Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Duel Game Show

It's been pretty quiet for trivia game shows on television since Grand Slam in September, so I was happy to hear that Duel is airing this week on ABC.

As the game show's name implies, the contest is a head-to-head battle like Twenty-One, but with a couple of well-thought out twists. First, each contestant begins with ten chips (they have a dollar value, but that is mostly irrelevant), which can be placed on one or more of the multiple choice answers to each question. Second, each player has a Pressure button that can be used twice in each game to force the opponent to make a decision in the next seven seconds.

The first person to not cover the correct answer on a question loses. But covering multiple answers may ensure survival at the expense of the incorrectly placed chips, so strategy is fairly complicated based on your relative chip state, your confidence in your answer, and your guess at what your opponent will do.

Overall, Duel is a fascinating new game that so far has been hurt only by the relatively poor quality of the contestants ("confidence and charisma" were more important to the producers) compared to Who Wants to Be a Millionaire and Jeopardy!. For many more details and updated results, the Wikipedia Duel page is a good place to go.

You can also play Duel online by yourself or against other online contestants.

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