Friday, July 15, 2011 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

[Archivists]

Placeholder for J! Round

[Archivists]

Placeholder for DJ! Round

[Bamaman]

In 1987 a maker of fiberglass insulation became the first company to trademark a color--this color.

Spoiler: show

What is pink? Refers to Owens-Corning's insulation, which had the Pink Panther as its mascot. Kathleen negged for bubblegum pink

Aric:$9,400+$599=$9,999
Kathleen: $10,800-$7,801=$2,999
Mark: $39,400+$8,600=$48,000

[Roadgeek Adam]

Ok, straight out: Mark is a hell of a player. $48,000 in one day (especially for your first day) is damn good. I also could be wrong, but did he get nothing wrong? Very confident player every time a DD came up. Let's hope he can keep this up for the next week.

As for me, Jeopardy round was an easy board: Swept Lion, Dis-envowelment, Military Ranks and Bondi Beach. 3/5 Witch and 2/5 Wardrobe. (Could've 4/5 Witch if I remembered Sabrina.) Double Jeopardy was not so hot. Only one sweep, and that was the empire, Balkan & Book 4/5, 3 on Roses and 2 on the last two. Total of 47 / 60. I echo the Kids Week sentiment from yesterday. Trademarks was pretty easy.

Good luck Mark!

[Rafferty Barnes]

Wow! What a dominating performance by Mark! It finally got me to register here. Its too bad its Friday so he can't stay in the groove. He looked really overwhelmed at the end when it really sunk in how much he won.

[Paucle]

Wow! Helluva game by Mark. He could've wagered a lot more on FJ and still played it safe, but once you have a lock game, it's essentially your real money you're betting, so if you're uncomfortable/ unsure on the category, why risk more than you have to?

Wonder if he plays Facebook Jeopardy? 48k is a perfect score, if you use no boosts.

Where does this total rank in first game dollar amounts?

[jeff6286]

I'm not sure if anyone bothers critiquing wagers of players who are only playing for 2nd/3rd, but did anyone else notice that Kathleen's FJ wager was $200 short of what it needed to be in order to lock out Aric? I assume that it was just a simple arithmetic error on her part. Aric's $599 bet was also strange, although any small to medium wager he made should have left him with the same result, so perhaps he just picked his favorite number.

While I didn't agree with those that thought yesterday's show was way too easy, I definitely thought today's show was a lot easier than normal. I got 25/30 in J and 17/30 in DJ, and there were quite a few of the 13 I missed in DJ that I felt like I should have been able to come up with. I wasn't as proud as I would normally be at the 25/30 in J, firstly because I blanked on few that I should have gotten (Brooks Brothers, India (for lions), and man overboard). I also felt that a few of the clues were just too darn easy. "What is the opposite of hypothermia?" With a super-extra emphasis on the "hypo" part, in case you didn't catch the significance. Also, "Name the lead character from It's a Wonderful Life, and we'll spot you the last name Bailey." That's a $2,000 clue?"

All that aside, truly a dominant performance by Mark today. I was hoping one of the other two players would pick up the last DD, preferably after they were up to $6,000 or $8,000, just to see if they would be willing to risk all their money to try to pull just within half of Mark's score. Not much to find fault with about Mark's game: 3 Daily Doubles found, 3 large bets, and 3 correct responses. Pretty tough to beat someone with all that going in their favor.

Thanks to Mark's big DD bets, and not many misses, the 3 players combined for $20,800 in the J! round ad $38,800 in DJ. In case math isn't your strong suit, that's a total of $5,600 more than the combined value of all the clues on the board. Very impressive indeed. Mark was so strong in the first 2/3 or so of the game, I think the other 2 players had to step up their games down the stretch, just to get their scores up to the $10,000 range.

Did anyone else think that Mark bears a striking resemblance to Ashton Kutcher? If you happen to read this Mark, I hope you don't consider that an insult. I firmly believe that Mr. Kutcher is a fine-looking young man, as well as a tremendous actor.

[nlw44]

. "What is the opposite of hyperthermia?" With a super-extra emphasis on the "hyper" part, in case you didn't catch the significance.

Just to be accurate, I believe the given information was HYPOthermia, asking the contestant for HYPERthermia, not the opposite. But I certainly agree it was a ridiculously easy way of phrasing the clue.

[alietr]

I think Roger was sweating out the result of this one.

Yeah, it was an easy set of boards, but nonetheless that was an impressive display of Jeopardy prowess.

[jeff6286]

. "What is the opposite of hyperthermia?" With a super-extra emphasis on the "hyper" part, in case you didn't catch the significance.

Just to be accurate, I believe the given information was HYPOthermia, asking the contestant for HYPERthermia, not the opposite. But I certainly agree it was a ridiculously easy way of phrasing the clue.

Oops, thanks for the catch. I think I had it right to begin with, then edited the post and reversed it, then I couldn't remember which way they asked it and decided to just leave it. Post has now been edited.

[mam418]

Yeah. Wow. Impressive game to watch. (And I agree, when they were introducing them at the beginning, I thought he looked vaguely like Ashton Kutcher, too.) He had definite buzzer mojo going.

I didn't track my answers tonight, but it did feel like an easy-ish set of boards. The rose category was very easy (and not just because I'm an avid gardener, I don't think.) Continent when given chinensis? Disease that they say turns leaves orange and mentions metal? Not difficult in the slightest. Swept that category, the Balkens, Bondi Beach, Military Ranks, Witches, Lions and Empires, at least. I don't usually sweep that many at all. And FJ was very easy, I thought.

[MarkBarrett]

My graph was climbing then falling off Mt. Everest. I had 18 in a row to open the game, but only 13 in the DJ round including missing the Casablanca DD. The FJ clue had me trademarking "panther pink." Just pink was all that was needed? How is just a simple color trademarked?

Mark had an excellent debut, but Kathleen's 10800 without DDs is competitive against such a strong player. Give her one of the DDs and perhaps the lock could have been broken. Mark impressed me with the Casablanca and H.R. Pufnstuf hits. He can pick up material that sometimes is left for the over-40 player and that makes him all the more dangerous. Plus this was game five of a long taping day.

A fresh start with money already in the bank has me looking forward to Monday.

[Budphrey]

Just pink was all that was needed? How is just a simple color trademarked?

Maybe it's not that simple. To quote that ever-reliable Wikipedia:

"Since 1956, the company's insulation has been dyed pink to provide visual contrast; the company became so associated with its pink insulation (originally planned as red, but the dye was not sufficiently concentrated, resulting in its current light pink coloring) product that it even registered the term "PINK" (in capital letters only) to refer to its insulation. It was granted a trademark on the color in In re Owens-Corning Fiberglas Corp., 774 F.2d 1116 (Fed. Cir. 1985)."

And on the front page of Owens Corning's website: "The color PINK is a registered trademark of Owens Corning."

So because Final J! requires a written response, maybe anyone who didn't write "PINK" in all caps should be negged.

I will be highly interested to see how Mark fares after having an evening to think about the results of his first game.

[bibliophage]

Yesterday and today's games both seem easier than average to me, but not to any great extreme compared to some other recent games. My personal batting average and Coryat scores for the June 21 and June 30 games were both higher. Those games had tougher FJs. I got them both right but had to exert a modicum of mental effort, unlike the last two.

[Bamaman]

Rafferty mentioned to me in a p-mail the taping "weeks" were off a bit because of Watson and hers did not follow the M-F schedule. So its possible he taped his next show right after his first.

[Volante]

Seemed like an easy game to me, too. 44/2. Insert obligatory 'of course it's easy if you know it' remark here.

"Missed" both DJs but I'm confident I would've had them given two-three more seconds. My miss in Witch (Charmed for Sabrina) was due to Cat Interference as well. (Witches category, I was keeping Charmed in RAM, basically...)

Final was a pure Family Guy callout, death of the Pink Panther:
"It seems his lungs are completely filled with Owens Corning fiberglass insulation."

[seaborgium]

All I could see was someone arbitrarily avoiding breaking $50k on what turned out to be a softball, for the third time this season (and the second time when the correct response was four letters!). It was a game well played, but I wish there were more "because it's there" efforts in blowouts.

[seaborgium]

Rafferty mentioned to me in a p-mail the taping "weeks" were off a bit because of Watson and hers did not follow the M-F schedule. So its possible he taped his next show right after his first.

This close to the end of the season I'm pretty certain things were back "on kilter." I think things were in the process of being resolved in Sara Heard's tapings (one taping comprised three of her games).

[alietr]

I think Damian indicated in his posts that his Monday game was the first of the day, so that would indicate they're back on kilter. What the heck is a kilter, anyway?

[Paucle]

What the heck is a kilter, anyway?

Everytime a girl would ask me that, when I'd tell'er, I kilter.