Card Sharks (2019)

This is chronicling the 2019 revival of Card Sharks. This version is produced by Start Entertainment in association with Fremantle.

Game Format
The gameplay brought back the rules from the original 70s/80s version, only with several differences which will be pointed out along the way.

Main game
Two contestants compete against each other just like the older versions of Card Sharks. Only this time, each contestant is assigned a row of ten oversized playing cards instead of five. Each contestant had a standard 52-card deck; the ace ranked highest and the deuce (two) ranked lowest. One player plays the red cards on top, while the other player plays the blue cards on the bottom.

Toss-up questions
Control of the board is determined by asking a survey question similar to the surveys done on Family Feud. Questions are posed to 100 people of the same occupation, marital status, or demographic (ex: “We asked 100 teachers, ‘Has a student ever given you an apple?’ How many said yes?”). The contestant who receives the question (with the red-card player, going first) then gives a guess as to how many people gave the answer that the host gave (and usually his/her reasoning, although this is not required). After hearing the guess, the opponent has to choose whether the correct number is higher or lower than that guess. Choosing correctly gave control of the board to the opponent; otherwise, the initial contestant gained control. The initial contestant would also gain control of the board if he/she correctly guessed the survey answer on the nose. It is currently unknown whether or not there's a bonus attached to doing such feat. Up to five toss-up questions are played per game.

Playing the cards
Each contestant's base card is the first card in the row of ten. The winner of the question can choose to either play and keeping his/her base card, or have it replaced with another card from the top of the deck. The contestant then guesses whether the next (face-down) card in the row was "higher" or "lower"; if correct, s/he can continue to guess the next card after that and so on (if both cards were the same, the guess counted as incorrect).

On an incorrect guess, the contestant loses his/her progress and returns to the base card with the other revealed cards being discarded and replaced by new face-down cards before the next question in the round. In this event, the opponent receives a free chance to play his/her own row of cards but could not change the base card. Contestants could also choose to "freeze", thus making the last revealed card the new base card and preventing the opponent from receiving a free chance.

Sudden death
The fifth question in each game is a "sudden death" question in which someone would win the game on the next turn of the cards. Whoever won control of the board had the opportunity to play the cards (and could change the base card if desired) or pass them to the opponent (who could not change the base card and had to successfully clear the remainder of the row). An incorrect guess at any point caused the opponent to win by default.

The first player to reach the end of the board wins the game, $10,000 and the right to turn it into $640,000 by playing the Money Cards.

Money Cards
The winner of the main game played the Money Cards bonus game for a chance to win additional money. The Money Cards board consisted of seven cards now on one row. The Money Cards themselves are now gold.

In addition to guessing whether a card was higher or lower, the contestant had to wager money on that prediction. The contestant is given the $10,000 won for winning the game to bet with and had to wager at least $1000 on each of the first six cards. S/he uses oversized poker chips to make his/her bets. The contestant wins money for each correct guess and lost money on each incorrect guess. Pushes (cards the match each other in rank) also count as wrong answers.

If the winning contestant busted prior to reaching the final card, the game ended. Upon reaching the final card, the contestant was required to wager at least half of their earnings. Prior to making that bet (if need be), the winning contestant has the option to stop and take the money s/he has right now.

The maximum amount a contestant could win is $640,000.

Top Prize Sequence

Season 2 Changes
Each of the two players now have a deck of seven cards to play in their row instead of ten.

While in season 1, the players have cut their cards on camera. In season 2, the show went traditionally and had the players cut the cards before the show.

Pushes (cards that match each other in rank) no longer count as incorrect guesses (in this case, using the post-1980 rule) and therefore there's no loss or gain for that turn.

Trivia
In season 1, This was announced along with the reboot of 1980s cult classic Press Your Luck hosted by Elizabeth Banks.

The logo and theme song are remakes from the original 1978 version.

This was the first and only version to feature a male card dealer (i.e. Jerry Wolf).

For season 2, it was originally planned to be aired as part of its "Fun & Games" block in the summer but due to the pandemic (a.k.a. COVID-19/Coronavirus) issue it was pushed back to the fall instead. This was paired up with the second season of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? (or Millionaire for short) hosted by Jimmy Kimmel along with the reboot of 90s cult classic game show Supermarket Sweep hosted by former Saturday Night Live/SNL cast member and star of the equally controversial 2016 film reboot of 80s all-time dearly beloved classic Ghostbusters (more specifically Ghostbusters: Answer the Call) Leslie Jones.

At the time, McHale was host of the reality competition show Crime Scene Kitchen which aired on FOX in 2021.

The season 2 format of seven numbered playing cards was also used in the online Arkadium version in 2021 although the set, theme song and logo were based on the 1986 version.

The third season was originally going to premiere on June 9, 2021 but was later rescheduled to June 16, 2021. The tagline "remember to spade and neuter your sharks" is a reference to former host Bob Barker and current host Drew Carey to "have your pets spade or neutered" at the end of episodes of The Price is Right. In 2021, Alexis Gaube went on to model for The Price is Right during its 50th season.

Merchandise
Main Article: Card Sharks (2019)/Merchandise

Photos
Main Article: Card Sharks (2019)/Photos

Links
Official Website Casting Site