Strategy Sessions
Having a particular skill can make you very successful when you appear on a game show. For example, quick access to vast knowledge will help you on Jeopardy!. But what if the other two contestants in the game know much more than you? Beyond praying for divine intervention to temporarily grant you Ken Jennings‘ brain, what can you do to win the game? There are strategems you can employ to defeat your opponents other than simply “out-knowing” them.
Almost every game show presents opportunities where the cogent application of strategy will either improve a contestant’s probability of winning, increase the money he or she will win, or both. Decisions a contestant makes during the game can be critical. Yet, from my armchair view, many contestants make poor decisions– that have nothing to do with their intrinsic skill in playing the game– that reduce their ability to win. By doing so, they fail to maximize their profit, which is the objective of a game show pro.
Game strategy is a topic familiar to economists who study game theory. In the posts titled Strategy Sessions, I propose game-theoretic strategies to maximize the profit you obtain on a game show.