Wednesday, April 19, 2017 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

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MattKnowles
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Re: Wednesday, April 19, 2017 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by MattKnowles »

Golf wrote: Sat Apr 22, 2017 4:41 pm OK, so the questions and categories are composed by humans who have failings. Let's say a clue doesn't exactly match the category 2% of the time. Sound fair? But even if the clue doesn't match the category the contestant still probably has a 50% get rate. So in effect that reduces the get rate in a wheelhouse category by 1%. 1%. You guys are saying a contestant shouldn't go balls to the wall in a wheelhouse category over 1%? Regardless, that x% is still able to be estimated and calculated in the overall equation.

I feel like Allen Iverson. This is 1%, we're talking about 1% man. 1%. :lol:

Would you guys feel better if Roger Craig or Alex Jacob stopped by to echo what we've been saying? Because we're not wrong even if we have difficulty at times stating our case in a politically correct way. 99% of contestants do not wager near enough in strong categories or upper row clues and wager too much in difficult categories or bottom row clues.

And I'm actually wondering if we should move this discussion into it's own thread that encompasses overall wagering theory. Because this discussion crops up in game threads somewhat frequently and much of what is being said here has been said repeatedly. Mods, what do you think?

It makes sense to have a thread for daily double wagering. I encouraged you and IronNeck to make that thread earlier in this thread. Right now I'm working on a spreadsheet program that will compute the optimum daily double wagers in theory. If you want to wait then I'll make a thread when I'm done with that or if you make a thread now I can post it in there later.

There is a lot of nonsense being posted and a lot of obvious facts being posted. If you ask a reasonable authority if they agree with obvious facts then of course they will agree.

-It's trivial to calculate the optimal wager for a daily double and optimal wagering theory could be explained to an 8-year old in an hour. -This is nonsense.

-It's trivial to show that a more substantial bet would have increased the winning chances. -This is nonsense.

-Players frequently don't bet enough on DDs. -This is an obvious fact.

-Players should bet a lot more in categories where they feel extremely confident. -This is an obvious fact.

It's really convenient that you're arguing that players should bet a lot on the categories they're comfortable with but then disregarding categories for the rest of the scenario. If you're willing to completely consider the categories on the board to make your wager then the game becomes a lot more difficult. You would need to take into account the clue values left in individual categories, your proficiency in the remaining categories, and your competitors' proficiency in the remaining categories. You're making the simplification that you should bet according to how you feel about the daily double category and treating the other categories as generic. That's fine, that's a great way to approximate what wager to make but it is not objective. You're using empirical data (your probability of getting the category right) and using simplifications (the other categories are just normal categories) to estimate a good wager.

When it comes to obvious facts you're not wrong. It's not correct to say that you're never wrong. You earlier said that Diana should have engineered a runaway and then when asked to calculate what bets she should have made you came up with wagers that would not have given her a runaway.
Golf wrote: Fri Apr 21, 2017 6:47 pm And I'll be the first to admit that I don't know exactly what the wager that gives the best winning chances would be.
This is not a weakness. You're guesstimating what the wagers should be and noticing that a lot of the contestants are betting too timidly. I agree with your wagering comments most of the time and I think most of the forum probably does to. They get upset if you denigrate the contestant. If you say "The contestant has no idea how to wager" they'll get upset but if you say "A higher wager would have been better" without bringing down the contestant I don't think they would have an issue.

You and IronNeck really haven't addressed how to wager except in a few obvious cases. If the daily double is at the end of the game it is pretty straightforward. If the daily double is at the very beginning of the game it is pretty straightforward. If the daily double is in a category where the contestant gets it right nearly every case then it is pretty easy.

The more challenging question is how much to wager when it's a close game and there's a lot of time left. Other than the rule of thumb "bet more than contestants normally do" there hasn't been anything to address how to bet in this case.

If you're only willing to consider the simple scenarios then yea, daily double wagering is simple. Most of the time the wagering is not one of these simple cases. You're also assuming a "get rate" for the contestants without really elaborating where that came from. I can go through j-archive and estimate how often the contestants get the clue correct but if you're criticizing the contestants you should keep in mind that most contestants don't know what the get rate is and need to wager with only an estimate of that information.

I'll also point out that even Alex Jacob and Roger Craig did not wager rationally.

In Roger Craig's first game he had a lockout going into FJ with 33,600/6,800/2,200 scores and he wagered 3,400 instead of 19,999
http://www.j-archive.com/showgame.php?game_id=3458

In Alex Jacob's first game he had a lockout going into FJ with 23,200/10,800/1,800 scores and he wagered 0 instead of 1599
http://www.j-archive.com/showgame.php?game_id=4868

It's not necessary to criticize irrational wagering every time you see it. If you do that then you're going to criticize everybody including the people you respect the most.

And it should go without saying that I think they're both great players and I'm not posting this to be critical of them but rather to make a point that none of the contestants deserve chastisement. I also understand that this is different than Daily Double wagering. If a player is only interested in winning the game and is not interested in their score after winning the game then these wagers are rational. I know Alex visits the board if he has feedback on daily double wagering I would be interested in hearing it.
I had a dream that I was asleep and then I woke up and Jeopardy! was on.
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StevenH
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Re: Wednesday, April 19, 2017 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by StevenH »

Monster DD wagers worked for Roger in the ToC, but they also cost him a win in the BotD tournament. I'm not saying that he was wrong to be agressive--especially since he was playing Jennings and Rutter--but the large DD wagers did sink him.
IronNeck
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Re: Wednesday, April 19, 2017 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by IronNeck »

StevenH wrote: Sat Apr 22, 2017 12:39 pm
IronNeck wrote: Sat Apr 22, 2017 6:08 am It's not difficult at all for a contestant to identify a category as being in their wheelhouse, an okay one, or one that they would rather avoid. And bet accordingly.
I hate to get involved in this discussion, but I would like to add that I think that it's debatable how much the category should influence one's wagering. You just never know if you will get a gimme clue in a nightmare category or a hose in a wheelhouse category (see Alan Bailey's first round UToC game for an example of the latter).
Of course. That's why we deal in probabilities, not certainties.
jeff6286 wrote:Poker
You've obviously never played poker. Calculating probabilities on certain Omaha Hi-Low boards is a freaking nightmare that I would hate to do by hand. It's at least a thousand times more difficult than any conceivable Jeopardy situation.
jeff6286 wrote:If you've studied the J Archive exhaustively like Alex Jacob or Roger Craig,
I love both Jacob and Craig, but as outstanding as their preparation was, it's something every Jeopardy contestant is capable of. I doubt they're the only ones who did this, either. I got the feeling that 6-day champion Pranjal Vachaspati prepared exceptionally well. And Matt Jackson.

What they did was impressive, but the most surprising thing is that more contestants don't follow their examples.
jeff6286 wrote:I guess I should tap out at this point rather than continue to ram my head into the wall. I keep forgetting this is a person who came onto the Jeopardy board and proceeded to tell everyone how they should be playing the game, when he didn't even understand how the game worked, in regards to quarterfinal tournament wagering. I should keep that in mind when considering whether he is worthy of a response in the future.
You mean that time you chortled down your nose that someone who had been watching Jeopardy for about a year didn't know all the tournament rules, and other, more respected board members chastised you for it?

Who is that supposed to be disqualifying and embarrassing for again?!
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