Good morning! Today is Tuesday, April 13, 2021 (Season 37, Game 142). Aaron Rodgers is on Day 7 of his 10-day hosting stint. $143,225 has been raised so far for the North Valley Community Foundation. Coming up, though, will be interesting: Anderson Cooper’s two weeks begin April 19; Cooper has, in fact, been long-considered to be the favorite to be Alex Trebek’s permanent replacement. On that note: here’s today’s Final Jeopardy (in the category Astronomy):
As Huygens observed in 1656, a weapon in this constellation contains a nebula, one of a few that can be seen with the naked eye
(correct response beneath the contestants)
Today’s contestants:
Erick Loh, a pastor from Northridge, California
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Norah Webster, a meeting planner from Chicago, Illinois
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Dennis Chase, a biotech project manager originally from Hyannis, Massachusetts (2-day total: $48,400)
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Andy’s Pregame Thoughts: Dennis’ winnings could be much higher than they currently are; he has dominated proceedings in his first two games, especially yesterday. If he can keep the momentum going—and the reports were that Aaron Rodgers did an excellent job of keeping the tape day moving—Dennis should have no difficulty making it three wins today.
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Correct response: What is Orion?
More information about Final Jeopardy: (The following write-up is original content and is copyright 2021 The Jeopardy! Fan. It may not be copied without linked attribution back to this page.)
Located south of Orion’s Belt, the Orion Nebula is one of the brightest nebulae in the night sky and has been documented for centuries. Located in the “sword” of Orion, it appears fuzzy and becomes much more noticeable with magnification. Christian Huygens’ Systema Saturnium showed the first printed representation of the nebula; the work is probably better known today, though, for correctly explaining the nature of Saturn’s rings.
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Looking to find out who won Jeopardy! today? Tonight’s results are below!
Scores going into Final:
Erick $18,200
Dennis $16,800
Norah $13,600
Tonight’s results:
Norah $13,600 – $13,200 = $400 (What is Orion Saggitarius?)
Dennis $16,800 – $10,401 = $6,399 (What is Saggitarius?)
Erick $18,200 + $2,800 = $21,000 (What is Orion?) (1-day total: $21,000)
Scores after the Jeopardy! Round:
Dennis $6,800
Erick $5,400
Norah $1,200
Opening break taken after: 15 clues
Daily Double locations:
1) WESTERN U.S. CITIES $600 (clue #8)
Dennis 2400 +1200 (Norah 0 Erick -200)
2) ANIMAL WORDS & PHRASES $1200 (clue #3)
Norah 2000 +2000 (Dennis 6800 Erick 5800)
3) WAILS $1200 (clue #28, $3600 left on board)
Norah 9600 +4000 (Dennis 13200 Erick 18200)
Overall Daily Double Efficiency for this game: 192
Unplayed clues:
J! Round: None!
DJ! Round: None!
Total Left On Board: $0
Number of clues left unrevealed this season: 171 (1.20 per episode average), 2 Daily Doubles
Game Stats:
Erick $18,200 Coryat, 22 correct, 2 incorrect, 42.11% in first on buzzer (24/57), 0/0 on rebound attempts (on 2 rebound opportunities)
Dennis $16,200 Coryat, 19 correct, 1 incorrect, 29.82% in first on buzzer (17/57), 2/2 on rebound attempts (on 3 rebound opportunities)
Norah $10,000 Coryat, 13 correct, 1 incorrect, 19.30% in first on buzzer (11/57), 1/1 on rebound attempts (on 3 rebound opportunities)
Combined Coryat Score: $44,400
Lach Trash: $5,200 (on 6 Triple Stumpers)
Coryat lost to incorrect responses (less double-correct responses): $4,400
Dennis Chase, career statistics:
79 correct, 8 incorrect
5/5 on rebound attempts (on 10 rebound opportunities)
43.53% in first on buzzer (74/170)
4/5 on Daily Doubles (Net Earned: $4,100)
1/3 in Final Jeopardy
Average Coryat: $21,333
Norah Webster, career statistics:
13 correct, 2 incorrect
1/1 on rebound attempts (on 3 rebound opportunities)
19.30% in first on buzzer (11/57)
2/2 on Daily Doubles (Net Earned: $6,000)
0/1 in Final Jeopardy
Average Coryat: $10,000
Erick Loh, career statistics:
23 correct, 2 incorrect
0/0 on rebound attempts (on 2 rebound opportunities)
42.11% in first on buzzer (24/57)
0/0 on Daily Doubles
1/1 in Final Jeopardy
Average Coryat: $18,200
Erick Loh, to win:
2 games: 54.381%
3: 29.572%
4: 16.082%
5: 8.745%
6: 4.756%
Avg. streak: 2.192 games.
Andy’s Thoughts:
- Thus far, $167,225 has been raised for the North Valley Community Foundation.
- Much to Aaron Rodgers’ chagrin, the only Triple Stumper in TITLE WAVES was a clue about the Green Bay Packers’ five NFL championships in the 1960s. That’s going viral tonight for sure.
- It is my experience that players routinely underbet Daily Doubles and overbet Final Jeopardy, especially considering that Daily Double clues tend to play easier, on average.
- Moveover, making a bet in Final Jeopardy! that doesn’t cover third place, let alone second, is certainly playing with fire. This behaviour can be observed by your future opponents and might affect their strategy in future games.
Contestant photo credit: jeopardy.com
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Not knowing too much about astronomy except for the signs of the zodiac, I suspect this will be a 50/50 tossup for most people between Sagittarius (Archer) and Orion (Hunter).
I went with Sagittarius because I right away thought of the bow.
Even though I got this right, I didn’t love it because Sagittarius would have been a perfectly reasonable guess. There have been a lot of these in the past few months where although the clue is pinned, it is pinned on something impossibly obscure (in this case, it’s that Orion’s nebula is the one Huygens talked about).
Is there still an in-house studio audience? It sounds like there are a lot people there, but I can’t imagine that would be the case. And since they never show the studio audience any more, it’s hard to tell.
The only “audience” right now is “other contestants on the show that week”.
So is all the laughter and applause that we hear canned? It definitely sounds like a few hundred people.
I guessed this FJ. If I’d been in the writers’ room I would have strongly argued for quotation marks around “weapon,” though, as this was not a literal use of the word (and as Andy correctly added around “sword” in his explanatory text).
FJ clues have been so unpolished lately it makes me wonder if we’re missing part of the story–whether it’s the lack of Alex’s feedback or the writers’ inability to collaborate in person.
Some other thoughts:
Definitely read “Norah Webster” as “Noah Webster”, makes me wonder if Norah’s parents made a deliberate connection there.
Dennis has had a lot of success on the buzzer with a bit of an unconventional pressing technique (holding it directly in front of himself, holding it in one hand and pressing it with the other). It wouldn’t surprise me if that’s been part of his success, but I don’t want to overstate my confidence level on this. I’m an amateur and the secrets of the buzzer have been studied in depth by others. This may be already established or way off base.
One thing I think we might underestimate in the Jeopardy “community” is the skill volatility game-to-game. Yeah, most players know most of the answers, but the marginal value of knowing 10% more answers is a lot, and the contestant selection process doesn’t select for things like buzzer skill, clue selection/wagering strategy, or even nerves on stage. Which is a long-winded way of saying that I’m wondering if the length of players’ runs is dictated a lot more by the strength of their opponents than we realize. Andy hung (I believe) “possible Tournament of Champions winner” on Nate Scheffey after he almost beat James Holzhauer a couple years ago, and I was a bit skeptical at the time, but in hindsight, I can believe it. Maybe this is just me coming around late to something everyone else already figured out, but it doesn’t seem like something there’s much chatter about.
In regard to buzzer technique, I believe the majority of contestants use a less optimal method. My son was a track star and I spent a great deal of time using a stop watch to time his races. I was told at one time that rather than holding it in one hand and pushing the button with your thumb, it is more efficient to use the fore finger. Subsequently this has been proven, as fore finger pressing yields a result closer to the electronic result than thumb pressing. By the way, I’m two for two so far this week on Final for first time in a long time.
I would think that if Erich wasn’t confident enough in the category to bet to cover that he would’ve bet little enough to stay ahead of Dennis if Dennis had wagered zero. But all’s well that ends well.
I hated this FJ question. I knew right away that the Crab Nebula was in the Sword in Orion, but it was not clear to me whether they were asking for the weapon or the constellation. I would have answered Orion’s Sword… which I guess would have been wrong.
The Crab Nebula (M1) is in Taurus. The Great Orion Nebula (M42) is in Orion.
I don’t understand what is “not clear” in the phrase … “a weapon in this constellation …”
I arrived at Orion right away, because they are constantly talking about it on Star Gazers, the PBS one-minute astronomy clip produced right here in South Florida (yea!).
Still haven’t made up my mind about Aaron Rodgers. He reminds me of a college professor who is very learned but a bit dry to listen to.
I thought “Crab Nebula” and went to Cancer, but realized pincers are hardly weapons, and unconfidently pivoted to Orion.
Why did it sound like JG introduced Aaron as “Aaron Rotten”?
I listened to it again, and I heard “Aaron Rodgers”. There is a lot of applause at that time, so maybe that affected how you heard it?
I knew Orion was the correct response. But Sagittarius was a decent guess, as he has a weapon too, and is toward the center of the galaxy which is rich with star clusters.
They always taught us when preparing for standardized testing to never change your first answer unless you were 100% the change was right. Norah would for certain be the new champ had she stuck with the first answer. Tough break, especially on a clue that was a bit “iffy.”
Can’t speak to the “viralness” of the Packers triple-stumper, but Aaron’s reaction was included in the intro to at least two SportsCenter broadcasts Tuesday night.
Maybe we’ll be seeing a “Famous Aarons” category before he’s finished his hosting stint?
Even better was his response a bit later, when they responded correctly on the Boston Celtics, and he responded, “Sure–that one you know…” (or something like that). 😀