Wagering practice – a risk-seeker gets a Penultimate Wager
Some of you will remember this game (from October 3) as the one where I had my huge meltdown at the gym.
Damian has a Penultimate Wager opportunity. What should he do? It’s a $1200 clue in INDEPENDENCE DAYS.
Answers to the previous scenario:
It’s a triple-stumper with Matt taking home a small payday – and the right to face the then-unknown Bob Harris the next day. Did each player make a smart wager?
(click to view as a slideshow)
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- (1/10) Liza should wager 5,700 to cover Matt (a big wager, yes, but necessary).
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- (2/10) Matt can wager up to 5,600 to stay above Liza …
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- (3/10) … but will need to wager at least 4,600 to cover Lyn.
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- (4/10) Lyn can wager at most 4,000 to stay above Matt.
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- (5/10) 5,000 to be above Liza is superseded by the 4,000.
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- (6/10) Rule #3: neither Liza nor Matt can make a safe wager against the other.
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- (7/10) Lyn can against Matt …
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- (8/10) … and also against Liza.
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- (9/10) In fact, she can cover “unsafe” wagers by both, too.
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- (10/10) Only Liza made the proper wager. Note that if Lynn and Matt had both responded correctly, Matt would have lost for no reason.
I think the best “sweet spot” is a $7,400 wager – that puts him at exactly half of Rohit’s total if wrong* and a lead if right. (Anything more than that and he might as well go big on his wager since he’d be locked out if wrong.) The next-best wager IMO would be $1,200 to aim for a tie if right.
*Since Kristan is distant enough falling back to a lock-tie if wrong works in this case, which I think is a good play since it’s a “bet to tie” scenario that most people will recognize and bet accordingly. (If the third contestant has more than half of the leader’s score at that point this tactic won’t work; likewise in tournament play where it’s either a possible tiebreaker or a de facto crush game depending on how the leader decides to proceed. Another rare case where you can’t aim for a lock-tie is if the then leader previously bet an odd number of dollars on a Daily Double and you can’t get to exactly half of his/her score; this happens more often with aiming for an exact two-thirds game since the score in question is frequently not a multiple of 3, as what prevents Damian from using that as another “fall back” if wrong in this game.)
Another thought – when we start discussing tournament games (which the Teachers Tournament is coming up week after next) these sweet-spot bet-to-tie penultimate wagers won’t really apply in those games since a tie will result in a tiebreaker and the other player(s) in question may opt to bet the extra dollar anyway to avert a tiebreaker and decide the game on the Final Jeopardy clue itself (like I touched above).