Thursday, January 12, 2012 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

This is where all of the games are discussed.

Moderators: alietr, trainman, econgator, dhkendall

JFanForever
Loyal Jeopardista
Posts: 163
Joined: Fri Jan 06, 2012 7:45 pm

Re: Thursday, January 12, 2012 Game Recap & Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by JFanForever »

Probably my strongest game in quite some time. I scored 20 altogether today. I scored 11 in the first round and 9 in DJ. I swept the Medal of Freedom Category and was able to get a couple on the spelling and some other questions, I can't remember except which other ones although I know I got the Brave New World Question right. I just remember I also lucked out on the DD, getting Marley. I was torn between Marley and Scrooge but I was pretty sure Marley and sure enough. What really angered me was that I should've had 13. For the literary personal trainer one, the answer was Ahab but I wasn't sure how the category worked and instead answered Moby Dick. Then the one on the Boston Globe. I didn't give that one much thought since I remember The Globe as a tabloid and a rival to the Enquirer and Examiner. My mom used to get them when I was a kid and I would always play Spot the Difference. But yeah that was frustrating and unacceptable.

Then in DJ I had two near sweeps. Both much to my surprise. I scored 4 out 5 on the Solve for Ex (which is something since I despise entertainment stuff) and got 4/5 on the "King" category. Didn't get the King Leir one. First thing that popped into my head: Richard III. It seems a recent pattern that categories I anticipate to do well in I don't and then I shock myself on some that don't seem too hot.

Then I got FJ. So technically 21. Only half though. Usually I'm not good on FJ unless it is Sports or about U.S. Presidents- then I'm usually automatic. First thing that popped into my head was Margaret Mitchell since Gone with the Wind the novel came out in 1936 and the instinct paid off. However I also guessed Harper Lee after that and that was wrong.

All I can do is keep shooting higher. I am not sure if I can top myself tomorrow. I need to be more disciplined because if I focus hard enough I can do more.
User avatar
thejeopardyfan
(Unranked)
Posts: 861
Joined: Sat Jul 02, 2011 2:37 am

Re: Thursday, January 12, 2012 Game Recap & Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by thejeopardyfan »

dhkendall wrote:
thejeopardyfan wrote:jpsultan: I figured it wasn't acceptable because the category was "World Potpourri." I'll take it if I can...
Actually, personally I'd side with it being a neg, for the exact reason you gave (and was why I was careful in the phrasing of my response). It *could* be argued thusly, as the category is sufficiently vague, but as I'm not a real Jeopardy! judge, nor do I play one on TV, "neg" is my verdict.

I found it quite interesting with Dan's interview stating how he "won more money than he's earned in his life" - that shows that he would have *had* to have written his card comment that day (whereas I thought you had to write 5 when you first get there, then if you turn out to be a superchamp they have you write more, and if you turn out to be Ken Jennings, they eventually say "ah screw it, we'll find something to talk with you about.") Anyone else have insight as to how many topics you had to write, and how often you have to supply new ones?
Thanks for the input on "Google Earth" vs. "Maps."
The packet I was sent had what felt like a million questions to answer about myself, for the interviews. A contestant coordinator called me the week before and talked to me about it. Then when I arrived to tape, a coordinator sort of acted like Mr. Trebek and started me talking about three of my stories. The coordinator asked us which one *we* want to talk about on the show, and he highlights it. But Mr. Trebek ultimately chooses. That's as of last month, anyway!
Roger Craig tweeted this last year, and I thought it helped a lot: http://www.npr.org/2011/06/26/137429737 ... n-jeopardy
I hope this all kinda helps.
User avatar
thejeopardyfan
(Unranked)
Posts: 861
Joined: Sat Jul 02, 2011 2:37 am

Re: Thursday, January 12, 2012 Game Recap & Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by thejeopardyfan »

JFanForever wrote:All I can do is keep shooting higher. I am not sure if I can top myself tomorrow. I need to be more disciplined because if I focus hard enough I can do more.
I have this hanging on a door, and maybe it'll help you, too: "Don't look for the big, quick improvement. Seek the small improvement one day at a time. That's the only way it happens - and when it happens, it lasts." John Wooden
User avatar
opusthepenguin
The Best Darn Penguin on the Whole JBoard
Posts: 10319
Joined: Thu Aug 11, 2011 2:33 pm
Location: Shawnee, KS
Contact:

Re: Thursday, January 12, 2012 Game Recap & Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by opusthepenguin »

thejeopardyfan wrote:jpsultan: I figured it wasn't acceptable because the category was "World Potpourri." I'll take it if I can...
I said "Google Maps" too and made a note to ask our unofficial judges. Back on the 3rd, the official judges accepted "old-fashioned" when they were clearly going for "old hat". The clue told the contestants to put on their "thinking chapeau" and specified that the term was "apparel-related". If "old-fashioned" is apparel-related, then "maps" is close enough to "world" as far as I'm concerned.
JFanForever
Loyal Jeopardista
Posts: 163
Joined: Fri Jan 06, 2012 7:45 pm

Re: Thursday, January 12, 2012 Game Recap & Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by JFanForever »

thejeopardyfan wrote:
JFanForever wrote:All I can do is keep shooting higher. I am not sure if I can top myself tomorrow. I need to be more disciplined because if I focus hard enough I can do more.
I have this hanging on a door, and maybe it'll help you, too: "Don't look for the big, quick improvement. Seek the small improvement one day at a time. That's the only way it happens - and when it happens, it lasts." John Wooden
Thank you for the advice. I am not expecting to run the whole table anytime soon but I was able to improve my score the last two days but I do seek to improve tomorrow.
User avatar
Doug527
Jeopardy! Champion
Posts: 93
Joined: Thu Dec 15, 2011 12:03 am
Location: Massachusetts

Re: Thursday, January 12, 2012 Game Recap & Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by Doug527 »

opusthepenguin wrote:
thejeopardyfan wrote:jpsultan: I figured it wasn't acceptable because the category was "World Potpourri." I'll take it if I can...
I said "Google Maps" too and made a note to ask our unofficial judges. Back on the 3rd, the official judges accepted "old-fashioned" when they were clearly going for "old hat". The clue told the contestants to put on their "thinking chapeau" and specified that the term was "apparel-related". If "old-fashioned" is apparel-related, then "maps" is close enough to "world" as far as I'm concerned.
I gave myself credit for both "flexible" for "pliable" and this Google Maps thing (it DOES have a street view). That was not a great game for me, those FJ! was an instaget.
Lifelong enthusiast. Season 28 contestant.
User avatar
MarkBarrett
Watches Jeopardy! Way Too Much
Posts: 16471
Joined: Fri Jul 01, 2011 10:37 am
Location: San Francisco

Re: Thursday, January 12, 2012 Game Recap & Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by MarkBarrett »

Flexible and Google Maps for me. I had the right team but wrong Robinson when I blurted out Brooks.

The FJ clue was locking in Mitchell with no doubt. If the clue had asked for both I would have guessed Buck. Dan missed a very gettable clue and it cost him a lot tonight in more ways than one. Too bad, but perhaps good for Preston? Can't wait for tomorrow.
JFanForever
Loyal Jeopardista
Posts: 163
Joined: Fri Jan 06, 2012 7:45 pm

Re: Thursday, January 12, 2012 Game Recap & Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by JFanForever »

Perhaps it's just me but I had either vaguely heard the name or I had never heard of Pearl Buck until FJ. Hmmm.
spell4yr
Watches Jeopardy! Way Too Much
Posts: 325
Joined: Sat Jan 07, 2012 4:03 am
Location: Merrillville, Ind.

Re: Thursday, January 12, 2012 Game Recap & Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by spell4yr »

JFanForever wrote:Then the one on the Boston Globe. I didn't give that one much thought since I remember The Globe as a tabloid and a rival to the Enquirer and Examiner. My mom used to get them when I was a kid and I would always play Spot the Difference. But yeah that was frustrating and unacceptable.
Different Globe.

In terms of the game, it had a very odd pace. J! would have had 30 clues revealed without the two longwinded categories (literary/spelling). Someone watching with me got Mitchell right away; I probably would have pieced it out based on year but unsure if, like others have said, I'd have had any confidence in Mitchell being nominated.
seaborgium
Undefeated in Reruns
Posts: 8941
Joined: Fri Jul 01, 2011 9:31 am

Re: Thursday, January 12, 2012 Game Recap & Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by seaborgium »

I came up with both Pearl S. Buck and Margaret Mitchell. I knew Buck was a Nobelist and the year looked right to me, so I went with her. I enjoy getting both on "one of the two" FJs!

And Pearl Buck brings down another champ in the lead (the last was Lisa Klink).
JFanForever
Loyal Jeopardista
Posts: 163
Joined: Fri Jan 06, 2012 7:45 pm

Re: Thursday, January 12, 2012 Game Recap & Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by JFanForever »

Wasn't sure if Mitchell was right at first though since that seemed a little too obvious.
Bamaman
Also Receiving Votes
Posts: 12897
Joined: Sat Jul 02, 2011 1:39 pm

Re: Thursday, January 12, 2012 Game Recap & Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by Bamaman »

Had Buck on FJ, doubt I would have gotten Mitchell. I've never read it, but never really think of it as a great work of literature.

TPH-Just know Alex the Great lived in the 300s BC and the area where he ruled.
davey
Watches Jeopardy! Way Too Much
Posts: 6030
Joined: Thu Jan 12, 2012 10:55 pm

Re: Thursday, January 12, 2012 Game Recap & Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by davey »

American Heritage says that "flexible" is from Latin while "pliable" is from Middle English and Old French. So I'd say "flexible" is more than acceptable...
JFanForever wrote:Perhaps it's just me but I had either vaguely heard the name or I had never heard of Pearl Buck until FJ. Hmmm.
Buck and The Good Earth were most recently an answer and question on Dec. 23rd. She comes up an awful lot in crossword puzzles too. She's a given for
Nobel Prize for Literature in the 1930s. She was so obvious I was confused. I couldn't think of a single other plausible candidate. (I take it back - Gertrude Stein did flash through my mind as a possibility - but as I said, Buck was so obvious...) Though anybody might be nominated, I can't believe Margaret Mitchell was ever seriously considered. Her book is a potboiler and was never taken seriously as literature (in Scandinavia??) Buck hasn't aged well either but at least we know she DID win. But kudos to the new champ and others who figured out the other nominee...I would never have thought of her.
Last edited by davey on Thu Jan 12, 2012 11:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
HugoZ
Jeopardy! Champion
Posts: 285
Joined: Mon Aug 08, 2011 7:00 pm
Location: Pittsburgh, PA

Re: Thursday, January 12, 2012 Game Recap & Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by HugoZ »

xxaaaxx wrote:Nah, the Literary Character Personal Trainer category was the one that had me cursing the writers today...bleh :roll:
Can't remember the exact wording. Was there anything in the Moby Dick Q that explicitly forces "Captain Ahab", and not one of the harpooners (e.g. Queequeg)?
seaborgium
Undefeated in Reruns
Posts: 8941
Joined: Fri Jul 01, 2011 9:31 am

Re: Thursday, January 12, 2012 Game Recap & Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by seaborgium »

HugoZ wrote:
xxaaaxx wrote:Nah, the Literary Character Personal Trainer category was the one that had me cursing the writers today...bleh :roll:
Can't remember the exact wording. Was there anything in the Moby Dick Q that explicitly forces "Captain Ahab", and not one of the harpooners (e.g. Queequeg)?
I don't remember the exact wording, but there was an obvious hint toward the character's one-leggedness.

Edit: typo
Last edited by seaborgium on Thu Jan 12, 2012 11:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
billy pilgrim
Watches Jeopardy! Way Too Much
Posts: 1087
Joined: Mon Jul 04, 2011 11:42 pm

Re: Thursday, January 12, 2012 Game Recap & Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by billy pilgrim »

"...Wang Lung could not cease from his thought of what his youngest son had said of Pear Blossom, and he watched the maid incessantly as she came and went, and without his knowing it, the thought of her filled his mind and he doted on her. But he said nothing to anyone.
One night in the early summer of that year, at the time when the night air is thick and soft with the mists of warmth and fragrance, he sat at rest in his own court alone under a flowering cassia tree and the sweet heavy scent of the cassia flowers filled his nostrils, and he sat there, and his blood ran full and hot like the blood of a young man.
Through the day he had felt his blood so and he had been half of a mind to walk out on his land and feel the good earth under his feet and take off his shoes and his stockings and feel it on his skin.
This he would have done but he was ashamed lest men see him, who was no longer held a farmer within the gates of the town, but a landowner. It was then that he decided to go to Walmart and buy the orange Crocs like Mario Battali wears."
She caught the Katy and left me a mule to ride.
User avatar
OrangeSAM
(Unranked)
Posts: 2161
Joined: Sat Jul 02, 2011 9:00 pm

Re: Thursday, January 12, 2012 Game Recap & Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by OrangeSAM »

HugoZ wrote:
xxaaaxx wrote:Nah, the Literary Character Personal Trainer category was the one that had me cursing the writers today...bleh :roll:
Can't remember the exact wording. Was there anything in the Moby Dick Q that explicitly forces "Captain Ahab", and not one of the harpooners (e.g. Queequeg)?
Well, there was that bit about working " one calf".

Buck was instaget. Took a stab at the second nominee and hit on Gertrude Stein. UGH!
OCSam
User avatar
cinemaniax7
Humble Pi
Posts: 1604
Joined: Mon Jul 25, 2011 2:04 pm
Location: Old Hickory, TN

Re: Thursday, January 12, 2012 Game Recap & Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by cinemaniax7 »

seaborgium wrote:I came up with both Pearl S. Buck and Margaret Mitchell. I knew Buck was a Nobelist and the year looked right to me, so I went with her. I enjoy getting both on "one of the two" FJs!
Ditto!
User avatar
HugoZ
Jeopardy! Champion
Posts: 285
Joined: Mon Aug 08, 2011 7:00 pm
Location: Pittsburgh, PA

Re: Thursday, January 12, 2012 Game Recap & Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by HugoZ »

HugoZ wrote:Can't remember the exact wording. Was there anything in the Moby Dick Q that explicitly forces "Captain Ahab", and not one of the harpooners (e.g. Queequeg)?
OrangeSAM wrote:Well, there was that bit about working " one calf".
seaborgium wrote: I don't remember the exact wording, but there was an obvious hint toward the character's one-leggedness.
Thanks. Had the harpoon, but got lost trying to find another TOM in that mess o' words.
Bamaman
Also Receiving Votes
Posts: 12897
Joined: Sat Jul 02, 2011 1:39 pm

Re: Thursday, January 12, 2012 Game Recap & Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by Bamaman »

I liked the literary character category. I burst out laughing on the one calf line. But I did get mixed up later when he said a Hugo novel. My mind went straight to Quasimodo (before reading the rest of the clue) and had all sorts of weird pictures of him trying to work out at a gym with his hunchback. Plus I always have trouble getting the Les Miserables guy's name right.

JFan......you only needed one name, so Mitchell gives you the whole thing.
Post Reply