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Re: Friday, April 19, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Posted: Sat Apr 20, 2019 3:28 am
by yclept
FS7 wrote: Fri Apr 19, 2019 9:04 pm
xxaaaxx wrote: Fri Apr 19, 2019 7:36 pm Another run of the mill $80k payday. This is normal, yet not normal. J! isn't this easy. Have I been watching a different game show all these years!? J! isn't this easy! I missed nearly all of KJ's run due to RL. Is this what it was like to watch?

Instaget FJ. This feels like it should've been a triple get. *shrug*

I feel bad for whoever draws James in the TOC quarterfinals. Not only will they lose badly, there might not be enough money left on the board to even try for a wild card.
It's been 15 years, but from what I remember Ken had almost all of his games locked up entering FJ. It's something close to 90%, and I think the major difference between the two is the way James bets. It's hard to compare but I think Ken's knowledge and buzzer skill are better.

Also, I only remember one contestant actually challenging Ken. I believe his name was Michael, and he played as well as he could given Ken's skill and aggressively bet to even have a chance. He ended with something like $44,000, but they both got FJ and obviously Ken won.

Aside from the dollar amounts, yes, Ken made it look just as easy.
There was also Matt Ottinger, who doubled up on a late DD in the Jeopardy round and actually had a lead heading into DJ (and had a shot in FJ if he would have been right and Ken would have missed - but the opposite happened)

In Game 5, the FJ category was “European Islands”, and Paula Filson was within striking distance in FJ - if she would have been right, she wins as Ken missed that day.

I can’t look through his entire archive right now, but that stands out as a game where a little luck by the challenger leaves Ken as a 4-day champion.

Ken was fast and unbeatable - but he was “merely” a strong DD wagerer while James is insane. This is not at all a knock on Ken - he was so much better than everyone on the buzzer that leaving money in front of him in case of a miss was not a bad move - he could make the money back in a hurry. James? His gameplay is obvious: Crush you with this DD wager and it doesn’t matter if I lose my buzzer moxie for a few clues.

They simply dominate the game in different ways. And we can say that about all the big champions. They all have their distinctive styles to accomplish Jeopardy greatness.

Re: Friday, April 19, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Posted: Sat Apr 20, 2019 6:49 am
by Caboom
gnash wrote: Fri Apr 19, 2019 11:25 pm If I recall the game correctly, today we saw James go "classical" DD hunting in the Madden/Craig/Jacob style, rather than sweeping the bottom row first. Since he had not been as dominant on the buzzer in SJ as usual, it makes me wonder if he was following his Plan B.

As I said the other day, the "Holzhauer horizontal" is clearly optimal only for a player with outstanding control of the board. I also said you couldn't know if you'd be such a player until you started playing. Today's game may be a hint that James has considered that and prepared two different strategies of moving around the board, to be deployed contingent on his buzzer effectiveness. One game is weak evidence, but if that turned out to be true, I'd be in awe of the thoroughness of his preparation.
He's done this in every game so far. In SJ he starts from the bottom, and in DJ he starts from the 3rd row hunting for the DD.

Re: Friday, April 19, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Posted: Sat Apr 20, 2019 9:46 am
by hbomb1947
JayK33 wrote: Sat Apr 20, 2019 2:04 am James might be breaking $1M by the end of next week. Wow. I'm hoping he does.
For it to take until the end of next week would require a huge decline in his level of play.

Re: Friday, April 19, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Posted: Sat Apr 20, 2019 9:56 am
by JayK33
hbomb1947 wrote: Sat Apr 20, 2019 9:46 am
JayK33 wrote: Sat Apr 20, 2019 2:04 am James might be breaking $1M by the end of next week. Wow. I'm hoping he does.
For it to take until the end of next week would require a huge decline in his level of play.
Yeah, I realized that shortly after I posted it. Maybe on Wednesday, then.

Re: Friday, April 19, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Posted: Sat Apr 20, 2019 10:28 am
by Bamaman
harrumph wrote: Sat Apr 20, 2019 12:13 am For FJ Henry was a gimme with the famous Henry VIII, and then Edward and George were from the 20th century - one needed to start with the most recent kings after getting the gimme.
English monarchs are something you need to know if you get the call. They do delve into the pre-1066 ones occasionally, but the list starting with William I needs to be in your memory bank just like the list of US presidents. Knowing them in order and a general idea of the years they served can probably get you a large portion of the clues on the subject.


If he keeps up his pace, he should top the million dollar mark by Wednesday at the latest. If he draws a couple of weak and/or intimidated players Monday and hits all the DDs late in the rounds (and gets them right), I could see him going for the mark on Monday during FJ.

It is amazing I am actually seeing a player winning $150,000 in one game as realistic.

Re: Friday, April 19, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Posted: Sat Apr 20, 2019 10:31 am
by John Boy
xxaaaxx wrote: Fri Apr 19, 2019 7:36 pm Another run of the mill $80k payday. This is normal, yet not normal. J! isn't this easy. Have I been watching a different game show all these years!? J! isn't this easy! I missed nearly all of KJ's run due to RL. Is this what it was like to watch?
No, it was not. Ken had a lot of what we used to call "monster" games, but for his entire run averaged around $34,000 per win, about half of what James is doing.

Plus he occasionally had some competition. IIRC Ken could have lost his fifth game if his opponent had answered FJ correctly, in which case he would be considered a fine champ but not the icon he turned out to be.

To me any resemblance between the two (or between James and the entire prior recorded history of the game) is superficial.

When we start to say "another game, another $80K, ho-hum" no, we've never seen this before.

Re: Friday, April 19, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Posted: Sat Apr 20, 2019 11:24 am
by RKane
Bamaman wrote: Sat Apr 20, 2019 10:28 am English monarchs are something you need to know if you get the call.
Something one of my favourite players Larissa knows all too well :cry:
John Boy wrote: Sat Apr 20, 2019 10:31 am
Plus he occasionally had some competition. IIRC Ken could have lost his fifth game if his opponent had answered FJ correctly, in which case he would be considered a fine champ but not the icon he turned out to be.
I mean, Ken's first game was a non-lock. He got it, but even there the judges took a second to decide it "Jones" alone was sufficient. His second game was a lock, and a sole miss by him. Interchange the FJ questions for those two games and no one's ever heard of him. And I seem to recall a few other sole misses (and also misses that at least one other player got) throughout his run. And it's not like he was locking every game.

I don't have the exact numbers in front of me but I think that, in order to get a broad sense of how likely Ken was to lose a given game, you could multiply (percent of games he did not lock)*(percent of games he had a FJ miss on that at least one other player got right). This of course is a very broad stroke, but given that he was leading in all of his games, it's not a bad broad stroke. I would imagine the chance of loss you calculated would not indicate a 74-game winning streak was likely.

For the record, with James both of those percentages are 1/12 = 8.333%, so multiplying those you get a below 1% chance he loses a given game, and a 50% chance he goes on a 99-game winning streak (1 - (1/12)(1/12))^99 > 0.5 > (1 - (1/12)(1/12))^100. I expect that OntarioQuizzer's methodology is somewhat more sophisticated (I don't really think a streak that long is likely) and does not really on what is, so far, a somewhat small dataset (note that for any contestant who either locks their first game or is correct in their first game, this "model" predicts an infinite winning streak, so it's clearly not the best model out there).

Re: Friday, April 19, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Posted: Sat Apr 20, 2019 11:40 am
by FS7
John Boy wrote: Sat Apr 20, 2019 10:31 am
xxaaaxx wrote: Fri Apr 19, 2019 7:36 pm Another run of the mill $80k payday. This is normal, yet not normal. J! isn't this easy. Have I been watching a different game show all these years!? J! isn't this easy! I missed nearly all of KJ's run due to RL. Is this what it was like to watch?
No, it was not. Ken had a lot of what we used to call "monster" games, but for his entire run averaged around $34,000 per win, about half of what James is doing.

Plus he occasionally had some competition. IIRC Ken could have lost his fifth game if his opponent had answered FJ correctly, in which case he would be considered a fine champ but not the icon he turned out to be.

To me any resemblance between the two (or between James and the entire prior recorded history of the game) is superficial.

When we start to say "another game, another $80K, ho-hum" no, we've never seen this before.
Only in terms of winnings, which in turn is only because of wagering. You can argue that being able to bet like that without getting flustered is a skill (Ken seems to think so, at least) but in terms of his Coryat James is not unprecedented.

Ken's average Coryat at this point was higher than James. They are very similar in most regards, especially in terms of knowledge and the buzzer. The main difference is the wagering of James. He has wagered almost $10,000 per DD, which is about four times what Ken did.

I still contend that playing the way he does will backfire eventually. It's called gambling for a reason, and even a "sure thing" will fail at some point. Ken's relatively conservative level of play let some other players have a chance (10 out of 75 were not locks). James has only not locked a single game.

Re: Friday, April 19, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Posted: Sat Apr 20, 2019 1:28 pm
by LucarioSnooperVixey
54 R (Missed Dry Run, Modest Mouse, the Bottom Two in Autobiographies, Rampage, and Alecia Vikander.)
DD: 2/3
FJ: :mrgreen:
LT: Quakers, Tell it to the Marines, Sawbones, Justice, Los Angeles, Jerome Robbins, Games, Apollo

Re: Friday, April 19, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Posted: Sat Apr 20, 2019 3:51 pm
by TenPoundHammer
So what did I miss in that empress clue that pointed to Japan?

Re: Friday, April 19, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Posted: Sat Apr 20, 2019 3:57 pm
by harrumph
TenPoundHammer wrote: Sat Apr 20, 2019 3:51 pm So what did I miss in that empress clue that pointed to Japan?
Japan has an empress.

Re: Friday, April 19, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Posted: Sat Apr 20, 2019 4:02 pm
by Bamaman
harrumph wrote: Sat Apr 20, 2019 3:57 pm
TenPoundHammer wrote: Sat Apr 20, 2019 3:51 pm So what did I miss in that empress clue that pointed to Japan?
Japan has an empress.
Give it a few days, that will change.

Re: Friday, April 19, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Posted: Sat Apr 20, 2019 5:46 pm
by Category 13
morbeedo wrote: Early on, I thought this could be the end of the road for James... ha! These boards were tough for the challengers, so James eked out another win
I had a similar thought when he opened at negative $1000, that it could possibly be a non-runaway game, at best for James. Then he missed the all-in DD (turned out to be not too costly because of the low amount he had to wager). Yeah, I suspect that he will fall hard to a sharp opponant when things don't go his way, eventually.

Wondering if this was the first time James has been in the red?

Re: Friday, April 19, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Posted: Sat Apr 20, 2019 6:17 pm
by econgator
Category 13 wrote: Sat Apr 20, 2019 5:46 pm Wondering if this was the first time James has been in the red?
Yes

Re: Friday, April 19, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Posted: Sat Apr 20, 2019 7:00 pm
by Category 13
twelvefootboy" wrote:I'd like to see the playing field leveled by adding a delay time to the champ's buzzer, maybe just 0.01 second per game won, maybe maximizing at 0.1 seconds or so. It's just weird to have a knowledge and recall game decided by gaming a joystick so to speak.
Uhhhm, No. Just No.

That reminds me of how NASCAR started splitting hairs with race to race rule changes about 15-20 years ago, trying to equalize the competition between Ford and Chevy. It, along with other tradition breaking 'fairness' rules has steadily driven away a lot of fans. They are paying for it with thousands of empty seats at venues that used to be routine sellouts.

Re: Friday, April 19, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Posted: Sat Apr 20, 2019 7:03 pm
by gnash
Caboom wrote: Sat Apr 20, 2019 6:49 am
gnash wrote: Fri Apr 19, 2019 11:25 pm If I recall the game correctly, today we saw James go "classical" DD hunting in the Madden/Craig/Jacob style, rather than sweeping the bottom row first. Since he had not been as dominant on the buzzer in SJ as usual, it makes me wonder if he was following his Plan B.

As I said the other day, the "Holzhauer horizontal" is clearly optimal only for a player with outstanding control of the board. I also said you couldn't know if you'd be such a player until you started playing. Today's game may be a hint that James has considered that and prepared two different strategies of moving around the board, to be deployed contingent on his buzzer effectiveness. One game is weak evidence, but if that turned out to be true, I'd be in awe of the thoroughness of his preparation.
He's done this in every game so far. In SJ he starts from the bottom, and in DJ he starts from the 3rd row hunting for the DD.
You are right. I should have checked my perceptions against the data before posting.

Re: Friday, April 19, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Posted: Sat Apr 20, 2019 7:25 pm
by Roland
Check out thejeopardyfan.com

He has detailed stats of Ken’s run vs James’ run after 12 games. Updates it after every James win.

Re: Friday, April 19, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Posted: Sat Apr 20, 2019 11:21 pm
by twelvefootboy
Category 13 wrote: Sat Apr 20, 2019 7:00 pm
twelvefootboy" wrote:I'd like to see the playing field leveled by adding a delay time to the champ's buzzer, maybe just 0.01 second per game won, maybe maximizing at 0.1 seconds or so. It's just weird to have a knowledge and recall game decided by gaming a joystick so to speak.
Uhhhm, No. Just No.
That reminds me of how NASCAR started splitting hairs with race to race rule changes about 15-20 years ago, trying to equalize the competition between Ford and Chevy. It, along with other tradition breaking 'fairness' rules has steadily driven away a lot of fans. They are paying for it with thousands of empty seats at venues that used to be routine sellouts.
Agree. Wait disagree.. I mean what you said...
For sure I wouldn't want to regulate the defending champ out of the game for being successful. But he's been winning 40 clues per game. The show needs to find a way to better orient the new contestants. It shouldn't be hard to come up with a simulator they can work on in the green room instead of just a few minutes in practice sessions.

As for NASCAR, it was fake news a long time ago. "Stock" cars? seriously? Lots of reasons for the decline including too many Confederate flags and not enough Confederate flags. For me, it is the annoying reality that the best cheaters win (like racewalking, or the New England Patriots) - kind of related to the rulemaking. But they aren't alone - tennis is off the radar and golf is sinking slowly. I am not sure MLB is sustainable for that matter :(.

Re: Friday, April 19, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Posted: Sun Apr 21, 2019 12:05 am
by Spum
Category 13 wrote: Sat Apr 20, 2019 7:00 pm
twelvefootboy" wrote:I'd like to see the playing field leveled by adding a delay time to the champ's buzzer, maybe just 0.01 second per game won, maybe maximizing at 0.1 seconds or so. It's just weird to have a knowledge and recall game decided by gaming a joystick so to speak.
Uhhhm, No. Just No.

That reminds me of how NASCAR started splitting hairs with race to race rule changes about 15-20 years ago, trying to equalize the competition between Ford and Chevy. It, along with other tradition breaking 'fairness' rules has steadily driven away a lot of fans. They are paying for it with thousands of empty seats at venues that used to be routine sellouts.
NASCAR has taken a bigger hit in the last two seasons as sponsors are fleeing at an alarming rate. Lowe’s doesn’t even sponsor Jimmie Johnson anymore. Couple that with major retirements of Dale Jr, Tony Stewart, and Carl Edwards, as well as the same 3-5 drivers winning every face and its seems to be in a near death spiral.

Re: Friday, April 19, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Posted: Sun Apr 21, 2019 8:48 am
by RKane
twelvefootboy wrote: Sat Apr 20, 2019 11:21 pm golf is sinking slowly.
:cry: