I caught just the very end of Jeopardy tonight and it seemed like the returning champion made a completely nonsensical bet.
She had $10800 going into final jeopardy and one of the other contestants had $21600. He of course was guaranteed to at least tie and return tomorrow if he bet $0. For some reason, she bet less than $10800! Why??? Clearly he wouldn’t bet anything so in order to return, she would have to bet it all and hope to get it right.
Do contestants get to keep their money if they don’t win? I assume not, so I don’t get why she bet the way she did.
The defending champ appeared spacey during this episode. She gave at least two different ‘questions’ at least twice during the episode. It was an odd wager, and it appeared that she realized she screwed up as soon Alex revealed her total after she got the question right.
FTR, I answered the FJ correctly, but it was a guess.
I was trembling with anticipation because I thought this might be a debacle for the “I gotta win by a dollar” crowd. But the leader at $21, 600 did the right thing and bet zero. And then, amazingly, number 2 had a brain cramp.
Yeah, I pointed it out to the boyfriend that the guy was guaranteed at least a tie, if not the win as long as he bet nothing. We were both shocked that the defending champ didn’t go all out and bet everything for a possible tie. She did seem to be a little off all night.
Dumb bets are surprisingly common, given how smart the contestants usually are. It’s continually amazing to me how, late in the game, a person getting a Daily Double will often make a bet that doesn’t benefit them in any way.
One other really puzzling bet I saw recently was near the end of double jeopardy where the second place person found the second daily double of the round and didn’t bet enough to take the lead if they got it right. There was essentially no time left after the daily double so what was the point of not betting enough to take the lead? For example, if the leader had $14,000 and you have $12,000, why not bet $3,000? If you get it right you can guarantee you’ll win the game if you get final jeopardy right. If you get it wrong you are no worse off being down $5,000 in this situation than being down $1.
Not in my experience. They come out to futz with your makeup, but the math is all you. Which is a bother if you aren’t great with mental arithmetic. One of my buddies gave me grief for losing a little more than I should have in FJ. I was sweating bullets and worrying about getting the damn question right…
She also surprised me with her extremely conservative Daily Double wagers.
Another oddity about her was her habit of saying the complete name of categories and giving giving full names as questions where just the surname would do. This slowed the pace of the game, but I think it was driven by lifelong bureaucrat/prescriptivist English teacher tendencies. The complete names thing isn’t very good tactics. The surname is almost always sufficient. Alex will prompt for disambiguation if it’s needed, but if you get the rest of the name wrong, you lose.
You are worse off being down $5,000 in that situation. The leader would only have to bet $4,000 to guarantee a victory with a correct answer, so the only way to win is for them to be wrong and you to be right. If you were closer, then the leader would need to bet more, and you can win if they give a wrong answer, regardless of your own.
I will remember forever that Sophia is the capital city of Bulgaria. Because it was one of the questions on the Jeopardy audition test that I took that I didn’t know the answer to.
Ouch. I mean, it sounds like a beatiful city. I know nothing about it, but a city named “Sophia” seems to me to be the most beautiful and elaborately architectured city in the history of civilization.
And after a brief stop on Wiki, it appears I’m on track.
I’m convinced that Jeopardy! contestants as a group are completely clueless when it comes to Daily Doubles. If I’m reading this correctly (and there’s a chance I’m not), then about 2/3 of Daily Doubles are answered correctly. In the Jeopardy round, assuming it’s not a category you feel particularly weak in, it’s very hard for it to be correct to do anything other than bet the maximum; you’re just giving up too much equity. *Maybe *if you’re a Jeopardy! superstar like Ken Jennings and/or you have a commanding lead, it could be correct to limit your variance as you figure to have a big edge the rest of the way. Otherwise it’s just too good of an opportunity to pass up.
In Double Jeopardy contestants are still too cautious, though obviously the optimal bet size is much more context-dependent.