Friday, April 23, 2021 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

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MattKnowles
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Re: Friday, April 23, 2021 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by MattKnowles »

Golf wrote: Thu Jul 18, 2019 11:43 am ...We've run the numbers and there's really no wrong decision between wagering $0 and $1. ...

Golf wrote: Fri Apr 23, 2021 3:18 pm Boys and girls, this is why you wager $0 from the lead against certain player types.

I'd love to see the Cheezy one query his database and pull out the wagers in this scenario from both before and after ties were scrapped. How many instances, how many times 2nd place wagered everything, how many times 2nd wagered all but $1, and all other laughable wagers.
...
:roll:

If you can find that post where you ran the numbers I'd still love to see it.
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Re: Friday, April 23, 2021 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by opusthepenguin »

danspartan wrote: Fri Apr 23, 2021 10:46 pm
opusthepenguin wrote: Fri Apr 23, 2021 8:21 pm
Kelly lucked out here. He shouldn't have bet that dollar, leaving Dan a clear path to victory with no tiebreaker necessary.
$1 is a rational wager here. He is about 55% to win outright (leaders are favorites to get FJ correct).

Of the four 1st/2nd combinations
R=right W=wrong
Spoiler
If leader bets $1
RR wins
WW wins
RW wins
WR loses

If leader bets $0
RR ties- 50% buzzer race
WW wins
RW wins
WR ties- 50% buzzer race

So if all possibilities were equal it’s a tie. 3/4 net wins.

However RR happens more frequently than WR.

So he is giving up half of ~33% (-16.5) and gaining half of about 18% (+10) for a net of -6.5% for wagering $0 vs $1.

Now if our leader thinks that 2nd is more likely to get FJ correct, then the math flips. But on average, leaders get more correct than trailing players.
Spoiler
(I am using leader is 55% to be correct and 2nd is 60/40 to correlate with 1st.)

RR=.55 x .6=33%
RW=.55 x .4=22%
WW=.45 x .6=27%
WR= .45 x .4 =18%
That's all assuming that second place bets it all, yeah? I put that at about 50 percent likelihood. 75 tops. If I'm right, that makes $0 the clear winner.
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Re: Friday, April 23, 2021 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by Vermonter »

seaborgium wrote: Fri Apr 23, 2021 11:25 pm Also I knew the guy was Solomon Northup, not Freeman.
Just like I knew the guy from that miniseries was Kunta Kinte, not Toby. Same deal, right? That was my justification for sticking with 12 Years a Slave — SLAVE being the title character. :?
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Re: Friday, April 23, 2021 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by Woof »

Newhausen wrote: Fri Apr 23, 2021 11:01 pm
danspartan wrote: Fri Apr 23, 2021 10:46 pm
opusthepenguin wrote: Fri Apr 23, 2021 8:21 pm
Kelly lucked out here. He shouldn't have bet that dollar, leaving Dan a clear path to victory with no tiebreaker necessary.
$1 is a rational wager here. He is about 55% to win outright (leaders are favorites to get FJ correct).

Of the four 1st/2nd combinations
R=right W=wrong

If leader bets $1
RR wins
WW wins
RW wins
WR loses

If leader bets $0
RR ties- 50% buzzer race
WW wins
RW wins
WR ties- 50% buzzer race

So if all possibilities were equal it’s a tie. 3/4 net wins.

However RR happens more frequently than WR.

So he is giving up half of ~33% (-16.5) and gaining half of about 18% (+10) for a net of -6.5% for wagering $0 vs $1.

Now if our leader thinks that 2nd is more likely to get FJ correct, then the math flips. But on average, leaders get more correct than trailing players.
Spoiler
(I am using leader is 55% to be correct and 2nd is 60/40 to correlate with 1st.)

RR=.55 x .6=33%
RW=.55 x .4=22%
WW=.45 x .6=27%
WR= .45 x .4 =18%
I feel like the person who has exactly double the other player's score going in to Final has a slightly better than 50% chance to win a buzzer race, almost by definition.
Not necessarily. Momentum changes in games. Unless the leader is a monster on the buzzer, I’d be inclined to take my chances if the category seems at all friendly and bet $1. As has already been pointed out, that only loses if I’m wrong, 2nd is right and 2nd bets it all. Those are odds I like.
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Re: Friday, April 23, 2021 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by mjhunt »

Newhausen wrote: Fri Apr 23, 2021 11:01 pm
danspartan wrote: Fri Apr 23, 2021 10:46 pm
opusthepenguin wrote: Fri Apr 23, 2021 8:21 pm
Kelly lucked out here. He shouldn't have bet that dollar, leaving Dan a clear path to victory with no tiebreaker necessary.
$1 is a rational wager here. He is about 55% to win outright (leaders are favorites to get FJ correct).

Of the four 1st/2nd combinations
R=right W=wrong

If leader bets $1
RR wins
WW wins
RW wins
WR loses

If leader bets $0
RR ties- 50% buzzer race
WW wins
RW wins
WR ties- 50% buzzer race

So if all possibilities were equal it’s a tie. 3/4 net wins.

However RR happens more frequently than WR.

So he is giving up half of ~33% (-16.5) and gaining half of about 18% (+10) for a net of -6.5% for wagering $0 vs $1.

Now if our leader thinks that 2nd is more likely to get FJ correct, then the math flips. But on average, leaders get more correct than trailing players.
Spoiler
(I am using leader is 55% to be correct and 2nd is 60/40 to correlate with 1st.)

RR=.55 x .6=33%
RW=.55 x .4=22%
WW=.45 x .6=27%
WR= .45 x .4 =18%
I feel like the person who has exactly double the other player's score going in to Final has a slightly better than 50% chance to win a buzzer race, almost by definition.
Not necessarily. On 5/18/2020, the first game taped without an audience, going in to FJ, Megan Elliott had $18,800 , exactly double Ben Scripps' score $9,400.

https://thejeopardyfan.com/2020/05/fina ... -2020.html

Ben was first on the buzzer 36.84% of the time, while Megan was first on the buzzer 29.82% of the time. The explanation was the Ben missed two daily doubles and several other questions while Megan answered all of her questions correctly.

OK, maybe that was unusual, but a leader should consider his/her individual situation carefully.

And, really, there is a psychological element to consider. For me, and I would assume for many, it would be much more painful to know FJ (even if you pretend not to) and then still lose, than to lose due to not knowing FJ. Look what happened to Roey Hadar:
https://www.j-archive.com/showgame.php?game_id=6378

Roey has to live with knowing FOR SURE he would have won if he had wagered, while Megan knows she could have easily lost anyway.

I liked both Roey and Megan and their losses both made me wish ties were still allowed. But, if I had to choose, I would much rather lose Megan's way.
Last edited by mjhunt on Sat Apr 24, 2021 12:02 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Friday, April 23, 2021 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by seaborgium »

Vermonter wrote: Fri Apr 23, 2021 11:43 pm
seaborgium wrote: Fri Apr 23, 2021 11:25 pm Also I knew the guy was Solomon Northup, not Freeman.
Just like I knew the guy from that miniseries was Kunta Kinte, not Toby. Same deal, right? That was my justification for sticking with 12 Years a Slave — SLAVE being the title character. :?
That was my reasoning too.
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Re: Friday, April 23, 2021 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by MattKnowles »

I found these games that had a lock-tie scenario: #941, 1731, 2295 (lock-tie tournament), 2946 (2 players tied for second), 3238, 4968, 5313, 5445, 5602, 6510, 6772, 7384, 8039, 8216, 8385.

Of those 16 players who bet from second only one player bet 1 dollar less than the tie amount, one of the players in #2946.

Players failed to bet everything 4 times, in #2946, 4968, 6772, and 8385. So chance of second place wagering everything from this set is 12/16 = 75%. Opus said 75 tops. Lucky guess.

This is the first game since 2014 where somebody failed to bet everything in this scenario.

If cheezguyty has a full data set better than what I gleaned from Google then I hope he posts it.

I might be on the wrong end of Cunningham's Law here.
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Re: Friday, April 23, 2021 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by Vermonter »

I have pre-tiebreaker stats saved down on my external HD. I'll pull them up over the weekend
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Re: Friday, April 23, 2021 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by floridagator »

Interesting that the electors category included both MICHigan and MICHener.
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Re: Friday, April 23, 2021 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by opusthepenguin »

MattKnowles wrote: Sat Apr 24, 2021 12:07 am I found these games that had a lock-tie scenario: #941, 1731, 2295 (lock-tie tournament), 2946 (2 players tied for second), 3238, 4968, 5313, 5445, 5602, 6510, 6772, 7384, 8039, 8216, 8385.

Of those 16 players who bet from second only one player bet 1 dollar less than the tie amount, one of the players in #2946.

Players failed to bet everything 4 times, in #2946, 4968, 6772, and 8385. So chance of second place wagering everything from this set is 12/16 = 75%. Opus said 75 tops. Lucky guess.
Yep, but this undercuts my suggestion that betting $0 is the better move. If these stats are representative, players are 11 times as likely to bet it all as to bet everything but a buck. The games like today's where they hold back $2 or more aren't relevant to the question since those players are equally defeated by the leader wagering $0 or $1.

So (again, if these stats are representative) I now agree with those arguing that $0 vs $1 is a total judgment call in which the leader needs to consider confidence in the category, confidence on the buzzer, and whatever psychological intangibles might come into play.

I'd be interested in the full set of stats on the subject, divided into games during the tie era and the no-tie era. During the tie era, the leader has virtually zero incentive to bet more than $0. That might make it easier for the second place player to assess the situation correctly and bet it all. I'd probably also exclude examples like #2946 with two players tied in second place. That situation introduces a more complicated set of possibilities.

So Kelly's bet was perfectly fine. But if I were him, I'd still be waking up in a cold sweat thinking about how close I came to losing that game.
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Re: Friday, April 23, 2021 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by alietr »

jeff6286 wrote: Fri Apr 23, 2021 10:31 pm
Robert K S wrote: Fri Apr 23, 2021 9:16 pm FJ! was basically "have you seen the movie or not". I suppose one could have gotten it without seeing the movie if one was paying attention during awards season and allowed oneself to connect "German" with "Christoph Waltz", who swept the big three supporting actor awards that year with the role, just as he had done three years before for another Tarantino film.
This is a pretty massive overstatement. Knowing the movie exists from around this time period and it's about a slave, even if you don't know about the Christoph Waltz-played German character it's still quite gettable.
And I disagree from the other side -- I've seen the movie, and didn't get it. It's been a long time since I saw it, and it was not one of my favorite Tarantinos, so I've basically pushed it down in importance in my memory. Add me to the 'Slave' responses.
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Re: Friday, April 23, 2021 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by danspartan »

Sometimes it really pays to assume your opponent wages poorly.

Like a third place person betting $0 in a scenario like
$15,000
$13,000
$6,000

We have to assume 2nd is going to bet most or all even though the “correct” play is for 2nd to bet less than $1,000.

In this case it’s so close. But at 25% of the time 2nd makes a “bad” wager Opus is spot on. I don’t like the small sample size and if the current trend is going towards betting all-in.

Tough spot. Great intuition on the part of the penguin though. :applause:
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Re: Friday, April 23, 2021 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by StevenH »

I guessed Lincoln, even though I didn't think that it fit the clue and I thought that it came out a year or two earlier (turns out it was released in 2012). I didn't think of 12 Years a Slave but I would have guessed that it came out more recently than 2013.

I actually walked out of Django Unchained when I attempted to watch it in the theater. I should have thought of it, but it just didn't come to me.
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Re: Friday, April 23, 2021 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by AFRET CMS »

Robert K S wrote: Fri Apr 23, 2021 9:16 pm FJ! was basically "have you seen the movie or not". I suppose one could have gotten it without seeing the movie if one was paying attention during awards season and allowed oneself to connect "German" with "Christoph Waltz", who swept the big three supporting actor awards that year with the role, just as he had done three years before for another Tarantino film.
Haven't seen the movie, though it's on the "to be viewed" list, and I didn't know/remember Waltz's role in the movie. I got it with a SWAG. "Circa-Civil War movie in the last ten years. Freeman kindasorta fits with unchained. Better than nothing."

Then was pretty surprised it was right.
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Re: Friday, April 23, 2021 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by opusthepenguin »

As a mnemonic for the future, remember 12, 13, 14: 12 Years a Slave came out in '13 and won Best Picture in '14.
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Re: Friday, April 23, 2021 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by yclept »

If the category is “Baseball” in Final Jeopardy, I’d play for the win and not the potential for a buzzer race tiebreaker.
If the category is “The History of Opera,” I am betting $0 and praying that the person in second either misses or wagers poorly.

As annoying as that was, he had a chance at a double up on a top box DD and went with the “Let me just shout out $2,000” wager.

I still hate that they added the tie game rule. I still think that, at the very least, they should give both players their money and have the tiebreaker to determine the champion - if indeed the concern is that they don’t want to “hold up the line.”
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Re: Friday, April 23, 2021 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by Robert K S »

I hate the "no ties" rule too but I'm much more cool with the rationale that "we want as many people as possible to be able to be on Jeopardy!" than the whole "ties are unethical" angle which I never understood.
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Re: Friday, April 23, 2021 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by GoodStrategy »

Robert K S wrote: Sat Apr 24, 2021 6:06 pm I hate the "no ties" rule too but I'm much more cool with the rationale that "we want as many people as possible to be able to be on Jeopardy!" than the whole "ties are unethical" angle which I never understood.
This (scroll down to the "Williams-Chu rule") explains the collusion concern.
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Re: Friday, April 23, 2021 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by MattKnowles »

A tie-breaker has only occurred a handful of times and it always gets some attention on social media. Getting free promotion for the show probably wasn't the original intent but it seems like it worked out well.

People asked why Mike Nelson appeared to wager for the tie. Maybe he was hoping for a viral moment.
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Re: Friday, April 23, 2021 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by jpr281 »

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