Millionaire 2016-17 Season Discussion [SPOILERS]

[Vermonter]

I got the correct answer but went about it from the opposite direction - seems much easier this way.

Spoiler

Count the squares you CAN buy then subtract from 40. Two sides have 2 sets of three properties and two sides have one set of three and one set of two - 6+6+5+5=22. Add 4 railroads and the two utilities - 22+6=28 and 40-28=12.

That's exactly how I got it. I loved this question.

Same here. (Then went around the board to confirm.)

[seaborgium]

I don't think I know any of the spaces well enough to have done anything but walk on that question (or just guess wildly if I couldn't leave with less than I already had), but I was slightly thrown by whether to count "Just Visiting" as a separate space.

[jeff6286]

I don't think I know any of the spaces well enough to have done anything but walk on that question (or just guess wildly if I couldn't leave with less than I already had), but I was slightly thrown by whether to count "Just Visiting" as a separate space.

The question did say that there are 40 spaces, this should eliminate any ambiguity on the Jail/Just Visiting square.

[seaborgium]

I don't think I know any of the spaces well enough to have done anything but walk on that question (or just guess wildly if I couldn't leave with less than I already had), but I was slightly thrown by whether to count "Just Visiting" as a separate space.

The question did say that there are 40 spaces, this should eliminate any ambiguity on the Jail/Just Visiting square.

I realized that at the time I first read the post about it, but forgot when I finally decided to put in my two cents!

[BigDaddyMatty]

From yesterday's episode: contestant Rob Walker's $20,000 question was essentially identical to this episode's FJ!

Here were his choices:

Spoiler

A. Dwight Eisenhower
B. John F. Kennedy
C. Lyndon B. Johnson
D. Richard Nixon

Rob took the 50-50 and ended up with

Spoiler

B. John F. Kennedy
C. Lyndon B. Johnson

He then asked the audience, who said

Spoiler

B. John F. Kennedy, 63%
C. Lyndon B. Johnson, 37%

Result:

Spoiler

Rob followed the audience's lead and locked in Kennedy, which was the correct answer. He returns today to go for $30,000 with his +1 lifeline remaining.

[MarkBarrett]

This is Whiz Kids Week.

Garrett White did not use a lifeline on this question.

Spoiler

$20,000

What happened:

Spoiler

He knew it was the House of Representatives.

What happened when the show ended:

Spoiler

For $30,000 the question wanted to know which of the following four Tolkien books was by far the longest.

Garrett used his 50:50 which eliminated The Hobbit & The Two Towers and it left TFOTR and TROTK. He then used his plus one, mom. She had no idea and they agreed it was best to walk with the $20K.

The answer was TFOTR.

For those that like kids taking on math each stack of questions has at least one math mental gymnastics type.

[IronNeck]

Spoiler

For $30,000 the question wanted to know which of the following four Tolkien books was by far the longest.

Garrett used his 50:50 which eliminated The Hobbit & The Two Towers and it left TFOTR and TROTK. He then used his plus one, mom. She had no idea and they agreed it was best to walk with the $20K.

The answer was TFOTR.

For those that like kids taking on math each stack of questions has at least one math mental gymnastics type.

Heh, I don't know how old Garrett is, but I would have gotten at 10-12 myself. Although I agree that it's not a particularly good question. I'm not even sure I would have gotten it if I hadn't read through the latter three very, very slowly at that age.

[MinnesotaMyron]

Spoiler

For $30,000 the question wanted to know which of the following four Tolkien books was by far the longest.

Garrett used his 50:50 which eliminated The Hobbit & The Two Towers and it left TFOTR and TROTK. He then used his plus one, mom. She had no idea and they agreed it was best to walk with the $20K.

The answer was TFOTR.

For those that like kids taking on math each stack of questions has at least one math mental gymnastics type.

Heh, I don't know how old Garrett is, but I would have gotten at 10-12 myself. Although I agree that it's not a particularly good question. I'm not even sure I would have gotten it if I hadn't read through the latter three very, very slowly at that age.

With whom are you agreeing that it's not a good question?

[Volante]

What happened when the show ended:

Spoiler

For $30,000 the question wanted to know which of the following four Tolkien books was by far the longest.

Garrett used his 50:50 which eliminated The Hobbit & The Two Towers and it left TFOTR and TROTK. He then used his plus one, mom. She had no idea and they agreed it was best to walk with the $20K.

The answer was TFOTR.

Don't like this question. They didn't define "book."

Using the same edition of all four (1988 Ballantine trade paperback), going by the last numbered page, I have the following:

Spoiler

Hobbit: 304p
FOTR: 479p
TTT: 415p
ROTK: 507p

Excluding the indexes but keeping the appendices, ROTK is still 481p
Only if you exclude the appendices does ROTK go under FOTR, at 347p

So, at what point do you draw the line of "book"?

[IronNeck]

Spoiler

For $30,000 the question wanted to know which of the following four Tolkien books was by far the longest.

Garrett used his 50:50 which eliminated The Hobbit & The Two Towers and it left TFOTR and TROTK. He then used his plus one, mom. She had no idea and they agreed it was best to walk with the $20K.

The answer was TFOTR.

For those that like kids taking on math each stack of questions has at least one math mental gymnastics type.

Heh, I don't know how old Garrett is, but I would have gotten at 10-12 myself. Although I agree that it's not a particularly good question. I'm not even sure I would have gotten it if I hadn't read through the latter three very, very slowly at that age.

With whom are you agreeing that it's not a good question?

Clearly, the imaginary person residing in my crazed mind! Yeah, amend that to "it's not a good question".

I would do very well with page count questions, but I don't like them, since different editions will often have massively different numbers, and it's pure trivia, having nothing to do with the contents of the novels themselves.

Edit- Yeah, what Volante wrote, too.

[OrangeSAM]

Ditto, Volante.

[earendel]

What happened when the show ended:

Spoiler

For $30,000 the question wanted to know which of the following four Tolkien books was by far the longest.

Garrett used his 50:50 which eliminated The Hobbit & The Two Towers and it left TFOTR and TROTK. He then used his plus one, mom. She had no idea and they agreed it was best to walk with the $20K.

The answer was TFOTR.

Don't like this question. They didn't define "book."

Using the same edition of all four (1988 Ballantine trade paperback), going by the last numbered page, I have the following:

Spoiler

Hobbit: 304p
FOTR: 479p
TTT: 415p
ROTK: 507p

Excluding the indexes but keeping the appendices, ROTK is still 481p
Only if you exclude the appendices does ROTK go under FOTR, at 347p

So, at what point do you draw the line of "book"?

I was floored when I saw this, and went looking online and found a website that had a word count of all the books. FOTR came out the longest because they didn't count the appendices.

http://lotrproject.com/statistics/books/wordscount

Money quote:

The index to the Silmarillion has not been included and neither has the appendicies to the Lord of the Rings since they are not part of the story. This is why both the Silmarillion and the Return of the King may appear shorter than expected.

I would strongly disagree with that assessment - the appendices are indeed part of the story.

[opusthepenguin]

http://lotrproject.com/statistics/books/wordscount

Money quote:

The index to the Silmarillion has not been included and neither has the appendicies to the Lord of the Rings since they are not part of the story. This is why both the Silmarillion and the Return of the King may appear shorter than expected.

I would strongly disagree with that assessment - the appendices are indeed part of the story.

But would you agree that they are part of The Lord of the Rings as a whole and not exclusive to The Return of the King?

[MarkBarrett]

Whiz Kid Tyler Letarte on the Nov. 17 show used his mom as his +1 lifeline:

Spoiler

$20,000

What happened:

Spoiler

Mom had no idea while Tyler was leaning towards "Your huddled masses"
The answer was of course C: "Your wretched"
They agreed to use the Cut lifeline. During some special weeks a fourth lifeline is available that allows the contestant to "Cut" the question to have it replaced by another for the same amount and supposedly a little easier.

This was next:

Spoiler

Still $20,000

When the Cut is used with the +1 on tap that person from the audience gets to stay and help with the replacement question as well.

Next:

Spoiler

Mom was once again no help, unfortunately.

Then:

Spoiler

Tyler left with $5,000 and his ATA had been used earlier in the stack. In pondering tin he knew there was no element with the symbol T, that Ti was titanium and that nitrogen was N. However, he thought that tungsten with more letters was more likely to have a two-letter symbol seemed to be the reasoning.
I understand why a kid coming to Vegas from NC is going to have a parent as a chaperone/+1 lifeline. It's too bad though since any kind of better help from the +1 gets him the original 20K question with the Cut still available along with the 50:50 for a $30K question.

With 10K banked I don't disagree with taking a guess to try to add 10K and "only" losing 5K. On the other hand if Tyler had the 20K in the bank and the lifelines did not help at 30K then he is more likely to walk than to guess. He would then have left 15K better than today's outcome.

[IronNeck]

Post

Spoiler

Perhaps the only person available to travel to Vegas with him during the taping was his mother and he wasn't able to find anyone in Vegas online. If that wasn't the case, you're right; he should have gotten a better +1.

Regardless, he is in 7th grade. I would have gotten the Statue of Liberty question at that age and probably the chemistry one. And I wasn't even into trivia. So that's on him.

[rpg]

Then:

Spoiler

Tyler left with $5,000 and his ATA had been used earlier in the stack. In pondering tin he knew there was no element with the symbol T, that Ti was titanium and that nitrogen was N. However, he thought that tungsten with more letters was more likely to have a two-letter symbol seemed to be the reasoning.
I understand why a kid coming to Vegas from NC is going to have a parent as a chaperone/+1 lifeline. It's too bad though since any kind of better help from the +1 gets him the original 20K question with the Cut still available along with the 50:50 for a $30K question.

With 10K banked I don't disagree with taking a guess to try to add 10K and "only" losing 5K. On the other hand if Tyler had the 20K in the bank and the lifelines did not help at 30K then he is more likely to walk than to guess. He would then have left 15K better than today's outcome.

Spoiler

While I couldn't remember the symbol for tungsten, I will always remember tin thanks to this xkcd: https://xkcd.com/18/

[MinnesotaMyron]

That first Q was nasty. I had to go throuh the poem in my head a couple of times before I realized why the right answer was "wrong".

[MarkBarrett]

This week is Bachelor Fan Favorites with the reality "stars" playing for charity. So that means these kind of results:

Spoiler

$1,000 - Roberto Martinez


$10,000 - Dan Cox


The charities for each guy gets $10,000 though. Neither gentleman used a lifeline.

[kprather895]

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Replace one of these celebrity weeks with a champions week. Bring back the millionaires and half-millionaires and have THEM play for charity instead.

[IronNeck]

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Replace one of these celebrity weeks with a champions week. Bring back the millionaires and half-millionaires and have THEM play for charity instead.

While that would certainly be more entertaining for us, and raise more money for charity, which one garners the higher ratings?