Tuesday, November 10, 2015 – ToC2015 QF #2

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We kicked off the 2015 Tournament of Champions with an exciting match. Will Greg, Brennan, and Kristin keep it up?

Yes, they will – and the only downside is that they’re giving me a bit of a headache.

Here are our scores heading into Final:

Greg Seroka	Brennan Bushee	Kristin Sausville
13,000	12,000	12,800

Tonight’s Final Jeopardy! category is:

INAUGURAL ADDRESSES

This is really a crap shoot; going for broke is a bad idea here because even 18,000 is enough to basically guarantee a wild card. Here’s what my model suggests each player wager depending on confidence in the category:

	Greg	Brennan	Kristin
	13,000	12,000	12,800
Current percentile	78%	74%	77%
20% confidence	0	0	0
30% confidence	0	0	0
40% confidence	0	0	0
50% confidence	0	0	0
60% confidence	600	5,600	0
70% confidence	6,600	5,600	7,300
80% confidence	7,100	8,100	7,300

The 60% row is somewhat strange – the calculator recommends that Kristin wager zero but that Brennan, with just 800 less, put up about half his total.

What actually happened

Greg		Brennan		Kristin
13,000		12,000		12,800
1,500		6,000		0
11,500		18,000		12,800

Turns out that’s exactly what he did – and he was the only player to respond correctly. Congratulations, Brennan!

We’ll see if Kristin and Greg can hang on – usually, those would be pretty decent scores, but they’re already on the bubble.

Quarterfinal winners:

1. Catherine Hardee
2. Brennan Bushee

Wild-card race:

1. Vaughn Winchell – 16,599 (98%)
2. Dan Feitel – 14,000 (92%)
3. Kristin Sausville – 12,800 (62%)
4. Greg Seroka – 11,500 (12%)

Percentage represents probability of advancing based on past ToC data. Although it’s not a Gaussian distribution, the average non-winning score is 8,290 with standard deviation 6,306.

The Final Jeopardy! clue

INAUGURAL ADDRESSES

HIS FIRST ADDRESS SPOKE OF “THE PRESENT HAPPY STATE”, “OUR PECULIAR FELICITY” AND OUR “HAPPY GOVERNMENT”

[spoiler]Who was James Monroe? (the key is to realize he was president during the ‘Era of Good Feelings’)[/spoiler]

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