Jared GoetzZenpire · CEO & Founder at Zendrop

Most people think games like this have one fixed outcome. They usually do not. 👀

29 Apr 2026 · 1 min

Watch on YouTube

0:35

In this short segment, the speakers dissect how competition‑style games—specifically a block‑stacking challenge—are governed not only by explicit rules but also by unwritten "pocket rules" that act as safety nets. They highlight the role of intuition in predicting eliminations, citing a participant named Tyler who consistently forecasts the exact number of contestants to be removed (e.g., 200, 237, 234). The discussion argues that when producers blend these implicit pocket rules with accurate intuitive predictions, they can avoid invoking additional contingency rules, leading to outcomes that feel less predetermined.

Chapters

These games, the game where they have to stack the blocks, what happened if 999 people did it right? You didn't lose any people.
Yeah, so it's really twofold. There are things in the nature of competition shows that have things called pocket rules, rules that don't necessarily need to be said, but that need to be there as a safety just in case something happens. And then there's intuition. I've never seen Tyler miss on this. He'll say, I think we're only going to get rid of 200 people here, or 237. It'll be like 234. And if you can combine the two, you won't have to worry about dipping into any sort of side rules because you guessed properly.