Hello! I hope everyone enjoyed Week 2 of Second Chance. Here are a few hundred words worth of my thoughts on the going-on from the week:
On Differing Statistical Definitions Between J! Archive And The Show
I have used enough virtual column inches discussing the show’s choice to use the term “super-champion” to refer to those who won 10 games (in contrast with J! Archive’s 2003-era definition of “6 wins”.) Despite Ken opening that can of worms last week, I’m not interested in continuing that fight.
However, there were some discrepancies between J! Archive and the show this week regarding counting Triple Stumpers, which I assume resulted from reversals at the judges’ table. At the moment, I will be staying with the J! Archive Triple Stumper count—a judges’ reversal from correct to incorrect results in a Triple Stumper being counted in J! Archive, chiefly due to the technical inability to mark a non-Daily Double clue where no contestant was credited with a correct response as anything other than a Triple Stumper. I am choosing to match J! Archive because, for the first 8,500-odd shows in the show’s history, the only other Triple Stumper count belongs to J! Archive, and I am choosing to match them for consistency’s sake. (I can certainly see why someone would not record this as a Triple Stumper, but again, I think my hands are tied here for technical reasons and historical consistency.)
The other discrepancy, however, resulted from the judges going the other way the following day, retroactively crediting a player with a correct response after being ruled incorrect by the judges. In my opinion, being credited with a correct response retroactively should nullify any recorded Triple Stumper—and I don’t think this would be a particularly contentious debate, either.
It’ll be interesting to see if anything comes of this over the coming days and weeks.
My friends over at Geeks Who Drink have introduced a daily trivia game—Thrice! Existing to make daily clever trivia content accessible to a wide audience, it's a daily challenge that tries to get you to the answer via three separate clues. It has a shareable score functionality to challenge your friends and new questions every day will give you a new daily social ritual. You can find it at thricegame.com.
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The Cristiano Ronaldo Clue (And, Redemption?)
Thursday’s game saw a $1,000 clue with a photograph of Portuguese soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo, with some people shocked that it was placed at the level that it was. Those fans might have had a point—after all, Cristiano Ronaldo is the most-followed individual on Instagram—but what caught my ear was the fact that Deanna Bolio was asked to be more specific—presumably between Cristiano Ronaldo and multiple Ballon d’Or recipient Ronaldo. In the early 2010s, in my past career as a pub quiz host, I took heat from players for doing the exact same thing (asking players to differentiate between Ronaldo and Cristiano Ronaldo), and I couldn’t help but feel a little bit of redemption for my own decision on that.
My Thoughts On The First Ladies “Be More Specific” Hullabaloo
While we’re on the subject of “be more specific”, I think it’s time for a hot take in terms of what happened on Wednesday’s Double Jeopardy Round (in THE REAL (WHITE HOUSE) WIVES OF D.C.) For those who missed it, the $1200 clue was “She met the future president in 1938 when they both tried out for a local play in Whittier, California”. Alex Lamb rang in with “Who is Nixon?” and was asked to be more specific; the shock of this caused him to accidentally say Richard Nixon and be charged with an incorrect response.
While I come at this having played a large amount of Online Quiz League—where the last name only is required in nearly every single case—I don’t actually mind what Ken and the judges did. After all, if the category is going to be about U.S. First Ladies, should it not be incumbent upon the contestants to actually know their first names? Moreover, these women have their own identities—their own names is just the starting point—that are more than just their husbands’ last names.
Honestly, though, I think this will become a situation where, regardless of what the show chooses to do (prompting more often vs. prompting less often), a large chunk of the show’s audience is going to be angry; there have certainly been many commenters over the years who get angry when they don’t think the show prompts enough.
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The Celebrity Jeopardy! Schedule
Some minor news ripples were made this week when the first 18 celebrities were announced on the Celebrity Jeopardy mini-site, and half of the matchups were quickly taken down. There was some speculation that it was because those matches had yet to tape, and I just wanted to note that this was decidedly incorrect. Two sets of matches have already been taped—both August 21 and 23 were Celebrity Jeopardy tapings. (Some “reporters”—deliberately put in quotes because I am using the term incredibly loosely here—need to stop taking the word of random Reddit users as gospel.)
In Closing
Next week sees Week 3 of Second Chance and the return of Celebrity Jeopardy — I hope everyone has a good week!
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As to the prompting for specificity on the First Ladies: I think you make a viable argument, taking that instance in isolation. But expanding the view makes it less tenable.
After all, didn’t Ethel Rosenberg have her own identity… that is more than just her husband’s last name?
Tuesday, September 12, Double Jeopardy round, clue 4 (PLAY PEOPLE $2000). “Rosenberg” alone was accepted, without prompt for “Ethel,” after a pause from Ken, presumably to get guidance from the judges’ table. Ostensibly, this was due to the presence of the word “woman” in the clue. Does not “WIVES” in the title of the Wednesday category accomplish the same function as “woman” in that clue?
The real issue for me is the seemingly ad hoc basis of the deployment of BMS prompts. As I put it in the case book: “if there exists a clear and consistent principle that governs the deployment of a ‘more specific’ prompt, I can’t discern it.” (Emphasis in original.)
http://jeopardy.mattcarberry.com/casebook.html#specific
It seems to me that they should just change the rules completely and always require both a first and last name (with an exception for those who officially go by one name, unless the clue was specifically about their real name). It is apparent that most of the time [I’d guess 90%] the player does know the whole name and is just trying to avoid accidentally saying it wrong (or trying to speed up play by a fraction of a second). If one contestant knows the whole name and another doesn’t, then great — I’d prefer the second contestant be the one to get it.
I realize that this is contrary to a lot of quiz contests(?), but Jeopardy! should set itself apart! [And it is already different by being inconsistent, which is nothing to brag about.]
Additionally, Jeopardy’s primary function is not educational, but it somewhat is and I think it should take pride in that. Requiring full names would make it a bit more educational.
Hard disagree on this one. Requiring first and last names all of the time would make the judges look like a bunch of amateurs who have never run a professional contest in their lives.
Jeopardy should not try to reinvent the wheel here and “set themselves apart” from every other professionally-run competition on this continent.
I felt like if the contestants know that first and last name are now going to always be required, they will almost always give it (or not buzz in if they actually don’t know it). Judges going back and forth as to when first name is required and when it is not seems more unprofessional to me. [Even when it is logically decided one way or the other in appropriately different circumstances, it may not be so apparent to a portion of viewers and I imagined the producers would care more that the Jeopardy! audience is as wide as possible rather than as deep.]
BTW, is anyone else having the problem I am having with this site since it went to having a surrounding ad instead of just pop-ups? My problem is that there is a tiny bit of white space to the left of the grey space that the white-backed comments are placed in and if my “cursor placement to scroll” is aimed just a tiny bit off, I link to the surrounding ad (even when I did not actually click and even if I do click, but on the wide white space to the right). This may just be my problem because I have a low quality computer, not-so-great browser, slightly shaky fingers, and astigmatism, but if it is lots of people, then The Weeknd must be thrilled with the amount of traffic he has been getting lately!
[I at least probably have to click to scroll more often than most people because my laptop apparently accepts static electricity (or maybe a VERY slight touch) from my left palm as clicking control or ALT or something and will fly my cursor off to who-knows-where right in the middle of typing and I have to click in a margin to “get it back” in order to see where to glide it from/to in order to continue typing where I left off.]
Correction: I said “even when I did not actually click and even if I do click, but on the wide white space to the right” when I meant to say “even when I did not actually click and even if I do click, but not on the wide white space to the right”.
What has happened to the daily New York Times Final Jeopardy clue of the day? Hasn’t been active since July 28th.
I mean, it’s definitely been appearing in the physical and replica editions of the Times…
Would the other one be “Regular Ronaldo?”
Or “just plain Ronaldo”? Or “Mononymous Ronaldo”?