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Re: Thursday, November 9, 2017 Game Recap and Discussion [SPOILERS]

Posted: Thu Nov 09, 2017 8:09 pm
by threearruda
Yeah I never would've gotten to Washington either. I thought about corn and picked Iowa as well though I knew it probably wasn't right. Congrats to Lisa for a very nice get. Re-watched a few of her games this week, so I'm excited to see her advance!

That was a really tough Final and a pair of tough boards, IMO. I agree with one of the above posters that it's disappointing that FJ clue difficulty has fluctuated a bit this week.

Extremely bummed at Seth's early ouster. On the other hand... this tourney has gotten realllly interesting the last two days with one of our 12x champs eliminated and the other not at his best. If Andrew departs early tomorrow, we're going to be in for a tremendously exciting crapshoot next week!

Re: Thursday, November 9, 2017 Game Recap and Discussion [SPOILERS]

Posted: Thu Nov 09, 2017 8:18 pm
by Category 13
Agree with dhk, this was a superb clue.
I quickly reasoned it out to apples = Washington, although I had a small worry it might be potatoes = Idaho for the remainder of the think music.

The contestants are not batting very well with WWII factoids in this tournament. Another TS with Pearl Harbor on Sunday.

Re: Thursday, November 9, 2017 Game Recap and Discussion [SPOILERS]

Posted: Thu Nov 09, 2017 8:27 pm
by opusthepenguin
I'm checking the box that says I knew it was apples but didn't guess Washington. I figured New York's a big apple-producing state and it's got a big city that has lots of street corners. Sure, Washington's bigger NOW. But in the '30s? I really thought I'd get this one.

Re: Thursday, November 9, 2017 Game Recap and Discussion [SPOILERS]

Posted: Thu Nov 09, 2017 8:32 pm
by zerobandwidth
dhkendall wrote: Thu Nov 09, 2017 6:05 pm I also wanted to come on to say that was an *excellent* FJ question. Absolutely worthy of the TOC, I'll even be so bold as to already say it's the most TOC-worthy clue of the 10 in this tournament, and I haven't seen half of them yet. Fantastic work, writers!
Agreed. Well-written, with a TOM usable only if your knowledge would already get you close on its own. This was a clue only The Best would get. Huge props to Lisa for the sole get. I had likewise never heard of the apples connection, but was at least in the produce sales ballpark, and followed "Cornhuskers" to Iowa as Seth did. Oh well.

I cannot get over how intense this ToC is. Every game so far has had me on the edge of my couch with my pulse pounding. The depth of the field this time around is just incredible, the pace is frenetic, and yet you can still tell that the players are having a ton of fun up there, even with the pressure. Buzzy, Austin, Jason, Lily, Justin — all were excellent players who were playing a game, and that attitude has been infectious. There was some talk in the Very Special Episode of #JeopardyLivePanel that the audience was crammed with former contestants; makes me wish I'd been there to witness this in person. I hope, after Austin's run attracted such a huge audience, that the incredible show they're putting on in this ToC turns those new viewers into fans. I don't see how it couldn't.

And now, for my other loss of the evening:
  • Thursday: Sam gets an early lead but Lisa and then Seth seize control of the game, with Seth eventually winning a lock.
At the end of the J! round I was thinking "Well, got it right so far, now time to watch Seth catch up and pull away..." And then he started to. And then Sam came back. And Lisa countered, and… just wow. Holy Schlitt, even. Upon further review not a single person had Lisa in winning QF4, though it fit @MarkBarrett's hypothetical "Director's Cut" lineup. ;) Now I only hope she caught her breath overnight and was able to pull herself together for the semifinal.

Re: Thursday, November 9, 2017 Game Recap and Discussion [SPOILERS]

Posted: Thu Nov 09, 2017 8:45 pm
by leszekp
Tricky FJ. Got apples pretty quickly, but vacillated between NY and Washington. Settled on Washington, but that was just a guess.

Re: Thursday, November 9, 2017 Game Recap and Discussion [SPOILERS]

Posted: Thu Nov 09, 2017 8:56 pm
by heppm01
Flailed wildly on the FJ. Immediate thought was shoe shining which lead me to cotton and one of the Carolinas but that seemed waaaay too tenuous. Next thought was popcorn and a state in the grain belt but owning a popcorn popper seemed too capital-intensive for the Depression (and did they even exist back then?) Finally settled on peanuts which led me to Georgia. Not a bad guess if I do say so myself, and if you were to give me a 50/50 on peanuts and apples I probably would pick peanuts.

Re: Thursday, November 9, 2017 Game Recap and Discussion [SPOILERS]

Posted: Thu Nov 09, 2017 9:39 pm
by mxc_takeshi
30 right.

Water (4), Words (3), Baby (3), "N" Literature (1), Italian (1), Manga (3)
Insurance (2), Screen (0), Where/When (4), Mechanics (2), Schopenhauer (3), Making (4)

Lach Trash: prosciutto, bond, Oahu & Sunday; Daily Double: Delaware & 1787

I was thinking either Iowa or Idaho, and went with the former.

Re: Thursday, November 9, 2017 Game Recap and Discussion [SPOILERS]

Posted: Thu Nov 09, 2017 10:28 pm
by Linear Gnome
opusthepenguin wrote: Thu Nov 09, 2017 8:27 pm I'm checking the box that says I knew it was apples but didn't guess Washington. I figured New York's a big apple-producing state and it's got a big city that has lots of street corners. Sure, Washington's bigger NOW. But in the '30s? I really thought I'd get this one.
What he said, except for the last sentence. I 50/50/90'ed between New York and Washington.

Re: Thursday, November 9, 2017 Game Recap and Discussion [SPOILERS]

Posted: Thu Nov 09, 2017 10:31 pm
by Volante
MinnesotaMyron wrote: Thu Nov 09, 2017 1:17 pm "Selling apples to get through the Great Depression" isn't as obvious a cliche as I thought. Ok. Hats off to Lisa for knowing it.
I have zero recognition of that saying, or the idea in general. Took a wild guess with CA.

Re: Thursday, November 9, 2017 Game Recap and Discussion [SPOILERS]

Posted: Thu Nov 09, 2017 10:46 pm
by seaborgium
After coming up with some weird idea of cotton relating to kids selling newspapers, I was trying to think of some Great Depression–associated phrase pertaining to street vendors, and I never got further than "apple something." But I took that apple and ran with it to Washington. I don't even know if I knew the fact behind that clue.

Re: Thursday, November 9, 2017 Game Recap and Discussion [SPOILERS]

Posted: Thu Nov 09, 2017 11:08 pm
by hbomb1947
This TOC has been like March Madness. On any given night, most of the players in this exceptionally deep and balanced field can beat any of the others -- even, for the second night in a row, a 12-game winner. I had Seth going to the finals; I definitely didn't see tonight's result coming. Congrats to Lisa on punching her ticket to the semis; and to Pranjal and Austin on clinching wild-cards.

This was the 3rd FJ in a row that was tougher than Monday's. I would say that it had a YEKIOYD aspect to it, but although I had never heard about apples being sold on street corners during the Depression, I made a lucky semi-guess. I reasoned that apples made the most sense for a "crop" that would be sold cheaply on street-corners and for which there would be good demand. I did consider, but rejected, potatoes. Once I settled on apples, that led me Pavlovianly to Washington State.

Re: Thursday, November 9, 2017 Game Recap and Discussion [SPOILERS]

Posted: Thu Nov 09, 2017 11:13 pm
by Wheatley
Is "tops of the US crop" an actual phrase? Among the many reasons I failed to get this, was that I was so baffled by that weird wording

Re: Thursday, November 9, 2017 Game Recap and Discussion [SPOILERS]

Posted: Thu Nov 09, 2017 11:36 pm
by sims
So yeah, the wording on FJ confused me but I saw it said "this state" so I guessed Iowa. Not familiar with the apple-selling, although if I had known apples I absolutely would have guessed Washington. Also knew none of the DDs today.

LT: Prosciutto, Term (we get commercials for term life insurance all the time during J!), and bond.

I was so happy to see Lisa win. Though some of the contestants in the ToC are familiar to me (some all too familiar), she is one who I really remember watching. When we missed an episode, my husband and I would tune into the next one like, "I hope Lisa's still on!" She's a great player and I also loved her interview portion.

Re: Thursday, November 9, 2017 Game Recap and Discussion [SPOILERS]

Posted: Thu Nov 09, 2017 11:58 pm
by oduguy22
Peter the accountant wrote: Thu Nov 09, 2017 4:29 pm Had a chance to watch early today (thanks to Reddit).

I was in despair after the J! round blanking on three whole categories. Never heard of Manga (is that some kind of East Asian genre of literature? I'll have to look it up), along with a pure lit category. I've been looking at geography, but mainly at the land portion. Need to work on bodies of water.

Fortunately, the DJ! round was kinder to me. Ran the insurance category and got 3/5 in Making Words (plus one of my 2 wrong answers - bottom row again). Stumped on the movies. Never heard of Schopenhauer, but managed to figure one clue out anyway.

Figured out apples and the sales of same quickly, but didn't know where the bumper crop was. Guessed NY. Right latitude, wrong longitude. My mind never went west of the Mississippi in search of an answer.

Right: 18
Wrong: 2 (one top row, one bottom)
Coryat: 14400

LT: 4 (2 in insurance and 2 in where & when)


I was surprised at the number of triple stumpers in the game. Glad to see Lisa moving on. Going into FJ! I thought at least one of the players would earn a wild card spot. But the tougher question ruled that out.

Yes I was quite delighted to see Manga, that has definitely got to be a first (at least from what I have ever seen) for a category dedicated to it. I have spent a lot of time reading manga and watching anime so they were easy gets, but yes Manga is Japanese graphic novel/comics, and Anime is the cartoon equivalent. That and the Bodies of Water categories were good to me, and picked up some trash with Prosciutto and Orange River.

For FJ this week, I am far 3/4, all i could think of was potatoes, so i went with Idaho.

Re: Thursday, November 9, 2017 Game Recap and Discussion [SPOILERS]

Posted: Fri Nov 10, 2017 12:35 am
by mfc248
sims wrote: Thu Nov 09, 2017 11:36 pm So yeah, the wording on FJ confused me but I saw it said "this state" so I guessed Iowa. Not familiar with the apple-selling, although if I had known apples I absolutely would have guessed Washington. Also knew none of the DDs today.

LT: Prosciutto, Term (we get commercials for term life insurance all the time during J!), and bond.

I was so happy to see Lisa win. Though some of the contestants in the ToC are familiar to me (some all too familiar), she is one who I really remember watching. When we missed an episode, my husband and I would tune into the next one like, "I hope Lisa's still on!" She's a great player and I also loved her interview portion.
Seeing Sam again recalled memories not only of his tournament, but of one specific clue from his final - Niki beating him to the buzzer on "Kanye West." He got the last laugh with the chance to come back and perhaps wear the Yeezy line on Stage 10.

But this was the one game of this week in which I had a clear rooting interest. I opened with a full Lynah Rink introductory; I later noted that the money from Lisa's six wins could buy 21,400 Pinesburgers. (The $2000 from game seven? That goes to "legal beverages.") And that correction on the interview was spot on. In quite a few ways, Cornell stands distinct from its seven conference foes - perhaps most notably, it's been coeducational since the founding in 1865.

And that Final solve...quite nicely done. Had I gotten to apples, I'd have been there; my sports knowledge runs deep enough to know that the Huskies and Cougars face off for the Apple Cup each fall. But I got stuck on corn, and while I considered going Seth's way, I checked down to Nebraska. On that clue - and indeed, throughout the game - Lisa was certainly "far above..."

Re: Thursday, November 9, 2017 Game Recap and Discussion [SPOILERS]

Posted: Fri Nov 10, 2017 2:22 am
by Lefty
Wheatley wrote: Thu Nov 09, 2017 11:13 pm Is "tops of the US crop" an actual phrase? Among the many reasons I failed to get this, was that I was so baffled by that weird wording
Only "tops-in-the-US" was linked by hyphens. I think they were simply aiming for concision.

I did guess Washington confidently, perhaps because I once almost knew someone who picked apples for a while in Washington. As for the clue...on the up side, it did require the connecting of a couple of dots, which is nice (I haven't done many connect-the-dots puzzles since I discovered the wonders of wordsearch). But the fact that one particular state produced more apples than any other state in one particular Depression year, which may, for all I know, have been the worst year ever for apples and the only year that Washington ever led in anything, is a pretty slender reed to construct an FJ from.

Re: Thursday, November 9, 2017 Game Recap and Discussion [SPOILERS]

Posted: Fri Nov 10, 2017 3:42 am
by dinghammer
Put me in the "never heard of any salesman Hill apples-in-the-Depression thing" column.

Even though I didn't think people were selling potatoes and potato accessories on street corners, I figured naming a state that's known for a crop would narrow my chances from 1-in-48 to 1-in-a-smaller-number. If I could have thought of a crop related to shoe-shining or a way to consider newspapers a crop (and a state known for it -- apparently Wisconsin is the biggest paper producer now), I might have gone with something else. The only way I could have been correct would have been a lucky guess.

Re: Thursday, November 9, 2017 Game Recap and Discussion [SPOILERS]

Posted: Fri Nov 10, 2017 8:16 am
by morbeedo
Great game! Tough Final! Happy to see Lisa advance!

I’m also surprised by the missed clues. A Place in the Sun is a great film, adapted from Dreiser’s “An American Tragedy.” I remember Seth being strong in movies from his run, so I expected him to get this one. The Blondie clue, otoh, went right over my head (“dyed her hair”). Orange river and prosciutto were odd stand and stares

WHERE AND WHEN is my nightmare category! MANGA was pretty tough for me, too

Re: Thursday, November 9, 2017 Game Recap and Discussion [SPOILERS]

Posted: Fri Nov 10, 2017 9:07 am
by Foretopman
Have they ever done a category like "Where & When" before? I really liked it, at least partially because it felt new and different.

Re: Thursday, November 9, 2017 Game Recap and Discussion [SPOILERS]

Posted: Fri Nov 10, 2017 10:04 am
by opusthepenguin
oduguy22 wrote: Thu Nov 09, 2017 11:58 pm Yes I was quite delighted to see Manga, that has definitely got to be a first (at least from what I have ever seen) for a category dedicated to it.
Yep, this looks like the first time. In 2008 there was a WE HAVE MET THE ANIME category. That would be the closest they've come prior.