at the start of the game, the chefs are each given $25,000. in the first two challenges, brown shows items that are put up to auction for the chefs to buy using their money. the chefs can use these items on other chefs to change their ingredients, what cooking tools they can use, and other things. for example, an item may force a chef to cook using canned ingredients instead of fresh ones. the chef who is eliminated has to give back the money that they have. in the last challenge, no items are shown at first, but during the first minutes of the challenge, brown will put items up for auction. this makes it so the person who gets the item has to change their dish based on what the item does. the chef that wins keeps the money that they have left.