2004 Topps Gold Carlos Pena #542 /2004
nope....
8:15 PM and no winner for this round....
here's are the questions again and my comments on how they did or did not help :
Q1 - baseball ? yes .....good start as we eliminate quite a few here
Q2 - prior to 1980 ? no ....not bad...we now know it's a baseball card from 1980-2012
Q3 - active player ? yes....slightly helpful....jamie moyer is the active player who began his career the earliest and his first card came in 1986 so we can cut out 1980-85 leaving us a baseball card from 1986-2012....
Q4 - pictured with current AL team ? no....not bad...we can eliminate 14 teams here for who the cards features him with....
Q5 - prior to 2000 ? no ....ok...solid....now we're down to a baseball from 2000-2012 picturing a player with an NL team
Q6 - dragonslayer913 - won mvp ? no...looking only at ACTIVE mvp winners , we can now eliminate 16 players (taking into account that i-rod just retired and that tejada and vlad just signed)....the 16 are : chipper , pujols , howard , rollins , votto , braun , gimabi , ichiro , tejada , a-rod , vlad , morneau , pedroia , mauer , hamilton , and verlander....
Q7 - pitcher ? no....good question....eliminates almost half the field....
Q8 - rookie card ? no....just don't like this question...an RC can't be an insert or parallel so even if it is from a player's rookie card year , you still don't learn a lot just yet....
Q9 - infielder ? yes ....good question as we can now cut out all players who are primarily outfielders or catchers....
Q10 - is player in NL ? no....here we learn this is a player who is now in the AL...so we know it's a 2000-2012 non-RC of a non-MVP infielder who has played in both leagues....
Q11 - ever been an AS ? yes...another good question since a small percentage of players are all stars each year....greatly reduces the pool of possible answers
Q12 - topps product ? yes.....ok question but one i personally would only ask after narrowing the field down to 2-3 players at most....oddly , 2 people guessed an ultra product AFTER this question was asked...
Q13 - mm1sub - base card ? no....to me this is always a very a important question....with the answer being no , we know that we're looking for an insert or parallel (and we also see here why the RC question was not helpful)
Q14 - adrian gonzalez ? no.....to me , just WAAAAY to specific this early....we only eliminate one player and are running out of Q's
Q15 - currently in AL east? yes ....very helpful (especially if followed up properly)....we learn that our non-rc , non-mvp , AS infielder currently plays for either baltimore , boston , new york , tampa , or toronto after playing for an NL team in the past.....
Q16 - before 2010 ? yes....we eliminate 2010-12 here so we narrow our years to 2000-2009....
Q17 - play for yankees ? no.....still too specific for my taste , but at least we cut our choices down to baltimore , boston , tampa , and toronto..
Q18 - omar vizquel ? no....and another WAAAAY to specific question that only eliminates one player from the possibilities...
Q19 - 2009 ? no...also waay too specific as we still learn nothing about WHO and only narrow the range by one year (now down to 2000-08)
Q20 - play for orioles ? no..one more team eliminated....so with no questions left we are left to figure out a lot ....we only know that it is a non-rc , non-mvp , AS infielder from boston , tampa , or toronto who previously played in the NL....the IF who previously played in the NL requirement narrows the field to nick punto , jeff keppinger , carlos pena , ben zobrist , luke scott , jose bautista , edwin encarnacion , yunel escobar , and kelly johnson....the all-star requirement cuts out most of these leaving us with only 3 : pena , zobrist , and bautista....the only thing we know abut the card itself is that it's a topps product but not a base card....
one guess was CLOSE....but not quite....
the actual mystery card for round 3 :
2002 bowman gold 421 jose bautista
also , the mystery card from round 2 that was correctly identified :
1998 topps chrome 47 keyshawn johnson
will be back shortly (after i scrounge for a bite to eat) to begin round 4 with a boosted prize pool.....