Final Jeopardy! wagering analysis:
Tuesday, March 22, 2016

[php snippet=56]

Jeopardy! was preempted last night in New York for coverage of the Belgium attacks, so I’m doing this video in the daytime.

I still don’t get programming decisions like that, but then again, I’m not driven solely by ratings.

Tight game heading into Final:

Melissa Spencer (1x)	Joshua Wennrich	Claudia Stucke
10,500	8,800	9,800

The Final Jeopardy! category is:

CLASSIC CHILDREN’S BOOK CHARACTERS

Ok, this one will be fun.

First-order calculations

Claudia has a very small range to both cover Joshua and remain above Melissa on a double-stumper.

Melissa		Joshua		Claudia
10,500		8,800		9,800
FIRST-ORDER		SECOND-ORDER		COVER ZERO
min	max	min	max	min	max
9,100			6,800	7,800	8,400
7,100			5,400

Not much in the way of mind games here, so we’ll jump right to…

Zero wagers

Score differences:
Melissa and Claudia: 700
Melissa and Joshua: 1,700
Claudia and Joshua: 1,000

Melissa		Joshua		Claudia
10,500		8,800		9,800
FIRST-ORDER		SECOND-ORDER		COVER ZERO
min	max	min	max	min	max
9,100		3,400	5,400	7,800	8,400
			6,800	700	1,000
300	700

Then we add a dollar to the minimum wagers, and subtract a dollar from the maximum wagers.

What actually happened

Melissa		Joshua		Claudia
10,500		8,800		9,800
8,101		8,000		9,000
2,399		800		18,800
min	max	min	max	min	max
9,101		3,401	5,399	7,801	8,399
			6,799	701	999
301	699

I suppose Melissa could have justified a wager of 7,701: mind games defending against an 8,400 maximum wager by Claudia. Her actual wager, however, seems like a case of “I forgot to carry the one.”

The Final Jeopardy! clue

CLASSIC CHILDREN’S BOOK CHARACTERS

THE NAME OF THIS CHARACTER WHO LIVES IN A FOREST IS A SHORTENING OF AN ITALIAN WORD FOR A NEWBORN

[spoiler]What is Bambi?[/spoiler]

[php snippet=56]