Friday, October 28, 2011 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

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alamble
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Re: Friday, October 28, 2011 Game Recap & Discussion (SPOILE

Post by alamble »

laubla999 wrote:I was sure FJ began with Mac (isn't it what the English call a raincoat?), but I couldn't get the rest out ;-(
We Americans call it a raincoat, but not Brits.
jeff6286 wrote:
econgator wrote: I'm giving myself MN in the Neighbors category. It's just as valid as NM -- I think. I don't remember any other restrictions other than adjacent letters, lower right, and postal abbreviation.
jeff6286 wrote: I can't believe they actually made a whole category about baseball players named Casey. (sort of) After the first clue, I pre-called: Casey Stengel...no-brainer; Sean Casey...not all that well-known, but a pretty safe bet to be included...and that was all I could come up with. Casey Candaele? In a Jeopardy! clue? Really? I don't think I've heard that name in almost 20 years, and I may go another 20 without hearing it. I guess the fact that his mother helped to inspire A League of Their Own is somewhat noteworthy, but I wonder how exactly the writers set out to write this "Casey" category, when even the biggest baseball fan could probably name no more than 2 or 3 famous Caseys in major league history.
Might have gone better if the category had simply referred to the poem.
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econgator
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Re: Friday, October 28, 2011 Game Recap & Discussion (SPOILE

Post by econgator »

jeff6286 wrote:
econgator wrote: I'm giving myself MN in the Neighbors category. It's just as valid as NM -- I think. I don't remember any other restrictions other than adjacent letters, lower right, and postal abbreviation.
I'm not so sure about that one. I forget the exact wording, but Alex's explanation made me think all the correct responses would be two letters next to each other on the keyboard, left-to-right.
His only instructions were: "Each correct response will be two letters that you find on a keyboard side-by-side."
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hbomb1947
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Re: Friday, October 28, 2011 Game Recap & Discussion (SPOILE

Post by hbomb1947 »

What an an absolutely dreadful game. After Cape Horn was inexplicably a stand-and-stare (with Cape of Good Hope being guessed as a South American feature), I wrote down, "It's going to be a long night." And then we had lach trash out the wazoo, players letting Pavlovian clues whiz by, and blatant TOM's being missed (like "Bay" in the Hudson clue). A very frustrating game for anyone in the pool to be watching (going 3-for-3 on the DD's while the players were 0/3 didn't make this game any easier to watch). And the large number of unrevealed clues, most of them in categories that I wanted to see more of, didn't make for a great viewing experience either.

And then FJ had to come along and put a damper on what had been a perfect week for me. I started with Bessemer, then transitioned to Watt; finally, with about 5 seconds to go, I realized they were going for the raincoat guy, but I couldn't remember his name -- only that it started with "Mac." I put down "MacGuffin" but I knew that it was almost certainly wrong since a MacGuffin is a literary device. That was as far as I could get before time ran out.

For future reference, incidentally, it turns out Bessemer was English, not Scottish; and as I had suspected, 1823 was too early for him just as it was too late for Watt, who died in 1819 (Bessemer patented his eponymous process in 1855).

Random note: I precalled the Cleveland Indians neg on the Sean Casey clue (and I also precalled Sean Casey showing up in the category -- and btw, I loved that category).

ETA: the writers seem obsessed with Scottish inventors lately.
Last edited by hbomb1947 on Sat Oct 29, 2011 12:38 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Bamaman
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Re: Friday, October 28, 2011 Game Recap & Discussion (SPOILE

Post by Bamaman »

Not getting Hudson wasn't nearly as bad as thinking Robinson Crusoe was a real person.
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hbomb1947
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Re: Friday, October 28, 2011 Game Recap & Discussion (SPOILE

Post by hbomb1947 »

Bamaman wrote:Not getting Hudson wasn't nearly as bad as thinking Robinson Crusoe was a real person.
Yeah, you'd think that the contestant could at least have guessed Alexander Selkirk. :D
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Re: Friday, October 28, 2011 Game Recap & Discussion (SPOILE

Post by Bamaman »

With the TOC starting Wednesday something came to mind.

Last year, Buddy Wright won his third game the day before the TOC started. So slam had to start a new TOC standings thread before the previous TOC had started. If Sunny wins monday, he (or someone) will have to start the 2011-12 TOC standings before the 2010--11 TOC begins.
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Woof
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Re: Friday, October 28, 2011 Game Recap & Discussion (SPOILE

Post by Woof »

hbomb1947 wrote:
Bamaman wrote:Not getting Hudson wasn't nearly as bad as thinking Robinson Crusoe was a real person.
Yeah, you'd think that the contestant could at least have guessed Alexander Selkirk. :D
Hell, Ernest Shackleton would have been a better guess. :roll:
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dhkendall
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Re: Friday, October 28, 2011 Game Recap & Discussion (SPOILE

Post by dhkendall »

MarkBarrett wrote:No rebound on Cape Horn?
I said "Tierra del Fuego" ... :oops: (hey, at least it's a *South American* cape ... )

And a bit of a nit when Alex mentioned that the correct responses in a particular category "will be two letters you find side by side on your keyboard". Well, what about those of us who use Dvorak?* I wonder if any clue had an answer that would also have been correct if Dvorak was used, if it would have to be accepted ("Well, it's that way on *my* keyboard!" Barbara Lowe the contestant cries). (I know the state abbreviation one would be invalid, as "VZ" isn't a state abbreviation).

*ETA: Note: I am not one of those who use Dvorak, but would like to try to learn it sometime, and see how I do (I already type around 65 wpm on QWERTY (give or take a wpm or two in tests I've taken), so my Dvorak speed could be interesting ... )
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Paucle
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Re: Friday, October 28, 2011 Game Recap & Discussion (SPOILE

Post by Paucle »

I look to the lower right on my keyboard, and I see "CT" together.... followed by "RL," of course.
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Woppy T
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Re: Friday, October 28, 2011 Game Recap & Discussion (SPOILE

Post by Woppy T »

Woof wrote:
hbomb1947 wrote:
Bamaman wrote:Not getting Hudson wasn't nearly as bad as thinking Robinson Crusoe was a real person.
Yeah, you'd think that the contestant could at least have guessed Alexander Selkirk. :D
Hell, Ernest Shackleton would have been a better guess. :roll:
At least he didn't guess Jonas Grumby. ;)
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Re: Friday, October 28, 2011 Game Recap & Discussion (SPOILE

Post by John Boy »

laubla999 wrote:Is it only me, or was that... painful?

;-(

Not you, my friend.

That was just a sad game, as evidenced by my win from the imaginary fourth podium (more in Lach Trash---even without having a signalling device in my hand than either 2nd or 3rd place players scored, followed by a correct FJ to overtake the leader). In a well-played game, that NEVER happens.
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Re: Friday, October 28, 2011 Game Recap & Discussion (SPOILE

Post by John Boy »

Worst part of this game for me was seeing these three avoid the "Russian Composers" category until it was all that was left. For me that is part of my uber-wheelhouse cat., classical music. Naturally I got the two that were revealed and screamed at the screen when the game ended there.

(note...my wife says I enjoy watching Jeopardy! while she herself enjoys watching me watch Jeopardy! Times like this I know exactly what she means.)
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Re: Friday, October 28, 2011 Game Recap & Discussion (SPOILE

Post by opusthepenguin »

teapot37 wrote:You could have given me all day and I would never have come up with Macintosh. I didn't even know what the invention was until I looked it up just now. (I thought maybe they were talking about Scotchgard.) I keyed on "process" and said Bessemer just for the sake of something to say.
My first guess was Alexander Graham Bell because I heard somewhere recently that he was a Scot. Then I switched to Angus Scotchguard, but decided that was unlikely. I finally settled on Mercer. I had a vague recollection that "mercerization" was some sort of process involving fabric.

Looking it up, I see that mercerization is a process used on cotton to increase its luster and make it take the dye better. It was invented by John Mercer. So ... not a terrible guess, I guess.
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alietr
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Re: Friday, October 28, 2011 Game Recap & Discussion (SPOILE

Post by alietr »

I certainly won't deny it wasn't the best game to watch, but in the players' defense, sometimes you get hard boards or it doesn't match your particular strengths. It seemed like this board was a confluence of those factors for the three of them. Everyone who gets on there is capable of doing well, but sometimes the breaks just don't go your way. I wouldn't be too hard on them.
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Re: Friday, October 28, 2011 Game Recap & Discussion (SPOILE

Post by opusthepenguin »

Bamaman wrote:I couldn't pull out Cape Horn. The clue had me running Dutch cities in my head and never got on track. I was pretty sure Good Hope wouldn't be the name of a dangerous cape.
Yeah, that would be as silly as finding an island mostly within the Arctic Circle and naming it Green Land.
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Re: Friday, October 28, 2011 Game Recap & Discussion (SPOILE

Post by opusthepenguin »

alietr wrote:I certainly won't deny it wasn't the best game to watch, but in the players' defense, sometimes you get hard boards or it doesn't match your particular strengths. It seemed like this board was a confluence of those factors for the three of them. Everyone who gets on there is capable of doing well, but sometimes the breaks just don't go your way. I wouldn't be too hard on them.
It must have been a particularly painful game for Gabor to watch, though.
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jpahk
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Re: Friday, October 28, 2011 Game Recap & Discussion (SPOILE

Post by jpahk »

opusthepenguin wrote:It must have been a particularly painful game for Gabor to watch, though.
yeah, i was thinking that too. at least i had the pleasure of watching katie absolutely shred the boards in the game after she beat me. (in fact, she had a much higher coryat in that game than i did in any of my eight games.) i have no idea if i would have been able to beat drew and liz in that game, but at least it was abundantly clear that i lost to a damn good player.
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bigbor
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Re: Friday, October 28, 2011 Game Recap & Discussion (SPOILE

Post by bigbor »

I appreciate the empathetic posts above. I did not stick around in the studio after my loss so the first time I watched this show was last night.

I agree with the other boardies that the play was subpar last night. Certain jeopardy staples like Cape Horn, Rimsky-Korsakov and other Russian composers, and oblate spheroid I knew. I also would have gotten the daily doubles save the Statue of Liberty Question. I ran the medical category. I could have used that in my last game instead of say ceramics or Tony Award winners. The fact that I did not come up with Macintosh for FJ softens the blow somewhat. That being said, had I played this game I would have won only if I had a lock against Helaine, assuming she went all in like last night.
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hbomb1947
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Re: Friday, October 28, 2011 Game Recap & Discussion (SPOILE

Post by hbomb1947 »

opusthepenguin wrote:
Bamaman wrote:I couldn't pull out Cape Horn. The clue had me running Dutch cities in my head and never got on track. I was pretty sure Good Hope wouldn't be the name of a dangerous cape.
Yeah, that would be as silly as finding an island mostly within the Arctic Circle and naming it Green Land.
Yep. While perhaps not as perilous as Cape Horn, in the golden age of ocean exploration the Cape of Good Hope was regarded as pretty dangerous in its own right.
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jkbrat
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Re: Friday, October 28, 2011 Game Recap & Discussion (SPOILE

Post by jkbrat »

alamble wrote:
Might have gone better if the category had simply referred to the poem.
Hear, hear!

My precall of Ernest Thayer was of no help at all. :(

(I actually had memorized that poem back in 7th grade so was looking forward to a sweep; had to settle instead for 3/5 in a non-wheelhouse category.)

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