The Ultimate Price is Right Strategy Guide: Master Key

Master Key

Rules

Three prizes are shown, usually a car and two smaller prizes. Each prize has a lock associated with it. Five keys are then shown. One of those keys opens the lock to the car, one opens the lock to the middle prize, one opens the lock to the cheap prize, one opens all the locks (the "master key"), and one opens none of the locks. To win keys, the contestant must guess small price prizes correctly. Two small prizes are shown; the contestant must guess the correct price of each prize to win a key.

Random fact

On April 15, 2019, I...errr, the contestant who played Master Key found both the car key and the master key. That hadn't happened since November 4, 2009, almost 10 years earlier. You can see my...errr, the April 15, 2019 playing here:

(Jump ahead to the 40:00 mark to see the Master Key playing.)

Win-loss record

• Actual (seasons 29-46): 58-88 (39.73%)
• What it would be by random chance: 3/8 (37.5%)

<voice from offstage> Hey! The win rate is just barely better than random chance?! Really? Are the small prizes that hard to guess the price of?

Oh, you again. No, the small prizes aren't that hard to guess the price of. Contestants are just too predictable, and the producers take advantage of that. Read on...

For the small prizes, the correct price was...(seasons 40-47)

• The cheaper price: 65 prizes (52.42%)
• The more expensive price: 59 prizes (51.94%)
  
• The price on the left: 38 prizes (30.65%)
• The price on the right: 86 prizes (69.35%)

The contestant chose which key? (seasons 40-47)

• Key #1 (the left-most key): 10 playings (17.24%)
• Key #2: 16 playings (27.59%)
• Key #3: 16 playings (27.59%)
• Key #4: 18 playings (31.03%)
• Key #5 (the right-most key): 12 playings (20.69%)
  Note: the above percentages add up to more than 100% due to the possibility of winning 2 keys.

Which key went to which lock? (seasons 40-47)

          Cheap Middle Car Master

Key  Dud  Prize Prize  Key  Key  

 1    2     2     0     2    4

 2    7     1     3     5    0

 3    1     7     6     1    1

 4    5     8     2     2    1

 5    2     1     3     1    5

Strategy

Part 1: Small prize pricing. 

Mostly it's know the prices, but if you're not sure, the price on the right is correct twice as often as the price on the left.

Part 2: Which keys to pick. 

PICK THE ENDPOINTS!! This game practically defines the strategy. The left-most and right-most keys are picked less frequently than the middle keys, and thus the producers put the master key at the end more often than anywhere else. (And yes, that's why this game is won barely more often than random chance would state--it's not that contestants can't price the small prizes, it's that their key choosing behavior is too predictable.) As for which key to pick first, I'd go far right and then far left, but then that was just me 😂.