A Play-By-Play Of AWL And "Price Is Right's" Most Unfortunate Contestant Ever
What are the odds of getting a total score of zero playing the Price Is Right game called Plinko? Pardon My Take AWL Zachary Kinnison reached out to me the other day with this question after his recent unfortunate April 5th appearance on the show.
I'm always happy to provide a consolation prize for any fan who encounters a brutal bad beat by writing a commiseration blog in their honor. Shout out to Colby who lost a fantasy football playoff game by two points on the Jakobi Meyers lateral-ception in which he had Meyers and his opponent had the Raiders DST. Rest assured I'm here to showcase your misery at your behest if something similar happens to you.
Plinko is effectively a carni game where you drop a disc down a plank as it randomly bounces off a series of pegs until falling in one of nine numbered slots. Two of these slots are zeros, but a $10,000 slot lays enticingly in-between them. You get four chances to hopefully get at least ONE drop with a positive value and I don't actually know what happens after that since Zachary didn't get that far.
Here's how the entire thing played out. We'll break it down play-by-play:
What a disc tease. I've never seen a guy so disappointed by dropping their disc into an open hole. Just look at his first drop hovering right over that $10k before eventually veering left.
But that's childs play compared to shot #2 in which the $10,000 slot was defended by Dominic Hasek in his prime at the last second:
#PriceIsRigged
"That was….something else right there". Two shots in and Drew Carey already lost words to encourage his contestant which was his literal only job in that moment. No problem. Zachary was positive vibes only and did Drew's job for him: "I got two more! I got two more!"
Shot "1/ I got 2 more!"
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If you've ever watched a Super Bowl with an Atlanta Falcons fan, you've seen this face before. Excitement turns into despair except your brain doesn't have a similar experience to draw upon to put anything into perspective. It leaves you in the ironic state of having your heart beating through your chest from the builtup excitement while at the same time being completely dead inside. I think this must be how John Mulaney felt as a child when his dad pulled into McDonalds to order that one black coffee.
Let's move on. Drew Carey has seen a lot of people play Planko, so he dug deep with some helpful strategy talk before Zachary's final shot: "Get SOMETHING…besides a zero".
Shot "2/ I got 2 more!"
This time Zachary knew he had to change things up so he started wide stage-left. This was of course no match for the Plinko gods.
We all know how it ends.
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Hang on. Not quite done! Things didn't get better afterwards when Zachary had to guess the price of a home gym and trip to Greece. I'm assuming they had so much pity for the kid they just let him appear in the showcase.
Actual price? $24,433.
Zachary might be an AWL, but Award Winning Gameshow Player is another story. He didn't win shit. But to answer his initial question, the odds of getting four zeros in the Plinko game is .2% or one in 500. Drew Carey's been doing this show for a minute now and told Zachary backstage he's never seen that happen. As bad as I feel for the kid, I feel worse for whoever his friends he plays roulette with are. In Poker terms, these chances are like having three cards in order to a straight flush (ex: 4d, 5d, 6d) and hitting runner, runner. Or from Zachary's perspective, having that happen to your opponent.
Now that you know the story, this clip of Zachary getting selected before any of this went down is the saddest part of this all.
WARNING: Absolute sicco viewing only:
Look at the joy. Look at the exuberance. Look at Zachary channel his inner Henry Lockwood with a double-fisted celebration before failing to ever pick a correct random number. You can't tell me this game isn't rigged. There's gotta be a clear peg over that 10k we can't see.
I think if the show's producers have any dignity, they'll give him a redemption chance one day. He'll be back. He'll be ready. And when he finally gets that disc to land on any number of value one thing will be for sure: Hank will still have never gotten the lottery ball.
- Jeffro