Tuesday, October 25, 2011 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

[Archivists]

Game Recap for Show #6232, 2011-10-25

CONTESTANTS
Jennifer Dockter, a stay-at-home mom from Fremont, California
Gabor Vari, a psychiatrist from Los Angeles, California
Balaji Narain, an attorney originally from Cumming, Georgia (whose 2-day cash winnings total $55,799)

OPENING REMARKS
Alex: Thank you, Johnny. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to our show. $55,799 for our young champion, Balaji. Very impressive. Just as impressive, though, the, uh, nearly $2 million earned so far on Jeopardy! by the 15 players who will be joining us on this stage next week for our annual Tournament of Champions. Gonna be exciting stuff. Gabor, Jennifer, welcome aboard. Pick up your signaling devices, because you get to go to work right now in the Jeopardy! Round. And here are the categories--starting off with...

JEOPARDY! ROUND CATEGORIES
CAR TALK (3/3)
LIBROS EN ESPAÑOL (5/5, including 1 correct Daily Double)
NICE "BUN"s (5/5)
ACTING THE PART (4/5)
MILLION DOLLAR (5/5)
HEADS OR TAILS (5/5)

THE RIGHTS & THE WRONGS
Gabor: 15 R (including 1 rebound and 1 DD), 0 W
Jennifer: 10 R, 1 W
Balaji: 2 R, 0 W

Clues revealed: 28
Triple Stumpers: 1
Jeopardy! Round Potential Lach Trash: $800



JEOPARDY! ROUND DAILY DOUBLE
Gabor found the Daily Double on the 5th clue. Balaji had no money, Gabor had $1,400, and Jennifer had a deficit with -$600. Gabor made it a True Daily Double, wagering $1,400.

LIBROS EN ESPAÑOL $800: A bestselling memoir:
"Come, Reza, Ama"
(Alex: Before I ask you to make your wager, you have $1,400, a brief explanation to you, Jennifer, you added the word--The Five People You Will Meet in Heaven.)
(Jennifer: Oh.)
(Alex: And that's not part of the title of that book.)
(Jennifer: Okay.)

SCORES AT THE FIRST BREAK
Gabor: $5,600
Balaji: $1,600
Jennifer: $0

CONTESTANT INTERVIEWS



Alex: Jennifer Dockter is from Fremont, California, and you have a Ph.D., right?

Jennifer: Yes, I do. I obtained a Ph.D. in biomedical sciences at the University of California, San Francisco. So strictly speaking, I am Dr. Dockter.

Alex: And biomedical studies, which means you do what?

Jennifer: I studied, um, the development of the vertebrae in an embryo. And so basically, I did teeny, tiny, little surgical transplants between chick embryos and quail embryos.

Alex: Okay. Good for you.




Alex: Gabor Vari, psychiatrist. Also a doctor. Now when people travel abroad, quite often, there's a danger for us--we try to speak the local language. And you did that visiting Hungary, and what happened?

Gabor: Well, I speak Hungarian, but with an American accent. And, uh, we were in the middle of nowhere, where presumably, the locals hadn't heard accented Hungarian. And I was eating with a friend, who speaks much better than I do, and I placed my order, and the waitress looked over to my friend and said, "It's so kind of you to care for your mentally defective brother."

[Laughter]




Alex: Balaji. Balaji Narain. Attorney from Georgia. You've done a great deal of traveling. You're now living in Hong Kong, but you were once stranded in Singapore at the airport?

Balaji: Yes. I was--I had done some traveling in the region, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, and I was trying to find my way home, actually, for my mom's birthday, and there was a cyclone, a typhoon, uh, in Hong Kong, so the, uh, plane couldn't leave from Singapore 'cause it was passing through Hong Kong. The airline, instead of bumping me to--or instead of booking me on the next day's flight, didn't. And, uh, when the snafu was discovered, they realized they couldn't book me for three days, and because it was weather-related, they wouldn't pay for my hotel, so I slept in the airport for three days like The Terminal.

Alex: Ah, the joys of being a student traveling in foreign lands.

TRIPLE STUMPERS IN THE JEOPARDY! ROUND
ACTING THE PART $800: In 2010 this Oscar winner had a recurring role as Washington lobbyist Marilyn Densham on "Big Love"

SCORES AT THE END OF THE JEOPARDY! ROUND
Gabor: $10,000
Jennifer: $5,000
Balaji: $1,600

[Archivists]

DOUBLE JEOPARDY! ROUND CATEGORIES
WORLD GEOGRAPHY (5/5)
IF YOU CAN READ THIS... (5/5, including 1 correct Daily Double) (Alex: And we'll show some stuff to read.)
BIG BIRTHER (5/5)
BRUCE ALMIGHTY (5/5)
PRIME MINISTERS OF GREAT BRITAIN (4/4, including 1 correct Daily Double)
LITTLE-KNOWN ANCIENT GREEKS (3/4) (Alex: And they all have names that end in -"E-S", like Socrates, Euripides, Aristophanes.)

THE RIGHTS & THE WRONGS
Gabor: 13 R (including 1 DD), 2 W
Jennifer: 10 R (including 1 rebound and 1 DD), 1 W
Balaji: 4 R (including 2 rebounds), 0 W

Clues revealed: 28
Triple Stumpers: 1
Double Jeopardy! Round Potential Lach Trash: $1,600



FIRST DOUBLE JEOPARDY! ROUND DAILY DOUBLE
Jennifer snagged the next Daily Double on the 7th clue. Balaji had $1,600, Gabor had $10,800, and Jennifer was at $8,600. Jennifer wagered $3,000.

IF YOU CAN READ THIS... $1600: If you can read this, you know this ancient language of the Bhagavad Gita, but may have trouble keeping up your conversation skills

SECOND DOUBLE JEOPARDY! ROUND DAILY DOUBLE
It was Gabor who snatched up the last Daily Double of the game on the 26th clue. Balaji had $6,000, Gabor had $21,200, and Jennifer was at $17,200. Gabor wagered $2,000.

PRIME MINISTERS OF GREAT BRITAIN $800: This early 1830s PM lives on in the name of a popular tea

TRIPLE STUMPERS IN THE DOUBLE JEOPARDY! ROUND
LITTLE-KNOWN ANCIENT GREEKS $1600: Instead of showing up once a week for 13 weeks, he'd appear 3 or 4 nights in a row, & it was always very dramatic
[The end-of-round signal sounds.]

SCORES ENTERING FINAL JEOPARDY!
Gabor: $23,600
Jennifer: $17,200
Balaji: $6,000

FINAL JEOPARDY! CATEGORY
CLASSIC GAMES

VENUSIAN MONOLOGUES/MARTIAN CHRONICLES
Two-thirds for first place.
Gabor: Wager $10,801 to cover Jennifer, but no more than $11,599 so as not to fall behind Balaji's doubled score.
Jennifer: You'll want to wager between $0 (venusian) and $4,400 (martian), and you'll win the game if Gabor wagers enough and gets it wrong.
Balaji: Unfortunately, your score is less than the difference between the scores of the first and second place players, so unless they both blunder, you're competing for second place and have no hopes of first. Wager as much as you desire, but remember, you'll have better chances of advancing to second place if you have a larger sum left over on a Triple Stumper.

FINAL JEOPARDY! CLUE
Monopoly creator Charles Darrow's sole quote in "the Yale Book of Quotations" includes this 3-digit number

FINAL SCORES
Balaji: $6,000 - $6,000 = $0 (What is 101?) (3rd place: $1,000)
Jennifer: $17,200 + $16,000 = $33,200 (What is 200?) (2nd place: $2,000)
Gabor: $23,600 + $10,801 = $34,401 (What is 200?) (New champion: $34,401)
(Alex: [Revealing Jennifer's response] The quotation is "Go to jail. Go directly to jail. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $[*].")

Total Potential Lach Trash: $2,400

GAME DYNAMICS


CORYAT SCORES
Gabor: $21,800, 28 R (including 2 DDs), 2 W
Jennifer: $15,800, 20 R (including 1 DD), 2 W
Balaji: $6,000, 6 R, 0 W
Combined Coryat: $43,600

BATTING AVERAGES
Gabor: 29/60 = .483
Jennifer: 21/59 = .356
Balaji: 6/58 = .103
Team: 56/63 = .889

MISCELLANEOUS INTERESTING CLUES
LIBROS EN ESPAÑOL $600: Mitch Albom:
"Las Cinco Personas que Encontraras en el Cielo"
(Jennifer: What is The Five People You Will Meet in Heaven?)

HEADS OR TAILS $600: Seen here, the satanic leaf-tailed this won't save you 15% on your car insurance

HEADS OR TAILS $800: In Madagascar, the male ring-tailed this slashes a tree trunk with a spur to mark his troop's territory
(Alex: With less than a minute to go.)

HEADS OR TAILS $1000: Follow your nose to go pro & name this type of monkey seen here, a surprisingly good swimmer

CAR TALK $800: (Kelly of the Clue Crew shows a diagram of car brakes on the monitor.) If your brakes squeal, it may indicate that these parts the engage the rotors are wearing thin & should be replaced

CAR TALK $600: Since 1927 Prestone has been making this for temperature-challenged engine parts
[The end-of-round signal sounds.]

WORLD GEOGRAPHY $400: Al-Jaza'ir isn't a TV network but the Arabic name for this capital city in north Africa
(Gabor: What is ... Tunisia?)

IF YOU CAN READ THIS... $400: If you can read this, you're a genius like this Italian born in 1452 who made notes in mirror writing

IF YOU CAN READ THIS... $800: If you can read this, you're the only one in the world who can decipher Rongorongo, a script from this island, 2,200 miles off Chile

IF YOU CAN READ THIS... $1200: ...you could transcribe the dictation from the Pitman system of this

IF YOU CAN READ THIS... $2000: If you can read this, you can read chapter 3 of the Old Testament book of this man, in the original Aramaic; the first word is "Nebuchadnezzar"

BRUCE ALMIGHTY $2000: I'll confess that this "Burn Notice" actor seen here has a killer chin

BIG BIRTHER $400: Maureen Boyle gave birth to quadruplets known as the "Four on the Fourth" in this month, 1990
(Gabor: What is April?)

BIG BIRTHER $2000: On Jan. 11, 1974 mother Susan gave birth to the Rosenkowitz sextuplets via this method
(Jennifer: What is artificial insemination?)

PRIME MINISTERS OF GREAT BRITAIN $1200: Harold Wilson of this party was the last PM to serve 2 nonconsecutive terms, 1964-70 & 1974-76
(Alex: Less than a minute to go now.)

CORRECT RESPONSES
Eat, Pray, Love
Sissy Spacek
Sanskrit
Earl Grey
Miniseries
200
Five People You Meet in Heaven
gecko
a lemur
proboscis
the brake pads
anti-freeze
Algiers
da Vinci
Easter Island
shorthand
Daniel
Bruce Campbell
July
caesarean section
Labor

[Suze]

Good luck today, Bigbor!

[xxaaaxx]

This one might have a chance for 100% in the weekend poll, unless there are some folks here who haven't played Monopoly. Would've been instaget even if they didn't mention Monopoly, but then I was a Monopoly addict as a kid, and I have no idea how famous Charles Darrow is, so that might just be me.

[jeff6286]

Classic Games
Monopoly creator Charles Darrow's sole quote in "The Yale Book of Quotations" includes this 3-digit number.

Spoiler

What is 200? Balaji said 101. As given by Alex, the quote is "Go directly to jail. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200.

Gabor Vari: $23,600+$10,801=$34,601...now a 1-day champion with $34,601
Jennifer Dockter: $17,200+$16,000=$33,200
Balaji Narain: $6,000-$6,000=$0

[Bamaman]

This one might have a chance for 100% in the weekend poll, unless there are some folks here who haven't played Monopoly. Would've been instaget even if they didn't mention Monopoly, but then I was a Monopoly addict as a kid, and I have no idea how famous Charles Darrow is, so that might just be me.

Well, it wasn't 100% on the show. But, yes, it was an instaget for me and it should be fairly high on the weekly poll.

They mentioned the Jeopardy message board asgain today.

[mam418]

Neat game to watch - Jennifer especially really looked like she was having a great time. Nice job, bigbor! (Instaget on FJ, that's one of the easiest FJs I've seen in a while.) Loved the 'Little known ancient Greeks' category, and 'Libros en Espanol'

And I love Bruce Campbell, so I was happy to see his picture pop up. I love Burn Notice, and way back in the day 'The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr.' (and his wonder horse, Comet.)

[jpahk]

congrats bigbor! very strong performance today, and a big payday. isn't it a relief to be nursing a small lead and then have a gimme FJ land in your lap?

i'm curious about the late DD, with the scores $21,200 to $17,200 to $6000. did you consider going big there? a $15,000ish wager gives you a chance to lock up the game without rolling the dice on FJ, and an $800 clue tends to be much easier than a typical FJ. i don't know if british PMs was a great category for you, though, and of course that wager does risk giving jennifer a lock if you miss it—although there were still a couple of $2000 clues left on the board at the time, either of which could put you back in contention. a compromise might be a $6000ish wager that gives you a crush if you get it right but still above 3/4 if you miss it. your actual wager took you from 3/4 to 2/3, which is a less interesting breakpoint but it does give you the option of wagering $0 if you hate the FJ category.

i think it's a particularly interesting situation because you knew there was "less than a minute to go" and that you would have control of the board afterwards in either case, which would let you pick low-dollar clues if you were nursing a lead and high-dollar if you needed to catch back up. but this is all probably (much) too much to work out in the few seconds they give you to decide on a DD wager.

[econgator]

And I love Bruce Campbell, so I was happy to see his picture pop up. I love Burn Notice, and way back in the day 'The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr.' (and his wonder horse, Comet.)

I love everything he's ever done. I was so happy when they released the whole series on DVD. I'll also take any excuse to post what I have always considered the best TV theme ever.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VNsjjYRgjc

and, of course, RIP Julius Carry


To the more important point, though, congrats to bigbor! That was a masterfully played game. Looking forward to seeing a repeat tomorrow.

[boomeleven]

what was the FJ question and answer? i missed it

[MarkBarrett]

Wow, excuse what I posted yesterday about Balaji having an easier time tonight. He was outclassed handily by the challenger duo of Gabor and Jennifer. It continued all the way through FJ with a 2 of 3 solve.

The FJ category of Classic Games was one that did not have me bothering with a precall. I felt very confident I would get it no matter what was asked. Usually I like the hat, but my token for solving the clue was the:



I had another 25 round, but this time it ws the first round. The three by me were Spacek, scorpion, and Albom's Five People. For me to have had the first three in Car Talk was near miraculous.

The tag team of Gabor and Jennifer was fun to watch with their unquelling of the 'mo. Maggie had to enjoy watching them play even with the couple of clues remaining in each round.

Gabor: How did your translation work to solve Come, Reza, Ama? For me the first two words gave me nothing with my limited high school French. Ama looked like the love neighborhood and that was enough to help me guess the proper title. I appreciate you giving viewers like me the extra needed solving time. Congrats on your stellar debut.

[mahoneyk]

Neat game to watch - Jennifer especially really looked like she was having a great time. Nice job, bigbor! (Instaget on FJ, that's one of the easiest FJs I've seen in a while.) Loved the 'Little known ancient Greeks' category, and 'Libros en Espanol'

And I love Bruce Campbell, so I was happy to see his picture pop up. I love Burn Notice, and way back in the day 'The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr.' (and his wonder horse, Comet.)

I'm surprised there wasn't a score correction in DJ. Jennifer quite clearly mispronounced "Bruce Campbell" as "Bruce CAM-BOLT."

[dhkendall]

Gabor: How did your translation work to solve Come, Reza, Ama? For me the first two words gave me nothing with my limited high school French. Ama looked like the love neighborhood and that was enough to help me guess the proper title. I appreciate you giving viewers like me the extra needed solving time. Congrats on your stellar debut.

For me, I just went on the three short words separated by commas, was confident enough to guess on it, especially since it was a DD (guesses aren't penalized on DDs in the Coryat system, as we all know, though I know that if The Call comes, I better get that attitude out of my system!)

[bigbor]

Thanks to everyone for the congratulations. I will say that my journey to finally appear on the show took many twists and turns. Originally I was in the studio as an alternate in March. I was 50/50 to play the last game of the day. The other challenger that show: Mark Runsvold. So basically it was a coin flip that saved me from playing against Mark. Then I was scheduled to appear in August but I was postponed because of Alex's injury. Odds are high I would have faced either Justin Sausville or Joon Pahk. I must thank the Jeopardy gods for the multiple postponements.

i'm curious about the late DD, with the scores $21,200 to $17,200 to $6000. did you consider going big there? a $15,000ish wager gives you a chance to lock up the game without rolling the dice on FJ, and an $800 clue tends to be much easier than a typical FJ. i don't know if british PMs was a great category for you, though, and of course that wager does risk giving jennifer a lock if you miss it—although there were still a couple of $2000 clues left on the board at the time, either of which could put you back in contention. a compromise might be a $6000ish wager that gives you a crush if you get it right but still above 3/4 if you miss it. your actual wager took you from 3/4 to 2/3, which is a less interesting breakpoint but it does give you the option of wagering $0 if you hate the FJ category.

i think it's a particularly interesting situation because you knew there was "less than a minute to go" and that you would have control of the board afterwards in either case, which would let you pick low-dollar clues if you were nursing a lead and high-dollar if you needed to catch back up. but this is all probably (much) too much to work out in the few seconds they give you to decide on a DD wager.

Joon,

First thanks for the congratulations. It was great watching your awesome run and I wish you good retroactive luck in the TOC. My strategy was that if I hit a DD late in the 2nd round with a lead was to bet to maintain the lead in the event of a neg. British Prime Ministers wasn't in my wheelhouse and I figured with a 2k wager and a neg I was still ahead. I didn't want to emotionally deal with the loss of the lead at that point and wanted to coast into FJ with a lead. I was thankful to get a relatively easy FJ.

Gabor: How did your translation work to solve Come, Reza, Ama? For me the first two words gave me nothing with my limited high school French. Ama looked like the love neighborhood and that was enough to help me guess the proper title. I appreciate you giving viewers like me the extra needed solving time. Congrats on your stellar debut.

I speak spanish pretty proficiently so that certainly helped. I also knew that Gilbert wrote that 3 verb book and I knew the 3 verbs. I hesitated because I wasn't sure if the order was "Eat, Pray, Love" or "Eat, Love, Pray," With that dilemma I parsed out that "Ama" (which shares the same root as the French amour) was "love" so that helped me arrive to the correct order.

[alamble]

This one might have a chance for 100% in the weekend poll, unless there are some folks here who haven't played Monopoly. Would've been instaget even if they didn't mention Monopoly, but then I was a Monopoly addict as a kid, and I have no idea how famous Charles Darrow is, so that might just be me.

I've played Monopoly tons of times, and I outright dismissed the correct answer because its' source flat-out doesn't belong in a book of quotations. It isn't a quotation; it's an instruction from a board game. So I figured it had to have been something else.

Was most pleased to see Bruce Campbell in the Bruce Almighty cat. Best chin in the biz, and a great writer to boot. His autobiography, If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B-Movie Actor, is a fascinating discourse on guerrilla filmmaking, and is a must-read for any fan of the Evil Dead movies.

[Bamaman]

I would have done the same thing on the DD. Even in a fairly limited category like that one, I would not risk a lead that late in the game.

Congrats on your win, I didn't know we had a boardie on tonight, so I'll be sure to root for you tomorrow! Well played game by Jennifer as well. Not a good day for the champ, but he still had two nice wins and takes home a bunch of money.

Interesting facial expression during the think music. Gabor's smile looked real, as he was thinking "Wow, I just won a ton of cash thanks to this Kid's Week FJ!". Jennifer's looked a little more fake, a forced smile for the camera saying "Well, I just lost this game thanks to the Kids Week FJ.".

[jpahk]

Thanks to everyone for the congratulations. I will say that my journey to finally appear on the show took many twists and turns. Originally I was in the studio as an alternate in March. I was 50/50 to play the last game of the day. The other challenger that show: Mark Runsvold. So basically it was a coin flip that saved me from playing against Mark. Then I was scheduled to appear in August but I was postponed because of Alex's injury. Odds are high I would have faced either Justin Sausville or Joon Pahk. I must thank the Jeopardy gods for the multiple postponements.

that's quite a saga! but with the way you played today, i wouldn't have put it past you to beat mark, or justin, or me. you were absolutely locked in on the buzzer for much of the match. maybe we're the ones who should be thanking the jeopardy gods.

My strategy was that if I hit a DD late in the 2nd round with a lead was to bet to maintain the lead in the event of a neg. British Prime Ministers wasn't in my wheelhouse and I figured with a 2k wager and a neg I was still ahead. I didn't want to emotionally deal with the loss of the lead at that point and wanted to coast into FJ with a lead. I was thankful to get a relatively easy FJ.

thanks for sharing your thoughts on that, and it's a perfectly reasonable decision. in general, i'm always hoping to see big bets when i see people uncover DDs on an $800 clue, so i got excited when you found one late enough in the round that you already had $21k. seemed like the perfect confluence of events for perhaps breaking the record ($10k by bob beers, equivalent to $20k today), but that's how fans think, not players. although i'm a little surprised that alex didn't try to goad you into it, actually.

[seaborgium]

seemed like the perfect confluence of events for perhaps breaking the record ($10k by bob beers, equivalent to $20k today)

I occasionally bring this up, so forgive me for repeating myself: in my fantasy playing of my third game, I do this (or, strictly speaking, tie it).

In reality, I hit the first DJ DD with two categories left while leading $20,600 to $4,800, bet $1,400, got it right, selected from the same category, and was shut out for the remainder of the round while my $4,800 opponent made strides to $14,400, including $6,000 on a DD I knew.

In my fantasy, I wager $10,000 (staying in lock territory if I miss), get it right, immediately jump to $1,600 in the other category (I actually was 50/50 between taking that clue and staying in the first DD's category), and decide to chance the same downside amount as before, with a $20,000 wager. (On top of that, assuming all remaining clues play the same, I enter FJ $50,600 to $8,400 with a wheelhouse category, risk somewhere from $30,000 to $33,799, and either set a record Roger couldn't have broken without overwagering, or indirectly earn him a few thousand more!)

Congrats, bigbor! I'm sorry I rooted for Jennifer almost as much as I did for you.

[TenPoundHammer]

I did worse than Balaji. I couldn't even come up with a number.

[chuck5982]

Way to go, Bigbor!