3 Strikes (pricing game)

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The "3 Strikes" board, with the dollar sign loaded upside-down

3 Strikes is a pricing game on the American television game show The Price Is Right. Debuting on February 12, 1976, this game is played for a luxury car that costs at least $30,000.

1 Gameplay
2 Rule changes
3 Trivia
4 See also

[edit] Gameplay

Host Bob Barker shows the contestant six discs. Five of the discs have digits representing numbers in the price of the car. The other disc is red and emblazoned with a large black X. The discs are placed into a bag shaped like a baseball.

The contestant blindly draws a disc from the bag. One of two possible things could happen:

If it is a number, the contestant is asked where that number belongs in the price (the first, second, third, fourth or fifth position). If he is correct, the number lights up in the correct position on the large green portion of the gameboard and the disc is removed from play. If the guess is not correct, the disc is returned to the bag.

If it is the "X" disc, the player is penalized with a strike. One of the three "X"s on the small red portion of the gameboard lights up. The disc is then placed back in the bag.

Barker then shuffles the discs up again (though he usually does not shuffle right after a disc is permanently removed from play) , and – assuming the contestant has not drawn the "X" three times – play continues as before.

The game ends in one of the two following ways:

Revealing all five number discs and placing them correctly, resulting in a win.
Drawing the "X" disc three times, thus "striking out" and losing the car.

[edit] Rule changes

From the game's premiere in 1976 to the end of the 1997-1998 season, there were three separate "X" discs placed in the bag (along with the number discs) at the outset; each "X" disc was removed from play as it was drawn. The current format took effect at the end of the 1997-1998 season, after the producers reasoned the use of five-digit cars was resulting in a decreasing win rate.

[edit] Trivia

A picture of the "3 Strikes +" board

The 3 Strikes set originally made no references to baseball at all, aside from the suggestive name. The baseballs on the gameboard were not added until the early '80s, the bag was made to look like a baseball in the late '80s, and the baseball "NO" graphic was only used from 1998 through 2002. The current graphic is simply the word "NO".

Through the early 1990s, the game was played using both four- and five-digit cars. Except for the first few times it was done, when the more expensive cars were on offer, the game was known as "3 Strikes +". Even though four-digit cars were no longer used in the game after September 1993, it retained the "3 Strikes +" name until February 17, 1994, later in Season 22.

The "+" used in the logo now sits in a compartment on the back of the gameboard.

Until the early 1990s, the car being played for was often the usual TPIR fare – base model economy cars with a minimum of options, with a five-digit car occasionally offered. Since circa-1991, the game's prize has always been a more expensive car with many options, especially luxury models like the Buick Park Avenue, Cadillac STS, and Lincoln Town Car, or sports cars such as the Chevrolet Corvette and Chrysler Crossfire.

Theoretically, 3 Strikes is compatible with six-digit car prices; however, a car that expensive has never actually been offered in the game.

If 3 Strikes is the first pricing game of the day, Bob Barker will enter through the studio audience, since the game board blocks his regular entrance.

When a contestant makes an incorrect guess on a number's location, the word "NO" appears on the screen. When the game was played on the Doug Davidson syndicated version of the show, a wrong guess triggered the visual effect of a red outline of the selected number window melting and falling to the floor.

On the Doug Davidson version, the first digit of a 5-digit car was given for free. Also, it was legal for the first number to be repeated elsewhere in the car's price.

On February 28, 1992, 3 Strikes seemingly fell victim to a cheater. A woman named Toni who was playing for a Porsche 968 (one of the most expensive prizes the show had offered at the time -- worth $45,789) was down to two chips, a strike and the last number. She drew a chip out of the bag, then quickly put it back in before anyone else could see what it was. On her next turn, she drew the number and won. For several months after that episode, the show used new strike chips that were white with red X's rather than the standard red ones with black X's, indicating that the staff also thought she cheated and sought to prevent it from happening again.
- A contestant also cheated in the game in 1988; she began to pull the third strike out of the bag, then put it back, thinking no one would notice. Bob did notice, and he chided her for it. She ended up pulling the third strike all the way out on a later draw.