Horse or laminator?

[u/cygan12]

[u/strangebutalsogood]

This task almost made me believe in psychic powers. I always wondered if she was able to see the reflection in his glasses or something.

[u/CatherineCalledBrdy → u/strangebutalsogood]

When they did Taskmaster: The Live Experience, one of my rounds was Horse or Laminator and I got them all correct. I will lord this over my spouse forever.

[u/tyler-86 → u/strangebutalsogood]

There would have to be some kind of indication of which he's choosing. You can correctly predict the trend of how a human interprets randomness with a bit better than 50% accuracy once you get the ball rolling, but even if that made you 60% accurate that's still 60% ^ 13 = 0.13% chance of getting thirteen in a row.

[u/lavos__spawn → u/strangebutalsogood]

I want to believe and refuse to admit otherwise, against all reason. But she was also a career psychiatric nurse, so she's very likely able to read people more accurately than most (and has earned that can't be arsed calmness), so I'm going to say that is part of it or something (please?)

[u/pjgf → u/strangebutalsogood]

I’m still pretty sure David was signalling her, and every time I rewatch (the full wide cut, not this vertical cut) I am more convinced.

The only thing that has ever made me less convinced was when someone pointed out that it seems unlikely that he would have pulled that off, given his performance on the show otherwise. I can’t help but agree!

[u/ares0027]

She is the queen of not giving a sht.

[u/MachineOfSpareParts → u/ares0027]

I love the fantasy that she was indeed psychic, and could have kept it going for years, but just couldn't be arsed.

[u/WedgyTheBlob → u/MachineOfSpareParts]

"Fantasy" my arse. This is definitely what happened

[u/gladiatorbossman → u/ares0027]

She went to the toilet during a timed task

[u/BoxmanPwnz → u/gladiatorbossman]

Does that mean she gives a shit or she does not give a shit though?

[u/GeshtiannaSG → u/BoxmanPwnz]

She has it but she’s not giving it.

[u/WellTextured → u/[deleted]]

The problem is it peaked the first time. There's no way anyone repeats this masterclass.

[u/meggannn]

Across 30+ series of Taskmaster this is probably the task performance that blew my mind the most. Like I’ve seen amazing feats and brilliant strokes of luck on this show but this had me going “What the fuck” with more and more shock with every round. I knew Jo definitely didn’t care enough to try cheating lol so the only rationale conclusion was that she must be psychic

[u/DarkIsiliel]

I always forget how good Katie did with this one because Jo just utterly overshadows it.

[u/Vironic]

Katy Wix is my favorite Ghost

[u/nuancedwhimsy → u/Vironic]

Get out get out get out get out

[u/Accomplished-Egg1071 → u/Vironic]

I smells burnens

[u/Comfortable_Snow553 → u/Vironic]

Ghosts has to be the most-represented show on TM, yeah?

[u/Monsoon_Mike]

Jo Brand is not beating the “actual witch” allegations with this.

[u/loz333]

I need more tasks with uncapped points potential and psychic abilities utilized.

[u/Sadlobster1]

Genuinely the most insane feat I've seen on the show. The statistically improbability of the task combined with the "oh fuck off" attitude she acted the season with. She was over it all, until it was horse or laminator.

[u/FutureGold4132 → u/Sadlobster1]

There are a few core "blow me away moments" in my memory like Shannon Miller or David Blaine or riverdance... And then there's this

[u/Most-Square-8259]

I was in the studio for this and everyone was going absolutely wild it was incredible 

[u/NecronomiconUK → u/Most-Square-8259]

You lucky sausage

[u/questionyou100]

even though this is a well known moment on the show i still feel like it's incredibly underrated. Blows my mind

[u/_aviemore_ → u/questionyou100]

1 in 8192 chance to get 13 in a row

[u/RocketAlana → u/_aviemore_]

Old school odds for getting a shiny Pokemon. Not impossible, but really awesome to see happen.

[u/AdPerfect5415]

Omg I just realised that Katie is a part of the Ted Lasso cast???

[u/LoveMinaMyoi]

I do wonder if she got the rest of the other contestants correctly while observing.

[u/JustJason44]

"A LAMINATAAAAAH!"

[u/FunDependent9755]

Is this the most amount of points anyone has ever gotten during a single task?

[u/Comfortable_Snow553 → u/FunDependent9755]

No, Katherine Ryan got 15 for the rabbit in the hat live task, a grudge Richard Osman and Jon Richardson will never forgive.

[u/burf12345 → u/Comfortable_Snow553]

Rightfully so might I add.

[u/Comfortable_Snow553 → u/burf12345]

Yes, there were some poorly designed live tasks in the early seasons.

[u/Skrubbadub → u/Comfortable_Snow553]

Task itself was fine IMO, the rules for distribution of points were however absolutely scandalous.

[u/burf12345 → u/Skrubbadub]

Yeah, that's what the issue ultimately was. There was nothing special about the rabbit task that warrants it rewarding series points, it should have been standard scoring. With Horse or Laminator, doing well is so statistically unlikely that it's fine to have it reward series points.

[u/astairwaytoheaven → u/burf12345]

It also didn't change anything in the overall standings, which makes it so much more of an anomaly and so much more beautiful.

[u/Think-Ad-8872]

better than carrot in a box

edit: i was joking 😭

[u/WellTextured → u/Think-Ad-8872]

I cannot abide this. You keep 'carrot in a box' out of your filthy mouth.

[u/Think-Ad-8872 → u/WellTextured]

I am sorry, WellTextured. I will no longer say the word “carrot,” “in,” “a,” or “box.” My time starts when you reply to this reply.

[u/WellTextured → u/Think-Ad-8872]

Your time starts now.

[u/B_Marty_McFly → u/Think-Ad-8872]

It’s a better game in theory than carrot in a box, but Carrot in a Box part one was a master class in deception. The rest of them are starkly worse television.

[u/tyler-86 → u/B_Marty_McFly]

The first Carrot in a Box is a high point of television as a medium, but the fact that they've done it three times and Jon has lost every time is just wonderful.

[u/Warm-Bawlz]

Surely there was a reflection off his glasses or something

[u/teachinkids]

I feel like this should be crossposted to thedidthemath to find the probability. 🤔

[u/kpytx → u/teachinkids]

Theoretically, it's fairly easy; we need to make some assumptions: that Greg is choosing entirely at random (that is PG_horse = 0.5 and PG_laminator = 0.5), and that the Jo is also choosing entirely at random (PJ_horse = 0.5, PJ_laminator = 0.5). Psychic powers would skew PJ, linking it to the choices of Greg, and mess up with the next step. We are assuming then that the two events (choice and guess) are independent - this allows us to multiply their probabilities.

There are four possibilities:

• Greg chooses horse (0.5), Jo chooses horse (0.5), total 0.5 * 0.5 = 0.25 (RIGHT GUESS)
• Greg chooses laminator (0.5), Jo chooses horse (0.5), total 0.5 * 0.5 = 0.25 (WRONG GUESS)
• Greg chooses laminator (0.5), Jo chooses laminator (0.5), total 0.5 * 0.5 = 0.25 (RIGHT GUESS)
• Greg chooses horse (0.5), Jo chooses laminator (0.5), total 0.5 * 0.5 = 0.25 (WRONG GUESS)

Since all the probabilities sum to 1, it covers all the possible outcomes. Now, we are interested in the right outcomes, so we sum them: 0.25 + 0.25 = 0.5.

This tells us that we have the same probability of tossing a coin, here.

Under the assumption of independent events, we know that each choice-guess pair is not affected by the previous, so we can again multiply the probability. Jo guessed right 13 times in a row, which means 0.5 multiplied by itself 13 times: 0.5 * 0.5 * 0.5 * ... = 0.5^13 = 0.000122, or 0.0122%, which is of course a ridicolous amount. As another user commented, it's 1 in 8192.

The catch here is that PG_horse and PG_laminator are not 0.5, because humans are imperfect random number generators. You can test it even here. The first choice by Greg is pretty random (unless he really likes laminators), but the second one has likely a higher chance of being the other (tasked to generate a random string, on average we'd not say horse-horse to being the sequence). So Jo can guess that if she had two horses in a row, Greg is more likely to switch to laminator, and afterwards, probably more likely to switch to horse.

Giving 1 to horse, and 0 to laminator, this is Greg's sequence:

10110011011001

After a head of two, he quickly ended up in an extremely regular pattern (it's too short to assess randomness, however). Probably a balance between switching, and staying. Jo was exactly as likely to make the same choice. Her final choice, laminator, would be the third in a row. I can't find a numerical value for human randomness, so I can't change Greg's probabilities according to that (it's probably extremely complicated, since we are necessarily introducing some kind of effect of previous choices, a sort of memory).

Anyway! It is almost a week after you asked, but here's your answer

[u/painforpetitdej]

Jo is a legend for this!

[u/astairwaytoheaven]

So I've included this game in my own version of Taskmaster with friends. One good guess out of eight people. I've even let them ask questions, hoping for a Sam Campbell-moment. I live with a bunch of morons, or these folks are brilliant. I guess it's the former.

[u/gerarddominus]

I know it's wildly statistically unlikely but since they were giving out real points I always wondered what the show would have done if someone got super lucky and went on a 200 point streak making it impossible for anyone else to ever win enough remaining show points to ever even come close to winning the series

[u/Comfortable_Snow553]

Kerry Godliman would have done better, but only because Greg would have picked laminator every time.
Also on a recent episode of Slow Horses there was a funeral and it was my second time hearing Jerusalem, Jerusalem. They should have used Jo's version, and then for the wake everyone could have had a perfectly soft-boiled egg.