"Basic strategy" for Final Jeopardy wagering?

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Re: "Basic strategy" for Final Jeopardy wagering?

Post by cheezguyty »

Wheatley wrote: Thu Jun 22, 2017 11:46 pm Has anyone ever pulled a real-life Cliff Clavin? I wouldn't want to be the first.
Buzz Aldrin and Al Franken are the only two contestants that I know of who have lost despite having a runaway. Buzz's charity was going to receive $10,000 either way, but Al's wager was particularly egregious. He would have won the guaranteed minimum of $15,000 for his charity by betting nothing, but instead risked it all for a whopping $800 more than the minimum and wound up costing the Congressional Hunger Center $5,000 in the process.

ETA: I forgot links to the games:
1996 Celebrity Jeopardy! game 4
1997 Power Players Week game 3
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Re: "Basic strategy" for Final Jeopardy wagering?

Post by Golf »

Wheatley wrote: Tue Jun 20, 2017 6:02 pm There is one absolute- if you've got a lock game, don't get greedy.
colonialrampage wrote: Thu Jun 22, 2017 10:25 pm Even that isn't an absolute. If you manage to pull the absolute wheelhouse category there's a good argument for betting it all even if you put your win at risk.
There is no good argument for this. There is nothing but laughter and head shaking. If you win a game your potential earnings going forward are infinite, if you lose a game you earn zero going forward.
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Re: "Basic strategy" for Final Jeopardy wagering?

Post by GoodStrategy »

There is one important difference between "Clavining" in a Celebrity (or formerly a Kid's) game as opposed to a regular or tournament game - since there is no return riding on the outcome of the game it could make sense to go big in a wheelhouse category.
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Re: "Basic strategy" for Final Jeopardy wagering?

Post by Carpe Diem »

GoodStrategy wrote: Sat Jun 24, 2017 11:20 am There is one important difference between "Clavining" in a Celebrity (or formerly a Kid's) game as opposed to a regular or tournament game - since there is no return riding on the outcome of the game it could make sense to go big in a wheelhouse category.
That's what Skyler Hornback did.
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Re: "Basic strategy" for Final Jeopardy wagering?

Post by GoodStrategy »

Carpe Diem wrote: Sat Jun 24, 2017 2:20 pm
GoodStrategy wrote: Sat Jun 24, 2017 11:20 am There is one important difference between "Clavining" in a Celebrity (or formerly a Kid's) game as opposed to a regular or tournament game - since there is no return riding on the outcome of the game it could make sense to go big in a wheelhouse category.
That's what Skyler Hornback did.
And whose very large total got overshadowed by a controversial ruling on one of the other contestant's responses (which did not affect even the 2nd vs. 3rd place outcome).
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Re: "Basic strategy" for Final Jeopardy wagering?

Post by Volante »

GoodStrategy wrote: Sat Jun 24, 2017 7:04 pm
Carpe Diem wrote: Sat Jun 24, 2017 2:20 pm
GoodStrategy wrote: Sat Jun 24, 2017 11:20 am There is one important difference between "Clavining" in a Celebrity (or formerly a Kid's) game as opposed to a regular or tournament game - since there is no return riding on the outcome of the game it could make sense to go big in a wheelhouse category.
That's what Skyler Hornback did.
And whose very large total got overshadowed by a controversial ruling on one of the other contestant's responses (which did not affect even the 2nd vs. 3rd place outcome).
More of a contropversial rulping.
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Re: "Basic strategy" for Final Jeopardy wagering?

Post by Prasutagus »

triviawayne wrote: Mon Jun 19, 2017 8:35 pm The most basic is to bet enough to stay ahead of the person behind you.
How should second-place wager with a score of exactly double third-place and more than three-quarters of first-place? For example, this game from a few weeks ago.
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Re: "Basic strategy" for Final Jeopardy wagering?

Post by AFRET CMS »

Prasutagus wrote: Sat Jun 24, 2017 8:07 pm
triviawayne wrote: Mon Jun 19, 2017 8:35 pm The most basic is to bet enough to stay ahead of the person behind you.
How should second-place wager with a score of exactly double third-place and more than three-quarters of first-place? For example, this game from a few weeks ago.
Personally and speaking only for myself, I'm almost always going to go for the win.

If I didn't like the FJ category, probably go with 3001 to cover a zero leader bet and minimize my loss if I'm wrong. If it's a wheelhouse category, I'm going to go with 7600 to cover a double miss if the leader makes the most likely cover wager and maximize my winnings if I'm right and leader misses.

I'll always go for the win first and make second/third a lesser consideration. If I miss the question and third place wins the game, I'll provide a congratulatory handshake.
I'm not the defending Jeopardy! champion. But I have played one on TV.
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Re: "Basic strategy" for Final Jeopardy wagering?

Post by triviawayne »

Prasutagus wrote: Sat Jun 24, 2017 8:07 pm
triviawayne wrote: Mon Jun 19, 2017 8:35 pm The most basic is to bet enough to stay ahead of the person behind you.
How should second-place wager with a score of exactly double third-place and more than three-quarters of first-place? For example, this game from a few weeks ago.
that would be why it's most basic...doesn't cover every situation.
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Re: "Basic strategy" for Final Jeopardy wagering?

Post by Wheatley »

Prasutagus wrote: Sat Jun 24, 2017 8:07 pm
triviawayne wrote: Mon Jun 19, 2017 8:35 pm The most basic is to bet enough to stay ahead of the person behind you.
How should second-place wager with a score of exactly double third-place and more than three-quarters of first-place? For example, this game from a few weeks ago.
1 dollar. Joe is probably going for a lock game, and if so, you can only win if he gets it wrong. The only control you have over your destiny is to lock out 3rd place, so anything more than a buck is unnecessary risk. If the category is extremely in your wheelhouse, you'd do $3,001 to cover any scenario where Joe misses.
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Re: "Basic strategy" for Final Jeopardy wagering?

Post by triviawayne »

Wheatley wrote: Sun Jun 25, 2017 12:26 am
Prasutagus wrote: Sat Jun 24, 2017 8:07 pm
triviawayne wrote: Mon Jun 19, 2017 8:35 pm The most basic is to bet enough to stay ahead of the person behind you.
How should second-place wager with a score of exactly double third-place and more than three-quarters of first-place? For example, this game from a few weeks ago.
1 dollar. Joe is probably going for a lock game, and if so, you can only win if he gets it wrong. The only control you have over your destiny is to lock out 3rd place, so anything more than a buck is unnecessary risk. If the category is extremely in your wheelhouse, you'd do $3,001 to cover any scenario where Joe misses.
which would still be betting enough to stay ahead of the person behind you
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Re: "Basic strategy" for Final Jeopardy wagering?

Post by colonialrampage »

Golf wrote: Fri Jun 23, 2017 7:06 pm
Wheatley wrote: Tue Jun 20, 2017 6:02 pm There is one absolute- if you've got a lock game, don't get greedy.
colonialrampage wrote: Thu Jun 22, 2017 10:25 pm Even that isn't an absolute. If you manage to pull the absolute wheelhouse category there's a good argument for betting it all even if you put your win at risk.
There is no good argument for this. There is nothing but laughter and head shaking. If you win a game your potential earnings going forward are infinite, if you lose a game you earn zero going forward.
I've been away for awhile, but this response is just wrong. Infinite potential earnings should (I hope obviously) not be your goal. Your goal is to maximize your expected value.

There is a very limited set of circumstances that must exist for it to make sense to risk a runaway, but they do exist.

1. You're not afraid of having a failure go viral/ You are risk-loving. The primary reason most people have to not risk a runaway win. When you think about trying this, do you think "If I missed that question I could never show my face in public again" or do you think "How ballsy would it be to pull something like that off? I'd have a story forever!" If you're on the second category, this might make sense if...

2. You put very little stock into the prestige of being a Jeopardy champion or having won a certain number of games. You're there almost entirely for the money or...

3. You give yourself very little chance of making a serious run of winning games going forward. Maybe you're honest with yourself that you're a bit outclassed and are lucky to have the chance to win and...

4. The category is sufficiently narrow and directly in your wheelhouse. I don't think Art History, even for a prominent art historian would be the category to do this on. No matter how much you know, there's always more they could ask about. But if you've served as the historian for the Rose Bowl committee for the past 20 years and the category is "Rose Bowl History" or you're the curator of the Country Music Hall of Fame and the category is "Country Music Legends", there's real good potential here to take a shot.

All of the responses seemed to center on whether people have lost when they had runaways. The real question here is how often people risk runaways, because when they pull it off we may tend not to notice. My guess is that it does happen from time to time, and in a certain set of circumstances it can be logical.

Just because you would never do it doesn't mean no one would, and it doesn't mean it can't be a rational decision.
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Re: "Basic strategy" for Final Jeopardy wagering?

Post by Golf »

colonialrampage wrote: Wed Jul 26, 2017 7:36 pm
Golf wrote: Fri Jun 23, 2017 7:06 pm
Wheatley wrote: Tue Jun 20, 2017 6:02 pm There is one absolute- if you've got a lock game, don't get greedy.
colonialrampage wrote: Thu Jun 22, 2017 10:25 pm Even that isn't an absolute. If you manage to pull the absolute wheelhouse category there's a good argument for betting it all even if you put your win at risk.
There is no good argument for this. There is nothing but laughter and head shaking. If you win a game your potential earnings going forward are infinite, if you lose a game you earn zero going forward.
I've been away for awhile, but this response is just wrong. Infinite potential earnings should (I hope obviously) not be your goal. Your goal is to maximize your expected value.

There is a very limited set of circumstances that must exist for it to make sense to risk a runaway, but they do exist.

1. You're not afraid of having a failure go viral/ You are risk-loving. The primary reason most people have to not risk a runaway win. When you think about trying this, do you think "If I missed that question I could never show my face in public again" or do you think "How ballsy would it be to pull something like that off? I'd have a story forever!" If you're on the second category, this might make sense if...

2. You put very little stock into the prestige of being a Jeopardy champion or having won a certain number of games. You're there almost entirely for the money or...

3. You give yourself very little chance of making a serious run of winning games going forward. Maybe you're honest with yourself that you're a bit outclassed and are lucky to have the chance to win and...

4. The category is sufficiently narrow and directly in your wheelhouse. I don't think Art History, even for a prominent art historian would be the category to do this on. No matter how much you know, there's always more they could ask about. But if you've served as the historian for the Rose Bowl committee for the past 20 years and the category is "Rose Bowl History" or you're the curator of the Country Music Hall of Fame and the category is "Country Music Legends", there's real good potential here to take a shot.

All of the responses seemed to center on whether people have lost when they had runaways. The real question here is how often people risk runaways, because when they pull it off we may tend not to notice. My guess is that it does happen from time to time, and in a certain set of circumstances it can be logical.

Just because you would never do it doesn't mean no one would, and it doesn't mean it can't be a rational decision.
#3 holds merit and I've admitted that in the past. The rest do not.

Maximizing EV and winning infinite money are the same thing. Sometimes to maximize long term EV you have to sacrifice short term EV.

But I do enjoy the detailed response and discussion on a topic very few seem to want to discuss. Even though it can make the difference between $1k and infinite money.
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Re: "Basic strategy" for Final Jeopardy wagering?

Post by Mathew5000 »

Golf wrote: Wed Jul 26, 2017 7:45 pm Maximizing EV and winning infinite money are the same thing. Sometimes to maximize long term EV you have to sacrifice short term EV.

But I do enjoy the detailed response and discussion on a topic very few seem to want to discuss. Even though it can make the difference between $1k and infinite money.
There is no opportunity for "infinite money" playing Jeopardy!. The value of "the opportunity to return in the next game" is finite, and not difficult to calculate if you make some assumptions about your probability of winning each game in the future and the average score you will get in each game that you do win. There are rare circumstances where risking a lock with your FJ wager will give you higher EV than making a safe wager. (Assuming we calculate EV in prize-dollars alone, disregarding the value of "prestige" and other intangibles.)
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Re: "Basic strategy" for Final Jeopardy wagering?

Post by Mathew5000 »

colonialrampage wrote: Wed Jul 26, 2017 7:36 pm All of the responses seemed to center on whether people have lost when they had runaways. The real question here is how often people risk runaways, because when they pull it off we may tend not to notice. My guess is that it does happen from time to time, and in a certain set of circumstances it can be logical.
Here's a partial list of regular-play games where the leader risked a lock. A version of this list might have been posted on the old Sony boards, I can't remember.

Dec. 28, 1984 (Jerry Frankel game 5; see this thread)

Sept. 12, 1989 (Bob Blake game 5; see this thread)

Dec. 17, 1999 (lock-tie situation, leader bizarrely wagers $100 instead of standing pat but second-place bizarrely wagers everything-but-$100 instead of going all-in)

June 2, 2000

Dec. 29, 2004 (The player in second would have won an "unwinnable" game, if she had been correct on the FJ clue)

Nov. 4, 2005 (Maria Wenglinsky game 5)

March 29, 2006 (lock-tie situation; absurd wagers on a clue about an absurdist play)

Jan. 28, 2009 (Jack Feerick, ranked 50th on list of the largest one-day totals in Jeopardy! history; at the time would have been in top 40)

April 30, 2014 (Julia Collins game 8)

March 8, 2016 (JBoard discussion thread)

In most of these it looks like the leader made a math/logic error. (In the lock-tie games, perhaps they didn't realize that in FJ, unlike daily doubles, players are allowed to wager zero.) Only in Jack Feerick's game (Jan. 28, 2009) does it appear that it might have been an intentional gamble to risk the lock for a huge payday. But who knows; that one could have been just a math error like the others. It's especially weird that three champions violated Clavin's Rule in their fifth game, thus risking an opportunity to compete in the ToC.

Edited to add: Bob Blake is quoted here saying that he can't remember why he bet so much but possibly it was because he was in search of a record. I still think it was probably an arithmetic mistake (even though he is an actuary by trade). He was going to set the 5-day record even if he wagered zero; in fact he did set the 5-day record, even though he wagered $4000 and did not get the clue. If he had been correct, with his $4000 wager, his final score that day would have been $19,100, not even close to a one-day record.

Edited to add: the March 8, 2016 game (Annie Moriando) was speculated to be a deliberate Clavin ("The Western Hemisphere" was a wheelhouse category?) but according to a commenter on Reddit who was at the taping, it was a miscalculation. Also see in that thread brief discussion of Dan Feitel who did not violate Clavin's Rule but did something analogous.
Last edited by Mathew5000 on Fri Jul 28, 2017 3:14 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: "Basic strategy" for Final Jeopardy wagering?

Post by seaborgium »

For Jerry Frankel's case, keep in mind he was only the fourth or fifth 5x champ on this version of J!, and for all he may have known, that fifth episode was it for him regardless of outcome.
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Re: "Basic strategy" for Final Jeopardy wagering?

Post by JErickson2021 »

The J! Archive has a wagering calculator:
http://www.j-archive.com/wageringcalculator.php
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Re: "Basic strategy" for Final Jeopardy wagering?

Post by GoodStrategy »

Flux3on wrote: Sun Feb 18, 2018 10:03 pm The J! Archive has a wagering calculator:
http://www.j-archive.com/wageringcalculator.php
Which still assumes that ties result in co-champions instead of a tiebreaker.
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Re: "Basic strategy" for Final Jeopardy wagering?

Post by RKane »

So I have a general question for the vikings since this has come up.

Lets say the final scores are
18800
13800
12800

But basically any case where (third's score) > 2 * (first's score - second's score). This will overlap quite a bit with Stratton's Dilemma but I don't think either is a subset of the other.

Anyways, first has the well-defined strategy of $8801. Second (in Stratton's dilemma) has two well-defined strategies of everything (but at least $11801) or nothing (but at most $3800, or at most $999).

But what about third? The archive says at most $2800 to stay above first on a miss by first (also, in this case, at least $1001 in case second wagers zero, since $1001 < $2800).

But I feel like, in that situation, I would bot be able to go below $6001. I know it's not wise per se, but the thought of first getting cute by wagering zero, and me (third) being right and able to win but underbetting, is awful, and I would rather lose any way but this. In fact, in this case I would even be tempted to wager $11000 in case first tried to pull a Colby.

Now, whether I wanted too go $6001 or $11000, if wrong I am below the magic number (here $10000). So I may as well bet it all.

I guess my question is if I bet it all in such a situation (or at least $6001) would that be unjustifiable and raise the ire of the vikings?

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Re: "Basic strategy" for Final Jeopardy wagering?

Post by jeff6286 »

RKane wrote: Tue Feb 20, 2018 4:24 pm So I have a general question for the vikings since this has come up.

Lets say the final scores are
18800
13800
12800

But basically any case where (third's score) > 2 * (first's score - second's score). This will overlap quite a bit with Stratton's Dilemma but I don't think either is a subset of the other.

Anyways, first has the well-defined strategy of $8801. Second (in Stratton's dilemma) has two well-defined strategies of everything (but at least $11801) or nothing (but at most $3800, or at most $999).

But what about third? The archive says at most $2800 to stay above first on a miss by first (also, in this case, at least $1001 in case second wagers zero, since $1001 < $2800).

But I feel like, in that situation, I would bot be able to go below $6001. I know it's not wise per se, but the thought of first getting cute by wagering zero, and me (third) being right and able to win but underbetting, is awful, and I would rather lose any way but this. In fact, in this case I would even be tempted to wager $11000 in case first tried to pull a Colby.

Now, whether I wanted too go $6001 or $11000, if wrong I am below the magic number (here $10000). So I may as well bet it all.

I guess my question is if I bet it all in such a situation (or at least $6001) would that be unjustifiable and raise the ire of the vikings?

Cheers
I think this comes up often, moreso with second place wagering than with third, but there are similarities. Sure if you absolutely positively feel that you wouldn't be able to live with yourself if you got it right and lost due to underbetting, then you should bet it all, every time. It's always possible that first or second fails to cover, or tries to cover and makes a math error, or tries shoretegy, or feels no confidence and bets $0, or just bets $4000 or some other round number. In these cases, sure, it's possible that betting big might win you a game you would otherwise lose. You might get ridiculed here on the forum but if it wins you a game and $20k+ and the chance to play again, I think you'll survive the wagering vikings.

That being said, I guess in deciding on 2nd/3rd place wagers, the battle is between giving yourself what you feel is the best chance to win based on all known information, and between that nagging feeling of not wanting to get it right and still lose a winnable game. The long term history has been that the leader almost always bets to cover. This has always been the one thing you could generally count on, while 2nd/3rd place betting has seemingly always been 100% crapshoot. These days it seems the leader bets to cover less and less. I wonder if someone like cheezguyty could run something to determine how much this is the actual case. I'd be looking for "in what percent of non-lock games does the leader make at least the MSB, season by season?". My hunch is that the last two seasons would have the lowest numbers since the 1980s. If this was proven to be the case, then I'd love to see a long conversation about why this might be.
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