Monday, February 18, 2013 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

[Dr. J]

Well that was very impressive. Outstanding showing by all three, near instaget FJ! (after a quick jump to Vilnius), and gutsy wagering. Stephanie, I can only imagine how much you were shaking in your stilettos after that one...

Lots of dropping the f-bomb under my breath, furiously clutching Paul's arm, and stuffing my jacket hood in my mouth. The next game was exhausting. It's not fun to be on the bubble!

[Austin Powers]

BTW major props to Keith. Big bet was great. I love how he just took his balls out and put them on the podium like that. If you're the best, you show you are the best by betting big and getting it. Well done.

[dhkendall]

Good job by those three!

FJ for me was just a blank. I've never even heard of Yerevan. Vilnius came to me, but I know that's Lithuania.

So? Lithuania is also a former Soviet state. Other than the fact that Yerevan is alphabetically later, what makes Vilnius a bad guess?

[marpocky]

No guess on FJ! Never heard of that capital, nor do I see any reason to retain this particular one.

Huh? What's the point of doing any of this, then?

Because, really, is Yerevan ever gonna come up again?

Probably. Certainly no reason to think it won't. In a list of capitals likely to come up again, I'd probably rank it somewhere near the middle.

A quick search of the J-archive shows it's been mentioned in one FJ clue and two regular clues, and been the correct response to 3 regular clues. Armenia has always been given before this, however (though it's understandable why they didn't this time), or been the correct response when Yerevan was in the clue.

It was nice of them to narrow it down to a choice of 15 for Final - not necessary in a ToC, but, hey ...

I knew Zagreb was the only Z, but this was a nice shove towards which Y I wanted. (Although, no way are Yaounde, Yamoussoukro, or the barely-even-a-capital Yaren showing up on Jeopardy (but Nauru did!).)

[Bamaman]

It is more likely we will be asked which state was the last to join the union, but he won't remember that, either, despite our giving him mnemonic devices to do so.

[bpmod]

Good job by those three!

FJ for me was just a blank. I've never even heard of Yerevan. Vilnius came to me, but I know that's Lithuania.

So? Lithuania is also a former Soviet state. Other than the fact that Yerevan is alphabetically later, what makes Vilnius a bad guess?

For me, it was Warsaw and Wellington standing in the way.

Brian

[Bamaman]

Well that was very impressive. Outstanding showing by all three, near instaget FJ! (after a quick jump to Vilnius), and gutsy wagering. Stephanie, I can only imagine how much you were shaking in your stilettos after that one...

Lots of dropping the f-bomb under my breath, furiously clutching Paul's arm, and stuffing my jacket hood in my mouth. The next game was exhausting. It's not fun to be on the bubble!

A bubble seems more comfortable than a clothes dryer.

[marpocky]

Good job by those three!

FJ for me was just a blank. I've never even heard of Yerevan. Vilnius came to me, but I know that's Lithuania.

So? Lithuania is also a former Soviet state. Other than the fact that Yerevan is alphabetically later, what makes Vilnius a bad guess?

Well the more obvious spoiler of Washington coming after makes it a bad guess, but no problems on the Soviet front. (I'll take "Things Hitler Never Said" for $800, Alex!)

[econgator]

Good job by those three!

FJ for me was just a blank. I've never even heard of Yerevan. Vilnius came to me, but I know that's Lithuania.

So? Lithuania is also a former Soviet state. Other than the fact that Yerevan is alphabetically later, what makes Vilnius a bad guess?

I guess it would help if I knew that ... which I didn't. I knew it was occupied by the Soviets at one point, but never knew it was a former state.

[Leander]

Vilnius was my guess too. Don't think I would have ever come up with Yerevan, despite having seen it on a map last week.

A little surprised that Working was a TS, and a $2000 clue.

[georgespelvin]

When the FJ category came up, I thought that this would likely be a triple get, much to the great consternation of the potential semifinalists in the audience. After all, world capitals is a very straightforward topic and a must area of study (well, maybe not for TPH) for any Jeopardy contestant, let alone outstanding champions that got to the ToC. Then, when the clue was revealed, I thought that it would CERTAINLY be a triple get because it was a question seeking alphabetizing world capitals and I was pretty sure that all of the ToCers have long had alphabetized cheat sheets of world capitals so that Yerevan would at least pop to the fore from remembering the order of the cheat sheet if they did not know it already. I'll bet that Dr. J, Monica and other contenders really had their hearts sink when they saw the FJ category and then the clue.

I was not keeping score tonight but I had more trouble in the J! round than in the DJ! round.

[teapot37]

Well that was very impressive. Outstanding showing by all three, near instaget FJ! (after a quick jump to Vilnius), and gutsy wagering. Stephanie, I can only imagine how much you were shaking in your stilettos after that one...

Lots of dropping the f-bomb under my breath, furiously clutching Paul's arm, and stuffing my jacket hood in my mouth. The next game was exhausting. It's not fun to be on the bubble!

Rooting against your new friends is the worst, isn't it?

[alietr]

Would they really dare to have another Vilnius FJ again???

[dhkendall]

So? Lithuania is also a former Soviet state. Other than the fact that Yerevan is alphabetically later, what makes Vilnius a bad guess?

For me, it was Warsaw and Wellington standing in the way.

Well the more obvious spoiler of Washington coming after makes it a bad guess, but no problems on the Soviet front. (I'll take "Things Hitler Never Said" for $800, Alex!)

So both of you missed the "former Soviet state" part, then? (Shame since, as I said, narrowing it down to a possible 15 countries made it needlessly way more easy.)

I guess it would help if I knew that ... which I didn't. I knew it was occupied by the Soviets at one point, but never knew it was a former state.

To be fair, your government technically never recognized the incorporation of Lithuania (as well as Estonia and Latvia) into the USSR, but I have never seen a map during the Cold War (official or not) that doesn't have them as part of the USSR (although many of them have the note about the US government not recognizing the annexation).

Quick related trivia: Which world capital was the last alphabetically until the fall of the Soviet Union and the dissolution of Yugoslavia?

Spoiler

Yaren, Nauru. Although, technically Nauru has neither distinct cities or a capital, but government offices are in the Yaren district, so Yaren is usually listed as Nauru's capital. Alphabetically before that, if you don't want to count Yaren, is Yaounde, Cameroon. Before that is Yamoussoukro, Cote d'Ivoire/Ivory Coast (since 1983), before that, Windhoek, Namibia (since 1990), before that, Wellington, NZ, before that Washington, USA, before that Warsaw, Poland. Then it'd be Vilnius, Lithuania were it not part of the USSR. (I just wanted to fit everyone's wrong guesses into the list)

[Robert K S]

Did anyone come up with the solution to the last clue in the time allotted for a correct response? (And I don't mean the correct response.)

[jpahk]

wow, that was really a terrific game. good boards, strong play by all three players (yet again), and a really impressive triple-get on what i thought was a pretty tricky FJ. this entire ToC has been fantastic. nobody is going to luck into a SF place, that's for sure.

almost ran the table in the first round—only snooki eluded me. *shakes fist* snooki! DJ was a lot harder. nonfic roughed me up (although i did get studs terkel for $2k), in particular. a bunch of scattered others i couldn't quite pull—HUD, schönbrunn (tried sans souci; oops? turns out it's in potsdam), architect, geek, and maybe one or two more.

So? Lithuania is also a former Soviet state. Other than the fact that Yerevan is alphabetically later, what makes Vilnius a bad guess?

For me, it was Warsaw and Wellington standing in the way.

Well the more obvious spoiler of Washington coming after makes it a bad guess, but no problems on the Soviet front. (I'll take "Things Hitler Never Said" for $800, Alex!)

So both of you missed the "former Soviet state" part, then? (Shame since, as I said, narrowing it down to a possible 15 countries made it needlessly way more easy.)

no, they used the existence of capitals like warsaw and washington to rule out vilnius as a possibility for the alphabetically penultimate world capital, which is what the clue specified (in addition to giving you the nudges of "zagreb" and "former soviet"). me, i used yamoussoukro to target Y specifically and got to yerevan a few seconds later.

[Johnblue]

Instaget FJ for me too. I've seen it written as Erevan at times so I was a bit nervous. Great game by the players!

I had a tougher time in the first round than DJ. I got Schonnbrun Palace right away. It's the last place I was before I got robbed in crappy Vienna! Sometimes bad associations make us remember things more readily. I know I'll never go to that country again.

[ElendilPickle]

It looks like Kristin spent some time studying world capitals after her first win: http://www.j-archive.com/showgame.php?game_id=4053

Great game! I did really well up until FJ; I studied the former Soviet republics, but didn't retain Yerevan.

[bpmod]

So? Lithuania is also a former Soviet state. Other than the fact that Yerevan is alphabetically later, what makes Vilnius a bad guess?

For me, it was Warsaw and Wellington standing in the way.

Well the more obvious spoiler of Washington coming after makes it a bad guess, but no problems on the Soviet front. (I'll take "Things Hitler Never Said" for $800, Alex!)

So both of you missed the "former Soviet state" part, then? (Shame since, as I said, narrowing it down to a possible 15 countries made it needlessly way more easy.)

No. As Joon hinted at, I ruled out everything from A to Wel- (between which Vilnius falls), and figured I was looking for something in the W X or Y range (also ruling out Zaa to Zaf just because).

But I do need to brush up on my world capitals, obviously.

Brian

[Woof]

Yes, well-played game by all three, who will all now get to play in the semis (best of luck, Dr J!). I continue to find these boards easier than previous TOC boards, though that TV jobs category predictably proved my undoing in DJ. FJ was an instaget.