Roaster

I wouldn't be surprised to see Kerry in the finals. Andrew also played well. So far, going to the semis we have Winners Catherine Brennan Matt Kerry (2 women!) and the four highest scoring non-winners Andrew - 19,400 Vaughn - 16,599 John - 15,000 Dan - 14,000 After stumping me in FJ all week (and almost everybody was stumped yesterday) they gave us an easy one today. Easy to guess anyway.

Yes, I was thinking of the Reagan pic. Also, in a move sure to bother the PreviouslyTV crowd, Matt did "jazz hands" during the introductions and then Alex came on stage also doing jazz hands.

Matt won with over 20,000, but it wasn't a runaway. John finished second at 15,000, and Jennifer at 3800. Everyone missed FJ. Some of the clues were pretty easy for TOC.

In reruns this week they are showing last year's TOC and today I saw the quarterfinal that Julia Collins was in. She finished in second place with 9100. Yet that was enough money to get her into the semi-finals. I wonder if this year's contestants watched that and concluded they only need to get to 10,000 in the first week game to get into the semi-finals. That is not going to be true this year. So far (3 days) the non-winners have finished: Vaughn - 16,599 John - 15,000 Dan - 14,000 Kristen - 12,800 Greg - 11,500 Jennifer - 3800 Only 4 non-winners get to advance to the second round. So even Greg at 11,500 is out. And there are two games left. You take a risk when you play it safe and think you have enough money to coast to the next round. I didn't get FJ today either, although in hindsight it makes sense.

On FJ, my mind immediately went to the "Era of Good Feeling", which I remember from my high school history book. But I didn't know what president that era was associated with. I guessed van Buren.

One difficult thing about these tournaments is in the first week the contestants don't really go for the win much of the time. They are just trying to get enough money to qualify, and they don't even know how much money that will be. I was surprised how little Greg and Kristin wagered in Final Jeopardy. That turned out to be a good thing for them because they missed FJ, but I wonder if their totals will be enough to come back next week. And even if they had got FJ right it's not clear they would qualify. Also, glad Kristin lists her occupation as stay-at-home Mom.

The website 538 had an article earlier this year about why we'll never see another win streak like Ken Jennings. http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/ken-jenningss-jeopardy-streak-is-safe-for-the-rest-of-time/ There are several possible reasons given. One is that the pool of applicants for the show has expanded since they started using online qualifying tests. More good players means tougher competition. The number of women applying is up, too, and the article said "Almost half of returning champions this season have been women. In the year before Jennings’s streak, fewer than 1 in 3 winners were female."

The line-up for the quarterfinals this week is at https://www.jeopardy.com/tournaments/2015/tournament-of-champions (I know someone pasted this URL before). The way the producers have seeded it, each of the 5 biggest money winners from the past year gets to be in the leftmost position one day. I remember Matt Jackson, Alex Jacob, and Greg Seroka. I don't remember Dan Feitel (won 5 games) or Kerry Greene (won 6 games). But I don't watch every day.

Mike writes romance novels? Like Mike, I guessed "Northwest Passage" on that first DD. While watching this episode, I thought: the commenters at PreviouslyTV will not like Laura's speech patterns. Oh well, now we have to wait two weeks until we hear more of of Laura's vocal inflections.

I've never heard of The Monkey's Paw, but how do you miss Rikki-Tikki-Tavi? I knew the "The Celebrated Jumping Frog..." but I would have mispronounced the county and they would have ruled against me. Did anyone get the impression that Alex wanted Ryan to win? Ryan's make-or--break DD wager was the difference for him.

Defending champ Katie thought too much about her final wager. When you're in second place, just bet everything. She could have won. I immediately said Nepal for FJ although I guess Tibet was a decent response.

Matt Jackson has to be the favorite to win. But last year the favorites were Julia and Arthur and they came up short in the final games. You never know in a short tournament. I would like to see Matt and Alex Jacob in the same game just because they have contrasting styles of play.

It's interesting if you look at those match-ups, the producers have clearly set them in a seeding, as in an athletic tournament. If you look at the regular game money winnings for the last year, https://www.jeopardy.com/tournaments/tournament-tracker the top 5 players each get the leftmost position on a first week game. The next 5 money winners each get a middle position, and the bottom 4 and teacher tournament winner each get a rightmost position. I guess this is fair, and it increases the chances that the winningest regular season contestants have a better shot of making it to the semi-finals.

That URL gives me a "Page not found" If the TOC is half as good as last year's we are in for a treat. Jeopardy' Tournament of Champions is pretty much game show fan Nirvana.

Thursday: What was the deal with all those Triple Stumpers at the beginning of Double Jeopardy? Doesn't make the show look good. I like Nikki because she has shiny hair and what looks to be a good figure (as near as I can tell). And that's enough of a reason to like any game show contestant.

Surprised Dennis bet $2000 in the final Daily Double. If he had lost, he would have gone into Final Jeopardy in a tie with Robert. It's always best to be in first place going to FJ, even if only by a dollar. On FJ, I guessed Ivory Coast.

Matt - pulling a Jan Brady and telling the judges to deduct points from his score! Give this man the Good Sportsmanship Award. I was tired of all the runaways, but I found myself hoping Matt would at least get to Julia's run of 20 straight wins. Oh, well. He's still one of the greatest champions in the history of this show. On FJ I guessed the Astrodome. Who knew the Space Needle had a roof?

Arthur agrees with my observation that the early 30s seem to be the best age to compete on Jeopardy. "For most people it seems like 30 is the sweet spot, when your reflexes are still fast enough to be competitive but you’ve had enough time to accumulate knowledge, life experience and discipline to not totally fall apart on TV." I started a thread about this last year: http://forums.previously.tv/topic/18409-what-is-the-optimal-age-to-be-a-contestant-on-jeopardy/ Matt is only 23, so he might actually get better over the next few years (if they have him back for special tournaments and such).

Alex expressed disappointment that Matt didn't get to cumulative winnings of $400K today. At the rate he's going it will take one or two more days to pass Julia Collins and Dave Madden. The player on the right - Victor - was quite good with the buzzer and rang in fast. He just didn't have the knowledge that Matt has. And when Matt got the two daily doubles in a row - both of which I would have missed, so he impressed me - the game was a runaway.

From http://stuarte.co/2014/jeopardy-champions-list/and http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/ken-jenningss-jeopardy- streak-is-safe-for-the-rest-of-time/ and elsewhere Top Jeopardy Earnings (Total Winnings) in Regular Play Ken Jennings $ 2,520,700, 74 consecutive wins Dave Madden $ 430,400, 19 consecutive wins Julia Collins $ 428,100, 20 consecutive wins Arthur Chu $ 298,200, 11 consecutive wins Tom Nissley $ 235,405, 8 consecutive wins Roger Craig $ 230,200, 6 consecutive wins Larissa Kelly $ 223,597, 6 consecutive wins Jason Keller $ 213,900, 9 consecutive wins Joon Pahk $ 199,000, 7 consecutive wins Tom Walsh $ 184,900, 7 consecutive wins Ben Ingram $ 176,534, 8 consecutive wins From memory, I think we now have Matt Jackson $ 289,000 (about), 10 consecutive wins and counting The blog FiveThirtyEight has a chart showing percentage of "lock games" of those who have won at least 8 in a row. http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/ken-jenningss-jeopardy-streak-is-safe-for-the-rest-of-time/ Ken Jennings - 87% lock games, 74 consecutive wins Julia Collins - 57% lock games, 20 consecutive David Madden - 50% lock games, 19 consecutive Arthur Chu - 58% lock games, 11 consecutive Jason Keller - 30% lock games, 9 consecutive Dan Pawson - 30% lock games, 9 consecutive Tim Nissely- 11% lock games, 8 consecutive Ben Ingram - 22% lock games, 8 consecutive Tom Kavannaush - 33% lock games, 8 consecutive Drew Horwood - 11% lock games, 8 consecutive If memory serves, we are now at Matt Jackson - 90% lock games, 10 consecutive wins so far Is my memory right? What they are calling "lock" games are what are also called runaways and I think Matt has only been in one game that was not a runaway. Impressive, no matter how creepy Matt may be.

Today Matt finished Double Jeopardy with over $40K and the thought occurred to me: he should bet it all in FJ and go for the one-day winnings record (which I think is $75K). He was too conservative for that (I probably would have been, too) but it would have made for a wild ending. (Matt's total to date is $289K, so he's already among the greatest players. Julia Collins won $428K in twice as many games as Matt has played so far).

Movies fans know that Indiana Jones' real first name was Henry. In FJ Matt should have written: Who is Henry "Indiana" Jones - with Henry underlined. Just to make people hate him even more.

Three contestants who don't know much about sports.....

Tuesday: Once again we see a promising challenger able to keep up with Matt in the first round. Then Matt flips the switch or takes a smart pill or something during the commercial break and blows everyone away in Double Jeopardy. I don't dislike Matt, but a string of runaway games Every.Single.Day. is getting old. I will say that $40K in one day (today) is pretty impressive, though.

When they revealed today's FJ category, I thought of a conversation I had last week with friends about which woman should be put on the 10 dollar bill. My answer was the same as it was for FJ.