Recap / The Genius S 2 E 8 Minus Auction

Minus Auction (Same Picture Hunt)

Date of recording: December 22, 2013

Air date: January 25, 2014

Games inspired by: Minus Auction — No Thanks!, Same Picture Hunt — Chicken Cha Cha Cha

Minus auction "sells" cubes with negative numbers on them (from -3 to -35). The goal is pick up as few cubes as possible. When cube is presented to you, you can take it or you can pass it to the next player in the order by paying chip (each player is given 9 chips at the start). You can also pay with garnets. Chips and garnets that players pay to pass the cube are collected and the player that eventually gives in and takes the cube also gets prize pool that goes with it.

When auction ends, sum of numbers on your cubes is added to number of chips you have. If cubes you picked up are in a straight then only one cube with the highest value is counted (for example: if you have -35, -34 and -33, formula will only count -33). However one cube is taken out of the auction and is hidden from the players so there is a risk that one cube you want to connect your straight with might just be it.

Player with the biggest result according to formula wins the game, player with the lowest number — goes to deathmatch.

Because of the chips it can be beneficial to target -20s and even -30s because other players will be avoiding them like plague and will pay up to pass them around, increasing prize pool. Players can even pass them around several times to collect more chips and offset the damage of taking low negative number. Rule of "straights" also allows you to take several low numbers as long as they're close to each other, or ruin other players by intentionally taking cubes they need for the straight.

Game starts and people start picking up cubes and building their straights. Sangmin uses his advantage and starts to only use garnets to pass up cubes, while saving his chips. Yohwan and Hongchul target Sangmin because he has token of immortality AND has stupid amount of garnets while they barely have any. They agree on targeting late -20s because they can take them while at this point any other player can't without significant damage to their total. They pass up -28 round the block several times and pick a lot of garnets hoping to extort even more from Sangmin and Yoyoung.

On third turn Junghyun suddenly takes -28 cube. There are only about 7 cubes left and 5 of them will build Junghyun continuous straight right through most of the -20s. The only danger is hidden cube that was taken out of the auction. If that cube is -19 Junghyun's total will be too low.

Junghyun takes the risk and picks up all remaining cubes. To his dismay hidden cube WAS indeed -19 and that makes him last. Yoyoung and Sangmin who picked very few cubes and used their garnets saving chips are joint winners with -2 total.

Junghyun goes to Deathmatch and chooses Hongchul as his opponent. Deathmatch game is "Same Picture Hunt" — the game that Sangmin lost in previous season.

Junghyun has a slight garnet advantage so his chip is placed further from the edge of the conveyor belt. He uses that advantage by repeating Hongchul's moves and never opening new letters on the board to deny Hongchul of new information. This strategy works and Hongchul eventually falls off the conveyor belt.

Tropes:

• Always Second Best: Jinho's famous #2 curse is remembered once again when Sangmin and Junghyun hope for -22 to come up and they beg recently eliminated Jinho "The King of 2" to grant them double 2s.
• Auction
• Death Seeker: Yohwan makes risky moves in the main match to force Sangmin out of 1st place and he hopes that if/when Yohwan loses and goes to Deathmatch he can pick Sangmin as his opponent to make him burn his token of immortality.
• Stop Copying Me: Junghyun's strategy in "Same Picture Hunt".
• Visible Odor: garnet bums who have no or just 1 garnet have an effect of stink lines added by producers.