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

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

Post by worldwidewebster »

Woppy T wrote:

Agreed, plus Erik had a great look with that hair. I'm trying to think whom he reminded me of. Bob Eubanks?
Actually, the whole game it was driving me nuts trying to figure out why Erik looked so familiar to me. I still don't know.
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MarkBarrett
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Re: Thursday, October 8, 2015 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by MarkBarrett »

worldwidewebster wrote:
Woppy T wrote:

Agreed, plus Erik had a great look with that hair. I'm trying to think whom he reminded me of. Bob Eubanks?
Actually, the whole game it was driving me nuts trying to figure out why Erik looked so familiar to me. I still don't know.
How about this guy?

Image

Bob Odenkirk from Better Call Saul or that other show of course.
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Re: Thursday, October 8, 2015 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by Bamaman »

If he bet bigger on his DDs, Matt could have a shot at Roger Craig's $77,000 record.

Not a fan of the new Peabody voice. The one from the Bullwinkle show had an erudite air about it, this one is just wrong.

I also had Cyrillic and Arabic.
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Re: Thursday, October 8, 2015 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by harrumph »

I was fine with the Sherman and Peabody videos, they were quality animations and legit clues.

Matt is a lot of fun to watch. If it's just his buzzer speed that makes him win then why does he so often crush the opposition in the more knowledge demanding DJ?
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Re: Oh, please, stay with me, Guyana

Post by Caboom »

opusthepenguin wrote:[1] Well guess what, suckers? "Opus the Penguin" is NOT my real name! Bazinga!
Of course not, it's "opusthepenguing". Duh. The only thing unclear is whether that's your first or last name. Or are you mononymous?
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Greg Vinton
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Re: Oh, please, stay with me, Guyana

Post by Greg Vinton »

opusthepenguin wrote:
hbomb1947 wrote:
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.
So let me trot out a longstanding suggestion for all the J! officials who read this board (and probably have my name on their DNA list). Please oh please put together a Tournament of Losers. I'd love to see 45 (or at least 15) contestants brought back for another bite at the apple. This could include contestants who were still in contention going into FJ against KJ or MJ. Add in contestants who lost due to various quirks of fate but were obviously strong. I know there have been some who almost had a lock game but couldn't quite tie it down and lost in FJ. That kind of thing.

Right after MJ concludes his run would be a great time to announce this.

Alternatively, or maybe additionally, bring some of these contestants back for regular play. Put them in a regular game and see if they can win THIS time and go on a streak from there. That would allow for a lot more losers to get a second chance. Then the TOL could be among those who made the best showing.

I know, I know. Some of us haven't been on J! even once. Why should we lower our chances? I get that perspective, but I don't share it. Bringing back a few losers would be exciting. And it wouldn't affect chances by that much. Just like the tie rule. I'm sad it's gone, even if I'm infinitesimally more likely to get on the show because of it.
I fully support this idea.

I actually had a similar thought several years ago about bringing back everyone who played against Ken Jennings and kept it from being a runaway, or even just managed to finish with a positive score. There could be a big tournament and at the end the top two could get a rematch with Ken. Over the course of 74 games there had to have been several ToC caliber players whose run was over before it began.

Now that I am one of a growing number of "MJLs" (and one of only two so far who even took him to the Final). I would love to see a version of your idea implemented.
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Re: Thursday, October 8, 2015 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by brick »

tiwonge wrote:Comparing Julia's 1st 10 games to her 2nd 10 games, it looks like she got stronger in the second half of her run (excluding her last game) in almost every aspect of her game except for Final Jeopardy!.

Her J! average increase from $5,900.00 to $7,663.64. Her DJ! average increased from $18,040.00 to $21,545.45. Her Coryat increased from $17,720.00 to $21,309.09. The number of correct questions increased from 22.3 to 25.8. Her number of incorrect questions also increased from 1.7 to 2.1, suggesting she was more aggressive. The amount she won on her DD wagers increased from $1,580.00 to $1,927.27. Her BA increased from 0.389 to 0.439.

The only things that decreased were related to Final Jeopardy--her overall winnings, from $22,061.00 to $20,853.64; her conversion of FJ questions went from 80% to 50% (which might be why the rest of the FJ-related scores dropped), and her FJ wagers went from $4,021.00 to -$691.82.

5 of Julia's first 10 games were lock games. 7 of Julia's second 10 games were lock games.
That's interesting. I really appreciate you taking the time to tease that out.
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Of course he can, Sherman. Of course he can.

Post by Vermonter »

As I lifelong fan of Rocky & Bullwinkle, I'm pleased with the new P&S show (after viewing one episode). Like the movie, it keeps the important elements of the original – namely, the terrible puns and the warm-but-hierarchical relationship between the two characters.

My main dislike is the busy-ness of the whole "talk show" format, particularly the other characters. That's a necessary evil when drawing things out to a full-length episode, I suppose.

I love how R&B is essentially a radio show with primitive illustrations – it's my go-to when I'm cleaning my apartment, for example, as I don't need to watch to get the gist of the story.* For that reason, I dislike the attention to visuals, but that's just me.

I can also understand why some people might dislike Mr. Peabody's new voice. Sure, it's going to be nigh impossible to match Bill Scott, but Chris Parnell has a certain gravelly tone that here can lend an air of authority. (Either that or the inflection makes me chuckle because it reminds me of whenever Cyril Figgus mocks Mallory Archer.) In any case, his voice work here is not intended to be funny and it doesn't come across as such.

*Although, R&B does lay claim to one of my favorite sight gags: Boris, as the leader of the metal-munching moon mice, holding up a copy of "Mice Kampf"
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Re: Thursday, October 8, 2015 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by dhkendall »

Vanya wrote:
gnash wrote:
DysonSphere wrote: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.
No way. "Russian alphabet" is like "English alphabet". It cannot be an answer to one of three official EU alphabets. Furthermore, even if one were lax on that principle and accepted "Bulgarian", "Russian" would still be unacceptable as there is no Russian-speaking country in the EU. (Although Latvia has a large Russian minority, only Latvian is its official language.)
Not only that, there are different versions of Cyrillic. There is Russian Cyrillic, Bulgarian Cyrillic, Ukrainian Cyrillic, etc. And there is Old Church Slavonic, dating from the 14th century, still used by Orthodox churches. So unless the EU specifies one or more of those alphabets, it is imprecise for them to say Cyrillic is an official alphabet.
They probably don't specify which Latin alphabet either (the one used for English? Turkish? Polish?). The alphabets are different, but they're all referred to (precise or not) as "Latin alphabet". I doubt it's a big deal not to be specific in this case.
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TheSunWillComeOut
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Re: Thursday, October 8, 2015 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by TheSunWillComeOut »

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.
Yes, this. This is what's so fascinating about Matt's run. I don't recall that sense of contestants being doomed the second they step on the stage since Ken's run.

I get the sense that the difference between what we're seeing during Matt's run and what we saw during Julia's run - why the former seems more "impressive" and "dominant" than the latter - is that while they each come to the studio equipped with a skill set necessary to have a long run (knowledge, stamina, etc.), those respective skill sets are not the same.

Matt is near-unbeatable in academic subjects but weak-to-average in pop culture and sports and the like. He's going to crush 99% of players in anything you learn from a liberal arts education. Since that's the bulk of what you find in Jeopardy!, he can put up an ironclad offense on entire columns of the board, especially in Double Jeopardy, where academia is prioritized. It looks dazzling, and it is dazzling. However, that TRASH deficit is his Achilles heel - note how many of us have singled it out as his potential downfall. If he doesn't have a runaway, he can be doomed by a FJ in one of his weak spots - any humanities question he can't figure out is likely to be incomprehensible to his opponents; any sports question he misses still has a chance at a get by an average player.

Julia's academic knowledge is very strong compared to that of the average player, although not as "buzz in on every question" watertight as Matt's, so her games are more competitive on that front. However, Julia has the advantage of being able to hold her own in TRASH categories, making her an extremely well-balanced player. It's a good defensive style, and if steady play like that can get plenty of other TOCers through 5+ games, there's no reason why it shouldn't be able to get someone who has an even stronger knowledge base, plus good stamina, to 4x that before luck runs out.
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Re: Thursday, October 8, 2015 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by This Is Kirk! »

Is TRASH an acronym for something?
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Re: Thursday, October 8, 2015 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by tiwonge »

It has been reverse-acronymed, but no, not really. It's just a reference to non-academic question, mostly pop culture questions.
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Re: Thursday, October 8, 2015 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by TheSunWillComeOut »

This Is Kirk! wrote:Is TRASH an acronym for something?
TRASH is Quiz Bowl-speak for Testing Recall About Strange Happenings, although that's basically just a backronym. The J! Archive has a good definition:

Trash
n. especially arcane pure trivia, usually pop culture- or sports-related, often of a subject matter in which such depth of knowledge ought to be embarrassing.
example "I correctly responded that Avril Lavigne's middle name is Ramona and that she was born in Napanee, Ontario. Don't ask me how I knew that trash!"
etymology A term from quizbowl for questions discarded from packets for their absurd obscurity or appeal to a too-specific knowledge set. Such trivia material evolved into a genre of its own and has spawned tournaments such as Testing Recall About Strange Happenings.

Back in my brief Quiz Bowl "career" (HS mostly; my college team turned out to be going through a period of mismanagement at the time I tried to join it and a whole bunch of us ended up quitting in disappointment), I was an avid TRASH player, to the extent where I got more excited about TRASH meets than any other kind of match. I once made an opposing team go "whooooooa" all at once by identifying the meme "All Your Base Are Belong to Us" as soon as the moderator read out, "From a poorly-translated video game...," which makes me prouder to this day than anything I did on J!, except maybe another TRASH get of The A-Team within being played one second of the opening theme. That's TRASH.

I've learned recently that TRASH is no longer as frequently played among Quiz Bowl circles as it was when I was in school, and players from Matt's age group would have been encouraged to focus all their energy on literature, geography, history, science, etc. Matt has trained to have as fine a gentleman's education as a person can get, no doubt, but if you go on J! and get a game-changing category on 1980s TV Themes, suddenly the TRASH players shall inherit the Earth.
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Re: Thursday, October 8, 2015 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by caknuck »

MarkBarrett wrote:
worldwidewebster wrote:
Woppy T wrote:

Agreed, plus Erik had a great look with that hair. I'm trying to think whom he reminded me of. Bob Eubanks?
Actually, the whole game it was driving me nuts trying to figure out why Erik looked so familiar to me. I still don't know.
How about this guy?

Bob Odenkirk from Better Call Saul or that other show of course.
I was getting more of a David Spade vibe.
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trainman
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Re: Thursday, October 8, 2015 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by trainman »

MarkBarrett wrote:Bob Odenkirk from Better Call Saul or that other show of course.
"That other show" = "Mr. Show with Bob and David" forever.
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Re: Thursday, October 8, 2015 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by BigDaddyMatty »

Coryat: $37,400
46 R/3 W
DD: 2/3
FJ: :(
LT: Patricia Heaton, Debbie Reynolds

I have some sort of weird mental black with respect to Greece. It's the one I forget whenever I do the European countries Sporcle quiz, and it was basically the same experience running through the map in my head here. Ended up going with Arabic as the second alphabet even though I knew it was wrong.
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Post by Sage on the Hudson »

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.
The Cyrillic alphabet is based mainly on the Greek, but includes a few Roman characters and a couple taken from, of all things, the Hebrew alphabet. There was also a clue recently about what alphabet's used in Bulgaria. While the correct response is Cyrillic, it's a somewhat modified version of that alphabet that contains a few more Roman characters (the Serbian Cyrillic alphabet is modified in different ways).
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Re: Thursday, October 8, 2015 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by electricia »

worldwidewebster wrote:
Woppy T wrote:

Agreed, plus Erik had a great look with that hair. I'm trying to think whom he reminded me of. Bob Eubanks?
Actually, the whole game it was driving me nuts trying to figure out why Erik looked so familiar to me. I still don't know.
He reminded me of an actor named Steve Valentine, minus the creepiness of Steve Valentine that sometimes appears.
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Re: Thursday, October 8, 2015 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by davey »

TheSunWillComeOut wrote:
MarkBarrett wrote: Was Alex adjusting his tie and missed Erik's hand zero? He should have commented on that funny bit in his opening. I wonder if the powers will continue to allow hand gestures on intros or after Matt is done then squash it in case it gets more intimidating or sillier?
The Powers That Be are surprisingly tolerant of what you do in your intro. Their main concern is that you don't do anything that would necessitate the taping to be halted (e.g., falling off the podium, presumably obscene gestures as well although they didn't specifically mention that when I asked them).
I have to say, I had the wrong idea of what Erik was doing, especially when he twisted his mouth after making the hand gesture. I see now he was mouthing "zero," but I had flashbacks to my unfortunate youth and vulgar companions... :oops: Simultaneously trying to figure out what a "cellar hand" is, I found his intro the most disturbing ever... :shock:
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Re: Thursday, October 8, 2015 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by Euphonium »

Robsidian89 wrote:There was something funny about Matt's serious expression after the Mr. Peabody & Sherman clues, almost like he was thinking "I don't have time for you, cartoon dog."
OTOH, he did keep going back to the category. Which surprised me given his two-minute-offense strategy, because those clues took an exceptionally long time to complete.
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