Admit it. You have an opinion on these people. So what is it? Wise strategists or curmudgeonly spoilsports?
Tactically sound.
The 4th bidder should be bidding either $1 or $1 greater than the person who they think is closest without going over.
Valid strategy, that the show should have found a way to eliminate. It doesn’t seem fair.
My opinion of people who bid last and don’t bid $1 or $1 more than a competitor is that they’re idiots. If the producers of the show consider the tactic unfair, then it’s on them to change the rules.
It’s an excellent strategy. I remember watching The Price Is Right decades ago, but I don’t recall seeing anyone use that tactic in the show’s early years. I’m surprised it took so long for contestants to figure it out.
I can understand why the player who gets outbid by $1 would be a bit annoyed by it. I don’t fault the player who makes the bid, though. If anyone is at fault it’s the show’s producers who created a game that has such a loophole in the rules. The saving grace, as I remember, is that the winner goes on stage and a new contestant takes their spot, and that player has to bid first on the next prize. Bidding then moves to the contestant’s left. If you’re on the show and you can’t win the bidding, you want the contestant on your left to win. Then you’ll be the last player to bid in the next round, and you can use the +$1 tactic yourself.
I find it odd to watch reruns of old game shows and spot strategies that I never picked up on before. I’m convinced that everyone played Concentration wrong.
Isn’t the one who bids last the one who’s been on contestants’ row the longest? If so, the whole bidding a dollar more strategy is especially valid.
We watch Classic Concentration (With Alex Trebek) and I agree. They’re opening squares that obviously at that point won’t reveal anything useful. And in the “winner’s circle” they blurt off two numbers without waiting to see if one matches a previously turned number. Ijits!
I don’t remember how original Concentration went. I was too young to understand strategy. 
Another bad strategy is when the contestant says “$1” but they’re NOT the last bidder. Then the next player should bid $2 of course. I think the contestants get so excited about being in the spotlight and that they get to use these strategies.
I don’t think so, but I haven’t watched for years. Newest player first, and then it passes to the left. That will tend to go newest-to-oldest, but it isn’t guaranteed.
There’s something else. When it’s your turn, you select one square and see the prize behind it. If it’s a prize you’ve seen before, you call out the matching number. If it’s not, then everyone just picks a number at random hoping to find a match buy luck. That’s the mistake; you’re more likely to reveal a match to your opponent than to match your first number.
I think that if you don’t know where the match is, you should call a previously-revealed number on your second guess. Don’t reveal a match that your opponent can use.
I have noticed that there’s a time limit on the Trebek version; if the bell sounds they start revealing squares one-at-a-time until someone can solve the puzzle. My strategy would slow the game down and they’d probably just run into the time limit more often.
That’s not necessarily a bad strategy. If the first two bids are $500 and $600, the next player might bid $1. The last player should bid $2, $501, or $601, depending on which range they think the real price is.
Has anyone ever seen a case where someone got outbid by a dollar, but still won because they had the price exactly right?
I don’t like it, it seems rude to me. Of course, one guy bid $1 UNDER someone else’s bid and won I’d like to see aa rule where yuou have to go at least $25 over the other person’s bid.
Yes, many times
I just noticed that the question of this Price is Right strategy is discussed in a Q&A column in tomorrow’s New York Times Magazine. Is that what inspired the OP to create this topic?
Yes it was.
But I suspected most Dopers would agree with the plus one. I don’t currently watch the show, but I have seen exact guesses and all the contestant bids differ from another by a dollar.
Since bids go in order of newest contestant to oldest contestant, I think it’s a fair system. If you’ve been up there for a while and you keep getting outbid then you deserve an advantage.
Yeah, I think I would have liked the show better if, say, there was a buffer zone of, like, $10 above any bid that you’d have to honor. Or, you know, if there was some way of stealing someone else’s bid. That would be an interesting element to throw in.
There’s way too much on the line to not do it. What a kick in the pants to make it onto the show but not have a chance to actually win the big prizes.
No, they don’t.
The order you get to bid is pure luck just like being called to “come on down”. There is no strategy that will give you the advantage of bidding last. It’s just as fair as rolling dice to see who goes first in Monopoly.
But yeah, we’re all thinking “dick!” when they bid $1 over.