Final Jeopardy! wagering analysis:
Thursday, February 18, 2016
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It’s been a good week for Jeopardy! fans. Let’s see if we can keep things up tonight.
Not quite as high-scoring as the past few days, but still an exciting game.
|
Tim Kutz (1x) |
Brian Worthington |
Shana Macks |
| 20,900 | 9,400 | 12,400 |
Pretty straightforward here; Shana has more than 1/2 of Tim’s score, but less than 2/3. Brian is barely alive.
Calculations
Big wagers are required from our trailers, while Tim has a comfortable range.
| Tim |
Brian |
Shana | |||
| 20,900 | 9,400 | 12,400 | |||
| FIRST-ORDER | SECOND-ORDER | COVER ZERO | |||
| min | max | min | max | min | max |
| 3,900 | 8,500 | 7,600 | 8,500 | ||
What actually happened
| Tim | Brian | Shana | |||
| 20,900 | 9,400 | 12,400 | |||
| 4,000 | 5,499 | 10,000 | |||
| 16,900 | 3,901 | 2,400 | |||
| min | max | ||||
| 3,901 | 8,499 | 7,601 | 8,501 | ||
Brian overthought this one, wagering to beat Shana if she went for the Zerg-like $1 cover of Tim’s pre-Final score. Sad to say he was rewarded with an extra $1,000 for this error.
Tim has now won 2 games and $63,499, and he’ll go for three – and a spot on the ToC leaderboard – tomorrow.
By the way, this was a terrible FJ! clue.
The Final Jeopardy! clue
| PEN NAMES |
| THIS CHILDREN’S AUTHOR CONSIDERED USING THE ANAGRAMS EDGAR CUTHWELLIS & EDGAR U.C. WESTHILL FOR HIS PEN NAME |
[spoiler]Who is Lewis Carroll?[/spoiler]
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I agree with the FJ assessment. Too many letters in the anagram for 30 seconds, and even if you see Lewis, you’re trying to figure out how the rest of the letters can make sense. The clue designers can do better than this.
I rather liked the Final J clue, because it didn’t require knowing Carroll’s real name, but was easier if you did know it.
If you assume that the author went with a different pen name, then it’s not unreasonable to think that you don’t know his real name which those anagrams come from. So then the question is ‘which children’s author is famous for anagrams?’ and at the top of that list is Carroll.
I know Carol’s real name but I got nowhere close on this one. But if you can find a copy of the absolutely delightful “The Annotated Alice” by Martin Gardner I strongly recommend it. It contains the full text of both “Alice” books plus the original Tenniel illustrations plus tons of fascinating and fun annotations. The original has long been out of print. But a new “150th Anniversary Deluxe Edition” was published last year and is available from Amazon and presumably lots of other places.
It’s not terrible because I got it. Clues I don’t get are the terrible ones.
This must be the J! equivalent of Mel Brooks: “Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die”
This is not even an anagram.