Why Monday never wins -- An Example of the Secretary Problem

We analyzed the winning statistics of the German TV show 'Das Perfekte Dinner', a competition where the contestants rate each other. We did a comparison of the original and the celebrity version of the show and also implemented a rescaling of the points to reduce the influences of subjective grading. We found that there is a strong dependency of the winning rate on the position of performing, not only for the first, but for all candidates. Furthermore, we concluded that there is a positive bias in giving points, after the contestants have already cooked. The comparison with a simpler optimizing strategy, the so called secretary problem, showed a lot of similarities.