For the first time in 38 years, seminal TV show The Price Is Right had a single contestant successfully guess the exact amount of the prizes; but in the compelling Esquire article TV’s Crowning Moment of Awesome, we find out that the contestant was much more than a game show guest. Into counting cards, reading people and Americana gone wrong at the hands of a crafty number roller? You’ll love this, snip:
(…) He pulled the night shift in a windowless room at Circus Circus and watched the floor through dozens of monitors. Over months of training, he learned how to spot the steady-handed men who were out to break the games. No matter how good they were, they had routines.
(…) And also because of the way his brain works, Terry necessarily found himself walking into a casino and taking a seat at a blackjack table — the one seat, to the dealer’s immediate right, because a weak, pinch-tucking dealer might also show his hole card to that seat more than most — and doing the very things he had been trained to spot, but doing them better. Terry believed that his brain and his eyes and his strong, deep voice made him the perfect vessel for exploiting weakness, for capitalizing on the imperfections of others — for seeing in their patterns an opportunity, a chance for him to break the game.
(…read more, esquire.com)