Created by Ant & Dec Country of origin United Kingdom No. of series 2 | Presented by Ant & Dec Original language(s) English No. of episodes 14 | |
PokerFace is a British game show broadcast on ITV, where one person is guaranteed to win £1 million. The show was created by Ant & Dec, who also host it. As implied by the title, PokerFace, is based on the bluffing aspect of poker games. The contestants do not necessarily need to get the questions right in order to win, and can bluff their way through the game and pressure their opponents into folding in order to win.
Contents
The show was originally going to be called The Con Test, but the name was changed just weeks before the show began. However, the Australian version is called The Con Test. Series 1 of the show was aired nightly for seven consecutive days (the seventh show being the final), whilst series 2 saw the show moved to a Saturday prime-time slot, lasted for seven weeks.
Format
On each show, 6 contestants compete for a prize of £50,000 and a place in the £1 million final.
The show opens with "The Grilling". This is where the 6 contestants (5 in some versions) are introduced, and tell the other contestants about themselves. The viewers can see whether a person is telling the truth or not by the 'TRUE' and 'BLUFF' prompts on the screen. After all 6 contestants have been introduced and grilled, the game begins. Each contestant sits in front of a screen, and they can only see their own score.
In Round 1, there are 8 multiple choice questions with three possible answers, one of them being the correct answer, worth £500 each. Every contestant will have 5 seconds to lock in their answer. After the answer to each question is revealed, viewers at home can see which contestants got it right or wrong by a series of gold ticks and red crosses appearing on the pictures of each contestant. At the end of each round, viewers at home see the leaderboard, and more importantly, who's in last place. Ant & Dec then ask the contestants in turn how they think they did in that round.
After the round has finished, the face-off begins. The contestants stand in front of red buttons that rise from the floor, and a 10-second countdown starts. There are 2 possible outcomes:
In either case, the losing contestant is briefly interviewed and asked to justify their decision. The contestant is then shown a leaderboard which reveals how the other contestants are doing.
There are 5 rounds in total. In each subsequent round, there are just 5 questions, but the prize money increases by £250 each round.
During the final, the £50,000 won in the heats was used as stake money, and the amount on offer per question was doubled. In the final of the second series, the final countdown for the £1 million face-off was also extended to 15 seconds.
Series 1
Sarah is possibly Britain's biggest game show winner in total, having also won £32,500 on The National Lottery: In It to Win It within the previous year. She also appeared on The Weakest Link and Wipeout in 2001, 19 Keys in 2003 and Didn't They Do Well in 2004.
Series 2
The second series of PokerFace began on Saturday 20 January 2007.
Final
The final aired on 3 March. The result was as follows:
Notes
The two eventual finalists, Dominic and Colin, were the first and last contestants to be introduced in the course of the heats - Dominic as the first person in 'The Grilling' of Show 1, and Colin as the last person in 'The Grilling' of Show 6.
Also, in both series, the winner of Show 1 has won the final. Both winners made it through their heat by making the other contestant fold when they should not have done, but have then won the finals outright.