Thursday, February 28, 2013 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

[amorris525]

Haven't read the above posts or seen the end yet, but I can't believe Dean didn't bet 400 on his daily double.

[Bamaman]

If he bets $400 and gets it right and then gets FJ right, he wins $33,600. If he bets $8,000 and gets both right, he wins $33,601.

[skullturf]

I had one of my best Jeopardy rounds in weeks (25 right, 1 neg, 4 clams). However, the DJ round kicked my butt (14 clams).

I don't claim that DJ was any worse than usual. The problem was with me. The board just happened to cover three or four of my weakest areas! TV shows, classical music, and business/industry (the "deal" category). I also didn't do great on the category about politicians who switched parties. I blame the fact that I spent the first 36 years of my life in Canada. I'm generally OK on presidents, VPs, and losing major-party presidential candidates, but there are a lot of senators and congressmen who I barely know anything about. At least I ran "Rhyming Dictionary" (it seemed fairly straightforward, and generally the wordplay categories tend to be one of my strengths).

I agree that FJ was very easy. If you had asked me "Name another dwarf planet other than Pluto", I'm only about 75-80 percent sure I would have been able to come up with Ceres or anything else -- but seeing Ceres in the clue, I instantly recognized it as a dwarf planet.

Maybe one way the writers could have made the clue more challenging would be to omit the mention of 2006, and instead say something like "76 years after its discovery, it was..."

[Fishercat]

I wonder how Sara, with her Simpsons inspired tag, felt about missing out on the Monorail (Mono = One ; Rail = Rail) question. Bitey would not have been happy.

I rarely have the capability to make fashion comments on anything, but yellow/grey combination looked really nice and well put together with the belt/sweater (coat?)/dress.

The last DD wager didn't make a ton of sense to me. 400 would have been kind of neat, since if he got it right it would open three way tie, three-way 0, and a slew of other possibilities. The lock-tie possibility also worked and makes more sense, but that's probably not that easy to figure out. He was probably looking at Sara's number alone.

Domestic Goddess was an awesome title. Tywla played a solid game and made a solid FJ wager, considering how unpredictable wagering and that category could be.

The voice of the man in the middle had a real Shatner quality early on, but seemed to equalize as the game went along. Wonder if it was a stress thing.

[Austin Powers]

Well that was a master class of betting there from the guy in the middle. He likes that "2500" figure as his unit of risk.

The FJ would have been interesting had it tossed out instead the lesser known dwarfs of Makemake and Haumea.

Still, a tougher board that a lot of the TOC.

[billiej]

That FJ was Kids Week level.

And what is up with dippy?

I think the screenname says it all.

[xxaaaxx]

The FJ would have been interesting had it tossed out instead the lesser known dwarfs of Makemake and Haumea.

Maybe, if they got rid of '2006' as well, but astronomy + 'named celestial object changed categories' would probably still be a triple get for them, and an instaget at home.

[marpocky]

Was anybody else screaming Ponce de Leon at the TV on the 2nd-to-last clue, knowing that last DD was still out there?

Absolute joke of an FJ.

[Johnblue]

That's the 13th FJ in a row I've gotten. Kids Week indeed. Good game otherwise. I thought I would be annoyed by the domestic goddess based on the preview featured on my local station but she was pretty funny w/o being obnoxious.

[TenPoundHammer]

Would've gone 5/5 in Railroads. Wasn't sure if it'd be coal or steam, but it turned out not to matter, and clammed on Trans-Siberian because I had "Wizards of Winter" in my head.

Anyone wanna tell me how Chew for $600 was supposed to lead to brownie? Lots of chewy things are made with chocolate.

Should we really know that Minnesota senator at $800 in Party?

4/5 in Rhymes with Dictionary

NHO Citigroup. T-Mobile has a spokesperson?

Surprised that Kmart was a TS.

Once again a piss-easy clue goes right over my head. 2006 meant nothing to me, and "Ceres" sounded more like a star to me (was probably thinking Sirius), so I was figuring it's probably some obscure star that no one's heard of becoming a red dwarf or something.

[dhkendall]

Should we really know that Minnesota senator at $800 in Party?

I got it, but I'm pretty sure that it's because I get some of my American TV (including the channel that airs Jeopardy!) from Minnesota. (And it's the state I've stayed the most in, I've probably been to North Dakota more, but most of that is driving through to get to Minnesota.)

[mpandl]

Way too easy FJ! That's all I have to say.

[Bamaman]

Here's a rundown of the possibilities on the DD bet.

Bets $400 and gets it right
The scores are now $16,800/$16,800/$8,400. He has to get FJ right in order to win the game. Yes, he could bet zero, but that is dependent on Sara also betting zero and I wouldn't trust anyone to make that bet. I'd bet it all. So he'd either wind up with $33,600 and play again tomorrow or a check for $2,000 or $1,000 from Aleve.

Bets $400 and gets it wrong
The scores are now $16,800/$16,000/$8,400. He would have to bet $801 to cover third place. He can win on a TS or if he is right and Sara is wrong. So he would win with $16,801, $15,199 or finish second or third.

Bets $8,000 and gets it right
The scores are now $24,400/$16,800/$8,400. His MSB would be $12,201 and his MSBIW score would be $12,199, which would drop him below Sara if she bet zero. So he would need to get FJ right to win the game.

Bets $8,000 and gets it wrong
The scores are now $16,800/$8,400/$8,400. Sara would most likely bet zero. So he has to get FJ right to win the game.

So the only scenario where he can win the game without getting FJ right is betting $400 and getting it wrong.

On a side note, I didn't like his or Twila's FJ bets. He should have just bet to cover third and she should have bet it all.

[TenPoundHammer]

So am I the only dumbass person who didn't get this FJ! right?

[dhkendall]

So am I the only dumbass person who didn't get this FJ! right?

You can't wait 48 hours until Mark's poll comes up to find out quietly, or do you have to draw attention to yourself by asking?

[jeff6286]

Here's a rundown of the possibilities on the DD bet.
[b]
On a side note, I didn't like his or Twila's FJ bets. He should have just bet to cover third and she should have bet it all.

I agree that Dean's FJ bet wasn't the greatest, and I don't think Twyla's was ideal, but I disagree that she should have bet it all. She did have exactly half of Sara's score, but with Dean just behind, I don't see any reason to expect a $0 wager from Sara. Her best wager, in my opinion, would have been $2,600, which could have worked out perfectly in two different ways. If all 3 players miss, Sara has $5,799 after making the MSB, and Twyla has $5,800. A good bet by Dean wins in this case, but as it turned out, he bet big, so Twyla would have been the winner.

Then consider if Dean had wagered $2,901, giving him $16,801 if right, which both covers Twyla's max score and covers the unlikely $0 wager by Sara. If he is wrong, he has $10,999, and what does Twyla have if she bets $2,600 and is right? $11,000, meaning that the $2,600 wager gives her a potential $1 victory on either a sole get or a triple stumper. Since Dean bet big, Twyla's $0 wager essentially served the same purpose as the $2,600 bet, as she wins on a triple stumper, and if either opponent responds correctly, she can't win anyway.

[Bamaman]

Well, my reasoning of her betting it all was that I don't expect him to bet any more than to cover her doubled score. but after his DD, I wasn't expecting him to bet rationally anyway.

As it turns out, dippy's spoiler yesterday didn't turn out to be true. I checked the video and it had a clip of Drew reacting after getting to play the last DD, with his score in front of him. Apparently, dippy took that to mean he had won the game.

[skullturf]

Should we really know that Minnesota senator at $800 in Party?

Despite my earlier comments about being Canadian and not knowing a ton of US Senators, I got this one. Norm Coleman is the guy who was narrowly defeated by comedian turned politician Al Franken, so that's why I knew that name.

[Spaceman Spiff]

T-Mobile has a spokesperson?

Carly Foulkes, who replaced Catherine Zeta-Jones a few years ago.

[TenPoundHammer]

Nice. But I can't say that I've ever seen a T-Mobile ad.