Wednesday, November 11, 2015 – ToC2015 QF #3

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Two great games to kick off this quarterfinal week. How will Matt, John, and Jennifer fare?

As many people predicted (myself included), Matt racked up a huge score heading into Final, but John had a great game as well.

Combined, our players have $52,100 – just shy of the $54,000 available on the board. (Of course, Daily Doubles helped pad that a little, but still – one of the highest competitive totals we’ve seen.)

Matt Jackson	John Schultz	Jennifer Giles
24,900	17,800	10,400

Tonight’s Final Jeopardy! category is:

ABBREVIATIONS

Here’s where they are right now, and what my calculator suggests. Remember, no one here knows the results of the first two games, and that the wild-card cut-off is already unusually high:

	Matt	John	Jennifer
	24,900	17,800	10,400
Current percentile	99%	96%	61%
20% confidence	0	0	300
30% confidence	0	0	2,700
40% confidence	0	0	3,700
50% confidence	0	0	5,200
60% confidence	0	800	6,100
70% confidence	0	800	6,100
80% confidence	0	2,300	9,200

I suspect that Matt will stand pat, John will wager little or nothing, and Jennifer will go big.

What actually happened

Matt		John		Jennifer
24,900		17,800		10,400
2		2,800		6,600
24,898		15,000		3,800
		min	max
			3,001	10,400
				7,401
				4,401

This was an abominable Final clue. Quit trying to be cute, writers – Final Jeopardy!, particularly in the Tournament of Champions, is no time for wordplay or for drawing confusing, non-existent relationships between two things that just happen to share the same abbreviation.

(See also: “Who are Brat and Blatt?”)

Quarterfinal winners:

1. Catherine Hardee
2. Brennan Bushee
3. Matt Jackson

Wild-card race:

1. Vaughn Winchell – 16,599 (99%)
2. John Schultz – 15,000 (99%)
3. Dan Feitel – 14,000 (85%)
4. Kristin Sausville – 12,800 (38%)
5. Greg Seroka – 11,500
6. Jennifer Giles – 3,800

Percentage represents probability of advancing based on past ToC data. Although it’s not a Gaussian distribution, the average non-winning score is 8,290 with standard deviation 6,306.

The Final Jeopardy! clue

ABBREVIATIONS

ITS MEANING AS AN INDIVIDUAL PRODUCT DATES TO 1977; ITS MEANING AS CONFORMING TO ORTHODOX OPINION DATES TO 1986

[spoiler]What is “P.C.” (personal computer, political correctness)? As Matt said earlier in the game, “groan”[/spoiler]

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