Monday, September 9, 2019 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

[Archivists]

J! Round

[Archivists]

DJ! Round

[theFJguy]

FINAL JEOPARDY! CATEGORY
BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY

FINAL JEOPARDY! CLUE
A site excavated since 1899, Tell es-Safi has been identified as this Philistine city, home to a giant warrior

Jason Zuffranieri: 29600-400=29200 (7X = $166,500)
Holly Palmer: 7800-5000=2800
Victor C. Li: 400-399=1

Correct response:

Spoiler

Gath (Jason – Goliath) (Holly – Goliathtown) (Victor – Baghdad)

Daily Doubles
Jason: 3400-2700
Jason: 12700+4000
Jason: 23900+2500

Coryats
Jason: 28600
Holly: 7800
Victor: 400

Combined: 36,800

Scores at the end of the Jeopardy! Round
Jason: 5500
Holly: 3000
Victor: 400

[MarkBarrett]

Jason's first call was a $1000 clue and he made many more bottom of the board selections. The $200 and $400 clues were mostly left for the end of the rounds. Jason tried to play somewhat like James though quickly got burned by missing DD1. It was a small setback as his challengers could not keep up with someone having six games of experience.

Two clues not played will be worse when there is not a fully capable champ playing.

A teaser ad for the College test on Oct. 1 was shown between the DJ! and FJ! rounds. Not surprising that Tom, Pam, Monica and Lili were shown getting their trophies.

Images of some of the new graphics:

Spoiler

Alex looked and sounded good and there was no beard stunt this season.

[MarkBarrett]

Since it's the season premiere I will post some links and explanations. Just this once.

theFJguy - I will post a summary of the game usually by 8:15 PT each weekday morning.

How so early? - A combination of CBS All Access, Location Guard and a 9:30 CT airing in Alabama works for seeing J! before most of the country.

MarkBarrett - After doing theFJguy post I will post various things about that day's game. My aim is 8:15 - 8:45 PT each weekday morning although national news events can interfere with my seeing the first J! airing of the morning. Thanks to CBS All Access I can see a later airing once programming returns to normal by viewing a different CBS affiliate.

http://www.j-archive.com/showseason.php?season=36 - The archivists will add each game for Season 36 as time allows. There is never a reason to add a correction suggestion that a game is missing. Archiving games can fall behind although it will always be caught up as soon as possible.

https://thejeopardyfan.com/ - This site will have the day's FJ! clue and correct response early in the morning. Later, once J! has aired somewhere in the U.S. the complete summary of game stats and results will be posted. Andy's Thoughts are must-see reading for insight about stats and fun facts for the game.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Jeopardy/ - Usually shortly after 8 PT a.m. a quick summary of that day's game will be posted with a longer summary coming later. Game comments follow and the moderators do their best to keep things friendly and appropriate for all.

https://forums.primetimer.com/topic/969 ... 2019-2020/ - This site was Television Without Pity in a previous form and this site only has game comments after 7 ET p.m. A lot of the comments can be negative towards contestants and personality driven, so reader beware, especially current contestants. The site has periodic down times for regular maintenance.

There are more J! discussions there as well: https://forums.primetimer.com/forum/112-jeopardy/

Fikkle Fame: https://fikklefame.com/who-won-jeopardy ... y-spoiler/ - This site also has people predicting the contestant success on the FJ! clue with the link changing daily.

Jeopardy.com - This site changes and updates often with many features available. For each new J! game there is J!6 under Games & More and it is useful for those that keep score if you want to get the categories written on your sheet before watching the game. Games & More also has a New York Times link and that will usually have that day's FJ! category and clue. You are on your own to get the correct response. Sometimes the J! game will have some kind of video component or picture and in those cases a regular clue from earlier in the game will be used for New York Times instead of the real FJ! clue.

The Contestant Zone section at Jeopardy.com lists the players for each week to see all of that week's challengers at the beginning of the week.

For those that miss seeing the show and want a video link, the uploading and sharing of episodes has faced a big crackdown. Video uploads do appear and disappear and you are on your own to try to find any when needed. They cannot be shared on JBoard or Reddit anymore. A couple of popular video sharing sites are a good place to start. Sometimes it takes a variety of search terms to get the right combination to find the desired recent game. My suggestions are to work in : jeopardy, j!, year, exact date (spelled out or numerical shortcut), and player names. Filtering to narrow to recent uploads is helpful as well.

J! airs 46 straight weeks of new episodes and there will be no reruns of Season 36 through those 230 eps. Some stations air Daytime Jeopardy! and those will be replays of Season 35 games. Some stations work in J! games on Saturdays and those will be reruns of Season 35 games in a scattered and mixed order though usually of champs who went on extended runs.

[MarkBarrett]

I knew I forgot something in my previous post. For the FJ! clue I started off the season with a miss as the best I had was the place of the battle, Elah. At least I had four letters. The correct place was too far buried for me to recall it today.

The Archive shows enough repetition that it should not have been a miss:

Spoiler

#5971, aired 2010-07-26 BIBLE WHO'S WHO $800: If Gath had a basketball team, he would have been its star
#5522, aired 2008-09-16 BIBLE PEOPLE $1200: Goliath of Gath was the champion of these people
#5320, aired 2007-10-26 THE GIANTS $400: Champion of Gath in the First Book of Samuel
#4820, aired 2005-07-15 IN THE BIBLE $200: & in this corner, standing "six cubits and a span", from Gath & I Samuel 17, "The Philistine Fist" ...him!
#4398, aired 2003-10-22 THE GIANTS $400: 1 Samuel 17 informs us that the Philistine city of Gath was the home of this giant
#3200, aired 1998-06-26 BIBLICAL GUYS $100: Up until his altercation with David, this big man from Gath had an excellent record
#1229, aired 1989-12-28 FAMOUS PAIRS $400: "The Son of that Ephramite of Bethlehem Judah" & "The Philistine of Gath"

Final Jeopardy! Round clues (1 result returned)
#669, aired 1987-07-02 THE BIBLE: Man of Gath whose height was six cubits & a span

[threearruda]

I absolutely LOVE that purple and pink in the intro graphics.

Congrats Jason on win #7! Stellar Coryat score once again.

(Moving the other blurb I had earlier to the J! in media thread).

[MinnesotaMyron]

The Archive shows enough repetition that it should not have been a miss:

Spoiler

#5971, aired 2010-07-26 BIBLE WHO'S WHO $800: If Gath had a basketball team, he would have been its star
#5522, aired 2008-09-16 BIBLE PEOPLE $1200: Goliath of Gath was the champion of these people
#5320, aired 2007-10-26 THE GIANTS $400: Champion of Gath in the First Book of Samuel
#4820, aired 2005-07-15 IN THE BIBLE $200: & in this corner, standing "six cubits and a span", from Gath & I Samuel 17, "The Philistine Fist" ...him!
#4398, aired 2003-10-22 THE GIANTS $400: 1 Samuel 17 informs us that the Philistine city of Gath was the home of this giant
#3200, aired 1998-06-26 BIBLICAL GUYS $100: Up until his altercation with David, this big man from Gath had an excellent record
#1229, aired 1989-12-28 FAMOUS PAIRS $400: "The Son of that Ephramite of Bethlehem Judah" & "The Philistine of Gath"

Final Jeopardy! Round clues (1 result returned)
#669, aired 1987-07-02 THE BIBLE: Man of Gath whose height was six cubits & a span

We welcome Gath to the J-Canon as a response. Based on the clues you posed, I can understand it being a miss. For those clues, the correct response is either a name that's basic cultural literacy, even for people with extremely low Bible knowledge, or the name of his people, which is a word that has also entered the popular vocabulary. The city is deeper knowledge. I got it, but I was uncertain. I had the last 2 letters with no problem, but I wasn't quite solid on the first 2. Considered Mark's response while trying to make Gath sound right in my head.

Thanks for the recap of links. I didn't realize there was something that had replaced Television without Pity.

[jeopardyfan939]

Jason's first call was a $1000 clue and he made many more bottom of the board selections. The $200 and $400 clues were mostly left for the end of the rounds. Jason tried to play somewhat like James though quickly got burned by missing DD1. It was a small setback as his challengers could not keep up with someone having six games of experience.

I kind of had a feeling Jason would try to emulate James's strategies, knowing that the last episodes of Season 35 taped on April 6, and only the first two Holzhauer episodes had aired at that time. In other words, he did watch Holzhauer's run after tapings for last season wrapped up.

[MDCSWildcats86]

Unfortunately, the season 36 premiere was completely lost in Oklahoma City to a police chase with shots fired and some of the shots hitting the suspect while live and on the air.

[Ironhorse]

I consider the Bible to be a wheelhouse topic and I just couldn't pull Gath. I guessed Amelek.

[econgator]

I made up a place called Golga. At least the first letter was correct.

[hbomb1947]

The best I could come up with was a response similar to Holly's (I said Goliath-ville). I thought this FJ was a good illustration of why it's desirable to have a runaway.

Jason showed that if you're a good enough player, you don't have to have quite the knowledge base of James to make elements of his game plan work for you and help you get that runaway. Jason actually was quite conservative with his DD wagers, though, which surprised me. For example, if you're going to wager $2,700 on the SJ DD so early in the game, no reason not to risk the whole $3,400. Either way, it was no surprise at all that he came roaring back from that miss. Congrats to him on becoming a 7xer, and I look forward to seeing how long he can keep this going.

[mas3cf]

I consider the Bible to be a wheelhouse topic and I just couldn't pull Gath. I guessed Amelek.

Weird... the Bible is one of my worst categories and I managed to pull Gath out of my posterior somehow.

[NoWhammies10]

Another couple of subtle graphical changes: the clue zoom now "eases" as it gets to its final position (this is more noticeable with the bottom row clues), and the over-the-shoulder Daily Double graphic eases in, eases out, and the rotation as the clue is revealed is slightly faster. These speeds were all consistent until now.

I'm sure I will get used to it, but I noticed it immediately and it bugged the hell out of me, considering the clue zoom has been consistent since the days of the grid set.

[teapot37]

I mean, if you want to start the season with the hardest FJ and get easier from there, I guess that's a way to go...

You could have given me a year and I would never have come up with that. Not a flicker of recognition on hearing the right answer.

[John Boy]

Welcome back, boys and girls, from your summer vacations. Now everybody write a 500-word essay on what you did all summer.

Meanwhile, back in Culver City, I know it's only the first game of the new season, but I nominate Holly already to take the season trophy for the absolutely best incorrect FJ response of the season. "Goliathtown" absolutely cracked me up. Man, if you've got no clue, best to go for the laugh. I wanted to kiss that woman. She is one wonderful bowl of tomato soup!

P.S. I've done a LOT of Biblical studies, and "What is Gath?" was written on my answer sheet at home before the think music ended. I get to start off the new season batting 1.000 (for a little while at least).

Nice, nice job by the champ. I see the 6-week layoff didn't give him any perceptible rust or cobwebs. On the list of all-time top money winners in regular season he just shot up to 20th place, just edging Buzzy Cohen. And I wonder how much longer he can go....

And this was not the easiest of boards IMHO. I had only one TS on Beethoven's 9th, and an unspectacular 38 right in the two rounds.

[TenPoundHammer]

Greek/Latin was my first run of the season. I also got all but $1,000 in Motor Trend.

Prius was a head-scratching TS especially after Corolla was omitted.

Giant warrior = Goliath, duh. All the times we've covered this story, and I never internalized where exactly Goliath was from. "Gath" rings not the faintest of bells for me. Looks like knowing Goliath but not Gath is a common dead-end here.

Lach Trash: Corvette, Prius, boxing, beanie

[Ironhorse]

I think the consensus seems to be this was not one of the better FJ clues we've seen. The whole Goliath thing hardly even qualifies as a TOM because it's so obvious. This one was more arcane fact recall.

[opusthepenguin]

I'm betting the under 20% for how this FJ polls. Anyone want the over? (Exactly 20% will result in a push. Money stays in the pot and rolls over to another wager to be agreed on later.)