Thursday, July 28, 2016 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

[Archivists]

Placeholder for J! Round

[Archivists]

Placeholder for DJ! Round

[theFJguy]

FINAL JEOPARDY! CATEGORY
NAMES IN THE NEWS

FINAL JEOPARDY! CLUE
This 52-year-old went through a temporary growth spurt, growing 2 inches in less than a year, as revealed by a 2016 physical

Barbra Resnick: 9200+9200=18400 (2x = $26,799)
Todd Gonzalez: 18400-1=18399
Katrina Ice: 1300-301=999

Correct response:

Spoiler

Scott Kelly (Todd – Statue of Liberty) (Katrina – Who is)

Daily Doubles
Todd: 200+1000
Katrina: 5000-2500
Todd: 16000+2000

Coryats
Barbra: 9200
Todd: 17200
Katrina: 3800

Combined: 30,200

[patkav]

I have questions.

[econgator]

Makes sense when I see it, but there was zero chance of pulling that one out.

Good on Todd for the correct FJ wager (yeah, ok, he should have bet a lot more, but at least he bet)

[xxaaaxx]

For ****s sake...we're never going to see a tiebreaker

Honestly, I'm more annoyed at J! for getting rid of ties and making people even consider betting a dollar in these spots (I'd still go for the tiebreaker, but that's my personal opinion, not a statement of optimal strategy). And at the risk of sounding like Golf (no offense), I'm waaaay more pissed at his godawful DD bets, especially that last one when he could've put the damn game away.

Near-instaget FJ.

When Todd rang in on that Jets clue and hesitated, I was ready to walk out of the room in disgust if he got it wrong

[Leander]

Very confused by the Star Wars Palpatine, 7 Hills of Rome Palatine, and I swear the contestant's response of Palantine.

[Abraxas]

Congrats to Barbra on another win. I thought Todd would bet $0 to be assured of at least a tie (with a tiebreaker question to then follow). I had 47 correct responses including these triple stumpers: hack, devil, fleet, ahem, sizzle, baccalaureate, Kosciusko, and recession. I also got the missed Daily Double of hero, and I got FJ.

[econgator]

Very confused by the Star Wars Palpatine, 7 Hills of Rome Palatine, and I swear the contestant's response of Palantine.

I'm guessing they didn't research that clue fully.

[xxaaaxx]

Very confused by the Star Wars Palpatine, 7 Hills of Rome Palatine, and I swear the contestant's response of Palantine.

I'm guessing they didn't research that clue fully.

Well, the category was "Sounds like" a SW character, not "Also a...", so despite the other 4 clues all being exact matches, for that one they got cute. Still not sure why they allowed that butchered pronunciation which matched neither the character nor the hill.

[TenPoundHammer]

I got "hack", but I thought it was undervalued at $200. (Was my mom the only fan of the CBS series Hack?)

Other lach trash: Ahem, sizzle, recession.

"Wait, who wrote the Acts? John? Paul? None of those are Star Wars characters!"

0/5 in Sports Teams, but I recognized almost all after the fact.

WLT "reader", Catholicism, or "Pittsburgh" at $400? The last seemed like a coin flip.

I usually do well in Crossword categories, but I was 0/5 in that one.

Names in the News are usually of two extremes: super-easy, or Blatt/Brat obscure. This one seemed much closer to the latter. No recognition of the name at all, but do you really think I'm gonna recognize a name that friggin' generic?

[MarkBarrett]

Statue of Liberty? Todd would have been better off leaving it blank. Another convenient end of the DJ! round with the scores 18400 to 9200 and three clues remaining.

Todd's DD wagers cost him the runaway allowing Barbra to capitalize on her sole solve of the FJ! clue.

J! is a family show and no one wants to eat dinner and see the scandalous undergarment strap of Katrina visible during the DJ! round.

I wonder if the players got the more specific instruction before the FJ! round as I was hopeful one of the players would have just "Kelly" to see if that would have been acceptable.

Scott and Mark are two different astronauts and only Scott fits what the clue wanted. Of course Mark Kelly is incorrect. What I wonder also is if "Astronaut Kelly" would have been enough if a contestant had a hedge on the brother's first name?

There went that chance to see the tiebreaker tonight. Barbra did her part. Todd took matters into his own hands and it did not work out for him with the $1 wager. He had a clear buzzer advantage over Barbra. It's easy to do 20/20 hindsight and say he should have bet zero and taken his chance on the extra clue.

I'm fine either way with whatever the player decides is the preferable option in the lock-tie scenario while not minding the old way of both players returning. Yes, the rest of that day's taping pool was affected with the tie games, so I get the production side of eliminating the tie games.

[ron]

Had no chance on final, only vaguely recognize the name.

[silverscreentest]

Very confused by the Star Wars Palpatine, 7 Hills of Rome Palatine, and I swear the contestant's response of Palantine.

I'm guessing they didn't research that clue fully.

Well, the category was "Sounds like" a SW character, not "Also a...", so despite the other 4 clues all being exact matches, for that one they got cute. Still not sure why they allowed that butchered pronunciation which matched neither the character nor the hill.

The J!6 question is "What is Vader?" They could have gone with Spanish for king. Or the older sister of the Old Testament Rachel. Or Huckleberry.

I could have precalled the shared sports nicknames. That was a popular trivia question among my friends from 1995-1996 and since 2011. If you haven't gone to J!6, the other pair are both in California and one of them won their league's championship twice in the last ten years.

[pauerpoint]

I came home late and missed everything except FJ, but oh boy, what a way to lose. Is there a strategic reason to prefer $1 to $0, or does it just come down to a gut feeling about whether or not you are going to get it right?

I didn't even know there are twin Kelly brothers, I always thought the one who went on the Space Station was the same person who is married to (former) Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. Like MarkBarrett, I'm wondering if "Who is Kelly" would have been accepted. I'm not sure "Astronaut Kelly" makes a difference, isn't Mark Kelly also an astronaut?

[TenPoundHammer]

I came home late and missed everything except FJ, but oh boy, what a way to lose. Is there a strategic reason to prefer $1 to $0, or does it just come down to a gut feeling about whether or not you are going to get it right?

Yeah, it's called "not wanting to invoke the tiebreaker".

[pauerpoint]

I came home late and missed everything except FJ, but oh boy, what a way to lose. Is there a strategic reason to prefer $1 to $0, or does it just come down to a gut feeling about whether or not you are going to get it right?

Yeah, it's called "not wanting to invoke the tiebreaker".

Well, yes, even an idiot like me gets that. But obviously losing by $1 (as actually happened tonight and in another game a few weeks ago) is a worse outcome than a 50% chance at a tiebreaker, so I'm (still) curious: how does one assess which wager is optimal?

[danspartan]

Assumption: tiebreaker is 50/50.

Therefore if we think we are better than 50% to get FJ correct then we bet. If we hate the category we don't bet.

On average leaders get FJ correct closer to 55% of the time. So all things being equal, the math says bet.

(Of course we win either way when our opponent is wrong so we can ignore that case).

We may have a buzzer advantage since we built a lead? Don't think it's horrible to bet $0 but it actually is more risky than betting $1 by a few relative percent.

[chmmr]

It depends on whether you value your ability to get FJ more or less than your ability to time the buzzer.

If you bet $0 and your opponent gets FJ wrong, you win.
If you bet $0 and your opponent gets FJ right, you go to the buzzer race.

If you bet $1 and your opponent gets FJ right AND you get it wrong, you lose.
Any other outcome results in a win for you.

Unless you have Watson-like reflexes I would go for the $1 wager. I haven't run the numbers, but I suspect there are enough FJs where the top 2 contestants got the same answer to cover the ones where the second place player outshined the first place player in FJ.

[ron]

I came home late and missed everything except FJ, but oh boy, what a way to lose. Is there a strategic reason to prefer $1 to $0, or does it just come down to a gut feeling about whether or not you are going to get it right?

Yeah, it's called "not wanting to invoke the tiebreaker".

Well, yes, even an idiot like me gets that. But obviously losing by $1 (as actually happened tonight and in another game a few weeks ago) is a worse outcome than a 50% chance at a tiebreaker, so I'm (still) curious: how does one assess which wager is optimal?

Just depends on what you consider the odds are for you and your opponent. Obviously it favors the $1 bet the easier the question is. If you assume that both players are exactly even then $0 only becomes a better bet when the odds on getting the FJ fall under 50%.