I was off in Ottawa for Canada Day and ended up catching an episode of the Price is Right in the hotel room. (I finished reading all the books I'd brought so I was left being bored and turned to daytime tv.) The first person to spin the wheel landed on 75 and paused to think if they should spin again or not. They decided to stop and Drew told them they'd made a good choice and hurried them over to stand under the sign. But it got me thinking... Did they really make a good choice? Or was Drew just trying to make the person feel good? 75 felt like it was probably just a really bad opening spin. Spinning again brings with it a guaranteed 75% chance of failure, but stopping gives your opponents 4 spins with a 25% chance each to beat you. Rough off my head math told me stopping was right, but your chances of advancing were not good.
There does have to be a point where it's right to spin again though... And now I need to know what that point is! It also feels like going 3rd is strong since you have more information, but just how strong is it going to be?
Start with the simple case... Player one busted out and player two is up. If you come up with a 50 or lower you need to spin again. If you come up above 55 you need to stop. (This is all ignoring any potential gain from the 1 in 20 chance of hitting exactly 1 dollar. I'm asserting the value of getting the showcase showdown outweighs that.) Starting with a spin of 70 or lower means you expect to lose even with proper spin again play. 75 is actually the first number that has a more than 50% chance to win! Overall it works out that player 2 will only win 45.76% of the time after player 1 busts out, which does mean a spin of 70 is better than expected since it will win 46.48% of the time.
I can use that information to determine player two's optimal play when player 1 spins low. Player two doesn't care who beats him, so even if player one opens with 5 into 5 and player two opens with 50 he should still spin the second time. I did some crunching and starting on a 75 is actually only slightly below expected for the first player, with a 28.42% chance of winning off the 75. Overall the first player is only 30.83% to win, so the 75 isn't all that bad. You should certainly stay on 75 (you only win 15.36% of the time if you spin again) and you should even stay on 70. 65 or lower and the first player should spin again, but the choices at 65 aren't very appealing. 16.05% to win if you stay, 17.86% to win if you spin. The best number to start with after the 70 is actually the 5. Because once you accept that you're spinning a second time you want to reduce the chance of busting. Even if you start on 5-5 that still has a theoretical chance to win where going bust is a guaranteed loss!
As far as the division of wins between the different positions assuming optimal play as defined on my sheet (which may be a little wonky in terms of if player three should spin when his first spin ties both other players) we have player one at 30.83% chance to win, player two at 32.73% chance to win, and player three at 36.45% chance to win. So there's a pretty significant edge in going last! Player one should spin at 65 or higher. Player two should spin when he's behind player one or when he spun at 50 or below. Player three should spin if behind, or if tied under 50.
Showing posts with label television. Show all posts
Showing posts with label television. Show all posts
Thursday, July 03, 2014
Thursday, April 03, 2014
WWE Network
The World Wrestling Federation Entertainment company recently put out what boils down to being their own version of Netflix. Except instead of old movies and television shows they have old wrestling pay per views and old wrestling television shows. WWE bought up the WCW and ECW libraries a while ago so they've got all the PPVs from all three big wrestling federations from when I was a kid. They're also focusing on putting out a bunch of new content like Netflix does, in particular all of the new PPVs are going to be streamed live on the WWE Network. This has made some cable companies pretty bitter since a lot of the demand for the $60 PPVs has gone away now that people can pay $10 per month and get all of them. 1/6th the cost, no hassle with the cable company, and a bunch of other free stuff on top? I have to imagine a lot of people look at that deal and have a hard time saying no.
If they live in the US, anyway. The service is only available in the US and they don't expect to have it up in Canada for a year. I hate this sort of thing. I don't understand the need, in this day and age, to have restrictions based on where one lives. I have to imagine it's a copyright law issue of some kind because those laws are stupidly outdated. It makes me sad because Wrestlemania is this weekend and I wanted to give it a watch. A quick search on Rogers website doesn't even turn up anything about it, so I can't tell if I could even order it the 'old' way.
Anyway... I did some internet searching of other varieties and it turns out I actually live in Kentucky, which is in the US. Who knew? My computer is still in Canada though, but I found a free trial of an IP converter thingy so now it's down in the US somewhere too... The last couple of days while making food and eating I've been watching old Royal Rumble matches. It's pretty sweet, I have to say!
Wrestlemania is the first PPV they're running on the Network so I do fear it'll go wrong in some way. Probably server overload as more people try to watch than they're ready to handle. The claim is it'll be starting at 7pm on Sunday. If anyone wants to risk that it works and come on down to Kentucky to watch you're welcome to; if it's busted then I'll hopefully just end up watching it at 3am or something.
If they live in the US, anyway. The service is only available in the US and they don't expect to have it up in Canada for a year. I hate this sort of thing. I don't understand the need, in this day and age, to have restrictions based on where one lives. I have to imagine it's a copyright law issue of some kind because those laws are stupidly outdated. It makes me sad because Wrestlemania is this weekend and I wanted to give it a watch. A quick search on Rogers website doesn't even turn up anything about it, so I can't tell if I could even order it the 'old' way.
Anyway... I did some internet searching of other varieties and it turns out I actually live in Kentucky, which is in the US. Who knew? My computer is still in Canada though, but I found a free trial of an IP converter thingy so now it's down in the US somewhere too... The last couple of days while making food and eating I've been watching old Royal Rumble matches. It's pretty sweet, I have to say!
Wrestlemania is the first PPV they're running on the Network so I do fear it'll go wrong in some way. Probably server overload as more people try to watch than they're ready to handle. The claim is it'll be starting at 7pm on Sunday. If anyone wants to risk that it works and come on down to Kentucky to watch you're welcome to; if it's busted then I'll hopefully just end up watching it at 3am or something.
Wednesday, August 14, 2013
Barter Kings
Often when I'm playing video games I'll have the TV on in the background. Stand-up comedy, preferably, because I can not pay attention for 10 minutes and I won't have any trouble picking it back up. Beyond that I'll keep an eye out for Mythbusters and then maybe a wacky police show like The Mentalist or Criminal Minds. A&E sometimes runs a Criminal Minds marathon, so it's in my rotation of channels to look at.
At one point on the weekend I'd left the tv on A&E while playing a game (probably League of Legends) and when I eventually looked up it was a show called Barter Kings. I watched a little bit, and got sucked in. They were running a marathon that weekend and I ended up just watching it for something like 8 hours. The show is about two guys who make trades for a living. In an episode they might do something like start out with some used scuba gear and end up with an airplane. Which they then sold for $20k. The internet seems pretty convinced that the show is mostly fake, but it's an interesting premise and the way they use jedi mind tricks on people to get trades down is awesome and makes me feel dirty.
It makes me think about the economies in Diablo II and Diablo III. The Barter Kings guys keep using a variation on convenience to convince people to lose hundreds or thousands of dollars in value. They'll tell a fat guy who's fiance left him that he doesn't have any use at all for her $5000 diamond engagement ring, so he might as well trade it to them for a $2000 elliptical machine. He can get in shape and find a new woman, see! And realistically, if he wanted to do it himself, he'd have to sell it to a jeweller for more like $3500 or spend a lot of time tracking down someone who'd pay closer to the $5000 for it. And then he'd have to find a place to buy a top end elliptical machine. He probably comes out up a thousand dollars or two, but it would take a lot of time and effort. And for the people trading a $300 thing for a $600 thing it makes even more sense. They're providing a service by going around and doing these things. They have the knowledge to find items that the random dudes they trade with don't have. So the other people are making time and getting things they want, the Barter Kings are spending time but making money.
In Diablo II, that's how everything worked. Some people knew what stuff was valuable and how to track it down. Other people would get legendary items to drop and not know what to do with them. What is my sorceress going to do with a twinky bow? It would be nice if I could make it turn into a good sorceress weapon magically, but I couldn't. Possibly I could go to Sky or Byung and have them do it for me, because they were like the Barter Kings of Diablo II. But I was more likely to leave it sitting on an alt or vendor it for gambling money than try to find a trade myself.
In Diablo III the auction house made every single item into an easily exchanged commodity. Turn anything into cash, then turn the cash into whatever you want! Seems like it would fix my problem of getting a twinky bow dropping for my wizard. But in order to actually use the auction house properly I'd need to spend a lot of time learning the markets. On the plus side instead of just hoarding it myself or vendoring it for gambling money I'd probably just sell it for a quarter it's actual value and then buy something for twice what it's worth. With Blizzard taking a cut both ways.
It's almost like it doesn't matter if you're trading or using currency. Someone who puts in time and effort is going to profit and that profit is going to come from people who don't.
At any rate, the show is pretty entertaining. One of the two Barter Kings has Tourette's syndrome and I've found it interesting when they take little sidebars to talk about how it makes him do some 'weird' things like repeat the word Suzuki or snap his fingers. They also end up with going through some unique items, like in the episode I saw today...
Conga drums became a popcorn machine, which became an engine lift, which became a purebreed bulldog pup, which became a vintage tractor, which became a speedboat, which became $10000, which became a new air conditioning system for their store and $3000 cash to help keep the store running.
They traded for a puppy! And then they traded the puppy away for a working 60 year old tractor! Crazy!
At one point on the weekend I'd left the tv on A&E while playing a game (probably League of Legends) and when I eventually looked up it was a show called Barter Kings. I watched a little bit, and got sucked in. They were running a marathon that weekend and I ended up just watching it for something like 8 hours. The show is about two guys who make trades for a living. In an episode they might do something like start out with some used scuba gear and end up with an airplane. Which they then sold for $20k. The internet seems pretty convinced that the show is mostly fake, but it's an interesting premise and the way they use jedi mind tricks on people to get trades down is awesome and makes me feel dirty.
It makes me think about the economies in Diablo II and Diablo III. The Barter Kings guys keep using a variation on convenience to convince people to lose hundreds or thousands of dollars in value. They'll tell a fat guy who's fiance left him that he doesn't have any use at all for her $5000 diamond engagement ring, so he might as well trade it to them for a $2000 elliptical machine. He can get in shape and find a new woman, see! And realistically, if he wanted to do it himself, he'd have to sell it to a jeweller for more like $3500 or spend a lot of time tracking down someone who'd pay closer to the $5000 for it. And then he'd have to find a place to buy a top end elliptical machine. He probably comes out up a thousand dollars or two, but it would take a lot of time and effort. And for the people trading a $300 thing for a $600 thing it makes even more sense. They're providing a service by going around and doing these things. They have the knowledge to find items that the random dudes they trade with don't have. So the other people are making time and getting things they want, the Barter Kings are spending time but making money.
In Diablo II, that's how everything worked. Some people knew what stuff was valuable and how to track it down. Other people would get legendary items to drop and not know what to do with them. What is my sorceress going to do with a twinky bow? It would be nice if I could make it turn into a good sorceress weapon magically, but I couldn't. Possibly I could go to Sky or Byung and have them do it for me, because they were like the Barter Kings of Diablo II. But I was more likely to leave it sitting on an alt or vendor it for gambling money than try to find a trade myself.
In Diablo III the auction house made every single item into an easily exchanged commodity. Turn anything into cash, then turn the cash into whatever you want! Seems like it would fix my problem of getting a twinky bow dropping for my wizard. But in order to actually use the auction house properly I'd need to spend a lot of time learning the markets. On the plus side instead of just hoarding it myself or vendoring it for gambling money I'd probably just sell it for a quarter it's actual value and then buy something for twice what it's worth. With Blizzard taking a cut both ways.
It's almost like it doesn't matter if you're trading or using currency. Someone who puts in time and effort is going to profit and that profit is going to come from people who don't.
At any rate, the show is pretty entertaining. One of the two Barter Kings has Tourette's syndrome and I've found it interesting when they take little sidebars to talk about how it makes him do some 'weird' things like repeat the word Suzuki or snap his fingers. They also end up with going through some unique items, like in the episode I saw today...
Conga drums became a popcorn machine, which became an engine lift, which became a purebreed bulldog pup, which became a vintage tractor, which became a speedboat, which became $10000, which became a new air conditioning system for their store and $3000 cash to help keep the store running.
They traded for a puppy! And then they traded the puppy away for a working 60 year old tractor! Crazy!
Monday, December 31, 2012
The Amazing Race: Canada
I was watching the final game of the NFL regular season on tv last night when a very interesting commercial came on. It would seem that after 12 years and 21 seasons on US tv the reality show The Amazing Race is finally coming to Canada. They're changing things up by containing the entire thing within Canada itself and not traveling all over the world. I would imagine the primary reason for doing this is to keep costs down but I figure Canada is a pretty good country for traveling around in given how big it is and how many diverse climates exist.
Applications are now up on the CTV website. From the reading I've done it looks like any Canadian (or permanent resident) who is over 19 years old is eligible. Since it's all within Canada you don't need a passport. You need to be willing to block off a month this spring (you need to be 19 by April 1st so I'd guess it starts after that date). You need to be physically and mentally fit enough to race around the country and do all kinds of crazy things. You need to submit an application by the end of February. Oh, and you need a teammate.
It seems like you're allowed to submit as many different teams as you want, though the FAQ is certainly worded in such a way as to make it seem like doing so won't really help your chances. They want the show to be about relationships and racing so they want interesting teams. Now, I must confess that despite really liking the show the few times I watched it I never really went out of my way to find out when it was on. So I don't know if awkward smart guy with an awful lot of quirks is something that they'd find interesting enough. But I do know I want to give this a try if at all possible.
So... Anyone want to bugger off work for a month and go on a cross country adventure? I'd say the odds of getting on are pretty slim but we should be able to figure out some way to game the system! The prize is still unknown but is undoubtedly a reasonable chunk of cash. Oh, and a chance to be awesome. Who doesn't want to be awesome?
Applications are now up on the CTV website. From the reading I've done it looks like any Canadian (or permanent resident) who is over 19 years old is eligible. Since it's all within Canada you don't need a passport. You need to be willing to block off a month this spring (you need to be 19 by April 1st so I'd guess it starts after that date). You need to be physically and mentally fit enough to race around the country and do all kinds of crazy things. You need to submit an application by the end of February. Oh, and you need a teammate.
It seems like you're allowed to submit as many different teams as you want, though the FAQ is certainly worded in such a way as to make it seem like doing so won't really help your chances. They want the show to be about relationships and racing so they want interesting teams. Now, I must confess that despite really liking the show the few times I watched it I never really went out of my way to find out when it was on. So I don't know if awkward smart guy with an awful lot of quirks is something that they'd find interesting enough. But I do know I want to give this a try if at all possible.
So... Anyone want to bugger off work for a month and go on a cross country adventure? I'd say the odds of getting on are pretty slim but we should be able to figure out some way to game the system! The prize is still unknown but is undoubtedly a reasonable chunk of cash. Oh, and a chance to be awesome. Who doesn't want to be awesome?
Monday, November 26, 2012
Dancing With The Stars Finale
Tonight will have the final competition episode for this season of Dancing With The Stars. This season was special in that they brought back 13 stars from previous seasons to have an all-star season. Lots of past champions and such. One returning star in particular has been awesome this season and I found myself wanting to re-watch all her dances and link them on facebook. But since I'm probably going to want to watch them again later it would be useful to have them all in one place. So while this is pretty off topic for a gaming blog, I'm going to stick them all in here anyway.
Watching DWTS has taken away a fair amount of gaming time in recent weeks and Robb was confused as to why I'd choose to watching dancing over playing League of Legends. I donno. I really like precise, in sync movements. I don't get when the judges talk about the emotional connections or whatever. I think that's the Vulcanian in me. It's the sort of thing I like to imagine I could do myself someday if not for the whole needing a second person thing which just doesn't seem very likely, does it?
At any rate, Shawn Johnson is simply awesome. After the week 3 dance her pro partner was visibly exhausted from the dance and she didn't look winded at all. She hits every single step precisely and they're just able to go so high energy. Last week she finally got tired after an incredible bhangra dance. I really hope she wins tonight... I don't go crazy and only vote with one Facebook account so I'm not really doing all I could to help her win, but I hope she does anyway.
And now... Youtube videos! Try not to get as bitter about Len's scores and comments as I do...
Watching DWTS has taken away a fair amount of gaming time in recent weeks and Robb was confused as to why I'd choose to watching dancing over playing League of Legends. I donno. I really like precise, in sync movements. I don't get when the judges talk about the emotional connections or whatever. I think that's the Vulcanian in me. It's the sort of thing I like to imagine I could do myself someday if not for the whole needing a second person thing which just doesn't seem very likely, does it?
At any rate, Shawn Johnson is simply awesome. After the week 3 dance her pro partner was visibly exhausted from the dance and she didn't look winded at all. She hits every single step precisely and they're just able to go so high energy. Last week she finally got tired after an incredible bhangra dance. I really hope she wins tonight... I don't go crazy and only vote with one Facebook account so I'm not really doing all I could to help her win, but I hope she does anyway.
And now... Youtube videos! Try not to get as bitter about Len's scores and comments as I do...
Monday, April 16, 2012
Dance Duels
Dancing With The Stars decided to implement something new this week and going forward for the next couple weeks. Instead of eliminating the lowest combined scoring couple they're going to make the two lowest scorers do a second dance at the same time with the judges picking the worst one from those extra dances to go home.
I don't know that you can trust the judges to be perfectly logical beings but it got me thinking about how to game the system assuming you could count on the judges to properly score the dance duel. Ideally you'd want to do well enough in your main dance to land yourself above the bottom two. But what if you felt like that wasn't super likely? Why not write off your primary dance entirely. Do terribly and place in the bottom two for sure... But all that time the other teams spent during the week preparing their main dance you'd spend preparing an awesome bonus dance. Presumably if you spend 5 days working on the dance duel and they spend 1 day on it you should have a pretty big advantage.
Doing that in actuality would probably be looked upon as making a mockery of the system and I'd think the judges would be a little biased in the marking of the dance duel. Personally I don't see it as making a mockery of the system so much as I think the system itself is fatally flawed. As set up two couples end up putting a lot of effort into a main dance which is worthless when it comes to determining who gets eliminated. My plan just removes some of the uncertainty surrounding who those two couples would be.
I don't know that you can trust the judges to be perfectly logical beings but it got me thinking about how to game the system assuming you could count on the judges to properly score the dance duel. Ideally you'd want to do well enough in your main dance to land yourself above the bottom two. But what if you felt like that wasn't super likely? Why not write off your primary dance entirely. Do terribly and place in the bottom two for sure... But all that time the other teams spent during the week preparing their main dance you'd spend preparing an awesome bonus dance. Presumably if you spend 5 days working on the dance duel and they spend 1 day on it you should have a pretty big advantage.
Doing that in actuality would probably be looked upon as making a mockery of the system and I'd think the judges would be a little biased in the marking of the dance duel. Personally I don't see it as making a mockery of the system so much as I think the system itself is fatally flawed. As set up two couples end up putting a lot of effort into a main dance which is worthless when it comes to determining who gets eliminated. My plan just removes some of the uncertainty surrounding who those two couples would be.
Monday, October 31, 2011
Dancing With The Stars Scoring
Dancing With The Stars is a 'reality' tv show where they pair up celebrities with professional dancers and have them do various dances. There's a panel of judges that assign scores to the dances each week and they get people to call/text/vote online for who they like best. Then they combine the votes with the scores somehow and figure out who came last in a given week. That pair is fired. Repeat until you have a winner.
This is different than other reality shows like American Idol which is entirely vote based, or The Apprentice which is entirely judge based, or Survivor which is determined by the contestants themselves. Now, I actually don't watch any of those shows and for the most part never have. (I watched some of Survivor when it first came out but got annoyed when they wouldn't let Canadians play.) But I understand the scoring systems for all of them despite only seeing most of them while visiting family in New Brunswick...
I actually watch Dancing With The Stars, but had no clue how the loser was actually determined. How is voting combined with judges scores? What does voting actually do? I turned to my good friend Mr Google and he hooked me up with the answer in a really short amount of time. It turns out to be a pretty simple system. They add all of the judges scores together and work out what percentage of that pool each pair received. Then you separately add up all the votes and work out what percentage of those each pair received. Add the two percentages together and see who has the lowest total.
I was thinking I'd crunch some numbers to see what votes actually had to happen for different possible outcomes to happen but it turns out they don't release total vote totals anywhere that I could find. Also, I found a site that already crunches the numbers in terms of votes per million... It's interesting to think about the consequences of such a system...
One other interesting site I stumbled across in my search is Vote For The Worst which apparently watches all voting based reality television, picks someone who is really bad, and then encourages people to vote for them. I can't help but wonder if these people actually accomplish anything. And if they do, how bad is it?
This is different than other reality shows like American Idol which is entirely vote based, or The Apprentice which is entirely judge based, or Survivor which is determined by the contestants themselves. Now, I actually don't watch any of those shows and for the most part never have. (I watched some of Survivor when it first came out but got annoyed when they wouldn't let Canadians play.) But I understand the scoring systems for all of them despite only seeing most of them while visiting family in New Brunswick...
I actually watch Dancing With The Stars, but had no clue how the loser was actually determined. How is voting combined with judges scores? What does voting actually do? I turned to my good friend Mr Google and he hooked me up with the answer in a really short amount of time. It turns out to be a pretty simple system. They add all of the judges scores together and work out what percentage of that pool each pair received. Then you separately add up all the votes and work out what percentage of those each pair received. Add the two percentages together and see who has the lowest total.
I was thinking I'd crunch some numbers to see what votes actually had to happen for different possible outcomes to happen but it turns out they don't release total vote totals anywhere that I could find. Also, I found a site that already crunches the numbers in terms of votes per million... It's interesting to think about the consequences of such a system...
One other interesting site I stumbled across in my search is Vote For The Worst which apparently watches all voting based reality television, picks someone who is really bad, and then encourages people to vote for them. I can't help but wonder if these people actually accomplish anything. And if they do, how bad is it?
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