Andy here with the recap of the 6500th episode of Jeopardy!
Alistair Bell is still the returning champion; Matt Steinpreis and Carly Gramer are the two challengers! Alistair won $29,199 in his first two days, so he may need a couple of more wins to make the Tournament of Champions?
J! round categories:
ANTIQUES
ROAD SHOW
ABBREVIATIONS
EUROPEAN RULERS
COLORFUL MOVIES
STARTS WITH “M”
Alistair started out in ABBREVIATIONS but a $1,000 neg there dropped him into the red early on. He did get out of it, though, by the end of COLORFUL MOVIES with the $1000 clue (A documentary about the murder of a police officer: “The Thin ____ Line”
Matt was about to select a 16th clue but Alex stopped him after he’d already picked the clue! At the end of 15, your scores were:
Matt $3,000
Carly $2,400
Alastair $600
Carly claims relation to the Harrisons, but Alastair’s interview subject had him showing off his “Mr. Happy” socks!
I’m surprised the Daily Double wasn’t in EUROPEAN RULERS; instead, it was at the bottom of the (argh!) all-video ROAD SHOW category! Carly got to play it, and the scores at this point were:
Matt $4,600
Carly $3,200
Alistair $3,200
Carly bet just $1,200. (Sigh.) Her clue: It’s the street of light seen here. Her correct answer put her to $4,400.
A couple of negs in ANTIQUES kept the scores down, so at the end of 30, Carly did end up having the lead (it could have been much bigger, though!). Scores at the end of the J! Round:
Carly $4,800
Matt $4,000
Alistair $3,600
DJ! round categories:
CIVIL WAR LITERATURE
COUNTRY OF BIRTH
ADVENTURES IN JOURNALISM
TOON TIME
CHEMISTS
HETERONYMS
COUNTRY OF BIRTH played a little difficult; our contestants only went 2/5! Did you know the $1200 (Football coaching legend Knute Rockne), $1600 (Mural artist David Siqueiros), or $2000 (Nuclear physicist Edward Teller)? They did much better in CHEMISTS.
By the time we got around to 2 categories to play (CIVIL WAR LITERATURE and ADVENTURES IN JOURNALISM), we had yet to see a Daily Double. You know what that means! The first one was found in CIVIL WAR LITERATURE $1200. Scores at this point:
Matt $12,800
Alistair $10,000
Carly $6,000
Matt bet just $1,000. (Even considering how poor I am at literature, I would still have gone $2,700 here myself.) His clue: Geraldine Brooks’ “March” imagines the war exploits of Mr. March, the father of the 4 girls in this work. His correct response put him at $13,800.
Considering Matt seems to be taking the strategy of falling on the Daily Doubles, I would immediately go fishing over in ADVENTURES IN JOURNALISM. Of course he didn’t. Alistair decided to switch categories, but went to $400. I still think it would be better to dive in blind, but hey, to each their own. Most galling about the sequence: The fact that Carly went back to Civil War Literature! At this point, you are in third place. Your best chance of winning is to find the Daily Double, and you have just selected the only clue on the board that does not contain the Daily Double. Needless to say, Alistair got that clue, and Carly failed to regain control.
To add insult to injury, the Daily Double was the bottom clue of ADVENTURES IN JOURNALISM. The scores at this point were:
Alistair $15,200
Matt $13,800
Carly $6,800
Alistair immediately wagered $1,200. (Well played.) Alex chuckled. His clue: An assignment for Sports Illustrated to cover a motorcycle race in Nevada led Hunter S. Thompson to write this book His correct response put the scores going into Final Jeopardy! at:
Alistair $16,400
Matt $13,800
Carly $6,800
FJ! category: STATES’ HIGHEST POINTS
FJ! clue: This state’s highest peak is 13,976 feet high & only about 15 miles from the ocean
Carly 6800 + 1000 = 7800
Matt 13800 + 0 = 13800
Alistair 16400 + 11201 = 27601
In all honesty, after seeing the way the main game was played, I was absolutely shocked to see that the Final Jeopardy! wagers were as good as they were! But kudos to all 3 players for getting 3 very reasonable bets down!
Alistair is now a 3-day champion at $56,800, which means I get to update the Tournament of Champions standings!
Tournament of Champions update:
1. Monica Thieu $100,000 (College Champion)
2. Patrick Quinn $100,000 (Feb. 2012 Teacher’s Champion)
3. Colby Burnett $100,000 (Nov. 2012 Teacher’s Champion)
4. Jason Keller $213,900 (9 wins)
5. Keith Whitener $147,597 (7 wins)
6. Stephanie Jass $147,570 (7 wins)
7. Joel Pool $116,800 (6 wins)
8. Dave Leach $98,054 (6 wins)
9. David Menchaca $115,503 (5 wins)
10. Paul Nelson $54,900 (5 wins)
11. Jason Shore $85,200 (4 wins)
12. David Gard $84,700 (4 wins)
13. Dan McShane $62,001 (4 wins)
14. Patrick Morrison $80,701 (3 wins)
15. Francis Lansangan $78,401 (3 wins)
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16. Matt Samberg $61,402 (3 wins)
17. Andy Baggarly $60,402 (3 wins)
18. Alistair Bell $56,800 (3 wins)
19. Stephanie Fontaine $54,500 (3 wins)
20. Joey Falco $53,999 (3 wins)
21. Erin Zweiner $53,399 (3 wins)
22. Beau Henson $51,203 (3 wins)
23. Margaret Swanson $48,000 (3 wins)
24. Claudia Gray $45,202 (3 wins)
25. Dan Adkison $37,400 (3 wins)
26. Jacob Silverman $35,998 (3 wins)
27. Jessamine Price $26,803 (3 wins)
I’ve got the blog for Monday’s game as Alistair tries to win 1 more to put him higher up the standings! See you then!