Tuesday, November 8, 2011 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

[Fishercat]

Thanks hbomb for explaining how we were supposed to get to Swift. You could have given me a day and I'd never have gotten to that answer.

Honestly, this board felt WAY tougher to me than any of the prior four days boards. Beyond the TV category I sat stupefied by most of the DJ round Therefore, I remain really impressed with those three pretty much clearing the board. Well done men.

I am begging for that Spy Novel Category to get retired. That was painfully bad and I don't really care that it was my second best category. Horrific. I'd rather see some of the "too easy" categories from days prior.

We have a really, really strong Final 9 though. Can't wait!

[jeff6286]

I'm wondering if the spy novel category was inspired by a Saturday Night Live sketch from this past December, featuring Robert DeNiro as a suspense author promoting his newest book, and features the titles of many of his other novels. Here is the transcript: http://snltranscripts.jt.org/10/10habacus.phtml

Titles named in the sketch include The "Abacus Conundrum", "The Harlequin Protocol", "The Ichabod Formula", "The Pinochet Sudoku", "The Nostradamus Mechanism", "The Godiva Gyroscope", "The Pokemon Directive", "The Vespucci Containment", "The Grimmelman Mosaic", "The Marmaduke Betrayal", "The Picasso Imbroglio", "The Brenda Effect", "The Fuddruckers Ultimatum", AND "Mac for Dummies".

I think "The Marmaduke Betrayal" is my favorite.

[opusthepenguin]

I prepared an illustration to show everyone how outmatched I was on the buzzer: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/20273643/indiana-road-map.jpg

Excellent! You gave me and the missus a good laugh.

Congrats on getting as far as you did and acquitting yourself honorably all the way through.

[opusthepenguin]

When I saw the category I defaulted to Swift. Lacking any better guesses, I stayed with him. I'll take it, but the semis/finals are going to be brutal, I can feel it.

I defaulted to Defoe. When I saw the clue, I switched to Samuel Johnson. I briefly considered Pope, Dryden, Joseph Addison, and Richard Steele but didn't like them as much as Johnson. If I'd so much as thought of Swift, I'd have settled on him instead. But I was stuck in England and didn't think to glance across the sea.

Not the best TV category. A couple were easy, since they mentioned characters, and the American Idol clue was a slam dunk, but The Good Wife? Were we really supposed to be familiar with those titles?

I think you were supposed to be familiar with the phrase "in sickness" as part of a common set of marriage vows and TOM to The Good Wife from there. That's what got me to that guess anyway. I don't know if I'd have chosen to ring in with it on the show.

Did I hear Alex say that Justin had the shortest wait for the TOC? Huh?

I heard it too. I was surprised to learn that.

That spy novel category showed us what happens when the writers run out of good ideas and make something up 5 minutes before the show. WTF?

That's as good an explanation as any. I'm sure the idea sounded good in their heads. And with different clues, it might even have been fun. But those were just lame titles. Even people in the airport bookstore would keep looking.

[opusthepenguin]

I'm wondering if the spy novel category was inspired by a Saturday Night Live sketch from this past December, featuring Robert DeNiro as a suspense author promoting his newest book, and features the titles of many of his other novels. Here is the transcript: http://snltranscripts.jt.org/10/10habacus.phtml

Titles named in the sketch include The "Abacus Conundrum", "The Harlequin Protocol", "The Ichabod Formula", "The Pinochet Sudoku", "The Nostradamus Mechanism", "The Godiva Gyroscope", "The Pokemon Directive", "The Vespucci Containment", "The Grimmelman Mosaic", "The Marmaduke Betrayal", "The Picasso Imbroglio", "The Brenda Effect", "The Fuddruckers Ultimatum", AND "Mac for Dummies".

I think "The Marmaduke Betrayal" is my favorite.

Those are all better than the ones we heard tonight.

[cinemaniax7]

After I flailed on the "leatherback" FJ last season, my heart sank when I saw an entire category devoted to turtles & tortoises . . .

Yeah, I felt the same way but then ran the category.

The FJ wording rang no bells, so I went with John Milton, the first 17th century poet I could think of. I can't be the only board member who doesn't think of Jonathan Swift when you say "poetry."

[BigDaddyJ]

I got The Good Wife one and I don't watch that show. It mentioned "In Sickness" (a reference to wedding vows, hello Wife reference) and a legal thing. Slam dunk.

I think you were supposed to be familiar with the phrase "in sickness" as part of a common set of marriage vows and TOM to The Good Wife from there. That's what got me to that guess anyway.

How did you know the show wasn't Married With Children?

[opusthepenguin]

This was a great game. Congrats to Mark on the win

That's Mr. Jeopardy! Pants to you.

The Somalia/Mali clue brought back a memory of a FJ from one of Terry Linwood's game.

It put me in mind of the FJ clue last year: "In only 2 cases can you add 2 letters to one country & get another country: Austria/Australia & this pair." They wanted Niger/Nigeria and later had to acknowledge they'd forgotten all about Mali/Malawi. I wondered if "What is Malawi" would have been accepted for this clue. The clue was "You can find 'Mali' spelled out in the name of this other African country."

[MarkBarrett]

18th Century Authors is one for a precall. Mine was Swift. I saw the clue and could not find anything about Gulliver or eating children. If something in the clue was screaming satire I was missing it. I took "Dean" to Dan as in Daniel and switched to Defoe. Grrrr!

Is it too late to flip Christopher and Justin for Silver and Bronze? Ooops on mixing up the 6-timers. Has anyone coughed up the trios for the semis, yet?

Unlike seven others, Kara knew she would not draw Roger.

For the five QF games my sheets show:

22 & 17 (27,000)
20 & 11 (20,600)
15 & 17 (22,600)
17 & 14 (21,400)
18 & 16 (22,000)

with 10/15 on the DDs and 1/5 on the FJs. QF #1 was clearly the best for me while others favored the later games.

[alamble]

18th Century Authors is one for a precall. Mine was Swift. I saw the clue and could not find anything about Gulliver or eating children. If something in the clue was screaming satire I was missing it. I took "Dean" to Dan as in Daniel and switched to Defoe. Grrrr!

Is it too late to flip Christopher and Justin for Silver and Bronze? Ooops on mixing up the 6-timers. Has anyone coughed up the trios for the semis, yet?

According to Facebook, Justin plays Mark and Erin tomorrow. I got nothin' on the other two groupings.

[billy pilgrim]

I got The Good Wife one and I don't watch that show. It mentioned "In Sickness" (a reference to wedding vows, hello Wife reference) and a legal thing. Slam dunk.

I think you were supposed to be familiar with the phrase "in sickness" as part of a common set of marriage vows and TOM to The Good Wife from there. That's what got me to that guess anyway.

How did you know the show wasn't Married With Children?

Current TV

[billy pilgrim]

I prepared an illustration to show everyone how outmatched I was on the buzzer: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/20273643/indiana-road-map.jpg

Just wanted to get in and say thanks to everyone for their support! It was fun to watch you struggle with my pre-tourney ranking, and ultimately I'm way proud to be a Bronze-level Superchamp

And of course, congrats to Messrs. Runsvold and Sausville.

Chris as a guy who grew up in INNANAPLIS and had family in montgomery county i thought GO CHRIS when the i-65 category came up.I was reasonably sure you knew every answer. So yeah ; buzzered.

[dirck_hals]

According to Facebook, Justin plays Mark and Erin tomorrow. I got nothin' on the other two groupings.

According to Twitter, it's Tom, Erin, and Justin tomorrow.
And According to Twitter, it's Roger and Joon on Friday.
I'd imagine that Kara won't play Roger twice in a row, so she's probably on Thursday...

[edit] And it's been confirmed on Twitter that Buddy is on Thursday.

[dhkendall]

Just wanted to get in and say thanks to everyone for their support! It was fun to watch you struggle with my pre-tourney ranking, and ultimately I'm way proud to be a Bronze-level Superchamp

It's always very hard to pick who to cheer for in the TOC, as there are usually several boardies, usually at least 2 per match (and, of course, "cheer for the boardie" is the trump card usually). I was cheering for you, as I remember during your original run my children were all excited to see someone named Christopher playing! Why? Because my son's name is Christopher! And, in a happy coincidence, his seventh birthday was today (your TOC air date), so the logical cheering choice today was you.

I was with Jerome in the audience. When the FJ category was revealed, he decided we should play the precall game, and told me to go first. I named the only 18th century author I could at the moment, which was Swift.

One more than I could come up with. I suppose had I played the precall game I *might* have come with at least one, if I was lucky, I would have come up with Swift, but I didn't. (I often don't precall because I treat each viewing experience as if I was playing from an actual fourth podium, and during the time that the studio/home audience are doing their precalls the contestants are sweating out their wagers, so that'd be an advantage I wouldn't have on the show - at least by my guess. You and Jerome were both on the show and both did fabulously well for yourselves, so I won't take away anything from what you say. )

Would a non-'fiend' have gotten Rhineland? To each hisher own, and I'll take the 5/5, but I won't shed any tears if we never see the Create-a-Ludlum-Novel category again.

I got the second part right, but I got "Saar" instead.

Did I hear Alex say that Justin had the shortest wait for the TOC? Huh?

i had the same reaction, oddly. i think he said that because at the time of the ToC taping, justin's shows had just aired a week before. so maybe alex was thinking he'd only been gone a week. of course, my shows hadn't aired at all yet, so by that reckoning i had a negative wait for the ToC.

That shows how good a player you are, Joon, that you didn't even have to have a regular game before you go to the TOC! (Idly wondering if there was any explanation at all to the studio audience who this "Joon Pahk" guy is that no one would have seen before? I gather from a few of seaborgium's comments there wasn't.)

I'm wondering if the spy novel category was inspired by a Saturday Night Live sketch from this past December, featuring Robert DeNiro as a suspense author promoting his newest book, and features the titles of many of his other novels. Here is the transcript: http://snltranscripts.jt.org/10/10habacus.phtml

Titles named in the sketch include The "Abacus Conundrum", "The Harlequin Protocol", "The Ichabod Formula", "The Pinochet Sudoku", "The Nostradamus Mechanism", "The Godiva Gyroscope", "The Pokemon Directive", "The Vespucci Containment", "The Grimmelman Mosaic", "The Marmaduke Betrayal", "The Picasso Imbroglio", "The Brenda Effect", "The Fuddruckers Ultimatum", AND "Mac for Dummies".

I think "The Marmaduke Betrayal" is my favorite.

Is it just me, or do these all sound like Big Bang Theory episode names?

The Somalia/Mali clue brought back a memory of a FJ from one of Terry Linwood's game.

It put me in mind of the FJ clue last year: "In only 2 cases can you add 2 letters to one country & get another country: Austria/Australia & this pair." They wanted Niger/Nigeria and later had to acknowledge they'd forgotten all about Mali/Malawi. I wondered if "What is Malawi" would have been accepted for this clue. The clue was "You can find 'Mali' spelled out in the name of this other African country."

I'm guessing no, as the other clues had the letters in the TOM clues (the word in quotes in each clue) in consecutive order, and "Mali" is not in consecutive order in "Malawi".

BTW, surprised I'm the first one to publicly say how much he enjoyed the "Oooo, Sorry" category, on many levels.

[jpahk]

One more than I could come up with. I suppose had I played the precall game I *might* have come with at least one, if I was lucky, I would have come up with Swift, but I didn't. (I often don't precall because I treat each viewing experience as if I was playing from an actual fourth podium, and during the time that the studio/home audience are doing their precalls the contestants are sweating out their wagers, so that'd be an advantage I wouldn't have on the show - at least by my guess. You and Jerome were both on the show and both did fabulously well for yourselves, so I won't take away anything from what you say. )

i played the precall game during my 8th match, not because i usually do it but just because it jumped out at me from the unusual category ("art and state capitals"). there's no time pressure to make a FJ wager, so you might as well try to precall if you think it'll help. it certainly can't hurt to do some extra thinking about the category before the think music comes on.

(Idly wondering if there was any explanation at all to the studio audience who this "Joon Pahk" guy is that no one would have seen before? I gather from a few of seaborgium's comments there wasn't.)

not while i was on the stage, there wasn't. maybe before i came out, but i doubt it. i don't think they really assume that most people in the studio audience would recognize the ToCers anyway, and i suspect they're quite right.

[Bamaman]

The promo video on the website shows the SF matchups, at least a three wide shot of Sara's game.

No chance on FJ.

I loved the I-65 category, it runs just two miles from my house!

[dhkendall]

(Idly wondering if there was any explanation at all to the studio audience who this "Joon Pahk" guy is that no one would have seen before? I gather from a few of seaborgium's comments there wasn't.)

not while i was on the stage, there wasn't. maybe before i came out, but i doubt it. i don't think they really assume that most people in the studio audience would recognize the ToCers anyway, and i suspect they're quite right.

To be honest, I'd forgotten about half of them watching this week. Watching them again, some brought back memories, others I still couldn't remember ("Mark Runsvold? Who was he, a college champ? Dude doesn't look a day over 19!")

[chuck5982]

The promo video on the website shows the SF matchups, at least a three wide shot of Sara's game.

Did you mean Kara's game?

[Fleeboy]

Precalled Dafoe, leapt to Voltaire on the reveal. Didn't make the "Dean" connection and therefore missed the Swift boat.
Congrats to all the semifinalists (and those worthy players who won't be moving on).

[alietr]

Yeah. I definitely got Swiftboated on that FJ.