Daily analysis, Friday, July 25 – Teen Tournament QF #5

2014 Teen Tournament
Overview			Teens in the TOC				Joe Taglic interview
Quarterfinals					Semifinals			Finals
1	2	3	4	5	1	2	3	1	2

Three spots left! Which of Friday’s contestants will advance to the semifinals?

What a gunfight!

Sam Lerner: 10,400
Sydney Mokel: 13,000
Joe Taglic: 12,000

The Final Jeopardy! category: WEBSITES

These are some impressive scores, but in terms of wild cards, they’re not very good. The last two cut-offs were 15,001 and 15,000, so all three might consider big wagers.

Little do the players know, they just have to stand pat and they’ll all advance!

Basic strategy – first vs. second

Sydney should wager 11,001.

If she’s wrong, she’ll have 1,999. Joe should cap his wager at 10,000, and Sam, at 8,400.

Basic strategy – second vs. third

Joe should wager 8,801 to cover an all-in by Sam.

If he’s wrong, he’ll have 3,200. That means Sam can wager up to 7,200.

Basic strategy – Rule #3

Joe can cover a zero wager by Sydney by wagering 1,001, and cover an “unsafe” wager with 2,000.

Sam can take his pick: 1,601, 2,601, 3,200, 5,200.

Mind games

In this close scenario, mind games go out the window. Just go for whatever you think is a good wild-card amount!

What actually happened

Nice work on all fronts! And all three players are rewarded with semifinal berths.

Here are your semifinalists:

Cooper Lair (winner)
Selena Groh (winner)
William Golden (winner)
Alan Koolik (winner)
Sydney Mokel (winner)

Joe Taglic (21,998)
Sam Lerner (20,000)
Jeff Xie (19,000)
Kat Deabill (14,400)

The Final Jeopardy! clue for July 25, 2014 (WEBSITES):

A SLANG TERM FOR HARVARD’S FRESHMAN REGISTER GAVE THIS WEBSITE ITS NAME

[spoiler]What is Facebook? (Fun fact: its website was originally thefacebook.com)[/spoiler]