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Ten Chances (the Price Is Right Pricing Game)




Ten Chances is a Pricing Game on the American Television Game Show '' The Price Is Right ''. This game is played for a car and two additional prizes – one worth between $10 and $99, and another worth between $100 and $999.


GAMEPLAY

The objective of this game was to correctly price three items (in ascending order of value – the grand prize being the car) within 10 turns – hence the name, "Ten Chances" – in order to win them all.

Each prize corresponded with a jumble of numbers – three for the two-digit prize, four for the three-digit item and five for the car. Each number scramble, except for the car, has one extra digit thrown in, which adds to the game's challenge.

Starting with the two-digit prize, the contestant uses two of the three digits available to form a price. Each number in a given scramble is used just once, and there are no repeating digits. If he is correct, he wins that prize. If not, he uses the second chance to form a different price. Play on that specific prize continues (using the third chance, and so on) until the contestant makes a correct guess.

One the player wins the two-digit prize , he moves on to the three-digit price, with play as before (except that he now must form a three-digit price from the four available digits).

If the player has chances left upon a right guess for the three-digit price, play moves on to the car. Here, the player must use all five digits to form the price. A correct answer here wins the car.

However, if the player exhausts his/her 10th chance before correctly pricing all three items, he wins only what had been correctly priced up to that point.


RULES CHANGES

  • In the days of four-digit cars, the grand prize's five-number scramble also had an extra digit.



TRIVIA

  • While not technically a rule, virtually every prize's price ends in a zero. In the rare case that it isn't, the last number is always a 5. Host Bob Barker tends to criticize contestants when they forget this rule or don't seem to catch on.

  • It should be noted that the "zero rule" did not apply early in the game's history (e.g., a three-digit prize could be worth $418), but has become standard since the early 1980s.

  • Ironically, contestants who claim to watch the show every day -- and thus, who should know the zero rule -- are the contestants who more frequently violate it. This behavior is not unlike Check Game players who claim to know how to play the game, but fail to explain it when Bob challenges them to.


  • There is technically a time limit of 10 seconds per chance, for a total game time of 1 minute and 40 seconds. While Barker will warn contestants who stall, the rule has not actually been enforced since the early 1980s.


  • There are only six possible prices for the two-digit prize; as such, not winning it is impossible.

  • If the zero rule is in place and the contestant follows it, it is also impossible to not win the second prize.


  • If a contestant makes a duplicate guess, host Bob Barker will often point it out; whether the contestant is given another chance tends to depend on Bob's mood.



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