GOAT Tournament Day 4 (1/14/20) Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

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Re: GOAT Tournament Day 4 (1/14/20) Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by hscer »

I guess "Ken Jennings using James Holzhauer's tactics" is now the...ahem, "GOAT" (the pervasive application or misapplication of this acronym to a certain Boston athlete has rendered it irksome to me). At least until further notice: it was a close match between the two of them, and Brad does of course still have the most Jeopardy money ever.
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Re: GOAT Tournament Day 4 (1/14/20) Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by Picked Off »

Thoughts on the GOAT tourney:

Congrats to Ken! He was characteristically sharp and was willing to alter his game to defend against James and his strategy. He really earned it. I was a little surprised with the 0 bet, but he got away with it thanks to the ultra-rare James miss. I do think James would have had the edge if this went to a day five at 2-2.

Brad's stunning DD performance throughout the tournament reminded me of playing three-way Scrabble. Hard to defend on two fronts. Not only did he keep the DDs away from James and his all-in tactics, but by getting most of them wrong, he eliminated the high potential value of the clues from the game. That helped Ken as much as it hurt Brad. Ken didn't have to worry about betting against two close challengers, and that simplified his path.

Is Brad's legacy tainted? It shouldn't be. We haven't really seen him play this poorly since the Miracle of Crete in the UTOC, so it was weird to watch, but maybe it was just an off week and the missed DDs rattled him.

Thought James' barb was out of line.

Like everyone else, I'm so glad players and audiences have had the opportunity over the past year to celebrate Alex in real time. Brad's FJ answer and ad-lib were so classy. This tournament was the best of Jeopardy and a wonderful opportunity to showcase a fleeting era on a huge stage. I tend to think we'll see all three of them back at some point in the future despite what Alex said.

I was in college and first getting serious about Jeopardy after a lifetime of fandom when Ken was in his initial run. I would record his games with my TV/VCR if I couldn't watch live. He was a huge inspiration as I trained to get on the show. A pre-Vega north star, if you will. Today, I'm Moonlight Doc Graham to his Babe Ruth, like so many others, and I continue to be in awe.

Also, I guessed Elysian Fields for FJ1 tonight and found tonight's regular game final more to my liking, as was the case throughout (2/8) :D
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Re: GOAT Tournament Day 4 (1/14/20) Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by QuizGeek75 »

My gut feeling was that Ken was going to win and after all that, he's already up to $4.3 Million while Brad has nearly $5,000,000. I really did feel sorry for Brad not winning any matches, but at the same time, I'm happy to see that Ken finally won his first ever tournament. Congratulations on being the Greatest Of All Time, Ken! :D
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Re: GOAT Tournament Day 4 (1/14/20) Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by John Boy »

floridagator wrote: Tue Jan 14, 2020 9:14 pm
OntarioQuizzer wrote: Tue Jan 14, 2020 9:05 pm
floridagator wrote: Tue Jan 14, 2020 9:03 pm What happened to my post?
It was a major spoiler prior to it airing in the US, so I removed it. Now that it has aired, you are welcome to re-post it.
I suspect that the debate in forums like this one about who is the greatest of all-time will continue. But I wonder if henceforth Brad will be left out of those discussions. His performance in the tournament was not up to speed. Even so, it was not sporting for James to call attention to Brad not scoring in the first game.
C'mon, man, it was just light-hearted banter, and everyone, including Brad and AT, laughed at it. I thought it was funny as hell and in a fun spirit.
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Re: GOAT Tournament Day 4 (1/14/20) Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by John Boy »

All hail King Ken. Much deserved win as he thoroughly dominated to juggernauts.

Meantime, I managed to get my only Lach Trash of the entire GOAT tournament tonight. Twice, even, on clues with subject matter so close to one another. I correctly named the N.D. band director (Lawrence Welk) and Bruce Lee's fighting style (Jeet Kun Do). When I consider how many these three answered that I had absolutely no clue on, I'm surprised I got even these two. And I'll really be glad to get back to watching games among mere mortals again, with degree of difficulty dialed down a few notches.

Man, these were tough games! Congrats to all three.

PS on the subject somebody else raised, about this being their last game together...does anyone know which AT taped first, the GOAT tournament or the regular season game that aired tonight? I've kept thinking that if his health deteriorated, and he decided to step down, what better way to do it than with this tournament. I hate to think about ever losing him, but I know it's gotta happen some day.
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Re: GOAT Tournament Day 4 (1/14/20) Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by boson »

Missed the second half tonight. :oops: I'll be combing the darker depths of the dark J! web to find it later.

Brad likely put down his buzzer in the second game tonight - his only hope of winning was to have James come back to stop Ken from clinching tonight. I'm surprised he was so thoroughly beaten by opponents and daily doubles in this tournament. 5M$ buys a lot of time to not stress about trivia anymore.

Congrats to Ken: he is the GOAT. I've always found him brilliant and charming and inspiring. Probably not when you are playing against him though...
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Re: GOAT Tournament Day 4 (1/14/20) Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by ParrotRob »

On a completely different note, I'm so glad I found these boards. The Jeopardy! groups discussing this tournament on social media are mind-numbing.
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Re: GOAT Tournament Day 4 (1/14/20) Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by twelvefootboy »

I was shocked at the reveal and assumed a game 5 was coming. I punted on the FJ, but if I'd tried to name ONE character it would have to be Iago or Yorick (and I don't know if Yorick is a character, and don't need to know lol).

I give James the benefit of the doubt on his wisecrack. It fell as flat as his singing, but he tried hard to keep the jokes and fun patter going through all four shows. I'm sure he and Brad (and Ken) have bonded enough for trash talk and smack downs and it's a shame it seemed mean. He would rather have been the punchline I'm sure. James and Ken traded heavyweight punches on some bitchin' hard material. I was impressed with how James upped his game beyond the children's library. Most of James' answers seemed to be rote, and it seemed like Ken was able to suss out stuff.

A good show, nonetheless. Too bad Brad could not rise above the level of a DD spoiler. I get his miss on Maxwell, as he went for a contemporary in the early 19th century without knowing what his accomplishment actually was.

0 for 8 on FJ's, got a couple of DD's. I've had enough of this for a long time.
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Re: GOAT Tournament Day 4 (1/14/20) Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by brick »

I thought it was touching how genuinely delighted Ken was to get the trophy, and that they gave him the “sports hero lift”... those were moments of joy and Ken’s earned them.
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Re: GOAT Tournament Day 4 (1/14/20) Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by brick »

John Boy wrote: Tue Jan 14, 2020 10:18 pm PS on the subject somebody else raised, about this being their last game together...does anyone know which AT taped first, the GOAT tournament or the regular season game that aired tonight? I've kept thinking that if his health deteriorated, and he decided to step down, what better way to do it than with this tournament. I hate to think about ever losing him, but I know it's gotta happen some day.
The GOAT shows were taped mid December, after the regular season. I noticed the first night that Alex’s skin or makeup seemed very dark. I wondered if the different lighting was part of the problem. I’ve read somewhere since that a medicine he was taking made his skin quite dark, making the whole makeup issue challenging. I believe they have resumed taping now.
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Re: GOAT Tournament Day 4 (1/14/20) Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by Robert K S »

From now on Ken should just use GOAT as a suffix to his name, like ASC or OBE
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Re: GOAT Tournament Day 4 (1/14/20) Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by cinemaniax7 »

Congratulations to Ken! I couldn't be more pleased with the outcome, and the games were pretty entertaining too. I expect ABC would like to have seen a little more trash talk, but James's zinger tonight was ill-timed. Had the same situation presented itself in the first game, it might have been a classic TV bit. But given Brad's frustrations in the tournament, the comment felt like a rather low blow. My television was a little warmer to the touch after that one...
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Re: GOAT Tournament Day 4 (1/14/20) Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by floridagator »

John Boy wrote: Tue Jan 14, 2020 10:12 pm
floridagator wrote: Tue Jan 14, 2020 9:14 pm
, it was not sporting for James to call attention to Brad not scoring in the first game.
C'mon, man, it was just light-hearted banter, and everyone, including Brad and AT, laughed at it. I thought it was funny as hell and in a fun spirit.
I should also point out that it was unsportsmanlike of James to try to give Ken advice on how to bet on a daily double. I am a card player and it is bad form if not against the rules to give a competitor advice.
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Re: GOAT Tournament Day 4 (1/14/20) Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by BrigadierSolo13 »

floridagator wrote: Tue Jan 14, 2020 11:28 pm
John Boy wrote: Tue Jan 14, 2020 10:12 pm
floridagator wrote: Tue Jan 14, 2020 9:14 pm
, it was not sporting for James to call attention to Brad not scoring in the first game.
C'mon, man, it was just light-hearted banter, and everyone, including Brad and AT, laughed at it. I thought it was funny as hell and in a fun spirit.
I should also point out that it was unsportsmanlike of James to try to give Ken advice on how to bet on a daily double. I am a card player and it is bad form if not against the rules to give a competitor advice.
You mean just like Brad and Ken egged on Roger Craig to go all-in in the Battle of the Decades?

Bottom line, they had fun, the banter between them was great, and we all have to deal with it. They won't change.
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Re: GOAT Tournament Day 4 (1/14/20) Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by threearruda »

Many congrats to Ken, I'm so beyond happy he was able to take the title plus the all-time game show winnings record. Fantastic and fun competition, lots of drama right up to the end. Kudos to the producers for listening to the cries of the people and making this happen LOL.

Hat tip to James for doing as well he did despite Ken and Brad getting the lion's share of DD opportunities (at least it felt that way). His time will undoubtedly come in regards to winning one of these tourneys.
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Re: GOAT Tournament Day 4 (1/14/20) Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by jeff6286 »

StevenH wrote: Tue Jan 14, 2020 9:07 pm When Shakespeare was revealed as the category for the second FJ I knew that it was over. I will never forget Ken's $75,000 game where he nailed the Shakespeare FJ and said later on that Shakespeare was a dream category for him.
Your point would be stronger if Ken's Shakespeare knoweldge wasn't totally irrelevant in this instance. With James's large Game 2 total the game was entirely riding on his response.
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Re: GOAT Tournament Day 4 (1/14/20) Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by CasualJeopardyFan19 »

I was rooting for James all the way, but HUGE congrats to Ken! It's obvious he came here to play and got the result he's been waiting for for 15 years.

That really was a tense game 2. James came INCREDIBLY close to pulling off the biggest comeback victory in Jeopardy history (to my knowledge, at least), only to falter thanks to FJ. That really does show you how fantastic of a competitor he was.

Great job to Ken. I suppose as a James fanatic I can take a respectable 2nd place showing.
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Re: GOAT Tournament Day 4 (1/14/20) Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by jeff6286 »

jeopardyfan939 wrote: Tue Jan 14, 2020 9:41 pm I was shocked that James incorrectly responded and went all in.
Only one of those things should have been shocking. His wager was a no-brainer.
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Re: GOAT Tournament Day 4 (1/14/20) Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by talkingaway »

I love that both my FJ! answers were dead wrong, yet matched board members here....Elysian fields and Polonius. Elysian fields was "IDK, let's try this", but Polonius was a decent guess, IMO. The quote "Brevity is the soul of wit" is, in fact, a bit hypocritical, given that he was babbling on and on and on while giving advice, so I was thinking that was the TOM. I actually briefly thought of Iago, but the extra reasoning behind Polonius made it too tempting. I forgot that we are in GOAT-land, and that it's time for ultra-trivial YEKIOYD. I don't know where one would ever find that sort of information other than in a compendium of Shakespearean trivia.

(Oh, and Yorrick isn't the best guess, but I've done far worse. I mean, he's a Shakespeare character, but his role is quite...silent.)

Surprised that James didn't get the FJ! to take us into game 5. I'm going to give James a bit of a pass on the snark right after halftime. Given all the pre-game trash talk, it's obvious he and Brad have a "thing"....James being sort of the annoying little brother that Brad tolerates. I'll be generous and assume their relationship - however brief it may be over the last year or so - is one that would allow for a little trash talk. No idea if it's true or not, but I like to be slow to judge. Same goes for James' "advice" on Ken's bets - I thought he was just joking with Ken and playing up his role of "I'm James the gambler, and I always bet big, so you should too!"
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Re: GOAT Tournament Day 4 (1/14/20) Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by davey »

Surprised that James missed that last FJ. I guess he was thinking that since Hamlet is the longest play, it must have the most supporting speeches. It looks like James was right that Horatio has the most speeches after Hamlet. I would have thought it was Claudius, myself...he has almost, but not quite, as many...Polonius is quite far behind...
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