Wednesday, May 8, 2013 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

[jeff6286]

I'd say the real reason there's no worry about a cable car accident at Fisherman's Wharf is because there are no cable cars within 4 blocks of it...

All in all, that was just a painful game to watch.

Not so much as a guess for FJ.

Yes, but with all those hills in SF, surely a runaway cable car could come screaming in from any direction, if not for those 3 sets of brakes.

[Vanya]

I'd say the real reason there's no worry about a cable car accident at Fisherman's Wharf is because there are no cable cars within 4 blocks of it...

All in all, that was just a painful game to watch.

Not so much as a guess for FJ.

Well if a cable car on the Powell-Mason line kept going straight at the north end, it would hit Fisherman's Wharf.

[TenPoundHammer]

Not a good day for me.

"Unattached" = "single" wasn't coming to me in a million years. 0/5 in Econ.

Got 3/5 in Music, missing Gandalf Style and the Lana del Rey song.

Got only 6 right in DJ!: ran J 5 and got $800 in Islands. Had Vesuvius and Daniel Dey-Lewis but couldn't spit either out, and clammed on the other $400s plus bullet and cable car.

No guess on FJ!

[jeff6286]

Not a good day for me.

"Unattached" = "single" wasn't coming to me in a million years.

...

No guess on FJ!

Were you on tonight's show?

[skullturf]

College Jeopardy is good for my ego. I got twelve clues correct that were triple stumpers on the show. (Six in each round.)

I got FJ, but I'm a little bit obsessive about birth and death dates. I knew about the Darwin bicentennial that we had a few years ago. Plus, when someone mentions a church apologizing to a theorist of the past, I think of either Galileo or Darwin.

Of the triple stumpers that I got, there were most definitely some that I wouldn't have gotten when I was a college student. Charlemagne's father, for example. I think I only know that through Jeopardy.

[Agggron]

Didn't know when Darwin was born, but a famous Englishman around in the mid 1800s + going against the Church --> was a quick association to Darwin. Toyed around with other possibilities, but couldn't think of anything better, so stuck with Darwin. Pleasantly surprised for a few days in a row.

[Vanya]

I thought Einstein said the thing about consistency. Or did he say a clean desk is a sign of a disturbed mind?

[econgator]

I'd say the real reason there's no worry about a cable car accident at Fisherman's Wharf is because there are no cable cars within 4 blocks of it...

All in all, that was just a painful game to watch.

Not so much as a guess for FJ.

Well if a cable car on the Powell-Mason line kept going straight at the north end, it would hit Fisherman's Wharf.

Yeah, but it would have to make it through the railing and the planter where Taylor hits Bay and the run down Taylor isn't the slightest bit hilly and the turntable would have to be facing the right way, otherwise it would just run into the building, so ....

[econgator]

Had Vesuvius and Daniel Dey-Lewis but couldn't spit either out

It's Day. He's not related to Susan.

[silverscreentest]

Had Vesuvius and Daniel Dey-Lewis but couldn't spit either out

It's Day. He's not related to Susan.

But if she married the kid who played "Webster"...

[MarkBarrett]

All of the California and San Francisco posts had me laughing out loud. The rollercoaster for cable car miss was one of many headscratchers tonight. Often I talk about side bets. Tonight it felt very safe, very early to say that the Championship winner was not playing.

One positive for the players was they each had a correct DD response.

I was close to being Hammered on the FJ clue. To at least have a guess I scribbled Dickens as the music ended. I needed Alex to hit me upside the head like he did when time was up. How I have never matched Darwin for joining Lincoln in being born in 1809 I don't know. The clue had me so befuddled that I also considered Prince Albert.

My precall of Coleridge to go with the NYT puzzle from yesterday was not going to happen.

Hey AP, you would have had fun. if you saw one of the music clues.

[trainman]

I was hoping Taylor would advance for a couple of reasons. One, she's from my neck of the woods. Two, this didn't come out in the show, but she has an inoperable brain tumor, according to an article in the Dallas Morning News. But that hasn't kept her from getting on with her life.

She should have gone with pink, blue, and/or purple hair for her appearance. Or was she perhaps planning to dye it overnight if she made the semifinals?

[TenPoundHammer]

She should've worn a purple streak in her hair just so I could make Juniper Lee references.

[skullturf]

One cool thing for me about this episode:

As I'm sure many of you do, I'll sometimes make up little trivia questions to ask my friends. Sometimes they will be follow-up questions based on something that was on Jeopardy.

When we recently had an FJ question that involved a certain Pacific Island country, I asked my friends a question I quickly made up about an Edinburgh-born author who is buried there.

I was very pleased when almost the same question came up on tonight's episode.

[jeff6286]

As time was winding down in DJ, I noticed at one point that the game was very close to finishing in a lock-tie, and I think if just one or two clues had seen different results, it could have ended that way. Which got me to thinking, what would you do in a quarterfinal game from a lock-tie position. Say the scores finish something like 12000-6000-2500, so second basically has to bet it all, as you're likely not going to get a wildcard on a miss, so you may as well maximize your score, either to tie the leader, win the game, or give yourself the greatest chance at a wildcard. From the leader's point of view, if you assume that second will bet it all, then the only logical wagers are $0 or $1, right? Let's look at the two options:

If you bet $1, and your opponents bets it all: Say Final Jeopardy! is around a 50/50 proposition for most players, then the only way you lose is if you are wrong and your opponent is right, so in 3 of 4 possible outcomes you're the winner, so you have about a 75% chance of winning, and a 25% chance of coming in second and hoping for a wildcard at $11,999. If you feel that the FJ category is at least somewhat good for you, this is probably the way to go, as you can increase that 75% number if you give yourself a >50% chance of being right, even if you don't know how your opponent would feel about the category.

If you bet $0, and your opponent bets it all: Your FJ response doesn't matter, only your opponent's, so 50% of the time you win, and 50% of the time you're tied at $12,000 and go to a tiebreaker question. Say the tiebreaker category doesn't particularly favor either player, then if you figure any random clue should be about a 50/50 tossup for any two players, then by betting $0, you still have about a 75% chance of winning the game. But then again, if you've managed to double your opponent's score in the game, you most likely have either a greater knowledge base, are faster on the buzzer, or some combination of the two. So in this case you probably have more than a 75% chance of winning, making the $0 wager preferable to the $1 wager, right?

Then again, maybe you weren't really twice as good as your opponent during the game. Maybe you benefited from a bold DD wager, or your opponent was hurt by one. Maybe the categories were good for you, or bad for them. Maybe your opponent had a slew of incorrect responses, while you knew when to stay clam. This wouldn't really come into play in a tiebreaker question, so maybe you're pretty evenly matched after all.

It seems to me that if you feel good about the FJ category, you should bet $1. If you feel bad about it, you should bet $0. If you feel neutral about it...then I guess you can go either way. Can anyone think of any factors that I may have overlooked, or anything else that might come into play? Can anyone remember a QF game ever ending in a lock-tie?

[TryphonTournesol]

Those FJ guesses made my head hurt. Thomas More and Isaac Newton born in 1809? I suppose it was fitting that Trevor was the "closest" while still being thoroughly wrong. Instaget on Darwin for me.

Token moment of the episode that made me feel old: the TS on Metallica.

[Woof]

Although this was certainly a painful game to watch, I felt that Trevor deserved this victory for: a) by and large knowing not to neg and b) making decent bets for his DD and FJ. I felt that his answer of Wilde was quite reasonable given Wilde's persecution and a likely role for the Church of England in it. The only problem, really, is that Wilde was a late 19th C figure, not an early or mid-century figure*. There were way too many forehead-smacking moments in this game, though.

* On reflection, the fact that Wilde as an Irishman would be nominally Catholic and not concerned with the CoE would weigh against such a choice, too.

[bpmod]

Token moment of the episode that made me feel old: the TS on Metallica.

Hmmm... I think I am quite a bit older than you and I didn't get it. I don't really think it's a question of age.

* On reflection, the fact that Wilde as an Irishman would be nominally Catholic and not concerned with the CoE would weigh against such a choice, too.

But, being an Irishman, he didn't fit the category. So, Abraham Lincoln was probably as good a guess.

I got Darwin instantly upon hearing Alex's post-think-music remark.

Brian

[Volante]

I'd say the real reason there's no worry about a cable car accident at Fisherman's Wharf is because there are no cable cars within 4 blocks of it...

All in all, that was just a painful game to watch.

Not so much as a guess for FJ.

But we got through all the questions! (Would not want to be a fly in the editing room for that one...)
And wasn't that last $1k clue announcement the bizarrest?

I was in an authors mindset for final...Charles Dickens was the closest in range I could come up with, but he was pretty beloved. Once Alex spotted 'theory' after the clue, Oh. Duh. Darwin. Of COURSE the church would hate him. Curse me and my inability to think like an institution fighting the tides of the future!

[Magna]

I echo the comments on FJ. Got Darwin after a few seconds of thinking. I can't imagine how anyone got any of the wrong responses, unless they were just struggling to come up with something to write down.