Ties on Jeopardy! RIP

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StuckInMyCat'sBody
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Re: Ties on Jeopardy! RIP

Post by StuckInMyCat'sBody »

About the game with Ryan Alley and Allison Solomon, I believe he bet only $10000 so if he got it wrong, he would be left with some money and have the possibility to get 2nd (in case the contestant in 3rd bets it all) Alison intended for the tie, but did the math wrong (was $200 short) , so they tied with $20200.

However, that is not the reason why the rule changed. The J! Staff are probably trying to give people a better chance of appearing on the show. If ties keep happening, there will be more money given away but less people would appear on the show. (1 challenger instead of 2)

It could also be for popularity reasons, (to make the game more interesting) now that the ToC is over.

I hate the fact that ties go to tiebreakers now. For example,In a theoretical game, you play pretty well, hitting 2 of the 3 daily doubles, entering FJ with $36000. However, your opponent gets the last clue (which is a Daily Double) with $9000. He bets all his money and says the correct response, doubling his score to $18000, which is exactly half of your total. Usually the smart thing to do would be to wager zero and no matter what, you would return the next day. However, now ties go to tiebreaker questions, so what would you do now? If you bet $1, you would have to get FJ correct if you want to win*, but if you wager zero, you risk having your opponent get the tiebreaker clue. Whichever you do, it's risky.

*Actually no, you can still win if both you and your opponent get it wrong.

I could go on about this theoretical scenario, but then this post would be too long. Meh.
Last edited by StuckInMyCat'sBody on Sat Nov 22, 2014 4:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Ties on Jeopardy! RIP

Post by GoodStrategy »

StuckInMyCat'sBody wrote:If you bet $1, you would have to get FJ correct if you want to win, but if you wager zero, you risk having your opponent get the tiebreaker clue.
You'd also still win with the dollar bet if your opponent missed FJ! - basically like a crush game.
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Re: Ties on Jeopardy! RIP

Post by opusthepenguin »

Bamaman wrote:I wonder if the pro-tie people have gathered outside Keith's house with torches and pitchforks?
Especially now that he has revealed he hates ties, clearly implying that he orchestrated the events leading to this rule change.
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StuckInMyCat'sBody
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Re: Ties on Jeopardy! RIP

Post by StuckInMyCat'sBody »

GoodStrategy wrote:
StuckInMyCat'sBody wrote:If you bet $1, you would have to get FJ correct if you want to win, but if you wager zero, you risk having your opponent get the tiebreaker clue.
You'd also still win with the dollar bet if your opponent missed FJ! - basically like a crush game.
Thanks for the correction. I edit my post.
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Re: Ties on Jeopardy! RIP

Post by seaborgium »

StuckInMyCat'sBody wrote: I hate the fact that ties go to tiebreakers now. For example,In a theoretical game, you play pretty well, hitting 2 of the 3 daily doubles, entering FJ with $36000. However, your opponent gets the last clue (which is a Daily Double) with $9000. He bets all his money and says the correct response, doubling his score to $18000, which is exactly half of your total. Usually the smart thing to do would be to wager zero and no matter what, you would return the next day. However, now ties go to tiebreaker questions, so what would you do now? If you bet $1, you would have to get FJ correct if you want to win*, but if you wager zero, you risk having your opponent get the tiebreaker clue. Whichever you do, it's risky.
The real problem here is being able to wager on Daily Doubles and Final Jeopardy. Plenty of people already lose because distant opponents make a move on a late DD and win in FJ.
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Re: Ties on Jeopardy! RIP

Post by makeabeilein »

StuckInMyCat'sBody wrote:About the game with Ryan Alley and Allison Solomon, I believe he bet only $10000 so if he got it wrong, he would be left with some money and have the possibility to get 2nd (in case the contestant in 3rd bets it all) Alison intended for the tie, but did the math wrong (was $200 short) , so they tied with $20200.
Yeah, that's an alternate reasoning I had come up with for "why would they bother to plan for a tie without making the obvious/all-in bets?" It's more susceptible to Ockham's Razor, but it's not impossible to believe that a couple contestants ran into each other in advance of their taping day, got to know each other over dinner, and made up a simple wagering rule to give each other a slight advantage in some specific situations. Again, it's dependent on some weird assumptions, but I am well aware of how much time and scratch paper contestants have to make their wagers, and it is 1000 times more likely in my mind that a big leader (who bet almost everything she needed to; she wasn't holding back all that much) would intentionally make an odd wager to help a friend than that she would make an incorrect wager because she did the math wrong.
StuckInMyCat'sBody wrote:However, that is not the reason why the rule changed. The J! Staff are probably trying to give people a better chance of appearing on the show. If ties keep happening, there will be more money given away but less people would appear on the show. (1 challenger instead of 2)
I didn't press the issue, but I did not get even a hint of a suggestion from the contestant wranglers that this had anything to do with the change, even though that would have been a popular explanation among the audience that was hearing the news.
StuckInMyCat'sBody wrote:It could also be for popularity reasons, (to make the game more interesting) now that the ToC is over.
That's a very legitimate suggestion; I'm definitely expecting this to generate a brief flurry of blogging about Jeopardy!, and the "all publicity is good" rule probably applies.
As far as popularity/more interesting goes, it seems like this is a winning move for the show, assuming that audiences crave winners. There's a certain gallows humor that spurs comparisons to The Hunger Games as soon as the contestants meet each other; the news about ties made the comparisons uncomfortably accurate. It seems to me that there can only be one Smartest Guy On The Set, and it has to be Alex Trebek, and if contestants have started routinely exploiting a very attractive loophole and not just tying in Lock-Tie or Tied-Going-Into-FJ situations, then the social contract that makes Jeopardy! a game show has been broken.
StuckInMyCat'sBody wrote:I hate the fact that ties go to tiebreakers now. ... now ties go to tiebreaker questions, so what would you do now? If you bet $1, you would have to get FJ correct if you want to win, but if you wager zero, you risk having your opponent get the tiebreaker clue. Whichever you do, it's risky.
Yes. This is unfortunate, and I think this probably has a lot to do with why the show has allowed ties until now. Every once in a while, players would tie, but the producers and viewers would normally be able to say, "well, what else were they supposed to wager?" With ties routinely being offered merely due to politeness or other unnecessary reasons, though, I think TPTB threw up their hands and decided to throw the good ties out with the bad.
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Re: Ties on Jeopardy! RIP

Post by lieph82 »

makeabeilein wrote: Again, it's dependent on some weird assumptions, but I am well aware of how much time and scratch paper contestants have to make their wagers, and it is 1000 times more likely in my mind that a big leader (who bet almost everything she needed to; she wasn't holding back all that much) would intentionally make an odd wager to help a friend than that she would make an incorrect wager because she did the math wrong.
Then your head is a really interesting place. The intersection between "Jeopardy! contestants" and "people who are good at math" is demonstrably small.
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Re: Ties on Jeopardy! RIP

Post by Vermonter »

StuckInMyCat'sBody wrote:I hate the fact that ties go to tiebreakers now. For example,In a theoretical game, you play pretty well, hitting 2 of the 3 daily doubles, entering FJ with $36000. However, your opponent gets the last clue (which is a Daily Double) with $9000. He bets all his money and says the correct response, doubling his score to $18000, which is exactly half of your total. Usually the smart thing to do would be to wager zero and no matter what, you would return the next day. However, now ties go to tiebreaker questions, so what would you do now?
One perk of no more ties is it allows the leader in a crush to make larger wagers. Assuming a two-player game in a lock-tie situation, the leader could wager up to everything minus a dollar. Those more conservative could wager so as not to fall below second, which would still force second to respond correctly.

That was my reasoning behind my outsized wager in my UToC game: I knew Grace, as a good player in a crush situation, would wager (almost) everything, so I wagered $10,000 instead of the "rational" $2,801. In fact, I could have wagered $399 more (to stay above a zero wager by her) or even $1,199 more (so as not to fall below a double-up by John).

The UToC is also the only precedent we have for (1) winners keep their totals and (2) tiebreakers are in effect. (The UToC was subject to a minimum depending on the round; in my game, it was $15,000, which made the outsized wager even more attractive, as my downside was capped.)
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Re: Ties on Jeopardy! RIP

Post by dhkendall »

Vermonter wrote:(1) winners keep their totals
I'd still like to see second and third keep their totals too, but I think most people on the board have a quixotic venture they'd like to see on the show that'll never come to pass. :)
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Re: Ties on Jeopardy! RIP

Post by StrangerCoug »

Now that Buy a Vowel boards brought this to my attention... (That's where I've been :P )

I'm actually neutral about the change regarding ties. Granted, I see the argument about wagering strategy being affected, but on most shows I think it will go unnoticed, at least by the casual viewer. *cue the admittedly understandable "But we're far from casual viewers here" argument* My mom justified the change that there's been three co-champions this season already, implying a financial strain on Sony (and I justified HER by telling her that Sony isn't in the best financial position right now). Now, granted, the excitement of having co-champions will probably be missed greatly, but I bet you it's not going to be a ratings-killer.
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Re: Ties on Jeopardy! RIP

Post by lieph82 »

The money doesn't matter to Sony.
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Re: Ties on Jeopardy! RIP

Post by Vermonter »

lieph82 wrote:The money doesn't matter to Sony.
Due to budget cuts, the contestant food – even at the TOC – is, I've been told, pretty meager.
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Re: Ties on Jeopardy! RIP

Post by dhkendall »

lieph82 wrote:The money doesn't matter to Sony.
Agreed. They still probably have more money than Ken and Brad combined. Besides, if they need to cut costs, they can start with Wheel - as far as I can tell it gives more money (and has the potential to give more money) than J!
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Re: Ties on Jeopardy! RIP

Post by Spaceman Spiff »

dhkendall wrote:
Vermonter wrote:(1) winners keep their totals
I'd still like to see second and third keep their totals too, but I think most people on the board have a quixotic venture they'd like to see on the show that'll never come to pass. :)
That's the way it was in the Art Fleming version back in the 60s and 70s. IIRC, the current folks made a deliberate decision to make it a winner-take-all competition because they felt it made better TV (not that the format on Wheel doesn't hurt ratings).

I believe part of the problem cited with the "everyone goes home with what they won" concept on the NBC series was that, on occasion, a contestant would go on the show with a goal of how much money they wanted to go home with and, once they got to that point, basically stopped playing.
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Re: Ties on Jeopardy! RIP

Post by lieph82 »

Spaceman Spiff wrote:
dhkendall wrote:
Vermonter wrote:(1) winners keep their totals
I'd still like to see second and third keep their totals too, but I think most people on the board have a quixotic venture they'd like to see on the show that'll never come to pass. :)
That's the way it was in the Art Fleming version back in the 60s and 70s. IIRC, the current folks made a deliberate decision to make it a winner-take-all competition because they felt it made better TV (not that the format on Wheel doesn't hurt ratings).

I believe part of the problem cited with the "everyone goes home with what they won" concept on the NBC series was that, on occasion, a contestant would go on the show with a goal of how much money they wanted to go home with and, once they got to that point, basically stopped playing.
Yeah, this isn't feasible. Barely anyone would play to win- why would an average Joe leading $15,000 to $14,000 risk just about everything to make the MSB when he can bet $0 and be guaranteed fifteen grand?
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Re: Ties on Jeopardy! RIP

Post by Turd Ferguson »

lieph82 wrote:
Spaceman Spiff wrote:
dhkendall wrote: I'd still like to see second and third keep their totals too, but I think most people on the board have a quixotic venture they'd like to see on the show that'll never come to pass. :)
That's the way it was in the Art Fleming version back in the 60s and 70s. IIRC, the current folks made a deliberate decision to make it a winner-take-all competition because they felt it made better TV (not that the format on Wheel doesn't hurt ratings).

I believe part of the problem cited with the "everyone goes home with what they won" concept on the NBC series was that, on occasion, a contestant would go on the show with a goal of how much money they wanted to go home with and, once they got to that point, basically stopped playing.
Yeah, this isn't feasible. Barely anyone would play to win- why would an average Joe leading $15,000 to $14,000 risk just about everything to make the MSB when he can bet $0 and be guaranteed fifteen grand?
At my audition, someone asked why second and third place finishers don't keep their amounts, and Maggie's answer was basically this.
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Re: Ties on Jeopardy! RIP

Post by dhkendall »

lieph82 wrote:
Spaceman Spiff wrote:
dhkendall wrote:
Vermonter wrote:(1) winners keep their totals
I'd still like to see second and third keep their totals too, but I think most people on the board have a quixotic venture they'd like to see on the show that'll never come to pass. :)
That's the way it was in the Art Fleming version back in the 60s and 70s. IIRC, the current folks made a deliberate decision to make it a winner-take-all competition because they felt it made better TV (not that the format on Wheel doesn't hurt ratings).

I believe part of the problem cited with the "everyone goes home with what they won" concept on the NBC series was that, on occasion, a contestant would go on the show with a goal of how much money they wanted to go home with and, once they got to that point, basically stopped playing.
Yeah, this isn't feasible. Barely anyone would play to win- why would an average Joe leading $15,000 to $14,000 risk just about everything to make the MSB when he can bet $0 and be guaranteed fifteen grand?
Because you don't get to be a Jeopardy! champion, dummy! :)

(what was that recent thread about "which would you rather be, a $1 J! champ, or second place (or something like that)?)
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Re: Ties on Jeopardy! RIP

Post by lieph82 »

The difference between $1001 and $2000 != the difference between $15000 and $2000.
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Re: Ties on Jeopardy! RIP

Post by Vermonter »

dhkendall wrote:
Vermonter wrote:(1) winners keep their totals
I'd still like to see second and third keep their totals too, but I think most people on the board have a quixotic venture they'd like to see on the show that'll never come to pass. :)
Just to be clear, because I think this went in a different direction than I had intended: I meant winners in the UToC kept their totals (subject to a minimum), as opposed to a typical tournament structure, in which a victory guarantees only a trip to the next round (and a bump in prize money).
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Re: Ties on Jeopardy! RIP

Post by Magna »

Spaceman Spiff wrote:I believe part of the problem cited with the "everyone goes home with what they won" concept on the NBC series was that, on occasion, a contestant would go on the show with a goal of how much money they wanted to go home with and, once they got to that point, basically stopped playing.
The anecdote I've heard concerned an engagement ring. Once the fellow reached the amount he knew he needed, he didn't buzz in any more.
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