Battle of the Decades preview: QF #3
| Battle of the Decades – knockout rounds | |||||||||
| Quarterfinals | Semifinals | Finals | |||||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 2 |
| preliminary round | |||||||||
Three gentlemen on the stage this evening. Which decade will take our middle quarterfinal?
This is a tough one, even on paper. Brad and Dan are both very strong, and Mark had a good showing in the preliminaries. I’m going to go with Brad.
My one concern with Brad is that he might try to keep his “never lost to a human” streak alive and go for the lock-out in a close, high-scoring game, only to miss and knock himself out of contention. Dan has shown much more restraint in the past and this might play to his advantage.
Mark Lowenthal
Mark won from third place in his preliminary-round game on a very good, conservative wager.
BOTD prelims (02/06/14)
| Phoebe | Frank | Mark |
| 17,100 | 14,000 | 10,400 |
Proper wager: 0 – 3,200
Actual wager: 1,400
In his TOC quarterfinal, he aimed for a wild card score of 8,800, equal to 17,600 in today’s dollars.
TOC quarterfinal (11/11/88) [pre-doubling]
| Ron | Mark | Leah |
| 9,500 | 6,400 | 4,000 |
Wager: 2,400
Brad Rutter
Brad needed to get the last clue to lock out Mike – and good thing, too, as he missed Final while his sole opponent got it right. This is why Jeopardy! is such a volatile game!
BOTD prelims (03/07/14)
| Brad | Mike | Jill |
| 30,600 | 14,300 | 0 |
Actual wager: 0
He had a lock in his TOC quarterfinal, and took the win into his own hands in the Million Dollar Masters.
TOC quarterfinal (10/25/01) [pre-doubling]
| Brad | Doug | Bob |
| 18,000 | 5,300 | 2,500 |
Wager: 0
Million Dollar Masters quarterfinal (05/02/02)
| Brad | Claudia | Kate |
| 17,800 | 12,400 | 4,200 |
Wager: 7,001
Dan Pawson
Dan took issue with my wagering analysis from his preliminary-round game, a shootout against Maria Wenglinsky. He was then kind enough to answer some of my questions.
BOTD prelims (04/04/14)
| Maria | Dan | Keith |
| 18,100 | 15,700 | 4,200 |
Proper wager: 4,800 – 6,100
Alternate wager: 10,900 or 2,400 – 2,499
Actual wager: 3,000
Here’s a savvy wager in his TOC QF, aiming to lock out the third-place Cora. (She was the only one to get Final, but held back 1,000, finishing in second.) Maybe we’ll see something similar tonight.
TOC quarterfinal (03/11/09)
| Dan | Carl | Cora |
| 16,800 | 12,400 | 8,500 |
Wager: 201