Haters gonna hate, I suppose, but...

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DHicton
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Haters gonna hate, I suppose, but...

Post by DHicton »

I really admire Arthur Chu's game play. He's doing it exactly right, as far as I'm concerned. One reason I feel this way is that in my own personal experience, the difficulty of the clues is completely random, having nothing to do with dollar values or whether it's the first round or the second. So why not, as they say in bridge, get the kiddies off the street as soon as possible? You have more cash to work with when you hit a Daily Double.

He's also doing what Watson did, and that was pretty successful.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... ctics.html
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Re: Haters gonna hate, I suppose, but...

Post by slam »

Doug,

First, I definitely agree with you about Arthur's strategy. He's doing his best to win the game by implementing a strategy that only a few others have used in the past. But I have to disagree with you about the difficulty about the clues. I certainly believe that they get move difficult as you move down the board. Sure, there may be some occasions where you (or I) think that a few particular clues may have been misordered because of our own knowledge set. In general, though, I believe it's clear that the clues are successfully designed to get more difficult from top to bottom.

P.S. As a long time bridge player, I certainly enjoy the "kiddie's" analogy.
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TomKBaltimoreBoy
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Re: Haters gonna hate, I suppose, but...

Post by TomKBaltimoreBoy »

Oh, I don't think Doug is saying they aren't DESIGNED to be that way, slam; just that specialized knowledge make questions of ease arbitrary.

The only question I have with Arthur's strategy is that employing it from the beginning means it is much more likely that the first Daily Double will be revealed at a time of minimal impact. If you are looking to maximize the effect of the DD -- which was a large part of his ability to win his first match against Julie -- then perhaps the bounce should be saved until after the interviews? Just a thought.
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Re: Haters gonna hate, I suppose, but...

Post by slam »

TomKBaltimoreBoy wrote:Oh, I don't think Doug is saying they aren't DESIGNED to be that way, slam; just that specialized knowledge make questions of ease arbitrary.

The only question I have with Arthur's strategy is that employing it from the beginning means it is much more likely that the first Daily Double will be revealed at a time of minimal impact. If you are looking to maximize the effect of the DD -- which was a large part of his ability to win his first match against Julie -- then perhaps the bounce should be saved until after the interviews? Just a thought.
One's specialized knowledge will only apply in a few categories a game. If I know a lot about a category, the difficulty "flattens out" up and down the board. But otherwise, I usually find that the bottom clues are indeed harder.

I think your point about delaying the hunting during the first round is reasonable. You don't gain much if you find it early and you also don't get hurt much if an opponent finds it early. But let's say that an opponent jumps out to a quick lead by running the first category on the board and now has a lead of $3,000 to $0 to $0. If you get the next clue, maybe you should start hunting now to keep him/her from finding a DD that could potentially be very useful to him/her.
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Re: Haters gonna hate, I suppose, but...

Post by Austin Powers »

Forrest Bouncing early doesn't make sense, since it does kill off the DD too soon. Unless you're just pulling a Madden. Madden killed off the DDs because he felt he knew more and could buzz fast. I sense Arthur, however, doesn't think like that, as he is willing to bet heavily on certain DDs.

I also disagree that the clue valuations are clearly random. The bottom tier is, on average, harder than the top tier, and questions do, generally speaking, increase in difficulty as you go down columns. Obviously, sometimes valuations are off, and sometimes top tier clues are worded in weird ways that discourage guessing. Evidence for this position comes in the form of Triple Stumper placement. There are more TSs at the bottom than anywhere else. It's true, players are more risk averse with higher value questions, but they'll also sit out top row questions if they aren't sure. Quite a few contestants do not like to buzz in when they aren't sure, even if it means potential money + control of the board.

One thing I have not seen from Arthur, which is what I would like to see a contestant try, is to clear off "bad" categories that aren't likely to have DDs early, so as to have more money when the DD is hit. I could see clearing a category where the DD obviously won't be - such as "NFL Football Stadiums," then proceeding to Forrest Bounce. Of course, Arthur seems to know nothing about sports, but there are other examples of such categories where it would make some sense to kill them off first.
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Re: Haters gonna hate, I suppose, but...

Post by John Boy »

I also disagree about the clue values being random. I believe far, far more evidence suggests they are easier near the top and get harder as you go down. Of course, with individual strengths and weaknesses, YMMV, but I think it's pretty clear that's the case.

Second, if you're trying to maximize the impact of DDs, why seek them from the outset and try to get them when you have little or not cash? Seems counterproductive.

A bigger question for me is why he seems to go for the high-dollar clues even after the DDs are found. And that's not just in the LTAM situations; there may be half the board left and he still does it.

And most of all I disagree with the title of your thread. I don't care for this type of game strategy because it's a bit disorienting, and because sometimes I need to figure out what a category is about before trying to answer the hardest clues. That's a long, long way from hating Arthur or his strategy, which I do not.
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Re: Haters gonna hate, I suppose, but...

Post by This Is Kirk! »

I guess another way to think about revealing the DDs early is that it takes away a potential hammer the two other contestants have. I think a valid strategy could be to seek out DDs whenever you've got control of the board.
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Re: Haters gonna hate, I suppose, but...

Post by DadofTwins »

There is a point to be made about randomness in clue difficulty among elite players.

Among we mere mortals who have played the game, Triple Stumpers are more common near the bottom of the board than at the top.

When elite players are carving up a board between them, I've noticed that there is no way to predict which one (or possibly two) of the sixty clues might trip up the best of the best. To say that an Arthur (or a Roger Craig or Joon Pahk or Schliemann) is just as likely to miss a second-row clue as one in the bottom row is not to say that the difficulty is truly random; only that it is random for them.

And by "just as likely," I mean it's still exceedingly rare.

And I think this is why Arthur is winning.

In the regular season, optimal strategy seems to be:

Step 1) Be so good that you're the one who usually gets to choose the next clue.
Step 2) Cash check.

Clue selection strategy seems to matter more when players are evenly matched, as in Postseason tournaments.
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Re: Haters gonna hate, I suppose, but...

Post by Leander »

There are also the "oddball" gimmicky categories, in which you need to see an answer in order to be sure of what they are looking for. Hitting a DD as the first reveal in such a category might be less favorable that hitting it after a clue or two has been answered.
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Re: Haters gonna hate, I suppose, but...

Post by Volante »

http://kotaku.com/jeopardy-contestant-i ... 1515011324

I love how people think this is -new-
I think people are surprised Jeopardy! is still on the air...
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MDaunt
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Re: Haters gonna hate, I suppose, but...

Post by MDaunt »

This (or any) strategy only works if you are a better player than your opponents.
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Re: Haters gonna hate, I suppose, but...

Post by pdano »

MDaunt wrote:This (or any) strategy only works if you are a better player than your opponents.
Interesting. I think of going after the Daily Doubles to bet big on them as the kind of high-variance strategy an underdog should take.

It may also be the strategy a favorite should take, in the sense that you should generally weight the game toward events with the highest expected value.

I have little problem with what Arthur's doing because it's mostly what I did, although more in the TOC than my regular games.

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Re: Haters gonna hate, I suppose, but...

Post by debramc »

I think it's weird that allegedly ordinary fans find it annoying to watch. The only time it annoys me is when I'm archiving, and then only slightly. What annoys me more (as an ordinary viewer) is when people play it "normally" and keep calling clues from the same category by saying "same category" or the like (though that is good for keeping the game moving quickly) and the photography/editing does not show the viewer the category box after the first clue. It's perfectly good for the players to do this, they can still see the category name in case it matters, and even the live audience can see the board the whole time, but not the home audience and I occasionally am briefly distracted when they show category name on the first clue. When they bounce from category to category the editing generally shows the category name every time it changes (which is probably annoying to the editors but not to me).
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DHicton
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Re: Haters gonna hate, I suppose, but...

Post by DHicton »

All I'm saying is that in my experience, where a clue was on the board didn't make all that much difference. I would occasionally leap all over the board myself at times when I thought it necessary, or start at the top and immediately go to the bottom and work my way up—"sounding and breaching", as Mehrun Etebari described it—or try to make hay with the big money questions ASAP. To me, an easy clue was one that I knew the response to, and a hard clue was one that I didn't. It didn't matter where a clue was if, say, the category was about where sports teams play; that kind of information never really stuck in my head. On such occasions, a $200 clue would be just as hard as a $1000 clue. And the reverse would apply in categories I felt comfortable in. I also tended to do a lot better in the second round than in the first, sometimes having to dig myself out of the hole.

And by "haters", I'm referring to those people in the article who implied in their tweets that Arthur was evilly using gamesmanship rather than sportsmanship. For my part, I don't know why more people don't play like him.
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Re: Haters gonna hate, I suppose, but...

Post by Leander »

I would guess what ordinary fans find annoying about jumping might be that playing along at home, they prefer to be locked into thinking about one category at a time, and to have the questions progress from easier to harder. It makes the game easier to deal with. Plus unlike the players in the studio, they don't have all the categories in front of them at once.
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Re: Haters gonna hate, I suppose, but...

Post by JeopardyMom »

Even with my limited knowledge of Jeopardy strategy, I immediately recognized that Chu was bouncing for Daily Doubles. A perfectly legitimate strategy, IMO, and one that's worked quite successfuly for him. Therefore, I was both amused and dismayed by the accusations I read, on Mental Floss's Facebook posting of an interview with Chu, about his being "ungentlemanly" in his play, and not "entertaining."
My response: "It's a competition, people! If you're not playing to win, why play at all?"
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Re: Haters gonna hate, I suppose, but...

Post by FireAntsDefense »

DadofTwins wrote: Among we mere mortals who have played the game, Triple Stumpers are more common near the bottom of the board than at the top.
I wonder if that's due to players being intimidated by the clue location (not value). It's like Robert Rubin wrote: if you see "He discovered America" as a $200 clue, bam. But if you see it in the $2000 box, you're probably going to think a lot harder about whether to signal or not, just because the clue is perceived to be harder.

Incidentally, JeopardyMom, I first read Gilbert and Hatcher's wagering paper in LeConte College.
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Re: Haters gonna hate, I suppose, but...

Post by georgespelvin »

JeopardyMom wrote:Even with my limited knowledge of Jeopardy strategy, I immediately recognized that Chu was bouncing for Daily Doubles. A perfectly legitimate strategy, IMO, and one that's worked quite successfuly for him. Therefore, I was both amused and dismayed by the accusations I read, on Mental Floss's Facebook posting of an interview with Chu, about his being "ungentlemanly" in his play, and not "entertaining."
My response: "It's a competition, people! If you're not playing to win, why play at all?"
Except for the fact that Arthur continues to go for the high end clues even after the DD has been uncovered (at least that was the case in the J round, Arthur noted his mistake of giving up bouncing after only the first DD in one of his DJ rounds last week).

With regards to the notion of expecting a harder clue in a higher valued place, and vice-a-versa, the same behavior takes place in the SHC here. People will sometimes get burned on an undervalued two or three point question (for example, naming a Greek god instead of a Roman one) because they expect a slam dunk.
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Not a single mention of Andrew Moore?

Post by ihavejeoprosy »

Guys, Victor's style isn't new. It was the same strategy used by pro wrasslin lovin Andrew Moore last summer.
I actually enjoy jumping around more.

The best way to counter the chu/moore strategy is to go random yourself and stay with the higher value clues. If you watch the game where Victor tied at the end, his opponent went for the higher value clues after getting one right. The game where Moore lost was the one where his opponent also decided to go random. Its a good strategy if you find yourself in that situation.
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Re: Haters gonna hate, I suppose, but...

Post by jeff6286 »

DHicton wrote:All I'm saying is that in my experience, where a clue was on the board didn't make all that much difference. I would occasionally leap all over the board myself at times when I thought it necessary, or start at the top and immediately go to the bottom and work my way up—"sounding and breaching", as Mehrun Etebari described it—or try to make hay with the big money questions ASAP. To me, an easy clue was one that I knew the response to, and a hard clue was one that I didn't.
I find these statements baffling. You're saying that you consider an easy clue one that you know the response to. But surely you can recognize that some clues are more difficult than others, even if you know the response to both, right?

Who was the first President? Who was the 14th President? I know the answer to both, but one of those questions is much easier than the other.

What stadium do the Boston Red Sox play in? What stadium do the Arizona Diamondbacks play in? Again, I know the answer to both, and they're both pretty easy for me, but it is very clear to me that one of them is a much tougher question.

Difficulty of any particular clue or category is going to vary from player to player, and there certainly can be clues that are very easy for some player and very difficult to others. There are often what seem to be clear errors in valuations in any Jeopardy! board. But to say that you think the difficulty of clues is completely random, having no relation to dollar value, I just can't wrap my brain around that.
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