I would agree with this statement. But I would also speculate that the number of people who know which sea Jakarta is on is a relatively small number.
Forgot which country I lived in 
Then why not make it the “college grads tournament?” The presumption is, these are college professors, they must be really smart. I’m just raising the possibility that a professor at Joe’s College might not have quite as much on the ball as one at MIT.
First off: I’ll grant that a chemistry professor at MIT has probably done more research and made more contributions than his counterpart at the local juco. So let’s say that makes him “smarter”.
But Jeopardy doesn’t reward “smart”, however it’s defined. It rewards encyclopedic knowledge of trivia, and the ability to read the clue and make inferences from the hints. That MIT chemistry professor probably is probably no more likely to run the British Royalty category than you or I.
Now I know what happens if a contestant ends in the negative in the two day tournament (if they end day 1 in the negative, I’d guess they don’t get to do day 2). Though if they added her scores from both days she would have been in the black. (I was thinking they might do that – theoretically someone could still win with a negative day 2 score if Jeopardy added the totals – not in this case but in general.
Brian
I guessed Daguerre, the daguerreotype guy, for FJ. It sounded right.
Heh I pre-guessed Seurat as soon as a saw the category, then once the clue was read knew that was correct.
I have a problem with something in the last game. The third player, the botanist, was 1800 in the red at the end of DJ, so was unable to play in FJ. But this was a 2-game affair, and she already had 3800 from the first show. The two games are supposed to have equal weight; she should have been allowed to play in the second FJ. Did this ruling have anything to do with the standing of the other two players, one of whom had already amassed 20,000 in Game 1?
Why? She doesn’t have anything to wager and therefore her two-day total cannot increase. The two games do have equal weight. She had $3800 from yesterday and $0 from today. Jeopardy has never let someone with a negative score play FJ, why would this be any different?
The day 1 total has no bearing on the rules of day 2’s game play. No money after DJ means no FJ in that game.
The early conclusion that she would finish the tournament in third place had to do with the fact that she earned the least money in day 1 and there was no way anyone else could drop below her. Had she earned 21,000 the first game, she could conceivably still have won the 2-game tournament despite not playing the second FJ,
There’s no reason they wouldn’t let her play the second game. The only question would be whether her first day’s “winnings” would be counted as zero or a negative number.
Indeed, what would she be allowed to wager?
Most college professors have a great depth of knowledge in their particular field, but many can be quite ignorant of stuff outside of it.
I will remind everyone that Holzhauer famously prepared for the show by reading as many children’s books on various subjects as he could. Superficial knowledge of a broad range of topics will serve you better on Jeopardy! than in-depth knowledge of one or two topics.
If you are completely ignorant of the name of a particular British monarch, then no amount of inference-making will help you, but being able to recognize those hints in the clue and make the necessary inference is certainly a major factor in what it means to be “smart.”
I’m a member of that group. The wife and I have gone dolphin-watching on the Java Sea, although we set out from neighboring Bali rather than Java. Quite spectacular, but you have to be out on the water at 6am. The dolphins come racing by every morning, leaping into the air.
I think the next “tournament” should be…Congressional representatives!
How about Lauren Boebert, MT Greene and Paul Gosar.
They won’t have to worry about FJ, because no one will have any money. MTG will be -20000 because she’ll buzz in on every clue and niot get a single one, Gosar will be -7500 because he actually will know that he doesn’t know some, so he refrains from buzzing in, and Boebert will have 0 because she can’t figure out how to work the signalling device.
A nice article about Amy Schneider.
Amy has quietly become fourth on the all time money winner list for regular season.
Amy won her most recent game despite missing 2 Daily Doubles and FJ. Not sure what that means, but there it is.
I think it means she’s awfully good. Strategically protected her runaway lead by wagering smallish during DJ; and she knows a LOT of stuff.
I wonder what cataclysm she envisioned DMZ went through.