Deal Or No Deal Ii

[WonderfulSplash 0]

LOL....just went and searched the old thread on DOND which I somehow missed....absolute classic.Woman Flunks Monty Hall ProblemDane: Just wow sir, just wow.Edit. Derail what? This thread is about as open and shut as it gets. Obv choosing the case at the beginning has only entertainment value.

[Actuary 3]

LOL....just went and searched the old thread on DOND which I somehow missed....absolute classic.Dane: Just wow sir, just wow.

blah, don't derail this one.

[_Great_Dane_ 0]

You guys seem to think they give you close to or even better than an even EV deal. I only watched the show twice , but every offer I saw was way below what it should have been. I would have turned down every offer.

I've only played two hands of Omaha . I won both of them. Based on this, I'm going to play on Full Tilt with $40k so I can dominate Ivey, Matusow, Benyamine, etc.I can't lose.

[zedd2005 0]

Okay. I'm taking your question very seriously.Very seriously. I have not read any of the responses.They can opt to pick their case and settle for whatever it is, but only when they're down to two cases left, and not until then. At that point, if there's $1 million and $1 remaining, the bankers offer will be around the average of the two - about $500,000. And it's up to the contestant as to whether or not they want to gamble. They would have a guaranteed $500,000 and a coin flip bet to win or lose about $500,000.Actually, from what I remember, the offer would be a little more than the average at this point - like $550,000. So you'd be betting $549,000 to win $450,000 more on a 50/50 chance of winning. The $550,000 deal should be taken, in this case. Another scenario to consider is that the contestant is down to four cases left. And the prize amounts remaining are $1 million, $750,000, $500,000, and $1. And you're given a banker's offer to drop out of $550,000 (which is close to an average of the three amounts). Should you take the offer of $550,000? Should you open one more case and decide then?I compare this scenario to playing NLHE in a big tournament, and you're in a big hand at the final table. You flop and open ended straight flush draw with fifteen outs, you're last to act, and your opponent checks to you. While you're thinking about whether or not to bet or to see a free card on the turn, your opponent says that, if you check, he'll push all in on the turn regardless of what card is dealt. Now, you put your opponent on pocket aces, and you're 55% to win on the flop, and you realize that, if the turn card doesn't help you, and your opponent pushes all in on the turn, you'll be a 2:1 underdog. Some feel that the best play would be to make the push on the flop when you have the best odds.Back to the DOND question. The prize amounts remaining are $1 million, $750,000, $500,000, and $1. And you're given a banker's offer to drop out with $550,000 (which is close to an average of the three amounts). Should you take the offer of $550,000? Should you open one more case and decide then? If you open the $1, the offer goes way up. If you open the $1 million, the offer goes way down.Or, since you've got a 75% chance that your case holds between $500,000 and $1 million, should you make the decision to open two more cases, disregard what they hold, and keep your case on the pedestal? This would be similar to pushing all in on the flop when you have the best odds; right?DOND is all about strategy and making the best decision based on your outs and the current offer. Kind of like poker. If I were going to play, I'd plan on taking the offer with about four or five cases left. But I'd analyze the situation as it goes.I'll leave it up to you to decide.

dreamclown is waiting for you...

[QWithATray 0]

Actuary you're right - it makes no difference. It does give the contestant an opportunity to get close to one of the briefcase girls though.

[rog 0]

It's a prop to support the "deal" aspect of the show. Mathematically irrelevant, but critical to the theme of the show.

[fleung22 1]

Wouldn't the show be better if they just got rid of the whole suit case prop?Why not scribble the $ amounts on the models' titties and each time you pick a girl she removes her top?Wouldn't that be a better show and wouldn't that make the initial pick more intriguing?

[Actuary 3]

Why not scribble the $ amounts on the models' titties and each time you pick a girl she removes her top?Wouldn't that be a better show and wouldn't that make the initial pick more intriguing?

yep.then you'd have incentive to keep picking until you have one case left (your first pick)And if that case was say, less than $250. You'd just say f it and see one more set of booobies and go home broke

[fatman 1]

Why not scribble the $ amounts on the models' titties and each time you pick a girl she removes her top?Wouldn't that be a better show and wouldn't that make the initial pick more intriguing?

Now this is a show that I would most likely watch.

[showstopper24 0]

It results in better television viewing.

i think this is the main reason

[KTW 0]

They can opt to pick their case and settle for whatever it is, but only when they're down to two cases left, and not until then. At that point, if there's $1 million and $1 remaining, the bankers offer will be around the average of the two - about $500,000. And it's up to the contestant as to whether or not they want to gamble. They would have a guaranteed $500,000 and a coin flip bet to win or lose about $500,000.Actually, from what I remember, the offer would be a little more than the average at this point - like $550,000. So you'd be betting $549,000 to win $450,000 more on a 50/50 chance of winning. The $550,000 deal should be taken, in this case. Another scenario to consider is that the contestant is down to four cases left. And the prize amounts remaining are $1 million, $750,000, $500,000, and $1. And you're given a banker's offer to drop out of $550,000 (which is close to an average of the three amounts). Should you take the offer of $550,000? Should you open one more case and decide then?I compare this scenario to playing NLHE in a big tournament, and you're in a big hand at the final table. You flop and open ended straight flush draw with fifteen outs, you're last to act, and your opponent checks to you. While you're thinking about whether or not to bet or to see a free card on the turn, your opponent says that, if you check, he'll push all in on the turn regardless of what card is dealt. Now, you put your opponent on pocket aces, and you're 55% to win on the flop, and you realize that, if the turn card doesn't help you, and your opponent pushes all in on the turn, you'll be a 2:1 underdog. Some feel that the best play would be to make the push on the flop when you have the best odds.Back to the DOND question. The prize amounts remaining are $1 million, $750,000, $500,000, and $1. And you're given a banker's offer to drop out with $550,000 (which is close to an average of the three amounts). Should you take the offer of $550,000? Should you open one more case and decide then? If you open the $1, the offer goes way up. If you open the $1 million, the offer goes way down.Or, since you've got a 75% chance that your case holds between $500,000 and $1 million, should you make the decision to open two more cases, disregard what they hold, and keep your case on the pedestal? This would be similar to pushing all in on the flop when you have the best odds; right?DOND is all about strategy and making the best decision based on your outs and the current offer. Kind of like poker. If I were going to play, I'd plan on taking the offer with about four or five cases left. But I'd analyze the situation as it goes.I'll leave it up to you to decide.

Good post. You are correct it comes down to risk and how much of a gamble the player wishes to take. Too bad the amount offered is never the true amount. When I first heard about the game I was hoping they would increase the offer by 5%-10% so anyone with basic math skills would know the amount was fair. Oh well.

[pockets 0]

NO DEAL

[TheMathProf 0]

You guys seem to think they give you close to or even better than an even EV deal. I only watched the show twice, but every offer I saw was way below what it should have been. I would have turned down every offer.Say there are 4 cases left: 500000, 25000, 1000, and 5. Your EV would be around $132000, which is the "value" of your case. Seems to me they always would offer around $85000. My dad argued that it was a good deal since 3/4 of the time you would get less than the 85000, but I told him he didn't understand the math and we argued and he got mad at me, but he was still wrong. I guess this is what makes it a good show. The average person can't understand why the bankers offer is a lowball.

They usually give you a close to EV deal with four cases left, an approximately EV deal with three cases left, and a +EV deal with two cases left, with exceptions based on "trends". (i.e. the banker tends to lowball the offer more than he should when a "big" case is opened and sweeten the deal more than he should when several little cases in a row are opened). My experience is that the offer in that case would be in the neighborhood of $110,000 (there's something magical about six-figures) rather than the number you proposed.But in any case, the mathematical argument, while certainly useful when you actually are offered a +EV situation or close to EV situation, doesn't always factor in when you're offered a -EV deal. The fact is that you don't get to continue playing "Deal or No Deal" for real cash continuously until the odds even out. You have one shot. And that means that sometimes you take a -EV deal.Suppose you're heads up in the Main Event of the WSOP, and you are behind in chips. On the flop, you have the nut flush draw. You are fairly certain that the flush will be good, but that you will lose if you don't make your flush. Your opponent pushes you all-in. What does the pot need to be laying you for you to accept?I would contend that the answer to this question depends on two factors:

• How far behind in the chip stacks are you?
• What are the exact odds that I'm being laid?

My claim is that these "once-in-a-lifetime" opportunities are such that sometimes you take an offer that is -EV, simply because of the rarity of the situation.For instance, in a situation where you are outchipped 20-to-1, you're probably looking to gamble and might call with the nut flush draw, even if you're not being offered the proper odds, because your chances of locking away the top prize are relatively small anyway."You made the right move mathematically" doesn't console someone who has $100,000 dollars that they can take right then and there when they open that $500,000 case and lose almost all of their mobney.[Edits in italics. I can't type.]

[Actuary 3]

Math,yeah, I think Median plays a role in the Bankers decision as well.The prizes are not equally distributed, so you'll almost always have a Median which is lower than the mean.His early offers almost always leave you looking at the board and saying "I can pick 3 more and 75% of the cases are lower than his current offer, yet, his offer is still "low".And I also agree his offers later become closer and finally +EV at the end.From an insurance point of view, I see the Banker working. They want to keep from making the biggest payouts and would rather increase the chance they pay a "better than EV amount" when it gets close to the end.

[TheMathProf 0]

I see it also as a function of "we don't want people to actually walk away early in the game". If people could actually consider walking away after opening, say, only 11 cases, that's not great television. Here, just about the only way that happens is if somebody has just about cleaned out the entire right side of the board by that time, a move that's pretty statistically unlikely.I'm not convinced that the median plays a significant role in the offers. Even when there are four "low" values on the board and two "high" values on the board, the offer usually is in the high five-figures (depending on how low the actual "high" values are). I've also seen a disproportionate number of bank offers where the offer is more than all but one of the values. That tells me that the mean influences much more strongly than the median does.Personally, my gut take is that the actual offer from the banker is based on:

• contestant personality: aggressive players are more likely to get lowballed
• contestant luck: the offer invariably goes down when high values are picked (even once) and up when low values are picked (usually needing several in a row), regardless of whether or not it substantially impacts EV
• actual EV (with the percentage of EV increasing as the number of offers increases)
• how many cases there are left to open (see above note, as cases decrease)
• percentage of high cases remaining among the cases left
• whether or not the contestant is actually still in the running for money (I am convinced the banker's offer increases by 5-10% in the "And the bank offer would have been..." No, Howie, you're lying.)

I agree that his offers work from an insurance standpoint, though. In the cases where the banker still has quite a bit to lose, those offers pop up near EV a lot more quickly than otherwise.

[Actuary 3]

Math,I disagree with the subjectiveness of your theory as it applies to contestant personalitiesI don't think they really give worse offers to aggressive players.But I don't know, it just seems unfair. But I guess the show owes nothing except to let you keep what they offer or take the case at the end.Median certainly impacts their decision, but I did not explain how. When the amounts left are 1, 5, 100, 20000, 1000000 and the offer is 180,000. A player sees that 4/5 cases are less than the offer and therefore they feel safe picking again. Median influences the contestant, imo. It lets the Banker set a lower amount and still the player sees so many choices less than the offer, they feel it's safe to choose again.

[TheMathProf 0]

Math,I disagree with the subjectiveness of your theory as it applies to contestant personalitiesI don't think they really give worse offers to aggressive players.But I don't know, it just seems unfair. But I guess the show owes nothing except to let you keep what they offer or take the case at the end.Median certainly impacts their decision, but I did not explain how. When the amounts left are 1, 5, 100, 20000, 1000000 and the offer is 180,000. A player sees that 4/5 cases are less than the offer and therefore they feel safe picking again. Median influences the contestant, imo. It lets the Banker set a lower amount and still the player sees so many choices less than the offer, they feel it's safe to choose again.

Ah, I see where you're going with that now. I still thought that was a function of the "percentage of EV" phenomenon where they still offer a -EV offer with five cases left for making the offer, but I could see how contestants could be swayed by the "median" argument.I thought that was part of why the distribution was skewed towards the lower dollar values from the get-go.I don't have any direct evidence for the personality bit, but I remember watching a set of episodes early last year where a meekish lady and a "rowdy New Yorker" type were back-to-back contestants, had relatively comparable picks (I actually thought the rowdier contestant picked better), and the rowdier contestant got a lower offer.But I haven't really watched lately, so that could have been a unique phenomenon.I'm also remembering an episode with a rowdy contestant who was offered in the neighborhood of 115K at the point where they first start opening cases one at a time, he declines, opens the 100K case, and the offer dips to like 99K. I'm not sure of the exact numbers, but I remember being surprised that the offer went down at that point, and I remember the guy being a total jerk until then.