Welcome to Masters Breakdown #8 — we’re now through two rounds and have just one episode to go!
Victoria’s Final Jeopardy Bet In The Opener
Last night’s Final Jeopardy situation in the opening game—where Victoria was just above 50% of James’s score–was complicated by the match point situation at the time.
Going into the game, Yogesh was leading on 4 match points, Victoria had 3, James had 1, and Amy had 0—and the game scores were James 21,400 Victoria 10,800 Amy 1,200. With 3 match points available for first and 1 for second:
James’s minimum cover bet was $201. Had he done that, and was incorrect, he would fall to 21,199. In order to possibly catch James, then, Victoria would need to bet 10,400. However, that would have put her runaway over Amy at risk. Normally, with the difference between second and third being $1,000, this would be a necessary risk to take—because the reward is usually upwards of $20,000. However, the difference between second and third for Victoria would be potentially risking a spot in the finals if she falls to third—even though a win over James would have forced James to win the last game to guarantee advancement.
In my opinion, the reward of potentially winning the game for Victoria did not justify dropping to third—making her 0-point bet last night the best play.
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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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Who Is The #4-Ranked Current Jeopardy Player?
I would say that, right now, it is Amy Schneider. Not only has she finished 4th in Masters, she’s a Tournament of Champions winner, someone who finished 2nd to Victoria in JIT, and holds the 2nd-longest winning streak in Jeopardy! history. If you put all of that together, I would say that it is impossible for anyone to put together a better Jeopardy resume.
And yes, that does mean that we are going to see more Amy on our television screens in the future. Besides, if James happened to finish fourth instead of Amy, and James didn’t win next year’s JIT, are you seriously trying to tell me that he wouldn’t be Producer’s Pick?
A Change In The Prediction Model
Matt Carberry asked me last night if I would consider any changes to the prediction model based on the semifinals, which had given Amy a better chance of advancing over Yogesh—based largely on Amy’s past regular-play performance.
The answer to that question is: I had planned on introducing this change anyway post-Masters, but I have instead decided to expedite this change before the Finals.
While the current version of the prediction model does give higher weight to recent performances, one thing that the prediction model hadn’t taken into account was “strength of opposition”. For example, due to playing less regular play, Victoria and Yogesh have put their stats up against opposition that is significantly stronger than regular play. Thus, the prediction model now takes strength of opposition into account.
Having re-run the update prediction model from the end of Game 6 with the new data, it gave the following numbers:
James: To win, 32%; to make finals: 80%
Victoria: To win, 29%; to make finals, 77.4%
Yogesh: To win, 20.5%; to make finals, 73.2%
Amy: To win, 18.5%; to make finals, 69.4%
I would say that those are more realistic numbers.
Additionally, the prediction model now gives the following finals prediction:
James: 39.24% to win, 29.28% to finish second, 31.48% to finish third
Victoria: 34.91% to win, 32.54% to finish second, 32.54% to finish third
Yogesh: 25.85% to win, 38.18% to finish second, 35.97% to finish third.
(Editor’s Note: I should also mention that while I do still believe that it is a good idea to account for opponent strength in the prediction model, the prediction model generally assumes that a player is playing at 100% of their capability. It clearly had no way of knowing that Amy was decidedly not feeling 100% for the Masters semifinals, as she admitted on X.)
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Do You Have Praise Or Hate For The Format? Blame ABC.
There has been some discourse in some corners of the Internet regarding the format of Masters, and how there’s a 1-game final.
This is your reminder that a 1-game final was not Jeopardy!‘s vision for this event; Masters was supposed to be a straight round-robin with all combinations of the 6 players, and that it was ABC who requested a semifinal and a final with points resetting—presumably to increase the drama.
Thus, it is clear that any praise—or hate—for the format needs to go to ABC, not Jeopardy—and anyone using this format as a cudgel to attack Jeopardy is doing so because they likely have an axe to grind against the show itself.
In any case, I am personally looking forward to Wednesday’s final; I have a feeling it’s going to be great!
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Since it was ABC who “requested” that there be semi final, and, final rounds, then ABC should’ve changed the schedule to allow full round robin play during the quater final-prelinary round.
But, given the strentgh of James, Victoria, and, Yogesh’s play, I would guess that possibly only the name of the fourth semi-finalist might have changed if the schedule had allowed for full round robin play.
I hope Jeopardy! invites the semifinalists from this year’s JIT back next year. The producers have made it clear that they believe Amy is a top-six player in Jeopardy right now and you believe she is the fourth best. David Madden’s game against her argues for being the closest fought game of the entire JIT and he has the Jeopardy and trivia resume to back that performance up. I would love to see how he could fare with more prep time and think he would be my favorite to win the JIT next year if given fair warning.
If we have another JIT is there anyone not seen in the last tournament you’d like to see in this one? I’d love to see Emma Boettcher given another chance if she wasn’t already invited last time as to me she’s a wild card that could cause a big disruption in next years JIT
I am very much looking forward to the 2 game Final tomorrow night. It should be great!