idearat wrote: ↑Fri Dec 15, 2017 1:34 am
With no one getting the answer correct, the returning champ should have been the winner.
How do you figure, given he finished behind someone who bet $0?
Incidentally, how has no one mentioned the folly of Brennan's standing pat? Assuming Craig makes the predictable "internal shutout" bet of $5201, a miss leaves him with $11,599. So Brennan's $11,000 stands no chance to win without improving.
Brennan's only hope is a sole get and an improvement of at least $600; in fact, since a miss loses the game anyway, he has nothing to lose by going all in. By standing pat, he threw away his only chance of winning. If Craig had missed the question, Brennan would have kicked a game he should have won.
Last edited by OldSchoolChamp on Fri Dec 15, 2017 6:38 am, edited 1 time in total.
We shall not cease from exploration,
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
I'm embarrassed to say that even though I'm from Ohio and work in the automotive industry, I saw "Akron" and "2016" and immediately jumped to LeBron James. I even justified the "Wingfoot" as a reference to his wingspan or hops. Once I went down that hole, there was no clawing my way back out...
It looks like “I counted my response of ‘airship’ as correct on FJ Thursday, knowing the new Goodyear Blimps aren’t actually blimps” is a good poll option this week.
OldSchoolChamp wrote: ↑Fri Dec 15, 2017 6:34 am
Incidentally, how has no one mentioned the folly of Brennan's standing pat? Assuming Craig makes the predictable "internal shutout" bet of $5201, a miss leaves him with $11,599. So Brennan's $11,000 stands no chance to win without improving.
Brennan's only hope is a sole get and an improvement of at least $600; in fact, since a miss loses the game anyway, he has nothing to lose by going all in. By standing pat, he threw away his only chance of winning. If Craig had missed the question, Brennan would have kicked a game he should have won.
While I have not looked specifically at the tendencies in this situation yet, my gut instinct would tell me that, judging by how the average trailing contestant bets, you have likely overestimated how often 2nd place bets like Craig does (and how often 2nd place makes a terrible bet here.)
Andy Saunders
J! Archive Founding Archivist
Publisher - The Jeopardy! Fan
idearat wrote: ↑Fri Dec 15, 2017 1:34 am
With no one getting the answer correct, the returning champ should have been the winner.
How do you figure, given he finished behind someone who bet $0?
Incidentally, how has no one mentioned the folly of Brennan's standing pat? Assuming Craig makes the predictable "internal shutout" bet of $5201, a miss leaves him with $11,599. So Brennan's $11,000 stands no chance to win without improving.
Brennan's only hope is a sole get and an improvement of at least $600; in fact, since a miss loses the game anyway, he has nothing to lose by going all in. By standing pat, he threw away his only chance of winning. If Craig had missed the question, Brennan would have kicked a game he should have won.
Brennan was in the dilemma caused by having more than twice the difference between second and first (can stay put and let first fall behind him on a miss attempting to cover second), but less than two thirds of second's score (can't win staying put if second only wagers to cover third), and less than half first's (no happy medium that gets above second on a sole get and stays above first on a triple stumper). He had to decide whether to stay put and hope Craig would go big and miss (see Matt Kohlstedt game 4), or bet a bunch and hope for a sole get. I'm glad the low wager didn't end up costing him the game, since Craig did end up just covering him. Maybe he wishes he had gone out with a bang, but bang or whimper he was going out with $2,000.
I didn't come up with anything related to dirigibles. The argument over the validity of blimp gave me an excuse to use the fancier word. I had soapbox derby racer. They were going for some kind of transportation, it was Akron, and the category was "Americana." Soapbox derby racer made sense to me and even knowing Goodyear was based in Akron I wouldn't have gotten there unless I had known "Wingfoot" was associated with Goodyear. At least I know it now.
Tough to see Bryce go. We've seen two good champions get the boot in just two days.
I had a dream that I was asleep and then I woke up and Jeopardy! was on.
lindap wrote: ↑Fri Dec 15, 2017 6:56 am
I just couldn't bring myself to write the technically inaccurate "blimp."
Except that's what Goodyear calls them.
Still doesn't make it correct.
Anyone saying "blimp" shouldn't be accepted is actually full of hot air, of course, but it's not a blimp.
Responding here because there is praise and additional follow-up trivia to be included.
TenPoundHammer wrote: ↑Thu Dec 14, 2017 8:48 pm
Monte Cristo was my only miss in "M"mmmm.
Ran the "Cold" category and Eponymous Animals. "Anubis" was overvalued at $2,000.
My mom is a huge Steinbeck fan, but I didn't recognize the bottom 2 titles.
Lach Trash: Thumb, "East of Eden"
Nice!
There's a definite drop-off in "common trivia knowledge" of Steinbeck novels. Having read only Of Mice and Men myself, that was my only get in that column; 3/5 is a great showing.
TenPoundHammer wrote: ↑Thu Dec 14, 2017 8:48 pm
Grand Cayman = Caribbean was new to me.
So with no other TOM, I'm supposed to know that Camp David was named for Eisenhower's son?
I joined the contestants in trying to turn "decapitate" into an adjective with no success. "Capital" having the same root never crossed my mind.
Why should I know where Dante was exiled from? That seemed obscure for the top box.
Yet another FJ! that's a billion miles over my head. Can they make this crap any goddamn harder?! What kind of insane leap of logic made this 2/3?!?
Grand Cayman is a big tourist destination. Watch enough other game shows and you'll probably see people win trips there on a fairly regular basis. (Similarly, catching a lot of the original run of Press Your Luck in the '80s is, IIRC, the only reason I've heard of Ixtapa, a beach resort in Mexico — if not, then it's definitely the first context in which I heard of it.)
The big tease-out on the Eisenhower clue was the picture of President Eisenhower. He's pretty unmistakable. And David was the president's middle name. Tangent: He's also the president pictured on the old large-scale silver dollar coins, including the bicentennial casting which carried a picture of the Liberty Bell on the tails side. I'm no serious numismatist, but the "regular" big silver dollar is one of the few coins I've bothered collecting, because the tails side is this amazing picture of a bald eagle, with wings outstretched, standing on the moon.
"Capital" was a bit of a stretch.
The Dante clue is easy for J! because they love everything about that story. A poll of the general trivia buff population would probably score lower than a poll of folks who study J-Archive intensely, with the overlap coming from people who have actually, you know, read the book.
In retrospect, "Wingfoot" was the tease-out, because of Goodyear's logo, in combination with "Akron", which is where Goodyear's airships are based. I kicked myself after the reveal, because I knew both of those things, but my brain didn't connect the dots in time. (Or even recognize them as dots to be connected, for that matter.)
twelvefootboy wrote: ↑Fri Dec 15, 2017 12:05 am
I questioned the 2nd place bet and decided it was cromulent. But I think I would have gambled for the big payday over the 1000 dollar hedge.
Craig's bet was fine. I'm not sure if I totally understood your comment so my apologies if I'm explaining something you don't need to have explained.
If you're in second place and you're within 2/3 of the first place player's score you want to bet to win if the first place player gets it wrong.
Craig had 16800 in second place so Bryce has to get to 33600 in order to win. Bryce makes the standard wager of 11401 in order to cover second place. If Bryce misses he falls to 10799 or maybe 10800. Craig should try to bet so that he does not fall below 10800. So Craig would like to bet less than 6000 and then he wins on a triple stumper and some other scenarios. Since Brennan is in third at 11000 it makes sense for Craig to protect himself and try to go over 22000. Craig's ideal bet is between 5201 and 5999. He absolutely bet correctly.
I had a dream that I was asleep and then I woke up and Jeopardy! was on.
idearat wrote: ↑Fri Dec 15, 2017 1:34 am
With no one getting the answer correct, the returning champ should have been the winner.
How do you figure, given he finished behind someone who bet $0?
Incidentally, how has no one mentioned the folly of Brennan's standing pat? Assuming Craig makes the predictable "internal shutout" bet of $5201, a miss leaves him with $11,599. So Brennan's $11,000 stands no chance to win without improving.
Brennan's only hope is a sole get and an improvement of at least $600; in fact, since a miss loses the game anyway, he has nothing to lose by going all in. By standing pat, he threw away his only chance of winning. If Craig had missed the question, Brennan would have kicked a game he should have won.
Brennan was in the dilemma caused by having more than twice the difference between second and first (can stay put and let first fall behind him on a miss attempting to cover second), but less than two thirds of second's score (can't win staying put if second only wagers to cover third), and less than half first's (no happy medium that gets above second on a sole get and stays above first on a triple stumper). He had to decide whether to stay put and hope Craig would go big and miss (see Matt Kohlstedt game 4), or bet a bunch and hope for a sole get. I'm glad the low wager didn't end up costing him the game, since Craig did end up just covering him. Maybe he wishes he had gone out with a bang, but bang or whimper he was going out with $2,000.
I've studied the CRAP out of this wagering stuff, and this is one of the situations that still makes my eyes cross. I hope I never have to deal with Brennan's situation, in particular...
...but seaborgium's cogent summary paragraph above helps me get a little closer to truly grokking this topic. So, thanks for that.
Last edited by RobW on Fri Dec 15, 2017 10:27 am, edited 1 time in total.
heppm01 wrote:
I'm no wagering savant but I thought that a poor FJ bet by Craig. He was apparently trying to protect against a double by Brennan, but since if he misses the answer he drops to third he might as well have bet $5401 to have a shot at winning if Bryce misses or bet $0.
It was poor strategy decision but not an entirely poor bet. You are correct he would be wise to wager enough to force the leader to get it correct. He could have bet up to $5599 in anticipation of a 199-200 wager by Brennan.
IMHO Craig's FJ wager was spot-on. Highly unlikely Bryce will wager $0 on a category such as Americana (Bryce did indeed wager perfectly, the $1 lockout). He might have bet $1,200 more if he felt like covering a $0 bet by the champ, and without risking losing in the event of a TS. But his bet was just fine.
In the category of COINCIDENCE with a capital COIN: Literally just yesterday morning, 12 hours before this game, I saw a news feature about the new hangar facility constructed in SoCal for the Wingfoot II. I probably would have gotten this FJ anyway because of Akron = rubber = Goodyear (a facility where I have done a couple of jobs in the past year or so) = blimp. But the coincidence made this an absolute Instaget no-brainer. Surprised the champ missed it.
I never heard about John Cleese's affinity for lemurs. Ask me what animal (esp. in tropical climes) he wants to help, I guess parrot every time. Oh well.
John Boy wrote: ↑Fri Dec 15, 2017 9:59 am
never heard about John Cleese's affinity for lemurs. Ask me what animal (esp. in tropical climes) he wants to help, I guess parrot every time. Oh well.
heppm01 wrote:
I'm no wagering savant but I thought that a poor FJ bet by Craig. He was apparently trying to protect against a double by Brennan, but since if he misses the answer he drops to third he might as well have bet $5401 to have a shot at winning if Bryce misses or bet $0.
It was poor strategy decision but not an entirely poor bet. You are correct he would be wise to wager enough to force the leader to get it correct. He could have bet up to $5599 in anticipation of a 199-200 wager by Brennan.
IMHO Craig's FJ wager was spot-on. Highly unlikely Bryce will wager $0 on a category such as Americana (Bryce did indeed wager perfectly, the $1 lockout). He might have bet $200 more if he felt like covering a $0 bet by the champ, and without risking losing in the event of a TS. But his bet was just fine.
In the category of COINCIDENCE with a capital COIN: Literally just yesterday morning, 12 hours before this game, I saw a news feature about the new hangar facility constructed in SoCal for the Wingfoot II. I probably would have gotten this FJ anyway because of Akron = rubber = Goodyear (a facility where I have done a couple of jobs in the past year or so) = blimp. But the coincidence made this an absolute Instaget no-brainer. Surprised the champ missed it.
I never heard about John Cleese's affinity for lemurs. Ask me what animal (esp. in tropical climes) he wants to help, I guess parrot every time. Oh well.
John Boy wrote: ↑Fri Dec 15, 2017 9:59 am
never heard about John Cleese's affinity for lemurs. Ask me what animal (esp. in tropical climes) he wants to help, I guess parrot every time. Oh well.
He's only interested in dead parrots.
E's probably pining for the fjords!
And I thought that the three TS for Steinbeck was kind of embarrassing for the guys - their middle school English teachers probably spent the rest of the evening sobbing. And yet Craig knew Leviathan before Alex finished reading the clue. The vagaries of trivia, I guess.
John Boy wrote: ↑Fri Dec 15, 2017 9:59 am
IMHO Craig's FJ wager was spot-on. Highly unlikely Bryce will wager $0 on a category such as Americana (Bryce did indeed wager perfectly, the $1 lockout). He might have bet $1,200 more if he felt like covering a $0 bet by the champ, and without risking losing in the event of a TS. But his bet was just fine.
You meant to edit this post, but you quoted it and edited the quote instead.
