Thursday, April 18, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

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Re: Thursday, April 18, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by Robert K S »

seaborgium wrote: Fri Apr 19, 2019 3:46 am Maybe it'll be such a letdown when winning totals revert to the mean that they'll double clue values again.
18 + 18 = 36
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Re: Thursday, April 18, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by RKane »

Pls delete
Last edited by RKane on Fri Apr 19, 2019 5:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Thursday, April 18, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by harrumph »

JosephLousy wrote: Fri Apr 19, 2019 12:32 am Is there any good reason why Jeopardy hasn't forced the players to select from top to bottom instead of wherever they want?
That's a lousy question.
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Re: Thursday, April 18, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by alietr »

Can we keep the discussion civil, please?
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Re: Thursday, April 18, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by Robert K S »

But... it literally was a Lousy question...
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Re: Thursday, April 18, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by This Is Kirk! »

gnash wrote: Fri Apr 19, 2019 10:34 am But as comfortable as he is now with the buzzer, no challenger will take him down unless it's essentially a two-person match.
Interesting hypothesis. It will be interesting to see if it holds true or not. He could also certainly go down by betting a lot on a Daily Double, missing it, and not being able to recover.
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Re: Thursday, April 18, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by gnash »

This Is Kirk! wrote: Fri Apr 19, 2019 3:40 pm
gnash wrote: Fri Apr 19, 2019 10:34 am But as comfortable as he is now with the buzzer, no challenger will take him down unless it's essentially a two-person match.
Interesting hypothesis. It will be interesting to see if it holds true or not. He could also certainly go down by betting a lot on a Daily Double, missing it, and not being able to recover.
One great misconception is that James's DD wagers are risky. They are risk-minimizing. I don't think any player is more likely to get FJs than DDs, so every time you fail to get a lock game, you're taking a big risk.

James has lost all on a DD and recovered easily. For him not to be able to recover, he needs to be beaten on the buzzer and/or another player has to get the remaining DDs, or James has to miss a second one (which is back to my scenario). Some of this will eventually happen. But it's obviously easier for him to lose if a single opponent keeps neck-to-neck with him than if the two opponents keep getting in each other's way.
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Re: Thursday, April 18, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by This Is Kirk! »

gnash wrote: Fri Apr 19, 2019 3:54 pm
This Is Kirk! wrote: Fri Apr 19, 2019 3:40 pm
gnash wrote: Fri Apr 19, 2019 10:34 am But as comfortable as he is now with the buzzer, no challenger will take him down unless it's essentially a two-person match.
Interesting hypothesis. It will be interesting to see if it holds true or not. He could also certainly go down by betting a lot on a Daily Double, missing it, and not being able to recover.
One great misconception is that James's DD wagers are risky.
And I wouldn't suggest they are, but there is still an inherent risk in betting big, even if it does maximize your win potential. At some point the odds may not work in James' favor. He's been so dominant so far he's easily been able to recover, but who knows what the future might hold!
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Re: Thursday, April 18, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

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Robert K S wrote: Fri Apr 19, 2019 3:31 pm But... it literally was a Lousy question...
Yes, I did catch that. It was more aimed at calling an idea stupid. The Louse just intervened.
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Re: Thursday, April 18, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by Schliemann »

MarkBarrett wrote: Fri Apr 19, 2019 12:05 am
This Is Kirk! wrote: Thu Apr 18, 2019 11:59 pm That FJ took me longer than it should have, but I finally got the pun and came up with Aquaman.

At this point it seems like we need either Austin Powers or LSV to step in to take James down. :D
Don't forget Lampy the man who has beaten James head to head. Or Schliemann. LSV has posted he won't try to get on the show. But, yes, AP needs to get on the show whether he is now lacking in tiger blood or not.
Thanks for the s/o, Mark! gnash is right in that an easier path to toppling JH goes through a weaker third player. I think a scenario where neither James nor I (or any of the crew that you've mentioned - there's a few others that regularly top the LL Championship each year that haven't been on the show I'd also add ) had touched a buzzer before, it's probably close to a 50/50 DD-dependent crapshoot on who wins as we're likely all pretty close on knowledge of the regular show material and recall/reaction time. A scenario where Big J has 60 games of experience on the buzzer and I have none as a challenger contestant.... eek.

James' game is very rhythmic, a pretty uniform pace. The zone.I think a couple things to try would be to 1) Slow down the pace of the game, change it's rhythm. Try to alter the cadence of the gameplay away from James' tempo. Slow responses, slow clue choices, etc 2) Extreme bouncing - basically pick the next clue at random for the bottom three rows (until the DD(s) are uncovered and then bounce all five) (again anything to throw James' natural flow).
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Re: Thursday, April 18, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by gnash »

This Is Kirk! wrote: Fri Apr 19, 2019 4:03 pm
gnash wrote: Fri Apr 19, 2019 3:54 pm
This Is Kirk! wrote: Fri Apr 19, 2019 3:40 pm
gnash wrote: Fri Apr 19, 2019 10:34 am But as comfortable as he is now with the buzzer, no challenger will take him down unless it's essentially a two-person match.
Interesting hypothesis. It will be interesting to see if it holds true or not. He could also certainly go down by betting a lot on a Daily Double, missing it, and not being able to recover.
One great misconception is that James's DD wagers are risky.
And I wouldn't suggest they are, but there is still an inherent risk in betting big, even if it does maximize your win potential. At some point the odds may not work in James' favor. He's been so dominant so far he's easily been able to recover, but who knows what the future might hold!
Obviously, there is a significant element of luck and even the best strategy can backfire. But in terms of odds, in terms of the best-probability moves given the knowledge available at the time they are made, James is making safer choices than an average contestant (or Ken, for that matter).

If you compare his run and Ken's at this point, and know nothing about Ken's subsequent games, you should unquestionably bet on James's run being longer. Yet, Ken's run was way longer than his fundamentals warranted (in other words, he was exceptionally lucky), so knowing that Ken won 74 games, it would be a terrible bet. Hindsight is better than any risk management. :)
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Re: Thursday, April 18, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by This Is Kirk! »

Schliemann wrote: Fri Apr 19, 2019 4:21 pm James' game is very rhythmic, a pretty uniform pace. The zone.I think a couple things to try would be to 1) Slow down the pace of the game, change it's rhythm. Try to alter the cadence of the gameplay away from James' tempo. Slow responses, slow clue choices, etc 2) Extreme bouncing - basically pick the next clue at random for the bottom three rows (until the DD(s) are uncovered and then bounce all five) (again anything to throw James' natural flow).
Great thoughts. Is there some way we can bring in Alex Jacob to face him? :D
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Re: Thursday, April 18, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by Caboom »

Wheatley wrote: Thu Apr 18, 2019 11:06 pm
TenPoundHammer wrote: Thu Apr 18, 2019 7:52 pm Any reason I should know that war occurred in Spain and not any other country? There are lots of countries where Spanish is spoken.
Before the Age of Exploration, there was just one.

Got FJ because I said it in my head with a break between "C" and "King." Does anyone know when this was filmed? The Aquaman movie only came out in December '18, and if the film wasn't on people's radars yet, the FJ is a bit harder.
Well he thanked his wife for a "bad movie night" so it must've been after Aquaman came out. Unless he was referencing the Justice League movie.
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Re: Thursday, April 18, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by RKane »

alietr wrote: Fri Apr 19, 2019 3:29 pm Can we keep the discussion civil, please?
Sorry, redacted.
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Re: Thursday, April 18, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by gnash »

gnash wrote: Fri Apr 19, 2019 10:34 am
This Is Kirk! wrote: Thu Apr 18, 2019 11:59 pm At this point it seems like we need either Austin Powers or LSV to step in to take James down. :D
Actually, it doesn't take a top-rate player to take a monster champion down. It takes a "slow" player, though that's a misleading word - someone who just can't get the hang of the buzzer. Remember that in Ken's defeat, there were only two people in FJ. The two other games I remember that were close - against Matt Ottinger and Jeff Suchard - also had only two people in FJ.
For slightly different situations (and to be fair to a few other contestants who made Ken work hard for his money), we should also look at Ken's games 5 and 18.

In game 5, Ken made a $1800 DD bet midway through DJ when he was leading by about 10,000. Paula Filson later wisely made a TDD and Ken was $2,600 short of a lock. Ken missed FJ, so he would've lost had Paula gotten it right.

In game 18, Michael Cudahy, having managed not to fall too far behind, caught up with Ken with a late big TDD. Ken had gotten the previous two DDs; he made a small wager in the first (Bartending category - he even joked about a Mormon betting on that), but a decent wager in the second. But it was ALSO one of his worst days for first buzzes and Coryat (possibly at least in part due to tough competition).
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Re: Thursday, April 18, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by alietr »

Something else I find interesting -- he holds the buzzer down, so you're not seeing what he's doing with it. You can, however, watch the other contestants frantically and futilely trying to ring in.
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Re: Thursday, April 18, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by hbomb1947 »

This Is Kirk! wrote: Fri Apr 19, 2019 4:55 pm
Schliemann wrote: Fri Apr 19, 2019 4:21 pm James' game is very rhythmic, a pretty uniform pace. The zone.I think a couple things to try would be to 1) Slow down the pace of the game, change it's rhythm. Try to alter the cadence of the gameplay away from James' tempo. Slow responses, slow clue choices, etc 2) Extreme bouncing - basically pick the next clue at random for the bottom three rows (until the DD(s) are uncovered and then bounce all five) (again anything to throw James' natural flow).
Great thoughts. Is there some way we can bring in Alex Jacob to face him? :D
+1. Acknowledging that J! games have 3 players, in some ways Alex would be a more intriguing matchup for James than Ken and/or Brad.
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Re: Thursday, April 18, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by Wpwells »

hbomb1947 wrote: Fri Apr 19, 2019 6:41 pm
This Is Kirk! wrote: Fri Apr 19, 2019 4:55 pm
Schliemann wrote: Fri Apr 19, 2019 4:21 pm James' game is very rhythmic, a pretty uniform pace. The zone.I think a couple things to try would be to 1) Slow down the pace of the game, change it's rhythm. Try to alter the cadence of the gameplay away from James' tempo. Slow responses, slow clue choices, etc 2) Extreme bouncing - basically pick the next clue at random for the bottom three rows (until the DD(s) are uncovered and then bounce all five) (again anything to throw James' natural flow).
Great thoughts. Is there some way we can bring in Alex Jacob to face him? :D
+1. Acknowledging that J! games have 3 players, in some ways Alex would be a more intriguing matchup for James than Ken and/or Brad.
I mean, IMO Alex Jacob is a better player than Ken or Brad. He outplayed Brad in the All-Star games - his team was just weaker
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Re: Thursday, April 18, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by tddeveryday »

hbomb1947 wrote: Fri Apr 19, 2019 9:43 am
JosephLousy wrote: Fri Apr 19, 2019 12:32 am I'm also tired of James' mastery. He peaked after his fourth game, once he ripped the one-day record to shreds. Now I want other players to have their moments of victory, their own streaks.
Did you feel the same way during ken's streak, or for that matter Julia's?
Is there any good reason why Jeopardy hasn't forced the players to select from top to bottom instead of wherever they want? I've seen this suggested a few times on this board. If both Alex and the producers prefer it when the game is played this way, why don't they just make it compulsory? Maybe they can implement this rule starting in season 36, which may give new challengers more of a fighting chance against superhumans like James.
This is a bad idea, IMO. James's Coryat through 11 games is even higher than Ken's was at the same point, and since James dominates in control of the board he would still be landing on most of the DD's. He would still be crushing opponents; his scores just wouldn't be as eye-popping and ratings wouldn't be boosted to the same extent. Also, the effect of the rule would be to make the game comparatively boring; and at the very least, you would be denying a trailing player the chance to come back by hunting for DD's. And as we've seen time and again, most contestants will revert to playing top to bottom anyway because they're more comfortable with that approach.
I'm new to Jeopardy compared to most of you. I've been catching up on as many episodes as possible over the past several months. I don't know what it was like to watch the Ken and Julia streaks in real time. I can say that it's awesome to watch Ken dominate in the super-tournaments because he's facing fellow legends, people who have already tasted a good deal of success. It breaks my heart to see good players go home after one game. They may not be next-level brilliant, but some of them might have been ToC worthy. We'll never know because they only got that one shot.

You're probably right. Going from top to bottom every episode might be boring. But James' style creates an anticlimax at the end of every SJ and DJ. The difficulty level decreases as the round continues.

I feel bad. James is probably reading this. I'll say that my affection goes up and down. His dedication to his grandmother was a sweet moment. Today's episode was more exciting because he was struggling before the first break, which made his domination by the end even more impressive.
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Re: Thursday, April 18, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by tddeveryday »

This Is Kirk! wrote: Fri Apr 19, 2019 10:05 am
JosephLousy wrote: Fri Apr 19, 2019 12:32 am I'm also tired of James' mastery.
For the record I wasn't implying that I'm "tired" of James. He's a fantastic player and fun to watch.

Force" is probably too strong a word. The categories like this are intended to be done top to bottom and Alex states this, but they still don't prevent contestants from starting somewhere other than the top row.
Sorry. I didn't mean you specifically. I haven't posted on a bulletin board in a long time, so it's hard to remember how to reply on a place like this. Your post just happened to be the most recent when I wrote mine.
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