presented to the camera, with a description of its properties (written by the show's screenwriters based on the chef's explanation) read by the announcer. Then, a panel of three (later expanded to four, and later still, five) judges, of which typically one is a professional critic, tastes the dishes and judges them based on taste, presentation, and originality. Each chef may be awarded up to 20 points by each judge, with 10 given for taste and five each for presentation and originality. The chef with the greatest score wins the competition. (In earlier four-judge episodes, the win went to the chef who won three of the four judges, or, failing that, the chef who makes the highest points total.) Chairman Kaga tastes the dishes along with the judges. While he occasionally makes comments and seeks input from judges during tasting, he generally does not participate in scoring; he did do so, however, during the 2000th Dish Battle. During this episode, a team of French cuisine chefs—captain Hiroyuki Sakai, the original Iron Chef French Yutaka Ishinabe, and former challenger Etsuo Joh—battled a team of Chinese cuisine chefs composed of captain Chen Kenichi, former challenger Sozo Myamoto, and former challenger Yuji Wakiya (who would later be Iron Chef Chinese on the 2012 revival). To break the tie, Chairman Kaga asked them to allow him this one instance of selfishness, and he cast his vote for the French team. Ties In the case of a deadlock (as was possible during the era of the four-judge panel), first place is awarded to the chef with the greater number of points. On the rare occasions that the scores were also tied, an immediate "overtime battle" was held to determine the winner. In overtime, the chefs are given 30 minutes to prepare dishes with a different key ingredient, having to make do with what remains of their pantry or with items that were previously prepared for the main battle. The overtime battles are aired as a separate episode. On one occasion, the overtime battle itself resulted in a tie, prompting Chairman Kaga to declare both the Iron Chef and challenger winners. Broadcast history The stage setting for the show, , the high-quality (and sometimes very expensive) ingredients used in the cooking battles, and Kaga's extravagant costumes required the show to have a budget far higher than those of most other cooking shows. Some statistics: 893 portions