Jeopardy

[Bluedog]

Fascinating game...how would it feel to be the poor third place b*st*rd...who played a really good game...but no chance for anything but last in this contest. And sadly, the woman who beat James has ties to the Cheats.

And is donating some of her winnings to *NC...Blech! Ironically, she was an English major at Princeton and the final Jeopardy question was Shakespeare so she had that nailed. James had a higher coryat score (normalizes for wagers) but she got both double Jeopardy questions right so that was the difference. On the plus side, she's a librarian at UChicago so that's kinda cool.

[dudog84]

And is donating some of her winnings to *NC...Blech! Ironically, she was an English major at Princeton and the final Jeopardy question was Shakespeare so she had that nailed. James had a higher coryat score (normalizes for wagers) but she got both double Jeopardy questions right so that was the difference. On the plus side, she's a librarian at UChicago so that's kinda cool.

Know how you feel, but they're going to need the money with the latest medical center mess...it's going to make the basketball scandal seem like JV.

[fuse]

Different circumstances to be sure, still amazing that it was easier to stay spoiler free for Avengers Endgame than when this guy lost on Jeopardy.
(Yes, syndication and broadcast times were noted up thread).

[LegoBatman]

And is donating some of her winnings to *NC...Blech! Ironically, she was an English major at Princeton and the final Jeopardy question was Shakespeare so she had that nailed. James had a higher coryat score (normalizes for wagers) but she got both double Jeopardy questions right so that was the difference. On the plus side, she's a librarian at UChicago so that's kinda cool.

So I guess she went to SILS (School of Information and Library Science). I also got my MSIS there. There's a chance we may have even taken one of the same UX related classes. A prof for one of those classes was one of the only people to call me out for wearing Duke gear on Duke-NC game days.

[LegoBatman]

Different circumstances to be sure, still amazing that it was easier to stay spoiler free for Avengers Endgame than when this guy lost on Jeopardy.
(Yes, syndication and broadcast times were noted up thread).

Yeah, and I didn't see Avengers until the 3rd weekend.

The NYT sent a push alert saying "if you don't want to know what happens on tonight on Jeopardy - don't read this link". I figured that meant he lost as a win didn't seem as "news alert" worthy to me.
My wife got spoiled when she called a family member who casually said they just finished watching Jeopardy and the guy finally lost.

[PackMan97]

And sadly, the woman who beat James has ties to the Cheats.

...that just means that the hunt is on to discover how she cheated to win.

[Bostondevil]

And is donating some of her winnings to *NC...Blech! Ironically, she was an English major at Princeton and the final Jeopardy question was Shakespeare so she had that nailed. James had a higher coryat score (normalizes for wagers) but she got both double Jeopardy questions right so that was the difference. On the plus side, she's a librarian at UChicago so that's kinda cool.

What was the Final Jeopardy question? I didn't major in English but I know my Shakespeare. (I'm in rehearsal for Much Ado About Nothing right now, so I haven't been able to watch much Jeopardy during this record setting run.)

Never mind, just looked it up. Easy.

[Ggallagher]

Wow, as amazing as this run has been, I was stunned when I saw in the Washington Post article that last night's episode actually took place on March 12th. That's incredible that both with the fact that the entire studio audience for that taping, and all the successive audiences that clearly knew he was no longer on the show, plus people that may have seen James in the last six weeks - his exit from the program never leaked.

That's pretty remarkable.

[gus]

I'm reading a lot of people making the claim that James threw the match because of his wager.

The main arguments seem to be:
1) when he got out buzzed, he didn't appear to be trying to buzz in.
2) his final jeopardy wager was small

Both are stupid arguments.

1) Part of his buzzer skill comes from minimizing extra movement. He practiced it this way. Keeping the buzzing hand comfortable and eliminating extra movement was all done to reduce the amount of time it took to buzz in. When he successfully buzzed in, it didn't look like he was buzzing in either.
2) e.g. this is a comment on the NYT article about it:

Holzhauer under bet the pot on the final question. For a professional gambler up $2.5 million, you don't bet $1399 on question you ultimately got right. He threw the game.

That's not to undersell Boettcher's accomplishment. She was in the lead before the final question. However, Holzhauer's decision doesn't make sense. Not from gambling perspective.

The end of Holzhauer's run has a very "Quiz Show" quality to it.

The scores going into final jeopardy:
James - 23,400
Jay- 11,000
Emma- 26,600

James had to assume that Emma was going to bet at least 20,201 -- the amount she'd need to beat him if he doubled up. (And indeed she did bet exactly that). The only way he could win is if she got it wrong. In that case, as long as he bets between 0 and 17,000 he would win (she would have ended with 6,399, and he would have ended somewhere between 6,400 and 23,400). BUT, he had to make sure he'd beat Jay too. Jay could have gotten to 22,000 - so Jame's real upper limit is $1,399. That way, if he and Emma are both wrong and Jay is right, James wins by a $1.

So both James and Emma made their optimal bets. Only Jay bet incorrectly at 6,000. He shouldn't have bet more than 4,600, with the hope that James stupidly bet it all, and Emma bet the correct amount.

The game turned on "What is Albany" - the 1200 question in Capital "A". She was down 13,600 - 6,400. That got her to 7,600. The next clue was the DD, and she went all in, and got it right. Had James gotten it (and he said he was going to pick the same spot she did), he probably would have gone all in and gotten to 27,600 and on his way to another runaway.

[duke79]

I'm reading a lot of people making the claim that James threw the match because of his wager.

The main arguments seem to be:
1) when he got out buzzed, he didn't appear to be trying to buzz in.
2) his final jeopardy wager was small

Both are stupid arguments.

1) Part of his buzzer skill comes from minimizing extra movement. He practiced it this way. Keeping the buzzing hand comfortable and eliminating extra movement was all done to reduce the amount of time it took to buzz in. When he successfully buzzed in, it didn't look like he was buzzing in either.
2) e.g. this is a comment on the NYT article about it:



The scores going into final jeopardy:
James - 23,400
Jay- 11,000
Emma- 26,600

James had to assume that Emma was going to bet at least 20,201 -- the amount she'd need to beat him if he doubled up. (And indeed she did bet exactly that). The only way he could win is if she got it wrong. In that case, as long as he bets between 0 and 17,000 he would win (she would have ended with 6,399, and he would have ended somewhere between 6,400 and 23,400). BUT, he had to make sure he'd beat Jay too. Jay could have gotten to 22,000 - so Jame's real upper limit is $1,399. That way, if he and Emma are both wrong and Jay is right, James wins by a $1.

So both James and Emma made their optimal bets. Only Jay bet incorrectly at 6,000. He shouldn't have bet more than 4,600, with the hope that James stupidly bet it all, and Emma bet the correct amount.

The game turned on "What is Albany" - the 1200 question in Capital "A". She was down 13,600 - 6,400. That got her to 7,600. The next clue was the DD, and she went all in, and got it right. Had James gotten it (and he said he was going to pick the same spot she did), he probably would have gone all in and gotten to 27,600 and on his way to another runaway.

Thanks for this explanation. I admit I was a little puzzled by his meager bet in Final Jeopardy (as was my wife) but your explanation makes perfect sense and James is NOT stupid, so he knew what he was doing. Watching the show, I did get the impression that James did not have his "A" game going and certainly Emma frequently buzzed in before he did and then she got lucky and got both DD's in the double Jeopardy round and James was a little unlucky in getting the DD in his first question of the opening round where he was limited as to how much he could bet. Frankly, I wasn't sure that James would ever lose but he did and now he will go down in Jeopardy lore, along with Ken Jennings. Unfortunately, he will owe a LOT in taxes to the Feds and the state of California.

[duke79]

What was the Final Jeopardy question? I didn't major in English but I know my Shakespeare. (I'm in rehearsal for Much Ado About Nothing right now, so I haven't been able to watch much Jeopardy during this record setting run.)

Never mind, just looked it up. Easy.

I asked my wife this question last night. Do the producers of the show have the ability to change the final Jeopardy question (on the fly, so to speak), if they want a certain contestant to win? Like, in last night's show, where Emma had the ability to win, as long as she got the right answer to the Final Jeopardy question. Could the producers suddenly put a relatively easy Final Jeopardy question on the screen, to affect the outcome? I'm guessing they did not want James to go on winning forever (it was starting to get a little boring watching him crush all of his competitors).

[CrazyNotCrazie]

I asked my wife this question last night. Do the producers of the show have the ability to change the final Jeopardy question (on the fly, so to speak), if they want a certain contestant to win? Like, in last night's show, where Emma had the ability to win, as long as she got the right answer to the Final Jeopardy question. Could the producers suddenly put a relatively easy Final Jeopardy question on the screen, to affect the outcome? I'm guessing they did not want James to go on winning forever (it was starting to get a little boring watching him crush all of his competitors).

There is a lot of room for potential shenanigans on Jeopardy and I think we trust that everything there is kosher - in this topsy turvy world we live in, some things have to be sacred. Categories and/or questions could easily be adjusted based on who the contestants are (such as the dream board that Cliff got on the above-referenced Cheers episode where there were categories like "Civil Servants" and "Beer"). I assume there is a somewhat randomized process where all potential questions and topics are available then for the regular two rounds they try to make sure there is some diversity of categories to keep things relatively interesting and fair.

[House P]

There is a lot of room for potential shenanigans on Jeopardy and I think we trust that everything there is kosher - in this topsy turvy world we live in, some things have to be sacred. Categories and/or questions could easily be adjusted based on who the contestants are (such as the dream board that Cliff got on the above-referenced Cheers episode where there were categories like "Civil Servants" and "Beer"). I assume there is a somewhat randomized process where all potential questions and topics are available then for the regular two rounds they try to make sure there is some diversity of categories to keep things relatively interesting and fair.

I am pretty sure that Jeopardy couldn’t get away with changing the Final Jeopardy question on the fly based on their preferred outcome of a particular game. If we want to go down the conspiracy theory rathole, how about this. On the day he was likely to pass Ken Jennings for the all-time most money won, James was matched up against a) a guy who memorized the entire Trivial Pursuit card deck as a kid and b) a woman who wrote a Master’s thesis on the subject of ... Jeopardy!

Taking odd my tin foil hat, it seems that the matchup with strong opponents and the lack of high value Daily Doubles did James in.

[duke79]

There is a lot of room for potential shenanigans on Jeopardy and I think we trust that everything there is kosher - in this topsy turvy world we live in, some things have to be sacred. Categories and/or questions could easily be adjusted based on who the contestants are (such as the dream board that Cliff got on the above-referenced Cheers episode where there were categories like "Civil Servants" and "Beer"). I assume there is a somewhat randomized process where all potential questions and topics are available then for the regular two rounds they try to make sure there is some diversity of categories to keep things relatively interesting and fair.

I hope you are right that everything is "above board" on the show, but (and not to be too cynical) I'm always a little suspicious when large sums of money are involved in situations like this, where backroom, unseen shenanigans can alter who gets those large sums of money (what was the name of the guy in that famous game-show scandal in the 1950's who was being fed the right answers ahead of time, because the show's producers thought he was a very attractive "winner" and and would generate higher ratings for the show? See also the UNC cheating scandal and the shoe companies paying off players and their families).

[Indoor66]

Taking odd my tin foil hat, it seems that the matchup with strong opponents and the lack of high value Daily Doubles did James in.

Bingo. He, effectively got no Daily Doubles last night. That is what did him in.

[Ggallagher]

Thanks for this explanation. I admit I was a little puzzled by his meager bet in Final Jeopardy (as was my wife) but your explanation makes perfect sense and James is NOT stupid, so he knew what he was doing. Watching the show, I did get the impression that James did not have his "A" game going and certainly Emma frequently buzzed in before he did and then she got lucky and got both DD's in the double Jeopardy round and James was a little unlucky in getting the DD in his first question of the opening round where he was limited as to how much he could bet. Frankly, I wasn't sure that James would ever lose but he did and now he will go down in Jeopardy lore, along with Ken Jennings. Unfortunately, he will owe a LOT in taxes to the Feds and the state of California.

Unfortunate??? I'd be happy to take the $2.5 mil off his hands and pay the taxes for him. In fact I think I'd be OK doing that every year. Not quite the worst problem someone can have.

[Indoor66]

Unfortunate??? I'd be happy to take the $2.5 mil off his hands and pay the taxes for him. In fact I think I'd be OK doing that every year. Not quite the worst problem someone can have.

And it is in cash so the payment is available.

[fuse]

Bingo. He, effectively got no Daily Doubles last night. That is what did him in.

This was the winning strategy- luck to find the Daily Doubles before he did. The only way to keep the game from getting out of hand was to deny those chances to build and extend an insurmountable lead.

[PackMan97]

I am pretty sure that Jeopardy couldn’t get away with changing the Final Jeopardy question on the fly based on their preferred outcome of a particular game. If we want to go down the conspiracy theory rathole, how about this. On the day he was likely to pass Ken Jennings for the all-time most money won, James was matched up against a) a guy who memorized the entire Trivial Pursuit card deck as a kid and b) a woman who wrote a Master’s thesis on the subject of ... Jeopardy!

Taking odd my tin foil hat, it seems that the matchup with strong opponents and the lack of high value Daily Doubles did James in.

The preferred solution to an apex predator like James is not to find a bigger predator (then what do you do with the even stronger player), but to make the questions easier so it becomes a matter of buzzer timing and luck on the doubles. It certainly seems like the Final Jeopardy question was fairly easy.

[JNort]

I asked my wife this question last night. Do the producers of the show have the ability to change the final Jeopardy question (on the fly, so to speak), if they want a certain contestant to win? Like, in last night's show, where Emma had the ability to win, as long as she got the right answer to the Final Jeopardy question. Could the producers suddenly put a relatively easy Final Jeopardy question on the screen, to affect the outcome? I'm guessing they did not want James to go on winning forever (it was starting to get a little boring watching him crush all of his competitors).

I never understood this. I wanted him to keep on crushing everyone. I enjoy seeing dynasties and greatness continue for the most part.