Daily analysis, Friday, June 27
Lots of intrigue at The Final Wager this week — including a second post on the World Cup. Tonight: three players in search of no Daily Double.
My favorite part of tonight’s game was when Sunil appeared to have a Freudian slip about Whitney Houston. After the “Bobby Brown” clue, I think he said, “I’ll take Beat — er, Bands…”
He’s got the lead heading into Final, but it’s anyone’s match.
Jennifer Blanton: 6,600
Jill Rowley: 7,200
Sunil Hari: 9,800
The Final Jeopardy! category: BRITISH AUTHORS
There’s some mind-game potential here, as you might expect.
Basic strategy – first vs. second
Sunil should wager 4,600.
To stay above Sunil on a double-stumper, Jill can wager up to 2,000, and Jennifer can wager up to 1,400.
Basic strategy – second vs. third
Jill should wager 6,000 — but since she’ll lose if she misses, she might as well wager everything.
Jennifer should keep her maximum wager at 1,400.
Basic strategy – Rule #3
If Jill wants to cover a zero by Sunil, she’ll need to wager 2,600 — so she should go for broke, as with before.
Jennifer should wager 600 to cover a zero by Jennifer, or 1,200 to cover an “unsafe” wager. If she’s afraid Sunil will go small, she could wager at least 3,200 — but at that point should go all-in.
Mind games
Sunil might think Jill plans to go for a 2,000 wager, in which case he could bet up to 600. He’ll need to assume Jennifer will also go small.
Jill might wager 800 to cover Jennifer’s maximum wager against Sunil.
Jennifer might respond by capping her wager at 200.
I suppose you could take some other possibilities into account — like Sunil wagering 3,400 to cover a double-up by Jennifer. In that case, Jennifer would want to wager 200, and Jill up to 800.
What actually happened
I’m not sure what got into our players tonight; perhaps they had a big lunch? This is a key demonstration of why you might as well wager everything if you’ll lose on an incorrect response. Not doing so could have easily burned both Jill and Jennifer.
The Final Jeopardy! clue for June 27, 2014 (BRITISH AUTHORS):
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL PRAISED HER 1920 FIRST NOVEL, SAYING IT DEALT “WITH POISONS IN A KNOWLEDGEABLE WAY”
[spoiler]Who was Agatha Christie?[/spoiler]
I’ve noticed that in cases where both trailers can overtake the leader that diminishes the incentive for mind games on the leader’s part (since as you’ve said you’d basically be counting on both playing “properly”); likewise with second in Stratton’s Dilemma (since that gives a strong incentive for second betting it all). When both apply, as in this game, like you hinted it’s usually best for the leader to consider nothing but a “standard” cover bet absent a very strong dislike for the category.