TheSunWillComeOut wrote: ↑Wed Jun 05, 2019 3:25 pm
This is why I've been rolling my eyes at the "JAMES HAS CHANGED JEOPARDY! FOREVER" articles. What we ARE going to see is more contestants who go in with the intention of playing like him, and quickly realize that they don't have the buzzer timing/raw knowledge to pull it off, or get a sobering dose of how many of their opponents are also sharks ready for a feeding frenzy. I envisioned "snaking" across the bottom row, too - not for a deliberate bankroll, that didn't even occur to me, but just as a show of dominance. Figured out by the practice session that I wasn't strong enough, and that the signaling device was not my enemy but also not my friend. I stuck to DD hunting and that worked out well enough for me.
The more I think about it, the more I am convinced that James's strategy of starting from the bottom row is indeed optimal for most contestants. It's just that most contestants can't expect to win by employing it, because the fundamentals (knowledge and buzzer timing) are far more important than strategy, and only roughly 1 out of 4 people who appear on the show ever win. But it should still marginally increase the winning probability of the player who uses it and whose opponents don't.
The people who shouldn't use this strategy are those who are good on the buzzer, but weak on the knowledge of bottom-row clues. They would squander their buzzer advantage by going to clues likely to stump them. They should still go to the bottom if they see a wheelhouse category. (But nobody knows in the J! round of their first game if they are good on the buzzer, so this advice to stay away from bottom-up strategy mostly applies to returning champions.)
TheSunWillComeOut wrote: ↑Wed Jun 05, 2019 3:25 pm
If anyone in the Pool reading this has fantasies in which you're chewing up the board as other contestants look on in horror, you gotta ask yourself whether you're hovering near the top of your A Rundle in LL or the World Quizzing Championships year after year, and if you're not, you better start training for this show like you're in a martial-arts film until you get to that level, because otherwise I can tell you that right now that you are not the next James Holzhauer.
twelvefootboy wrote: ↑Tue Jun 04, 2019 11:31 pm
That was weird. As others have pointed out - she beat him in the first game she saw him and he didn't deploy any big time bets.
And the question at the interview - I suppose it's part of the facade that games are in real time and she (supposedly) just saw him run off a 30-something streak on the television picture tube before she arrived to play.
Correct. I thought it was pretty funny that Emma had no idea what Alex was talking about.
She should have just said “that’s right, Alex” with a cold stare
I find MarkBarrett's recaps valuable whether or not I've seen the episode. He frequently comments on a strategic consideration that I hadn't noticed. Also, if I've watched a few episodes back to back before reading the JBoard threads, the recaps are a good reminder of which episode was which.
jeopardyfan939 wrote: ↑Tue Jun 04, 2019 2:51 pm
Being this is the first post-Holzhauer game, did Emma or any of the challengers implement any of James' strategies (e.g. aggressive DD/FJ wagering, Forrest Bounce)?
Seeing as no one actually answered your question, yes. There were definitely elements of James' strategy present in this game. The game play was very roughly bottom up, categories changed frequently, and there was definitely some DD hunting in the DJ! round. The DD wagers were not wimpy.
But I did find it interesting that Emma chose to stick with a single category for her first 5 picks, running a category from the bottom up to start the J! round.
That got me thinking about tweaks to James' strategy. I'd describe his basic J! round strategy as accumulating money quickly before hunting for the DD so that you can maximize your funds available to wager on that DD. So what if you get an oddball category, like Vowelless Bible Books, which is unlikely to have the DD and you're really good at that one? Why not clear it out to add to the bankroll for the DD? As an argument against that, you are giving your opponents more opportunities to ring in ahead of you. They are going to beat you to the buzzer some percentage of the time.
It seems odd to speak of tactics like Forrest Bouncing and aggressive wagering as "James's strategy" when they've been part of the traditional toolbox of long-running J! champs for decades now. Anyone who's done their research before going on the show knows that's the optimal way to play, regardless of whether they choose to implement it. It reminds me of when all those articles were going on about Arthur Chu "breaking Jeopardy!" just for category-bouncing. Nothing new under the sun, etc.
The deliberate bankroll accumulation mentioned here is the only tactic that can be said to be a true "James signature move." Others have tried, but it's a strategy that requires the contestant to maintain consistent control of the board to work, which is rare in its own right given that it involves giving correct responses to most bottom-row clues AND ringing in first nearly every time. Those massive wagers arguably deserve inclusion as well, but in the end, they're inextricable from that other element of his gameplay, because he wouldn't be in a position to put up figures like that had he not done the high-value roll-up beforehand.
I'm not trying to imply that James came up with the specific tactics he employed. But while I'm far from the most knowledgeable of J! history, I think this particular combination of tactics into an overall strategy is reasonably unique. Yes, he used tactics that have been employed before (although one might argue that he wasn't really using a Forrest Bounce to throw opponents off their game, it was simply a good way to raise a bankroll for the DD clues). It's the combination of those tactics that becomes "James' strategy". Of course, the key tactic of his overall strategy was to know way more trivia than anyone else holding a buzzer, because without that, the other tactics lose most of their effectiveness.
Newhausen wrote: ↑Wed Jun 05, 2019 12:08 am
I think I thought the English Channel is a bit larger than it is and ended up with Portugal. Might have zeroed in on the right country with another 30 seconds.
Golf wrote: ↑Tue Jun 04, 2019 8:51 pm
Liz gave a wrong answer and Alex let her get away with it.
If you're thinking of the same clue as I am, isn't it generally acceptable to omit leading articles from titles?
Mathew5000 wrote: ↑Thu Jun 06, 2019 2:57 am
I find MarkBarrett's recaps valuable whether or not I've seen the episode. He frequently comments on a strategic consideration that I hadn't noticed. Also, if I've watched a few episodes back to back before reading the JBoard threads, the recaps are a good reminder of which episode was which.
I normally don't care for posts that are simply "I agree" without adding anything substantive to the discussion -- but I agree.
I'm not the defending Jeopardy! champion. But I have played one on TV.
Newhausen wrote: ↑Wed Jun 05, 2019 12:08 am
I think I thought the English Channel is a bit larger than it is and ended up with Portugal. Might have zeroed in on the right country with another 30 seconds.
Golf wrote: ↑Tue Jun 04, 2019 8:51 pm
Liz gave a wrong answer and Alex let her get away with it.
If you're thinking of the same clue as I am, isn't it generally acceptable to omit leading articles from titles?
What clue are we talking about here?
I was guessing they're referring to Liz giving "Lonely Island" as a response for the band "The Lonely Island". At least, that's the one I noticed while watching the show.
Newhausen wrote: ↑Wed Jun 05, 2019 12:08 am
I think I thought the English Channel is a bit larger than it is and ended up with Portugal. Might have zeroed in on the right country with another 30 seconds.
Golf wrote: ↑Tue Jun 04, 2019 8:51 pm
Liz gave a wrong answer and Alex let her get away with it.
If you're thinking of the same clue as I am, isn't it generally acceptable to omit leading articles from titles?
What clue are we talking about here?
I was guessing they're referring to Liz giving "Lonely Island" as a response for the band "The Lonely Island". At least, that's the one I noticed while watching the show.
Thanks. Yes, the disregard of initial articles is a venerable rule of Jeopardy...Unless there's another group known as Lonely Island with no article...
seaborgium wrote: ↑Thu Jun 06, 2019 1:30 pm
Liz said "cheddar heads," and then Alex slowly inhaled long enough for her to realize she was wrong and change her response to the correct one.
Yeah, that may be what Golf meant, and Alex called it a correction, but is cheddarheads really out of the question for the clue? It has an entry in Urban Dictionary...
Mathew5000 wrote: ↑Thu Jun 06, 2019 2:57 am
I find MarkBarrett's recaps valuable whether or not I've seen the episode. He frequently comments on a strategic consideration that I hadn't noticed. Also, if I've watched a few episodes back to back before reading the JBoard threads, the recaps are a good reminder of which episode was which.
I normally don't care for posts that are simply "I agree" without adding anything substantive to the discussion -- but I agree.
seaborgium wrote: ↑Thu Jun 06, 2019 1:30 pm
Liz said "cheddar heads," and then Alex slowly inhaled long enough for her to realize she was wrong and change her response to the correct one.
Yeah, that may be what Golf meant, and Alex called it a correction, but is cheddarheads really out of the question for the clue? It has an entry in Urban Dictionary...
That's a good point. I think she just saved them some time by switching to the expected response while Alex was waiting for a ruling.
floridagator wrote: ↑Wed Jun 05, 2019 3:52 pm
Perhaps this isn't the appropriate place for this question, but when I was at the contestant interview, the woman in charge (Maggie?) made a point of saying that Ken Jennings's record will never be broken. How could she know that? Why would she say it so boldly? What does she know that we don't know?
I remember, as a child, being at baseball games with my father where he would confidently opine that George Sisler's record of 257 hits in a season would never be broken.
- I suppose it's part of the facade that games are in real time and she (supposedly) just saw him run off a 30-something streak on the television picture tube before she arrived to play.
