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

[ileggin]

The shows did tape M-F that week. Kilter intact.

[chuck5982]

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

Seriously? Left over from Kids Week?

Anyway, go Mark!

[Rafferty Barnes]

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.

NJCondon mentioned his taping day was M-F, so yes, they did get back on track.

[jepkid97]

I return from my (very long) message board hiatus (I've been busy!) to share that I was a bit to young to know FJ Friday, but I did have a pretty good game.

Also, what happened? It feels like we're living in exile here!

[econgator]

I return from my (very long) message board hiatus

What are you, like 26 now?

[--Pete]

Hi,

I return from my (very long) message board hiatus (I've been busy!) ...

Welcome back, hope you had a good year.

Also, what happened? It feels like we're living in exile here!

What happened, indeed. Near as I can tell, the tsunami took out the reactors that supplied the power to Sony's servers which melted down and slid into the ocean. Anything less, and a reasonable effort would have had the fora back online by now.

But, hey, for a refugee camp, these are pretty nice digs.

--Pete

[jepkid97]

I return from my (very long) message board hiatus

What are you, like 26 now?

Still 13.

[chuck5982]

The J! Archive has Mark Runsvold's occupation as a student and writer. Johnny Gilbert introduced him as a student and waiter.

[RCraig]

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

No sweating, alietr, just enjoying the show. I'm a big fan of excellent Jeopardy performances. Looking forward to next week.

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.

Is $50k a magical threshold or something? (Did you feel the same when players didn't bet to break $25k before 2001? ) Don't forget that everybody has different strong and weak points. FJ categories like Musical Theater, Vocabulary, and Trademarks might've scared each of those 3 players.* Also, the utility curves of the 3 players probably rendered their bets highly rational. For every Edmund Hillary there's a George Mallory.

*e.g. given a FJ category of Food, 22.8k in the bank and two opponents with 200, I'd probably bet 1200. And I wouldn't begrudge anybody that bet 20k either, in fact, I would admire their cojones.

[Robert K S]

The J! Archive has Mark Runsvold's occupation as a student and writer. Johnny Gilbert introduced him as a student and waiter.

These things get fixed more quickly if posted as correction suggestions to the Archive. Thanks!

[seaborgium]

Is $50k a magical threshold or something? (Did you feel the same when players didn't bet to break $25k before 2001? ) Don't forget that everybody has different strong and weak points. FJ categories like Musical Theater, Vocabulary, and Trademarks might've scared each of those 3 players.* Also, the utility curves of the 3 players probably rendered their bets highly rational. For every Edmund Hillary there's a George Mallory.

*e.g. given a FJ category of Food, 22.8k in the bank and two opponents with 200, I'd probably bet 1200. And I wouldn't begrudge anybody that bet 20k either, in fact, I would admire their cojones.

Eh, my pointing out of the $50k mark is arbitrary, but I shot for $40k+ when I could, because it was there and I was within reach. There have been four available safe (i.e. not victory-endangering) shots for $50k+ this season, and only one was taken.

The one that was taken, I was actually slightly disappointed at the missed opportunity for $80k+! (I had been spoiled on the total when I attended an early August taping last year, though, so the disappointment was slight at worst.) So I think I'm arbitrarily looking for people with lock games to attempt at least to clear the furthest ten thousand they can.

For what it's worth, it felt significant to me in the pre-doubled days when someone cleared $15k.

[NJCondon]

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.

NJCondon mentioned his taping day was M-F, so yes, they did get back on track.

Ms. Barnes is correct; I taped a week or two after Watson aired, and we were back to M-F. My four games aired Monday through Thursday, and they were the first four of the day.

[NJCondon]

Although I'm a bit late to the party here (I DVR the show, and due to my kid's erratic sleep schedule and other commitments, I've gotten a day behind on viewing), I want to add my appreciation of Mark's performance, which was stellar, and his DD bets, which were refreshingly bold.

One strange thing I noticed was Mark kept on looking to his left just before answering over and over again in the J! round, and the angle of his eyes and head didn't seem to suggest a glance at the scoreboard; nervous tick? He did seem a bit tense for someone who was thrashing his competitors so thoroughly, but believe me when I say that I am sympathetic.

In his place, I might have been tempted to wager for the k$50 on FJ!, but that category would have probably put me on something even smaller than what he chose.

While it's obviously not certain at this point, I won't be particularly shocked if I'm updating my ToC probability table again this week or next.

I think my strong categories must be very different from the rest of y'all's; Thursday was an average board for me, and while Friday's J! round was very easy (27 R, 0 W), the DJ! round was, again, average.

[RCraig]

Eh, my pointing out of the $50k mark is arbitrary, but I shot for $40k+ when I could, because it was there and I was within reach. There have been four available safe (i.e. not victory-endangering) shots for $50k+ this season, and only one was taken.

The one that was taken, I was actually slightly disappointed at the missed opportunity for $80k+! (I had been spoiled on the total when I attended an early August taping last year, though, so the disappointment was slight at worst.) So I think I'm arbitrarily looking for people with lock games to attempt at least to clear the furthest ten thousand they can.

For what it's worth, it felt significant to me in the pre-doubled days when someone cleared $15k.

Gotcha. Yeah, I thought about 80, the max bet, and 75001, but decided to settle on a nice round bet number.

The thing about these shots this season for big scores is that they've all happened (so far) in the contestant's first or second game. That's still in the whole "whoa, what's going on?" phase of the experience.

[Bamaman]

Roger, did Alex tell you what the record was during the pre-FJ break? I assume you knew, but did he mention it?

[RCraig]

Roger, did Alex tell you what the record was during the pre-FJ break? I assume you knew, but did he mention it?

He announced it to the studio audience while standing about 6 ft from his lectern, which nobody could help but hear. He'd never talk to a contestant directly unless it was on camera due to question security.