Daily analysis, Wednesday, April 30
Today’s cover isn’t pretty – especially not with the puke-yellow color – but boy, is it ever appropriate.
Pretty awesome: my best friend’s grandfather was in one of the Normal Rockwell clues! He’s the football coach in “The Recruit”.
Julia’s got her eighth win locked up, vaulting her into first place all-time among female champions. Is she going to put a lot at risk on this Final, or did yesterday’s scare her off?
Julia Collins: 21,200
Mallory Howe: 7,800
John Ogden: 8,400
The Final Jeopardy! category: ALBUM COVERS
It’s going to be an interesting battle between John and Mallory.
Basic strategy
Julia can wager up to 4,400.
John should wager 7,200 to cover Mallory.
Mallory should wager at least 1,201 to cover an “unsafe” wager by John, but no more than 6,599 to stay above them should they both miss.
Mind games
If John thinks Mallory might wager to stay above him on a double-miss, he could wager 6,000 to beat her if they both get it right.
Mallory might anticipate this and cap her wager at 5,399 – or, if she’s confident in the category and thinks John might do this, she could go for broke.
JULIA. WHAT ARE YOU DOING.
Julia did what’s known as “pulling a Cliff Clavin” after that Cheers episode where Cliff wagers way too much in Final Jeopardy! and blows his big payday.
http://youtu.be/botdmsQilnU?t=1m53s
YOU CANNOT DO THIS. New color for you, Julia. Aiming for that extra $100 might have been very, very costly, even though I’m sure it was an accident.
The Final Jeopardy! clue for April 30, 2014 (ALBUM COVERS):
THIS BAND USED A PICTURE OF THE HINDENBURG DISASTER ON THE COVER OF ITS EPONYMOUS DEBUT ALBUM
Correct response: Who is Led Zeppelin?
I’m wondering if maybe Julia just made a math error, since there doesn’t seem to make much sense in wagering just 100 too much (if you loved the category, as Clavin did, then presumably you’d go for a lot more).
I have no doubt that she did. The lesson: always double- or even triple-check your work.
Keith, wondering what you thought of Mallory’s DD wager late in the game. I think there were still a couple of categories left, so far from a penultimate wager situation, but both players were pretty far behind Julia at that point and it seemed like a bold DD was Mallory’s best hope of being in a good position going into FJ. I can also understand that in the heat of the moment, you might not be thinking clearly enough to reason that out, but just wondering your thoughts.
And a follow up, how much do challengers know about how dominant a champion has been prior to their game?
In most cases (tournament quarterfinals excepted for obvious reasons) the contestants for the week (which usually equals a taping day) would’ve seen the games taped earlier that session. Other than that, the only cases where they would know about the champion’s earlier games would be if they were holdovers from the taping session before, were in the audience on their own, or in some cases if the first games of a new season are taped after the last game of the old season aired they could have seen the game(s) on TV (in most other cases the games would be taped beforehand).
Of course in cases of champions coming back for the ToC or other tournaments the other contestants would know about them (with the exception of when the ToC is taped before their original games are aired).