Game Recap – Jeopardy! Greatest of All Time, Match 4 (Tuesday, January 14, 2020)

35 Comments on "Game Recap – Jeopardy! Greatest of All Time, Match 4 (Tuesday, January 14, 2020)"

1. James | January 14, 2020 at 10:19 pm |

   I think Brad wanted to win so bad but just knew after the first few matches that he was simply no match on the buzzer to Ken and James.

   NOTICE….

   Brad is standing in Ken’s slot when Ken goes to get his trophy.

2. Brad (not Rutter) | January 14, 2020 at 10:33 pm |

   My heart goes out to brad. Partway through the first game I started focusing on him. He buzzed in constantly, and simply could not win the buzzer battle, almost ever. Must have been a very frustrating and humbling experience for him. On the other hand, he’s now 250k richer, so that probably eases the pain a bit.

   • Noumon Munir | January 16, 2020 at 3:51 am |

     yeahhh unfortunately, when it’s an elite game like this….it will come down to mechanics of the game like the buzzer

     • Glenn | January 16, 2020 at 11:23 am |

       Brad had the good fortune of finding the most DDs, yet was incorrect on 6 of 10, I believe. Therefore, being slow on the buzzer was not the only reason that Brad was not more competitive. I wish to say here that Brad is a classy man, and showed great sportsmanship. Andy had a keen insight that Brad deserved kudos for not ringing in, in the ladder parts of match #4; so as to give James the opportunity to perhaps gain enough points and find the second DD–which he did. I have great respect for all three of these men.

3. Dubber | January 14, 2020 at 10:45 pm |

   James’s -44000 swing in game 2 FJ is surely the biggest wager ever by a player who got it wrong (and the fourth largest wager overall, capped by his +60013 in the one-day record game). Can anyone find stats on the previous high freefall?

   • Elizabeth Harris | January 14, 2020 at 11:07 pm |

     He had to do it – he had no choice.

     • Dubber | January 14, 2020 at 11:13 pm |

       Of course–the point isn’t “why would he risk so much in a non-wheelhouse category?”, but “chalk this down as one more record he holds now–the real question is by how big of a margin does he hold it?”

4. Will E. | January 14, 2020 at 11:19 pm |

   First, congrats to Ken!

   Also, I LOVE his $0 bet in FJ in the second round of today’s game! Given a Shakespeare category, the 4 scenarios (Ken and James get it right, Ken or James get it right, but not both, and neither Ken or James get it right), his 2-1 lead, and how he has been playing verses both Brad and James in the middle of the game, I think he can take the chance of a Ken right/James wrong and both wrong risk, especially with Ken’s history of FJ.

   If Ken views James’ history of betting from second, he’d see that James is likely to bet 0 as well, hoping Ken bets to cover and go for the win and misses. Ken’s bet, in my opinion, have him the best chance to win, despite putting the fate of the game in James’ hands.

   There are essentially 8 scenarios, and in this case, 6 go for Ken to win and 2 for James. So, while he gives up control to win, he knows he has slack and can lose the match, and James does not.

   • Will E. | January 14, 2020 at 11:44 pm |

     Obviously this scenario is so unlikely to ever happen again, given that this is the first type of this tournament, but I’d love for it to be called the Holtzhauer dilemma. To bet, or not to bet, hoping your opponent will bet to cover in a 2 game match, where (s)he has room to lose the match, but you do not.

   • MarkO | January 15, 2020 at 10:38 am |

     Ken couldn’t bet to cover. James had a big enough lead that he was the one betting to cover. So it didn’t matter what Ken wagered.

     • Will E. | January 15, 2020 at 10:54 am |

       Agh you’re right I used a wrong score for Ken (29 not 23 bad vision late at night). 29k would’ve made for the interesting dilemma. And in that case, if I’m Ken, I go for the tie — easy questions are cadence based, and tiebreaker qs are notoriously easy. And ibid.

5. Milton Kovinsky | January 14, 2020 at 11:19 pm |

   I love Jeopardy! and I was very impressed with Ken’s performance in this tournament. But this tournament did NOT determine the GOAT. Based on mathematics, the Jeopardy format is flawed when you have two players, James and Ken, who are this elite and play at such an incredibly high level. Given how many answers (I know, questions) they get right, it is a very high probability that whoever gets luckier with finding the Daily Doubles (and perhaps the timing of finding DDs) is most likely to win that game/match. In short, the winner of each game/match disproportionately comes down to the luck and randomness of finding the DDs. Based on their full body of work, James has a slight edge over Ken as the GOAT (higher Coryat and significantly better performance (i.e., % correct) on Final Jeopardy. A much better test to determine the GOAT would be to have a head to head match between James and Ken with no Daily Doubles.

   • James Allen | January 15, 2020 at 1:40 am |

     Then it wouldn’t be Jeopardy! The trophy is for GOAT at Jeopardy! Not best Coryat or Trivia Bowl. Jeopardy has never been a perfectly subjective test of best trivia knowledge so would everyone stop trying to make Jeopardy! something it is not or ever has been.

   • Ed Collins | January 15, 2020 at 1:41 am |

     No Daily Doubles? If there are no Daily Doubles then it’s not Jeopardy, now is it?

     • Jim G. | January 15, 2020 at 5:57 am |

       No it’s not.Why is this so hard for some people? I guess you could plop them both down in front of a camera with a bunch of written tests and a proctor and have them go at it. Still not Jeopardy!

       • James Allen | January 15, 2020 at 7:42 am |

         Throw in some essay questions for Ken and James (with blue books to write in) and it would be like my finals in college. That is most definitely not Jeopardy!

6. Steve | January 15, 2020 at 12:07 am |

   I can’t believe that nobody is talking about Ken’s failing to go “all in” on his DD where he left $3800 on the table. At the time, he even remarked, something to the effect that it might be time to consider a smaller wager (considering his huge lead). I sort of agreed with that strategy, but also had an uneasy feeling, thinking that if James got the other DD late, he would certainly double up, and could possibly shut Ken out, assuming they both would bet everything, AND get FJ correct. Well, close, but no cigar. Had Ken bet a true DD, he would have had enough to shut James out, and since he got FJ correct anyway, it is all a moot point, but he could have gone into FJ with a lock. Ironic in that it was the only DD that was not bet as a true DD and it almost cost him the game.
   Having said all of that, I still do not like the two game format in these tournaments; it changes the strategy too much. Maybe make tournaments a hybrid of this one; two games in one day for a set number of days. First player to win a specific number of games is the winner.

   • Dubber | January 15, 2020 at 12:28 am |

     If Ken had gone all-in there and all the other clue outcomes were unchanged, James still would have been in the driver’s seat for this particular final; his double-up would have been enough to stay about 3000 points clear of the best Ken could possibly do if he also doubled up.

     • Steve | January 15, 2020 at 12:52 am |

       I stand corrected; I credited him with the $3800 that he DIDN’T bet twice, and then of course had him betting THAT amount in FJ; totally blew that one- my bad.
       On the other hand, I was surprised at the relatively small amount that James bet in FJ in Game 1; not too sure of his level of confidence in the category maybe?

7. Brad (not Rutter) | January 15, 2020 at 12:16 am |

   You’re preaching to the choir with me, Milton. To me, this tournament proved that Ken and James clearly stand alone as the two greatest players ever. Kudos to Ken for a well deserved win. But over the course of the tournament James had 8 more correct answers and only one more incorrect answer. To me, they are basically even. We have all been wondering how james and ken would stack up, and we got our answer.

   • Jim G. | January 15, 2020 at 5:44 am |

     You bet we got our answer. The winner was the first to 3 wins…Ken got there in 4. He is clearly the greatest at Jeopardy!….kinda what they were there to determine.. Not who has the highest iq, or who knows the most stuff, or who got the best grades in school, or who has the nicer car…..but who is the greatest at a very specific thing…the game of Jeopardy! What am I missing?

8. Bob Chang | January 15, 2020 at 12:47 am |

   The biggest bomb to me was Alex saying this would be the last time these three great champions would play in a Jeopardy! game. Alex must know there will no more tournaments bringing back previous champions, at least after their initial TOC. And more than anyone, he knows his own destiny as host and quite possibly the next host, who could very well be one of these three, since they wouldn’t be playing in any future tournament.

   A great decisive match 4! Though James lost, his 53 correct answers, 1 incorrect and 48,200 Coryat in themselves were easily the best two-game numbers of the GOAT tournament , albeit losing because of the 2nd FJ, as was the combined 93,800 Coryat topping the 92,800 in match 1.

   • Marty Cunningham | January 15, 2020 at 11:53 am |

     I took Alex’s comment to mean that it would be the last time HE would be together with those three. But it is hard to say how much they may have talked about during any off-time. During regular play, Alex and the contestants do not interface except during what you see on camera, with the interviews after the first break, and the conversation at the end of the game, but once taping is done, the champ and Alex go change clothes, the other two contestants fill out some paperwork, and everybody resets for the next show. but, with only three contestants, all veterans, and basically hand-picked for this ‘experiment’ I wonder if they might have had some more time to chat a bit with Alex. They have known each other for 15 to 20 years, and so they are like old friends. Plus, I don’t think there would be as much ‘prep’ time, as with regular contestants, to go over the rules, what to watch for on stage, how to hold the buzzer, etc. so there would be a different atmosphere in the green room for this tournament.
     So I think Alex’s comment was his own bittersweet farewell, and thank you, to those three, for what they each brought to the game, and how they have each enriched the show through their style of play and their character.

9. Bill | January 15, 2020 at 1:32 am |

   Does anyone know if tonight’s match was filmed over two days? Multiple times during the last FJ, Alex referred to the Game 2 scores as the scores “today”—seeming to imply that the Game 1 scores were attained on a prior day. (Although that might just be Force of habit from all other two-game totals being accumulated over two “days”…)

   • Marty Cunningham | January 15, 2020 at 12:08 pm |

     It appeared that each hour-long match was taped in real-time, just like the daily syndicated half-hours, as no one seemed to change clothes between game 1 and game 2 and because Ken alluded to the challenge of playing 60 minutes of Jeopardy! instead of the standard 30 minutes they have all been used to. They are very aware of ‘date’ references as they are taping, since shows can be taped up to three months ahead of the air date, but certain shows will be set to air on or near holidays or events, like Thanksgiving, Christmas or movie or TV premier dates. I think the continuous 60 minutes of play was the new wrinkle added to give these three a new challenge of endurance. Once you are past regular play and start getting invited back for tournaments, you only have to expect to play 4 games at the most, usually 1 on the first day of taping, and up to 3 on the second day, so this is not too different from what a new champ might face starting out, so these guys could especially get used to another round of 4 30-minute shows, so extending them to 4 60-minute games (or more) might start to prove exhausting. Given that format, I don’t think they would have taped more than 3 matches in a day, so the taping was probably over about 2 days. I think these were taped in December, after regular taping stopped for the holidays, and probably with a select audience of friends and family of the 3 contestants to maintain some secrecy about the outcome.

10. James Allen | January 15, 2020 at 2:02 am |

    That was great entertainment! Ken was all out to win, and as Alex noted, his habit of intensely thinking about his DD response and sounding like it was a guess and getting it right over and over just made things more dramatic.

    I thought Ken had it salted away, but James was poised to pull himself out of a 30k hole. He has been so good at FJ! (what is he, like 95%?) that a Shakespeare question didn’t seem like too tough an obstacle. When he didn’t answer Iago I almost fell out of my chair. I thought for sure we were looking at a 5th match. Like I said, amazing entertainment.

    I know Alex will try to finish out the season, but I’m glad he was able to host such an event before he calls it quits. It’s a great note to go out on (even if it’s not his last game.) The accolades the three guys gave him during the matches (including the great one at the end there by Brad) were touching and well deserved. Great job all around.

11. center ice | January 15, 2020 at 3:13 am |

    Not sure whether James told Alex during Tuesday’s match if he wanted to or will work in the media in the future, but would anybody be surprised if he shows up on ESPN in some capacity on a gambling show? The nightly Daily Wager features personalities based in Las Vegas (James’ home) and ESPN has been ratcheting up its coverage of gambling since restrictions on it in this country were lifted by the Supreme Court. He’s also gained a fair amount of publicity on several of ESPN’s non-gambling shows, and the ESPN app is always adding new content.

    • James Allen | January 15, 2020 at 7:31 am |

      From what I have heard James has fielded numerous offers to do sports gambling shows and has turned them all down. So far, anyway. I would imagine that a successful sports bettor doesn’t bet every day and doesn’t always bet that day’s big game. I’m guessing James doesn’t feel like wasting time giving out picks that he wouldn’t really bet big himself and also have people lose cash on his say so. That said, he will probably end up on TV in some capacity. Maybe teaching money management (something sadly ignored by most sports bettors.)

      • Evan B. | January 15, 2020 at 8:08 am |

        ESPN was formerly owned by ABC (which broadcasts Jeopardy! in most markets) until they were both acquired by Disney. Accepting a job from ESPN would presumably have precluded him from appearing in the GOAT games and any future Jeopardy! tournaments. The fact that Alex referenced the contestants not appearing again and James hinting he might do something in the media during the interview may indicate that he intends to consider offers made in the future. Now that the shows have aired those offers and negotiations can take place without affecting the perception of the shows integrity.

        • James Allen | January 16, 2020 at 3:33 am |

          Despite the GOAT shows airing on ABC, Jeopardy! Is owned by Sony. As far as I can tell, after his shows aired, there was nothing stopping James from appearing on ESPN or FS1 or some online platform if he so chose. Jennings has appeared on “Best Trivia Show Ever” on GSN which is also owned by Sony, with no apparent conflict. (Working for Sony would disqualify you as a regular contestant, but this is obviously a special case.)

12. Bob Chang | January 15, 2020 at 8:40 am |

    My prediction, following up my previous post, is Alex will announce his retirement before the end of the season and Ken will be the new host. If he’s interested, I’’d say the job is his. He’s universally loved and now respected more than ever.

    Though Alex definitively declared that Ken, James and Brad had played their last Jeopardy! game, that doesn’t mean there won’t be any super tournaments going forward but anyone participating in one prior to GOAT likely won’t be invited, so Emma could be invited back or qualifiers like Jason Z, who hasn’t even been to a regular TOC yet.

    We shall see!

    • Mark | January 15, 2020 at 11:00 am |

      To my great surprise, Ken is not universally loved. He is on these pages, but not on some of the social media and newspaper sites reporting on the GOAT tournament. I was shocked at the amount of venom directed his way and the attacks on his personality.

      • Jim G. | January 15, 2020 at 11:29 am |

        I’m not surprised….when someone’s the best there ever was at anything the knives always come out..it never fails…Nicklaus, Woods, Brady, etc.
        Jealousy, pure and simple.

    • R. B. Smada | January 15, 2020 at 11:05 am |

      I seriously doubt we’ve seen the last of James. He’s got too much left in the tank plus he’s really popular. It will be a long time but I really think he’ll be back eventually.

      • James Allen | January 16, 2020 at 12:01 pm |

        They’ve created so many different tournament formats (Ultimate ToC, Million Dollar Masters, Battle of the Decades, and last years team tournament) that there is no doubt we’ll have some future event that will bring back James and a bunch of the usual suspects. These tournaments are popular, and Jeopardy! fans clearly enjoys seeing some of their favorite champions again.