Welcome back to another edition of Andy’s Weekly Thoughts!
Who Do You Care More To Impress?
I couldn’t help but notice this week that Lisa Sriken made a strategic choice in Final Jeopardy in her quarterfinal that broke the hearts of many in her cheering section, making a larger wager in Final when a smaller wager would have won her the game. I also couldn’t help but notice that her interview was where she was talking about her wardrobe purchases, as if she was more worried about impressing Lilly.
While Lilly is an important person to want to impress, I would also posit that impressing Lilly should not be your first order of business when it comes to Jeopardy! preparation in 2024. Learn your betting strategy; as was shown on multiple occasions this week, shrewd betting in Final Jeopardy directly led to both Deb Bilodeau and Jesse Matheny advancing to the semifinals—and who knows what’s in store for them, being that they’re still competing.
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!
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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!
Remember the category, even at home!
Many fans were angry during yesterday’s game, believing that Emma Hill Kepron had somehow been hard done by, because of the judges overturning her response (in French) of “circonflexe” on a clue where the anticipated response was “circumflex”. Unfortunately, the French term ends with an E, and that is verboten in a category that clearly stated “Ends In X”.
Viewers at home are again reminded that correct responses also need to fit the demands of the category—remembering that could lead to significantly less unnecessary online anger.
Something I Realized This Week
Nobody has mentioned at all during Juveria Zaheer’s games in Season 40 that it was her game back in Season 39 that saw the foofaraw over the pronunciation of “Solzhenitsyn”. Considering how much we’ve seen about Juveria thus far in Season 40, I’m surprised that hasn’t really been mentioned.
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:
I’m Reporting This Here As Confirmation, But We All Knew This Was Happening Anyway
Even though it was announced last May at the end of Season 1, Season 2 of Jeopardy! Masters has been confirmed to air this spring in ABC prime time; ABC confirmed this today at its Television Critics Association panel. I would expect this show to take up the 8pm–9pm block for The Mouse in May.
The full field for Masters will include James Holzhauer, Mattea Roach, Matt Amodio, and three other players to be determined.
In Closing
We’re getting extremely close to the next Tournament of Champions; I hope everyone enjoys next week’s games!
I imagine there will continue to be people objecting to one “incorrect” ruling or another due to forgetting the category because NOT remembering the category is fairly common even among real contestants, not unheard of among tournament players, and even occasionally happens in Final Jeopardy! I’d say it is an element of the “jeopardy” [definition: danger of loss or failure] that gives the game its name (along with “form the response as a question” and betting strategy).
The real transgression is not the assumption of an error by the judges but rather having not investigated the circumstances themselves before getting upset about it, but especially before venting online about it!
When this “forgot the category” situation occurs by a contestant in Final Jeopardy, it is usually because they got bogged down in figuring out what facts could be represented by various elements of the clue so by the time they thought they’d achieved their “Aha moment”, they had forgotten the category (or about the importance of it) and/or run out of time to refer back to it. I believe this is similar for viewers for regular clues — not as complex clues as FJs usually are, but not having the category in front of their eyes while trying to come up with their own response or just while listening to the contestant’s response (and Ken’s) nor later when they are still fretting about it. I suspect for your category/clue/response example, while watching the show these [unjustifiably] irate viewers thought the response Emma was giving DID end with an ‘X’ as they themselves did not know how to spell that French word, then BY THE TIME they looked it up later to find the actual spelling (in order to complain), BY THEN they’d forgotten the category rather than it just being a potential spelling or pronunciation error. SO, still wrong, but just another example of thinking so long about other aspects that one forgets about the category.
Some complainers may be too smug to research before venting and some may be aware of places to vent but unaware of places to double-check (like J! Archive or somewhere that the Jeopardy! rules are available online to the public, which I am not sure about myself), but some may just be in too big a hurry to be FIRST to bring something up where others may see it and reply! [Sort of the modern equivalent of “bad publicity is better than no publicity” and “better to be first than right”, which even some official(?) “News” organizations seem to have as their mantra.]
So, my main point is not to disagree at all with what you wrote about this circumstance, just to say that (though hopefully it will help SOME) I do not think any amount of admonition is going to keep it from ever happening again.
The Jeopardy! rulebook is not published, but Matt Carberry has written a treatise about Jeopardy! rules and precedent on his webpage.
There shouldn’t be any anger online about the change of ruling. Ken explained why – as he should be required to do – and certain people just didn’t listen.
You have to remember that, to some insufferable people, whining is a favorite pastime. They will find any excuse they can to do it, however illogical.
I like james Holzhauer as a Jeopardy player, his knowledge has been constantly demostraded as broad, and, seems to love taking huge risks. And, from what I’ve read, I feel I’d like him as a persom, as well. I just hope he leaves that “game show villian” personna on the Chase, where it’s literally his job to defeat contestants,and, try to iritate them as well. Don’t feel we need ot on Jeopardy.