Monday, February 20, 2017 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

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MattKnowles
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Re: Monday, February 20, 2017 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by MattKnowles »

IronNeck wrote: Anyone who is majoring in physics at either MIT or Caltech, let alone won a silver medal at the IPO, can solve partial differential equations as easily as reading a comic book.
I would not wager that he can find a closed-form solution to the full Navier-Stokes as easily as he can read a comic book.
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Re: Monday, February 20, 2017 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by IronNeck »

MattKnowles wrote:
IronNeck wrote: Anyone who is majoring in physics at either MIT or Caltech, let alone won a silver medal at the IPO, can solve partial differential equations as easily as reading a comic book.
I would not wager that he can find a closed-form solution to the full Navier-Stokes as easily as he can read a comic book.
Since I'm a mathematician, I'm careful about adding or omitting even small words in such statements. Ergo, why I didn't prepend any there!
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Re: Monday, February 20, 2017 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by Kenny »

IronNeck wrote:
Kenny wrote:With two female & one male contestants, DJ had two categories (flowers & women authors) geared toward women and put a DD under each. Not fair to Alex, IMO, as I've never seen two categories like Baseball & Classic Cars in one round with each having a DD.
As someone who gets either 5/5 or 4/5 in virtually every instance of the most common Jeopardy category (Women/Female Authors), including the one today (only missed Beverly Cleary), I have to disagree with including that one. That category is easy for anyone who is good at literature categories regardless of gender.
Yeah, I'll stipulate that the clues in Women authors were gettable regardless of gender. I got Cleary having read her "Henry & Ribsy" novels as a kid and Buck is almost Pavlovian for any clue involving Female Authors & China.

But I doubt you'd find the writers putting DD's under two categories like Pro Football History and Auto Mechanics when there is a mixed-gender panel. The category names were such that a female contestant (esp. College student) would be far more likely to keep going back to it until they hit a DD than a male.

They don't usually have two categories in one round that so blatantly favor players of a particular gender, let alone put DD's there.
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Re: Monday, February 20, 2017 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by Category 13 »

IronNeck wrote:
Category 13 wrote: He was in a position where he could overtake the leader's standing score, yet still win on a TS. I had him down for 5799, which in most cases would have clinched him a TS win, but Julia's unorthodox wager would have upset that. Another reason her (actual) wager was not as bad as his.
When you're the leader and the two other contestants are within 2/3rds (i.e. you aren't even crushing 3rd place), the standard and correct wager is to cover. Julia not doing so was a massive mistake.

It didn't matter in this game, but in general, it reduces her chances of victory from around 55% to somewhere in the 25-35% interval.

One can go back and forth on Alex's wager, but again, I really think he picked up on the strong possibility of Julia not covering (again, look at her 2 DD wagers), and Lilly probably going small from 2nd, which would make the all-in bet highly reasonable.
You seem to put a lot of stock into the likelyhood that a contestant's DD wagering strategy is going to be directly relative to their FJ strategy. When I've commonly observed even highly skilled FJ wagerers just pick a generic multiple of 1000 number in late game DDs. Part of this has to do with a more constricted time limit, as opposed to the break between DJ and FJ. Second round DD wagering strategy has yet to catch on near as much as FJ strategy has.

That aside, even though Julia's thinking was flawed, her 'massive mistake' would have still dusted off Alex's doubled score and won on a triple get, or a triple stumper.
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Re: Monday, February 20, 2017 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by MattKnowles »

Kenny wrote:But I doubt you'd find the writers putting DD's under two categories like Pro Football History and Auto Mechanics when there is a mixed-gender panel.
In the book by Chuck Forrest and Mark Lowenthal "Secrets of the Jeopardy! Champions" it mentions that the people who write the clues (and presumably oversee the placement of the Daily Doubles) are entirely separated from the people who select the contestants. In an ideal fair game the clues and Daily Doubles will be unrelated to the contestants that appear.

The same book also mentions that Andrew Johnson was the only President to have been impeached so it might be outdated.

If anybody can confirm or correct that the clues and contestants are unrelated I would appreciate it.
IronNeck wrote:When you're the leader and the two other contestants are within 2/3rds (i.e. you aren't even crushing 3rd place), the standard and correct wager is to cover. Julia not doing so was a massive mistake.
There is no "correct" wager. The usual wager is to cover the second place contestant. If we're in a game with the scores 18,000/13,000/0 then the standard wager for first place is 8,001 and the standard wager for second place is between 0 and 3,000. If player 2 knows that player 1 will make the standard wager then player 2 should make the standard wager. Conversely is player 1 knows that player 2 will make the standard wager then player 1 should not make the standard wager. If player 2 makes the standard wager and player 1 knows that player 2 will make the standard wager then player 1 is guaranteed a win with a non-conventional wager of 0.

I'm with you 100% that player 1 should make the standard wager because nobody likes to see the leading player answer the clue right and lose. I wholeheartedly disagree that there is a "correct" wager.

If it's stupid and it works then it isn't stupid.
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Re: Monday, February 20, 2017 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by IronNeck »

Category 13 wrote:
IronNeck wrote:
Category 13 wrote: He was in a position where he could overtake the leader's standing score, yet still win on a TS. I had him down for 5799, which in most cases would have clinched him a TS win, but Julia's unorthodox wager would have upset that. Another reason her (actual) wager was not as bad as his.
When you're the leader and the two other contestants are within 2/3rds (i.e. you aren't even crushing 3rd place), the standard and correct wager is to cover. Julia not doing so was a massive mistake.

It didn't matter in this game, but in general, it reduces her chances of victory from around 55% to somewhere in the 25-35% interval.

One can go back and forth on Alex's wager, but again, I really think he picked up on the strong possibility of Julia not covering (again, look at her 2 DD wagers), and Lilly probably going small from 2nd, which would make the all-in bet highly reasonable.
You seem to put a lot of stock into the likelyhood that a contestant's DD wagering strategy is going to be directly relative to their FJ strategy.
Expressed in those terms, no. But if a contestant shows a lack of understanding of arithmetic with their DD wagering, I will assume they will display the same lack of understanding with their FJ wagering, which is more complex.

This heuristic has worked astoundingly well for me in predicting bad FJ bets. It's hardly surprising Alex might have picked up on it, too. After all, he might well be smarter than me.
Category 13 wrote:When I've commonly observed even highly skilled FJ wagerers
There is no such thing as "highly skilled FJ wagerers". I see this term thrown around a lot, but it's like saying "highly skilled multiplier" or "highly skilled subtractor" for someone that can do basic arithmetic operations.

There are simply

1. "optimal wagers" (covering on a crush of 2nd place, for instance) that clearly dominate any other strategy
2. "reasonable wagers" where there is nothing that dominates another strategy, but the wager is good under reasonable assumptions. (Like Alex's bet tonight) Usually, there are more than 1 of these.
3. "poor wagers", those that clearly reduce a player's chance of victory or EV (expected value) by a significant amount. (Like Julia's bet)
Category 13 wrote: That aside, even though Julia's thinking was flawed, her 'massive mistake' would have still dusted off Alex's doubled score and won on a triple get, or a triple stumper.
Well, this is hindsight bias. By that criteria, you should think Alex made an outstanding play since he beats Lilly on a mutual get, right?

Edit-
MattKnowles wrote:There is no "correct" wager.
See my comments above. Sometimes there is a Nash equilibrium for a game and other times one doesn't exit. Similarly, sometimes a "correct" wager exists and in other instances it does not.

In this particular case, there was no "correct" wager for Alex or Lilly.

However, Julia going for the cover from 1st, while not a Nash equilibrium (in fact, there are no Nash equilibrium in Jeopardy aside from certain lock situations!), clearly increases her chances of victory versus any other choice, assuming any kind of normal wagering by her two opponents.
Last edited by IronNeck on Tue Feb 21, 2017 2:58 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: Monday, February 20, 2017 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by chmmr »

TenPoundHammer wrote: Sweet pea is a flower?!
Literally every plant that isn't a fern or a conifer or ginkgo or lichen is a flower. I'm oversimplifying, but not by much. It so happens that sweet pea has a particularly pretty flower:


You might also want to look up Artichoke flowers or cactus flowers. Those are pretty nice.

Couldn't get FJ but maybe could have on a better day, and if I hadn't been distracted (I was making a cake). It turns out defeat is sweet too.
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Re: Monday, February 20, 2017 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by OrangeSAM »

Bamaman wrote:
MarkBarrett wrote:
It's Presidents Day, so of course the game had to have a PRESIDENT'S DAY category. I lost the run in the 1600 box as I bit off the year without taking into account the month. That meant the old guy was still in office and I was too early for it to be the new guy. Grrr! It can help to read the whole clue.
I very nearly made the same error, forgetting we used to change presidents later in the year. Had the clue not related to opening a park (or something like that), I would not have gotten Teddy.

Thanks for uploading the game.
The clue read, "February 18, 1909: Convenes North American Conservation Conference."

Never made any real sense of FJ!

ESPN's Scott Van Pelt had a lot of fun on SportsCenter with AT's reading of "Panda, panda...."
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Re: Monday, February 20, 2017 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by Kenny »

Category 13 wrote:
BigDaddyMatty wrote: Word Origins is a tough FJ! category. It's almost always a question of whether the correct response occurs to you.

Terrible FJ! wager by Alex. That was a perfect place to bet small/nil. Luckily, it didn't cost him.
He was in a position where he could overtake the leader's standing score, yet still win on a TS. I had him down for 5799, which in most cases would have clinched him a TS win, but Julia's unorthodox wager would have upset that. Another reason her (actual) wager was not as bad as his.
This was a classic case where third place, in a close game, needs to wager low to hope for a TS on FJ because if one of the others gets it right you're going to lose anyway.
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Re: Monday, February 20, 2017 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by Bamaman »

I knew I was in trouble in the rap category when I saw Weezy and my only thought was about Louise Jefferson.
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Re: Monday, February 20, 2017 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by JayK33 »

What a painful FJ. I had absolutely no idea what to guess.
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Re: Monday, February 20, 2017 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by spell4yr »

I blanked on FJ! and put Creepypasta (an answer that, if I were on the show, would likely go viral on the wrong boards ...).
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Re: Monday, February 20, 2017 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by morbeedo »

IronNeck wrote:LT: (null set)
Was that one of the MATH4U clues? Must have missed it. I remember e, hyperbola, function, scalene, radius.

Refreshing to see a higher difficulty level in week 2, but thought Monet's Waterlilies in the bottom box of ART & ARTISTS was a joke. Plus American Gothic, Venus de Milo, Mona Lisa....? come on!

Interesting debate about WOMEN AUTHORS and FLOWERS. Not touching that one ;)

Also blanked on FJ and skunked RAP. Went with "F"atty Wep as a guess on one of them, which was doubly wrong (Fetty Wap is the guy). Don't even remember the clue.

My only sole get ever in a RAP category was this $2000 clue from Battle of the Decades quarterfinal game 4.
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Re: Monday, February 20, 2017 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by Elijah Baley »

Kenny wrote:
IronNeck wrote:
Kenny wrote:With two female & one male contestants, DJ had two categories (flowers & women authors) geared toward women and put a DD under each. Not fair to Alex, IMO, as I've never seen two categories like Baseball & Classic Cars in one round with each having a DD.
As someone who gets either 5/5 or 4/5 in virtually every instance of the most common Jeopardy category (Women/Female Authors), including the one today (only missed Beverly Cleary), I have to disagree with including that one. That category is easy for anyone who is good at literature categories regardless of gender.
Yeah, I'll stipulate that the clues in Women authors were gettable regardless of gender. I got Cleary having read her "Henry & Ribsy" novels as a kid and Buck is almost Pavlovian for any clue involving Female Authors & China.

But I doubt you'd find the writers putting DD's under two categories like Pro Football History and Auto Mechanics when there is a mixed-gender panel. The category names were such that a female contestant (esp. College student) would be far more likely to keep going back to it until they hit a DD than a male.

They don't usually have two categories in one round that so blatantly favor players of a particular gender, let alone put DD's there.
Thanks for the unintended comedy. Maybe you can go through every category that they've ever had on the show and report back on how many "so blatantly favor players of a particular gender" and report back to us. It's probably the scandal of the century!
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Re: Monday, February 20, 2017 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by Golf »

MattKnowles wrote: In the book by Chuck Forrest and Mark Lowenthal "Secrets of the Jeopardy! Champions" it mentions that the people who write the clues (and presumably oversee the placement of the Daily Doubles) are entirely separated from the people who select the contestants. In an ideal fair game the clues and Daily Doubles will be unrelated to the contestants that appear.

The same book also mentions that Andrew Johnson was the only President to have been impeached so it might be outdated.

If anybody can confirm or correct that the clues and contestants are unrelated I would appreciate it.
This is basically correct, several Jeopardy books have touched on the standards and practices the show must abide by. The categories and clues are determined perhaps weeks before the contestants are known.
There is no "correct" wager. The usual wager is to cover the second place contestant. If we're in a game with the scores 18,000/13,000/0 then the standard wager for first place is 8,001 and the standard wager for second place is between 0 and 3,000. If player 2 knows that player 1 will make the standard wager then player 2 should make the standard wager. Conversely is player 1 knows that player 2 will make the standard wager then player 1 should not make the standard wager. If player 2 makes the standard wager and player 1 knows that player 2 will make the standard wager then player 1 is guaranteed a win with a non-conventional wager of 0.

I'm with you 100% that player 1 should make the standard wager because nobody likes to see the leading player answer the clue right and lose. I wholeheartedly disagree that there is a "correct" wager.

If it's stupid and it works then it isn't stupid.
The last sentence is just completely wrong, plenty of contestants have won games with absolutely terrible wagers.

And yes, there are "correct" wagers. It's not that difficult, but sadly most are ignorant in this field.

As far as DD wagers compared to FJ wagers, more contestants have some clue when it comes to FJ wagering. Maybe half, maybe. But probably about 1% understand proper DD wagering. So if you've got a contestant that understands DD wagering, it's a given they know FJ wagering.

The only time a contestant shouldn't make the "standard" wager is if a returning champion has exhibited a known behavior of something different. Such as Arthur Chu offering a tie, or somebody wagering $4k regarding of circumstances.

98% of the time FJ wagering is simple and boring, and we'll comment when players muck that up. It's the other 2% of the time where there might be more than one correct wager when things really get fun and interesting. But this was not one of those times, not even close.
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Re: Monday, February 20, 2017 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by IronNeck »

morbeedo wrote:
IronNeck wrote:LT: (null set)
Was that one of the MATH4U clues? Must have missed it. I remember e, hyperbola, function, scalene, radius.
Heh, it was just my way of noting that I didn't get any LT at all this game.
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Re: Monday, February 20, 2017 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by tiwonge »

I was thinking way too hard on that function clue.

"That's not a bijection. Is it a surjection or an injection?"

I don't have the clue in front of me to know whether or not either of those would satisfy the clue.
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Re: Monday, February 20, 2017 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by IronNeck »

tiwonge wrote:I was thinking way too hard on that function clue.

"That's not a bijection. Is it a surjection or an injection?"

I don't have the clue in front of me to know whether or not either of those would satisfy the clue.
The clue is written properly, and there is nothing to indicate whether it's one-to-one or onto;

"It's the "useful" term for a relation that pairs members of one set with unique members of another set"
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Re: Monday, February 20, 2017 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by morbeedo »

IronNeck wrote:
morbeedo wrote:
IronNeck wrote:LT: (null set)
Was that one of the MATH4U clues? Must have missed it. I remember e, hyperbola, function, scalene, radius.
Heh, it was just my way of noting that I didn't get any LT at all this game.
Ahhhhhh, I get it now. Wasn't fully caffeinated when I wrote that.

Surprised more people didn't get productivity. Poll question?
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Re: Monday, February 20, 2017 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by twelvefootboy »

IronNeck wrote:
tiwonge wrote:I was thinking way too hard on that function clue.

"That's not a bijection. Is it a surjection or an injection?"

I don't have the clue in front of me to know whether or not either of those would satisfy the clue.
The clue is written properly, and there is nothing to indicate whether it's one-to-one or onto;

"It's the "useful" term for a relation that pairs members of one set with unique members of another set"
This is the clue that kept me from a sweep. NHO surjection/injections, but I wandered into Venn diagram territory trying to think of something besides 'union'. If it was a FJ clue, I also would have wasted time looking into infinities, aleph-0's and such. Good thing they gave the "useful" TOM and he answered it so quickly before I got a migraine. It's an apt description of a function, but was way out of the box for me.
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