The Final Wager – 2014 TOC QF #4

Last night, we welcomed our third semifinalist to the fold. Tonight, we’ll add three more: the winner of this match and the top two in the wild-card standings.

Check out my preview of this match.

Before we begin, a bit about the vagaries of Jeopardy!. These are very good players; they’ve proven themselves several times over. There are many things out of their control, however: the categories, the buzzing, who gets the Daily Doubles, and so on.

Drew won eight games. He just had a bad day here.

Drew Horwood: -800
Terry O’Shea: 8,800
Sarah McNitt: 8,600

The Final Jeopardy! category: TUNNELS

Now, we look at the trickiness of this situation. Were this a regular game, Sarah would wager some random number between 400 and 8,400; Terry would cast her lot with her own knowledge (8,400) or against Sarah’s knowledge (199).

The wild cards make things spicy. What does each player think will be the cut-off? That’s the only important thing here. A score above 9,100 will clinch it tonight.

Of course, Sarah does have a certain, ahem, history, so that might come into play.

What actually happened

I guess Terry has been studying The Final Wager, because she made the lockout bet for regular play. Maybe she was thinking Sarah might go for the full 8,200, giving her some insurance on the downside.

Unfortunately, Sarah left herself out of contention. Let’s meet our first two wild cards!

Plenty of people are breathing a sigh of relief tonight; Julia Collins is in with 9,100, while Rebecca Rider clinches with 11,600. Rani Peffer and Jim Coury are still alive, but will be on the edge of their seats for the Friday game (preview!).

The Final Jeopardy! clue

TUNNELS

THESE 2 ISLANDS THAT BEGIN WITH THE SAME LETTER ARE LINKED BY THE 33.5-MILE SEIKAN RAIL TUNNEL, THE WORLD’S LONGEST IN OPERATION