Welcome to my (quasi?-)weekly mailbag column! As always, email mailbag@thejeopardyfan.com and I may potentially answer your question in the column! (And, next week, with the return of regular play impending, I’ll have the answer to a question that I’ve been sitting on for quite a long time!)
Going On Location?
Matt asks,
Jeopardy! has not taped elsewhere than the Alex Trebek Stage in nearly eight years. Indeed, it has only done so twice since The IBM Challenge — both to the familiar venue of DAR Constitution Hall in Washington, DC. My belief is that the show’s moratorium on taking production “on the road” is permanent. What do you think? Should the show consider traveling again? Could it even do so?
Anything is possible if the show wants to. However, I do agree with you in thinking that the show’s moratorium on taking production of the actual show “on the road” is permanent.
One thing about the show’s last trip to DAR Constitution Hall in 2016: the 2016 Teen Tournament was delayed from Season 32 to Season 33. I believe that this was a deliberate choice in order to split the costs of the trip into two seasons for accounting purposes and expensing. There are certainly costs involved with taking production away from Culver City, and I don’t think the bean counters at Sony are going to be willing to pay the expenses required.
That being said, it’s not like the show’s personalities are staying in Culver City, either. The show is taking Inside Jeopardy! on the road instead, and I presume that this is a much more expense-neutral proposition for the show than attempting to tape a series of 10 or 20 episodes at DAR Constitution Hall. And I suspect that these sorts of events are the “road shows” that we’ll be seeing going forward.
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.
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On Daily Double Hunting
Evan asks,
My apologies if this has been discussed in an earlier column—I’m a regular reader but not of every feature.
I haven’t made a study to determine if this is actually true or statistically significant, but anecdotally it feels like one of the effects of more players understanding that hunting DDs is an optimal strategy is more games where the game is decided roughly halfway through the DJ and the leading player could put their buzzer down with 10 or more clues remaining and guarantee a lock. I feel like this reduces the entertainment value of the game, especially this season because of all the tournaments making winning the game the only relevant stake.
So, two part question:
1) Do you think the show should do something to try keep the game in doubt longer?
2) If yes, what do you think they should try?
Some thoughts I had about the second question were changing the D distribution algorithm to make it more likely to appear on the lower value clues and reducing the spread of the clue values, e.g. in DJ the rows could be 800, 1000, 1200, 1400, 1600 which would maintain the total value of the board but make it less likely for early locks to occur. These ideas might reduce total scores as well because of the likelihood of smaller value clues being answered before the DDs are hit. I’m not sure how the show would feel about that – possibly save money on prize money but also might make the show less appealing to viewers and certain contestants.
Curious to hear your thoughts about my questions and suggestions.
Excellent question. I don’t think the show needs to change any of the dollar values—I do think that would be much too jarring for everyone and a change too far in terms of the tradition of the show.
However, there is one change that the show could make to negate Daily Double hunting as much as possible, and I think this would solve the concerns that you have. While I have mentioned this before, I do think it bears repeating.
That change: make all 30 clues on the board equally likely to contain a Daily Double. I would not put two Daily Doubles in the same category in Double Jeopardy, but I would give each of the five rows of the board a 20% chance of having a Daily Double. One major reason why everyone takes the bottom rows of the board first is because everyone knows those are the most likely spots to have the Daily Doubles. So, making every row equally likely to have a Daily Double likely would remove one of the major incentives for hunting. Contestants could take categories top to bottom again without it hurting their ability to find Daily Doubles. (And, it’s okay if the show takes an extra few seconds to explain categories if they’re worried about a contestant facing a top-row Daily Double in a “weird” category.)
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It seems to me that additional incentive for looking first in the higher value (presumably more difficult) clues (even if they become less likely to be a DD) is to earn as much money as possible before hitting a DD so one will have more to bet with. This “pot building” could become even more attractive if there is a good chance of a DD being in a lower value clue (thus presumably easier) once it is found. However, a risk with this playing strategy is that the more (presumably difficult) high-value clues one picks, the more likely one’s “turn” will be lost due to not knowing the correct response at all or it just not “coming to you” fast enough to choose to buzz in before someone else (who happens to know it and know that they know it) does, thus the someone else will be able to take their turn DD hunting.
My intuition says that choosing higher value clues would actually be an aid and not a hindrance to board control. Choosing low on the board would force an opponent to correctly respond to a harder clue to wrest control away, whereas choosing a low value clue basically makes it a buzzer crapshoot. To optimize board control, I think a player would gravitate toward higher value clues in categories that they are particularly strong in.
That said, if the vision here is that the writers come up with a normal board and the DDs are randomly placed (subject to the no two in the same category restriction), I think players would almost have to play in the top row first. The prospect of getting a DD with a 90+% success rate is just way too valuable, especially in DJ. If the top-row DDs look like other DDs that just happen to be placed higher on the board, playing from the bottom up may be the best strategy.
As far as Evan’s original question, this change would definitely lead to more DDs being found later, and hence more drama in the DJ round. That might also come at a price. In those late DDs, you’d see more players who are close to putting the game away and who know exactly what they need to bet to do so, so you’d likely also see more lock games going into FJ.
On the other hand, if the DD are completely random and we assume the incentive becomes to select clues the contestant believes they’re most likely to respond to correctly, then those DD which get found late are less likely to be responded to correctly.
Optimal strategy might vary from player to player a bit more. The top tier players probably still want to attack the high value clues on the assumption that they can run them and build a lead even if they doesn’t find the DD. A weaker player might be better served looking for a DD where they have a better chance of responding correctly. But self-evaluation is difficult so I don’t know how many players would be able to accurately assess their strengths and weaknesses to devise an optimal strategy.
“Wheel” has not done a “remote week” in about the same length as Jeopardy. My thought as to why, is thesame as yours, Andy. Expense. While maybe a few years ago, the Jeopardy set could possibly sit in one semi-trailer, I’d be very surprised if that would be the case today, not to forget the cost of hotels and transportation for Ken, the production staff, and, the contestants. (Might reduced with an promotional announcement, but still.)