This week, a new game show debuted in the US that is supposedly very popular elsewhere in the world: "Deal or No Deal?"
Here's basically how the game works: There are 26 suitcases that each contain dollar values ranging from $0.01 to $1,000,000. At the beginning of the game, you pick one suitcase to be "your suitcase." Then, through process of elimination, you are asked to open the other suitcases to help determine the value of your suitcase.
You start by opening 6 other suitcases, revealing the dollar values in each. Then, a "Banker," who like you does not know the dollar values in any of the suitcases, offers you a dollar amount. You can either accept the Banker's dollar amount and quit the game, or keep playing. In the next round, you open 5 suitcases, and then the Banker calculates another offer for you. Again, take the offer or keep playing... Then you open 4 suitcases, etc.
Here's the link to the American version:
http://www.nbc.com/Deal_or_No_Deal/ Click "game" to play the game online.
My questions for you:
a) How does the Banker calculate the value he offers?
b) What is a good strategy for playing this game?
I don't know the correct answers, but I'm hoping someone here does. Or, at the very least, that we P&R "experts" can figure something out by putting our heads together.
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