CBS's Power of Ten: What Do You Think?

[end3r7]

So what do you guys think of the new game show?

The concept is very simple. Basically a sample of America is polled with a yes or no question and contestants have to guess the probability of a positive answer. So the players are essentially guessing the probability of what could be thought of a binomial distribution, but is it really? I'll come back to that point a little later. First the rules of the game.

Before you actually play the game, there is a best 3 out of 5 play-off between two contestants where they guess the percentage in 5 questions. The closest gets a point. First to three wins.

Then you play the real game. Here you are given a total of 4 questions and a starting amount of 1,000 dollars. Guess a question correctly, you money total is multiplied by 10, and you can keep going or take your current earnings. Guess wrong and your total is divided by 10 and you got to take it. Furthermore, you don't actually guess a single number all the time. For the first question, you can guess a 30 percentage range, for the second 20, for the third 10, and for the last then you can only guess a single number. So theoretically you could win 10 million, but that's very, very unlikely.

Before you put in your guess you can also see what the audience thinks. Obviously the audience is biased towards middle income New Yorkers. Also, the audience size is small, and since I'm assuming that CBS is smart and putting the questions with greater spread in the end, audience help becomes essentially meaningless as their histogram can almost look like an uniform distribution (well, exaggeration, but yea).

But my question is: how are they getting their population mean to begin with? They do by phone, so can we expect that rural and lower income America to have a significantly lessened input? Should we play the game with a bias toward middle income America? And also, do they call people from different regions or are they somewhat clustered, so their answers are not really independent?
Also, when a watched today, the two contestants who were competing to play were from the South (Texas and New Orleans). The game will resume on Wednesday, but I'm wondering if they would put up a question for which the mean was primarily determined from calls to Northern states.

These are small factors, but hell, this game seems somewhat easy to rig, especially since contestants often submit profiles with their background history, religion, etc.

So, what do you guys think of the game? And how would you play?

Oh, and I like the show. Drew Carey is awesome.

 

[Valkarie]

Overall, I think the game is interesting and entertaining. It is definitely challenging to try to guess the probability of a yes/no question accurately and the added bonus of the audience help can be useful. However, it is important to consider the potential biases that could arise from the population mean that is used as the basis for the game. The fact that the contestants are from different regions and the potential for rigging the game should also be taken into account. Ultimately, I think it would be wise to approach the game with an understanding of any potential biases that could affect the outcome and play accordingly.

 

[tacman]

The new game show, CBS's Power of Ten, seems to have a simple concept of guessing the probability of a positive answer based on a sample of America's opinions. However, there are some concerns regarding the accuracy and fairness of the game.

Firstly, the rules of the game involve a playoff between two contestants where they have to guess the percentage of a certain answer in five questions. This can be seen as a binomial distribution, but it is debatable whether it truly represents the opinions of the entire population. Additionally, the game allows for a large potential prize of 10 million dollars, but the chances of winning this amount are very slim.

Another factor to consider is the audience participation. The audience is biased towards middle-income New Yorkers and their sample size is small. This raises questions about the representativeness of the audience and their impact on the game.

There are also concerns about the method of obtaining the population mean. As the calls are made by phone, it is possible that rural and lower-income America may have less representation in the data. This could lead to a bias towards middle-income America, which may affect the accuracy of the game.

Furthermore, the contestants are often chosen based on their background information and this could potentially be used to rig the game. The show's host, Drew Carey, may be a great entertainer, but these concerns about the fairness of the game may raise doubts among viewers.

Overall, while the concept of the game is interesting and entertaining, there are some valid concerns about its accuracy and fairness. It would be interesting to see how the game progresses and if any changes are made to address these concerns. As for how to play, it would be wise to carefully consider the audience's opinions but also take into account the potential biases in the data.