Hello! Andy here blogging Thursday’s episode; unfortunately no pictures for me once again! The challengers today, though, are Noah Rachels and Skylar Rampersaud. Your 1-day returning champion is Mike McCormick!
J! round categories:
HOME SWEET MOTOR HOME
MOVIE MONEY
SHALL I COMPARE THEE?
THE NAME OF THE FLAG
AMERICAN WOMAN
STAY AWAY FROM MEAT
I was a big fan of Mike’s mannerisms today; it really seemed as if he was having fun today! At the end of the opening segment, Noah led with $2,000. Mike had $1,600 and Skylar $1,000 (having done reasonably well in STAY AWAY FROM MEAT – I wonder if she’s vegetarian?)
Skylar spoke about having met two sitting presidents. You’d think that being from Hawaii, one might have been Obama, but no! Clinton and George W. Bush are the two!
Mike made a reference to an “Andy” in his interview. Before you ask, no, that wasn’t me!
Shortly after the break, Mike found the Daily Double under THE NAME OF THE FLAG $600! Scores at this point:
Mike $2,600
Skylar $2,400
Noah $2,000
Mike bet just $1,600. His clue: This Caribbean nation flies La Estrella Solitaria, “The Solitary Star”. Mike went for a different Caribbean nation and thus falls to $1,000.
All 3 players had some good gets later in the round, but it was Noah who had the best performance late, getting some of the $1,000 clues to move to a lead at the end of the Jeopardy! round. Scores:
Noah $6,000
Skylar $2,800
Mike $2,600
DJ! round categories:
SULEIMAN THE MAGNIFICENT
AUTHORS ON AUTHORS
THEIR TV ROLES
JA, DAS IST MEIN POSSE
1930s SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
“TAR” & “FEATHERS”
There was some difficulty early on in a few spots; I’m surprised that THEIR TV ROLES $2000 (Hurley Reyes & Dr. Diego Soto) was a Triple Stumper! However, Mike was able to bring himself back into the game a little bit before he found himself facing down another Daily Double! This one was in AUTHORS ON AUTHORS $1600. Scores at this point:
Noah $7,600
Mike $7,400
Skylar $2,400
His bet: $2,500. His clue: Conan Doyle wrote, “Where was the detective story until” this author “breathed the breath of life into it? His guess was sadly incorrect once again, dropping him to $4,900.
Noah got his buzzer mojo back once again and proceeded to pad his lead. A costly neg (he gave the country name instead of the city) at the bottom of SULEIMAN THE MAGNIFICENT though for him, though (Hoping to rid himself of those troublesome Hapsburgs, in 1529 Suleiman laid siege to this city but couldn’t take it) gave Mike and Skylar a glimmer of hope. It was Skylar who went back to 1930s SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY and found the Daily Double sitting at the $2000 level there. Scores:
Noah $10,000
Mike $7,300
Skylar $4,400
Her bet was just $2,400. Her clue: In 1935 this American became the first to shoot a liquid-fuel rocket faster than the speed of sound. Her incorrect response meant we went 0 for 3 on today’s Daily Doubles — and her score fell to $2,000.
She did have the prescnece of mind, though, to start at the bottom of JA, DAS IST MEIN POSSE, though, so props to that piece of strategy! It was Noah who got the game’s final two clues (with some good depth of knowledge) to nearly cement a runaway, but not quite!
Scores going into Final:
Noah $13,600
Mike $7,300
Skylar $2,000
(Hmmm. Interesting.)
FJ! category: WORLD GEOGRAPHY
FJ! clue: Though it consists entirely of islands, this populous country borders 3 other nations
(I got this immediately.)
Skylar 2000 – 2000 = 0
Mike 7300 + 7300 = 14600
Noah 13600 + 1499 = 15099
I’m not entirely sure what prompted Noah to pick $1,499 out of the air — in fact, this was a situation that might have introduced some unnecessary risk!
Mike might have been tempted to bet exactly $5,300 here, considering that it both falls to exactly Skylar’s current score if Mike gets the question wrong, and beats Noah’s “normal shutout bet” by $1 if Noah gets the question wrong! I do like Mike’s bet here, though, especially if he thinks Noah might see this situation and only bet the $1,000 — just in case. If I’m Skylar, I’m probably betting just $1,998 — just in case. That extra $2 you leave behind might just be the difference in prize money between second and third!
Noah will be back tomorrow to wrap up the week, and Jeanie will be around to blog it! I’ll be back next week!
ETA: This is Jeanie, inserting a picture of one of today’s clue at the request of a reader:
