials, they'll be nice and make one of the nice-looking back pairs correct (I remember the 9X pair was right on Kids Week this year).