Friday, January 13, 2017 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

[Archivists]

Placeholder for J! Round

[Archivists]

Placeholder for DJ! Round

[theFJguy]

FINAL JEOPARDY! CATEGORY
EUROPEAN COUNTRIES

FINAL JEOPARDY! CLUE
Once the center of an empire, it didn’t exist as an independent nation from 1938 to 1955

Cheryl Guy: 11600-7500=4100
Eli Nehus: 9400-3173=6227 (New champ)
Tanner Hesse: 2000-0=2000

Correct response:

Spoiler

Austria (Cheryl – Poland) (Eli – Macedonia) (Tanner – Hungary)

Daily Doubles
Tanner: 1200-1200
Tanner: 5400-3000
Cheryl: 9400+3000

Coryats
Cheryl: 9800
Eli: 9400
Tanner: 6200

Combined: 25,400

[xxaaaxx]

Once the center of an empire? Austria...1938? Sounds like Anschluss to me (I'm guessing 1955 is when they got their sovereignty back after the war). Geniunely shocked that this was a TS.

Speaking of TSes, Boris Yeltsin? Really???

That trash talk category was terrible. Blahblahblah here's a bunch of cities mixed in with unfunny nonsense, identify the state. It's too early in the season for that, J! writers. On the other hand, I wasn't sure what to expect from BR-exit, but it was a nice 5/5, with (br)ink and (br)amble keeping me on my toes.

[TenPoundHammer]

I had an insane day at work, and was too stressed out to really play along anyway. I still got Starwood and saccharine.

Cabana is another one of those words that I've heard a billion times, but never really picked up on its meaning.

[opusthepenguin]

Ran the composers category. Alex missed his chance to say NHNF when all three contestants guessed a wrong composer for the Leningrad symphony. At least they all guessed Russians. The more embarrassing miss was when Tanner guessed that Bach was Viennese and wrote lieder. Poor Tanner had a rough day of it in general. He landed on two DDs and they just didn't break his way.

[goatman]

Instaget. 49R. Ran: states by cities, 1860s, Bible, Lushmore, castles & scales.
LT: Jeff Davis (ex-US senator); Beethoven birthplace > Bonn; QEII > Windsor; 1941 composition > Shostakovich.
NO gets on "Night Manager" "Doux (4: sweet) or "saccarin-e" although I know those words! Also did not attibute "lieds" to Schubert, so fail.

But, yeah that's 15 straight FJs for goats! Grats to the new champ, may you reign longer than a day!

[Kenny]

FJ: instaget on a TS with Austria made me feel better after going 1/4 earlier this week. Remembering how displeased Captain Von Trapp was when the Nazis hung their flag outside his mansion helped.

Briefly considered Turkey since it was carved out of the remnants of the Ottoman Empire on the 20th century. But IIRC, Turkey was established shortly after WW1, so that wouldn't fit the clue.

That trash-talk states category was easy pickings. Such obvious clues. It partly made up for having two pop-culture categories (recent movies & books). I wish the writers wouldn't do that. I just sat stone-faced as the contestants called out a bunch of titles of movies I've never seen (& likely never will).

LT: Louis Pasteur, Bonn, Yeltsin, Windsor Castle. My pension in Bonn was just a block away from Beethoven's birth place, so that was a no-brainer.

[mxc_takeshi]

37/58 right.

Hotel (0), State (5), 1860's (5), Bible (3), Lushmore (5), Br-exit (3)
Castle (4), Short/Sweet (2), Books (2), TV (2), Composer (2), Scale (4)

Lach Trash: Jefferson Davis, Boris Yeltsin, Bonn, Windsor Castle; DD: Louis Pasteur

I went with Austria pretty quickly after assuming that 1938 was referring to its annexation by Nazi Germany.

[MDCSWildcats86]

37/58 right.

Hotel (0), State (5), 1860's (5), Bible (3), Lushmore (5), Br-exit (3)
Castle (4), Short/Sweet (2), Books (2), TV (2), Composer (2), Scale (4)

Lach Trash: Jefferson Davis, Boris Yeltsin, Bonn, Windsor Castle; DD: Louis Pasteur

I went with Austria pretty quickly after assuming that 1938 was referring to its annexation by Nazi Germany.

Nailed FJ cold (again) off 1938 alone.

[Vowela]

I was surprised this was a triple stumper. Seemed like this was meant to be the easiest FJ! of the week. "Empire" and "1938" almost made it seem too obvious--I know some people here say an answer that's too obvious is usually wrong--but I couldn't think of a better answer than Austria.

[Anachronism]

Got WDIVed (NBC affiliate in Detroit) again for an infomercial. It's too bad Jeopardy! has no control over the stations that run the show in each market.

[IronNeck]

While I didn't know the Composer Clue for $2,000, I was still shaking my head at guesses like "Tchaikovsky" and "Rimsky-Korsokov" for someone composing in 1941. ("Stravinsky" was at least alive) Beyond the inadvisability of randomly guessing Russian composers on a $2,000 clue, of which there are many, one would think they would at least have a rough idea of when they lived, nevermind their actual lives and work.

Had one of them refrained, that would have been a huge swing in his/her favor.

LT of Pasteur, Boris Yeltsin, and The Night Manager.

Instaget FJ. As shocked as everyone else that it was a TS.

[MarkBarrett]

There was a triple miss in COMPOSERS and Alex forgot to say his NH,NF.

6/6 for me with The Night Manager in RUNNING A HOTEL and the run of ON TV NOW. I would trade knowing that kind of stuff tonight for a solve on a gettable FJ! clue that should have been simple connect the dots.

Instead I tried it from the empire connection and thought about Roman to Italy, Ottoman to Turkey (the country I wrote), for a time forgot the category and was thinking of Mideast places, and dismissed France. Yeah, it's not like I haven't seen The Sound of Music. Duh! on Austria.

Even if I had the instaget like I should have off 1938 the triple miss would not have been surprising as I have company in being a J! player and not being great on worldly type FJ! clues. It's unfortunate, but not uncommon how often it happens on J!

Eli made $6000 on ON TV NOW and went into the FJ! round with 9400 having played no DDs. He made it clear where his strength lies. His FJ! wager got the job done as well making sure he was more than above Tanner's possible double up mark and Cheryl's expected level on a miss.

[Bob78164]

This game is a win for the Weak Form of Shore's Conjecture. The second-place player bet "small." --Bob

[MattKnowles]

I missed Yeltsin and thought it was Gorbachev. I don't remember the exact clue but I think it said something like "This Russian leader blotted his..." and the blot part made me think of Gorbachev's birthmark.

For FJ I thought Poland but then realized that was wrong and guessed Austria. I'm not sure if I would have gotten it in enough time.

I thought today's game was pretty tough.

[BigDaddyMatty]

Coryat: $26,800
40 R/1 W
DD: 2/3
FJ:
LT: Jefferson Davis, Louis Pasteur (DD), Boris Yeltsin, Windsor Castle

I wasn't nearly as confident as the rest of you, but I figured that the empire in question had to be the Austro-Hungarian, and Hungary was a sovereign country in the aftermath of WWII.

NHO Brooklyn.

Briefly considered Turkey since it was carved out of the remnants of the Ottoman Empire on the 20th century. But IIRC, Turkey was established shortly after WW1, so that wouldn't fit the clue.

It's worth filing away for future reference that Turkey will never be the correct response in the category European Countries since it isn't entirely in Europe.

I missed Yeltsin and thought it was Gorbachev. I don't remember the exact clue but I think it said something like "This Russian leader blotted his..." and the blot part made me think of Gorbachev's birthmark.

"Bill Clinton said this blotto Russian president tried to hail a cab on a D.C. street clad only in underwear; he wanted pizza." Blotto is a slang term for drunk. The important part of the clue, though, was "Russian president." There have only been three presidents of Russia: Yeltsin, Putin and Medvedev (and Putin a second time, if we're counting presidents under Grover Cleveland Rules).

[davey]

Yes, 1938 should have triggered the right response, but I spent more time fretting about 1955. I started thinking maybe Hungary got some sort of nominal independence in 1955 that led to the uprising in 1956. No, it doesn't make much sense, but it's 30 seconds, people! Despite coming up with Austria-Hungary as the right empire, I don't think Austria ever occurred to me - I still find it surprising that they didn't regain independence till '55...

[rpg]

It's worth filing away for future reference that Turkey will never be the correct response in the category European Countries since it isn't entirely in Europe.

Is that necessarily true? I consider it to be both a European and an Asian country, and I thought this was the general consensus. Same with Russia.

I negged myself to death in DJ with some terrible ones, and capped it off by missing FJ -- I put Hungary, since I figured it was either Hungary or Austria and I knew there was a Hungarian revolution around 1955 (though I didn't know much about it, clearly!). 1938 did make me quite worried it was Austria. Time to hit the books some more, I think.

[This Is Kirk!]

I got FJ, but I'm not sure it was all that easy unless you're pretty solid in history. I was definitely relieved when Alex said "close" after the Hungary response.