I can never understand why the leading contestant in Final Jeopardy always bets so that they can beat the second place contestant by $1.00. It seems like a better strategy would be to bet for a tie, allowing both you (the leader) and the second place contestant to both win, both get money, and both come back the next day. That way you are playing a contestant on the next show that you already know you can beat…and at the same time, should the roles be reversed tomorrow, the other contestant might just do the favor back to you.
One factor there is that practice helps. Even though you were able to beat that guy before, if he comes back, he’ll be better. It’s probably safer, overall, to go for a newbie. This is part of why Ken Jennings lasted so long: Once he’d been on for a couple weeks, he was so much more practiced than anyone else that it made him almost unbeatable.
I believe the defending champ wins about 50% of the time (or greater), certainly more than the expected probability of 33.3% of the time. So it would behoove a player to win outright, rather than tying.
I guess. Seems kind of cold to take $5000.00 out of the pocket of the guy/gal next door. Maybe one needs to have a killer instinct to win at Jeopardy.
I wonder if anyone has ever tried the benevolent strategy?
Back when you maxed out at 5 days, it was more common.
This guy did it to create the first three-way tie in history. He lost on the next show.
It seems to me that if the situation of the other contestant returning the favor on the next show by engineering a second consecutive tie was to arise, then an awful lot of suspicion would be generated due to the possibility of collusion between the tied contestants - there’s no way that can be good for the show’s reputation, so maybe the show’s executives discourage contestants from playing like this.