Thursday, April 9, 2020 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

[twelvefootboy]

Why didn't Joe the Physics major go to the Chemistry category right away? I froze on the CO2 / fermentation clue because I couldn't get methane (CH4) out of my brainbox.

Beni was fun to watch and did not disappoint on Don Quixote. I think he wagered well and has clicker dominance. I didn't know any of those retail stores and negged with Zapato's for the shoe store with a "Z".

I think Bible clues of this nature are borderline, but OK. It's way better than naming a disciple or figuring out which coinflip Ruth/Ester response to pick. Beni might have been able to deduce the prodigal son from a secularly worded clue that didn't invoke fatted calves. I know about the Prodigal son trope. I didn't learn it in church. Most of what we learned in church was that the people from the other church were going to hell .

[seaborgium]

I have to call hubris on Joe's fj bet. He was nearly a sure thing for either getting a semi final spot or a wild card. His bet could have put him into Oblivion.

You know you don't have to; just say it's a bad wager.

There are bad Wagers practically every day. Hubris is rare. I go months without calling something hubris.

Not long enough. To call it hubris requires knowledge of the bettor's character. A bad overwager from first place doesn't automatically confer the quality of hubris on first place.

[mjhunt]

I would say Joe's wager was not bad at all.

In the 1991 TOC, Sara Cox had $9,200, which would equal $18,400 today, and did not make the semi-finals.

http://www.j-archive.com/showgame.php?game_id=1997

She got the final right, but wagered too little.

She is well known for betting it all from second and being the beneficiary of two Chu-style ties in her first two regular games. Yet, she drastically changed her strategy in the TOC and it cost her.

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=1062&p=51675&hilit=Sara+Cox#p51675

Maybe Joe felt losing that way would be harder to live with than losing by missing FJ?

[Johnblue]

Thank you! Several of those shopping ones, I was like "how TF was I supposed to know THAT?"

They seemed to be aiming way too upmarket. I live in a state with only one Zara and none of Uniqlo or Topshop (although there is a Topshop just across the border in Windsor). All the ones I'm finding in most markets are in super upscale malls, and more likely to share space with a Neiman Marcus or Nordstrom than a JCPenney.

IMO this category would've been better off with stuff like H&M, American Eagle, etc.

Oddly enough, I have been in a Zara in Madrid but didn't remember that until way, way, way too late.

I don’t know if you do learned league but there was a question about Zara which I got wrong so I knew it today. Plus one on welcoming Bible questions even though it’s not a strong suit for me. Easy FJ! I was supposed to be leaving for Iberia next Tuesday but now I’ve got Delta credits!

[alietr]

Last year's trip was to ... Spain and Portugal. I wasn't aware of the names, but knew that their border hadn't changed in forever.

[John Boy]

I got FJ pretty quickly despite never having heard of those border names before. I'm putting my money on TPH getting this one.

Xiaoke made the absolute right FJ bet and looks to be in good shape. Beni did the right thing in making sure he stayed in second place at worst and still with a solid shot at a wild card and a win if he gets it right and the leader bets zero. Joe was the player in every tournament who seemed to miss the memo about the wild cards.

There always seem to be several, and Joe was their poster child in this game. Frankly if I were ever in the QF of a tournament and went into FJ with something in the vicinity of $15K like both of these guys had, I'd sit on it. I can't recall a tournament in which $15K failed to advance.

But Oh Well....

[John Boy]

IMHO this was an amazingly easy set of boards for tournament play. Ran the categories in Returns, Sports History, Spring Break, and European History, with 44R overall, pretty good for me and nor surprising when I had to stand and stare at most of the shopping category.

OTOH there are lots of times in College and Teen Tournaments when I think how easy the material is, and then I ask myself how much of it I would have known when I was 20 years old, or 16. Well played overall, except of course for "Cain" and the FJ wagering.

[heppm01]

Instaget FJ and then took a lap around Europe to make sure I wasn't missing something. I'm curious how this would have played if the category had been "World Borders".

The only Z store I've heard of is Zappo's.

[floridagator]

The only Z store I've heard of is Zappo's.

Anyone remember the Canadian discount store Zellers?

They were kind of sort of taken over by Target. Closed Zellers stores reopened as Targets after a delay of a year-and-a-half.

[squarekara]

The only Z store I've heard of is Zappo's.

I remember shopping at Zody's in Southern California back in the day. They were a variety store like Target, and Johnny Carson used to joke about them quite a bit.

[econgator]

The only Z store I've heard of is Zappo's.

I remember shopping at Zody's in Southern California back in the day. They were a variety store like Target, and Johnny Carson used to joke about them quite a bit.

We had Zayre's in the east.

[mungar]

The only Z store I've heard of is Zappo's.

Anyone remember the Canadian discount store Zellers?

They were kind of sort of taken over by Target. Closed Zellers stores reopened as Targets after a delay of a year-and-a-half.

And then they closed after a minute and a half.

[OrangeSAM]

Instaget FJ and then took a lap around Europe to make sure I wasn't missing something. I'm curious how this would have played if the category had been "World Borders".

The only Z store I've heard of is Zappo's.

The first "Z" retailer (well, e-tailer) to hit my brain was Zillo's.

[cthulhu]

Heck, I’m atheist, but count me in among those who don’t see the issue with Bible clues. No different than sports clues - sports and religion are part of our cultural milieu and it doesn’t matter if I dislike them, they’re fair game.

[MitchO]

Heck, I’m atheist, but count me in among those who don’t see the issue with Bible clues. No different than sports clues - sports and religion are part of our cultural milieu and it doesn’t matter if I dislike them, they’re fair game.

Its not a question of "like", its a question of percentage of culture who learned it as a child. I'm a non practicing Jew; we didn't go over the Old Testamant in any detail whatsoever. My girlfriend has been an Athiest her entire adult life, but she still rattles off New Testament questions all the time just from the enforcement her upbringing had on Bible study.

(Having said all this, I just went 5 for 5 on the Old Deuteronomy question on Friday's show :p)

EDIT TO ADD: Look, I know that this is my personal Don Quixote's Windmill overall, it's just a personal opinion. As much as I think I have a valid point, I recognize it's probably not going to gain traction as a popular opinion.

[cthulhu]

Heck, I’m atheist, but count me in among those who don’t see the issue with Bible clues. No different than sports clues - sports and religion are part of our cultural milieu and it doesn’t matter if I dislike them, they’re fair game.

Its not a question of "like", its a question of percentage of culture who learned it as a child. I'm a non practicing Jew; we didn't go over the Old Testamant in any detail whatsoever. My girlfriend has been an Athiest her entire adult life, but she still rattles off New Testament questions all the time just from the enforcement her upbringing had on Bible study.

(Having said all this, I just went 5 for 5 on the Old Deuteronomy question on Friday's show :p)

EDIT TO ADD: Look, I know that this is my personal Don Quixote's Windmill overall, it's just a personal opinion. As much as I think I have a valid point, I recognize it's probably not going to gain traction as a popular opinion.

I had basically no exposure to the Talmud, the Torah, the Koran, the Tao Te Ching, the Bhagavad Gita, etc., as a child. Nor soccer, lacrosse, or ice hockey, and not much baseball (football was omnipresent though). Nor Hesse, Faulkner, Hemingway, Woolf, Wilde (except for the extraordinarily moving child’s story The Selfish Giant), Austen, Joyce, Melville, etc.; I grew up in a very rural area of the south-mid-east-central US, and about the only literature we read in high school was some Shakespeare - I never encountered the others until I was in college). Yet all of the things I mentioned are staples of J!, and as a curious person who loves to learn, I have acquired a reasonable amount of trivia knowledge about them. Why should the Bible be any different? Why do you think you “have a valid point” about it?

Another example: I don’t have any interest in ballet, but if I want to do well enough at J! to at least get in the contestant pool, I had better learn some stuff about it, and me just wishing it would go away because of the percentage of culture who learned it as a child seems most unreasonable to me. (Now rap music...I keed, I keed!).

OK, I think the horse is dead enough now

[MTGcollegestudent]

I'll be the first to say this, but I like Beni's hairstyle. Of all the College Championship contenders from 2010 to now, he's definitely got the best looking hair out of anybody from the 2000s.

Well, given the way things went, Joe was definitely, like a quote from the movie The Blues Brothers, on a mission from God. After seeing the first three quarterfinals go the way of the sophomores, he was probably thinking 'Okay...I have to seriously end this streak right now.' and definitely came in with guns blazing.

The freshman almost pulled off the victory and what I thought was going to be a continuing streak for the underclassmen. Well...all good things came to an end, and Joe delivered despite it being a close match heading into FJ! while making such a bet that leaves us befuddled.

Both DD misses from Beni was probably the big difference in this game, especially, when given how it ended, it could have resulted in Beni possibly having more money to secure a spot to the semifinals. What Joe did was totally dangerous, given that he was basically playing with fire and risking a chance to either win the game or throwing it away. Given Xiaoke's position, I thought she made the right call to betting everything and securing a wildcard spot with that amount, and worked. Beni strategically chose to bet small, not only to cover Xiaoke to win, but in hopes that Joe maybe got FJ! wrong. Maybe it got to him because of the way the DDs mistreated him. Keep in mind, coming into this game, the lowest wildcard slots were $6,799, $6,400, and $2,000. These three needed to play strategically and get a good sum of cash in hopes to secure the wildcard spots.

Honestly, I didn't think that FJ! was going to be THAT easy for the three of them. A Raia and La Raya? Okay...that was a little bit hard to kind of process. I never heard of that kind of spelling before. A Raia? I have no comment about that.

But yeah, all three have secured their places, the 4th semifinalist, and two wildcard spots added. So yeah, Sophie and Kylie get booted out of their spots, and Emma is the lone wolf. This competition just got heated up.

[LucarioSnooperVixey]

58 R (Missed Topshop and Movie & TV Romances $2000.)
DD: 3/3
FJ:
LT: Morning & Mourning, Lululemons, (Prodigal Son), Key West, Cabo San Lucas, (Carbon Dioxide), Ruffle

[Hugo Z]

Heck, I’m atheist, but count me in among those who don’t see the issue with Bible clues. No different than sports clues - sports and religion are part of our cultural milieu and it doesn’t matter if I dislike them, they’re fair game.

EDIT TO ADD: Look, I know that this is my personal Don Quixote's Windmill overall, it's just a personal opinion. As much as I think I have a valid point, I recognize it's probably not going to gain traction as a popular opinion.

Gallup Poll from Dec. 2018 says 72% of U.S. population finds religion either "very" or "fairly" important. Not sure why anyone's personal opinion would matter in the face of that.

[OrangeSAM]

Well, given the way things went, Joe was definitely, like a quote from the movie The Blues Brothers, on a mission from God. After seeing the first three quarterfinals go the way of the sophomores, he was probably thinking 'Okay...I have to seriously end this streak right now.' and definitely came in with guns blazing.

Except, of course, he hadn't seen those games.