so the smart move is for Haley to wager 13201 so she will be guaranteed to win even if John doubles his score
but what actually happened was John wagered 1000 and Haley wagered 13000
what the heck was Haley thinking wagering only 13000? That makes no sense whatsoever. Why would you not just go ahead and wager 13201?
Maybe John wagered only 1000 because he didn’t feel confident in the category, but Haley made a large wager anyway. She only won because she got lucky John also wagered wrongly.
I don’t know what she was thinking wagering only 13000 in that situation
Unless you hate the category, 1st usually bets to win by a dollar. So yeah, initially agree.
The other bids are interesting. The easiest is 3rd. Unless you LOVE the category, don’t bet anything. Hope that Final is a tough one and nobody gets it.
2nd can assume that 1st is going to bet their brains out, so similar idea… just bet a little to get some bucks if you win.
But 1st might realize what 2nd is going to do, and bet a small wager and win two ways: nobody gets it, or they both get it and your small wager keeps you ahead.
Usually on Jeopardy straight-forward betting is the norm. But in the world of game theory it could be interesting.
To the OP, I saw this game today and wondered the same thing as you. She could have lost for the sake of $201.
Did you hear something John said the day before? Shows how far we’ve come in that he was able to, and not afraid, to make such a statement. John had a huge amount of money, I think 28000 and hit a Daily Double. He’d already double his score once by betting it all, when he had $10000. At this point, with $28000, Alex teased him saying “I know you want to” and telling him that if he did it he could be the highest single day scorer in Jeopardy! history. John visible considered it, but then bet a lower amount, only a few thousand, saying “My husband would kill me!”
Note that you can construct Jeopardy situations where based on standings and ones expectation of getting the Final Jeopardy question right there is no optimal strategy.
I.e., if Player A applies such a strategy then Player B can bet to increase their chances of winning and so Player A has to take that into account and make a different bet and so on. It’s an example of a nontransitive game.
Without knowing how a player rates their chances of getting Finaly Jeopardy right, it is often impossible to deduce what their best bet should have been.
OTOH, some people are really bad at Math. So that’s often a good default assumption.
It almost certainly is. I think I’m the most recent Doper to appear on Jeopardy!, and yeah, figuring out the best wager can be tricky, especially under the lights, with the audience all looking at you. They do give you scratch paper to do the math, but believe you me, I re-checked my calculations five or six times before I settled on a wager!
The contestant coordinators are with you on stage while you’re figuring out your wager, to give you encouragement. What they won’t do is give you advice on how much to bet, or help you with your math. No matter how nicely you ask.
