“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?”
Probably not. Not if the other Guthrie could also be a conceivable answer to the clue. That’s the unforgiving nature of FJ. They can only go by what you wrote. If the same clue appeared in DJ you could hedge your bets and say “Who is Guthrie.” And if that was judged to be insufficient Alex would say “Be more specific” But in FJ you get one and only one shot at it. Emma appeared to know that and added the A, guessing wrong.
Now post-James it looks like we might be moving back to a more “normal” sort of Jeopardy. A large majority of Jeopardy champions only win one or two games, maybe three like Emma. Back in my day they got about eight to ten 5-time champs per year. I haven’t kept track but I assume it’s something similar to that now. A player as dominant as James comes along only about once a decade.
“Now post-James it looks like we might be moving back to a more “normal” sort of Jeopardy.”
I try to see whether I can get at least one clue per day that no one on the show gets. When James was in his winning streak, this was pretty much hopeless (partly because he got everything, and partly because the rare questions that he missed were impossible for me also). Now I am finding that I once again am able to occasionally answer one that none of the contestants get.
Well, my personal take was that it was a super easy final jeopardy, and anyone who didn’t know Woody Guthrie didn’t deserve to win anyway.
Maybe that’s my age showing.
James would have gotten it – he was pretty good at music/singer questions.
I never had the impression that Emma had the same breadth of knowledge as James. She was able to beat him at his own game by holding the board enough to get the double jeopardy questions and run up her score — but overall wasn’t able to dominate games in the same way he had. She also seemed to use a strategy of running a particular category , starting with the high value score – rather than James’ strategy of moving across the board for highest scores in each category.
James would also have gotten the question about the time zones the day before (Spain) that Emma missed.
James did not run the Mary Poppins category and none of the contestants knew the clue about Dick and Bob Sherman. I did. (yeah, like I’d have had $29, 254 to go all in on a question!) I’ll always own that over James.
There are 8 contestants (plus James) who have won at least 5 games this year (four @ 5, one @6, three @ 7)
There are another 3 who have won 4 games and enough money to be in the running for the remaining places for the Tournament of Champions and the final spots are from the teachers and college tourney winners. (on the list this year, they have a second teacher listed but who has died; it’s unclear why he wasn’t in last year’s TOC) Emma, with only 3 wins and under $100k total, didn’t make the list.
I’m not such a nerd to keep track of these things - it’s on the Jeopardy! site.
“Well, my personal take was that it was a super easy final jeopardy, and anyone who didn’t know Woody Guthrie didn’t deserve to win anyway.”
I agree, but I would find it even more astonishing if there were someone who knew who Arlo Guthrie was but didn’t know Woody Guthrie. That would be like knowing who John Quincy Adams was but not John Adams. So I assumed she might have been torn between putting Woody Guthrie or Arlo Guthrie and in the end guessed the wrong one.
It was an easy FInal Jeopardy - agreed. And the incorrect initial produced an outright wrong answer. However, I can imagine another contestant to whom Woodie Guthrie is the only possible Guthrie in the context of the question and who would use only the surname because that is how he customarily answers; no ambiguity there for him. For that contestant the question would be a booby trap if his answer was rejected. It’s a close call, I admit.
In a fairly recent show a losing contestant from a previous game reappeared with the explanation being given that the prior loss was due to a judging error. I wondered whether there had been a threat of legal action, but concluded not. No doubt waivers about the finality of the judging are signed at the outset. I often feel there has been a judging error yet have never seen a contestant show an angry or even irritated reaction on screen. Everyone knows it is simply not the done thing. And in the end that’s baseball.
“I often feel there has been a judging error yet have never seen a contestant show an angry or even irritated reaction on screen. Everyone knows it is simply not the done thing. And in the end that’s baseball.”
Players do sometimes complain, or maybe “appeal” is a better word, if they think they have been wronged on a clue, but it’s done at the next commercial break. Nobody reacts much on the air. Which is sometimes why they come back from a break and announce a score change if the appeal is upheld. And if they were wronged on FJ the only remedy is to invite them back to play another time, because the game is question is over and can’t really be replayed with an adjusted score.
That sort of happened to me in the loss I suffered in the semi-finals of my TOC. There was a clue that was somewhat ambiguously worded such that the answer I gave would have been correct under one interpretation of the question. The money amount I was penalized would have reversed the outcome of the game. Afterward some of the other tournament players who agreed with my answer said I should appeal, but after the heat of the battle I couldn’t recall the exact wording of the clue. So I wasn’t completely certain that there wasn’t some aspect or subtly to the clue that I had missed that made my answer incorrect. In any case the game was over and the player who beat me was moving on to the finals. So the only thing they could have done had my appeal been upheld would be to invite me back to the next year’s tournament. It all just seemed like too much whining and hassle over something where I wasn’t entirely certain I was right.
Later when the shows aired and I again saw the wording of the clue, I still thought my answer could and maybe should have been called correct, but it still wasn’t a slam dunk in my favor either. It all came down to the interpretation of one word in the clue.
As for lawsuits, 5-time champ and TOC champion from the 90s, Leszek Pawlowicz, sued Jeopardy not over a clue, but because he didn’t get invited back to one one of the special tournaments. It was called the “Million Dollar Masters Tournament” and Leszek’s complaint was that there were champions with fewer wins and/or less money winnings than him who were invited back because they were women and/or minority players - sort of like suing about Affirmative Action preferences. Leszek was probably factually correct about why some of the players were picked. But there were no stated criteria about how the players were to be chosen, only that they were prior Jeopardy “masters.” It’s no secret that Jeopardy loves to broaden its players and champions (and hence its viewers) beyond middle-aged, white males like Leszek (or me) who tend to dominate the list of champions, but the judge threw out the suit saying that Leszek had no standing to sue. Jeopardy was a private company and it could invite anyone to play in its tournaments that it chose.
I thought that Leszek really diminished his own reputation in the Jeopardy world by bringing that lawsuit. It came off as very whiny and mean-spirited, He had been a very big winner and a popular champion in his day. But everyone dislikes a sore loser, and they dislike a sore winner even more.
A while ago there was the answer to the effect of “Oldest Catholic college in Massachusetts”. The contestant answered Boston College and it was ruled correct. But it wasn’t! College of the Holy Cross in Worcester is older. It was not an issue because the contestant got it “right”. If I had been on and answered Holy Cross and was ruled wrong I certainly would have appealed.
There are contestants invited back for another try a couple of times per year and an explanation is given that a question was ‘unfair’ to the contestant so they invited him back.
A weakness in the format as I see it is that final jeopardy, which should always be the climax of the game, is dull and devoid of interest whenever a contestant has double the money of the nearest competitor. There is not sufficient incentive for the leader to put the assured victory at risk, and in fact I have never seen it done, though it must have happened on occasion. Alex likes to pretend that it could happen in any event. But that’s a charade: a real incentive is needed to really put that possibility in play - perhaps awarding double the total in such a case. That would have tempted a guy like James, I believe. It would have added welcome tension and drama for viewers, not knowing for a certainty that the winner would stand pat. It would also give a faint hope to the other players and make their wagers more interesting.
I will say his thoughts about reading in the Children’s section of the library has helped me with a project I’m working on. found some good, simple info there.
Nobody has posted about the current champion, Jason. He’s won 15 times in a row now and over $400,000. He’s a high school math teacher. I hope he keeps going!
Anyone watching the final of the Tournament of Champions? Tonight is the first night. James, Francois (the physics teacher) and Emma (the librarian). Should be great!
It will be preempted here because of football. I already cheated to see the scores as I doubt I’ll be up at 1 am to watch.
Most of the questions in the T of C are hard for me, but I’m quite proud when I know the answer and none of them do (not even James). Posse comintatus! Living in the wild (lawless) west helps.
I’ve watched every show in this tournament. This is a great final group. I was amused to see a physics category, with a physics teacher as a contestant. Emma did quite well in that category.
found some good, simple info there.