Duel (game show)

Duel is a Transmanian game competition based on the format created by David Rosconval & Jean-Michel Salomon for the Francophone production company French TV. It first broadcast on TBN in 2008. The program combined elements from Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? and the World Series of Poker. The game was played in a head-to-head format in which contestants answered general trivia questions, with wrong answers contributing to a growing jackpot.

Gameplay
Two contestants would go head to head by answering questions for big money. The contestants had to put poker chips down on what the right answer was.

Season 1
Each contestant began a duel with ten chips, each worth Ð5,000. Before each question was asked, a screen rose between the contestants to hide their answers from each other. The duel always began with the catchphrase "Let's Duel!" before the question was heard. Each question was multiple choice with four choices. The question was read by the host while the contestants used their chips to cover choices, one chip per choice. They were allowed to cover any number of choices, provided they had enough chips. After both players had locked in their answers, the screen was lowered so contestants could see each other's choices, and the correct answer was then revealed. All chips placed on wrong answers were collected and their value was added to a jackpot.

While there was normally no time limit for locking choices in, contestants could "accelerate" (press) each other to impose a seven-second time limit, after which their opponent's answers were locked in automatically. Each contestant had two presses per duel.

The duel continued until at least one contestant failed to cover the correct answer to a question. If only one contestant failed to answer correctly, that contestant was eliminated; any chips the contestant had not played were not added to the jackpot, though any played on wrong answers were still added. The winning contestant became champion and won the value of any chips they still possessed, including the one covering the correct answer. That money was theirs to keep, regardless of the outcome of future duels.

If neither contestant covered the correct answer, however, the duel went to a sudden death "shootout". For the shootout, there were no presses and each contestant received four new chips with no cash value. If only one contestant answered correctly, that contestant won the duel and became champion, but won no money. If both contestants answered correctly, the contestant who covered fewer choices won. (It is unknown what would have happened in any other situation, as no such situation ever aired.)

The champion then chose a new challenger from a randomly-selected group of three from the remaining members of the "Contestants Gallery" (those in the contestant pool who had not yet participated), based on a small amount of information revealed about each potential contestant. Contestants who had dueled were ranked by number of duels won, and then by cash winnings as a tiebreaker. After five nights, the four top contestants competed for the jackpot on the finale.

During the finale, the top-seeded player was given the choice of which other finalist he/she wanted to face in the first semifinal duel, leaving the two other finalists to play in the second. The winners of each semifinal advanced to the final duel to play for the entire jackpot. The final round duels played the same as the qualifying duels, with lost chips continuing to add to the jackpot, and any winnings kept. The winner of the final duel claimed the jackpot, as well as all earnings accumulated in previous duels.