2014 TOC preview: Quarterfinal #4
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After Thursday’s match, we’ll know the identities of six semifinalists: the four winners and two of the wild cards, since the two highest scores can’t be eliminated on Friday. How many of tonight’s candidates – 8-timer Drew Horwood, College Champ Terry O’Shea, and 5-timer Sarah McNitt – will punch a semifinal ticket?
Each of our three players had peculiar wagering tendencies.
Drew Horwood
8 wins, $138,100
Had I been doing The Final Wager in Season 29, Drew’s games would have given me quite a bit of work. He had a roller-coaster ride in his streak – he didn’t have a single lock until his eighth(!) victory, which is surely a record. It’s tough to string together multiple wins when each game comes down to that crapshoot known as Final Jeopardy!.
Drew went for the win +$1 in crush situations in Games 5 and 6.
(Complete list on J! Archive)
Game 1 (March 5, 2013)
| Dylan | Drew | Ilene |
| 16,200 | 8,500 | 11,800 |
| 7,400 | 8,498 | 3,000 |
| 8,800 | 16,998 | 14,800 |
Properly going for (almost) everything… and reaping the benefit of a too-small wager out of Ilene.
Game 2 (March 6, 2013)
| Drew | Jon | Lorraine |
| 9,800 | 9,600 | 9,300 |
| 9,401 | 9,001 | 8,500 |
| 19,201 | 18,601 | 17,800 |
A tight game in which I would have been ecstatic over all three players’ wagers.
Game 3 (March 7, 2013)
| Drew | Lloyd | Jennifer |
| 14,800 | 15,400 | 11,800 |
| 13,000 | 14,201 | 5,000 |
| 27,800 | 1,199 | 16,800 |
Another good wager here out of Drew.
Given the scores and wagers, and assuming coin-flip probabilities of getting Final Jeopardy! correct, his odds of winning these three games were .25 * .5 * .25, or 3.125%.
Game 4 (March 8, 2013)
| Drew | Mike | Yellowlees |
| 15,200 | 11,800 | 10,200 |
| 8,401 | 8,601 | 7,000 |
| 6,799 | 3,199 | 3,200 |
Bad wager out of third.
Game 7 (March 13, 2013)
| Drew | Jillian | David |
| 16,300 | 5,200 | 15,600 |
| 2 | 1,000 | 10,399 |
| 16,298 | 6,200 | 5,201 |
Here’s where things get interesting. This is not quite a Brakhagesque wager – I would have preferred 699 or 700 – but Drew was anticipating David would wager to cover him by a dollar.
Game 9 (March 15, 2013)
| Drew | Kathleen | Rob |
| 2,400 | 11,200 | 18,000 |
| 0 | 6,801 | 4,500 |
| 2,400 | 4,399 | 22,500 |
Not much to do here; I suppose 2,001 would have been better, but Kathleen should have bet the farm.
Terry O’Shea
2014 College Champion, $100,000
Terry is the other College Champ to appear in this year’s Tournament of Champions, hot on the heels of Jim Coury in Wednesday’s match.
A bit of controversy surrounded her win in February, after she admitted that her smaller-than-necessary wager in the Final match was the result of “not feeling that I really deserved to win, or be in the finals at all.”
(Complete list on The Final Wager and J! Archive)
Quarterfinal (February 12, 2014)
| Kenesha | Terry | Kevin |
| 2,200 | 15,400 | 10,800 |
| 2,200 | 2,000 | 4,601 |
| 4,400 | 17,400 | 15,401 |
A conservative wager for the wild card – and the right one, in the end.
Semifinal (February 18, 2014)
| Terry | Ben | Eric |
| 12,000 | 19,800 | 7,200 |
| 7,900 | 4,201 | 7,200 |
| 19,900 | 15,599 | 0 |
The sole get on this Final gave Terry the win. No reason not to go for everything, of course…
Sarah McNitt
5 wins, $89,398
Sarah McNitt needs no introduction, at least to fans of The Final Wager: she was the subject of my favorite analysis of Season 30.
I’m thankful that she’s been quite cool about the “4,000” meme; it even got a mention in this article celebrating her return.
Sarah had only one lock, in her fifth game.
(Complete list on The Final Wager and J! Archive)
Game 1 (January 14, 2014)
| Michelle | Sarah | Osei |
| 8,400 | 11,800 | 2,400 |
| 5,002 | 4,000 | 2,300 |
| 13,402 | 15,800 | 4,700 |
I’m just going to let my brother, Cory, do all of the talking…
Game 2 (January 15, 2014)
| Sarah | Emily | Danny |
| 16,600 | 7,000 | 13,900 |
| 4,000 | 6,912 | 11,000 |
| 12,600 | 88 | 2,900 |
Weird – this one actually worked out for her!
Game 3 (January 16, 2014)
| Sarah | Gudrun | Stacy |
| 13,600 | 1,200 | 10,400 |
| 4,000 | 1,100 | 7,600 |
| 17,600 | 2,300 | 2,800 |
By game 3, Stacy had caught on to Sarah’s tendencies, and wagered accordingly.
Game 4 (January 17, 2014)
| Sarah | Jen | Geoff |
| 13,200 | 1,600 | 24,500 |
| 9,999 | 1,599 | 2,500 |
| 23,199 | 3,199 | 22,000 |
Hey now!
Game 6 (January 21, 2014)
| Sarah | Priscilla | Emily |
| 11,400 | 11,000 | 9,400 |
| 302 | 7,000 | 9,000 |
| 11,098 | 18,000 | 400 |
Sarah must have known this would be a weak category for her, so she pinned her hopes on both opponents missing (or making far-too-small wagers).
