Wednesday, December 18, 2013 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

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Wednesday, December 18, 2013 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by Archivists »

Game Recap for Show #6733, 2013-12-18

CONTESTANTS
Varun Shekhar, a graduate student in engineering and law from Northville, Michigan
Curtis Morales, an analytics engineer from Washington, D.C.
Matthew Church, a medical student from Prince George, British Columbia, Canada (whose 2-day cash winnings total $29,000)

OPENING REMARKS
Alex: Thank you, Johnny. Hello, everyone. Can't believe just a week to go before Christmas. We have two students on the program today --Varun and Matthew. Curtis, welcome aboard, also, and good luck, gentlemen. Here comes the Jeopardy! Round for you. This is the easier round. You should like these categories...

JEOPARDY! ROUND CATEGORIES
A LITTLE SOMETHING SWEET (5/5)
D.C. TV (5/5)
"M" STATE (5/5, including 1 correct Daily Double)
BOMB (4/5)
ADJECTIVES FOR YOUR RESUMÉ (4/5)
GOD SAID UNTO THEE... (3/3) (Alex: You have to identify the individual God was speaking to.)

THE RIGHTS & THE WRONGS
Matthew: 9 R (including 1 rebound and 1 DD), 0 W
Curtis: 11 R, 3 W
Varun: 6 R (including 1 rebound), 1 W

Clues revealed: 28
Triple Stumpers: 2
Jeopardy! Round Potential Lach Trash: $1,400



SCORES AT THE FIRST BREAK
Curtis: $4,600
Matthew: $1,600
Varun: $800

CONTESTANT INTERVIEWS



Alex: Varun Shekhar is from Michigan. He's a graduate student of engineering and law who was inspired after seeing, at a very young age, one of the other competitions I have hosted over the years, and what was that?

Varun: Yeah, the National Geographic Bee. This was back in third grade. I didn't even know it existed before then. I just one day decided to watch it, and I was thrilled at the level of detail that the contestants were able to produce, and the next year, I just basically devoted all my free reading time to looking at atlases, and I had other classmates quiz me on geography. And I improved greatly and I ended up winning the school spelling bee and proceeding to the state finals.

Alex: And how did you do in the state finals?

Varun: I lost, but... [chuckles]

Alex: Okay. That's all right.




Alex: Curtis Morales. I'm intrigued. You're from Washington, D.C. Morales is a Hispanic name, and yet you are probably one of the few people in America who speaks...

Curtis: Akkadian. Akkadian is a dead language from ancient Mesopotamia. It was the language of Gilgamesh and Hammurabi, and I took Akkadian in college. I had to take a language, so --

Alex: Wait a minute. There's a course in Akkadian in college?

Curtis: Several courses --I took five semesters of Akkadian.

Alex: Really?

Curtis: Yeah.

Alex: Where are you able to use this ancient language?

Curtis: You know, I was at the British Museum a couple months ago and I was looking at the inscriptions of Ashurnasirpal's Temple, I believe it was --or Palace --and...

Alex: You were able to read some of it?

Curtis: Eh, a little bit. A little bit.

[Laughter]

Alex: Okay. So, your dad spent all that money and you're learning Akkadian.

[Laughter]

Alex: Okay.




Alex: Matthew Church is our champion, ladies and gentlemen. He has done something that many of us who enjoy traveling would like to do, and that is you took a special train ride. From where to where?

Matthew: I took the Via Rail Canadian all the way across Canada from Vancouver to Toronto.

Alex: So, you went through the Rocky Mountains, and that's beautiful, and you wound up in Toronto three days later, four days later?

Matthew: I think it's four days.

Alex: If you had to pick out a highlight of the trip, which would it be?

Matthew: Oh, the Rockies, for sure.

Alex: Yeah? Okay.

JEOPARDY! ROUND DAILY DOUBLE
Matthew found the Daily Double on the 21st clue. Matthew had $3,400, Curtis had $4,000, and Varun was at $1,000. Matthew wagered $2,400.

"M" STATE $800: In area it's the largest of the 8 "M" states

TRIPLE STUMPERS IN THE JEOPARDY! ROUND
ADJECTIVES FOR YOUR RESUMÉ $800: Reliable; it's the first quality mentioned in the Boy Scout Law
(Varun: What is prepared?)

BOMB $600: Early grenades took their name from the French word for this exotic fruit they resembled
(Curtis: What is a pineapple?)

SCORES AT THE END OF THE JEOPARDY! ROUND
Matthew: $7,200
Curtis: $6,600
Varun: $1,200
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Re: Wednesday, December 18, 2013 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by Archivists »

DOUBLE JEOPARDY! ROUND CATEGORIES
LONDON MONUMENTS (5/5)
THAT'S BRAVE TALK (5/5)
FILM COMPOSERS (2/4, including 1 missed Daily Double)
SCIENTISTS (4/5, including 1 correct Daily Double)
12-LETTER WORDS (3/5)
CABINET DEPARTMENT BY COPS (4/5)

THE RIGHTS & THE WRONGS
Matthew: 9 R (including 1 rebound), 2 W
Varun: 7 R (including 1 DD), 1 W
Curtis: 7 R (including 1 rebound), 2 W (including 1 DD)

Clues revealed: 29
Triple Stumpers: 5
Double Jeopardy! Round Potential Lach Trash: $8,800



FIRST DOUBLE JEOPARDY! ROUND DAILY DOUBLE
Varun snagged the next Daily Double on the 3rd clue. Matthew had $7,200, Curtis had $7,000, and Varun was at $2,000. Varun wagered $1,500.

SCIENTISTS $1200: In the mid-1660s he laid the foundations of calculus & wrote the essay "Of Colours"

SECOND DOUBLE JEOPARDY! ROUND DAILY DOUBLE
It was Curtis who snatched up the last Daily Double of the game on the 25th clue. Matthew had $10,400, Curtis had $11,800, and Varun was at $8,700. Curtis wagered $2,000.

FILM COMPOSERS $1200: In March 2002, on his 16th nomination, he finally won his first Oscar, for "Monsters, Inc."
(Curtis: Who is...)
(Alex: Say something.)
(Curtis: Who is -- got nothing.)
...
(Alex: Less than
a minute now.)

TRIPLE STUMPERS IN THE DOUBLE JEOPARDY! ROUND
SCIENTISTS $2000: This 17th c. French scientist's law states that a fluid in a container transmits pressure equally in all directions

12-LETTER WORDS $1200: For the 2 pieces of equipment used, it's another name for windsurfing
(Varun: What is parasailing?)
(Matthew: What is kiteboarding?)

CABINET DEPARTMENT BY COPS $2000: The U.S. Forest Service Law Enforcement & Investigations unit

12-LETTER WORDS $2000: It's the French name for a movie theater that specializes in classic or avant-garde films

FILM COMPOSERS $1600: On a commemorative stamp issued in 2004, the Pink Panther points to him

SCORES ENTERING FINAL JEOPARDY!
Curtis: $11,800
Matthew: $10,800
Varun: $9,500

FINAL JEOPARDY! CATEGORY
CHILDREN'S LITERATURE

VENUSIAN MONOLOGUES/MARTIAN CHRONICLES
Four-fifths for first place.
Curtis: Wager $9,801 to cover Matthew.
Matthew: You're faced with a legitimate choice in strategy. You can either choose to cover Varun, hoping that you give the correct response and Curtis doesn't, in which case you'll want to wager $8,201 to cover Varun's doubled score, but no more than $8,800 if you want to top Curtis on a Triple Stumper; or bet up to $1,299 and win if both Curtis and Varun miss Final.
Varun: You ought to try wagering between $1,301 and $6,900. This will top a $0 wager by Matthew while still beating Curtis and Matthew on the Triple Stumper (should Curtis wager to cover Matthew's doubled score and Matthew wager to cover your doubled score).

FINAL JEOPARDY! CLUE
Joy, Nellie & Aranea are 3 of the many children of this title character

FINAL SCORES
Varun: $9,500 - $2,301 = $7,199 (Who is ___ ?) (New champion: $7,199)
Matthew: $10,800 - $8,300 = $2,500 (Who is Mother Goose) (2nd place: $2,000)
Curtis: $11,800 - $9,801 = $1,999 (Who is ?) (3rd place: $1,000)
(Alex: [revealing Varun's response] No. We're talking about [*]'s Web. [*]'s Web. Aranea -- an old word for "spiders." Spider genus.)

Total Potential Lach Trash: $10,200

GAME DYNAMICS
Image

CORYAT SCORES
Curtis: $13,800, 18 R, 5 W (including 1 DD)
Matthew: $9,200, 18 R (including 1 DD), 2 W
Varun: $9,200, 13 R (including 1 DD), 2 W
Combined Coryat: $32,200

BATTING AVERAGES
Matthew: 18/59 = .305
Curtis: 18/59 = .305
Varun: 13/59 = .220
Team: 49/63 = .778

MISCELLANEOUS INTERESTING CLUES
A LITTLE SOMETHING SWEET $200: (Jimmy of the Clue Crew visits Durig Chocolatier in Switzerland.) As seen in the Durig workshops, Swiss chocolate comes in many exotic varieties, including one in which this potent potable is added directly to the molten chocolate

A LITTLE SOMETHING SWEET $800: A special occasion dessert in Latin America, pastel de tres leches means cake of these
(Curtis: What are three sugars?)

ADJECTIVES FOR YOUR RESUMÉ $400: Designating a quantity greater than zero
(Curtis: What is negative?)

BOMB $800: The Stuka, a key German weapon of World War II, was this type of aircraft that releases its bombs at low altitude

D.C. TV $1000: On "The Americans" Matthew Rhys & Keri Russell live in the D.C. suburbs while working as spies for this Russian agency
(Alex: Right with a minute to go.)

BOMB $400: Seen here, one of these was tested on Eniwetok Atoll in 1952

D.C. TV $200: "Let Bartlet Be Bartlet" was an episode of this D.C.-set TV series
[The end-of-round signal sounds.]

SCIENTISTS $1600: This sex-crazed -- or at least interested -- Indiana University professor got the big-screen bio treatment in 2004

LONDON MONUMENTS $2000: The arch seen here is named for this -- the body that, for hundreds of years, ran Britain's naval affairs
(Matthew. What is the Admirality?)
...
(Alex: You added one syllable too much there, Matthew.)

THAT'S BRAVE TALK $800: In an 1806 letter, this president said we must "convince the world that we are just friends and brave enemies"
(Curtis: Who is Monroe?)

CORRECT RESPONSES
Montana
trustworthy
the pomegranate
Newton
Randy Newman
Blaise Pascal
sailboarding
Agriculture
cinémathèque
Henry Mancini
Charlotte
champagne
three milks
positive
a dive bomber
the KGB
a hydrogen bomb
The West Wing
(Alfred) Kinsey
the Admiralty
Jefferson
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Re: Wednesday, December 18, 2013 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by jeff6286 »

Children's Literature
Joy, Nellie, & Aranea are 3 of the many children of this title character.

Spoiler
Who is Charlotte? (from Charlotte's Web) Varun and Curtis had no guess; Matthew said Mother Goose.

Curtis Morales: $11,800-$9,801=$1,999
Matthew Church: $10,800-$8,300=$2,500
Varun Shekhar: $9,500-$2,301=$7,199...now a 1-day champion with $7,199
Last edited by jeff6286 on Thu Dec 19, 2013 12:23 am, edited 1 time in total.
TenPoundHammer

Re: Wednesday, December 18, 2013 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by TenPoundHammer »

What was supposed to lead you to champagne on Sweet for $200? I also took the neg on $600 because I said "fingers" and would've been stumped on the BMS.

I thought the clue for "professional" on Résumé (two accent marks, guys, not one) was very vague and impenetrable. (Anyone wanna tell me how you get that one?)

$400 was my only get in Résumé, too.

Pineapple was NASTY negbait on the grenade clue IMO.

"M" state started out easy, but I got tripped up on the bottom two. I couldn't get far enough west to pull up Montana, and it didn't help that I skipped it when running through them alphabetically in my head. Then Maryland completely fell out of my head on $1000.

Another HBO clue locks me out.

If those bottom three in Bible were that easy, then I would've loved to see the top two.

====

I thought Mendel was a bit tough for $400, especially with Newton as the DD. Clammed on Newton and blanked on Kinsey.

London Monuments went completely over my head.

NHO the bottom three words in 12 Letter Words.

Argh, y u no finish Film Composers?! I had a 4/4 in a category I thought I was destined for failure in!

====

Aranea looks like arachnid/araña. Charlotte, done.
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Re: Wednesday, December 18, 2013 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by WJMorris3 »

TenPoundHammer wrote:What was supposed to lead you to champagne on Sweet for $200? I also took the neg on $600 because I said "fingers" and would've been stumped on the BMS.
I think it was the bubbles in the liquid.
I thought the clue for "professional" on Résumé (two accent marks, guys, not one) was very vague and impenetrable. (Anyone wanna tell me how you get that one?)
Rod Laver is a famous Australian tennis player; one of the courts in Melbourne is named for him.

Oh, and the Final was easy for me - then again, my mother is an English teacher.
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Re: Wednesday, December 18, 2013 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by esrever »

I had a bad game (21/58), but I did go 5 for 5
in "M" States. I live in Maryland, so the Maryland
clue was especially easy for me. However, the queen's
name was Henrietta Maria, not Mary, so Maryland
wasn't actually named after a Queen Mary.

Alex's excessively long interview with Curtis
probably prevented the last two clues from being
revealed in the J! round.

I picked up Lach trash on "Henry Mancini"

I'd read "Charlotte's Web" in third grade, but I
didn't remember the children's names, so I
didn't get FJ.
TenPoundHammer

Re: Wednesday, December 18, 2013 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by TenPoundHammer »

WJMorris3 wrote:
TenPoundHammer wrote:What was supposed to lead you to champagne on Sweet for $200? I also took the neg on $600 because I said "fingers" and would've been stumped on the BMS.
I think it was the bubbles in the liquid.
Which I can totally be expected to see 15 feet away from the TV.
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Re: Wednesday, December 18, 2013 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by StevenH »

Despite the close scores, this was only a so-so game. I did like this board, and was very disappointed that the bottom row clue that was in the category on film composers was left uncovered.

The "Newton" DD was kind of neg baity for Leibniz, in my opinion, but I did remember that Newton wrote that work. I don't think that I had ever heard of "Pascal's Law"; I guessed "Gay-Lussac's law" on that one.

FJ took me about 5 seconds. I thought of Charlotte's Web from the category, then remembered from having read the book many, many, years ago that those were her children's names.
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Re: Wednesday, December 18, 2013 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by Andromus »

In a fortunate bit of happenstance I reread Charlotte's Web a couple months ago, so the names clicked right away. Not sure I'd gotten it otherwise as it had been about 30 years since I'd read it.
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Re: Wednesday, December 18, 2013 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by mrparadise »

One normally doesn't expect a successful (or even an unsuccessful) precall for a DD but Montana was pretty easy, given that there weren't that many M states left.

My precall call for FJ was Stuart Little, but I guess I'm too dense to let that take me, as it should have, obviously, to Charlotte's Web. I came up with "Itsy Bitsy Spider", and was satisfied. Idiot!

TPH, it was the very clear "pop", vision not required
TenPoundHammer

Re: Wednesday, December 18, 2013 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by TenPoundHammer »

mrparadise wrote:One normally doesn't expect a successful (or even an unsuccessful) precall for a DD but Montana was pretty easy, given that there weren't that many M states left.
And I still missed it and Maryland, which were the only two I couldn't pull up when trying to precall all eight. Reminds me of the March 7 FJ! that asked for "One of the 2 Central American countries never under military rule in the last 50 years", and when I ran through Central America in my head, I came up with every country but the two right ones (Belize and Costa Rica).

(That same game also had me failing to remember the name of the show where Robert Guiallume played a character named Benson and being totally styimed on what country Keith Urban and Nicole Kidman could've gotten married in.)
mrparadise wrote:My precall call for FJ was Stuart Little, but I guess I'm too dense to let that take me, as it should have, obviously, to Charlotte's Web. I came up with "Itsy Bitsy Spider", and was satisfied. Idiot!
Mom said E.B. White was her precall, too. My joke, never-gonna-happen precall was The Wainscott Weasel. :lol:
mrparadise wrote:TPH, it was the very clear "pop", vision not required
I'm used to the video parts being superfluous to the clue unless they say something like "seen here", so the pop of the bottle meant nothing to me. I never processed something THAT subtle and not-pointed-out as the TOM.
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Re: Wednesday, December 18, 2013 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by Leander »

Never thought I'd say this, but I came up with the FJ answer using the TPH logic. Kid's name looks like spider, what's the only children's book I can think of with a spider in the title?
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Re: Wednesday, December 18, 2013 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by doihavetoreally »

No chance on FJ. What's with animal theme on FJs these past two days?
Good enough to lose on Jeopardy!
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Re: Wednesday, December 18, 2013 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by alamble »

esrever wrote:I had a bad game (21/58), but I did go 5 for 5
in "M" States. I live in Maryland, so the Maryland
clue was especially easy for me. However, the queen's
name was Henrietta Maria, not Mary, so Maryland
wasn't actually named after a Queen Mary.
The clue never said it was named for a specific queen, just that it was named for *a* queen.
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Re: Wednesday, December 18, 2013 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by Kid Charlemagne »

No clue on the FJ. Alex even noted on the lack of players writing anything down.

Fun episode because it was a close game, but otherwise not terribly impressive. Matthew did his robotic low-to-high board selection, leaving the clue that could have given him the lead going into FJ on the table while controlling the board with the clock running out. It's funny that he went big on FJ after winning the previous match by going low, although it seems tougher for people to figure out how to bet from 2nd than how to bet from 3rd.

If I'm the person in 2nd, I can usually assume the leader is going to lock me out, so I'm probably not going to win if the leader gets FJ, so I don't worry about their number. If I'm within 2/3 I just try to bet so that I have more money left than the leader has after a losing lockout wager. There is 3rd place to consider and they will often go all-in or nearly all-in even if a more sophisticated strategy would be to do something else...except I would usually assume that the odds of a TS are significantly greater than those of a solo 3rd place get.
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Re: Wednesday, December 18, 2013 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by Plactus »

Aranea's a spider monster in D&D. Children's lit + spider -> Charlotte.
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Re: Wednesday, December 18, 2013 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by Vermonter »

Kid Charlemagne wrote:It's funny that [Matthew] went big on FJ after winning the previous match by going low, although it seems tougher for people to figure out how to bet from 2nd than how to bet from 3rd.
Just curious, what would you have wagered in his shoes? Would it have been different had it just been Matthew (10,800) and Varun (9,500) in FJ?

Matthew made my analyses very easy the past few days. :)
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Re: Wednesday, December 18, 2013 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by Vermonter »

First thought of the little old mother who lived in a shoe ... and got so stuck on it I didn't know what to do.

In hindsight, Aranea should have made this a slam dunkeroo.
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Re: Wednesday, December 18, 2013 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by Kid Charlemagne »

Vermonter wrote:
Kid Charlemagne wrote:It's funny that [Matthew] went big on FJ after winning the previous match by going low, although it seems tougher for people to figure out how to bet from 2nd than how to bet from 3rd.
Just curious, what would you have wagered in his shoes? Would it have been different had it just been Matthew (10,800) and Varun (9,500) in FJ?

Matthew made my analyses very easy the past few days. :)
I see definitely why Matthew wants to preserve the right to win if he gets it and Curtis does not regardless of what Varun does. And it's hard to predict what Varun is going to do; a lot of people in third will reflexively go all-in. Varun showed more smarts than that and understood the odds of a lone get by him are low, but there's no way for Matthew to know that Varun did that.

This may be overly colored by four things:
1. 20/20 hindsight.
2. The plague of TS FJs.
3. A healthy fear of the Childrens' Lit category. (I'm a perma-bachelor who has not been a child in a long time.) One player's childhood favorite is another player's NHOI; obviously, Charlotte's Web is pretty famous as that genre goes, but that's a detail that's not necessarily common knowledge and tough to reason out in the 60 seconds they give you.
4. It's hard to get a feel for a player just by watching one game, but, I would not lay a lot of money on the idea that Varun gets something that stumps Curtis.

I wonder what the ToC is going to look like at this rate.
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Re: Wednesday, December 18, 2013 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by esrever »

alamble wrote:
esrever wrote:I had a bad game (21/58), but I did go 5 for 5
in "M" States. I live in Maryland, so the Maryland
clue was especially easy for me. However, the queen's
name was Henrietta Maria, not Mary, so Maryland
wasn't actually named after a Queen Mary.
The clue never said it was named for a specific queen, just that it was named for *a* queen.
I worded it badly. I know that the clue did not specify a queen
by name, but I wanted to educate the boardies who may have
thought that Maryland was named for a Queen Mary.

I'm happy they didn't name it Henriettaland. :D
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