Battle of the Decades preview: 2000s, game 11

Battle of the Decades – preliminary round
1980s					1990s					2000s
1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15
knockout rounds

Our first game of 2000s week pits two Tournament of Champions winners against the Fan Favorite.

Click to see the wagering history of:

Colby Burnett, winner of the 2012-B Teachers Tournament and the 2013 TOC
Celeste DiNucci, 5-timer and winner of the 2007 TOC
Tom Nissley, 8-timer, #4 in all-time regular earnings ($235,405), and “Fan Favorite”

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Prediction:

I’ll go with Colby here, since he’s been the most consistently strong player. If Tom is trailing heading into Final, his history of over-wagers will probably come back to haunt him, since a lot of these FJ! clues have been thorny.

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Colby Burnett

Not much wagering history for this Teachers Tournament and (most recent) TOC champ. In both single-game “win or go home” situations, he had the lead and wagered to win.

Teachers Tournament semifinal (11/16/12)

Colby	Brenton	Drew
13,800	7,300	0

Proper wager: 901
Actual wager: 901

TOC SF (02/21/13)

Colby	Dan	Stephanie*
22,000	19,200	10,600

Proper wager: 16,401
Actual wager: 16,401

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Celeste DiNucci

Celeste has had solid wagers when trailing, with the exception of her TOC semifinal, in which an under-wager from both her and an opponent placed her into a tiebreaker question.

Celeste had locks in her first and fourth games, and tacked on a dollar from first in game 3.

Game 2 (07/21/06)

Alex	Celeste	Steve
12,300	8,600	400

Proper wager: 0 – 1,200
Alternate wager: 8,600
Actual wager: 1,199

Game 5 (07/26/06)

Matthew	Celeste	Theresa
19,600	15,600	5,600

Proper wager: 4,000 – 4,400
Alternate wagers: 4,401 – 7,600; 15,600
Actual wager: 7,599
Verdict: allowing Theresa back into the game, but covering a smallish wager by Matthew.

Game 6 (07/27/06)

Eugene	Danielle	Celeste
15,000	9,600	7,400

Proper wager: 7,400
Actual wager: 7,400

TOC semifinal (11/13/07)

Jeff	Christian	Celeste
15,400	13,100	8,800

Proper wager: 8,800
Alternate wager: 4,200
Actual wager: 6,601
Verdict: with that wager, she is going to lose if she’s wrong, so she might as well go all-in.

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Tom Nissley

Tom had locks in game 4 and his TOC semifinal, and has always gone for the extra dollar when leading. Both times he trailed, however, he went all-in (nearly) when it didn’t make sense to do so.

Game 5 (12/20/10)

Bob	Tom	Julia
21,000	18,400	11,200

Proper wager: 5,200 – 7,200
Actual wager: 18,399
Verdict: the category was in Tom’s wheelhouse, but remember that Ken Jennings once missed a Comic Books final.

Game 9 (12/24/10)

Chris	Tom	Marissa
14,600	11,800	8,000

Proper wager: 4,200 – 6,200
Alternate wager: 0 – 1,800
Actual wager: 11,799
Verdict: too much, but only the alternate wager would have saved him, and he’s far too aggressive for that.