Tuesday, February 11, 2014 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

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lieph82
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Re: Tuesday, February 11, 2014 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by lieph82 »

ArthurChu wrote:The thing about tiebreakers is that they're so rare that there's very little data to be gathered about them. However, if it's true that tiebreaker questions are nothing but recycled unused "normal" Jeopardy questions, then I can totally see it being strategic for someone who does poorly at the kind of questions they write for FJ (very tough questions that rely heavily on tease-outs) to intentionally bet $0 in a lock-tie situation hoping to get the tiebreaker. Having a very high chance at getting "normal" Jeopardy questions through quick buzzer reaction time while doing badly at FJs is hardly an uncommon trait.
College FJ!'s are a great deal easier than regular FJ!'s, even for college students. Betting on yourself to get the question right is generally the right idea. This theory may have to be adjusted after
Spoiler
whatever happened with last night's FJ!, however...
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ArthurChu
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Re: Tuesday, February 11, 2014 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by ArthurChu »

Enh, yes and no. Obviously if you were *really* committed to betting on yourself to get the question right then you'd go Cliff Clavin on every single FJ, and we all know that doesn't end well.
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Re: Tuesday, February 11, 2014 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by Bamaman »

Question for anyone who has seen a tie breaker in person.

How much prep time is there? Alex makes it look like they show the category and then the clue. Obviously, there has to be a tight edit since they'd be pressed for time in a tie breaker. But does it really happen that quickly?
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lieph82
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Re: Tuesday, February 11, 2014 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by lieph82 »

ArthurChu wrote:Enh, yes and no. Obviously if you were *really* committed to betting on yourself to get the question right then you'd go Cliff Clavin on every single FJ, and we all know that doesn't end well.
If you were 100% sure you'd get the question right, then in a regular game, obviously you would bet it all, because the winner keeps their winnings. In a tournament quarterfinal, in this case, if you were 100% sure you'd get the question right, there's absolutely no difference between betting $1 and betting it all. Either way results in a semifinal berth. Unless, of course, you consider getting the first choice of clue in your semifinal match to be a real reward.
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Re: Tuesday, February 11, 2014 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by TenPoundHammer »

Bamaman wrote:
TenPoundHammer wrote: My thought process: The date's obviously not relevant here, so tune that out. But that could be literally anything. I see no possible way to figure this out unless you were there, and I apparently wasn't even though I have a Twitter.
There is an adage about writing that says if you mention a gun, you better use it. The same rule applies to FJ clues. If they go to the trouble of mentioning something, its probably important.
Except for the clues that have included extraneous and/or highly misleading details in them. (Carabelli/Durazzo comes to mind, and I'm sure there have been lots more.)
Bamaman wrote:This is a dangerous assumption, but you should know we had a presidential election in November 2012. If you ignore the date, you are stuck trying to think of a three word tweet starting with the word "four". I am not on Twitter and was unaware of this tweet. But it was a quick jump from a big news story from that month to a phrase often chanted by supporters of a president seeking re-election.
I might've considered November as a hint briefly, but after I failed to think of anything important that could happen in November, I rejected the November date as extraneous clutter, and thought, "oh well, just another completely TOM-free 'you know it or you don't' clue". Even though I know full well that there was some kind of election thing in 2012 where some guy other than the one I voted for won his second term, and that "four more years" was a thing.

It's like my brain just switches off whenever FJ! comes up and fails to make the simplest of connections. In the past, I've failed to come up with "ask not" when spotted "JFK", "speech", and "two words"; Macedonia when spotted "Hellenistic" and "1991"; Carnival Cruise Lines when spotted "Ship" and "Mardi Gras". I seem to completely lack the ability to beat the right answer out of nearly 4/5 of FJ! clues, thus leaving me mega super hyper ultra unconfident when I have even an inkling on the other 1/5.
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Re: Tuesday, February 11, 2014 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by Golf »

The UCLA kid will catch a lot of grief about not knowing Kareem Abdul Jabbar's signature move. Only their best hoopster ever.

2nd place wagering internal discussion: Let's see now, I've got exactly half of the leader's score. If I miss it's doubtful I'll make the semis so... oh look, pretty lights, people are looking at me. Screw it, let's just wager some random number and then giggle when Alex reveals it.
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Re: Tuesday, February 11, 2014 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by Golf »

TenPoundHammer wrote:I might've considered November as a hint briefly, but after I failed to think of anything important that could happen in November, I rejected the November date as extraneous clutter, and thought, "oh well, just another completely TOM-free 'you know it or you don't' clue". Even though I know full well that there was some kind of election thing in 2012 where some guy other than the one I voted for won his second term, and that "four more years" was a thing.
TPH, repeat after me. Whenever a date is given in a clue it's ALWAYS the most important fact.

Now reply saying you've read this and then we'll bring this post up again in a month or two.
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ArthurChu
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Re: Tuesday, February 11, 2014 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by ArthurChu »

It also helps that if you know anything about Twitter, Twitter is an extremely BREAKING NEWS-oriented, present-moment-based form of social media communication. ANYTHING involving identifying any significant/newsworthy tweet is probably going to hinge heavily on the specific date that the tweet was tweeted.
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Re: Tuesday, February 11, 2014 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by hanzz »

TenPoundHammer wrote: I might've considered November as a hint briefly, but after I failed to think of anything important that could happen in November, I rejected the November date as extraneous clutter, and thought, "oh well, just another completely TOM-free 'you know it or you don't' clue". Even though I know full well that there was some kind of election thing in 2012 where some guy other than the one I voted for won his second term, and that "four more years" was a thing.
Eek.

Anywho, as someone who could have payed for underbetting in their quarterfinal, I can understand Sarah's hesitancy in wanting to leave *some* money on the table; shortly before my show there'd been a ToC with a rather low WC cutoff. Nonetheless, we all at least knew that $15k was about what one wanted to be somewhat sure of a WC spot.
Last edited by hanzz on Tue Feb 11, 2014 8:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Tuesday, February 11, 2014 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by Paucle »

oops- I thought there was no tie-breaker in the QFs, only semis and finals. You mean they both would not have advanced had she gone all-in?
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Re: Tuesday, February 11, 2014 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by hanzz »

Paucle wrote:oops- I thought there was no tie-breaker in the QFs, only semis and finals. You mean they both would not have advanced had she gone all-in?
There needs to be a QF winner, so yes, there would have been a tiebreaker. There was a TT recently I believe where a girl in first place with $20k way overbet $8k or something and ended up in a tie with the boy who came in second place and lost the tiebreaker and didn't advance since her score wasn't high enough for a WC.
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Re: Tuesday, February 11, 2014 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by ArthurChu »

You can't tie for the automatic advance to the semis. All actual game victories in tournaments have to be sole victories so actual game ties have to be decided by tiebreaker.

The confusion comes about because this does NOT hold for wildcard slots -- if multiple people qualify for a wildcard slot based on tied final scores the tie is "broken" by taking the pre-FJ score (and if that, too, was a tie, then they take the pre-DJ score -- and if that, too, was a tie, then... well, I don't actually know).
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Re: Tuesday, February 11, 2014 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by Bamaman »

If there is a triple zero game in a QF game, they do not do a tie breaker, they just take five wild cards, although all three would be eligible for one.
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Re: Tuesday, February 11, 2014 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by skullturf »

ArthurChu wrote:It also helps that if you know anything about Twitter, Twitter is an extremely BREAKING NEWS-oriented, present-moment-based form of social media communication. ANYTHING involving identifying any significant/newsworthy tweet is probably going to hinge heavily on the specific date that the tweet was tweeted.
When I first read the clue, there was about half a second where my brain saw the words "most retweeted tweet" and also saw that there was a date, but hadn't really "processed" the date yet. In that half second, I thought the tweet might have something to do with the capture of Osama Bin Laden (another very "breaking news" event of the past few years). But then "November 2012" clicked, and I thought of a three-word slogan starting with "four" that people sometimes say.
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ArthurChu
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Re: Tuesday, February 11, 2014 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by ArthurChu »

Bamaman wrote:If there is a triple zero game in a QF game, they do not do a tie breaker, they just take five wild cards, although all three would be eligible for one.
Really? I'd actually be mad about that if I were a high-scoring loser from one of the other games.
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Re: Tuesday, February 11, 2014 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by ArthurChu »

Basically tweets are the modern-day version of "headlines", only sometimes with dick jokes
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Re: Tuesday, February 11, 2014 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by ArthurChu »

Wait, I think I misinterpreted you -- the Triple Zero losers would be eligible for WC slots but still according to normal WC rules, right? That makes a little more sense -- that means they'd still be behind anyone who had a non-zero score at the end of their ep and would only qualify based on their pre-FJ scores.
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Re: Tuesday, February 11, 2014 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by alietr »

ArthurChu wrote:Basically tweets are the modern-day version of "headlines", only sometimes with dick jokes
They had them back then, too:

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Re: Tuesday, February 11, 2014 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by Bamaman »

ArthurChu wrote:Wait, I think I misinterpreted you -- the Triple Zero losers would be eligible for WC slots but still according to normal WC rules, right? That makes a little more sense -- that means they'd still be behind anyone who had a non-zero score at the end of their ep and would only qualify based on their pre-FJ scores.
Yes. They'd be in line (in order of their pre-FJ scores) behind anyone who finished with any money at all and ahead of anybody who didn't make it to FJ because they were in the red.
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Re: Tuesday, February 11, 2014 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by chalupabatman786 »

ArthurChu wrote: But that's the SAME as his 50/50 chance of winning if he has a 50/50 chance on the category (i.e. he honestly believes himself to be "neutral" on the category "Social Media"). 50% chance he's right and beats her by $1, 50% chance he's wrong and loses by $1 but keeps his high wild-card-contention score.

From a strategy perspective either the $0 or the $1 is acceptable. If he believes "Social Media" is a strong category for him -- and judging by his age group and the triple-get on tonight's FJ it probably was a strong category -- then arguably $1 is the better bet.
Arthur, this is just a hypothesis, but I would guess that the two most likely outcomes of a FJ are a triple-get and a triple-stumper (is there a way to look this up on j-archive?). You are assuming that the probability that he gets it right and the probability that she gets it right are independent, when in fact the two probabilities are closely related in that they are answering the same question.

Start with the assumption that he has a 50% chance of getting a Social Media FJ clue right, and that his opponent answered correctly (because if she got it wrong the entire discussion is moot). Just the fact that she got it right makes the probability that he answered correctly increase significantly enough to merit a $1 wager. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayes'_theorem

I'm not sure I've explained my thinking well, and my thoughts about triple-gets and stumpers could be off-base, but I'd appreciate everyone's thoughts on this.
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