Friday, March 27, 2015 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

[EricSwanson]

Not much more I can add. Yeah, the Dreiser thing sucked, but what can you do. Knew the answer but, as on the Transporter question, the wrong thing came out. If you swap out those two though, I think we end up pretty even on total correct answers, so not bad. Also could've had two going into Final Jeopardy with over 25K, which, win or lose, would've been cool.

The only time I really felt off on the buzzer was during that run in the National Anthems category. Knew them all, but it seemed Michael got into a good flow. Oh, and I buzzed in way to early on the Yahoo! questions, after 'billion' instead of 'dollars.'

The one thing I didn't really remember was jumping up in the 'big' category. Not sure why I did that. In hindsight it was a bad move, but I'm not too worked up about it. I knew he had it as soon as I saw the clue. Two easy daily doubles, but two good wagers and two good gets.

For FJ, I just never made the jump to airlines for some reason, which it seemed happened to Michael as well. If I had I would've pulled El Al easily. Oh well. Knew it wasn't Amtrak, but thought it better than having nothing. As for the wagering, yeah, I went too high. I knew it as soon as I walked off the stage (and not just because I lost.) You can think all you want about how you're going to wager (and believe me, for the Friday show you get a LOT of time to think about it) but it's tough in the moment. As Mike inferred, with the back and forth play and only one triple stumper the whole game, I figured one of us would get it. I was wrong.

Glad people seem to enjoy the episode. It was a lot of fun.

[doihavetoreally]

Good game Michael and Eric. Let's not forget the champ who didn't get much chance on the buzzer.

[dhkendall]

Whoever said that the national anthems should have gone off the board first, you're absolutely right, they were dead easy and political geography is one of my strengths. I didn't have too much board control, though, and I tried to keep my mind focused on the same category that others initiated rather than moving around (except to avoid the TV/Film one).

Actually that was me. The national anthems thing was more of an inside joke, in retrospect inside jokes don't work that well with new boardies such as yourself. (The joke being that I'm well known for my expertise on national anthems, to the point that I was asked to "proof read" the anthems CD that was used in the 2004 Athens Olympics, one of the proudest moments of my life. So of course, for me, a national anthems category would very well be a "Christmases all come at once, yay free money" situation, and of course, I'd expect that to apply to very few other people, as I personally only know about half a dozen people in the world who study anthems as seriously as I do (hint, check my web link on the right), and maybe only one or two of them living in an area that receives Jeopardy! - and this is after 25 years of studying them.) But I would expect fellow geopolitical geeks to like the category. Another way it was an attempt at humour was that I actually think if that was me, I would save that category for the end, or near so, or at least until after the DD was revealed, because if the DD was in that category I'd want to have as much money in my account as possible. Mainly a take on those people that say "grr, grr, they saved the sports category for last."

[Caboom]

He wagered the maximum that would still have forced Jacqueline to get the answer right to win. In the end, Jacqueline's extra $4,000 may have saved me--had she had only $2200 going into Final, Eric might have considered wagering something like $7,801, since he would have Jacqueline locked out with that wager. That probably would have ended up beating my reckless self.

He still could (and should) have bet between $7,801 and $8,399 and have her locked out, while covering your zero bet. (Edit: well, I suppose staying above $15,600 should have been his first goal, so a max bet of $5,200 is what he should have done. Still, the $7,801 to $8,399 range is certainly a possibility.)
Most of the time I would like your aggressive bet, betting more than the minimum cover bet of $13,001 when there's no downside to it, but here it was dangerous. Glad it didn't cost you the game.

In the post-mortem, Alex mentioned that he was going to say: "If you chose 'Ryder' or 'Greyhound,' you're going to feel stupid," as his intro to the FJ reveal, but held back after seeing my answer.

Thank you for finally revealing that Alex can see the responses before he makes his remarks, I've suspected this for a while.

[michaelbilow]

Good game Michael and Eric. Let's not forget the champ who didn't get much chance on the buzzer.

Absolutely. I'll never fail to give tons of credit to everyone who was on stage for that game (or any other).

[silverscreentest]

Actually that was me. The national anthems thing was more of an inside joke, in retrospect inside jokes don't work that well with new boardies such as yourself. (The joke being that I'm well known for my expertise on national anthems, to the point that I was asked to "proof read" the anthems CD that was used in the 2004 Athens Olympics, one of the proudest moments of my life. So of course, for me, a national anthems category would very well be a "Christmases all come at once, yay free money" situation, and of course, I'd expect that to apply to very few other people, as I personally only know about half a dozen people in the world who study anthems as seriously as I do (hint, check my web link on the right), and maybe only one or two of them living in an area that receives Jeopardy! - and this is after 25 years of studying them.) But I would expect fellow geopolitical geeks to like the category. Another way it was an attempt at humour was that I actually think if that was me, I would save that category for the end, or near so, or at least until after the DD was revealed, because if the DD was in that category I'd want to have as much money in my account as possible. Mainly a take on those people that say "grr, grr, they saved the sports category for last."

El Salvador Team, Fans Baffled By Wrong Anthem At FedEx Field. Reports indicate it was the anthem of the Isle of Man.

[michaelbilow]

Not sure why I did that.

That phrase also applies to most of my decisions in-game. The only time I really felt I had to think was during the wagers.

One of the things I felt, and I wonder if you feel the same, Eric, is that I wasn't really playing against anyone during the game. In my head at least, it was just me, the board, the buzzer, and an occasional peek at the scores.

[michaelbilow]

He wagered the maximum that would still have forced Jacqueline to get the answer right to win. In the end, Jacqueline's extra $4,000 may have saved me--had she had only $2200 going into Final, Eric might have considered wagering something like $7,801, since he would have Jacqueline locked out with that wager. That probably would have ended up beating my reckless self.

He still could (and should) have bet between $7,801 and $8,399 and have her locked out, while covering your zero bet. (Edit: well, I suppose staying above $15,600 should have been his first goal, so a max bet of $5,200 is what he should have done. Still, the $7,801 to $8,399 range is certainly a possibility.)
Most of the time I would like your aggressive bet, betting more than the minimum cover bet of $13,001 when there's no downside to it, but here it was dangerous. Glad it didn't cost you the game.

Yep, I didn't even realize that my wager could have been more dangerous than the minimum cover bet in the moment. Rule for the future: don't give your opponent the opportunity to make a suboptimal wager and win!

In the post-mortem, Alex mentioned that he was going to say: "If you chose 'Ryder' or 'Greyhound,' you're going to feel stupid," as his intro to the FJ reveal, but held back after seeing my answer.

Thank you for finally revealing that Alex can see the responses before he makes his remarks, I've suspected this for a while.

Yep, that was the first thing I thought after he told me.

[dhkendall]

El Salvador Team, Fans Baffled By Wrong Anthem At FedEx Field. Reports indicate it was the anthem of the Isle of Man.

It was, I even recognized the performer of that version (Radio Symphony Orchestra of Bratislava) since I have it in my collection. They should be grateful the Manx anthem was played instead of the Salvadoran one, as the Salvadoran anthem is very long, unless you trim stuff out (which I've also seen done - for example, for the Olympics since an anthem cannot be more than 80 seconds in length there) a typical performance would be about 3 minutes for one verse only (and no, that's not talking about performances where the performer milks every note, like you see at almost every sporting event in the US, this is just regular performances, there's a LOT of music in just one verse!) Manx anthem almost always is well under one minute.

Thanks for the link, though, I haven't seen it!

[opusthepenguin]

Not much more I can add. Yeah, the Dreiser thing sucked, but what can you do. Knew the answer but, as on the Transporter question, the wrong thing came out. If you swap out those two though, I think we end up pretty even on total correct answers, so not bad. Also could've had two going into Final Jeopardy with over 25K, which, win or lose, would've been cool.

Yep. If we change only those two misses, Michael goes into FJ with $26,200, barely ahead of your $25,600. We can't know, of course, since the DD wagers might have been affected by different scores.

What we do know is this. You and Michael really gave us a slugfest. It was wild to see a strong player like Jacqueline with two wins under her belt getting almost shut out. I'm assuming that was mostly a buzzer contest and not an indication of large gaps in her knowledge base.

It's a pity that we're under Highlander rules now and there can only be one. I'd love to have seen you and Michael as co-champions.

[BobF]

In the post-mortem, Alex mentioned that he was going to say: "If you chose 'Ryder' or 'Greyhound,' you're going to feel stupid," as his intro to the FJ reveal, but held back after seeing my answer.

I asked him about his really sweet silver and gold bracelet that he wears--it's actually a replica of one that was stolen from him in that hotel robbery a couple years back. In an O. Henry-esque story, the bracelet was stolen from him, his wife had one made as a replica (to give to him for his birthday if I recall correctly), meanwhile, he went out and bought another himself.

That's all, folks. I'll be tweeting the next game as well, and hopefully doing some longer-form analysis up here. I hope you enjoyed this, and thanks for watching!

Congrats! I missed most of the game, but man those were some impressive scores going into FJ!

[EricSwanson]

Good game Michael and Eric. Let's not forget the champ who didn't get much chance on the buzzer.

Absolutely. I'll never fail to give tons of credit to everyone who was on stage for that game (or any other).

I'll second that.

[cinemaniax7]

That was indeed an impressive game. I won't pile on concerning the FJ wagers. But based on knowledge alone, I think Eric could probably have put together a nice string of wins had he emerged victorious.