Thursday, May 30, 2013 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

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marpocky
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Re: Thursday, May 30, 2013 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by marpocky »

John Boy wrote:
jpahk wrote:
John Boy wrote:Alphabetically-first first name of a first lady? How about start with Aa (no Aaron, I suppose), so what about Ab? Yeah, Abigail was Instaget and I sat there screaming at the screen while the contestant on stage agonized for what seemed like a half hour over that one. Must be the bright lights and the pressure of real money.
but he doesn't get any extra money for saying abigail quickly, and the extra time is there—alex will prompt you when it's over. it is just plain sound strategy to keep thinking after you have what might be the answer in a category like this. what if the zodiac one ($400, mind you) had been the DD? "well, there's only 12*... aries starts with A... must be it!" but if you keep on thinking, you might come up with aquarius.

there certainly isn't enough time to run through all of the first ladies, and few of us know all of their names anyway. that means you can't be 100% certain, under time pressure, that your answer is correct, so there is an enormous incentive to spend every second you have thinking about them. obviously abigail turned out to be correct, but it is not the alphabetically first conceivable woman's name. (in fact, aaliyah is a top-100 girl's name these days, although it is not hard to rule out as a first lady's name.)

*: la la la. i can't hear you, ophiuchus.
I don't KNOW what he was THINKING (obviously) during that time. My IMPRESSION was that he was struggling to come up with Abigail or any other name early in the alphabet, not that he quickly came up with Abigail and was straining to think of who could come before her alphabetically. You might be right. That's just not the impression I got.
What difference does it make? Maybe he came up with Barbara right away and was trying to beat it.
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MarkBarrett
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Re: Thursday, May 30, 2013 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by MarkBarrett »

John Boy wrote:
jpahk wrote:
John Boy wrote:Alphabetically-first first name of a first lady? How about start with Aa (no Aaron, I suppose), so what about Ab? Yeah, Abigail was Instaget and I sat there screaming at the screen while the contestant on stage agonized for what seemed like a half hour over that one. Must be the bright lights and the pressure of real money.
but he doesn't get any extra money for saying abigail quickly, and the extra time is there—alex will prompt you when it's over. it is just plain sound strategy to keep thinking after you have what might be the answer in a category like this. what if the zodiac one ($400, mind you) had been the DD? "well, there's only 12*... aries starts with A... must be it!" but if you keep on thinking, you might come up with aquarius.

there certainly isn't enough time to run through all of the first ladies, and few of us know all of their names anyway. that means you can't be 100% certain, under time pressure, that your answer is correct, so there is an enormous incentive to spend every second you have thinking about them. obviously abigail turned out to be correct, but it is not the alphabetically first conceivable woman's name. (in fact, aaliyah is a top-100 girl's name these days, although it is not hard to rule out as a first lady's name.)

*: la la la. i can't hear you, ophiuchus.
I don't KNOW what he was THINKING (obviously) during that time. My IMPRESSION was that he was struggling to come up with Abigail or any other name early in the alphabet, not that he quickly came up with Abigail and was straining to think of who could come before her alphabetically. You might be right. That's just not the impression I got.
I talked to Les after the WQC was finished less than an hour ago. He had Abigail immediately. Joon pegged the reasoning correctly. Daily Doubles give you extra time and Les used the opportunity to make sure. There have been plenty of players who have blurted out something wrong on a DD response where if they had taken a pause they could have caught themselves. It's sound strategy to use the benefit of added thinking time.

Of course Les' extra thinking time gave those of at home (and his guests in the studio) a scare that he didn't know it or had to search for the name.
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Rex Kramer
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Re: Thursday, May 30, 2013 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by Rex Kramer »

My entire family and I just finished watching the DVR recording of this game. If you knew how tiresome my wife finds Jeopardy! nowadays, you would understand how unusual this is. I'm not sure she would watch if I managed to get on again. But Les was a fantastic host when my family went on vacation to his town a few years ago, and he introduced my wife to her favorite restaurant there (possibly ever), so of course we all held off until we could sit down together and enjoy his performance.

Les was somewhat less effortlessly conversational on J! than he has been in our experience, so I assumed at first that he was a little nervous under the lights. But during DJ!, it became clear to me that he was carefully strategizing about how to play the board -- I cheered aloud when he first jumped down a category to search for a DD. The whole family was cheering Les on, and I was totally, unsurprisingly pleased when he nailed a bunch of really good gets.

The FJ! reveal was agonizing. I knew this was the kind of thing Les would know, but his face during the Think Music did not look promising. I spent half that time trying to explain to my family why the 2nd-place player might or might not bet big, and how if he did the latter then Les would still have a chance even if everyone got FJ! wrong . . . but fearing that the returning champ was just a little too canny to go that route. As John McClane said, "I hate it when I'm right."

You still played a great game, Lark -- anyone could see you did yourself proud, and those of us on the Boards who really follow the game saw it better than most folks. Beautiful gameplay and great responses. You deserved the win.

Rex
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Woof
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Re: Von Braun: The Reich Stuff

Post by Woof »

Vanya wrote:
Sage on the Hudson wrote:
Jasoni22 wrote:[Von Braun] even became a US citizen a full 22 years before his death. I think he could be called both German and American.
Half-German, half-American, and all Nazi (I'm reminded of the 1961 movie adaptation of von Braun's autobiography, "I Aim for the Stars," dealing at length with von Braun's leadership in the program to develop the Germans' V-2 rockets, about which the great Mort Sahl once quipped, "I Aim for the Stars...but sometimes I hit London").
Better us than the Soviets.
"Vunce the rockets go up, who cares vere zey come down?
Zat's not my department," says Werner von Braun
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whoisalexjacob
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Re: Thursday, May 30, 2013 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by whoisalexjacob »

Good showing lark.
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