Btw, Matt would have lost tonight if his opponent didn’t commit an abominable strategic mistake.

(All #’s approximate, since based on memory, but correct in any way that matters)

A very strong player (VSP) found the first round DD with about $4200. Matt had something like 6000. VSP then uses his DD to bet …..1500??! He bets small despite being pitted against playing a 26 game winner and who will certainly have a big total by the time they get to final jeopardy? A guy he will need a lot of good breaks to beat? So he passes on a chance to double up and take the lead?! Wtf?

That one decision ends up being VERY costly.

Unsurprisingly VSP got the DD correct, like 90% of his other responses. So not going for a true DD cost him something like $2700 and the lead.

In double Jeopardy now. Matt finds the the DD and has 10k total, VSP maybe or 7k. Thats a lot for Matt to risk, right? If he’s wrong he will be down a goid amount against VSP. But Matt is no dummy - he, like mega winner James, takes the easiest path to a win, betting it all. And now he’s got 20k and a big lead. Game over, right?

Not so fast. Despite Matts big double up VSP plays really well and enters Final Jeopardy with enough $ to prevent a runaway. Yay! He’s got a shot!

Oh, wait…. he doesn’t. VSP bet small on his DD and is now 1.5k short. It’s a runaway, game over for VSP. And Matt wins his 27th in a row for a total of 950k.

But VSP was so close lets watch FJ to play a little what if. “In the King James Version, these creatures are a plague in Exodus 10, but deemed okay to eat in Leviticus 11”. Hmmm…. locusts? Frogs? Im thinking locusts.

Matt writes down both frogs and locusts and then crosses off one. VSP-with-really bad-strategy writes down his plague.

And the miracle happens. Matt gets FJ wrong and VSP gets it correct! VSP wins! He knocks off the 26 time champ!! He wins over 26k and may win much more!! Because remember, he’s a VSP!

Oh, wait… …I forgot. VSP couldn’t win because he bet small and had 1.5k too little going into final jeopardy. He had a once in a lifetime chance to go into Jeopardy history as the guy who knocked off the king. But noooo… he ”played it safe”.


[end of morality play]

Matt is an amazing player. But tonight once again proved he is lucky that - for a reason I can’t fathom - his really, really smart opponents don’t apply junior high level probability principles to their strategy. Hell they don’t even google it. Because Jeopardy betting strategy is a well researched area and the answers are sitting there a couple clicks away. They get their one shot to shine on national TV and win 10’s or 100’s of thousand of dollars and they think throwing away their DD’s is the path to glory? Have they not watched recent kings James and Matt play? I don’t get it.