Friday, February 8, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

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Friday, February 8, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by Archivists »

Game Recap for Show #7925, 2019-02-08

CONTESTANTS
Rebecca Nowack, a government contractor from Leawood, Kansas
Josh Duggan, a production coordinator from Los Angeles, California
Bif Reiser, a mathematician from Portland, Oregon (whose 2-day cash winnings total $60,801)

OPENING REMARKS
Alex: Thank you, Johnny. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome, everyone. Our champion, Bif, has had two days of work on Jeopardy!. He has demonstrated great skills. Can he do it three days in a row? As I've said so many times, success on this program depends to quite an extent on the categories. So perhaps today the categories will favor our challengers, Rebecca and Josh, or Bif. Let's start finding out. Good luck. Here we go. The categories in the first round are as follows...

JEOPARDY! ROUND CATEGORIES
BY GEORGE (3/5)
AVENGERS DISASSEMBLE! (5/5)
CHURCHES & CATHEDRALS (4/5)
THE NEW JERSEY HALL OF FAME (4/5, including 1 missed Daily Double)
WHAT'S IN YOUR BENTO? (5/5)
DROP IT (4/5)

THE RIGHTS & THE WRONGS
Bif: 10 R, 0 W
Josh?: 9 R, 2 W (including 1 DD)
Rebecca: 6 R, 0 W

Clues revealed: 30
Triple Stumpers: 4
Jeopardy! Round Potential Lach Trash: $3,000



JEOPARDY! ROUND DAILY DOUBLE
Josh? found the Daily Double on the 13th clue. Bif had $200, Josh? had $4,000, and Rebecca was at $1,000. Josh? wagered $2,000.

THE NEW JERSEY HALL OF FAME $600: Alphabetically, this early American pamphleteer immediately preceded Joe Piscopo as 2013 honorees
(Josh?: Who is...Pulitzer?)

SCORES AT THE FIRST BREAK
Rebecca: $2,000
Josh?: $2,000
Bif: $200

CONTESTANT INTERVIEWS



Alex: Interesting bits of information about our two challengers on the program today. Rebecca Nowack is from Leawood, Kansas, and you named your car after my musical hero.

Rebecca: Yes.

Alex: What's all that about?

Rebecca: Well, I got my first car, and it came with the name James, but I always called it Baby. So it became Sweet Baby James after the James Taylor album. So when I got my new car, which was blue, I had to name it Ol' Blue Eyes after Frank Sinatra.

Alex: Good for you. A great choice.




Alex: Josh Duggan from Los Angeles. Now, you wanna write a book about a movie star.

Josh?: I do. I feel like I understand Nicolas Cage on a, like, molecular level. So I'd really like to dive into his entire oeuvre.

Alex: Right. I hear you.




Alex: Bif, I mentioned at the top of the program that you've done extremely well in your two previous appearances. Today, you seem a little off. Did you not like the categories?

Bif: We'll--we'll get there.

Alex: Thank you for that big vote of self-confidence.

TRIPLE STUMPERS IN THE JEOPARDY! ROUND
BY GEORGE $400: George Eliot:
"The ____ on the Floss"

BY GEORGE $1000: George Bernard Shaw:
"Mrs. Warren's ____"

DROP IT $600: From a departure to get this departed one
(Alex: Drop the "I-T" from exit.)

CHURCHES & CATHEDRALS $1000: The skyline of this German city is dominated by the towers of its Gothic cathedral
(Josh?: What is Dresden?)

SCORES AT THE END OF THE JEOPARDY! ROUND
Bif: $5,000
Rebecca: $3,800
Josh?: $2,600
Last edited by Archivists on Sat Feb 09, 2019 11:39 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Friday, February 8, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by Archivists »

DOUBLE JEOPARDY! ROUND CATEGORIES
BYE AGAIN, GEORGE! (4/5)
ISLANDS (4/5, including 1 correct Daily Double)
ORGANIZATIONS (3/5, including 1 correct Daily Double)
FAUX AMIS (3/5) (Alex: The whole category is about French words that have different meanings than the words they resemble.)
STARGAZERS (3/5)
THE TITLE PLANET (5/5)

THE RIGHTS & THE WRONGS
Josh?: 10 R (including 1 DD), 1 W
Bif: 8 R (including 1 DD), 3 W
Rebecca: 4 R (including 1 rebound), 1 W

Clues revealed: 30
Triple Stumpers: 8
Double Jeopardy! Round Potential Lach Trash: $12,000



FIRST DOUBLE JEOPARDY! ROUND DAILY DOUBLE
Josh? snagged the next Daily Double on the 5th clue. Bif had $4,200, Josh? had $2,600, and Rebecca was at $2,200. Josh? wagered $1,600.

ISLANDS $2000: Larger than Maryland & lying near the equator, the world's largest island in fresh water is in this river
(Alex: The Marajó Island in Brazil.)

SECOND DOUBLE JEOPARDY! ROUND DAILY DOUBLE
It was Bif who snatched up the last Daily Double of the game on the 17th clue. Bif had $9,400, Josh? had $8,200, and Rebecca was at $2,200. Bif wagered $1,600.

ORGANIZATIONS $1600: (Christiane Amanpour presents the clue.) In 2005 I was proud to join the board of the CPJ, the "Committee to Protect" these people

TRIPLE STUMPERS IN THE DOUBLE JEOPARDY! ROUND
ISLANDS $1600: Tiberius ran the Roman empire from a hilltop villa on this island & made the Grotta Azzurra his personal pool
(Bif: What is Sicily?)
(Josh?: What is Corsica?)
(Rebecca: What is Sardinia?)

STARGAZERS $400: In the 1920s Harlow Shapley concluded this was not at the center of the Milky Way galaxy but 30,000 light years from there
(Bif: What is Earth?)

STARGAZERS $2000: In 1983 this Cornell astronomer introduced the concept of nuclear winter

ORGANIZATIONS $1200: "America's largest veterans service organization", it has a magazine exploring travel & health as well as military matters

ORGANIZATIONS $2000: Started in 2010, an org. named for her helps people who have contributed to medical research & gotten no reward from it

FAUX AMIS $1200: La confection isn't candy, it's this trade AKA the schmatta business

FAUX AMIS $1600: "Je t'ai blessé" has nothing to do with blessing; it means I did this to you
(Alex: Less than a minute now.)

BYE AGAIN, GEORGE! $2000: This Illinois senator who read the address in 1994 noted she was the first American of African descent to be so honored

SCORES ENTERING FINAL JEOPARDY!
Josh?: $12,600
Bif: $10,600
Rebecca: $5,800

FINAL JEOPARDY! CATEGORY
SHAKESPEARE COMEDIES

VENUSIAN MONOLOGUES/MARTIAN CHRONICLES
Four-fifths for first place.
Josh?: Wager $8,601 to cover Bif.
Bif: You have to wager $1,001 to cover Rebecca's doubled score, but certainly no more than $4,799, so as to force Rebecca to be right to have a chance at winning.
Rebecca: Think about risking $1,800 or less, thereby beating Josh? on the Triple Stumper (should Josh? wager to cover Bif's doubled score).

FINAL JEOPARDY! CLUE
At the end of this play: "Why are our bodies soft & weak...but that our...hearts should well agree with our external parts?"

FINAL SCORES
Rebecca: $5,800 + $1,200 = $7,000 (What is The Taming of th Shrew?) (2nd place: $2,000)
Bif: $10,600 - $2,001 = $8,599 (What is All's Well that Ends Well) (3-day champion: $69,400)
Josh?: $12,600 - $8,601 = $3,999 (What is Much Ado About Nothing?) (3rd place: $1,000)

Total Potential Lach Trash: $15,000

GAME DYNAMICS
Image

CORYAT SCORES
Josh?: $15,000, 19 R (including 1 DD), 3 W (including 1 DD)
Bif: $10,600, 18 R (including 1 DD), 3 W
Rebecca: $5,800, 10 R, 1 W
Combined Coryat: $31,400

BATTING AVERAGES
Josh?: 19/60 = .317
Bif: 18/59 = .305
Rebecca: 11/58 = .190
Team: 48/63 = .762

MISCELLANEOUS INTERESTING CLUES
WHAT'S IN YOUR BENTO? $400: Who cares what's in the box when you have this iconic Japanese character on the outside?

DROP IT $200: Drop "it" from a robber to get this, a type of musical group
(Alex: From bandit.)

DROP IT $1000: Drop "it" from an official license to get this long-lasting hairstyle
(Alex: From permit.)

CHURCHES & CATHEDRALS $200: Bernini designed the gilded bronze baldachin seen here to fill the empty space below the dome in this basilica

CHURCHES & CATHEDRALS $600: (Sarah of the Clue Crew shows the Church on Spilled blood in St. Petersburg, Russia.) On the spot where his father was assassinated, Tsar Alexander III built the Church on Spilled Blood; its architecture reflects Russian nationalism & imitates this Moscow cathedral, the country's most famous
(Josh?: Uh, [*]? What is [*]?)

ISLANDS $400: The entrance to the Baltic Sea is the location of Zealand, this country's largest & most populous island

FAUX AMIS $800: In French C-O-I-N isn't money; coin means corner & coin-coin is what these birds say
(Bif: What are cuckoos?)

CORRECT RESPONSES
Thomas Paine
The Mill on the Floss
profession
ex
Cologne
the Amazon
journalists
Capri
the Sun
Carl Sagan
the American Legion
Henrietta Lacks
clothing
I hurt you
Carol Moseley Braun
The Taming of the Shrew
Hello Kitty
a band
a perm
St. Peter's Basilica
St. Basil's
Denmark
ducks
Last edited by Archivists on Sat Feb 09, 2019 11:40 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Friday, February 8, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by theFJguy »

FINAL JEOPARDY! CATEGORY
SHAKESPEARE COMEDIES

FINAL JEOPARDY! CLUE
At the end of this play: “Why are our bodies soft & weak …but that our …hearts should well agree with our external parts?”

Bif Reiser: 10600-2001=8599 (3x = $69,400)
Josh Duggan: 12600-8601=3999
Rebecca Nowack: 5800+1200=7000

Correct response:
Spoiler
The Taming of the Shrew (Bif – All’s Well That Ends Well) (Josh – Much Ado About Nothing)

Daily Doubles
Josh: 4000-2000
Josh: 2600+1600
Bif: 9400+1600

Coryats
Bif: 10600
Josh: 15000
Rebecca: 5800

Combined: 31,400

Scores at the end of the Jeopardy! Round
Bif: 5000
Josh: 2600
Rebecca: 3800
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Re: Friday, February 8, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by MarkBarrett »

Sometimes a player can look back at all the ways a game could have been won. Bif could look back at all the ways he could have lost.

Bif could have bet more on DD3 and had the lead for the FJ! round.
Bif could have been better on the buzzer and led.
Bif could have id-ed the Illinois lady on clue 30 to have tied Josh at 12600.
Bif could have wagered big from second place.

Instead Bif will be playing again on Monday after easily his worst game of three.

Unlike yesterday, Rebecca was able to get second place money for the sole solve in the FJ! round.

The clue was a miss for me as I’m good in Morbeedo’s nightmare categories and I’m poor in his wheelhouses. Playing the precall game during the break I had the correct response and the misses by the gentlemen in the mix. I matched Bif as in the FJ! round I am going to choose something.

Josh’s IMDb page with J! included: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm7912009/
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Re: Friday, February 8, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by LucarioSnooperVixey »

That was definitely one of the luckiest wins ever.
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Re: Friday, February 8, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by Elijah Baley »

LucarioSnooperVixey wrote: Fri Feb 08, 2019 12:43 pm That was definitely one of the luckiest wins ever.
Is it? Everyone bet properly so this is what I’d expect from a difficult FJ. (Difficult for me at least because I'm familiar enough with the material and thought it must have been a gender bender comedy like Twelfth Night).
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Re: Friday, February 8, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by LucarioSnooperVixey »

Elijah Baley wrote: Fri Feb 08, 2019 12:53 pm
LucarioSnooperVixey wrote: Fri Feb 08, 2019 12:43 pm That was definitely one of the luckiest wins ever.
Is it? Everyone bet properly so this is what I’d expect from a difficult FJ. (Difficult for me at least because I'm familiar enough with the material and thought it must have been a gender bender comedy like Twelfth Night).
The Final Jeopardy! clue mentioned body parts. I recalled a $100,000 question on WWTBAM where they had the “tongue in your tail” quote. That being said, I went with “Taming of the Shrew” assuming body parts == “Taming of the Shrew”. Also, that quote sounded right for "The Taming of the Shrew."
Last edited by LucarioSnooperVixey on Fri Feb 08, 2019 3:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Friday, February 8, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by AndyTheQuizzer »

LucarioSnooperVixey wrote: Fri Feb 08, 2019 12:43 pm That was definitely one of the luckiest wins ever.
No it wasn't.
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Re: Friday, February 8, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by TenPoundHammer »

I've been too tired to actually play along.

I definitely would've gone 0/5 on the George category on even a good day, though.

Once again I fail to remember which planet has visible rings.

What was the TOM for "Day" on Faux Amis for $400? That whole category was extremely YEKIOYD.

No guess on FJ! What was the TOM?
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Re: Friday, February 8, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by econgator »

For me, that was basically "Pick a Comedy by Shakespeare". I figured "heart" = "love" = Love's Labour's Lost.
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Re: Friday, February 8, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by Euphonium »

As I went out one morning...

So...false cognates?

It's a mass of incandescent gas, a gigantic nuclear furnace where hydrogen is fused into helium at a temperature of millions of degrees.

Jupiter and Saturn, Oberon, Miranda, and Titannia...Neptune, Titan, stars can frighten

The American Legion: a fascist front group with a proud history of carrying out pogroms against labor activists

I've been getting AARP membership offers since I was 15.

"This was not a tough final, because you're right." I know it wasn't meant to be rude and it's often easy to not realize these things until it's too late to not say it, but I'm surprised they didn't re-record that because it kind of comes off as rude.

Coryat: $36,800. Got off to a rough start in J round but picked up in the second halfish.

J: 19R8P3W. 4/5 in Avengers, Churches & Cathedrals (I, too, said Dresden), Hall of Fame (I said Kathie Lee Gifford instead of Kelly Ripa), and Drop It. 2/5 in Bento. 1/5 in By George (Economic instead of Social Security)

DJ: 25R5P. 5/5 in Bye Again and Stargazers. 4/5 in Islands, Organizations, and Title Planet. 3/5 in Faux Amis.

FJ: Instaget.

LT: Ex, Capri, Carl Sagan, Carol Moseley Braun
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Re: Friday, February 8, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by DBear »

Not much on the comedy plays. Twelfth Night was out, but other than that...picked A Comedy of Errors. :(
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Re: Friday, February 8, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by teapot37 »

I was flummoxed when Alex said that he thought that this was an easy FJ. Granted, I am not a Shakespeare scholar, but I saw absolutely nothing there to point towards any one play.
Not many people can say they've lost four times on Jeopardy!.
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Re: Friday, February 8, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by MarkBarrett »

teapot37 wrote: Fri Feb 08, 2019 9:24 pm I was flummoxed when Alex said that he thought that this was an easy FJ. Granted, I am not a Shakespeare scholar, but I saw absolutely nothing there to point towards any one play.
It looks like the board is about 25% after a small sample putting it below the game's (even smaller sample) 33%.

For cheezguyty: Any way to bring up how many gentlemen have led going into the FJ! round and lost on a Shakespeare FJ! clue? Josh's fate seems like it has happened a number of times in the past.
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Re: Friday, February 8, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by opusthepenguin »

teapot37 wrote: Fri Feb 08, 2019 9:24 pm I was flummoxed when Alex said that he thought that this was an easy FJ. Granted, I am not a Shakespeare scholar, but I saw absolutely nothing there to point towards any one play.
It seems to fit the tone of a former shrew now lecturing the other wives about women knowing their place and being obedient to their husbands.
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Re: Friday, February 8, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by twelvefootboy »

Bif survived John Boy's hex (he remarked on a possible long run yesterday) with a good decision befitting a mathemagician. I'm not so much into the "could've" mindset about his fortuitous position caused by plays not made. I thought Bif would get refunded for the Milky Way question - Earth and the Sun are the same place on the scale of a freaking galaxy. I don't remember the clue value but getting it refunded might have put him in the seat of doom.

I would have had at least a 50/50 shot if I remember the category is "comedies", since I only know two of them offhand (As You like it and this one). I Wagged R&J because - RTFC.

Those false friends were pretty tough gets, except of course the biblioteque one which I would have blown as biblioteca (Espanol).
Disclaimer - repeated exposure to author's musings may cause befuddlement.
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Re: Friday, February 8, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by opusthepenguin »

Rebecca made the right bet if she thinks Situation A is more likely than Situation B:

Situation A: Bif over-wagers and the clue is a triple stumper. In this case she should wager to stay ahead of Josh assuming Josh makes the shutout. This is what she did.

Situation B: Bif wagers correctly and Rebecca is the only one to get FJ right. In this case she should go all in or close to it.

Rebecca decided A was more likely and there's a lot to be said for that. Second place over-wagers more frequently than not and a TS is more likely than a sole get. HOWEVER... Bif is a mathematician and more likely than the average contestant to wager correctly. Therefore, I think Situation B is her best shot. She would have won the game if she'd gone that route. Still, it's a tough call and I don't fault her decision.
Spoiler
And in the very next game we saw Bif lose because of a mathematically sub-optimal DD wager. I suspect he knew that betting everything (or close to it) was the right move and just couldn't bring himself to do it. Mathematicians are human too.
Last edited by opusthepenguin on Mon Feb 18, 2019 12:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Friday, February 8, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by periwinkle »

I thought Alex came off very rudely in saying to Rebecca that this was an easy clue because she got it.

I did get it right away, but I was an English major and am familiar enough with the speech that ends Shrew to realize that this would be part of it. (If you know Kiss Me Kate, it's the speech that was turned into the song "I am Ashamed That Women Are So Simple."

If it had quoted "a shed that women are so simple," it would have been a far easier clue.

Bif guessing All's Well that Ends Well shows he has a good knowledge of which of the plays are comedies.
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Re: Friday, February 8, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by opusthepenguin »

twelvefootboy wrote: Fri Feb 08, 2019 10:19 pm Bif survived John Boy's hex (he remarked on a possible long run yesterday) with a good decision befitting a mathemagician. I'm not so much into the "could've" mindset about his fortuitous position caused by plays not made. I thought Bif would get refunded for the Milky Way question - Earth and the Sun are the same place on the scale of a freaking galaxy. I don't remember the clue value but getting it refunded might have put him in the seat of doom.
I was already mentally preparing my "THANKS A LOT, JOHN BOY!!!" post when the surprise upset occurred. I don't feel like debating superlatives or even comparatives, but Bif was definitely lucky here.

I thought the same thing on the Milky Way question. Are the writers and judges really stipulating that Shapley limited his comments to the Sun? He never once concluded that the Earth was 30,000 light years (give or take 8 light minutes) from the center of our galaxy? That was left as an exercise for the reader? Come on.

That clue was only worth $400 though so a reversal wouldn't have changed Bif's position going into FJ.
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Re: Friday, February 8, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by seaborgium »

"External parts" made me think of gender swapping, so I went to Twelfth Night.
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