Wednesday, December 2, 2020 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

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Robert K S
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Re: Wednesday, December 2, 2020 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by Robert K S »

talkingaway wrote: Thu Dec 03, 2020 12:15 pm But I don't think it's really a thing to call Jupiter "Jove".
No, but on the other hand, it's also not a thing to call anything related to Jupiter "Jupiterian".

Clearly, to me, the issue was not that T.J. was barking up the wrong tree, only that he overthought it and gave a plausible yet wrong response.
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Newhausen
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Re: Wednesday, December 2, 2020 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by Newhausen »

This Is Kirk! wrote: Thu Dec 03, 2020 12:12 pm Seems like the "M sub J" DD could be a good candidate for the weekly poll (paging Mr. Barrett!). It clicked for me immediately that the size of a known planet would be used as the benchmark and Jupiter is the only planet I know of that starts with J, but I can certainly see how if it didn't click it could be a very cryptic clue.
I think Jupiter crossed my mind at some point, but I got it in my head that they were looking for some kind of unit and said Joule.
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Re: Wednesday, December 2, 2020 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by mjhunt »

Newhausen wrote: Thu Dec 03, 2020 8:32 am I think I had an over-dramatic movie posted in my head and went from Count of Monte Cristo to The Man in the Iron Mask. At least Google tells me I'm only off by one year on that one.
mjhunt wrote: Thu Dec 03, 2020 12:51 am And scores like today’s, I would say the chances are least 50% that one of the two trailing players would stay above $2,800, bringing us down to 15% or less.
Way lower than that. In a standard Jeopardy! situation, if a player is supposed to stay above $2,800, there's about an 80% chance* that they'll wager some amount of money between "all of it" and "all of it except for $10".

I suppose for the purposes of this calculation, those two wagers work out the same for our leader.

Amusingly, if a contestant is supposed to bet all of it, it's extremely likely* that they won't for Lord knows what reason.

*not scientifically proven, but it sure feels like it

Woof wrote: Wed Dec 02, 2020 11:49 pm Ouch! What a mean FJ, made worse by a typical overwager from 2nd. I got hung up on supernatural and, despite my near certainty that 1851 was too late, went with Frankenstein’s monster.
The overwager from 2nd wasn't nearly as egregious as either of the other two overwagers. At least he had something to gain by his overwager - on a solo get, he gets, what, an extra $7,500 or so over the "proper" wager of staying above Leslie's doubled score? The other two are throwing away win percentage for just a couple hundred bucks.
I am not sure of the exact percentage of closely trailing players overwagering, but if it is indeed 80% of the time, it would mean that the chances of both players overwagering would be 64%, 0.8 x 0.8=0.64.

If it is 70%, it would be 49%, 0.7 x 0.7=0.49.

It would be interesting to do a statistical analysis on this, but I think it clear that needing BOTH to overwager puts the leader in a significantly worse position that if only needing one to overwager.

Of course, I always had the feeling it was well over 50% on any one player, both before and after the tiebreaker rule was implemented. Thus, as you noted in your post on the tiebreaker thread, duping close trailing players really was not nearly as strong an argument for offering a tie in practice as it should have been in theory.

ETA minor Thursday 12/3 spoiler
Spoiler
But, also, my major point here is that overwagers like what we saw Leslie and Morgan make tonight (ironic, isn't it) are statistically much more common than one's like yesterday.
And thus, while the round cost TJ in this particular case, I am saying the probability is not that high.
And round ups will always happen, because ideal or not, there is no getting around the fact that round numbers are easier to add under pressure than non-round numbers.

Then again, the result would have been the same if TJ had just dispensed with calculating altogether and just wrote down Michael's exact amount, $12,600 or even more, and it would have led to a higher payoff on a correct answer.


As far as second place, yes it would have been a big financial gain compared to the most proper wager, but only a very small gain in terms of at least staying above $2,800 with a $9,800 wager(or slightly less as a safety margin). So, his particular wager still seems like a throw away to me. Probably, he just randomly picked $10,000 since it's a big round number and just didn't consider the implications at all.

Of course, as you noted, players underwager amazingly often too. Maybe there are just mysteries in life that will never be solved. What can I say?
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Re: Wednesday, December 2, 2020 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by Bamaman »

By overwagering, Michael not only threw away this game, but the opportunity to win thousands more in future games. A big risk to take for a little extra in one game. And while he still came in second, he could have come in third despite his pre-FJ lock.

TJ’s wager shows what can happen when you decide to tack on a few extra bucks. From the lead, make the MSB and not a penny more. Simplest wagering advice there is.
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Re: Wednesday, December 2, 2020 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by LucarioSnooperVixey »

56 R (Missed ProPublica and Hip Hop Hooray, as well as a couple clues in 2020 Pulitzer Prize.)
DD: 3/3
FJ: :mrgreen:
LT: Mason-Dixon Line, Mecca, Omaha, Peterbilt, Ear, (Rotary International), Def Jam, Gibbon, Paul, (Jupiter)
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Re: Wednesday, December 2, 2020 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by mjhunt »

seaborgium wrote: Thu Dec 03, 2020 3:03 am
mjhunt wrote: Thu Dec 03, 2020 12:51 am I see TJ’s wager as easily understandable and only slightly suboptimal. Yes it did cost him in this particular case, but the odds of it costing him were extremely small. This game was a true perfect storm.
What's wild is that both T.J.'s games were ones he "should" lose if he got FJ wrong, and yet in both games an opponent or opponents made wagers that gave it back to him, and yet in both games his rounding up gave it back again to his opponents.

Game 1: T.J. at $16,200 is defending against Ryan $8,800. Covering by $1 and missing FJ would take him down to $14,799. Ryan misses FJ, but Denise gets it right. She had $7,600, enough that she can win in a sole get, but she bets $7,000 and brings herself to $14,600, still under what T.J. falls to with a $1 cover and a miss. But he rounds up and wagers $2,000, letting Denise back in and only being saved by also getting FJ right.

Game 2: Leslie leaves herself $99 below where a "cover by $1" T.J. would fall on an incorrect FJ response, Michael $199 below. And T.J.'s round-up sinks him below them both.

Five out of six FJ wagers were just slightly wrong in the last two games (Michael's was wronger insofar as he let Leslie back into the game, but it was just $199 too much in relation to where T.J. should have ended up). (And at a glance the sixth one, Ryan's, could look like he was covering Denise's potential $15,200 by $1,001, but he must have been attempting to catch up to T.J.'s $16,200.)
Wow. Yes. Two days in a row. Very Wild.

Denise's wager in TJ's first game was at least somewhat predictable. Betting the closest even thousand is a common overwager, but I guess it serves as an underwager too.

But, I never ever would have predicted Michael and Leslie's wagers in TJ's second game. I just assumed that if they were going to overwager, it would be all but $1/$2/$100 or the closest even thousand.

But, then Leslie made a much more predictable all but $100 overwager the next day. It was functionally similar to Martin Truong's all but $2 overwager in Dan Pawson's 7th second game, in which the top two scores were exactly the same.
http://www.j-archive.com/showgame.php?game_id=2268
And because Morgan bet all but $3, Fred could have won a triple stumper by mindlessly betting the amount Leslie had, $14,800, as Dan did with Martin!

I bet Martin is still kicking himself. :lol:

Of course, maybe the unpredictability is what makes Jeopardy! such an interesting game.
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Re: Wednesday, December 2, 2020 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by MinnesotaMyron »

MinnesotaMyron wrote: Wed Dec 02, 2020 2:06 pm 1851 novel = Moby-Dick is pretty close to Jeopardy Pavlov. The only other major one from that year in the Archive is House of the 7 Gables.
This question showed up in the LearnedLeague One-Day Special about famous first lines in literature. I missed it, lol.
Depending on your definition of the beginning, some call "The pale Usher—threadbare in coat, heart, body, and brain; I see him now," the "real" first line of an 1851 classic novel. What more famous line comes at the beginning of chapter one and is more universally accepted as the first, even though the quoted line precedes it by ~3500 words? Exact wording required.
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