Jeopardy Feb. 1: A tie!

Cafe Society
1

For quite a few years now, I’ve been watching Jeopardy! daily. (DVR has made this considerably easier.) I was also invited to appear on the show a few years ago, but was unable to go due to a prior commitment. Yes, I’m still bitter.

I’d wondered what happens when there’s a tie on Jeopardy!, and in fact I’d looked it up: I thought there would be a tiebreaker round. It turns out, though, that the tiebreaker round only happens in tournament play, which today was not.

Today, Players A and B were tied at $13,200 going into the final round, and Player C had $5,600. The clue:

Answer:

What is the poppy family?

So Player C (who goes first because she was losing) gets it right, and turns out to have bet everything. She now has $11,200.

Player B gets it wrong (just barely) and turns out to have bet everything as well. He’s at zero.

Player A, the current champion, gets it wrong as well (she guessed “cotton”), and has bet $2,000; this takes her to $11,200 as well.

Ta-da! A tie! Since today was just a regular day of Jeopardy! and not a tournament day, they did what seems sensible, now that I think about it: They have two champions, who will both be back tomorrow.

Very interesting; in thousands of episodes, I’ve never seen a tie before.

2

I’ve seen at least one tie before, but in that case it was the two top winners, tied, going into Final Jeopardy and tying. That also resulted in them both being declared champions and coming back the next day. This was a much more unusual case. Mrs. RickJay was amazed; she’d never seen a tie before, either.

3

Ive seen an Ep where they indeed did have tie breaking question after Final. Regular Tie Breaking rules were in place, if you answer wrong, the other player wins.

4

Very cool bro. It makes sense I guess since they’d have trouble with editing and such to make it fit the show’s time slot…

And I’d like to note that I would have gotten it right. pats self on the back

5

AFAIK they only break the tie in tournaments, when they require a winner. I saw this happen once in the college tournament. In regular games the two tied players are just co-champions.

Now what I’d like to see is either a three-way tie, or a game where all 3 are negative going into Final Jeopardy.

6

I’ve seen a couple of ties throughout the years.

One night, all three contestants got the Final Jeopardy answer wrong. Two of them wagered all of their money; the third wagered all but a single dollar. Unfortunately, I was otherwise engaged the following day, so I didn’t get to see “And our returning champion, with a one day total of $1…”

7

That’s never occurred to me. What would they do? I suspect whichever person had the highest score (i.e., the one closest to being positive) would be the winner. Or maybe they’d send all three packing, and start the next day with three new players?

8

I’ve never seen 3 players < 0, but I have seen two playesrs < 0. The remaining player still played FJ.

Brian

9

Don’t they bump it up to a minimum amount? Like $1000?

10

As I understand it, you only keep the money you’ve actually made if you win, so wouldn’t it make sense for players to collude in order for them to both to win. For example, if the top two players have $14,000 and $13,500. Wouldn’t it make sense for them to tie rather than have one of them win (in many circumstances)?

11

If no-one has money after FJ, there will be three new contestents the next day.

Regarding the betting strategies…

Don’t you think it was… uh, decent for Player A to deliberately allow Player C to tie her?

999 times out of a thousand, the commanding player chooses to bet so that they get one dollar more and the other player gets nothing. Allowing the tie could be to your benefit - you are choosing one of your opponents for tomorrow’s game. You might decide that Player C doesn’t scare you as much as another unknown hot-shot waiting in the wings.

This is kind of a national personality test - I’ve suggested this before and was met with a blizzard of “you got to win” replies.

My 2 cents.

12

I’d tend to disagree; I’d rather face two new opponents than an experienced one who has gotten the hang of the signalling button and has a reduced level of stage fright. I wouldn’t go for a tie on purpose, though I admit it was a gutsy move for Player A not to bet her entire bankroll, depending on Player B to guess wrong.

I’ve seen a senior tournament game that ended in a triple tie, at zero. I think they turfed 'em all and opened up another wildcard spot.

13

I love you for posting this because our Jeopardy broadcast had a little snafu yesterday. They posted the question, played the music, and when the music was almost over, they cut to a new question and started playing new thinking music. I was like, “What the hell?”, then I saw the contestants. I won’t say who won, but suffice it to say that I know what happens on the Jepardy that will be airing this afternoon. Which actually is good because I normally miss Thursday’s Jeopardy since I’m at work.

14

That’s a consideration. But you might decide that Player C, with experience, still doesn’t scare you.

All players get practice rounds before the real thing. And it seems that they all do pretty well on their first game. Experience is a factor, but the real secret to success at Jeopardy is to know your stuff!

15

I read an article about Jeopardy in the paper a few years ago. Alex said that if none of the contestants had any money at the end of Double Jeopardy, that they wouldn’t have the Final Jeopardy round. (They would all be losers, and no one would return the next day). Instead of playing the Final Jeopardy round, they would all just chat for those couple of minutes.

16

While we’re asking Jeopardy questions…I’ve started watching the show again recently. When I watched it years ago, they would describe prizes that would go to the second and third place finishers; this went into the game theory for the Final Jeopardy wager, because the second place prize was always quite a bit better than third place.

I’ve noticed that they don’t do that anymore. What do the losers get these days?

17

Their cash winnings.

18

The second place player gets a set of steak knives, and the third place player gets fired.

19

Yes, but not the cash they finish the game with. Second place gets $2000, and third place gets $1,000. I don’t know if there’s a minimum prize for first place.

Alex explained once, a few years ago, that the second- and third-place finishers don’t get to keep their actual cash amounts because the show’s producers want to encourage people to go for the win instead of hedging their bets in Final Jeopardy.

(Good one, Weirddave; I laughed out loud at that.)

20

I’ve seen a tie before.

I’ve always been of the mindet: let them tie you if you’re the leader. You’ve already beat them once. Your most likely outcome is that you’ll do it again.