Divided (new series starts today)

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Jojo Apollo
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Divided (new series starts today)

Post by Jojo Apollo »

The Andrew Castle quiz show returns today at 5pm ITV1.
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Jon Corby
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Re: Divided (new series starts today)

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Ooh cool, I always found this interesting.
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Jon Corby
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Re: Divided (new series starts today)

Post by Jon Corby »

Caught the end of today's in time to see the money divide-up. Money split: A) £20k, B) 10k, C) 3.5k (roughly).
Man 1 says "I know I've been rubbish, but I'm taking pot A."
Woman says "I'm taking pot A, and I'm happy to let it count down to nothing. I'm not budging, nor saying another word. "
Man 2 says "I've probably been the strongest player so I deserve pot A."

Money starts to count down. About 25 seconds in, Man 2 says he'll switch to C just to get something. Woman says nothing. Just as the 50 seconds runs out, Man 1 agrees to B. The timer restarts after 50 seconds and they lock in that split. Woman is pleased. She has taken the largest pot, but it is now worth less than pot B was at the start. I really do find this fascinating. I wonder if any of them get home later and think "hang on, why do I give a shit what the others got? I'm never going to see them again."
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Clive Brooker
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Re: Divided (new series starts today)

Post by Clive Brooker »

When the woman got home, she will have seen that her strategy worked perfectly. She got roughly what B started at, something she couldn't have achieved any other way. Opting for B early rarely achieves a quick result because it drives a wedge between A and C, not helping the other players to agree. So I think she maximised her return and will have been ecstatic.

I know the theories have been batted around quite a lot now. Faced with three very worthwhile starting amounts, I'd be very tempted to opt for C initially and warn the others to sort it out in a very small number of seconds before I move to A. There would be that nagging doubt that someone else might have been about to do the same, but I don't think I could forgive myself if I ended with a paltry amount.

Obviously players with this attitude would cost the show a lot of money, so I presume the selection process must favour the risk-takers.
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Jon Corby
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Re: Divided (new series starts today)

Post by Jon Corby »

All true Clive. I remember one where somebody said early on that they were taking B, and suggested the other two tossed a coin to decide A and C. They agreed (which is sensible I think) and it was sorted out pretty quickly.

I really do find it interesting. Much more so than the ridiculous end-game to Goldenballs, which was frankly utter shit.
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Clive Brooker
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Re: Divided (new series starts today)

Post by Clive Brooker »

Interesting - I didn't see the coin-toss one. I guess the key thing there is that whoever ended up with C will have felt that his/her honour remained intact.

I imagine yesterday's woman would have declined that particular offer.

As for Golden Balls, I always regarded that show as having no redeeming features whatsoever, save for the fact it could be curiously watchable.
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Re: Divided (new series starts today)

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I thought todays show was awesome! The guy was so pissed off and called the woman "selfish cow" just class! I applied for this but didn't get on it...my tactic would go in with the mentality that I would take A and then not speak again after that and would be happy to leave with nothing, however as Clive says, with a substantial prize pot C could end up being say around 10k, which at my time in life I would quickly opt for and tell them to sort it quick. But yeah I would mainly go for the tactic of leaving with highest or nothing at all. I don't know why I'm saying this as I never even got an audition. But I do love the whole end game, its makes for good TV. And the questions on it are also quite good ranging from standard quiz questions to ones that require a more in depth knowledge ranging to the downright harsh ones, like the "MURRAY WINS WIMBLEDON" one today designed purely to reduce the prize pot. Basically, I'm glad they brought it back! :D
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Jon Corby
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Re: Divided (new series starts today)

Post by Jon Corby »

Ryan Taylor wrote:But yeah I would mainly go for the tactic of leaving with highest or nothing at all. I don't know why I'm saying this as I never even got an audition.
See, I really don't understand this mentality.

Would you like to leave with a) £5k, b) £1k c) nothing? Rank them in order!
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Re: Divided (new series starts today)

Post by Bob De Caux »

Jon Corby wrote:I really do find it interesting. Much more so than the ridiculous end-game to Goldenballs, which was frankly utter shit.
Apologies if this has been mentioned before, but what's really annoying is that a slight tweak to Goldenballs (giving an incentive to co-operative such as an extra 1/4 of the pot or a portion of the discarded money) would turn it back into this, which would actually be interesting.
Jon Corby wrote:
Ryan Taylor wrote:But yeah I would mainly go for the tactic of leaving with highest or nothing at all. I don't know why I'm saying this as I never even got an audition.
See, I really don't understand this mentality.

Would you like to leave with a) £5k, b) £1k c) nothing? Rank them in order!
I agree that I wouldn't have such an inflexible strategy, but if Ryan had gone on with you and Clive, he would have scooped Pot A quickly and a truckload of cash! It would be (relatively) interesting to run a repeated simulation of the final with a variety of players each having a specific strategy, as it's not clear to me that there is a single best way to play. Which is what makes it great IMO. Is there a way to watch past shows online?
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Jon Corby
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Re: Divided (new series starts today)

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Bob De Caux wrote:I agree that I wouldn't have such an inflexible strategy, but if Ryan had gone on with you and Clive, he would have scooped Pot A quickly and a truckload of cash! It would be (relatively) interesting to run a repeated simulation of the final with a variety of players each having a specific strategy, as it's not clear to me that there is a single best way to play.
I agree Bob, it's really interesting stuff. You're right that a stubborn player like Ryan would do well against players like me, but against players like himself he'd get nothing, whereas I'd always get something! Whose strategy is therefore better overall? Dunno. Can you sensibly say "I'd be better off on average", because if you apply similar logic to Deal Or No Deal, you'd never ever deal (unless the banker offered more than the mean of the remaining boxes, which he'd never do) which is clearly an awful strategy given that you only have one shot. I'd like to see somebody (much cleverer than me) do some sort of analysis.
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Clive Brooker
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Re: Divided (new series starts today)

Post by Clive Brooker »

I certainly don't believe I'm cleverer than you, Jon, but I'd be up for trying to collect some statistics from this series to see if anything emerges. I believe it's only running for five weeks which won't be long enough to show anything really conclusive.

As far as I can see, the key information is the total prize fund, the initial split, which share each player picked initially, the time at which any share switching took place, and the eventual result. I'm not sure if there's any point trying to track who had been the "best player" because it's usually far from clear, but it might be worth recording what each player said as an the initial pitch. Some sort of natural classification might emerge.

Anything else I should think of? Or should I forget it?
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Michael Wallace
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Re: Divided (new series starts today)

Post by Michael Wallace »

Having never watched the show (but heard about it), I've similarly wondered about strategy. I think the main obstacle to working out an 'optimal' strategy is that people will be much more complicated than any practical model would allow. A fairly basic strategy might be "I'm going to say I'm going for A and will happily see it go to zero, but I'll switch to B if the money gets below x with probability p, and C with probability q".

I suppose the place to start would be looking at really basic strategies to see who wins, and then maybe go from there adding in probabilities of shifting position, etc. It all feels a bit too hand-wavey for my liking, though.
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Clive Brooker
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Re: Divided (new series starts today)

Post by Clive Brooker »

Obviously the game can't end until someone picks C, and when someone does it usually ends very quickly.

Thinking about it, a very simple analysis would be to track the final value of share A against the initial value of share C. In the 2 games so far in this series, C has started at something between £3000 and £4000, whilst A has eventually been worth just under £10000 and zero. So sticking with A is ahead so far, but not by much, and is a big risk.
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Re: Divided (new series starts today)

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Mark's a journalist and his weak subject is literature. :o
Dinos Sfyris
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Re: Divided (new series starts today)

Post by Dinos Sfyris »

SPOILERS for today's show.

Thought the end-game today made a refreshing change to all the money-grabbing contestants we normally see. At first they all selected share A as per usual, but then as soon as the timer began one bloke Pete selflessly allocated himself share C, the other bloke share B and the woman (who hadn't even done that well throughout the show but she had kids) the biggest share around 40K. This whole deciding process took about 3 seconds. Andrew Castle took a while to fathom out who'd got what afterwards it was so quick, and needless to say the woman was gobsmacked by Pete's generosity, and they all went home happy.

I thought the highlight of the show though was this exchange after the question how many monarchs ruled in the 20th century?

Bloke 2: I'm pretty sure Victoria died in 1901.

Andrew: Yes, but was she still queen when she died?

lolz
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Michael Wallace
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Re: Divided (new series starts today)

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Dinos Sfyris wrote:Bloke 2: I'm pretty sure Victoria died in 1901.

Andrew: Yes, but was she still queen when she died?

lolz
You mean like how Edward VIII was still king when he died in 1972? Oh wait.
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Re: Divided (new series starts today)

Post by Dinos Sfyris »

Okay point taken. But the guy clearly knew his stuff about Queen Victoria. I just meant Andrew was clutching at straws a bit to draw out the tension.
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Michael Wallace
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Re: Divided (new series starts today)

Post by Michael Wallace »

Dinos Sfyris wrote:Okay point taken. But the guy clearly knew his stuff about Queen Victoria. I just meant Andrew was clutching at straws a bit to draw out the tension.
Oh right, I missed that Andrew was the presenter. Haha, yeah, I can see that's pretty lulz. The guy on Who Dares Wins does that a lot, which is pretty amusing when it's, like, "Countries in Asia" and a pair leave something like China til last.
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Michael Wallace
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Re: Divided (new series starts today)

Post by Michael Wallace »

So I've now watched episode 1 (thanks, itvplayer), and it was as horrendous as I expected it to be. The quiz element is pretty uninteresting, and really slow, it's also really weird that they will all instantly agree on an answer (in the earlier questions), and then spend 20 seconds 'explaining' their answer. It's the sort of thing you only get when contestants have been briefed to talk through their answers, but if they did that on this show, wouldn't that be pretty poor form? "Oh, and make sure you talk through all your answers" "...doesn't that cost us money?" "...yeah".

The final was really unpleasant, I could already tell that Bev was going to do the "I demand A AND ALL THE PIES OM NOM NOM" thing, despite being a bit of a retard (I loved how she tried to save face after making a complete tit of herself on the bingo question), and it was super unpleasant. I don't feel particularly inclined to watch it again, merely on the merits of the quiz part ('cos you can just turn off before the final if you don't like it), but overall it seems a bit rubbish. I'd be interested to know how often the best man wins, though.
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Re: Divided (new series starts today)

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Michael Wallace wrote:So I've now watched episode 1 (thanks, itvplayer), and it was as horrendous as I expected it to be. The quiz element is pretty uninteresting, and really slow, it's also really weird that they will all instantly agree on an answer (in the earlier questions), and then spend 20 seconds 'explaining' their answer. It's the sort of thing you only get when contestants have been briefed to talk through their answers, but if they did that on this show, wouldn't that be pretty poor form? "Oh, and make sure you talk through all your answers" "...doesn't that cost us money?" "...yeah".

The final was really unpleasant, I could already tell that Bev was going to do the "I demand A AND ALL THE PIES OM NOM NOM" thing, despite being a bit of a retard (I loved how she tried to save face after making a complete tit of herself on the bingo question), and it was super unpleasant. I don't feel particularly inclined to watch it again, merely on the merits of the quiz part ('cos you can just turn off before the final if you don't like it), but overall it seems a bit rubbish. I'd be interested to know how often the best man wins, though.
I think the quiz element isn't too bad. There's some stuff in there thats useful to learn. Although this programme is best watched on x12 on Sky Plus, that's what I do anyway. In fact there isn't a single quiz show left that I ever watch 'live' now as Sky Plus just rules. The best quiz shows are like WWTBAM where you can watch an hours episode in literally 2 minutes as the questions are written on the screen so you never have to actually press 'play'. It's awesome!
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Re: Divided (new series starts today)

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lol at the alphabet having 24 letters.
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Re: Divided (new series starts today)

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Michael Wallace wrote:I'd be interested to know how often the best man wins, though.
Like you I watched the first episode and never again. However in this particular one, I'd say the prize money was ordered exactly right. Classic bit of Dunning-Kruger with the guy who eventually took C.
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Re: Divided (new series starts today)

Post by Eoin Monaghan »

Was today's show a repeat? I am sure I have seen John before on it and remember him being a stubborn man.
Either that or I have a severe case of déja vu!
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Re: Divided (new series starts today)

Post by Hugh Binnie »

I tried watching Divided on Wednesday and had to give up. My main complaint, apart from the incredibly slow pace, was that the presenter always wanted somebody to take responsibility for the question — an incredibly tiresome device. Plus the players generally seemed to be slightly lacking in the GK department.
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Re: Divided (new series starts today)

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Hugh Binnie wrote:I tried watching Divided on Wednesday and had to give up. My main complaint, apart from the incredibly slow pace, was that the presenter always wanted somebody to take responsibility for the question — an incredibly tiresome device. Plus the players generally seemed to be slightly lacking in the GK department.
I find the presenter's attempts to make them in-fight utterly hilarious - they're often so ridiculously contrived. Agree on the contestants seeming a bit thick front, I've only watched a few episodes recently, but there have been some real jaw-droppers.
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Re: Divided (new series starts today)

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Never seen this show before, just watched a clip of the end game on youtube. I don't get it. Why don't they just agree to split it equally three ways after the show?
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Re: Divided (new series starts today)

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Mark James wrote:Never seen this show before, just watched a clip of the end game on youtube. I don't get it. Why don't they just agree to split it equally three ways after the show?
Yeah I know I don't get it. Like on Weakest Link why don't the two at the end just decide to not try and then whoever ends up winning just split the money at the end?!
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Re: Divided (new series starts today)

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Its not quite the same. The weakest link prize is much smaller for a start, but on the episode of divided I saw, the eventual value of pot A, after all the bickering, was less than one third the original total jackpot.
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Jon Corby
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Re: Divided (new series starts today)

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Mark James wrote:Never seen this show before, just watched a clip of the end game on youtube. I don't get it. Why don't they just agree to split it equally three ways after the show?
I read a thread about this on digitalSpy, and apparently they keep the contestants entirely apart. The only time they're together is on set for filming. No green-room camaraderie, no getting to know each other. If someone turned to you in that situation off-camera and whispered "okay, let's split this afterwards. I'll take A, you take C and the other guy's gonna take B. When this is all over call me on 07nnn nnnnnn and we'll meet up to split it", would you?

(Actually having written that, it wouldn't be that bad a punt anyway as most people go home with < [start value of C] anyway!)

Edit: That last sentence has too many anyways in it anyway.
Last edited by Jon Corby on Fri Jan 28, 2011 11:07 am, edited 1 time in total.
Ryan Taylor
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Re: Divided (new series starts today)

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Mark James wrote:Its not quite the same. The weakest link prize is much smaller for a start, but on the episode of divided I saw, the eventual value of pot A, after all the bickering, was less than one third the original total jackpot.
I was being sarcastic.
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Re: Divided (new series starts today)

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Ryan Taylor wrote:
Mark James wrote:Its not quite the same. The weakest link prize is much smaller for a start, but on the episode of divided I saw, the eventual value of pot A, after all the bickering, was less than one third the original total jackpot.
I was being sarcastic.
You wouldn't have been so fucking sarcastic if you hadn't won your show you prick.
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Re: Divided (new series starts today)

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Ryan Taylor wrote:
Mark James wrote:Its not quite the same. The weakest link prize is much smaller for a start, but on the episode of divided I saw, the eventual value of pot A, after all the bickering, was less than one third the original total jackpot.
I was being sarcastic.
I got the sarcasm Ryan. If I hadn't I would have thought you were agreeing with me. I knew you weren't which is why I said "it's not the same" at the start of my post.
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Re: Divided (new series starts today)

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Mark James wrote:
Ryan Taylor wrote:
Mark James wrote:Its not quite the same. The weakest link prize is much smaller for a start, but on the episode of divided I saw, the eventual value of pot A, after all the bickering, was less than one third the original total jackpot.
I was being sarcastic.
I got the sarcasm Ryan. If I hadn't I would have thought you were agreeing with me. I knew you weren't which is why I said "it's not the same" at the start of my post.
Is this sarcasm?
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