Final Jeopardy! wagering analysis:
Thursday, March 10, 2016

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We seem to be having a lot of wordplay categories tonight.

Low-scoring game, but there’s some math to be done.

Katrina Mundinger (1x)	Norine Noonan	Danielle Stillman-Diederich
9,600	5,800	7,000

Along the vocab lines, we’ll be playing this category:

WORDS & THEIR USE

Now, on to the analysis.

First-order calculations

Norine can wager small…

Katrina		Norine		Danielle
9,600		5,800		7,000
FIRST-ORDER		SECOND-ORDER		COVER ZERO
min	max	min	max	min	max
4,400			600	4,600*
					1,800
2,000

Second-order calculations

…but that could lead to some mind games.

Katrina		Norine		Danielle
9,600		5,800		7,000
FIRST-ORDER		SECOND-ORDER		COVER ZERO
min	max	min	max	min	max
4,400			600	4,600*
		4,600*			600
	800

Zero wagers

Score differences:
Katrina and Danielle: 2,600
Katrina and Norine: 3,800
Danielle and Norine: 1,200

Katrina		Norine		Danielle
9,600		5,800		7,000
FIRST-ORDER		SECOND-ORDER		COVER ZERO
min	max	min	max	min	max
4,400	5,200		600	4,600*
		4,600*			600
	800

What actually happened

Katrina		Norine		Danielle
9,600		5,800		7,000
5,000		4,000		5,000
14,600		1,800		12,000
min	max	min	max	min	max
4,401	5,199		599	7,000
		5,800			599
	799

Not the best wagers, but far from the worst. Katrina has now won 2 games and $22,000.

The Final Jeopardy! clue

WORDS & THEIR USE

ORIGINALLY AN ELECTRONICS WORD FOR AN OUTPUT SIGNAL RETURNING AS INPUT, TODAY IT MEANS “CRITICISM” OR “EVALUATION”

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