Andy here for the semifinals of the Teacher’s Tournament! No pictures for me today, unfortunately!
Jeanie’s been having such difficulty this week with the Blogger app on her new phone, with it deleting posts on her without any input on her part! She’s asked me to let you know that she’ll be repairing yesterday’s post soon!
Your first gang of semifinalists: John Hines, Whitney Collins, and Michael Farabaugh!
J! round categories: AMERICAN MOVIE IDOL; 5 SHADES OF GR(E/A)Y; MY PHONE CAN DO THAT; ANAGRAMMED U.S. CITIES; THE MAYA; “TW”, EH?
It really felt as if the contestants were hopping all over the categories to open this game, but we surprisingly got more than halfway through the round before the first break! That said, the 16th clue (the last one before the break) was the Daily Double! (under THE MAYA $800). John saw it. Scores:
John $2,800
Michael $2,600
Whitney $1,400
John bet $1,200. His clue: Mayan ruins have revealed workplaces for crafting with this shiny rock formed by the rapid cooling of lava. His correct response brought his score at the opening break to $4,000.
One clue I was happy to see: (5 SHADES OF GREY $600): In 1909 the University of Toronto won the first Grey Cup in this sport — really glad this showed up Wednesday, as something similar was a key question in my sports trivia on Tuesday night!
All three players kept things pretty close through the back half of the opening round, leading to very competitive scores after 30! Your scores were:
Michael $5,600
John $5,400
Whitney $5,200
Judging by the comments I’m reading on Twitter from some of the other people I follow, the clues over this tournament have once again been slightly easier than regular play!
DJ! round categories: FUN WITH SCIENCE; TEACH ME A SONG; F. SCOTT FITZGERALD; THE MAP OF EUROPE; VERB-AL NAMES; BEFORE & AFTER
Those Before and After clues were certainly better than a lot of the ones that I had to face during that LearnedLeague MiniLeague a few weeks back! Whitney’s $2,000 rebound of Michael’s miss in this category gave her a brief lead!
Michael was able to rebound from that, and faced the round’s first Daily Double on the 13th clue of the round (FUN WITH SCIENCE $1600). Scores:
Michael $9,200
Whitney $9,200
John $6,200
Remember how I always say “Fortune favors the bold”? Michael was bold here, to the tune of $5,000.
His clue: If you’ve got a 1982 penny, it could be either mainly copper or mainly this material next to copper on the periodic table. His correct response gave him a $5,000 lead.
John and Whitney clawed back a little bit over the next few clues, but it was Whitney who got a chance to demonstrate some strategy on the final Daily Double (under F. SCOTT FITZGERALD $2,000). Scores:
Michael $15,000
Whitney $11,200
John $9,800
The $400 and $1600 clues were Triple Stumpers here and $800 and $1200 were gets for Whitney, leaving her with an interesting dilemma. On the one hand, you’re down $3,800. On the other, you’re at the bottom of a category that you’ve not demonstrated strength in. Whitney chose the clue value of $2,000 here. Do you think she should have bet more? Leave a comment!
Her clue: “Scott got this title from “Ode to a Nightingale”, where it precedes “and haply the queen-moon is on her throne”. Unfortunately, her incorrect response put her at $9,600
Michael and John pretty much split the last few clues between them.
Scores going into FJ!:
Michael $18,200
John $13,400
Whitney $10,400
FJ! category: US PRESIDENTS
FJ! clue: The only 2 presidents never to present a State of the Union address are William Henry Harrison & this man
Whitney 10400 – 10399 = 1
John 13400 – 13400 = 0
Michael 18200 – 8601 = 9599
Part of me hopes some smart-aleck student chooses to dissect their teacher’s wagering strategy in the classroom. You’d think a teacher going into this tournament would prepare for this by making the strategy a classroom exercise!
I’ll be back tomorrow with semifinal #2!