Friday, December 18, 2015

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If you want to learn how to wager, Friday’s game is a great place to start.

I was disappointed that Julie didn’t go bigger on that final Daily Double – just 2,500 out of 12,200 on an $800 clue. It ultimately cost her the lead heading into Final.

Claudia Corriere	Julie Graves	Kiyana Holderbaum
16,200	14,300	6,400

Tonight’s Final Jeopardy! category is:

AMERICANA

There’s lots more discussion of the wagers and mind games on the video.

First-order calculations

Claudia will have to go big to cover Julie. Julie can wager small to stay above Kiyana, but it won’t cover a zero out of Claudia, so we’re gonna have some fun.

Claudia		Julie		Kiyana
16,200		14,300		6,400
FIRST-ORDER		SECOND-ORDER		COVER ZERO
min	max	min	max	min	max
12,400			10,500		2,600
			1,500
	3,400

Second-order calculations

Adding in the various mind games, Kiyana should go for broke because the odds that Claudia and Julie wager to stay above her are really good.

Claudia		Julie		Kiyana
16,200		14,300		6,400
FIRST-ORDER		SECOND-ORDER		COVER ZERO
min	max	min	max	min	max
12,400		2,300	5,300	4,600*
8,600	7,200		1,500	1,200	2,600
	400		6,700

Zero wagers

Score differences:
Claudia and Julie: 1,900
Claudia and Kiyana: 9,800
Julie and Kiyana: 7,900

Claudia		Julie		Kiyana
16,200		14,300		6,400
FIRST-ORDER		SECOND-ORDER		COVER ZERO
min	max	min	max	min	max
12,400		3,800	5,300	4,600*
8,600	9,800		1,500	1,200	2,600
	400

Then we have to align our ranges, and decide which one to go with. When we’re done, we add a dollar to the minimum wagers, and subtract a dollar from the maximum wagers.

What actually happened

Claudia		Julie		Kiyana
16,200		14,300		6,400
5,000		1,901		4,000
21,200		16,201		10,400
min	max	min	max	min	max
12,401		3,801	5,299	6,400
	399		1,499	1,201	2,599
8,601	9,799

Bad wagers across the board! Not a great week for those, I guess. Notice that if Claudia and Julie both missed, Kiyana would have come up short, where an all-in would have done the trick.

In any event, Claudia has now won 2 games and $29,000.

The Final Jeopardy! clue

AMERICANA

WHILE WORKING FOR A PLASTICS COMPANY, DON FEATHERSTONE CREATED THIS ICONIC LAWN DECOR, BASING IT ON PHOTOS IN NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

[spoiler]What is a lawn flamingo?[/spoiler]

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