Andy back once again with the final recap of the week!
Alison Shapiro and Michele Myers Beuerlein are the two challengers today; Ashok Poozhikunnel is the returning champion! He won $21,600 yesterday, will he be able to win today?
J! round contestants:
NEWSPAPERS
AFRICAN CITIES
MEN’S HAIRSYLES
FILMS BY SUBTITLE
HISTORICAL QUOTES
“CAT” OR “DOG”
The Daily Double came out much too soon, on the 3rd clue of the game! (AFRICAN CITIES $600). Alison got to play it, with the scores as follows:
Alison $400
Ashok $200
Michele $0
Alison just bet $400. Her clue: The name of this largest Moroccan city combines 2 Spanish words. Her correct response put her at $800 and left $600 on the table.
I don’t get the choice of not betting the full $1,000 here. You’re allowed to, and guess what, you’ve got 57 more clues to get out of the red if you’re wrong.
That said, I wonder if Alison intended to bet $1,000 here and got confused by the meaning of “True Daily Double”, because she did seem thrown a bit (and took a later neg in AFRICAN CITIES) by the fact her score only went to $800.
I felt that there was a delay in selecting clues as well by both Ashok and Michele. I hope they speed up!
At the end of the first segment, we had scores of:
Ashok $4,000
Michele $2,200
Alison $800
To me, Alison looks a lot like actress Margo Harshman (formerly of Even Stevens). Next thought: Why do all of Ashok’s stories come from his birthdays?
Ashok picked up his buzzer mojo in the back half of the round! I saw some comments on Twitter impressed with his knowledge of history as well! Additionally, the clue selection came much quicker here.
At the end of 30 clues, we had scores of:
Ashok $8,800
Alison $4,800
Michelle $3,400
DJ! round categories:
LET ME PREFACE THAT
COMPLETE DOME-INATION
POTPOURRI
MUSICAL NUMBERS
I’M BURNIN’ FOR YOU
10-LETTER WORDS
Michelle started her hunt for Daily Doubles very quickly, but it was Alison who found it under COMPLETE DOME-INATION $800. Scores here:
Ashok $8,800
Alison $8,000
Michelle $1,400
Alison bet just $1,000. Her clue: This Wisconsin city claims to have built the USA’s only granite dome. I think she might have been thrown by the sports at $400 because she went in a sports direction and not a political architecture one, and her incorrect response put her at $7,000.
I was going to criticize Ashok for moving to $400 clues at this point, especially after he went to LET ME PREFACE THAT at that level. To my surprise, the Daily Double was there! Scores:
Ashok $14,400
Alison $9,800
Michele $3,800
His bet: just $3,000. His clue “The tribe…was a mighty people called the ‘Mahicanni’, or, more commonly, the ‘Mohicans'”. His correct response put him at $17,400.
This would have been a very interesting scenario to bet in. If I were in Ashok’s shoes, especially after getting some of the higher-valued clues here, I really would have been hard-pressed not to try putting the game away here and now with a very large bet! After all, I’m pretty sure I would do better on “a $400 clue” vs “a random unseen Final Jeopardy!”.
Plenty of Triple Stumpers in the race to the finish, but Ashok got a fair share of clues, especially late, to lock the game anyway!
Scores going into Final Jeopardy!:
Ashok $24,600
Alison $9,000
Michele $5,000
FJ! category: IMAGINARY CHARACTERS
FJ! clue: For a 1912 play they were dubbed Blick, Flick, Glick, Snick, Plick, Whick & Quee; 25 years later, they got new names
Michele 5000 + 5000 = 10000
Alison 9000 + 3999 = 12999
Ashok 24600 – 6599 = 18001
That’s the first piece of strategy in 2 games I’ve liked out of Ashok, to be honest! His 2-day total is $39,601 and he’ll be back Monday for Game #3! As will I, see you then!