$400 SAVING THE ANIMALS: neo-natal
$600 SAVING THE ANIMALS: humane
$1000 THE BILL OF RIGHTS: speedy
$600 LANGUAGES: Flemish
$800 TEXTBOOKS: Norton
$1600 STILL I RISE: lyre
$2000 STILL I RISE: rotorcraft (Amanda guessed "choppers")
$1600 ALL TELS: Gaza (Strip) (Rachel guessed "the West Bank")
$2000 ALL TELS: Lebanon
$1200 ANTEBELLUM: the Maine
$1600 ANTEBELLUM: the Punic Wars (Doug guessed the Peloponnesian Wars)
$1600 NAME THE VENUE: The Desert Inn
FJ BRITISH AUTHORS: H. G. Wells
Could you have won this game from the fourth podium just picking up the trash? Add up the value of the clues you would have rung in on and gotten right. (Include the clues you would have gotten because you had extra time to think while someone rang in with an incorrect guess.) Subtract the values of any where you would have rung in and responded incorrectly. That's your hypothetical total going into FJ.
Now decide how you would have bet from the fourth podium against players with these pre-FJ totals:
What's your final score? If it's more than $13400, you definitely would have won. If it's over $8400, I'd say you probably would have won. Amanda and Doug both made shutout bets. I don't see them betting less than that just because you're in the game. So Rachel's $8400 is the number to beat.
(I'm using for a clam. On a DD I would've gotten the Orpheus clue right with lyre. But I worried the correct response might be harp and didn't want the double whammy of losing the coin toss and handing the get to a savvy opponent. So I clammed on that one.)
pre-FJ total: $5600
Wager: $2801
Final score: $8401
I'd be tempted to bet it all since there's no way I'm winning on a miss unless Amanda over-wagered. But that's not impossible. So I'm giving up the extra $2799 on a win in order to preserve the unlikely possibility of winning on Amanda's over-wager. Realistically, of course, there's almost no chance of winning from my position. Once FJ is revealed, I downgrade that to "no chance at all". I mean, there's no way that ALL THREE other players are missing this clue so... what? YOU'RE KIDDING ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!
for my neg. I said harp (and thought, "Or could it be lyre?").
That makes $7,200; since my calculations would have put Amanda at $8,399 on a neg, I would have assumed I was in "must get it right to win, so might as well bet it all and maximize the value of that win" territory.
Amazingly, that puts me at 8400, just like Rachel, and I would've recognized the wagering scenario and bet 0 as well.
What a weird game...no rebound to Gaza after West Bank was negged. No one remembered the Maine. Rome vs Carthage, but Punic Wars a TS. And of course FJ. I got a bit of pushback a few weeks ago for being surprised that a relatively easy FJ was a triple get; FJs like this are the reason why.
Would not have rung in on "humane society" or "Norton's Anthology" (went down the path of "organization for prevention of cruelty to animals????" and knew it was wrong, so would have clammed), but answered the rest correctly. Would have had $13,600 from the misses going into FJ, and would have bet to cover Amanda doubling. Got H.G. Wells, so it would have been a nice payday. Darn.
I'm not the defending Jeopardy! champion. But I have played one on TV.
Speedy, Maine, and Punic Wars, and losing a coin flip and saying harp instead of lyre. $2200, so I couldn't catch up.
Neonatal is a word I need to learn, and I should have gotten Flemish.
Last edited by Plactus on Thu Feb 21, 2019 6:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Oh, what has science wrought? I sought only to turn a man into a metal-encased juggernaut of destruction powered by the unknown properties of a mysterious living crystal. How could this have all gone wrong?
I did not know Humane Society, rotorcraft, and Desert Inn but would not have rung in on any of them. (For Desert Inn I did not even have a guess.) For neonatal I dumbly said (and would have rung in with) prenatal. That gives me $10,000 at the end of DJ. With Doug so close behind me, I think I have to bet enough to beat an all-in bet by him. (On the assumption that Amanda will bet enough to beat me by 1 if we both get it and Doug and I will both pass her if we get it right and she gets it wrong.) So I win with a cool $18,401.
I would have negged with Audobon on the $600 Animals clue, which puts my total at $8400 exactly. From there, I would have either bet nothing, or made a stupid wager of $5000 when $5001 covered first place.
I did a fair bit of clamming on stuff I might have gotten right (rotorcraft, etc.) but was too timid to pull the trigger.
With LT on neonatal, speedy (trial), lyre, USS Maine, and Punic Wars, I ended DJ with $5800 in LT. From the imaginary 4th podium I would certainly have bet enough to cover all three scores assuming they bet sensibly and missed (i.e. same strategy as Rachel). I would have had minimum $8,401 and an imaginary win. Why is it not my turn to become a contestant when there is a game like this?
And I know some consider it impolite to point out some clues that ANY J!-prepared contestant should be able to pounce on, but how in blazes is the USS Maine blowing up in Havana harbor a for-goodness-sake TS?!
Somebody should have gotten at least four of these clues and none of these clues (IMHO) sounded like a TS to me.