Monday, November 6, 2017 Game Recap and Discussion [SPOILERS]

[Peter the accountant]

On FJ, I immediately went to what was the right answer. But then I had to pause and do the math. I've been tripped up multiple times because I didn't take the time to do that bit of cipherin'. When the math worked out, I stuck with the answer even though it seemed way too easy. Plus I didn't have any other alternative.

[opusthepenguin]

I take it that the ToC takes place every two years (I believe that the last ToC was in 2015, with Alex Jacob the winner). Is that why the 2017 lineup includes the College Championship winners and the Teachers Tournament winners for both last year and this year?

Jasper

P.S. Why is one called the College Championship and the other the Teachers Tournament when both have the same format?

Alliteration is Awesome.

There's a few pedants here who would say that one of these is not alliteration.

(I'd say they both are by what has been accepted as alliteration by J! if I recall right. Whether that really is alliteration or not ... )

College Championship definitely isn't. You can call it eye alliteration if you want (kind of like "eye rhymes" such as cough and dough). But the initial SOUNDS do not alliterate. However, as you note, the J! writers don't understand this. Their game, their rules. I'll be happy to play by those rules any time they invite me.

Unless you were talking about Alliteration is Awesome. That definitely alliterates, not only by the rules of J! but by the rules of Anglo Saxon alliterative verse. In fact, in Anglo Saxon verse, all vowels alliterate together. So Alliteration is Excellent would also count. But I wouldn't bet a nickel on a contestant winning an appeal with this argument after giving an unexpected response in an alliteration category. I do wonder how the judges would rule on a response like Awesome Occam, assuming it was otherwise valid. The vowel sounds are the same (or close enough). It's just the letter representing that sound that changes.

[opusthepenguin]

Surprised that the “Cave Wars” clue was an S&S. Given it’s a cave that’s a national park narrows it down to a 50-50 chance between Mammoth Cave or Carlsbad Caverns.

Unless I know which one, I'm clamming. The potential downside of guessing wrong is twice as large as the upside of guessing right. I can only gain the value of the clue, but I can lose the value of the clue AND give that value to my opponent on an easy rebound. Let someone else ring in on that negative expected value and I'LL pick up the rebound points, thankyewverymuch.

[opusthepenguin]

Blake was easy to me because his art style is very distinctive and I feel like there aren't that many poets that illustrated their own work but I may be wrong about that.

He's definitely the pavlov for it. Dante Gabriel Rossetti also comes to mind as a poet and painter who sometimes created paintings to go with his poems and vice versa. But Blake actually mixed the things on the same page, creating his own plates with text and art together.

[davey]

Surprised that the “Cave Wars” clue was an S&S. Given it’s a cave that’s a national park narrows it down to a 50-50 chance between Mammoth Cave or Carlsbad Caverns.

Unless I know which one, I'm clamming. The potential downside of guessing wrong is twice as large as the upside of guessing right. I can only gain the value of the clue, but I can lose the value of the clue AND give that value to my opponent on an easy rebound. Let someone else ring in on that negative expected value and I'LL pick up the rebound points, thankyewverymuch.

The Cave Wars are pretty famous, though. Many people have heard the story of Floyd Collins who died as a result of those wars.

[opusthepenguin]

Blake was easy to me because his art style is very distinctive and I feel like there aren't that many poets that illustrated their own work but I may be wrong about that.

And the image shown is probably his single most famous illustration.

I could have sworn the clue said something about the 17th century, though, and that threw me a little. Maybe I misheard.

"In the 1700s" is how the clue begins. And yeah that illustration is definitely a contender for his most famous. Maybe this would be another contender. Not sure if there's a third.

[opusthepenguin]

Fun fact: My favorite recording of the 1812 Overture uses real cannons, real church bells, and has a choir singing an English translation of the Russian hymn tune that begins the piece. (The overture as written doesn't involve a choir singing in any language. So this isn't just translating something that Tchaikovsky already wrote. It's a cheerful leaning into the overture's vulgar excess. That's the right move, in my opinion, and it works wonderfully. This is not a subtle and restrained piece of music.)

Anyway, the first line of the overture in this version is, "Mighty Lord, preserve us from Jeopardy!"

You can give it a listen here if you want:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3ZMpv9CnZk

[AFRET CMS]

Ammo for the conspiracy buffs with Buzzy the music executive getting a FJ! category of MUSIC & HISTORY.

Definitely a lot of music clues tonight. My wife accused them of feeding Buzzy.

My first instinct on FJ was the 1812 Overture, but Borodino just didn't sound Russian to me so I said "Carmen." Pretty terrible guess, but oh well.

Borodino actually cued to me Russia before the date did; Alexander Borodin was a Russian composer who wrote the classical piece from which the pop song "Stranger in Paradise" was derived. My chain went "Russian? Early 1800s? Tchaikovsky? Has to be 1812 Overture." Not quite instant, but it got me there.

[AFRET CMS]

WTG Buzzy! Sorry Hunter ouch! J! loves to call up the more obscure artists and poets in these tournaments... tough break.

45R for goats. Instaget FJ. LT (Not much!): Martina Navratilova ex: Prague, CZ; Anatolia > Hittites; MDD: Wm Blake "painter poet"; I offered Coleridge for Poe on Tamurlane, however! DOH!

No get on Ford Futura > Fusion. AT a bit arro on that clue IMHO, IDK WLT "Ford" from "Detroit Auto Show" LOL!

We seem to be of a similar era; I got sidetracked because of the Falcon Futura model Ford produced in the 1960s. If memory serves, it was a sportier version of the basic Falcon. Which meant I neglected the clue's category title until it was too late.

[Volante]

College Championship definitely isn't. You can call it eye alliteration if you want (kind of like "eye rhymes" such as cough and dough). But the initial SOUNDS do not alliterate. However, as you note, the J! writers don't understand this. Their game, their rules. I'll be happy to play by those rules any time they invite me.

I was leaning heavily on J! rules / eye alliteration, not the dictionary definition.

Surprised that the “Cave Wars” clue was an S&S. Given it’s a cave that’s a national park narrows it down to a 50-50 chance between Mammoth Cave or Carlsbad Caverns.

Unless I know which one, I'm clamming. The potential downside of guessing wrong is twice as large as the upside of guessing right. I can only gain the value of the clue, but I can lose the value of the clue AND give that value to my opponent on an easy rebound. Let someone else ring in on that negative expected value and I'LL pick up the rebound points, thankyewverymuch.

The Cave Wars are pretty famous, though. Many people have heard the story of Floyd Collins who died as a result of those wars.

Didn't they also give you '1920s' in the clue? I feel they gave a year on that one too...

[dhkendall]

Fun fact: My favorite recording of the 1812 Overture uses real cannons, real church bells, and has a choir singing an English translation of the Russian hymn tune that begins the piece. (The overture as written doesn't involve a choir singing in any language. So this isn't just translating something that Tchaikovsky already wrote. It's a cheerful leaning into the overture's vulgar excess. That's the right move, in my opinion, and it works wonderfully. This is not a subtle and restrained piece of music.)

Anyway, the first line of the overture in this version is, "Mighty Lord, preserve us from Jeopardy!"

You can give it a listen here if you want:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3ZMpv9CnZk

My favourite performance was one I saw in person about 20 years ago when the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra performed the 1812 Overture to close out a free outdoor concert. They had real cannons courtesy a unit of the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry that operated them, real fireworks, and real church bells courtesy the St. Boniface Basilica about half a mile away across the river. That was something to see live, no performance without the real McCoys will cut it.

The 1812 Overture is one of my favourite pieces (and not just because it has two national anthems sampled in it, the French “La Marseillaise” and the Russian “God Save the Czar” near the end. Fun fact, neither of those songs were the national anthems of their respective countries in 1812, but they were in 1880, when it was composed! (That’s partly how I got this Final, but I still did the math to be sure))

[opusthepenguin]

The 1812 Overture is one of my favourite pieces

https://youtu.be/ybSUlry7hW4?t=5m46s

[goatman]

WTG Buzzy! Sorry Hunter ouch! J! loves to call up the more obscure artists and poets in these tournaments... tough break.

45R for goats. Instaget FJ. LT (Not much!): Martina Navratilova ex: Prague, CZ; Anatolia > Hittites; MDD: Wm Blake "painter poet"; I offered Coleridge for Poe on Tamurlane, however! DOH!

No get on Ford Futura > Fusion. AT a bit arro on that clue IMHO, IDK WLT "Ford" from "Detroit Auto Show" LOL!

We seem to be of a similar era; I got sidetracked because of the Falcon Futura model Ford produced in the 1960s. If memory serves, it was a sportier version of the basic Falcon. Which meant I neglected the clue's category title until it was too late.

LOL CMS! Yeah somehow I envisioned the Falcon but then wondered why I got that impression- took long enough to run out the buzzer, so no get.
Falcon was a lousy car and Ford scrapped it altogether but used the chassis and parts of drivetrain for the 1964 Mustang- which made early Pony cars stiff and rigid handling underpowered dogs with unresponsive steering and a wearisome grind to drive any distance, my back still hurts from 1968...ROFLMAO!! Some kind of strange subconscious counterintuition processing going on in there... O!

[BigDaddyMatty]

Coryat: $27,400
37 R/2 W
DD: 1/3
FJ:
LT: the Silver Bullet Band, the Melody Makers, Prague, Ford Fusion, Square Pegs, Celestine

I understand that music likely makes up a very large portion of Buzzy's daily life, but that FJ! wager was nuts. On a related note, I'm surprised he didn't know Bob Seger's and Ziggy Marley's backing bands.