8/12/12: Mario Party

Proposition: Beat Super Mario World for SNES without losing more than 15 lives

Odds: Even

Stakes: $50

Parameters: Beating a level in less than 40 seconds earns an extra life. Letting the timer drop below 150 seconds costs you a life. Blue Yoshi is available for all levels.

Bettors: Me, Jake

***

Jake is an accomplished Mario World player, having beaten the game dozens of times.* This means the bulk of his deaths come within one of three worlds: Special World, Chocolate Island and Bowser's Final World. The bet skews heavily in his favor within the first fifty levels, as he averages only .5 deaths per world through the first 4 worlds and has a number of levels--mostly ghost houses and levels with a secret key hidden halfway through--on which to take advantage of the under-40-second rule. 

After the Butter Bridge area, the game swings more toward my favor. There is an underwater level in the Forest of Illusion that proves deceptively challenging, plus a couple of fortresses that force Jake to work fast so as to avoid the 150-second barrier. By the time he reaches the Sunken Ghost Ship--the transition from Castle #6 to Bowser's World--he will have already lost between 6 and 8 lives on average. Those deaths are mostly negated by the extra lives he's typically collected thus far, and so the last twenty levels become an epic battle of attrition. 

In previous bets, Jake had no problem taking my money, either because he had ample time to complete the levels or because he started out with a surplus of lives. With only 15 lives and a 150-second barrier, taking my $50 will not be so easy. Still, if I could bet on my own bets,** I'd put Jake as a slight favorite at the moment; he's completed roughly 20% of the game and has 18 lives to work with.

*Includes unlocking all special/secret levels

**How UNBELIEVABLY AWESOME would this be?!?