talkingaway wrote: ↑Fri Jan 22, 2021 9:11 pm
Whiffed on FJ! because I was thinking it would be one of those British adventure novels - Treasure Island, or something like that. I knew Hawaii was probably in the wrong part of the world. Of course, when I saw "Cook", I smacked my head.
Sorry, I like the tie-breaker system. The reason for it is simple: prevent a pair (or group!) of contestants from colluding, even tacitly. The optimal strategy for J! would be to play the two rounds so that the three players get as much money as possible, but so that they also maximize the lowest score of the three - in other words, let the low guy respond to each clue if he knows it. For FJ!, lagging player bets 0, leaders bet their difference over the lagger. Leaders get it wrong. Everyone comes back the next day. Repeat until you get bored or the J! lawyers have a stern talk with you.
I'm gonna say it now: I hate J!'s use of X-POURRI. If your column has a clue about cats, television, British royalty, an anagram, and a Renaissance painter - that's potpourri. LIT-POURRI is just LITERATURE. BIBLE-POURRI is just BIBLE.
I should have thought more when answering cork for the helix clue instead of corkscrew. Now that I read the clue, yeah, you'd be popular at a wine tasting if you had a corkscrew (or if you look at those internet videos on how to remove a cork with your shoe.) But...aren't wine corks more of a "normal" thing to collect?
For the $800 clue in 5 "E": "To give someone the tools they need". I said "empower". Judges? Seems to fit if you take "tools" as being figurative and not necessarily literal. "This book will empower you to start your own business."
In the ToC tracker, they apparently don't count consolation money, so for Brian, it's win or forget it.
I have seen this an your other posts on the issue. I found the different ways of collusion on game shows interesting and was going to write more but just didn't get to it at the time.
But, for now, I do have to say to this that if this were realistic, my gosh you would expect to see it happen at least once in 30 years, wouldn't you?
There has to be a reason why not. It just doesn't fit well with human nature, since that is to win as much money for oneself as possible. And, what you are mentioning would involve giving up a huge amount of potential money when there is no way that much trust could build between strangers.
Yes, the world is more connected today than in 1984, but even then there were contestants who met at auditions and played on the same episode, as well as players held over from tapings who had the chance to talk.
And nothing remotely like this happened in early season 31. What it was is that after Arthur Chu played for the tie every time, other people read the final wager. It never suggested anything like this, but what it suggested is that betting to tie could encourage those in close second to bet it all for a tie rather than small for a triple stumper.
I am not sure how strong that is in practice, since many still overwager anyway.
But, there was a large increase in both wagering to tie and actual ties.
If Jeopardy! just did not want to pay two winners, bump people to make room for frequent co-champions, pay to fly extra people back in some cases, etc., OK. I understand.
But, I firmly reject any claim that the change was necessary to keep the competition clean.