Monday, November 18, 2013 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

[Archivists]

Game Recap for Show #6711, 2013-11-18

2013 Teachers Tournament semifinal game 1.

CONTESTANTS
Katie Moriarty, a fifth-grade teacher from Cincinnati, Ohio
Timothy Shuker-Haines, a teacher from Williamstown, Massachusetts
John Pearson, a math teacher from Richardson, Texas

OPENING REMARKS
Alex: Thank you, Johnny. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the first of our semifinal matches. The two players who do not win the game today will go home, each receiving $10,000 in cash. That's good, but not as good as the winner, because that person gets to come back in three days and play for $100,000. So, this is a big, important game. John, Timothy, and Katie, good luck. Here comes the Jeopardy! Round. And now here are the categories...

JEOPARDY! ROUND CATEGORIES
PLACES (2/5)
PEOPLE (4/5)
THINGS (4/5)
"OH" (4/5, including 1 correct Daily Double)
ONE MORE ITEM (4/5)
NUCLEAR PHYSICS (5/5)

THE RIGHTS & THE WRONGS
John: 11 R (including 1 DD), 3 W
Katie: 7 R (including 1 rebound), 0 W
Timothy: 5 R (including 1 rebound), 3 W

Clues revealed: 30
Triple Stumpers: 7
Jeopardy! Round Potential Lach Trash: $5,200



JEOPARDY! ROUND DAILY DOUBLE
John found the Daily Double on the 2nd clue. John had $200, Timothy was scoreless, and Katie had nothing in the bank. John wagered $1,000.

"OH" $400: This Czech region gave us a name for artistic people who live by unconventional standards

SCORES AT THE FIRST BREAK
John: $3,400
Katie: $2,200
Timothy: $200

CONTESTANT INTERVIEWS



Alex: Katie Moriarty is from Cincinnati, Ohio. She's a fifth-grade teacher at Wyoming Middle School, and U.S. News & World Report consistently gives you guys a very high rating.

Katie: Yes.

Alex: Now, what's the secret?

Katie: I think we're lucky that our--our community really values education. Um, just from the ground up, everybody in the whole community, often people are there for the schools. The kids work hard. They come to school ready to--ready to learn, and we're--we're grateful for that.

Alex: So, parent involvement is very, very important.

Katie: And a fine teaching staff.

[Laughter]

Alex: Okay, good for you.




Alex: Timothy Shuker-Haines, from Williamstown, Massachusetts. Now, I understand that because of your students' reaction to some of the classes, you decided to reverse the curriculum. Tell the folks about that.

Timothy: Right, it was just a couple of days before school started, and a student came up to me and was talking about all the American history classes he'd ever taken. They never got past the Civil War. From elementary school, middle school, never got... Said, "Why don't you just teach it backwards?" And I tossed and turned all night, trying to think about that, and decided, "Okay, I'll do it." So, I sort of remade the curriculum, started teaching it backwards. Started with the conventions last year and then gradually, you know... The question is "How did we get here?" rather than "Where did we go?"

Alex: Yeah, what we've discovered here on Jeopardy! with the young people, particularly, is that they don't know recent history--and by recent history, I mean the last 50 years--as much as they know early American history.

Timothy: Right, and it's more important they understand Iraq and Afghanistan than the War of 1812.

Alex: You bet.




Alex: Okay, John Pearson, how tall are you?

John: I'm 6'4".

Alex: Okay. You once tried out for the Duke basketball team.

John: I did.

Alex: Coach K was there at the time?

John: Yes. It was my freshman year. They had just won the national championship the year before, and they would go on to win the championship again that year, and I saw signs for the tryouts. They were looking for one walk-on position. I thought, "Why not? I won't make it, but why not have this experience?" So, I went out there and played pretty horribly. [Chuckles] But I went up afterwards and shook Coach K's hand. I told him, "I really appreciate the opportunity. Thanks. It's great to meet you." And the next day, there was a write-up in the paper. Coach K was quoted as saying, "I think the tryouts went great. There was a lot of guys. They had a lot of fun. In fact, when it was all over, the worst player out there came up and shook my hand, said 'Thanks for the opportunity.'"

[Laughter]

John: I can laugh about it now.

Alex: Yes, you can. All right. Because you're playing in a semifinal match in the Teachers Tournament.

TRIPLE STUMPERS IN THE JEOPARDY! ROUND
"OH" $1000: Some women treat hot flashes with a member of the buttercup family called black this

PEOPLE $1000: In 2013 people reported "the new YouTube sensation" was "doing" this dance; "R.I.P. Gangnam Style!"
(Timothy: Uh, what is the Harlem Shuffle?)

ONE MORE ITEM $600: On the list of Canadian prime ministers, he comes after Jean Chretien & Paul Martin

PLACES $400: Santo Domingo, a world capital, is on this island

PLACES $600: In biblical times, caravans stopped at Capernaum, Israel to stock up on fish from this nearby lake
(Timothy: What is the Dead Sea?)

PLACES $1000: It's the capital city that's home to Simon Bolivar's tomb
(John: What is La Paz?)

THINGS $600: It joins 2 railroad cars & sounds like it's trying to set people up on dates
(John: What is a hitch?)

SCORES AT THE END OF THE JEOPARDY! ROUND
John: $4,800
Katie: $4,400
Timothy: $400

[Archivists]

DOUBLE JEOPARDY! ROUND CATEGORIES
SHORT STORIES (3/5, including 1 missed Daily Double)
THE PRODUCERS (3/5) (Alex: You have to name the producer in that category.)
MORE THAN ONE MEANING (3/5, including 1 correct Daily Double)
OPERA & BALLET CHARACTERS (4/4)
EVERYBODY MUST GET BIRTHSTONES (5/5)
AMERICAN EXPERIENCE: JFK (3/5) (Alex: And finally, thanks to our friends at PBS...)

THE RIGHTS & THE WRONGS
Timothy: 8 R (including 1 rebound and 1 DD), 1 W
John: 9 R (including 1 rebound), 3 W (including 1 DD)
Katie: 4 R, 2 W

Clues revealed: 29
Triple Stumpers: 7
Double Jeopardy! Round Potential Lach Trash: $12,000



FIRST DOUBLE JEOPARDY! ROUND DAILY DOUBLE
Timothy snagged the next Daily Double on the 5th clue. John had $5,200, Timothy had $800, and Katie was at $4,800. Timothy wagered $2,000.

MORE THAN ONE MEANING $1600: Polite & friendly, or any of various liqueurs

SECOND DOUBLE JEOPARDY! ROUND DAILY DOUBLE
It was John who snatched up the last Daily Double of the game on the 8th clue. John had $6,000, Timothy had $2,800, and Katie was at $4,800. John wagered $2,500.

SHORT STORIES $1200: "Bow Wow" & "A Bit of a Shock", 2 of John O'Hara's stories about Joey Evans, were the basis for this 1940 musical
(John: What is Guys and Dolls?)

TRIPLE STUMPERS IN THE DOUBLE JEOPARDY! ROUND
MORE THAN ONE MEANING $1200: A burst of applause, maybe because of meaning 2, a drink for everyone

MORE THAN ONE MEANING $2000: Strictly accurate, or to demand, as a payment

SHORT STORIES $2000: In 1876 Edward Everett Hale wrote a novelette, "Philip Nolan's Friends", to complement this 1863 short story

AMERICAN EXPERIENCE: JFK $1600: Here is JFK on May 12, 1963, having sent 3,000 federal troops to this Alabama city to keep the peace
(John: What is Montgomery?)
(Katie: What is Tuscaloosa?)

AMERICAN EXPERIENCE: JFK $2000: During his 1946 run for Congress, the skinny JFK already suffered from this disease of adrenal insufficiency
(Katie: What is Graves' Disease?)

THE PRODUCERS $1200: "Prince of Persia",
"Top Gun"

THE PRODUCERS $2000: "Grand Theft Auto",
"Teenage Caveman",
dozens more

SCORES ENTERING FINAL JEOPARDY!
John: $8,700
Timothy: $8,400
Katie: $4,800

FINAL JEOPARDY! CATEGORY
BUILDINGS

VENUSIAN MONOLOGUES/MARTIAN CHRONICLES
Four-fifths for first place.
John: Wager $8,101 to cover Timothy.
Timothy: You have to wager $1,201 to cover Katie's doubled score, but certainly no more than $3,599, so as to force Katie to be right to have a chance at winning.
Katie: Consider risking between $3,601 and $4,199. This will top a $0 wager by Timothy while still beating John on the Triple Stumper (should John wager to cover Timothy's doubled score).

FINAL JEOPARDY! CLUE
Charles Evans Hughes laid the cornerstone for this building on October 13, 1932 & got to work in it for about 6 years

FINAL SCORES
Katie: $4,800 - $4,800 = $0 (What is the Flatiron Bldg?) (3rd place)
Timothy: $8,400 - $8,400 = $0 (What is the Empire State Building) (2nd place)
John: $8,700 - $8,200 = $500 (What is the Empire State Building?) (Finalist)

Total Potential Lach Trash: $17,200

GAME DYNAMICS


CORYAT SCORES
John: $10,600, 20 R (including 1 DD), 6 W (including 1 DD)
Timothy: $8,000, 13 R (including 1 DD), 4 W
Katie: $4,800, 11 R, 2 W
Combined Coryat: $23,400

BATTING AVERAGES
John: 20/60 = .333
Timothy: 13/59 = .220
Katie: 11/58 = .190
Team: 44/63 = .698

MISCELLANEOUS INTERESTING CLUES
ONE MORE ITEM $1000: Also known as pygmy chimp, it follows gorilla, orangutan & chimp to complete the great apes

PLACES $200: The Gobi Desert covers about 500,000 square miles of northeast China & the southern part of this nation
(John: What is Russia?)

THINGS $400: It's the circle just off the baseball diamond where the next batter warms up
(Timothy: It's the warm-up circle.)

SHORT STORIES $400: Inspired by the "Decameron", "Les cent nouvelles nouvelles" was a 15th century collection of this many tales
(John: What is 10?)

AMERICAN EXPERIENCE: JFK $400: An analyst said, "We've never seen this before", as Kennedy dealt with the situation in this country in October of 1962

AMERICAN EXPERIENCE: JFK $800: Captain JFK swam three miles while towing an injured crewman to shore after the August 2, 1943, sinking of this boat

AMERICAN EXPERIENCE: JFK $1200: On September 12, 1953, in front of 750 guests at mass & 450 more at the reception, JFK & Jackie wed in this Rhode Island resort city

THE PRODUCERS $800: "Easy Rider"
(Timothy: Who is Dennis Hopper?)

EVERYBODY MUST GET BIRTHSTONES $2000: January:
Its color is one of the school colors of Florida State University

OPERA & BALLET CHARACTERS $1600: In return for its freedom, it gives prince Ivan a brilliant red feather; he only need wave it & it will come to his aid
[The end-of-round signal sounds.]

CORRECT RESPONSES
Bohemia
black cohosh
the Harlem Shake
Stephen Harper
Hispaniola
the Sea of Galilee
Caracas
a coupler
cordial
Pal Joey
a round
exact
"The Man Without a Country"
Birmingham
Addison's Disease
Jerry Bruckheimer
Roger Corman
the U.S. Supreme Court Building
a bonobo
Mongolia
the on-deck circle
100
Cuba
the PT-109
Newport
(Peter) Fonda
garnet
the Firebird

[jeff6286]

Buildings
Charles Evans Hughes laid the cornerstone for this building on October 13, 1932 & got to work in it for about 6 years.

Spoiler

What is the U.S. Supreme Court Building? Katie said the Flatiron Building; Timothy and John both said the Empire State Building.

John Pearson: $8,700-$8,200=$500...Finalist
Timothy Shuker-Haines: $8,400-$8,400=$0
Katie Moriarty: $4,800-$4,800=$0

[Bamaman]

I was surprised that FJ was a TS, it was an instaget for me. Chief Justices would be a good addition to your short list study guide.

Really bad wagering by Timothy, only needed to bet $1,201 to lock out third place. Katie could have won by betting $2,400, the amount she needed to bet to beat second place's MSBIW. John didn't want to be left out, so he overwagered by $99, though it didn't hurt him. I was really hoping he'd bet it all.

I thought someone might go for the Empire State building, but it opened earlier than the date given in the clue

[dhkendall]

Really bad wagering by Timothy, only needed to bet $1,201 to lock out third place.

Didn't Vermonter say (either here or Facebook) that he knows Timothy? I expected better wagers from him (more than anyone else in the tourney) as a result.

[econgator]

I was surprised that FJ was a TS, it was an instaget for me.

Ditto.

There's only been 17 and most of them are well-known names.

[TenPoundHammer]

Flying high on "oh" for the first four, but they just had to shoot me down with cohosh. For someone who rarely watches The Simpsons, I sure know a lot about Dan Castellaneta. (A friend just introduced me to the Earthworm Jim cartoon, where he also has a VA role as the title character.)

People was a tough category for me. Got only $200. NHO Nurse Jackie. And ONCE AGAIN a 50/50 bites me in the butt: with "Harlem Shuffle" negged, I figured "well, it's gotta be my other choice, twerking" without remembering that it's "Harlem Shake".

-1/5 in Places. Absolutely clueless on Gobi. Could've been ANY country that borders China.

3/5 in One More. I knew Harper but couldn't pull the name, and clammed on bonobo.

====

Daily "blank on something I likely should know" (BaSILISK): Salem.

I didn't know "pike" had more than one meaning besides "fish", nor "exact" any other meaning besides precise. "Cordial" was obvious after the fact.

"Major city in Alabama: Gotta be either Montgomery, Tuscaloosa, or Huntsville. Not Montgomery. Not Tuscaloosa… screw it, if I say Huntsville, I'll still be wrong, but dang if I can think of another city in Alabama. Oh duh, Birmingham."

Oddly, Apatow was my only get in Producers.

Surprised we left a clue behind in Opera, because I'm 100% certain Alex never gave the LTAM. And considering he said something like "we'll leave that last clue on the board", it's not like they edited out a TS.

====

What was with the awkward silence before the Katie's reveal? Why did he tell Timothy "We know [The Empire State Building] is wrong" when the only answer revealed to that point was Flatiron Building? Anyone know if something got edited here?

[Golf]

Anybody who has memorized birthstones had to be irritated that one could be totally ignorant of the subject to run the category.

Today's wagering strategy is a perfect example of why good game players who couldn't answer five clues correctly laugh at the lack of common sense of many contestants.

[econgator]

Oddly, Apatow was my only get in Producers.

Warner was my only get.

What was with the awkward silence before the Katie's reveal? Why did he tell Timothy "We know [The Empire State Building] is wrong" when the only answer revealed to that point was Flatiron Building? Anyone know if something got edited here?

*shrug* The Flatiron Building != The Empire State Building.

[legendneverdies]

One of the dudes or both are history teachers, no? I thought one of them would recognize C.E. Hughes. Inoptimal wagering we know....

[skullturf]

I consistently had above-average Coryat scores last week, and fell a little this week. Not sure if the material got harder, or if I was just having an off day.

My two proudest educated guesses were the "unicycle" one and the "Salem" one. I didn't "know" either of those in the strictest sense, but I just figured: something in the circus that uses pedals, and an early American work of fiction that involves witches.

One that I actually *did* know is the S. American capital where Bolivar is buried or entombed. I think I learned that from trivia games! Bolivia is a very understandable guess, but it's just a guess, and a wrong one as it turns out.

For FJ, the name "Charles Evans Hughes" sounded extremely familiar. I was 99% sure he was a famous American who was famous for something vaguely political, and I was about 85-90% sure he was a Supreme Court Justice. So I wrote down "What is the Supreme Court Building?"

I had a small nagging feeling that I wasn't correctly remembering who Charles Evans Hughes was. Was he actually a Vice President? The governor of a state? Those doubts were small, though, and I was reasonably sure I had correctly remembered Hughes' most famous job.

I was also a little worried about the name of the building. Did it have a name other than "The Supreme Court Building" that I wasn't familiar with?

When Alex just said, "The U.S. Supreme Court Building", I was relieved. Then I realized that I didn't actually write down "U.S." or "United States", but I still counted it correct at home. Hope it would have counted on the show.

And yeah, I did get the impression there was an edit before the reveals of the FJ responses.

[TenPoundHammer]

Anybody who has memorized birthstones had to be irritated that one could be totally ignorant of the subject to run the category.

I knew the first two, then clammed on diamond because I thought it was too obvious for $1200. I've heard of William Safire, but couldn't put the pieces together. Florida State = Garnet was news to me.

[StevenH]

You know it's not the most enjoyable to watch game when an opera clue is left uncovered. I'll admit that I wasn't a huge fan of the DJ round clues, but the J! round was just painful to see.

I also instant got FJ, but I wasn't surprised at all that it was a triple stumper. Charles Evans Hughes never seems to be a very well know Chief Justice, for some reason. Heck, he was the subject of one of the DDs that Bob Verini blew in game 2 of the finals of the Million Dollar Masters tournament. Plus, two social studies teacher missed the super easy FJ that was on Thurgood Marshall in game 2 of the finals of the last Teachers Tournament.

This is only a minor criticism, but I think that "American History" would have been a better name for the FJ category.

[econgator]

I was also a little worried about the name of the building. Did it have a name other than "The Supreme Court Building" that I wasn't familiar with?

When Alex just said, "The U.S. Supreme Court Building", I was relieved. Then I realized that I didn't actually write down "U.S." or "United States", but I still counted it correct at home. Hope it would have counted on the show.

Its name is the 'Supreme Court Building'.

[econgator]

Florida State = Garnet was news to me.

UF = Orange & Blue
FSU = Garnet & Gold
UM = Orange (for the jumpsuits ....)

[legendneverdies]

I'm guessing the $2000 clue was a TS in Opera and Ballet Characters, since they usually show all 60 clues on air during tourneys, no?

[econgator]

I'm guessing the $2000 clue was a TS in Opera and Ballet Characters, since they usually show all 60 clues on air during tourneys, no?

Only during the first round, for equality. In subsequent rounds, its irrelevant.

[TenPoundHammer]

I'm guessing the $2000 clue was a TS in Opera and Ballet Characters, since they usually show all 60 clues on air during tourneys, no?

(ETA: Ninja'd by Econgator.) Plus, as I said, Alex's commentary afterward was conducive to them not having time to play the clue — which I found odd since he never gave the LTAM warning — and it didn't seem like there was an edit.

FJ! really seemed awkwardly edited though.

[Budphrey]

FJ! really seemed awkwardly edited though.

From the way everyone was chuckling and the way Alex emphasized that it was Katie's turn to choose next, my guess is that they edited out someone excitedly jumping in and calling for a clue out of turn. (I did that once. It happens.)

ETA: Oops. I misread the post and thought TPH was referring to the awkward edit during the DJ! round. That is actually what I was talking about.

[ElendilPickle]

Charles Evans Hughes sounded really familiar, but I couldn't figure out why. I thought the date was too late for the Empire State Building, but that was all I could come up with.