Cori played on the 4th and the 7th. Thanks for doing this, Cori!
Q: You said your mom is a Jeopardy fanatic. Has she tried out for the show?
A: Yes, my mom has tried out, but hasn’t made it past the online test. She says she was happier to have me get on instead, since she fears the buzzer with her reflexes.
Q: How did you come up with the correct response to Friday’s final?
A: Indonesia came to me right away, and I wrote it down, but then started second-guessing through the rest of the time. I thought, “Is this some kind of trick question, and China doesn’t actually have nuclear weapons? What about Brazil?”. But, I’m glad I stuck with my first answer.
Q: Can you please explain your Final Jeopardy wager on Monday’s episode? (People at jboard have pointed out that you had more than twice Mary’s total going into that round.)
A: On Monday, I did have more than twice Mary’s, but I was still trailing Marc, so I wanted to wager as much as possible. Looking back now, I realized I should have paid more attention to Mary’s score, but I was worried about trying to outbid Marc with a correct response. Ugh.
I wrote down, “Nerf”, but then spent the rest of the time looking at it and thinking, “Nerf isn’t a thing, it’s a brand”. So, at the last second I wrote “gun”. Of course, I’m kicking myself on that, and I do think (but don’t know for sure) that they probably would have taken just Nerf. I would never have thought of a Nerf ball being a toy on its own – growing up, I can only remember Nerf guns shooting little balls or foam darts, not an actual ball you would throw.
Q: Is there anything else you’d like to say?
A: I was pretty hard on myself after the loss – thinking of what the payoff from a correct response (or just bidding $0) could have done for my family, but I know that I could “what-if” myself forever and still never know how it would have turned out.