Q and A with Aaron Cappocchi

     As far as screenplays, I am lucky enough to work in the entertainment industry, and have access to lots of scripts, analysis and critiques of them, and a view into the moviemaking process.  As you might imagine, I have many scripts in various stages of concept and completion.  The one I’m primarily working on finishing right now is Los Angeles Grand Prix, about a ex-race car driver who gets forced into a dangerous, illegal 24-hour street race, which takes him tearing all over the city – with his sulky teenage daughter along for the ride.

Q: Do you have a favorite author?

Aaron: I’m a big fan of William Gibson, George R.R. Martin, Lev Grossman, Catherynne Valente, and Christopher Moore. But my favorite is probably Neal Stephenson – he writes dense, thinky historical fiction tomes, along with light and snappy adventure tales.  My favorite is The Diamond Age, which is somewhere in between those extremes.

Q: I found you on a board game forum. Can you tell me about that interest?

Aaron: That would be www.boardgamegeek.com, a treasure trove of information and news about boardgames with a great community of users. 

     I enjoy board games because I have a very competitive nature (who would have guessed?), because they’re a good way to gather a group of friends around a table for some fun, and because a good game experience tells a story, with a beginning, a middle, and an end (and maybe a few surprises on the way). There are more options than Monopoly – Settlers of Catan and Carcassonne have somewhat broken into the mainstream, but there are games of just about any style, subject, and complexity that you might desire. 

     A couple of my favorites are 1960, an election game recreating JFK and Nixon’s struggle for the White House, and Battlestar Galactica, a game where one or more players are secretly traitors working against the rest.   I own over 200 board games – that might seem excessive, but it’s less than a lot of addicts, I mean enthusiasts, I know.

Q: One word – Pentecost.

Aaron: Jeopardy! airs over 600 questions a week and writes many more.  So of course there are occasional mistakes, or clever answers given that they do not expect, but still turn out to be acceptable. But what a strange experience to be on a show where the Final Jeopardy clue did not point to the answer the writers were looking for! 

     For anyone who didn’t see it, on my second show (airdate June 11, 2012): The Final Jeopardy question in the category “Events in The Bible” was ‘Acts 1:13 says this event occurred in “an upper room” ‘.  The answer they were looking for was The Last Supper and the answer I gave was Pentecost.  With a pretty thorough knowledge of the Bible, I was fairly confident in my answer but not 100% (sometimes 13 years of Christian school pays off!).  Pentecost (actually the name of a feast day, but it also refers to a miracle where tongues of flames descend from heaven) actually occurs in Acts 2, but I knew the timing was very close.   Last Supper was ruled correct, and my answer incorrect.  My lead was large enough that I won the game anyway. 

     However, I (and the producers) immediately knew that something was amiss.  Taping of the show is often stopped for a couple of minutes to confirm an answer, check a fact, or correct a mistake.  But instead of moving on to the next show after this Final Jeopardy, taping stopped for a good 15-20 minutes, longer than I have ever experienced.  I could see producers and judges offstage conferring, looking up things in books, and making phone calls. 

     The Last Supper had never occurred to me, because it occurs in three of the first four books of the New Testament, right before the crucifixion. Jesus gathers his 12 apostles, including Judas, in an upper room (hmmmmm) for a famous meal – I think Leonardo Da Vinci was also there to paint the scene, though I don’t know why everyone was sitting on the same side of the table!  🙂 

     Later, in the book of Acts, Jesus has already died and risen again.  Judas is dead.  And in the beginning of that first book of Acts, Jesus has just ascended into heaven! He’s gone, baby.  How can Acts 1:13 be referring to the Last Supper, something that happened many days ago with a different cast of characters? 

     Well, it’s not.  My theory is that the writers originally drafted the clue to cite Luke 22:12 or Mark 14:15 – verses that reference an ‘upper room’ and immediately lead into the tale of the Last Supper.  Perhaps they thought those were too obvious, and switched to the Acts verse to throw us off a bit?  Or they simply got into a mindset while crafting the clue that Upper Room always equals Last Supper, and didn’t examine the surrounding verses for context. 

     So what is the right answer?  If you read all of Acts 1, you’ll find that they went into the upper room and they prayed there.  A bit later, they elected Matthias to replace the dead apostle Judas. Those two things are probably the best correct answers to the question as phrased – but they are not exactly what you’d think of when trying to recall major “Events in The Bible”, are they?  They require very specific knowledge of one book, and they aren’t very momentous events.  Even though those are the best answers, we can infer that they really aren’t what the writers were looking for.

     Is the Last Supper a correct answer?  Maybe.  It did happen in an upper room, though it occurred many days before the events in Acts.  Scholars even disagree whether it was the same upper room or not (a different word is used in the original language). 

     Is Pentecost also a correct answer?  Maybe. Trust me – I have done a lot of studying and research on this issue!  Pentecost (in Acts 2) follows closely after the events in Acts 1, but the location isn’t stated outright.  I have seen some authors plainly say “it took place in the same upper room” and some say that its location could be anywhere nearby.  Pentecost could be
correct, and it’s a fairly major event in the Bible, as the category seems to imply… but it could be wrong too. 

     What a nightmare for the Jeopardy crew, to ask (and film) a Final Jeopardy clue with… no correct answer? A variety of possibly correct answers?  A very obscure answer that no one but a biblical scholar could get, and not the same answer they judged correct?  Luckily for them, no scenario of correct/incorrect answers could affect the outcome of the game – I was first place no matter right or wrong, and 2nd place was 2nd place no matter right or wrong.  So the only thing to do was credit us both with right answers.  The show aired as taped, with my answer judged incorrect but me still finishing in first, and then an immediate edit where Alex explains that there was a mistake in the clue and I would be awarded an extra $12,002 for my $6,001 Final Jeopardy wager.  Whew!

Q: Can you talk about your Final Jeopardy wager on Tuesday?

Aaron: Before going in to appear on the show, I had studied quite a bit on how to bet.  I am shocked at how many wagering mistakes I see regularly on the show – though I made one as well, a $6000 Daily Double bet that should have been an $8400 “true” Daily Double. It is difficult to do math and think about all the implications of your bets there under the studio lights, with the crowd waiting for your answer, Alex looking at you expectantly, and precious seconds ticking by.  But if you ever have the opportunity to go on the show, study wagering theory and potential Final Jeopardy scenarios very closely.  Strategic wagering is nearly as important to your chances of winning on Jeopardy as your buzzer skill and your base of knowledge.  A lot of good advice can be found in former champ Michael Dupee’s How to Get on Jeopardy!… and Win.
     At the end of Double Jeopardy on Tuesday, I had $19,200 and the leader had $21,000.  My wager was $1,999 and hers was $17,398.  Why such a tiny wager? You always assume that the leader will wager to cover second place’s maximum total.  In a close game like that, the best shot at second place getting the win is for the leader to miss Final Jeopardy.  With the right bet, 2nd place will end up ahead whether they were right or wrong. If the leader misses in my game (new total $3,602), I win with any answer (right = $21,199, wrong = $17,201).

     Why not bet it all?  Because that simply takes away some of my winning scenarios.  I still lose if we both get it right, and if we both miss, I now have $0 and LOSE – with the small bet, I win if we both miss. 

     You can see how this worked for a second-place player a few shows after mine (airdate June 14, 2012) – a small bet on a question that all 3 players miss leaves him with a winning total:

Kathy Wright: $20,000-$16,800=$3,200

David Menchaca: $18,400-$2,500=$15,900…now a 1-day champion with $15,900

Stu Weaver: $10,800-$10,799=$1 

     The very smart bet-calculating program over at J-Archive (www.j-archive.com) says my best wager would have been anywhere from $3,601 to $15,600.  So it was a bit of a small wager, but I knew my only real chance was if the leader missed Final Jeopardy. Unfortunately we both got it near-instantly and I knew my second place was coming as soon as I saw the clue. 

     But wait!!  Did the leader miscalculate?  Her total for a correct answer was $38,398 and my total by betting it all and being correct would have been $38,400!  I could have won by betting it all??  Yes – she should have bet $17,401 instead of $17,398 – although as you might guess from the above I never really even considered betting it all.  In retrospect, it would have been a winning move, just due to the leader’s $3 mistake – but it was never a smart move – you can’t bet hoping that your opponent trips up on math!

     Thank you so much, Aaron!