Welcome to my latest Sunday Mailbag column! As always, email mailbag@thejeopardyfan.com and I may potentially answer your question in the column!
How Many Play-In Games?
An anonymous commenter on the website asks,
“Hi, will there be a Play-In Game 4 on February 2?”
No. There will be a Play-In Game 3, and that is it. Yes, that means that there are people from Season 39 who either declined to participate or were unable to for some reason. This is a precedented occurrence—even at a level higher than this—and it is inappropriate for you, or anyone else, to post weekly threads on Reddit or ask online constantly why these people are not playing. If the player or the show chooses to tell us, that is their choice, and if not, it is completely inappropriate to harass them for an answer. People’s personal lives and personal choices are their own business alone and not the business of nosy Jeopardy! fans.
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.
Are you going on the show and looking for information about how to bet in Final Jeopardy? Check out my Betting Strategy 101 page. If you want to learn how to bet in two-day finals, check out Betting Strategy 102. In case the show uses a tournament with wild cards in the future, there is also a strategy page for betting in tournament quarterfinals.
Are you looking for information on how to stream Jeopardy! in 2024? Find out information here on how to stream from most places in North America!
Do you appreciate the work I do here on The Jeopardy! Fan? Would you like to make a one-time contribution to the site? You may do so here!
You can find game-by-game stats here at The Jeopardy! Fan of all 17 players, now including Adriana Harmeyer, that have won 10 or more games on Jeopardy!
You can now listen to Alex Trebek-hosted Jeopardy! episodes from TuneIn Radio without leaving The Jeopardy! Fan — listen now!
More On MatPat
Another anonymous commenter from the website says,
MatPat is great and you sound like a whiney [sic] baby.
Let me ask you this: How would you feel if your research was wilfully misinterpreted to announce to millions that your favorite piece of media was somehow not on the level? I bet you’d feel pretty angry and upset over that behavior.
I’m sure 99% of MatPat’s videos are fine—because they deal with fictional entities. The problem is, Jeopardy! is not a fictional entity. MatPat made the mistake of venturing into an area whose protagonists are not fictional. Jeopardy! is populated by real people, and making the comments he does about real people is not acceptable, where they’d have been perfectly okay had he made them about fictional ones.
That’s why this community is mostly celebrating MatPat’s retirement this week—not because we’re a bunch of whiny babies.
We have many new offerings at The Jeopardy! Fan Online Store! Here are our current featured items, including our new Masters Season 3 Player List T-shirt:
How To Watch UK Jeopardy?
Joan asks,
Hi Andy, this is hopefully an easy question for you but what channel can I watch the new British Jeopardy on? It is only available on ITV? I live in [redacted], USA.
The new British Jeopardy is available live on ITV’s website at 11:00 AM Eastern, and on demand on ITVX (their streaming service, also available at their website). However, you must be connected to the Internet via a United Kingdom IP address in order to view that geo-blocked content.
If you’re in Canada, specialty channel BBC First is showing the episodes, one a week, on Wednesday at 9:00 PM Eastern. (This past Wednesday saw the January 1 episode air.)
A Frequently Asked Question, But I Haven’t Answered It In Mailbag
A viewer emailed to ask,
We have a question on the episode that aired Jan 8, 2024. It was a standard question worth $800. It was correct and went to break. When the show returned, Ken said the question was wrong but they did not take $800 away, they took $1600 away. Why?
Because Jeopardy! has a penalty for guessing. In order to go from a correct response (+$800) to an incorrect response (-$800), the show needs to take $1,600 away.
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I already lost quite a bit of respect for MP when he decided it was a good idea to imply the show was cheating with James.
MatPat is a whiny baby (see literally any video where he responds to any criticism he gets ever, like when people noted that the guy who created FNAF is an objectively terrible person and he keeps platforming him or when he created a 20 minute video calling people out for making fun of him because he gave the Pope a copy of Undertale…oh, and also the rampant transphobia), so one of his supporters calling you a whiny baby is objectively hilarious.
To me, the saddest part about MatPat’s two videos – other than the fact that he thought he even stood a chance at getting the host role – is that his fans still believe every single lie he spewed in those videos. AND they still think he should be host. AND they will literally not listen to any reasonable arguments from the other side. I had a disagreement with one of those people a while back on social media; I can’t say it was the most productive thing I’ve ever done with 30 minutes of my time.
It would literally take 30 seconds and one Google search to figure out that rigging game shows has been a federal crime for well over sixty years. The fact that most of them will not bother to take said 30 seconds and do said Google search just makes me sad.
Not to mention the premise of Jeopardy! was itself inspired by the quiz show scandals (they were still rather recent in ’63); they provide the answer, you provide the question.
I hope it would hurt MatPat’s feelings that I have NEVER HEARD OF HIM!
MatPat runs a YouTube channel focusing on “theories” regarding movies, TV shows, food, fashion, and video games; his YouTube career began in 2011.
I’m willing to bet you’d do a great job making him whine; MatPat Sucks’ comment about MatPat being a whiny baby when it comes to criticism, I think, is pretty apt.
Needless to say, nothing of value was lost when MatPat retired, as a former MatPat viewer myself.
Yeah, I only heard of MatPat when he contorted Andy’s stats. Along with many randos on Twitter, he and George Takei drove me to add the link to 47 USC §509 to my page of Jeopardy! stuff.
It is amazing to me that after all these years some people have apparently never noticed that when a player gets a response wrong they LOSE the amount that clue is worth rather than just not gaining that amount. How do they think people get into negative figures?
I am less surprised about some people failing to understand the “double deduction” situation as it is apparent that A LOT of U.S. citizens have no sense of logic, mathematical or otherwise.
However, I am wondering whether any of them ever ask you why players are granted double the amount when a response is first deemed incorrect and then later ruled correct? If not, perhaps they think that extra amount is an apology 😉.