Card Sharks (2019)

This is chronicling the 2019 revival of Card Sharks.

## Game Format

The gameplay is basically the same, only with several differences which will be pointed out along the way.

### Main game

Two contestants compete against each other just like the older versions of *Card Sharks*. Only this time, each contestant is assigned a row of ten oversized playing cards instead of five. Each contestant had a standard 52-card deck; the ace ranked highest and the deuce (two) ranked lowest. One player plays the red cards on top, while the other player plays the blue cards on the bottom.

#### Toss-up questions

Control of the board is determined by asking a survey question similar to the surveys done on *Family Feud*. Questions are posed to 100 people of the same occupation, marital status, or demographic (“We asked 100 teachers, ‘Has a student ever given you an apple?’ How many said yes?”). The contestant who receives the question (with the red-card player, going first) then gives a guess as to how many people gave the answer that the host gave (and usually his/her reasoning, although this is not required). After hearing the guess, the opponent has to choose whether the correct number is higher or lower than that guess. Choosing correctly gave control of the board to the opponent; otherwise, the initial contestant gained control. The initial contestant would also gain control of the board if he/she correctly guessed the survey answer on the nose. Up to five toss-up questions are played per game.

#### Playing the cards

Each contestant's base card is the first card in the row of ten. The winner of the question can choose to either play and keeping his/her base card, or have it replaced with another card from the top of the deck. The contestant then guesses whether the next (face-down) card in the row was "higher" or "lower"; if correct, s/he can continue to guess the next card after that and so on (if both cards were the same, the guess counted as incorrect).

On an incorrect guess, the contestant loses his/her progress and returns to the base card with the other revealed cards being discarded and replaced by new face-down cards before the next question in the round. In this event, the opponent receives a free chance to play his/her own row of cards but could not change the base card. Contestants could also choose to "freeze", thus making the last revealed card the new base card and preventing the opponent from receiving a free chance.

#### Sudden death

The fifth question in each game is a "sudden death" question in which someone would win the game on the next turn of the cards. Whoever won control of the board had the opportunity to play the cards (and could change the base card if desired) or pass them to the opponent (who could not change the base card and had to successfully clear the remainder of the row). An incorrect guess at any point caused the opponent to win by default.

The first player to reach the end of the board wins the game, $10,000 and the right to turn it into over $500,000 by playing the Money Cards.

### Money Cards

The winner of the main game played the Money Cards bonus game for a chance to win additional money. The Money Cards board consisted of seven cards now on one row. The Money Cards themselves are now gold.

In addition to guessing whether a card was higher or lower, the contestant had to wager money on that prediction. The contestant is given the $10,000 won for winning the game to bet with and had to wager at least $1000 on each of the first six cards. S/he uses oversized poker chips to make his/her bets. The contestant wins money for each correct guess and lost money on each incorrect guess. Pushes (cards the match each other in rank) also count as incorrect guesses (in this case, using the pre-1980 rule)

If the winning contestant busted prior to reaching the final card, the game ended. Upon reaching the final card, the contestant was required to wager at least half of their earnings; there was an occasional "25" or "75" at the end if a contestant had, at minimum, $50 or $150. Prior to making that bet (if need be), the winning contestant has the option to stop and cash in (IOW, take the money) s/he has right now.

The maximum amount a contestant could win is $640,000.

### Season 2 Changes

* Each player now has seven cards on each row.
* While in the first season the player cut their cards on camera, in the second season, the show went traditional and had the players cut the cards before the show.
* Pushes (cards the match each other in rank) no longer count as incorrect guesses (in this case, using the post-1980 rule) and therefore there's no loss or gain for that turn.

## External Links

* Official Site
* Twitter Page
* Instagram Page

### Reference Links

* Submissions Form
* Casting Website
* OCA: Card Sharks
* Press Your Luck and Card Sharks Are Coming to ABC!