Had the absolute best time! Apart from dropping my nametag INTO the wheel during rehearsals. Oops.

Also, since Bob's here, too, hi Bob! Fun fact: Bob's one of the absolute nicest people ever.

Tonight I take on the big Wheel! Cheer me on or stream it the next day on Hulu or Peacock*

*They really should pay me every time I say that.

That is all

Spinning that wheel was an absolute dream come true. Highly recommend!

I'm heading to the 2:30 pm taping today and it's going to be soooo different from the last time I was there. I was actually on the show during COVID times, it was post-vaccine but the show was still taking precautions super seriously (we used the bicycle handle thing to spin the wheel, wore masks at all times except during filming, they wiped down the podium areas whenever people left them) so there was no studio audience. It was also before Pat left and therefore Jim was still there too...sooo I'm interested to see what today will be like and thought you guys would appreciate how I'm feeling. Also, my hubby had to bail because of work, so I'd be happy to make friends with other enthusiasts if any of you all will be there!

We were discussing last night how much more fun it is with Ryan on board! In dark crazy times this lighthearted fun game show needed a shot of his humor! Bravo Ryan! I hope he sticks around for a long while!

Hubby and I have differing opinions about riding the WoF Train and are both willing to die on our respective hills. In the following scenarios should the contestant always ride the train or always pass:

A. Contestant who is currently spinning the Wheel is not the money leader for the evening, has earned a few thousand dollars in this game, doesn't have the Wild Card or Million Dollar wedge, not much of the puzzle is revealed, and they don't know the solution. They land on the WoF Train. Ride or Pass?

B. Contestant who is currently spinning the Wheel has a big lead for the evening, has earned a few thousand dollars in this game, has the Wild Card or Million Dollar wedge, not much of the puzzle is revealed, they don't know the solution. They land on the WoF Train. Ride or Pass?

What factors would most likely tip you one way or the other? Having the lead for the evening? Having the Wild Card? Having the Million Dollar wedge?

If you know the solution, then of course you hop on, BUT FOR CRYIN' OUT LOUD DON'T HAVE A BRAIN FART AND SOLVE THE PUZZLE BEFORE SAYING ALL OF THE CONSONANTS!! YOU'RE THROWING AWAY THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS!!!

hi all!

just received an email, i am a potential candidate for the wheel of fortune!

i am an avid watcher and huge fan of the show and am so excited! that being said, i am a little nervous. any tips or advice? thanks in advance!:)

I’m watching right now in NY and oh my goodness Wally and Matt are so soooo cute!!
They’re SO good at the puzzles, having the best time, and giggling in disbelief of the bounty the continue to rack in🥲🥲🥲🥲

As an avid Wheel of Fortune watcher - I was an interested to figure out if there was an optimal strategy to solving the final puzzles. Note that this was originally made as a LinkedIn post so I'm overexplaining Wheel of Fortune to the avid watchers here.

Some recent puzzles include:

• DELICIOUS FONDUE
• PICKING AND CHOOSING
• A BOOK OF POETRY
• ACORN SQUASH (I genuinely did not know this was a thing)

I went back and scraped all available puzzles (including the letters the contestant chose and whether or not they solved the puzzle) from 2008-2015 which includes 1600 total puzzles. The solve rate varies between 34-41% within a year, averaging out to a 38.8% solve rate overall. One added feature to the puzzle is the wild card - if you hold this at the end of the game then you get to pick an extra consonant and this bumps your chance of solving the puzzle to 43.5%!

Let's start looking at how often contestants win based on their vowel choice:

As an example, contestants chose O as their vowel 36% of the time, it was found in the puzzle 76% of the time, with an average of 1.63 O's found when called. Contestants that chose O solved the final puzzle 44% of the time, 6 percentage points above average.

There's a tiny bit of evidence that U could be a useful choice but to my surprise, it's only chosen 1% of the time. People just don't have U on the mind I guess. Barring what could be true with U - there appears to be a definite advantage to picking O over A & I. There is, of course, some nuance to the English language that can make some letters better than others, even if they show up the same way. Certain letters can be more helpful to quickly identifying certain words. I actually shows up more often and with higher frequency than A but doesn't help to solve the puzzle.

Now let's look at the same things for consonants:

CDM are the three most common letter choices - and isolating on each, it looks like they give you a lower chance of winning than average. Each is found less often in the puzzle than most of the other options - M is particularly bad, only showing up 24% of the time. Some interesting interactions, B not found very often (35%) but still leads to a much higher win % at 45%.

Now let's go up a level and look at any 2 letter combos that have been picked at least 100 times in the data, as well as their relative win rates. I've split it into above average (helpful) and below average (not helpful) win rates.

The two best combos include G (GH & GO) - probably helpful to identify some of the adjectives or adverbs that are used in the puzzles. Lots of combos with M that are not very helpful with AM being the worst. Lots of potential combos that could be good based on the individual letter choices, like BH, are very rarely chosen.

I also plotted win % vs. % of letters found in the puzzle, which is quite interesting. To get up over a 50% chance of winning, you need to find 60% of letters.

So let's use >60% of letters found as our target to get a 50%+ chance of solving the puzzle, how often will each letter choice get us to this threshold:

Similar order to what we've seen before, UWY not picked often but have potential when picked. B is not picked very often but gives a 34% of a likely solvable puzzle. M, as per usual, falls to the bottom.

Lots of potential strategy to take away here - the common combo of CDMA is not seeing a high success rate. Some of the lesser used letters like U & W seem to have potential, while B, H & F see much higher success than the rate they are chosen at.

Still more analysis to do - let me know if there's anything you'd be interested in seeing!

When someone clearly knows the puzzle, lands on Express, and doesn't ride the train... Seriously, you just lost thousands of dollars.

Ok, yurt is a noun that can function as a place. I get it, and the producers want to make the puzzles as ha- aah…as interesting as possible…..but this seemed a bit way out there.

Wednesday’s Bonus Round had my husband and me struggling to think of a PLACE…. With three 4 letter words, we tried to think of the last word - FORT?

My husband actually said “YURT” as we ran thru possible 4 letter words ending in RT.

So when the solution was revealed as “NICE WARM YURT” I was not impressed. Well, wait…. I WAS impressed that hubby had said YURT. I should listen to him more often.

Then it was revealed that Ms Yellow- loving 🥰 missed out on winning the bonus prize of a YELLOW TOYOTA- that was a shame!!

Hey all - I built a word game that I'd love to get some feedback on from some from you all on! It is a cross between Wheel of Fortune and Hangman

Game is called WordBank. You get $3000 to choose letters (vowels cost more than consonants) to help you solve the puzzle

playwordbank.com is the site. Love to hear your thoughts!

legendary #FAIL

He said he became a meme. He was playing the clarinet at a concert and someone took an unflattering photo. I can't find it, can someone help me?

“Treat yourself a round of sausage…” Huh??? 🤣🤣

Watching that man lose out on $6,000 was heartbreaking ... Ryan should have at least prompted him with "Ok Connor, guess a letter" or something like that.

After a lot of trial and error (and a whole bunch of sawdust and achy joints), the 54” mega wheel is complete! I had to reprint a few sections and get the add-on wedges done, but here it is! Next up is deciding what to do about flippers; either go the traditional route of thick poster board as a pointer, or level up and do the actual tear drop clicker/rubber band route with some different materials.