Me too, especially after it was brought up by Alex that the woman that finally beat Ken Jennings lost in her first game after that!
From what I have read, Emma was the first contestant to beat a 10+ time champ to win more than one game. So the big-time champion slayers (until today) have all been all one and dones.
Seemed like she played a mix of the James strategy today. Spent some time working the board from bottom to top but also worked it top to bottom sometimes.
Emma seemed a little offended when Alex suggested that she was following James’s lead when going all in on the first DJ of tonight’s game.
^I noticed that, too!
^Me too. And does he always call women “young lady” like he did tonight? I found it condescending…I’ll have to pay attention to the way he refers to men.
I seem to recall that Alex does use ‘young lady’ quite a bit. I think Emma was offended more than once by him last night, including in the mid game interview when he asked if she was intimidated by James.
She didn’t look as strong in last night’s episode as she did beating James. Overall stats were lower with 7 clues that no one attempted and 3 total incorrect answers. James would have probably cleaned up last night.
Its an odd dynamic in that Alex saw James over time play in each of his games. We did too. When yesterday’s show was taped, Emma had seen James play one game (and she played in it too). She was told the number of games he won and the money but I think hearing that and watching it unfold are two very different things. His intimidation question made some sense from our perspectives (and his) but not hers. And I think her response makes sense from her perspective at that time. Ultimately I think the interview portion of the show has become odd/awkward. Rather than asking a question or two about the person Alex now has been given info about some embarrassing moment in their lives and more often than not it seems like a who cares.
I seem to recall Alex referring to men as young man and women as young lady. Its all relative in that I heard 80 year olds calling 50 year olds young man/lady. We are odd about age. Read something about just about anyone and there is a good chance their age will be referenced. Why? Sometimes it can be relevant. But most often its not.
I just saw an interview with James at his home in Las Vegas. Looking at the living room I would say that James was a very successful professional gambler long before Jeopardy.
The contestants provide 5 personal anecdotes and Alex picks which one he will ask them about. I’d have a hard time coming up with 5 engaging and witty things to say about myself. They’re also told to bring 2 additional changes of clothing in case they move on.
Probably. But also keep in mind that the median home price in Las Vegas is $275K. Even backing out wealthy enclaves like Wellesley and Weston, the Boston suburbs is probably twice that. And the taste level of some of the newer LV construction would certainly not be in line with the Boston Brahmin sensibilities. 
@skieurope This is the interview in James’ living room starting at 1:50:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1u6f_WDJxK4
Seems impressive to me but definitely not Boston style
“Ultimately I think the interview portion of the show has become odd/awkward. Rather than asking a question or two about the person Alex now has been given info about some embarrassing moment in their lives and more often than not it seems like a who cares.”
It’s always been awkward IMO. I call Alex’s little interview segments “The World’s Smallest Small Talk.” You do provide written anecdotes and fun facts about yourself, but you never know which way Alex is going to go with that stuff or whether he will ignore it and bring up something entirely new. One of the old time big champions from the early decades of Jeopardy was Chuck Forrest. He was usually introduced at the beginning of matches as some vague sort of government employee. The widely-accepted rumor in Jeopardy Land was that Chuck was/is a CIA agent. In one of the later tournaments where they brought the old champions back, Alex asked him during the interview segment whether it was true that he worked for the CIA. Chuck fumbled his way through some non-answer, and during the next break in taping he complained about the question to the producers. So they went back and re-taped Chuck’s interview segment with Alex asking a different question.
In last night’s match Emma had a dry spell in the middle of DJ. The others started catching. up. That was very likely a case of losing her timing with the button. She very likely knew most of the correct responses but had lost the knack of timing the button properly. That happened to me a couple of times too, and it’s enormously frustrating. You can feel the game quickly slipping away from you. Fortunately, she got back in the groove in time to preserve the win.
Anyone watch tonight?
I did! That was a great game, so unpredictable. Love the new champ.
So…Emma lost?
All three were very good players tonight, and personable. Yes, Emma lost. She went into FJ $200 behind, but she got the answer wrong anyway.
It is rare to see two superior challengers in a game.
I have a technical question: Emma’s answer on final Jeopardy (“A. Guthrie”) was of course incorrect because the initial was wrong. I asked myself why she would have added it at all if she was in doubt between the two Guthries. She knows enough about the game to know that a last name is normally sufficient. Would “Guthrie” have sufficed here? The elder Guthrie was so much more eminent than the younger one. And it hardly seems likely that a Final Jeopardy, in which a pregnant pause allowing additional info to be supplied is not possible, would be booby-trapped in that way. Therefore wasn’t it a clear mistake of strategy to add an initial? Not that it mattered to the outcome.
No. The response can’t be ambiguous. There was a contestant a few years ago who wrote “Emperor of Japan” for FJ and was the only one who was remotely close; Alex said they needed the name, which the contestant could not provide.
Even if Emma had the correct answer and bet everything she would still have lost as the new champ had $200 more than she had going into FJ and he bet it all.