The Hustler - General Discussion

[Door County Cherry]

I thought it was the quiet guy because boisterous guy seemed too obvious.  But I guess he can't hide the performer in him.

I did notice he said something subtly sexist in the horse clue.  He told the woman she looked like the wife of a horse owner.  So there's no way she could be the horse owner?  She already said she was single and the clue wasn't about the spouse's horse.

1 hour ago, LakeGal said:

The Hustler didn't seem to care if they got the answers right.  He was more interested in trying to hide his identity.  

I think he was doing the show for experience over money.   He owned a racing horse?  Was able to join the magic castle?  Drove a Mercedes?  The clues didn't necessarily identify the hustler but they did reveal a certain lifestyle for him.  And that isn't someone for whom 50 or 100 k would change all that much about his life.

[dargosmydaddy]

I picked the Hustler fairly early, although I did waver a little when the other guy all of a sudden knew the really obscure "Baby on Board" question. One of these weeks it's going to be the quiet one!

I was glad the Hustler didn't win. He was obnoxious (and clearly didn't need the money).

1 hour ago, LakeGal said:

The Hustler didn't seem to care if they got the answers right. 

He did a good job of letting wrong answers go early on, but he did contribute a lot of answers overall, and as @alexa said, kind of took charge a lot. He also lucked out that the other contestants actually knew a lot of the trivia (except for the first woman, which was why she was eliminated).

[seacliffsal]

The thing with these semi-famous hustlers is that they may not necessarily need the money so may let more wrong answers go.  At least Ryan seemed to have a need to be the center of attention so that was an indicator.  When the clue was about the Magic Castle is when I thought it was him.  

Does anyone know what his emmy was for?

[saber5055]

For the first time I picked the Hustler but I don't have any real reason why and wasn't all that confident about it. Maybe because he was such a showboat, plus made it obvious he was a "princess" so could be daddy's little princess easily. I'm a horse person and know many race horses are owned by multiple people, there could have been 20 owners of that horse that came in last in the Kentucky Derby. I only caught the "War" part of the horse's name and I can't find a list of  horses who finished last in the Derby so don't know how many owners that horse had. "War" is a family (horse family) name in thoroughbreds so there are a ton-load of horses with War in their names.

He did know about betting terminology though, something I didn't. But maybe the "chalk" part is helping me understand the Kansas battlecry of "Rock Chalk." Or not.

I knew the sushi answer so was waiting for the Hustler to go with the correct response, which he did not. The sushi-chef license is for serving fugu, puffer fish, which, improperly filleted, contains enough neurotoxin to kill 30 people.

As a show-dog person, I had no idea Bobby Flay was making dog food. So I looked it up, and he isn't, he's making cat food named for his cat Nacho. The clue did say "pet" food so good on them for confusing me. I, too, guessed Jamie Oliver.

I did guess the Baby on Board answer since those were hanging tags stuck onto car  windows by suction cups. The others are decals or bumper stickers and are bastardized often. So while I didn't know for positive, I wasn't surprised when that was the answer.

I'm thinking the Emmy is for makeup or wardrobe or set design or something like that. My guess would be makeup given he's producing skin lotions and wears his hair like Ed Grimley.

Edited August 20, 2021 by saber5055

[seacliffsal]

I did guess Bobby Flay for the pet food as I know about his love for his cat (I watch Beat Bobby Flay) and I didn't really know anything about Jaime Oliver.  

I like the idea that Ryan won an emmy for something like make-up, so thanks for that idea saber5055.

[A.Ham]

Ok, I did suspect the hustler with all his convenient answers but I settled on the woman because of the car decal—she did “look”:like “Daddy’s little princes”, more than the other two contestants. I really would have put my money on her. 

[saber5055]

5 hours ago, seacliffsal said:

I like the idea that Ryan won an Emmy for something like make-up, so thanks for that idea saber5055.

The 2021 Daytime Emmys had two categories for makeup and two for hairstyles. There's also sound mixing, casting and editing categories. It's the shows that are nominated in these categories but if the Hustler did hair on Trinkets or costume styling on Helpsters, he's an Emmy nominee.

I'd still like to know the name of his Derby horse to check that out. My thinking is he's part of a large group of investors who own fractions of thoroughbred race horses. For instance, the 2020 Derby winner, Authentic, has one majority owner plus more than 4,000 micro-owners who purchased $206 shares of the horse before the race. I'm guessing our Hustler is like one of those $206 people.

[pezgirl7]

1 hour ago, saber5055 said:

I'd still like to know the name of his Derby horse to check that out. My thinking is he's part of a large group of investors who own fractions of thoroughbred race horses.

The horse was War Story, and the hustler's name is Ryan Zamo. He's worth millions, so he could have owned the horse himself. He's acted on some TV shows, and here's video of his horrible audition on American Idol. I vaguely remember him! His skin care line is apparently well known. I read an article that said he wanted all his products to be under $15 because he was sick of paying so much for acne remedies. Well, at some point he raised the price!

I was leaning towards Ryan throughout the show, for various reasons. I thought he looked like someone who did magic, and the way he sorta stumbled over saying he didn't have a job made it seem like he was lying. And then not wanting to answer questions first, but then coming up with the answer was cagey. It's a good strategy to let others answer the question first, but if they are on the wrong track, it can be hard to lead them to the correct answer without actually saying that you are sure of the answer. I thought the other guy seemed way too amused at the Daddy's Little Princess sticker for it to be him, but when he answered the Baby on Board question, it made me have doubts. I did really bad with the questions this round. Sushi and gambling and stocks are just not my world. I used to be a big NASCAR fan, and I guessed the correct answer (peanut shells), but I think it was just a guess and not based on any actual knowledge. I think the only question I really knew was the Curb Your Enthusiasm question, and it wasn't because I watch the show. It was because of the Netflix documentary Long Shot, which was about a man who was exonerated for murder because he was shown in the crowd while they were filming the Curb episode at Dodger stadium. I remember the documentary playing a short clip of Larry stuck in traffic, or talking about the traffic.

Edited August 20, 2021 by pezgirl7

[lynxfx]

34 minutes ago, pezgirl7 said:

He's acted on some TV shows, and here's video of his horrible audition on American Idol.

Thanks for the link and OMG! 

I picked him at the magic castle clue. His feauxhawk gave him away to me. Oh he also made a side eye glance to the red shirt guy when picking him for the 2nd elimination. 

Quiet guy was my first impression pick but he never really did anything suspicious. 

Craig seemed a little less involved this episode. I kept cracking up as he putted in the background. 

[junemeatcleaver]

1 hour ago, pezgirl7 said:

He's acted on some TV shows, and here's video of his horrible audition on American Idol.

He sounds like a wack Brian Molko.

[saber5055]

Thanks for the names @pezgirl7. I looked Ryan up and found this:

In 2016, Ryan created his own TV series, Back Stabber, which was loosely based on his own experiences growing up in Wayne. The series launched on Amazon and earned Ryan Zamo a Daytime Emmy Award in 2017 for Outstanding Series Message.

He was married in 2017. I can't see where he was owner of War Story or any horses, but it could be  his husband is connected to Imaginary Stables or some trainer somehow. War Story was no dud, he raced seven years, had 40 starts and won more than $3 million. He was a graded stakes winner and ran in the Breeder's Cup Classic in 2016 and 2017. That's top shelf in the thoroughbred world. The horse is now on a retirement farm for race horses.

His FB page shows he's pretty self absorbed so it appears he was just being himself on The Hustler. He's acted in other shows (100 Humans) but I have to say he's not very good at it if the other two players picked him and he was my pick all the way through. And I've never EVER picked The Hustler before. EVER!

Edited August 21, 2021 by saber5055

[pezgirl7]

2 hours ago, saber5055 said:

I can't see where he was owner of War Story or any horses, but it could be  his husband is connected to Imaginary Stables or some trainer somehow.

Funny how you think his husband was the true owner, just like how he said the woman looked like she could be the wife of an owner. 😁 Here's an article that talks about him as the owner, and then an article explaining that he wasn't the sole owner.

I had no idea Outstanding Series Message was a category, but then again, I've never watched the Daytime Emmys.

 

[lynxfx]

4 minutes ago, pezgirl7 said:

I had no idea Outstanding Series Message was a category, but then again, I've never watched the Daytime Emmys.

It basically isn't. There are hundreds of unaired categories for Emmys. After some digging looks like he got a special recognition award which they just called "Outstanding Series Message" for him. Too bad you still have to pay for the statue.

[saber5055]

3 minutes ago, pezgirl7 said:

Funny how you think his husband was the true owner, just like how he said the woman looked like she could be the wife of an owner.

I wrote that after doing a search through Equibase, Horse Racing Nation and Bloodhorse and followed links to Elizabeth L. Dobles, J. D. Acosta, Jack Swain III, Darby Dan Farm, Harry Rosenblum and Nick deMeric, all associated with War Story, and even pulled up a five-generation pedigree on the horse (he's rather well bred) and couldn't find Ryan's name anywhere. I don't know his husbands name -- for all I know it's Glen Ellis. To suggest I was being sexist or whatever your comment means is not funny and, frankly, it's hurtful.

I was trying to have fun posting what I found out about The Hustler. I won't apologize for my supposition after hours of fruitless searching for what you already knew. I posted above that I suspected Ryan was one of several owners on the horse. Very few graded stakes winners have sole owners unless the owner is Sheikh Mohammed. Ryan's husband could also be one of multiple owners. Maybe you can clarify that for us too.

Side note: War Story started his racing career at The Fairgrounds, where my own thoroughbred ran many of her 50 starts before moving to Prairie Meadows. It's not like I'm a novice on the subject.

[pezgirl7]

3 hours ago, saber5055 said:

To suggest I was being sexist or whatever your comment means is not funny and, frankly, it's hurtful.

I wasn't trying to suggest that your speculation was sexist. I just thought it was kind of amusing because it reminded me of a moment in the show. Sorry that it came across as something else. I didn't mind Ryan saying that he thought the woman looked like she could be the wife of an owner, because I thought she did too. She kinda reminded me of the wife of a professional athlete, whose photos I see a lot of on instagram because I follow a lot of baseball players. But I also thought she could be the owner herself. The whole show is about guessing things about a person based off a very small amount of information. In a way, the show is very good at breaking down preconceived notions. But I understand your guess was based on the research you did. I didn't know he was one of the main owners until after you posted about not being able to find any info. I googled his name along with War Story. One of the first articles to pop up mentioned the owners. I have no idea how accurate it is or if his hubby was also a owner. He very well could be if they were married at the time!

[Grundoon59]

I have really been enjoying this show and tend to save the latest episode to stream when I want to watch something fun and different.  I don't usually correctly guess the Hustler in the early going (more often than not, my first choice is one of the first people out the door) but this week I did for some reason so I liked this episode even more than usual. 

I also like trying to guess the answers to the trivia questions but I realized that I would probably be rubbish on this show - I haven't lived an interesting enough life to be a good candidate for the Hustler and I would probably be arguing too much for answers I knew that the Hustler might think I knew who they were.  So another dream of being on a television game show dies.... 

[pezgirl7]

Wow, the hustler got lucky with the older man guessing that last question right! I didn’t think it was him but the other two saying they didn’t know the answer made me think it was him. I’m thinking the reason she made him pick the answer is because he mentioned the coast guard earlier, so she was probably just hoping he’d stick with that answer. I feel like this was the nicest, most pleasant group of contestants we’ve had so far!

[Ms Lark]

I think Deena was probably one of the best Hustlers yet. I thought it was either India, who got kicked off early, or John. Mark was too young to have experienced most of the questions. Deena played the mom card really well and kept a major poker face. I suspected her over Mark, but not over John. John was really suspicious! Congrats to her, well earned!

[Door County Cherry]

I didn't suspect her really--other than the fact that some of John's "the clues are intentionally deceptive" arguments made sense.  I think John was almost too intense in arguing that it wasn't him. 

 

[Snapdragon]

I figured it had to be either Deena or India when they gave the "mercury in retrograde" fact.  Everyone I know who was that into astrology (to the point where it influenced their decisions) was a woman.  Once India got kicked out, I knew it had to be Deena.  

Though the best and most random question of the night had to be Mark asking John if he did drag.  

[pezgirl7]

3 hours ago, Snapdragon said:

Though the best and most random question of the night had to be Mark asking John if he did drag.  

That was really funny. Mark seemed like John reminded him of someone he had seen in drag at some point. I'm curious to know what Deena's alter ego IG is about.

[dargosmydaddy]

I was completely stumped. Deena was excellent, but she also lucked out that the two guys both knew a lot of answers, and that John was overly pushy at times, and then came up with that last answer.

[LakeGal]

I didn't think it was John because he talked too much.  I was actually torn between 'Deena and Mark at the end.  Deena talked the least which is often how the Hustler acts.

[seacliffsal]

I changed my mind so many times during the episode about who was the Hustler.  At one time or another I thought it was every single player.  I did wonder if it was Deena early on when she wasn't saying much as I thought the fact that she wasn't contributing would send her home as the Hustler wouldn't be able to use her and any answers she gave to hide behind.

I really do enjoy this show and playing along with the contestants!

[Koalagirl]

I really enjoyed this episode and found myself laughing out loud at some of the banter.

[seacliffsal]

I so guessed wrong about the Hustler this week.  I thought it was Rebecca until she was sent out by the Hustler (the way she questioned people I felt was to deflect...I was wrong).  And then I thought it was Kristin because she KEPT saying how annoyed she was because the Hustler was letting them get the answers wrong.  My "spidey" sense must be off.  Fun episode!

[pezgirl7]

I only guessed the hustler right at the end when he lifted up his shirt. Just something about that act made me think it was him. I feel like he got spoken over a lot, which could be why he didn’t have a chance to steer the answers in the right direction. I found this group, except for the hustler, to be very loud and obnoxious. If you’re not the hustler, I don’t understand the strategy of talking so much during the questions. If you don’t know the answer, shut up and let others answer! lol 

I saw the part asking for contestants for season 3, so I’m glad the show will be continuing, although I don’t know what the ratings have been like. 

[saber5055]

I thought the hustler was the guy with the glasses who got the pi decimal number correct. But at the end I switched to the young guy. He seemed likely to have a fridge stocked like was shown. I had no idea why he kept lifting up his shirt so many times, but a guy who poses nude would have no problem doing that on national tv. Having lived through five years of life model drawing/painting classes (college), he seemed to fit that category too, both in age and physique.

However, if I had to put money on my choice, I wouldn't have bet because I never guess correctly. Is this the lowest money total so far on this show? The hustler basically didn't contribute anything. Maybe that was his plan.

[pezgirl7]

47 minutes ago, saber5055 said:

but a guy who poses nude would have no problem doing that on national tv. Having lived through five years of life model drawing/painting classes (college), he seemed to fit that category too, both in age and physique.

I went to art school, but only had to take one semester of life drawing, and we mostly had middle aged models. So the model question didn't really clue me in at all. Also, I think it's odd how some contestants assume that a person has to have kids in order to enjoy "childish" things, like The Little Mermaid.

[LakeGal]

I don't like when the hustler doesn't seem to care if they make money.  I don't think they are really hustling anyone.  Of course the easiest way to not get caught is to never contribute to the correct answers.  It makes it pretty hard to guess the hustler when they are just sitting there letting the game go on around them.  LakeGuy had him pegged from the beginning.  But I kept changing my mind,  I never thought it was the woman in pink.  She blabbed way too much and was loud.  But the others all seemed suspicious at times.  

[saber5055]

26 minutes ago, LakeGal said:

I don't like when the hustler doesn't seem to care if they make money.  I don't think they are really hustling anyone. 

I think this is exactly why I was sort of ... meh ... about this episode. It's like the hustler didn't care so yeah, is he really a hustler then? I wonder if hustlers are given instructions or just allowed to do whatever. I'm kinda thinking it's the second choice.

[dargosmydaddy]

1 hour ago, saber5055 said:

The hustler basically didn't contribute anything. Maybe that was his plan.

He said as much afterwards. I mean, it is a decent plan, if you're OK with the money being less-than-wonderful. Last week's contestants were much better at the trivia, to the point where the Hustler lady only really contributed two answers, and did them in a very natural way (reasoning it out and passing it off as an educated guess in one instance, claiming knowledge from her kid's homework in another), and lucking out that the two guys were really good with the trivia. This week's people were sucky at trivia, and the Hustler wasn't very good at lying, so I think he made the wise choice to just sit back and not contribute much. Better to go home with a little money than none. 

I thought it was the obnoxious guy for most of the episode because he was so in-your-face about accusing the others that it seemed like deflection, but that didn't really jive with the Hustler's obvious strategy of not contributing answers. So I did begin to suspect the actual Hustler, but wasn't completely convinced until the end, when he did such a poor job of trying to convince the woman not to change her answer.

I'm kind of glad that the prize pot was so low, because the winners were so annoying.

[Krusty724]

I thought this was the weakest of this season’s run of episodes. Compared to all of the hustlers that have played, I would say this one was arguably the worst. To his credit (and a poster above as well), the other two contestants dominated the dialogue and were not allowing the hustler an opening to lead the questions. 

[Krusty724]

It seems like there are only two more episodes left for this season, but at least we know a third season is coming given the commercials recruiting for new contestants. 
 

Every group of players in a single game have unique dynamics that are impossible to be replicated elsewhere. For example, we will never know how the hustlers of episodes 2.2 and  2.6 (raised in a cult) would do if the four non hustlers were swapped out with each other. There can never be all star or all celebrity episodes either, and so on. 
 

With that said, I enjoy speculating as to which hustlers played the game the best, along with which non-hustler players played the best. What are your thoughts on the absolute best of the best (and the worst of the worst)?

Glad to share in the banter here about this amazing show. It’s quickly become my all-time favorite game show, and is magical when the right group of contestants are dialed in. By the way, is there any way I can watch episodes from season one? I’m sure I have missed a few here and there but they are impossible to find. 
 

 

[dargosmydaddy]

20 hours ago, saber5055 said:

I wonder if hustlers are given instructions or just allowed to do whatever. I'm kinda thinking it's the second choice.

I would imagine they're given freedom to play however they want, but I wonder how much freedom they're given to create their own bio clues? Like, do they come up with all of them themselves, or is it a joint/ collaborative effort with the production team, or...? Because the picture of the Hustler's fridge was both A) not very interesting, and B) a pretty big hint that it was a young, single guy. Of course, there have been "obvious" type clues before that turned out to not be the obvious person, but some are worse than others.

And of course the Hustler has no control over who is chosen to play with them, too, not only in terms of how well they know trivia, but in terms of how likely they are to match up with the clues in terms of age, gender, geographical area, etc. And then the Hustler has to decide how to play their eliminations, in terms of who's the most helpful, who might suspicious, and who might best match up with all the upcoming clues, which is a lot to juggle mentally. I thought it was interesting that this week's Hustler eliminated both the women who admitted to being Sunday school teachers. And honestly, except for the fridge clue, I can't remember any other clues that really skewed male, and there were several that skewed female (the crocheting, the Little Mermaid, the Sunday School teaching), so he might have been better off keeping two women.

[Door County Cherry]

Did anyone notice that Craig said the questions were based on the Hustler's life yet I don't recall him saying that the hustler was given the answers.   

So did they change the game?  They select questions they think the hustler will know but maybe not the answers?

[SomeTameGazelle]

2 hours ago, Door County Cherry said:

Did anyone notice that Craig said the questions were based on the Hustler's life yet I don't recall him saying that the hustler was given the answers. 

I thought Craig did remind them that the Hustler knew all the answers at some point. What I wondered was whether the answers are things that the Hustler knows well or are they questions that production came up with and gave the answers to the Hustler? I had assumed that they were things that the Hustler knows well so it could be hard to hide the knowledge. If they only recently memorized them it would be easier to feign ignorance. 

[dargosmydaddy]

3 hours ago, Door County Cherry said:

Did anyone notice that Craig said the questions were based on the Hustler's life yet I don't recall him saying that the hustler was given the answers.   

So did they change the game?  They select questions they think the hustler will know but maybe not the answers?

I don't remember what Craig did or didn't say, but even if he didn't mention the Hustler knowing the answers, I would chalk it up to assuming everyone knows the rules by now and not that the rules suddenly changed mid-season. Even if they decided to change the rules (which would really make no sense), and decided to not tell us (other than by not staring the previously known rules), at the very least you'd think they'd tell the other contestants, and the woman kept going on and on about how the Hustler wasn't helping out even though they knew the answers... so yeah, he knew the answers.

1 minute ago, SomeTameGazelle said:

What I wondered was whether the answers are things that the Hustler knows well or are they questions that production came up with and gave the answers to the Hustler? I had assumed that they were things that the Hustler knows well so it could be hard to hide the knowledge. If they only recently memorized them it would be easier to feign ignorance. 

I don't think the trivia is stuff the Hustler knows, because most of it is really random. (Obviously some of it might be, depending how closely it's related to the factoid, like this week's Hustler could have given the right digit of pi.) I do kind of wonder if they ever forget an answer, but overall it's probably not that hard to remember the answers to ten (that's the number of questions, right?) multiple choice questions. I also wonder if maybe they have breaks during the filming, and the Hustler could refresh their memories for the upcoming questions then.

[Madding crowd]

I didn’t like this one as much as the others. When they are guessing the wrong answers for most of the questions, it is hard to predict who the hustler might be. I did find the non hustler people kind of annoying.

[30 Helens]

On 9/17/2021 at 3:11 PM, pezgirl7 said:

 I think it's odd how some contestants assume that a person has to have kids in order to enjoy "childish" things, like The Little Mermaid.

I assumed it was someone who was able to see it on video as a kid, because kids will watch the same thing 100x in a row. The parent may sit through a few viewings, but will find something else to do after the 5th time or so. 

Based on the number of clues that skewed female, like the minivan and crocheting, I knew it had to be a guy. I just picked the wrong one. (I’m really bad at this game.)

[Kiddvideo]

I’d never heard of this before and it premiered in January? Huh. 

The hustler I saw was Jenna, a non-descript blonde who doesn’t wear underwear and seemed very impressed with herself and her 10,000 Tindr likes. (How long has she been on there and what’s wrong with her that she’s still looking?) Steffan, the tennis pro, guessed her but couldn’t convince the other player to change her vote. I got a good laugh when Steffan congratulated Jenna at the end and said with the prize money maybe she could buy some underwear.

I think they should change so much about the show. Letting the Hustler kick them off? No. The Mole got it right with a quiz. And they should change who gets the money. For this episode it should’ve been split between Jenna and Steffan.

But whatever. I didn’t care for it and won’t be watching again.

[Meedis]

55 minutes ago, Kiddvideo said:

I think they should change so much about the show. Letting the Hustler kick them off? No. The Mole got it right with a quiz.

I am definitely enjoying this show.   There was one episode I remember where neither of the other two remaining guessed the Hustler and were trying to convince the Hustler to change her vote.   I remember thinking she should've just switched it at the end since it wouldn't matter either way.    It would be a final mindfuck for the remaining two...*LOL*.

But I do agree that I don't like that the Hustler gets to choose who goes.   Though I wonder if that part is true or not.    There were times when it seemed the Hustler got rid of both of the minority characters and that rubbed me the wrong way.

The previous episode I guessed right off that it was Deena but it was purely instinctual.   I was convinced this recent episode that it was Pi guy but Mr. Meedis was on the other guy train and even though towards the end I had a feeling he was right, especially when the other guy kept lifting his shirt, I stuck with Pi guy and was wrong.

I'm continuing to love this show and I'm glad it'll be back for Season 3.

Edited September 24, 2021 by Meedis

[alexa]

7 hours ago, Kiddvideo said:

I’d never heard of this before and it premiered in January? Huh. 

The hustler I saw was Jenna, a non-descript blonde who doesn’t wear underwear and seemed very impressed with herself and her 10,000 Tindr likes. (How long has she been on there and what’s wrong with her that she’s still looking?) Steffan, the tennis pro, guessed her but couldn’t convince the other player to change her vote. I got a good laugh when Steffan congratulated Jenna at the end and said with the prize money maybe she could buy some underwear.

I think they should change so much about the show. Letting the Hustler kick them off? No. The Mole got it right with a quiz. And they should change who gets the money. For this episode it should’ve been split between Jenna and Steffan.

But whatever. I didn’t care for it and won’t be watching again.

Why would those two both get the money in your scenario?  Just curious.  The point is that either the players get it or the Hustler, so not sure how it would work for a player and hustler to get the money.  I like the show, and maybe if you saw more episodes there might be some you like more.  They all are different depending on the players of the game that day.  

[alexa]

On the first episode I thought it was the guy that was the Hustler.  He just seemed to be letting the other two do everything, and I thought that was his gameplay.  Both of the girls seemed like players interested in earning a lot of money, not like a Hustler.  

In the second episode, when it was down to the 3, I had figured out he was the Hustler, and it was confirmed when he did a terrible job of trying to tell her why the other guy was the Hustler.  They won a lot of money, so that was nice to see.  

[Door County Cherry]

11 hours ago, Meedis said:

But I do agree that I don't like that the Hustler gets to choose who goes.   Though I wonder if that part is true or not.    There were times when it seemed the Hustler got rid of both of the minority characters and that rubbed me the wrong way.

I think the idea of the Hustler choosing is, in theory, smart.  They are supposed to strategize and control the game.  Do they answer all the questions?  Do they deliberately tank questions?  Do they stay silent or do they talk a lot?  They want to select people who they think will answer the most questions and can deflect suspicion from them.  

But I have noticed a run of the Hustler getting rid of the players of color quite a bit.  In fact, the pattern has stood out to me so much that I thought the black man was the Hustler even though the white guy was almost too obvious in the second episode last night. 

I figured out who the Hustler was in the first episode because of one moment.  The tennis player and the other woman were discussing Dwayne Wade as an answer to a question and then the tennis player started to suggest Chris Paul but as he was just starting the "maybe Chris Paul" she emphatically jumped in and said "it sounds like you're both talking about Dwayne Wade so let's go with that."  She wanted to make sure they went with the right answer but she wasn't responsible for it. 

12 hours ago, Kiddvideo said:

For this episode it should’ve been split between Jenna and Steffan.

I don't agree.  Steffan didn't deserve that money. Some non-hustlers have decided to hide parts of their lives just like the hustler.  That's what Steffan did.  He decided to get cute, lie about his job for no reason, and then come clean about his lie.  He was vague about other things. He was kind of obnoxious like the other woman said.  I have my reasons for realizing who the Hustler was in that round but if she hadn't said that one thing, I would have suspected him too.  

He tried to play the game and out played himself.  

[Kiddvideo]

6 hours ago, alexa said:

Why would those two both get the money in your scenario?   

Pretty straight-forward in my mind anyway. The hustler is supposed to convince them to pick someone else, and if someone picks them, the hustler failed. Steffan partially won, and the hustler partially won.

[alexa]

30 minutes ago, Kiddvideo said:

Pretty straight-forward in my mind anyway. The hustler is supposed to convince them to pick someone else, and if someone picks them, the hustler failed. Steffan partially won, and the hustler partially won.

I see what you are saying, but also confused on how that would play out when they are trying to keep the rules simple.  I think a big part of what they have set up is a key aspect as a player is getting the other person to be on the same guess you are--and both beating the Hustler.  I think it helps if you have seen more episodes as it plays out so many different ways depending on the people in the game. 

[dargosmydaddy]

Only watched the second episode last night, but I got the Hustler pegged fairly early... he was super aggressive with the answers and with trying to deflect suspicion to the other contestants. Sorry, dude, (almost) no one remembers that much random trivia just from watching TV. Though I did think some of this episode's questions seemed slightly easier (or easier to make an educated guess about) than in some episodes. 

The Hustler was kind of obnoxious, so I'm glad he served a purpose and got lots of money for the other two. I really liked the "little of this, little of that" guy, and the woman was OK, too, so good for them.

[tinkerbell]

I initially thought Jen (blond woman) was the hustler. But the not wearing underwear since age 18 threw me. I can't be the only one who thought, wait, how does a woman go through monthly periods without underwear? 

The other woman, who "never watches movies" claims she has seen maybe 5 movies in her life, but knew Clooney was in Oceans 11 AND the whole plot and cast of "Stand by me."  Gee, what are the other 3 movies you've seen?

I noticed there was a second episode, haven't watched yet.

Edited September 26, 2021 by tinkerbell

[tinkerbell]

Ok, in the second episode,  the hustler was obvious. He had the coffee knowledge to have started a coffee line, and the sausage knowledge to be the person who made their own sausage. Too easy.