2015 Teachers Tournament, QF #4

2015 Teachers Tournament
By the Numbers: The difficulty of predicting wild cards
Quarterfinals					Semifinals			Finals
1	2	3	4	5	1	2	3	1	2

It’s cold here in Vermont – so cold it knocked out the Internet for a bit.

Jennifer put on a bit of a show there at the end of Double Jeopardy!, locking things up on the last clue (aided in large part by a solid Antepenultimate Wager in what appeared to be a shaky category for her).

Mary Bayer	Jennifer Giles	Chris Grinvalds
9,000	18,400	8,400

Mary and Chris have some debating to do with this category:

LISTS

Both have plenty of room for improvement, but as long as they don’t both fall to 4,600 or below, at least one of them will clinch a spot.

	Mary	Chris
Score	9,000	8,400
Currently	49%	47%
20% confident	100	0
30% confident	100	0
40% confident	300	0
50% confident	6,100	6,700
60% confident	8,100	7,200
70% confident	8,600	8,200
80% confident	8,900	8,200

What actually happened

I’ve used the black-on-gray scheme just once before. If Jennifer wagers 399 or less, she guarantees she’ll win the game and advance.

But picture this possibility: Mary wagers everything and gets it right, and Jennifer misses. They go to a tiebreaker, which Mary wins, and the wild-card cut-off is 18,200, leaving Jennifer out in the cold.

Highly unlikely, yes. But the probability is greater than zero.

Semifinalist watch

Winners
Colin O’Grady
Lydia Cuffman
Eric Hack
Jennifer Giles

Wild-card standings
includes my estimated probability of advancing based on past data

Erin McLaughlin – 12,600 (clinched)
Mary Bayer – 9,000 (clinched)
Cathy Farrell – 4,600 (51%)
MaryLou McKenna – 3,000 (7%)

Martha Jackson – 400
Michael Jones – 0
Chris Grinvalds – 0
Tracy Alexander – -1,600

The Final Jeopardy! clue

LISTS

EFFORTS TO SAVE HISTORIC TREASURES THREATENED BY THE CREATION OF THE ASWAN HIGH DAM LED UNESCO TO CREATE THIS LIST

[spoiler]What is the World Heritage List?[/spoiler]

 

2015 Teachers Tournament
By the Numbers: The difficulty of predicting wild cards
Quarterfinals					Semifinals			Finals
1	2	3	4	5	1	2	3	1	2