When Burke first sees a puzzle, she immediately begins breaking it down into smaller pieces — "chunks," she calls them. Each word becomes its own miniature puzzle. In Burke's case, she was given a couple of leads during the Prize Puzzle of last Friday's episode. The third word was a single-letter word, which had to be either A or I. And more important, there was that apostrophe in the opening three-letter word, between the first and second letters.
Of the few hundred thousand words in the English language, only two — I'VE and I'LL — fit that construction. Which meant the single-letter word was almost certainly A. The first phrase that popped into Burke's head while she hoped for her turn at the wheel — I'LL HAVE WHAT SHE'S HAVING — didn't come close to fitting the puzzle, but it made I'LL seem an unlikely starting point. Because HAVE is the word that probably follows I'LL, and here, Burke was searching for a three-letter word....
I'VE... A... I'VE GOT A...
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
THE TRUTH IS, SHE DIDN'T EVEN NEED THE 'L': Chris Jones, the Esquire writer who this summer investigated the guy who had the perfect Showcase Showdown bid on The Price Is Right, explains exactly how Caitlin Burke knew what she was doing on Wheel of Fortune:
I don't care how much she explains it. Still sounds fishy to me.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if she got the infamous "I've Got A" Black Eyed Peas song in her head like I do everytime I see a story about this.
ReplyDeleteGreat article. It's not "spooky" or "fishy", she's just good at recognizing letter patterns and a veteran "Wheel of Fortune" player. It's similar to the way I and other crossword-puzzle experts can break down the clues and answers in what appears to be superhuman speed. Just takes the right brain wiring and lots of practice. Unfortunately, crossword champs can only win $5,000, not $53,000!
ReplyDeleteI've also been enjoying this story because I have a friend named Caitlin Burke (except her name has accents on the "i"s and is pronounced "Cathleen")...
The answer is "Asta."
ReplyDeleteOk, failure of empathy on my part: this is how I solve Wheel of Fortune puzzles, and it never occurred to me that anyone ever solves them another way. Which is, I guess, why I wasn't quite so amazed when this started circulating: I saw the apostrophe, saw that she picked the "L", assumed that she confirmed that "I'll" wasn't the first word, and assumed that she lucked into the right cliche when she mentally ran through phrases that began with "I've."
ReplyDeleteOleo. Alit.
ReplyDeleteOmoo. Otoe. Orono.<span> </span>
ReplyDeleteI agree with Ted. It's more surprising to me that this hasn't happened before than that it happened now, especially with a long phrase.
ReplyDelete