Fruit Machine Chat

That couple that won £10,000 on Big Match have just been on. Apparently their technique was centred on the fact BM doesn't offer up any obscene spoilers - "What is the population of Sweden minus the population of Denmark?" etc. But after they had a quick shot, he said that once the £20 has been won you need to move to another machine as it becomes "very, very difficult" to win again. So how does this difficulty arise if the game is spoiler free?

As a sidenote, they had a wee go of the game. Slick Dick looked like a handy quizzer, although Judy was uniformly rubbish.

Vidmar wrote: he said that once the £20 has been won you need to move to another machine as it becomes "very, very difficult" to win again. So how does this difficulty arise if the game is spoiler free?

i'd suggest it is the (second-to-)last refuge of a scoundrel: dodgy timekeeping.
happy to shot down in flames if i'm wrong.

See they got one of Mazooma's clever dick 'What was the 3rd character in the last question' bollocks, although Madeley conveniently overlooked it.

Found it funny that they're so good at 'The Big Game' as Judy called it, that they had to keep the continue active to make sure they could get to a prize! Tsk tsk, such amateurs.

How funny was that???!?!??? Gosh! How clever was she with he internet trawling and days of thinking!!!! He'll be lucky if they can walk in another pub again and go near a machine. I say he, because she was just a desparate limpit on the bottom of a struggling boat. Mind you, he was a pretty terrible captain.

WaterGate wrote: How funny was that???!?!??? Gosh! How clever was she with he internet trawling and days of thinking!!!! He'll be lucky if they can walk in another pub again and go near a machine. I say he, because she was just a desparate limpit on the bottom of a struggling boat. Mind you, he was a pretty terrible captain.

grow up.

I didn't see this but am sure it was very entertaining.

In my experience, after the first £20 has been won BM becomes difficult to win again mainly because the time drops extremely rapidly during each round limiting the potential for collecting bonuses and Golden Balls which are needed to progress. In addition, the distances between prizes greatly increase and the speed with which the marker moves on the penalty shoot out increases as well. None of these are spoilers insofar as none are at all unfair, but they do all make it boringly difficult to win again.

Personally I always try to stay behind the game continue level until the latest I can leave it. That seems to me to be simple precautionary play and not a sign of weakness. I expect even the best BM players occasionally mess up the penalty shoot out or just simply get a question wrong so having the game continue seems to be a basic guard against this.

I don't think Mr Brewis will experience difficulty in pubs in future - (a) I doubt many landlords / bar managers would have been watching R&J yesterday; and (b) I doubt many would care anyway - in my experience people behind the bar are far more likely to be impressed than annoyed by someone jackpotting the quiz machine.

I had a good few goes of BM last night on an old machine which has certainly not been updated recently.

I had some success and won £3 fairly easily, although I would say "What is the distance between London and Auckland?" certainly counts as a spoiler. After collecting £3 I had another go.

Questions remained decent but the problem lay in the shootout end game. I scored deftly yet was only awarded 4 'balls' at the bottom. Usually one an enjoy between 10 and 15 for each goal scored. I pressed on and got to the shootout yet again. This time I only had about 5 seconds to shoot, during which time the target never once moved into a scoring position. Time ran out, the comp shot for me and missed, obviously.

It seems this couple's claim of £10,000 out of BM is based on the adage of 'if the machine is choked full of cash, smart folk can win the JP', which is nothing new nor anything worthy of such acclaim, IMO.

unknownpseudonym wrote:

Grow up

On ya bike 'knowndickhead'. It is exactly the point. why the hell would you want to advertise that you've won that much. Thats that idea now over with and messed things up for quite a few people. so think a bit deeper in your knee jerk, ametuer responses.

WaterGate wrote:ametuer responses.

Vidmar wrote:This time I only had about 5 seconds to shoot, during which time the target never once moved into a scoring position. Time ran out, the comp shot for me and missed, obviously.

This has happened to me and seems to be the clearest indication that the game has been 'jackpotted' by someone else and hence you need to give up unless you are happy to play the game for recreation/practice only.

Vidmar wrote:It seems this couple's claim of £10,000 out of BM is based on the adage of 'if the machine is choked full of cash, smart folk can win the JP', which is nothing new nor anything worthy of such acclaim, IMO.

The truth with this game is that it had two of the three features which for me are essential for any game to be worthwhile, but which are sadly lacking in so much of the modern dross:

(1) Jackpots are attainable

Obviously you need plenty of general and/or specialist knowledge combined with speed of thought and screen-pressing and sometimes some other brain/hand/eye skills to win big on any game but there are plenty of games out there where I don't believe ANYONE has ever won big - Monopoly Deluxe (the main game if not the cashpot), Take It or Leave It, Trivia for Dummies, Snakes and Ladders, Countdown, Cops and Robbers, Bullseye, the Snake Quiz ....

There may be the odd isolated machine where obscene amounts of cash go into one particular game hence making it operate at way above the normal payout levels but I haven't seen any! Big Match on the other hand is always jackpottable once it seems.

(2) You can tell when a game is worth playing

This means that there are indicators of what payout mood a game is in that are easy to spot on the first go or two. Classic Millionaire was great for this but Big Match is/was as well - grecian explains these indicators above.

(3) The Jackpot becomes attainable again after the machine has recouped sufficient cash

This is the feature that Big Match doesn't have. You can win once but either through design or because it isn't attractive to general punters, it seems that it will never go back to being attainable again. David and Lesley were able to exploit this by knowing never to return to a machine they had 'done'.

Given the garbage that is around, I'd quite happily settle for a few more games with points (1) and (2) - sadly, the days of any company having the balls to come up with a game that also has point (3) seem to have gone for good.

All of this doesn't answer for me the mystery of WHY they chose to go public on this, unless they do think they can gain financially via newspaper fees and TV appearances etc - do you get paid for appearing on Richard and Judy??

I have alway been slighty annoyed at people who draw attention and create publicity about "the business". It only creates extra heat for the rest of us. In the past many of these people were fringe players rather than hard-core pros. These two have probably already made more than £10k out of the story. It was probably all the more interesting because of the type of people they are. If it had been some fat, bald, middle-aged geezer it may not have seemed half as interesting to the media.

And just cos its in the papers and on Richard and Judy doesn't mean its all true.

If they're that smart maybe they should go and work at Mazooma. I expect there'll be a job going

Has there been any mention of how much they pumped in to the machines to win £10,000? I've read a couple of articles and it certainly didn't mention 10k profit.

Nil Satis wrote:All of this doesn't answer for me the mystery of WHY they chose to go public on this

It's probably because winning so much money on the quizzies is quite a cool thing to tell ppl about. I can imagine all their mates being impressed (especially by that pic of the ridiculous mound of quids) and egging them on to spread the news.

Also, if they're well-qualified grads, the quizzing was doubtless only a one-off 'gap-year' escapade before they become working stiffs, so they don't mind scuppering their chances of continuing as pros.

I bet shes the driver! If I ever see a woman who is better than me at quiz machines Ill eat my Adidas running cap and yes I have got a girlfriend!