Thursday, October 8, 2015 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

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dhkendall
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Oh, please, stay with me, Guyana

Post by dhkendall »

Full disclosure, I wasn't a Matt fan when he first started. Don't get me wrong, I didn't feel anywhere near the hate that others unjustifiably have for him, but he just didn't strike me as anything truly special, like most contestants. (I did see others saying how he was a legend in Quiz Bowl, but since I have never Bowled, that didn't mean much to me, but I respected their expertise.) Gradually, though, I'm really warming up to the guy, now I'm definitely a Matt fan and will cheer him on (unless he's up against a boardie). Liking him more and more. (And, for any Matt haters out there, I urge you to subscribe to his Facebook page Matt Jackson Jeopardy. It's impossible to hate him after reading that page.)
floridagator wrote:Matt's domination on the buzzer is obviously key to his winning.
I'll add something that I think was a *factor* in his winning (the buzzer speed is also a *factor* but not key, others are right in that the knowledge is the key, he's had some great gets), and that's his playing style. He routinely starts in the bottom half of the board, whether it's DD hunting, or just to build up his bank quickly, that's excellent strategy. (It's made even more evident when he loses control and his opponent goes right to the lowest available clue in the same category and invariably winds up losing.) I see this all the time in the top players' strategies: Alex Jacob and Arthur Chu are two very recent examples. I am amazed when his opponents have seen him do it, see him rack up huge wins, and don't do it themselves. They are doing themselves a grave disservice. (And I distinctly remember saying the same thing during Alex Jacobs' run.)
TreadingWater wrote:
Greg Vinton wrote:When Alex referred to one of the answers on Final being easy and the other being more difficult, I assume he meant that Greek was the easy one. But I was with Matt today. Cyrillic was an instaget and Greek took me about 25 seconds.
Same thing here - the clue TOM with "Bulgaria" led me right away to Cyrillic, and I spent much of the rest of the time going over a map of Europe in my head trying to find another country that didn't use the Latin alphabet...
My mind immediately flashed to the "EYRO" on Euro bills, had it down before Alex was done reading.
nlw44 wrote:I mentally ran my country-capital list while swimming.
You know you're a nerd when ... :) (Coupled with your rank gave me more of a chuckle)

As for the topic on hand, I think because Alex (incorrectly) pronounced the former name as "Gee-an-a" in the clue, and it was "Stupid Answers" (meaning the answer is a word in the clue), they have no choice but to allow it today. I'm thinking the ruling might be different (same as 2010) if Alex pronounced it correctly, even if he does so in the future.
Greg Vinton wrote:
Hurone wrote:
Greg Vinton wrote:When Alex referred to one of the answers on Final being easy and the other being more difficult, I assume he meant that Greek was the easy one. But I was with Matt today. Cyrillic was an instaget and Greek took me about 25 seconds.
What timezone are you in where Jeopardy comes on so early?
I'm in Central Time, but the time the show comes on is the local TV network's decision. Jeopardy comes on here at 4:30 Central, so I pretty much have to plan my day around having free time to watch it when it airs, since I don't have a DVR. I would much rather watch it in the evening.
Central Time usually gets it midday (it comes on here at 4:30 as well), this seems to be very common for us fly-overs. I'm curious as how this affects viewing parties, maybe some Midwestern contestants can chime in, this is something I know I'll need to plan someday.
MTGcollegestudent wrote:Well...he showed up, big time. Having to get past yesterday's game was almost a heart-throbber for Matt Jackson.

Likewise, his rhythm seems to be on point. All the odd numbered wins have got him between $20,000 - $30,000, and one below $20,000. Likewise, with the even numbered wins, he's been trying to get the $40,000 win, and it worked. Two out of five attempts done this time.

With Final, I only knew that Greek would be a solution because of how their lettering is. But damn...I don't study on European languages as much. I just said 'Ah, screw it...maybe perhaps Slavic?' . But...I knew that it could probably be wrong...and I was right. Literally...

I'm willing to see if he'll go all the way with two weeks straight on his wins.
Please, don't ever change MTGcollegestudent.

Loved the Peabody & Sherman category, as I loved them as a kid (combining history with bad puns? Two of my favourite things! But I have two bones to pick with it. Firstly, much has been made of Chris Parnell voicing Mr. Peabody, while it's nice to see buzz, that was *not* the voice of Mr. Peabody, not at all. Bill Scott had a certain quality to the voice, a certain air that is unmistakable. I would easily have forgiven Chris Parnell if he had tried to imitate Bill Scott's take on the character, but that's nowhere near what I feel it should be. Second bone to pick: Did no one catch Peabody's bad pun at the end of the Napoleon one: "Of Corsican", and it being captioned "Of course he can"?
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This Is Kirk!
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Re: Thursday, October 8, 2015 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by This Is Kirk! »

nlw44 wrote: in fact I was just thinking of it this week as I mentally ran my country-capital list while swimming.
I do a lot of deep thinking while staring at the black line, too. Obviously swimmers are smarter because of this. :)
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Re: Thursday, October 8, 2015 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by tiwonge »

As Matt was making his run, I was looking for a list of longest winning streaks in Jeopardy!, and was surprised that I couldn't find any such list.

So I combed through j-archive and made my own.

This is everybody with 7 consecutive wins (i.e., not counting ToC wins or other tournament wins) or more. (That was the cutoff for me, because Matt was at 7 wins when I made this list.) I think this list is complete, but it's possible that I missed one.

74 Ken Jennings
20 Julia Collins
19 Dave Madden
11 Arthur Chu
10 Matt Jackson*
9 Dan Pawson
9 Jason Keller
8 Tom Kavanaugh
8 Tony Nissley
8 Ben Ingram
8 Drew Horwood
7 Tom Walsh
7 Justin Bernbach
7 Joon Pahk
7 Keith Whitener
7 Stephanie Jass
7 Greg Soroka

* denotes an active win streak
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Re: Thursday, October 8, 2015 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by seaborgium »

dhkendall wrote:My mind immediately flashed to the "EYRO" on Euro bills, had it down before Alex was done reading.
EYPΩ
tiwonge wrote:As Matt was making his run, I was looking for a list of longest winning streaks in Jeopardy!, and was surprised that I couldn't find any such list.
The rest of us have it memorized.
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Re: Oh, please, stay with me, Guyana

Post by TheSunWillComeOut »

dhkendall wrote:Loved the Peabody & Sherman category, as I loved them as a kid (combining history with bad puns? Two of my favourite things! But I have two bones to pick with it. Firstly, much has been made of Chris Parnell voicing Mr. Peabody, while it's nice to see buzz, that was *not* the voice of Mr. Peabody, not at all. Bill Scott had a certain quality to the voice, a certain air that is unmistakable. I would easily have forgiven Chris Parnell if he had tried to imitate Bill Scott's take on the character, but that's nowhere near what I feel it should be. Second bone to pick: Did no one catch Peabody's bad pun at the end of the Napoleon one: "Of Corsican", and it being captioned "Of course he can"?
I HATE THE NEW MR. PEABODY VOICE SERIOUSLY WHAT IS THAT. And pfft, who cares about the inaccurate captions, it's not like THAT'S ever caused any confusion for Jeopardy! viewers before, amirite??? :twisted:

I was touched by Matt's little interview speech about tikkun olam - that's long been a deeply personal ethos for me as well, since I practice Judaism, or Jude-AI-ism, as Alex calls it. (I've learned tonight through online research that the "Judy-ism" pronunciation I thought was par for the course is just one of many regional variants.) My heart is breaking for everybody else who's shared the stage with Matt so far, though. I loved Erik's "0" and Sameer's (welcome, Sameer!) FJ wager. I'm glad they were at least able to have some fun with the experience and make a personal mark of their own - that's important.

Hawaiian Islands and Stupid Answers are high on the list of categories I dread just because my brain doesn't want to work with me on those particular subjects. YES, I know the Hawaiian islands are easy to memorize, that still doesn't help me any. I did remember Molokai thanks to the Father Damien association and Lanai because porches are nice, so yay, that's two down.

Got Cyrillic instantly, Greek not at all. I went for Arabic even though I knew deep down it was wrong, just figured it was worth a shot given the high immigration rate from the Middle East into the EU these days.
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Re: Thursday, October 8, 2015 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by alietr »

TheSunWillComeOut wrote:The Powers That Be are surprisingly tolerant of what you do in your intro.
You certainly proved that one!
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Re: Oh, please, stay with me, Guyana

Post by Lampy »

TheSunWillComeOut wrote: Judaism, or Jude-AI-ism, as Alex calls it
We'll...yes, we can accept that.
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Re: Thursday, October 8, 2015 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by MitchO »

tiwonge wrote:As Matt was making his run, I was looking for a list of longest winning streaks in Jeopardy!, and was surprised that I couldn't find any such list.
http://thefinalwager.co/2015/04/30/the- ... aderboard/

Sort by wins.
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Re: Thursday, October 8, 2015 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by tiwonge »

MitchO wrote:
tiwonge wrote:As Matt was making his run, I was looking for a list of longest winning streaks in Jeopardy!, and was surprised that I couldn't find any such list.
http://thefinalwager.co/2015/04/30/the- ... aderboard/

Sort by wins.
That's exactly what I was looking for, but it never came up in the google searches I used. It must be updated about once a week, because it still lists Matt as having 6 wins.
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Re: Oh, please, stay with me, Guyana

Post by hbomb1947 »

TheSunWillComeOut wrote: My heart is breaking for everybody else who's shared the stage with Matt so far, though.
Me too. MJL's are the new KJL's.
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Re: Thursday, October 8, 2015 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by alietr »

Chill, people. He's still only halfway to Julia territory.
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Re: Thursday, October 8, 2015 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by hbomb1947 »

alietr wrote:Chill, people. He's still only halfway to Julia territory.
While Julia's 20 wins are impressive, she was never this dominant. I never had the feeling that her opponents were on suicide missions.
Last edited by hbomb1947 on Fri Oct 09, 2015 9:11 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Thursday, October 8, 2015 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by BRD-98 »

This board was the absolute end of me. I may have got 25, but maybe not even that much. And it also hastened the realization that I know nothing about Hawaii except for Oahu and Maui. :oops:
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Re: Thursday, October 8, 2015 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by DysonSphere »

I answered "Russian and Greek" for FJ. Think they would have given it to me? I know "Russian" is probably not as accurate as "Cyrillic," but reading up on the history, Peter the Great seems to be largely responsible for the modern Cyrillic alphabet and the Soviet Union mandated and standardized usage in most or all the countries that use it today.
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Re: Thursday, October 8, 2015 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by MitchO »

I'm really surprised how many people are mind farting on Greek. To me, that was the obvious get, even before the Bulgaria TOM. After I insta-got Greek, *then* Bulgaria helped me choose between Cyrillic and Arabic.
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Re: Thursday, October 8, 2015 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by MitchO »

StevenH wrote:I also noticed in this game that Matt seems to start with calling the categories that he is weaker in. I can't say that I like that strategy, because I wouldn't want to lose control of the board and then see one of my opponents uncover a DD in a category that I like. It is better to try to stay in control than to "save the best for last."
Yeah, I called this last week; I think it was the NFL QB, after he showed some weakness in sports the day before. Once he gets rid of the one he doesn't like, he concentrates on the middle bands of the board, but he's been doing up and down on a single (pop culture and/or sports) category first a lot.
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Re: Thursday, October 8, 2015 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by Woof »

gnash wrote:Nobody remembers Greece. It hasn't been in the news since that royal incest in Thebes.
Perhaps it's wishful thinking that Greece wasn't in the EU?
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Re: Thursday, October 8, 2015 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by goatman »

52R, instaget FJ. LT: Debbie Reynolds ("Unsinkable"; Carrie Fisher's mom). Agree that he wins from buzzer mastery on this round. Tough champ to beat. :|
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Re: Thursday, October 8, 2015 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by dlbookman »

hbomb1947 wrote:
alietr wrote:Chill, people. He's still only halfway to Julia territory.
While Julia's 20 wins are impressive, she was never this dominant. I never had the feeling that her opponents were on suicide missions.
I remember feeling that way when I watched her, but yesterday stumbled across an analysis on the FiveThirtyEight blog that showed 57% of her wins were runaways. That's only marginally less than Arthur Chu's (58%), a bit more than David Madden's (50%), and significantly less than Ken Jennings's (87%). Matt, currently at 80% runaway wins is definitely in elite territory, by this metric.
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Re: Thursday, October 8, 2015 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by dhkendall »

dlbookman wrote:
hbomb1947 wrote:
alietr wrote:Chill, people. He's still only halfway to Julia territory.
While Julia's 20 wins are impressive, she was never this dominant. I never had the feeling that her opponents were on suicide missions.
I remember feeling that way when I watched her, but yesterday stumbled across an analysis on the FiveThirtyEight blog that showed 57% of her wins were runaways. That's only marginally less than Arthur Chu's (58%), a bit more than David Madden's (50%), and significantly less than Ken Jennings's (87%). Matt, currently at 80% runaway wins is definitely in elite territory, by this metric.
Waitwaitwait, fivethirtyeight is analyzing Jeopardy! too??
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