Friday, January 22, 2021 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

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Re: Friday, January 22, 2021 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by jeff6286 »

opusthepenguin wrote: Sun Jan 24, 2021 2:36 pm
Volante wrote: Sun Jan 24, 2021 2:28 pm
alietr wrote: Sun Jan 24, 2021 2:03 pm
Volante wrote: Sun Jan 24, 2021 11:56 am Paper doesn't BSOD
Meh. When was the last time you got a BSOD? And besides, it's not like they can't stop the taping to resolve a technical issue. They do that all the time.
But why risk it? One less thing to worry about.
Same reason you risk using a computer instead of writing everything down on paper. The risk-benefit tradeoff seems worth it.
Still unclear what the benefit is. They've got a system that has worked for nearly 40 years, what exactly are the shortcomings of the paper and crayon system as you know it?
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Re: Friday, January 22, 2021 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by opusthepenguin »

jeff6286 wrote: Sun Jan 24, 2021 3:26 pm
opusthepenguin wrote: Sun Jan 24, 2021 2:36 pm
Volante wrote: Sun Jan 24, 2021 2:28 pm
alietr wrote: Sun Jan 24, 2021 2:03 pm
Volante wrote: Sun Jan 24, 2021 11:56 am Paper doesn't BSOD
Meh. When was the last time you got a BSOD? And besides, it's not like they can't stop the taping to resolve a technical issue. They do that all the time.
But why risk it? One less thing to worry about.
Same reason you risk using a computer instead of writing everything down on paper. The risk-benefit tradeoff seems worth it.
Still unclear what the benefit is. They've got a system that has worked for nearly 40 years, what exactly are the shortcomings of the paper and crayon system as you know it?
Where should I start? Here's just one. The current correct response can get be enlarged on Ken's screen. Information can be included in a more noticeable and readable way about what to accept and not to accept. On the 30-clue cards that Alex had, there was very little room for this kind of thing because each box was so small. Once the clue has passed, it can disappear from Ken's screen without him needing to draw a line through it. That's just off the top of my head.
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Re: Friday, January 22, 2021 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by alietr »

opusthepenguin wrote: Sun Jan 24, 2021 3:34 pm
jeff6286 wrote: Sun Jan 24, 2021 3:26 pm
opusthepenguin wrote: Sun Jan 24, 2021 2:36 pm
Volante wrote: Sun Jan 24, 2021 2:28 pm
alietr wrote: Sun Jan 24, 2021 2:03 pm

Meh. When was the last time you got a BSOD? And besides, it's not like they can't stop the taping to resolve a technical issue. They do that all the time.
But why risk it? One less thing to worry about.
Same reason you risk using a computer instead of writing everything down on paper. The risk-benefit tradeoff seems worth it.
Still unclear what the benefit is. They've got a system that has worked for nearly 40 years, what exactly are the shortcomings of the paper and crayon system as you know it?
Where should I start? Here's just one. The current correct response can get be enlarged on Ken's screen. Information can be included in a more noticeable and readable way about what to accept and not to accept. On the 30-clue cards that Alex had, there was very little room for this kind of thing because each box was so small. Once the clue has passed, it can disappear from Ken's screen without him needing to draw a line through it. That's just off the top of my head.
While I've never seen a taping of it, Brooke Burns uses one on Master Minds, and it doesn't seem to be a problem for her.
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Re: Friday, January 22, 2021 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by This Is Kirk! »

Volante wrote: Sun Jan 24, 2021 11:56 am Paper doesn't BSOD
What's BSOD?
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Re: Friday, January 22, 2021 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by econgator »

This Is Kirk! wrote: Sun Jan 24, 2021 4:03 pm
Volante wrote: Sun Jan 24, 2021 11:56 am Paper doesn't BSOD
What's BSOD?
Blue Screen of Death (clearly you are an Apple user :) ).
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Re: Friday, January 22, 2021 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by yclept »

If the only reason for the tie-breaker is to not delay the appearance of future contestants, why can’t they at least allow both players to keep their winnings? Let the “buzzer speed”question be for the championship.
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Re: Friday, January 22, 2021 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by jeff6286 »

alietr wrote: Sun Jan 24, 2021 3:57 pm While I've never seen a taping of it, Brooke Burns uses one on Master Minds, and it doesn't seem to be a problem for her.
Ya know I was noticing lately Brooke never even looks up during the buzzer round and trying to figure out how she knows which player to call on. I guess if she is reading her questions from a tablet then the tablet shows her who rings in. Somehow didn't notice that is indeed a tablet and not a stack of cards, makes much more sense now!
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Re: Friday, January 22, 2021 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by opusthepenguin »

yclept wrote: Sun Jan 24, 2021 4:26 pm If the only reason for the tie-breaker is to not delay the appearance of future contestants, why can’t they at least allow both players to keep their winnings? Let the “buzzer speed”question be for the championship.
That seems reasonable. On the other side, if the the only reason is to avoid double payouts, stipulate that contestants in a tie split the winning value between (or in extremely rare cases, among) them but are co-champions.
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Re: Friday, January 22, 2021 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by talkingaway »

yclept wrote: Sun Jan 24, 2021 4:26 pm If the only reason for the tie-breaker is to not delay the appearance of future contestants, why can’t they at least allow both players to keep their winnings? Let the “buzzer speed”question be for the championship.
I like this idea. Maybe some folks think of Arthur Chu, who played for the tie a lot, as some sort of Robin Hood, releasing money from the coffers of Sony to his fellow J!-mates. While that's all well and good, the object should be to maximize your own winnings, and not to maximize Sony's losses.

But I agree that a quick, one-off clue that will invariably be not even brain speed but buzzer speed isn't the best way to determine a five figure payday. Let them both split the winnings, and play for the future winnings, which, statistically, will be less for an average, 1-in-3 chance of winning contestant.
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Re: Friday, January 22, 2021 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by A Wray »

talkingaway wrote: Sat Jan 23, 2021 10:31 am Also, aren't a vast swath of clues on J! just simply buzzer races between at least 2, if not all 3, contestants? Instead of thinking of a tie breaker as a 62nd clue, you can think of it as a retroactive 31st clue on the J! board, worth $1.
This is the salient point. Games are decided by buzzer races all the time, yet folks here only object to it when the buzzer race is at the end of the game.

I simply don't understand this gnashing of the teeth over how "unfair" it is that a player can play really well and lose in a heartbreaker. That is the nature of a competition. I'm sure the 2002 Sacramento Kings would have loved not to have to play overtime of Game 7 against the Lakers, and simply be declared co-champions of the Western Conference, but that's not how it works. If you don't want to be forced into a tiebreaker, then get a higher score than your opponent.
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Re: Friday, January 22, 2021 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by mjhunt »

seaborgium wrote: Sat Jan 23, 2021 3:05 am
mjhunt wrote: Sat Jan 23, 2021 12:52 am
I understand this.

But, I do have a few questions?

When you were playing, was there discussion on the old board or other places that wagering to tie was a good strategy?

Did you consider offering ties? I know you didn't, I just wonder if you thought about it.
To answer the second question first (well it's your third question, but the second actual question :lol: ), no (although technically I did offer a tie in my fifth game, albeit by wagering $0 from a close second because third place had exactly half my score); there were two games where I had a non-lock lead, and I covered by $1 in both of them. The only time I considered anything else was in the second one, where I was curious if I could get my grand total to some cute amount, but I gave up on that and stuck with the $1 cover.

There was a 2x champ named Tom Toce several months after my run ended, who was also a member of the Sony boards, and it was an explicit part of his strategy to offer ties from the lead in FJ. The basic idea is that since getting to precisely double your closest opponent's score will guarantee you come back the next day, why risk a penny more than it takes to do that? And certainly there have been players in a trailing position who have calculated the $[x]99 the leader will fall to on a $1 cover and aimed for $[x+1]00 (from either direction); under those circumstances, the leader loses by the amount they chose to cover by, and the tie offer will save them. The possibility of this was Tom's main motivation for the strategy, as he laid out in his Winner's Blog. But he may have also acknowledged elsewhere that continued use of this strategy might improve his chances of winning on TS clues from a close lead, because the player in second place who has previously seen him offer ties might attempt to take up the offer and fall to $0 as a result. This is the earliest time I specifically remember the wager-to-tie strategy being discussed as an actual strategy.

I understood the strategy, but I hated the idea that a player in second place might end up regretting a good wager under circumstances where all-in would have gotten them a tie. I think I put too fine a point on that opinion, because he responded that surely I caused my opponents regret during my run. I think he believed my opinion was that he owed it to his opponents to win (in the event of double or triple gets) with totals they couldn't have reached.
OOPS. Too many question marks. Typing too fast. :oops:
I see the logic, but it seems to me the percentage chance is really too low to be a convincing argument, especially if a tough opponent is involved. And, I think if I liked a category enough, I would probably be very tempted to try to increase my own winnings with a much bigger bet if I thought the risk was low enough (though, as some recent games show, there is always some risk).
And, if I were the trailer, I would want to make sure to wager to make sure a tie offer does not save the leader, especially if co-champions were allowed. I guess I could hope the leader might offer a tie to me in the future, but the circumstances would have to line up just right for that, and a strong leader might well achieve a runaway the next game.
I see what you’re saying in your reply to Tom. You could have been on the receiving end of that in your fifth game. I wonder how Emily came up with her wager ($7,000? I can’t see it in the archive right now). Was it just completely random?
This is all very interesting. I read that some argued in favor of betting to tie a long time ago, but I guess it just never gained traction.
https://www.triviahalloffame.com/kenjennings.php
I guess it will always just be a little surreal to me how it changed so drastically and so suddenly.
Last edited by mjhunt on Mon Jan 25, 2021 2:21 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Friday, January 22, 2021 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by mjhunt »

A Wray wrote: Sun Jan 24, 2021 11:10 pm
talkingaway wrote: Sat Jan 23, 2021 10:31 am Also, aren't a vast swath of clues on J! just simply buzzer races between at least 2, if not all 3, contestants? Instead of thinking of a tie breaker as a 62nd clue, you can think of it as a retroactive 31st clue on the J! board, worth $1.
This is the salient point. Games are decided by buzzer races all the time, yet folks here only object to it when the buzzer race is at the end of the game.

I simply don't understand this gnashing of the teeth over how "unfair" it is that a player can play really well and lose in a heartbreaker. That is the nature of a competition. I'm sure the 2002 Sacramento Kings would have loved not to have to play overtime of Game 7 against the Lakers, and simply be declared co-champions of the Western Conference, but that's not how it works. If you don't want to be forced into a tiebreaker, then get a higher score than your opponent.
For me, it is not so much unfair as just unpleasant. I and many others consider co-champions fun when they arise naturally (and this game was the ultimate natural tie) and that is how the show worked for 30 years.

It is not like the match you are describing. In regular play, there was a rematch, which is fun when the two played a hard fought game (like this one), and in every case in the archive, one outplayed the other or both were outplayed the next time.

That is presumably why there was always a tiebreaker for Kids Week, since there was no opportunity for a rematch.

And, an easy pure speed question just feels disjointed after Final Jeopardy!, which is based on knowledge. Presumably, the reason there is a Final Jeopardy! is so that buzzer timing is not the sole factor.

There has to be a reason the tiebreaker was not put in regular games in 1984, even though it had presumably already been devised for tournaments.

Then again, I guess you could argue it should have been.
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Re: Friday, January 22, 2021 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by A Wray »

mjhunt wrote: Mon Jan 25, 2021 2:10 am It is not like the match you are describing. In regular play, there was a rematch, which is fun when the two played a hard fought game (like this one), and in every case in the archive, one outplayed the other or both were outplayed the next time.
If you want to think of the rematch as "overtime," then I'm fine with it, but in that case the loser should not keep their winnings from the first game.

What TPTB wanted to do was get rid of a loophole in the rules by which a player had no incentive to win outright. That obviously isn't an issue in games like this, where players are "naturally" tied after DJ, but nevertheless, I'm on board with the idea that the purpose of a contest is to determine a single winner.

I won't disagree that the tiebreaker clues should be harder.
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Re: Friday, January 22, 2021 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by LucarioSnooperVixey »

Why is only Part 1 on the J!Archive?
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Re: Friday, January 22, 2021 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by seaborgium »

mjhunt wrote: Mon Jan 25, 2021 2:06 am I see what you’re saying in your reply to Tom. You could have been on the receiving end of that in your fifth game. I wonder how Emily came up with her wager ($7,000? I can’t see it in the archive right now). Was it just completely random?
I've never been in contact with Emily since our game, so I can only guess, but I've thought about it a lot.
too much thinking
First, I think she was just given to low wagering (she hit all three DDs and bet $600, $1,000, and $1,600 on them), but also she may have recognized that I was in a situation for FJ where $0 was a viable wager. My guess is she was inclined, both by nature and by my circumstances, to bet less than her $1,600 lead over me, but she had just seen me bet five figures on FJ in the previous game, so for all she knew, I was a loose cannon. But she also couldn't bring herself to make the $14,801 cover wager (or $14,800, for that matter), and chose to compromise in the middle, indeed with $7,000. A nice $25,000 if she's right, still in five digits if she's wrong.

John, for his part, thought I would go crazy again in FJ (we talked on the walk back to the parking lot, so this is actually confirmed), and specifically bet to stay ahead of Emily if she covered me and they both missed. (He had $8,200 and bet $5,000, falling to $3,200; Emily would have fallen to $3,199 if she had bet $14,801.) Here's an interesting bit: J! Archive's wagering calculator's recommendation in a four-fifths game (and $16,400 is well within four fifths of $18,000) is for second place to bet double their deficit plus $1 (just as wagering your deficit plus $1 covers the leader wagering $0, wagering $1 above double your deficit covers the leader wagering their leading margin), and it just so happens that when third has half of second's score in a four-fifths game (although the WC deviates from its four-fifths recommendation in that case), the "stay ahead of covering leader if both wrong" wager for third place is also a "catch up to double-deficit-wagering second place if he's wrong and I'm right" wager; i.e. if I had wagered $3,200 (no +$1 because of sitting on a break point) expecting Emily not to score more than $19,200, and missed, and John had gotten FJ right, we would have tied at $13,200.

Now, back to the "spare your opponents regret" subject, while $0 was fine and it worked out, I wish I had bet $3,200, not only because the math would have been interesting, but also because if Emily did indeed push past an inclination to bet small, my passing her pre-FJ score would prevent her from regretting that decision. I'd rather she only regret getting FJ wrong than that and her wager.

One more thing: I mentioned she might have been influenced by my big wager in the previous game. Now, if I had bet small in the previous game, she might have bet small and won. And yet, because I lost $20,065 on the previous FJ and won $16,400 in my fifth game, it would have been worth a few thousand dollars more to me if I'd bet small in game 4 and lost game 5. But I decided in reflecting on this that $3,000 or so of winnings is far outweighed by being able to call myself a 5-time champion.
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Re: Friday, January 22, 2021 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by seaborgium »

LucarioSnooperVixey wrote: Mon Jan 25, 2021 2:41 am Why is only Part 1 on the J!Archive?
Every game is appearing that way right now.
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Re: Friday, January 22, 2021 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by This Is Kirk! »

econgator wrote: Sun Jan 24, 2021 4:09 pm
This Is Kirk! wrote: Sun Jan 24, 2021 4:03 pm
Volante wrote: Sun Jan 24, 2021 11:56 am Paper doesn't BSOD
What's BSOD?
Blue Screen of Death (clearly you are an Apple user :) ).
I'm not, but--man--I haven't gotten one of those in a long time. It just doesn't seem to happen in Windows 10 at least in my experience.

This doesn't seem like much of a concern IMO. It's not like J! is a live show. If there's a computer glitch they can deal with it and make the necessary edits in post-production.
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Re: Friday, January 22, 2021 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by mas3cf »

This Is Kirk! wrote: Mon Jan 25, 2021 12:26 pm
econgator wrote: Sun Jan 24, 2021 4:09 pm
This Is Kirk! wrote: Sun Jan 24, 2021 4:03 pm
Volante wrote: Sun Jan 24, 2021 11:56 am Paper doesn't BSOD
What's BSOD?
Blue Screen of Death (clearly you are an Apple user :) ).
I'm not, but--man--I haven't gotten one of those in a long time. It just doesn't seem to happen in Windows 10 at least in my experience.

This doesn't seem like much of a concern IMO. It's not like J! is a live show. If there's a computer glitch they can deal with it and make the necessary edits in post-production.
Even Win7 - I have a Win7 laptop I've used every day for 11 years, zero BSODs.
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Re: Friday, January 22, 2021 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by morbeedo »

What a deeply unsatisfying outcome!
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Re: Friday, January 22, 2021 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by mjhunt »

A Wray wrote: Mon Jan 25, 2021 2:29 am
mjhunt wrote: Mon Jan 25, 2021 2:10 am It is not like the match you are describing. In regular play, there was a rematch, which is fun when the two played a hard fought game (like this one), and in every case in the archive, one outplayed the other or both were outplayed the next time.
If you want to think of the rematch as "overtime," then I'm fine with it, but in that case the loser should not keep their winnings from the first game.

What TPTB wanted to do was get rid of a loophole in the rules by which a player had no incentive to win outright. That obviously isn't an issue in games like this, where players are "naturally" tied after DJ, but nevertheless, I'm on board with the idea that the purpose of a contest is to determine a single winner.

I won't disagree that the tiebreaker clues should be harder.
I think it was generally understood for thirty years that the original tie rule gave a definite incentive to win outright and that was to avoid an opponent with buzzer experience. There has to be some reason the norm of winning outright developed in the first place, right? That is why Ken Jennings never offered ties. He rejected the Chu/Williams strategy in 2014 too.
https://slate.com/culture/2014/02/arthu ... aster.html

Also, while there is always some extra risk, there have a number of players (Dan Feitel, Mary Ann Borer, Ben Bishop, and others) who won significant amounts of extra money by betting more than the MSB.

Though, of course, that is precisely why the original rule worked for thirty years. It did not diminish the competitiveness of games or cause logistics problems as long as people generally did not aim for ties. And when too many did, well, everything changed.

Again, I don’t want every game to end in a tie. I just wish tie explosion of 2014 had not happened and that Jeopardy! could work the way it did for thirty years, with co-champions an occasional natural thing.

But, of course, as in all areas of life, we all have to accept things we don't like, but can't change.
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