Friday, November 15, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

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twelvefootboy
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Re: Friday, November 15, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by twelvefootboy »

BigDaddyMatty wrote: Fri Nov 15, 2019 11:09 pm
twelvefootboy wrote: Fri Nov 15, 2019 10:03 pm I think the peck definitely disclaims any liquid and the barrel and fifth examples were accidental negbait that would likely be avoided if you PLAY CATEGORIES IN ORDER.
This. Though I think Alex should have given a bit of explanation before the round started, the real confusion came about because this was the first clue played in the category. I agree that BMS--BLS, really--wasn't a perfect tool here, but I don't know what else Alex and the judges could have done.
(turns out the $200 clue was a stinker also, but at least it only would have cost $200 to get the lay of the category).
Courtesy of one of the top five penguins on the board:
... the $200 clue of "Bunders, hectares, jeribs" would have been much less confusing

If this had been called first it probably would still have provoked the answer "what is land", instead of the desired "what is area".
The category needed to be named "what unit is being measured", instead of "what's being measured". Barring an explanation from Alex upfront, the writers slipped here.
Disclaimer - repeated exposure to author's musings may cause befuddlement.
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Re: Friday, November 15, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by JayK33 »

So glad James won. Close one and his second "loss" tonight though. Looking forward to the next big tournament now.
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Re: Friday, November 15, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by MarkBarrett »

JayK33 wrote: Sat Nov 16, 2019 12:37 am So glad James won. Close one and his second "loss" tonight though. Looking forward to the next big tournament now.
2001 ToC Finals 1:

Tad Carithers: 3300-2000=1300
Brad Rutter: 6000-3500=2500
Rick Knutsen: 6500-3500=3000

Has Brad lost to a human or not?

Pick an idiom for wanting to pin a loss (whether in quotes or not) on James for Day 2:
What's good for the goose is good for the gander.
You can't have your cake and eat it too.
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Re: Friday, November 15, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by JayK33 »

Just pointing out that this is the second individual game he didn't finish first. He still won it though, clearly. Same happened to Brad in that ToC and the UToC semifinals, yes. You knew what I meant. And for the record, regarding if Brad has lost to a human, Brad did finish behind Ken in the IBM challenge.
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Re: Friday, November 15, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by JayK33 »

Also, James' win breaks a bit of a curse the ToCs seemed to be having, which is the big champs often making the finals but coming up short, ala Matt Jackson, Arthur Chu, Julia Collins, Austin Rogers. Came close to it happening again but like I said, glad he prevailed.
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Re: Friday, November 15, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by merica »

Category 13 wrote: Fri Nov 15, 2019 11:53 pm But to modify what BigDaddy posted; Imagine the conspiracy theory posts on Twitter and Facebook if James had missed FJ and wagered zero.
No way James doesn’t bet at least 2490. Imagine if he bet zero and got it right but Emma bet it all and got it right. She would have won. In what universe would James do that? Especially given his immense knowledge.
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Re: Friday, November 15, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by Category 13 »

merica wrote:
Category 13 wrote: But to modify what BigDaddy posted; Imagine the conspiracy theory posts on Twitter and Facebook if James had missed FJ and wagered zero.
No way James doesn’t bet at least 2490. Imagine if he bet zero and got it right but Emma bet it all and got it right. She would have won. In what universe would James do that? Especially given his immense knowledge.
The key word is 'imagine'.

Despite of all the assumptions of James not staying pat, his irrational overwager here proved he can make a bad decision on a final wager.
There was absolutely no reason for Emma to hold back a single dollar, let alone 4600, when she was assured to win the full $100,000 anyway if she bet it all and got it wrong.
To count on James betting the normal cover wager so she could win by a skim amount, rather than force him to get it correct in this situation is just plain silly.
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Re: Friday, November 15, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by yclept »

Great game. Great tournament. Correct winner, I am still in awe over the combined total of James and Emma for the two days.

Emma shouldn’t have bounced from one $800 clue (DD) to another $800 clue. That was her big mistake of the tournament and I would love to know if she knew the answer to the final DD.

Francois just couldn’t keep up with them, but not many special tournament winners make it to the finals of the TOC, so congrats to him for that.

I was trying to quickly do the math since I didn’t have it written down. I knew James was very close to a “lock tournament”. The fact he had to get the final right brought back memories of Larissa in the most heartbreaking TOC loss that I can remember. James nailed it though.

James and Emma will obviously play in the next big tournament, whatever and whenever that is.
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Re: Friday, November 15, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by kprather895 »

I hope this stifles once and for all the naysayers who say Emma didn't belong in the ToC. $65,000 against one of the toughest champs ever? After already beating him once? That's nothing short of incredible.
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Re: Friday, November 15, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by jeff6286 »

Agree there was no reason for Emma not to bet it all, Francois is not even in the conversation so she had literally nothing to lose. And also agree there was no need for James to bet more than the minimum needed, don’t have the numbers handy but it was $2500 or so. But in all likelihood neither of those moves was going to be costly and that indeed turned out to be the case.

One of the strangest things about James’ entire run is for someone who in every other aspect of the game is playing a cool, calculated, heartless killer, the absurd insistence on wagers with personal significance, even at times to the detriment of winning, is a bit baffling.

Not that this was a mathematical certainly at the time, but if he bets five dollars on the last daily double, he has the tourney won before final.
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Re: Friday, November 15, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by mas3cf »

All-time hard-luck Jeopardy contestant: Jay Sexton. In his once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, he was stuck between (debatably) the strongest player of all time and someone who has repeatedly shown she can go toe-to-toe with him, and who very well could have won the ToC in almost any other season. All things considered, he didn't do too badly:

http://www.j-archive.com/showgame.php?game_id=6304
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Re: Friday, November 15, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by jeopardyfan939 »

JayK33 wrote: Sat Nov 16, 2019 1:52 am Also, James' win breaks a bit of a curse the ToCs seemed to be having, which is the big champs often making the finals but coming up short, ala Matt Jackson, Arthur Chu, Julia Collins, Austin Rogers. Came close to it happening again but like I said, glad he prevailed.
There were also big champions who didn't even make it past the semifinals, namely David Madden in the 2006 ToC (though he won the All-Star games with Team Brad); and Seth Wilson didn't win his quarterfinal in the 2017 ToC.
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Re: Friday, November 15, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by opusthepenguin »

kprather895 wrote: Sat Nov 16, 2019 4:41 am I hope this stifles once and for all the naysayers who say Emma didn't belong in the ToC. $65,000 against one of the toughest champs ever? After already beating him once? That's nothing short of incredible.
I don't think there have been any naysayers of the sort you're thinking of for quite some time. I doubt very many of them ever existed. The usual position of those objecting has been that Emma doesn't belong in the TOC on principle. She only won three games and didn't have a high enough total to jump the queue and take the place of someone else who would have been invited if the usual rules had been followed. Emma's terrific performance can't change that fact. The objection was NEVER about her capabilities as a player. I'm mostly not persuaded by those "naysayers," but I understand and respect the position.
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Re: Friday, November 15, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by opusthepenguin »

StevenH wrote: Fri Nov 15, 2019 8:04 pm I had Russia on the final and picked China over Japan for the second country.
Man, I bet you end up lonely. I'll be with the crowd of people checking the "I had Japan but not Russia" box. Well, maybe not crowd. In retrospect, Russia seems so obvious I can't understand why the thought never occurred to me. If it had, I'm pretty sure I'd have gone with it. It makes total sense that if half the response is a major Axis power, then the other half would be one of the Allies.
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Re: Friday, November 15, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by alietr »

The Soviet Union did not declare war on Japan until August 9, 1945, which also happened to be the day the atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki.
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Re: Friday, November 15, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by floridagator »

alietr wrote: Sat Nov 16, 2019 8:35 am which also happened to be the day the atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki.
Where the fellas chew tobaccky and the women wicky-wacky woo?
I'd rather cuddle then have sex. If you're into grammar, you'll understand.
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Re: Friday, November 15, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by gnash »

jeff6286 wrote: Fri Nov 15, 2019 10:57 pm
gnash wrote: Fri Nov 15, 2019 10:11 pm
jeff6286 wrote: Fri Nov 15, 2019 9:28 pm
gnash wrote: Fri Nov 15, 2019 9:20 pm
Woppy T wrote: Fri Nov 15, 2019 9:12 pm
A peck of liquor?
Not normal usage, but there's no reason a volume measure couldn't be applied to the volume of anything.

A peck is specifically a unit of dry volume so I'm not sure it is right to say it can be used for anything liquid. At first I thought James got a raw deal on that clue but looking back at the inclusion of peck, I think a neg would be justified and the BMS was maybe even overly generous.
That's usage, a point already agreed on. "Dry volume" isn't a thing in any sense other than usage.
It's literally the definition of the term. It's a unit of dry volume. I'm not sure I get your point about usage.
Because there is no physical/measurable quantity "dry volume" as distinct from "volume". That peck is not used to measure the volume of liquids is literally a matter of usage. There is no reason you couldn't express the volume of liquor in pecks.
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Re: Friday, November 15, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by gnash »

alietr wrote: Sat Nov 16, 2019 8:35 am The Soviet Union did not declare war on Japan until August 9, 1945, which also happened to be the day the atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki.
It was a major reason for both the US dropping the nuclear bombs and Japan surrendering to the US so quickly.
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Re: Friday, November 15, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by gnash »

opusthepenguin wrote: Sat Nov 16, 2019 7:36 am
kprather895 wrote: Sat Nov 16, 2019 4:41 am I hope this stifles once and for all the naysayers who say Emma didn't belong in the ToC. $65,000 against one of the toughest champs ever? After already beating him once? That's nothing short of incredible.
I don't think there have been any naysayers of the sort you're thinking of for quite some time. I doubt very many of them ever existed. The usual position of those objecting has been that Emma doesn't belong in the TOC on principle. She only won three games and didn't have a high enough total to jump the queue and take the place of someone else who would have been invited if the usual rules had been followed. Emma's terrific performance can't change that fact. The objection was NEVER about her capabilities as a player. I'm mostly not persuaded by those "naysayers," but I understand and respect the position.
It's just not persuasive when somebody invokes "principles" and "rules" but makes up nonexistent rules or at least uses an unorthodox definition of "rule".
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Re: Friday, November 15, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by goongas »

This and part I of the finals is now posted on the official Jeopardy! Youtube account.
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