Friday, February 22, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

[AndyTheQuizzer]

You think it’s bad here, Jeff?

LOL.

[chmmr]

[mile long rant]
If Team Brad wins this thing--and they will because Brad is charmed--I'm moving to a parallel universe. I can't take hearing about how he's the GOAT because he got some lucky breaks and never had to pay for his mistakes. I'll go to the universe where Leslie Frates made the shutout bet and Brad never played again and I get to root for Team Larissa in the All-Star Game.

Hot take: Larissa is better than Brad, but Larissa is unlucky while Brad has the Devil's Own luck.

Cold take: it takes an insane amount of luck to even get on the show, much less to win. There's probably someone in America with insane reflexes and knowledge that just never got the call.

[opusthepenguin]

[mile long rant]
If Team Brad wins this thing--and they will because Brad is charmed--I'm moving to a parallel universe. I can't take hearing about how he's the GOAT because he got some lucky breaks and never had to pay for his mistakes. I'll go to the universe where Leslie Frates made the shutout bet and Brad never played again and I get to root for Team Larissa in the All-Star Game.

Hot take: Larissa is better than Brad, but Larissa is unlucky while Brad has the Devil's Own luck.

Hmmm. So this is like strapping buttered toast on the back of a cat and dropping it.

My money's on the Luck of the Brad overruling the unluck of the Larissa. I hate knowing that for Brad to lose, Larissa has to lose too. Again. I really don't want that. That's why I'm moving to the universe where Brad's already lost and some nutjob on the JBoard is ranting about how that guy could've beat EVERYONE if he hadn't made one dumb mistake. I'm very happy in that universe.

Also? That rant was a quarter-mile, tops.

[Robert K S]

Because obviously Alex Jacob knew this one. It was just a brain fart and came to him a second too late.

There was no brain fart about it.

[AndyTheQuizzer]

Hot take: Larissa is better than Brad, but Larissa is unlucky while Brad has the Devil's Own luck.

Might I direct you to Kendall's Law, as so contained in the signature of user dhkendall?

[Euphonium]

LOL, just LOL at Hawaii Five-O being a soap opera created by Agnes Nixon.

How is Scandinavian Arctic Explorer from 1906 not Pavlovian for Amundsen?

A gimme. How many else can you name?

How about Vitus Bering? Obviously earlier, but I could definitely see Bering as a knee-jerk guess.

Bering was a Dane.

Denmark is generally considered part of Scandinavia.

[heppm01]

Because obviously Alex Jacob knew this one. It was just a brain fart and came to him a second too late.

There was no brain fart about it.

My recollection from Alex's original shows is that he is very deliberate when responding to DDs, often taking a long time even for apparently WECIB questions. I have little doubt that Amundsen was at the forefront of his brain but he was also considering other possibilities.

[This Is Kirk!]

Because obviously Alex Jacob knew this one. It was just a brain fart and came to him a second too late.

There was no brain fart about it.

So are you saying he was trying to kill time? He only bet $100, so it's certainly a possibility. His strategy may have been just to "kill" the DDs. I wouldn't do it, but Alex is a very strategic player.

[opusthepenguin]

Because obviously Alex Jacob knew this one. It was just a brain fart and came to him a second too late.

There was no brain fart about it.

My recollection from Alex's original shows is that he is very deliberate when responding to DDs, often taking a long time even for apparently WECIB questions. I have little doubt that Amundsen was at the forefront of his brain but he was also considering other possibilities.

Yep. When contestants answer DDs promptly, my wife or I yell "Do the Alex Jacob check!" Stop and think for a second. Reread the clue to make sure you're really responding to "this". You may suddenly realize you're about to blurt out the wrong response. It's more about that than about killing time. In this case, Alex J. may have just mistimed the response because Alex T. didn't prompt him. Unfortunately, because this is Alex Jacob, we may never know. He's not going to take to Twitter and tell us what really happened and if there was a strategic backfire or it was all part of the plan. That would be showing his cards. Maybe Buzzy or Jennifer would like to blab?

[This Is Kirk!]

Bering was a Dane.

Denmark is generally considered part of Scandinavia.

Correct, and the clue asked for "this Scandinavian..." Although the year and the fact he left from Norway certainly pointed to Amundsen, I could see someone thinking of Bering.

[twelvefootboy]

Because obviously Alex Jacob knew this one. It was just a brain fart and came to him a second too late.

There was no brain fart about it.

So are you saying he was trying to kill time? He only bet $100, so it's certainly a possibility. His strategy may have been just to "kill" the DDs. I wouldn't do it, but Alex is a very strategic player.

Isn't it a given that every clue will be played when there is an elimination of the lowest team(s) based on (fake) winnings? It would not be fair for a team to lose with only 59 clues vs. the other side of the draw that gets 60. This isn't the NFL .

I think he just couldn't pull the name of this Pavlov staple and Alex did cut him off pretty early unless they edited out some time. The low bet was strategic, just sit on the lead and handing the ball to the fullback. I doubt if there's any category he would go low on (Triple Rhyme Time Shakespeare Opera Ballet Anagrams?) if they needed the money.

It also seems unlikely that Dave (?) did this spreadsheet of calculations and wanted to go first in DJ and blurted out Hawaii-5-0. Occam's razor is our friend.

[This Is Kirk!]

Because obviously Alex Jacob knew this one. It was just a brain fart and came to him a second too late.

There was no brain fart about it.

So are you saying he was trying to kill time? He only bet $100, so it's certainly a possibility. His strategy may have been just to "kill" the DDs. I wouldn't do it, but Alex is a very strategic player.

Isn't it a given that every clue will be played when there is an elimination of the lowest team(s) based on (fake) winnings?

Good point. So I guess Robert K S is going to have to spell it out, because I'm too dense. As others have suggested, Alex has always been deliberate on DDs. Maybe this time he just waited a little too long, but to me it seemed like the name just came to him a second too late. That kind of thing certainly happens to me plenty of times.

[seaborgium]

LOL, just LOL at Hawaii Five-O being a soap opera created by Agnes Nixon.

How is Scandinavian Arctic Explorer from 1906 not Pavlovian for Amundsen?

A gimme. How many else can you name?

How about Vitus Bering? Obviously earlier, but I could definitely see Bering as a knee-jerk guess.

Bering was a Dane.

Denmark is generally considered part of Scandinavia.

Yeah, I read "Scandinavian" and thought "Norwegian." Sorry!

[opusthepenguin]

Good point. So I guess Robert K S is going to have to spell it out, because I'm too dense. As others have suggested, Alex has always been deliberate on DDs. Maybe this time he just waited a little too long, but to me it seemed like the name just came to him a second too late. That kind of thing certainly happens to me plenty of times.

It certainly played that way. And with most other contestants we'd just assume that's how it went. It's just that Alex has always been so calculating. Even his mistakes--if this was a mistake--strike us as part of some plan that we can't quite grasp.

[TenPoundHammer]

Do you know how weird it is to have so many people join me in the NHOI camp?

I mean actual NHOI this time, not TPH NHOI.

[LucarioSnooperVixey]

56 R (Only missing the Bottom Three in TV by the Numbers and Kate Spade.)
DD: 3/3
FJ:
LT: Josiah Wedgewood, Allergy and Gallery, One Life to Live, Dust, (*Roald Amundsen*), Rhomboids, Murmansk

Leon Czolgosz == Anarchist == Emma Goldman, nice Final for this history buff.

[boson]

I was able to watch this game today without being spoiled - I guess Jeopardy hasn't quite risen to the level of a major sporting event, so that avoiding facebook and twitter is enough.

Great game! Some impressive play from Alex - dominating the buzzer with Pam and Brad.

I'm trying to figure out the DD strategy from Alex. Let me try this out for size and the board can tell me if I'm wrong: Team Buzzy definitely wants to keep second place - they want there to be no chance that team Colby can pass them. They want to win the game (and hence go straight to the finals) but not at the expense risking any chance of third place. There is no real way to get ahead of team Brad without large DD wagers, and no real way for team Colby to catch them without the DDs, so the key for Alex is to win double jeopardy and neutralize the daily doubles.

I'm not sure if Alex was deliberately tanking/stalling/pausing to think/struggling to find answers on the DDs. It sure seemed like he would stall during his regular play to slow up the game. Here, there is no strategic benefit of stalling (all questions guaranteed in a tournament), so I think he deliberately slows down to mentally double-check. Maybe that was what he did during regular play too?

Me: 26,800 Coryat. FJ thought process: "McKinley was killed by Czolgosz (or something like that) who was an anarchist. The likely inspiration was also an anarchist. What turn-of-20th-century woman was an anarchist? I can't remember. Maybe a muckracker? Ida Tarbell?" I'm proud my thought process was correct, but didn't remember Goldman's name. That was a good FJ for this sort of tournament - tough, demanding broad history knowledge.

[Robert K S]

If, indeed, there was a guaranteed play of all 60 J! and DJ! Round clues (I hadn't heard that, but it would make sense), then the stalling was pointless in addition to being annoying and (mildly) harmful. But yes, killing the DDs is an okay strategy when you are in the lead and have confidence that you have buzzer superiority over your competitors. The former was definitely not true in this case (given Team Buzzy's $23,600 deficit after game 1), and assuming the latter is damn ballsy when you're up against Brad Rutter who, we can all agree, is no joke, despite the several missteps that have been pointed to in this thread and elsewhere.

I grant that the timing of the decision-making here makes a big difference. By the time Team Buzzy decided to go all-in on Final, they already knew that they had locked the wildcard slot, which wasn't guaranteed at the beginning of DJ! With 20/20 hindsight, however, we can say executing the killing-the-DDs strategy backfired, considering that had Team Buzzy gone True each time in DJ!, the resultant $43,200 + $26,200 would have given them an easy lock over Team Brad's $58,200 maximum possible score. When your representative player has an 80%+ DD conversion rate and you're behind by so much and against a man known to be killer on the buzzer, how can you afford not to wager on DDs?

Armchair quarterbacking, right?

[boson]

If, indeed, there was a guaranteed play of all 60 J! and DJ! Round clues (I hadn't heard that, but it would make sense), then the stalling was pointless in addition to being annoying and (mildly) harmful. But yes, killing the DDs is an okay strategy when you are in the lead and have confidence that you have buzzer superiority over your competitors. The former was definitely not true in this case (given Team Buzzy's $23,600 deficit after game 1), and assuming the latter is damn ballsy when you're up against Brad Rutter who, we can all agree, is no joke, despite the several missteps that have been pointed to in this thread and elsewhere.

I grant that the timing of the decision-making here makes a big difference. By the time Team Buzzy decided to go all-in on Final, they already knew that they had locked the wildcard slot, which wasn't guaranteed at the beginning of DJ! With 20/20 hindsight, however, we can say executing the killing-the-DDs strategy backfired, considering that had Team Buzzy gone True each time in DJ!, the resultant $43,200 + $26,200 would have given them an easy lock over Team Brad's $58,200 maximum possible score. When your representative player has an 80%+ DD conversion rate and you're behind by so much and against a man known to be killer on the buzzer, how can you afford not to wager on DDs?

Armchair quarterbacking, right?

I enjoy armchair quarterbacking!

I think Team Buzzy felt better about winning the wildcard game + winning through a big FJ bet than they did in wagering big in daily doubles.

[opusthepenguin]

Brad Rutter who, we can all agree, is no joke, despite the several missteps that have been pointed to in this thread and elsewhere.

Absolutely yes. He is one of the best to ever play the game. He is a legitimate contender for GOAT. My ONLY beef is with those who point to his collection of (sometimes lucky) wins and claim this automatically makes him the GOAT.

I'll shut up now.

Maybe.