Jeopardy! Megathread

[brucejoel99]

With 39 games & $1,319,800 now behind her, Amy is now the sole record-holder of the 2nd-longest winning streak in J! history.

[brucejoel99]

With 39 games & $1,319,800 now behind her, Amy is now the sole record-holder of the 2nd-longest winning streak in J! history.

Wouldn't it be something if she breaks Ken's record while he's hosting?

Can't wait to see him happily take it in stride & congratulate her, presuming, of course, that she indeed makes it that far.

[brucejoel99]

It's still very unlikely, though by no means impossible, that Amy will overtake Ken.  She needs 35 more wins.  If we somewhat arbitrarily assume she has a 90% chance of winning each individual game, then the probability of winning 35 in a row are only about 2%.  At a 95% chance per game, it would go up to 16%.

Now all that needs to happen is somebody with at least an equal knowledge base as her gets the call & gets lucky by finding both of the DDs in DJ to keep it from being a runaway so that it can then be decided in FJ. It's unlikely to happen in any given game, but as you note, the dice need to be rolled another 35 more times before she can be crowned "Ken 2.0."

Also, just to take note of tonight's game: wow! 40 games! Utter insanity, & I mean that in a good way. We now have our first post-Ken contestant to break the 40-game barrier! I don't remember Ken's original run all that well, as I was 4 at the time, but I can't believe I've been alive to witness, in such a short span, James' 32, only to think nobody would surpass his 32 for a good while, only to then see Matt do it 2 years later, so I start to think nobody would be able to surpass 38 for at least a bit of time, & yet now here we are, haha. But I'll be damned, I get to say "for (at least) 40 days and for 40 nights, I saw Amy Schneider on Jeopardy!"

[brucejoel99]

What started as a mere meme proposal on the Jeopardy! subreddit in early/mid-2019 parodying the UToC but for the contestants that James was beating, is now (mostly) a reality: as a result of formatting issues with the primetime College Championship, the 4th highest-winning winner in the semifinalists won't be making the finals, so EP Michael Davies decided to solve the apparent unfairness there - a semifinals winner not being in the finals!? Especially when J! itself already proved in 1990 that a 4-person stage is easily workable - by creating what he first thought about creating when Jessica Stephens beat Matt Amodio but still lost to Jonathan Fisher by $401, & later discovered was proposed on the Internet long before him: a second-chance tournament, composed of the best 'losing' contestants (best in some capacity, anyway: the exact criterion are TBD; I can't imagine it's just those who are otherwise the 16th-30th seeds, though, because Jessica wouldn't qualify for that even though Davies explicitly said that she'll be back), with the winner given a spot in the ToC. Man, freakin' Davo is quickly enshrining himself up there with Merv Griffin & Harry Friedman in J!'s EP Hall of Fame!!

Also, the President of Entertainment at Fox told Deadline that Call Me Kat is getting a S3, so Ken Jennings, c'mon down!!

[brucejoel99]

Also, the President of Entertainment at Fox told Deadline that Call Me Kat is getting a S3, so Ken Jennings, c'mon down!!

KEN JENNINGS, C'MON DOWN:

https://twitter.com/clairemcnear/status/1503765800154451974

[brucejoel99]

Jackie, now a 4-day champ whose winnings total $115,100, is legit, & I think she's playing in the manner necessary to potentially go on a long-ish winning streak: she's already proving to be a strong player operating upon a wide base of knowledge, she seems to have gotten the hang of the buzzer down, & according to the buzzer data, she knows not to ring in if she doesn't know the correct response.

[brucejoel99]

Welp, I guess we jinxed her

[brucejoel99]

Another day, another superchamp: Mattea Roach secured her 10th win yesterday, bringing her total winnings to $227,601. There've now been 13 players in J! history who've won 10+ games, & 4 of them did so this season. The TOC is so stacked.

[brucejoel99]

As of tonight's airing, Mattea is now an 18-day champion whose cash winnings total $438,183. In fact, before the Russian attack that targeted Kyiv amidst U.N. Secretary General Guterres' visit there earlier today, she was the top story on the CBC News website for a few hours because she's now far-&-away the winningest Canadian contestant in J! history. Nevertheless, & this is pure speculation but if I were a betting man, I'd be willing to wager that she loses in tomorrow's game & doesn't become a 19-day champ: for one, her statistics - while obviously amazing - still mostly (with the exception of clue accuracy, IIRC) aren't at the level of those who've gone on absurd streaks (i.e., James, Matt, Amy, &, of course, Ken). Plus, she appeared on GMA today, which is foretelling, as all superchamps since James have lost within a couple of days of making their GMA appearance, which makes sense: if she kept winning through most of next week, you'd air the GMA interview on Monday in order to increase J!'s ratings for the week, but by having it today, they're only bumping the show's ratings up for today & tomorrow, a Friday, with any ratings effect presumably lost over the weekend thereafter, so a Thursday interview only makes sense if it's to present her while she still has an already-notable-enough streak length to be Obviously Interesting while simultaneously encouraging people to tune-in for whatever's left of her run's remainder.

Oh, & in hosting news, Sara Haines, host of The Chase, when asked on her insta story today about Ken not returning for this season, responded, "He is very busy with Jeopardy! and you never want to clip someone's wings. What an opportunity, well deserved," which strikes me as her being somebody who knows & probably didn't realize that she was saying too much too soon, or that it hasn't already been announced, but, yeah... the writing's on the wall, y'all! We did it! Ken4Life!

[brucejoel99]

Welp, what do I know?

She didn't lose her 19th!

Go Mattea go!!

[brucejoel99]

Mattea Roach pulls it out in Final Jeopardy after being behind the whole game--23 day streak with close to $600,000 in total winnings.  Now in 5th place overall in wins and money earned.

And she also appears to have broken the aforementioned GMA curse that's afflicted all superchamps dating back to James today as well, given that the previous longest interval between GMA appearance & end-of-streak had been Matt's 1 week, which Mattea just beat tonight, so now, the unknown future rolls toward us. I face it, for the first time, with a sense of hope. Because if a media corporation, ABC, can learn the value of not spoiling the end of a streak, maybe we can too.

[brucejoel99]

Mattea Roach pulls it out in Final Jeopardy after being behind the whole game--23 day streak with close to $600,000 in total winnings.  Now in 5th place overall in wins and money earned.

Ken Jennings, among other winners, has said that for a long streak you sometimes have to be lucky as well as good.  This is the second time Mattea's won with an element of luck, specifically bad wagering by an opponent.  The first time was an asinine bet by an opponent in Final, and this one was Sarah's bet on the last Daily Double.  You've got to bet big in that situation, and she could have made the game a runaway.

(I don't count Sarah not knowing the Final to be luck. Knowledge is the key to the game, and Mattea had the critical piece there and Sarah didn't.)

Tbf, however, it still arguably comes down to a degree of luck when factoring in that Sarah could've bet enough on DJDD#2 (at least $8,401) that her not knowing FJ wouldn't make a difference, as it'd be a runaway. Indeed, given the game which we just watched, I'd be very shocked if Sarah isn't invited to the Second Chance tourney, as she strongly dominated the game 'til FJ & just missed the one question that ultimately mattered, which ought to factor into contestant selection given what they had to say about the sole confirmed participant thus far, Jessica Stephens, who beat Matt but lost to Jonathan.

[brucejoel99]

Mayhaps the "broken" 1-week GMA curse was just an unbroken at-least-8-day GMA curse all along

[brucejoel99]

If Sadie's handwriting of "Harriet Tubman" was insufficient, then J! should recognize Ken, & not Brad, as the UToC winner:



The judges' ruling that his apparent handwriting of "Crete" was sufficient enough to be accepted is what gave him the win.

[brucejoel99]

🚨 PERMA HOST ALERT 🚨

Per the show itself, Ken will host from Sept. through Dec. (incl. the ToC!), & Mayim from Jan. 'til she's needed for Call Me Kat, at which point Ken & her will alternate pursuant to her availability as was done for all of this year.

[brucejoel99]

🚨 PERMA HOST ALERT 🚨

Per the show itself, Ken will host from Sept. through Dec. (incl. the ToC!), & Mayim from Jan. 'til she's needed for Call Me Kat, at which point Ken & her will alternate pursuant to her availability as was done for all of this year.

Possible correction:

https://twitter.com/clairemcnear/status/1552371105498705920?s=21&t=DAtxxDyA5...
So maybe Ken hosts from Sept. through Dec., Mayim from Jan. through Kat, then Ken for the rest of the season thereafter?

[brucejoel99]

The 2022 Tournament of Champions will have a major format change: see https://www.jeopardy.com/contestant-zone/2022/tournament-champions.  This will be interesting!

I like it. No more wildcards, gotta win every game to get to the final.

RIP to the wholesome "you'll notice that leaves one more spot" quarterfinals ending that occasionally occurred, though.

[brucejoel99]

This guy had over 2-&-a-1/2 years to reflect on his soul after his Dick Cheney cosplay got panned but learned nothing, his "truth" is just narcissistically blaming everybody else, it'd be pathetic even if it didn't oh-so-conveniently just happen to totally contrast with literally every story about this that everybody else had already timely offered up 2-&-a-1/2 years ago:

https://twitter.com/mfc248/status/1770490828919636319