Monday, December 18, 2017 Game Recap and Discussion [SPOILERS]

[MattKnowles]

39R. Good game for me. 4/4 on daily doubles and FJ.

I did poorly in the VPs category. I said "Hesse" instead of "Grass" for the Tin Drum author clue. I got an alliterative German author but not the right one. I knew that and I'll get it next time. I said electric boogie instead of electric slide. I said phone tag instead of telephone tag but I think if I was actually playing and had a chance to look at the categories continuously I definitely would have gotten it and I gave myself credit.

I studied VPs before but need to review them again.

The first VP who did not cast a tie-breaking vote was John Tyler and that factoid has appeared in Final Jeopardy before. I missed the clue about the last Vice President to become President and said Ford.

[xxaaaxx]

Almost always have to respect a zero wager, most players don't have the guts to do so. Possibly because it will get laughed at by the ignorant.

I can respect it, even if I'd never do it; even the worst categories (like opera or poetry for me) can serve up relative softballs. He learned that the hard way with that Minority Report DD. Of course, this FJ was a softball and he was still miles off, so there ya go.

Instaget FJ.

[seaborgium]

I hope my claim last month that Garner lived to be 99 didn't throw anyone off when tonight's clue said he was 98. viewtopic.php?f=1&t=4425&p=265598#p265598
I made up for that a week and a half later with this post.

[bomtr]

Why in hell does 'evergreen' get a BMS when they're looking for perennial?

[jpr281]

Got American Gothic, but what nearly tripped me up was Grant Wood being the correct final response in Austin Rogers' fifth game just a couple months ago. I thought there was no way the writers would ask about essentially the same thing so close together, but sure enough...

I was thinking the same thing, but went with AG nonetheless.

[This Is Kirk!]

Why in hell does 'evergreen' get a BMS when they're looking for perennial?

Agreed. I guess Alex forgot about herbaceous perennials.

[twelvefootboy]

Unexpected ending, just like a couple of NFL games this weekend (I'm talking to you Steelers and Raiders). Ben made some loose guesses but I couldn't keep up with how imprudent they were based on box position. If you can't get in on the buzzer after processing the clue comfortably, you might as well elevate and decide in the air. Every shot not taken is missed. I was hoping to see Denise run a couple of games, but she was not aggressive with her bets.

"TELEPHONE" Tag. Please. This is like an idiom translation by Google Translate.

I still don't know who Philip K. Dick is but he must be a wheelhouse for other people. The sports terms were a well designed category with peripheral terms chosen with just enough ambiguity individually but unique in the Venn diagram as a group.

I got FJ because I know dozens of 20th century artworks, and they are all named American Gothic, just like George Foreman's sons are all named George.

[Peachbox]

I hope my claim last month that Garner lived to be 99 didn't throw anyone off when tonight's clue said he was 98. viewtopic.php?f=1&t=4425&p=265598#p265598
I made up for that a week and a half later with this post.

Your post was the reason I got that clue right.

[Volante]

I still don't know who Philip K. Dick is but he must be a wheelhouse for other people.

Incidentally, that inspired me to check the J6. My two precalls were the wrong answers...

[MattKnowles]

BEING ONE OF THESE LONG-LIVED TYPES THAT SURVIVE FROM SEASON TO SEASON, LIKE SOME SPECIES OF ASTER

Why in hell does 'evergreen' get a BMS when they're looking for perennial?

Why in hell does 'evergreen' get a BMS when they're looking for perennial?

Agreed. I guess Alex forgot about herbaceous perennials.

Her answer was technically correct but it was not the answer they were looking for so she got a BMS.

An evergreen is a long-lived plant that survives from season to season. I usually think of evergreen as trees but Wikipedia counts it as any plant species that maintains leaves year round and it looks like that includes some species of aster.

[TenPoundHammer]

Her answer was technically correct but it was not the answer they were looking fora word that has only the most vaguely tenuous connection imagineable to the correct response so she got a BMS.

FTFY

[alan tiger]

i guess that it is only the science fiction addicts around here who were waiting for this clue in the "Philip K. Dick" category:

"It's what the 'K' stands for."

"Could this be Kindred?"

[Elijah Baley]

I watched the DJ round first, and then went back to see the first half. Ben seemed jumpy and nervous the first half and I'm guessing that's why he kept blurting out responses that he immediately regretted. (And I'm not sure how Ghent keeps popping up as a European history response). That said, he seemed to have a good time despite the result.

And I guess betting nothing on FJ would take nerves but I'm not sure it's a wager designed to do much for Ben in this situation. I'm curious how common a TS is on FJ as I'm guessing that's at least more likely than everyone else also wagering zero.

[Peter the accountant]

I'm curious how common a TS is on FJ as I'm guessing that's at least more likely than everyone else also wagering zero.

I don't recall the exact percentage, but in very round figures a TS on FJ happens about 1/4 of the time. Another 1/4 is a triple get.

[AndyTheQuizzer]

RRR 18.6%
RRW 10.5%
RWR 9.5%
WRR 8.1%
RWW 12.1%
WRW 11.3%
WWR 9.4%
WWW 20.5%

[John Boy]

I see it on Learned League sometimes when an opponent has ART as the worst category. It’s one of those areas like opera that can be a nightmare for some people. Ben’s wager of zero has me wondering if ART was the last thing he wanted to see? The response of Guernica demonstrates he at least knows a title of a famous work that is within the scope of what appears in the FJ! round. As to how it fits the wording of the clue? Well….

He had the right decade at least.

I agree with both of you. I've often said that you ALMOST ALWAYS have to make the $1 lockout wager from the lead, UNLESS the final category is one that scares the life out of you. That must have been what happened to Ben, and his final answer pretty much confirmed it. Too bad, as that ruined what otherwise could have been an epic come-back-from-the-dead win.

For me such a category might be the concerts category from tonight's DJ round, in which I was hopelessly skunked.

Picked up only three TSs tonight, but all were bottom-row: (when breath becomes) air, Skylab, and John Nance Garner (the pride of Uvalde, Texas and author of the famous quote about the vice presidency...it's "not worth a bucket of warm spit."

[alietr]

OK, so if you're in the lead without a lock and the FJ category scares you, if you bet $0, you're still betting that it's going to be a TS. So the category not only has to scare you, but you are assuming that it's scaring the other contestants as well. So in my book, it's virtually never rational to bet $0 from the lead no matter what you think of the category (and the category can be very misleading).

[AFRET CMS]

Well, that was disappointing. I've spent a fair amount of time in Gdansk, and was excited that a category about Gdansk came up ... except you didn't need to know anything about Gdansk to get any of the clues.

I precalled "Danzig" and "Polish Corridor" as possible $200 clues, but I guess they weren't even worth the minimum.

[AFRET CMS]

* What do "I Am" and "Mrs. Carter" have to do with Beyonce?

Her 2008 album "I Am… Sasha Fierce" and her husband Jay-Z, whose real name is Shawn Carter.

Yep, none of that rings even the faintest of bells for me.

You're not alone on that one. Both hints were WAY over my head. Only two things I know about her are that her last name is/was Knowles and she once performed at a Super Bowl halftime. Oh, and she's famous -- I guess that makes three things.

[AFRET CMS]

I still don't know who Philip K. Dick is but he must be a wheelhouse for other people.

Pretty prolific SF author, so he's well-known among science fiction fans. Had a LOT of his original works adapted to movies and TV, many of them (such as "Blade Runner" and "Total Recall" fairly popular and well known. Wikipedia lists 13 works (original, not written specifically for performance). Not a record for an author, but high on the list for SF writers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_a ... ip_K._Dick

But his titles were often more intriguing than the retitling of the adaptation -- the inspiration for the two movies listed above were published as "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" and "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale."