Monday, April 21, 2014
The quarterfinals!
More details forthcoming, but my game in the quarterfinals of the Battle of the Decades will appear on Tuesday, May 6. The tournament resumes on Monday the 5th!
Friday, April 4, 2014
Battle of the Decades: 2000s, Friday
Thursday's game was just Ken Jennings being Ken Jennings: he clearly dominated the buzzer, hit a couple of big Daily Doubles, and ended up with an insurmountable lead going into the final. Michael had a chance to get back in the game with a true Daily Double, but a tough chemistry clue did him in.
To finish out the week, Friday's competitors are Dan Pawson, Maria Wenglinsky, and Keith Whitener. I didn't have any connections to any of them prior to the taping, and only Dan was in our subgroup on the day of the promo taping, so I didn't get as much chance to interact with Keith or Maria. I wrote a little bit about them below, but then I saw Stephanie Jass's preview which is much more compelling (especially if you're a Hunger Games fan), so you probably just want to check that out here: https://www.facebook.com/StephanieJassJeopardyChampion/posts/636352503102244
Dan was a big champ in 2008 (9 games) and won the Tournament of Champions in 2009 over Larissa Kelly. He's just an all-around strong player and nice guy, lives in New York, and does interesting and important work consulting for health-related global nonprofits. He's another one with a smart family...his wife Andrea also was a J! champion a few years ago.
Maria is a teacher who also lives in New York, she won 5 games in 2005 and was narrowly defeated by Michael Falk in the semifinals of the 2006 ToC. She has a great, very dry sense of humor that will come through during Friday's game.
Keith Whitener was one of the very recent players in the group, having won 7 games in 2012 (honestly, a time when I wasn't watching the show very regularly). He's a chemist who now lives in DC. He finished second to Colby in the 2013 ToC. Right after the day of taping, he and his wife headed straight to the airport for their honeymoon!
The games have been exciting all week, and I promise that this one won't disappoint either.
To finish out the week, Friday's competitors are Dan Pawson, Maria Wenglinsky, and Keith Whitener. I didn't have any connections to any of them prior to the taping, and only Dan was in our subgroup on the day of the promo taping, so I didn't get as much chance to interact with Keith or Maria. I wrote a little bit about them below, but then I saw Stephanie Jass's preview which is much more compelling (especially if you're a Hunger Games fan), so you probably just want to check that out here: https://www.facebook.com/StephanieJassJeopardyChampion/posts/636352503102244
Dan was a big champ in 2008 (9 games) and won the Tournament of Champions in 2009 over Larissa Kelly. He's just an all-around strong player and nice guy, lives in New York, and does interesting and important work consulting for health-related global nonprofits. He's another one with a smart family...his wife Andrea also was a J! champion a few years ago.
Maria is a teacher who also lives in New York, she won 5 games in 2005 and was narrowly defeated by Michael Falk in the semifinals of the 2006 ToC. She has a great, very dry sense of humor that will come through during Friday's game.
Keith Whitener was one of the very recent players in the group, having won 7 games in 2012 (honestly, a time when I wasn't watching the show very regularly). He's a chemist who now lives in DC. He finished second to Colby in the 2013 ToC. Right after the day of taping, he and his wife headed straight to the airport for their honeymoon!
The games have been exciting all week, and I promise that this one won't disappoint either.
Thursday, April 3, 2014
Battle of the Decades: 2000s, Thursday
Thursday's show marks the return of the most famous (infamous?) champ in the show's history, Ken Jennings. He plays against Michael Falk and Vinita Kailasanath.
Michael and I made some small contribution to meteorological history, as he won the 2006 Tournament of Champions, the next one after mine. At the time, he was working as a research meteorologist at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, after getting degrees from Iowa State and UWM. So to have two consecutive ToC winners be from such a small field as ours was quite the coincidence and achievement! He's now a math teacher and quiz bowl coach in Milwaukee. We first met at a trivia competition in the mid-2000s, and it was great to see him again (and to have a fellow weather nerd to commiserate with at the taping).
I've also known Vinita for a while: she was the only other representative from our 2004 ToC, and I beat her in a close game in the semifinals of that tournament. She was the college tournament champion in 2001 (as a student at Stanford), but she couldn't rearrange her final exams to play in the next ToC, so the show was nice enough to let her defer and play in the 2004 ToC. It was also great catching up with her -- she's a smart, fun, and friendly person.
And then there's Ken, who doesn't really need much introduction. 74-time champ, 2nd most total winnings in the history of the show, and now writes books and for venues like Slate and Parade magazine. This was the first time I met Ken in person. I got the sense that he wasn't really an extrovert, in the sense that he didn't seem to be having as much fun in our big group of contestants as everyone else was. But I had the chance to talk with him one-on-one a couple times, and he was really nice and interesting to talk to.
Michael and I made some small contribution to meteorological history, as he won the 2006 Tournament of Champions, the next one after mine. At the time, he was working as a research meteorologist at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, after getting degrees from Iowa State and UWM. So to have two consecutive ToC winners be from such a small field as ours was quite the coincidence and achievement! He's now a math teacher and quiz bowl coach in Milwaukee. We first met at a trivia competition in the mid-2000s, and it was great to see him again (and to have a fellow weather nerd to commiserate with at the taping).
I've also known Vinita for a while: she was the only other representative from our 2004 ToC, and I beat her in a close game in the semifinals of that tournament. She was the college tournament champion in 2001 (as a student at Stanford), but she couldn't rearrange her final exams to play in the next ToC, so the show was nice enough to let her defer and play in the 2004 ToC. It was also great catching up with her -- she's a smart, fun, and friendly person.
And then there's Ken, who doesn't really need much introduction. 74-time champ, 2nd most total winnings in the history of the show, and now writes books and for venues like Slate and Parade magazine. This was the first time I met Ken in person. I got the sense that he wasn't really an extrovert, in the sense that he didn't seem to be having as much fun in our big group of contestants as everyone else was. But I had the chance to talk with him one-on-one a couple times, and he was really nice and interesting to talk to.
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| Me with Ken and Vinita at the "after-party." Ken is not a crook. |
Did that happen?
In real-time, I knew that there were a whole lot of circumstances that came together in the right way to make it possible for me to win that game. And after getting the chance to actually watch it last night, I realize that it was even more implausible than it seemed during the taping!
Let's step through it. The first round was basically Larissa being dominant -- she was consistently beating Tom and me in on the buzzer (unhappy to miss out on the loon, the state bird of Minnesota and my FB cover photo!), and she, unsurprisingly, knows her stuff. (Pyloric sphincter?) I had one of my two horrendously bad responses (totally misread the clue about the whippoorwill), and if not for "Drunk History" and faux-hawks I would've been in really bad shape. And, of course, in the middle was Tom's interview, which they surprisingly left in the show in its entirety.
The second round was a little more evenly matched, as Tom and I were able to pick up some clues but Larissa continued to be the front-runner. Her Daily Double in Literary Titles was incredible -- one of my favorite things that happens on this show is when somebody doesn't know it right away, but is clearly working hard to pick apart the clue (what's an ailanthus?) and then it just clicks. I was so impressed by her getting that one.
Then we moved on to my other epically bad miss: yeah, I know Arthur Ashe is not a woman. I had totally forgotten what category we were in at that point (so much so that when I was talking to one of the other contestants that evening (I think Stephanie), they were like, "you know that category was 'Women on stamps', right?" and I was surprised to hear that. Ouch.
So after that and a couple more big-dollar clues for Larissa, she had a big lead, and I knew my only chance was to get the one remaining Daily Double on the board. And I know that Larissa knew that she could put the game away by getting the DD. So we were both trying to find it, and then what turned out to be the key moment in the game (even though I didn't realize it at the time) was when Tom gets "eraser", and there are three clues left on the board: two $400s and an $800. The DD is nearly guaranteed to be in the $800 box (they very rarely put them in the top row.) And he picked one of the $400s. This was actually a good move, because if he gets the DD the game is over (neither he nor I could've had more than half of Larissa's score even if he doubled up). But I don't know whether he realized that, and nobody would've blamed him for taking it. But he goes to $400, I get Zen and get to pick the DD.
My first thought was that I need to get within 2/3 of Larissa (more on why in a minute). I do a little math in my head and pick $5000 to get there. In hindsight, this was a pretty dumb wager -- there was no downside to betting all but a few dollars ($10K would've been a nice round number), since if I miss it the game's over no matter what. And my $5000 got me to 2/3, but if Larissa had picked up the last $400 clue I wouldn't have been within 2/3 anymore! In any case, that's the bet I made, I got it, and Tom grabbed the last $400 clue to go into the final at:
Larissa: 22,800
Russ: 15,400
Tom: 5,600
Now in a regular game, the wagering strategy is pretty straightforward here: 1st place will very frequently bet to double the 2nd place score, plus a dollar, so that if they get it right they win no matter what (leading, getting the Final right, and still losing would really suck). So, if the 2nd place player is within 2/3 of the leader's score, he/she can assume that that's how the leader will bet, and bet small to win if the leader misses it. (Far too many regular contestants don't grasp these very basic concepts.) But in a tournament like this, everybody knows this stuff, and there's a potential for trying to outsmart each other by anticipating that they might behave in this way. (aka: never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line). This has happened a couple times in this tournament already, including between Colby and Celeste on Monday.
The final clue, in the category of "Monarchs": In 2005 the Kul Sharif mosque of Tatarstan was reopened 453 years after it was destroyed by this man.
Recall that this was taped in January before all the recent news about Crimea and the Tatars; that would've made it more gettable for sure by pointing to Russia. For some reason Tatarstan led me to think of Turkey, and knowing there were a bunch of Constantines who were Christians in Turkey, I picked that name without much confidence. (Constantine the Great was, oh, a few hundred years off, though there were others as well.) When I saw Larissa's response of Suleiman, I was pretty sure she missed it -- what would a Muslim leader be doing destroying mosques?
As it turned out, Larissa and I both went for the "standard" wager in this scenario: she bet to win and a tough final got her; I was playing for the eventuality that she missed it and it worked out. For a nice summary of the wagering on both the DD and the final, check out my friend Keith's analysis: http://thefinalwager.co/2014/04/02/final-jeopardy-april-2-2014/
You could probably see on my face how shocked I was to win this game. Larissa is a ridiculously good player, and she played an outstanding game: she certainly played well enough to win. I imagine if I played her a hundred times, I'd win like 3-5 of those games, and then only when getting a few lucky breaks like I did in this one. Larissa is also just a really nice, sweet person and was very gracious considering how things turned out.
But, for me, it's on to the tournament part of the Battle of the Decades! This will now be in their standard tournament format, with 15 players in 5 quarterfinal games. The 5 winners plus 4 wild-cards will go on to the semis, and the winners of the semifinals go to a 2-day final. Those shows will be on the weeks of May 5 and May 12, and I'll let everyone know when I know which day I'm on (none of this has been taped yet!)
[The correct FJ response: who was Ivan the Terrible?]
Let's step through it. The first round was basically Larissa being dominant -- she was consistently beating Tom and me in on the buzzer (unhappy to miss out on the loon, the state bird of Minnesota and my FB cover photo!), and she, unsurprisingly, knows her stuff. (Pyloric sphincter?) I had one of my two horrendously bad responses (totally misread the clue about the whippoorwill), and if not for "Drunk History" and faux-hawks I would've been in really bad shape. And, of course, in the middle was Tom's interview, which they surprisingly left in the show in its entirety.
The second round was a little more evenly matched, as Tom and I were able to pick up some clues but Larissa continued to be the front-runner. Her Daily Double in Literary Titles was incredible -- one of my favorite things that happens on this show is when somebody doesn't know it right away, but is clearly working hard to pick apart the clue (what's an ailanthus?) and then it just clicks. I was so impressed by her getting that one.
Then we moved on to my other epically bad miss: yeah, I know Arthur Ashe is not a woman. I had totally forgotten what category we were in at that point (so much so that when I was talking to one of the other contestants that evening (I think Stephanie), they were like, "you know that category was 'Women on stamps', right?" and I was surprised to hear that. Ouch.
So after that and a couple more big-dollar clues for Larissa, she had a big lead, and I knew my only chance was to get the one remaining Daily Double on the board. And I know that Larissa knew that she could put the game away by getting the DD. So we were both trying to find it, and then what turned out to be the key moment in the game (even though I didn't realize it at the time) was when Tom gets "eraser", and there are three clues left on the board: two $400s and an $800. The DD is nearly guaranteed to be in the $800 box (they very rarely put them in the top row.) And he picked one of the $400s. This was actually a good move, because if he gets the DD the game is over (neither he nor I could've had more than half of Larissa's score even if he doubled up). But I don't know whether he realized that, and nobody would've blamed him for taking it. But he goes to $400, I get Zen and get to pick the DD.
My first thought was that I need to get within 2/3 of Larissa (more on why in a minute). I do a little math in my head and pick $5000 to get there. In hindsight, this was a pretty dumb wager -- there was no downside to betting all but a few dollars ($10K would've been a nice round number), since if I miss it the game's over no matter what. And my $5000 got me to 2/3, but if Larissa had picked up the last $400 clue I wouldn't have been within 2/3 anymore! In any case, that's the bet I made, I got it, and Tom grabbed the last $400 clue to go into the final at:
Larissa: 22,800
Russ: 15,400
Tom: 5,600
Now in a regular game, the wagering strategy is pretty straightforward here: 1st place will very frequently bet to double the 2nd place score, plus a dollar, so that if they get it right they win no matter what (leading, getting the Final right, and still losing would really suck). So, if the 2nd place player is within 2/3 of the leader's score, he/she can assume that that's how the leader will bet, and bet small to win if the leader misses it. (Far too many regular contestants don't grasp these very basic concepts.) But in a tournament like this, everybody knows this stuff, and there's a potential for trying to outsmart each other by anticipating that they might behave in this way. (aka: never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line). This has happened a couple times in this tournament already, including between Colby and Celeste on Monday.
The final clue, in the category of "Monarchs": In 2005 the Kul Sharif mosque of Tatarstan was reopened 453 years after it was destroyed by this man.
Recall that this was taped in January before all the recent news about Crimea and the Tatars; that would've made it more gettable for sure by pointing to Russia. For some reason Tatarstan led me to think of Turkey, and knowing there were a bunch of Constantines who were Christians in Turkey, I picked that name without much confidence. (Constantine the Great was, oh, a few hundred years off, though there were others as well.) When I saw Larissa's response of Suleiman, I was pretty sure she missed it -- what would a Muslim leader be doing destroying mosques?
As it turned out, Larissa and I both went for the "standard" wager in this scenario: she bet to win and a tough final got her; I was playing for the eventuality that she missed it and it worked out. For a nice summary of the wagering on both the DD and the final, check out my friend Keith's analysis: http://thefinalwager.co/2014/04/02/final-jeopardy-april-2-2014/
You could probably see on my face how shocked I was to win this game. Larissa is a ridiculously good player, and she played an outstanding game: she certainly played well enough to win. I imagine if I played her a hundred times, I'd win like 3-5 of those games, and then only when getting a few lucky breaks like I did in this one. Larissa is also just a really nice, sweet person and was very gracious considering how things turned out.
But, for me, it's on to the tournament part of the Battle of the Decades! This will now be in their standard tournament format, with 15 players in 5 quarterfinal games. The 5 winners plus 4 wild-cards will go on to the semis, and the winners of the semifinals go to a 2-day final. Those shows will be on the weeks of May 5 and May 12, and I'll let everyone know when I know which day I'm on (none of this has been taped yet!)
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| The superb onesie that my wife, Andrea, designed for our 8-month old son. |
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| Best picture of the day, from my friend Dan, who was watching in Oklahoma. Me talking to Alex with a tornado watch coming out of my head. |
[The correct FJ response: who was Ivan the Terrible?]
Wednesday, April 2, 2014
Battle of the Decades: 2000s, Wednesday
OK, the day has finally arrived! Before getting into today's
matchup, a little bit about last night's game. It was one of those
games where great players and great people are playing and you want all
three of them to win! Of course, that isn't possible in a tournament.
Stephanie (Go Valpo!) jumped out ahead early and was dominating the
buzzer, with Vijay also playing well, but we saw how Roger rolls and he
worked his way back into a big lead. The final clue was relatively easy
compared to most of the others in the Battle of the Decades thus far,
though I wasn't really sure how we were supposed to know for sure
whether it was Susan B. Anthony or Elizabeth Cady Stanton. (It turns
out that Stanton died a few years earlier.) Another very well-played
and exciting game by all!
So my fellow competitors are Tom Kavanaugh and Larissa Kelly. Tom was one of several "super-champs" in the era just after Ken Jennings' run, winning 8 games in 2006. He is also hilarious...he was keeping the whole group cracked up during the taping of the promos and the shows. Listen carefully for his "chit-chat" story with Alex. It's very likely that they'll edit out the key part of it, but if not, it'll be, shall we say, memorable. He also took what is almost certainly the best contestant photo with Alex ever.
Larissa was a buzz-saw in her original run, winning over $222K in six wins (that's an average of over $37K per game!) She finished second in the ToC in 2009. She and her husband run a company that writes questions for quiz competitions -- there can't be many other vocations that prepare you so well for being a great Jeopardy! player! Not that there's anyone you really "want" to play against in a tournament with such great players across the board, but I didn't really want to have to play against Larissa.
The local paper did a fun article and video on my appearance, which can be found here: http://www.coloradoan.com/article/20140401/ENTERTAINMENT/304010072/CSU-professor-Jeopardy-third-time
For the chit-chat at the commercial break, they give Alex a card with a few different possible topics. The contestants get to choose which one they prefer and they highlight it for him, but he's Alex and he can do whatever he wants. I offered them a couple stories that I thought were pretty good, which they put on the card along with the "spam" story, and Alex said right before the interview "Russ, I'm going to go with the Monty Python one". There wasn't any time to protest. So it's basically exactly the same story I told in one of my ToC games. So, despite that, enjoy the show! (And the grammar-challenged tweet below.)
So my fellow competitors are Tom Kavanaugh and Larissa Kelly. Tom was one of several "super-champs" in the era just after Ken Jennings' run, winning 8 games in 2006. He is also hilarious...he was keeping the whole group cracked up during the taping of the promos and the shows. Listen carefully for his "chit-chat" story with Alex. It's very likely that they'll edit out the key part of it, but if not, it'll be, shall we say, memorable. He also took what is almost certainly the best contestant photo with Alex ever.
Larissa was a buzz-saw in her original run, winning over $222K in six wins (that's an average of over $37K per game!) She finished second in the ToC in 2009. She and her husband run a company that writes questions for quiz competitions -- there can't be many other vocations that prepare you so well for being a great Jeopardy! player! Not that there's anyone you really "want" to play against in a tournament with such great players across the board, but I didn't really want to have to play against Larissa.
The local paper did a fun article and video on my appearance, which can be found here: http://www.coloradoan.com/article/20140401/ENTERTAINMENT/304010072/CSU-professor-Jeopardy-third-time
For the chit-chat at the commercial break, they give Alex a card with a few different possible topics. The contestants get to choose which one they prefer and they highlight it for him, but he's Alex and he can do whatever he wants. I offered them a couple stories that I thought were pretty good, which they put on the card along with the "spam" story, and Alex said right before the interview "Russ, I'm going to go with the Monty Python one". There wasn't any time to protest. So it's basically exactly the same story I told in one of my ToC games. So, despite that, enjoy the show! (And the grammar-challenged tweet below.)
It seems these champ just left #Jeopardy!, but they're back to prove the '00s can win it all. #BattleoftheDecades pic.twitter.com/e1Pb8DjEa5
— Jeopardy! (@Jeopardy) April 2, 2014
Tuesday, April 1, 2014
Battle of the Decades: 2000s, Tuesday
Monday night's game was a great way to start the 2000s tournament: three great players playing very well! Colby was strong throughout, with Celeste making a great comeback in the second round and Tom hanging around by getting a lot of the tougher material but struggling with the buzzer. An interesting FJ wager by Colby paid off when neither he nor Celeste got a tough opera/Shakespeare clue. So Colby's winning streak continues!
Tuesday's players are, again, a remarkable bunch: Vijay Balse, Roger Craig, and Stephanie Jass. Vijay won the Tournament of Champions in 2010. I feel like I've known Vijay forever, but only first met him in person at the taping. He and I "met" on the old J! message board (where he used a pseudonym) when I was on the show originally, and then he sent me one of his creative invitations to watch him on the show (see yesterday's post to see the one he sent for this tournament!)
Roger was scary good -- he set the single-day record ($77K) and then went on to win the ToC in 2011 with the help of back-to-back true Daily Doubles. He became well known for using data mining techniques to optimize his preparation for the show. (He also apparently knows even more about Prince than I do: https://www.youtube.com/watch?
And Stephanie was a 7-time winner in 2012; the most games ever won by a woman on the show. She's also a professor, and a Valpo grad! We had a great time sharing Valpo memories, and she's one of the most delightful people you'll ever meet. She used her winnings to fulfill a dream of putting on a cabaret show a few weeks ago!
Tuesday's players are, again, a remarkable bunch: Vijay Balse, Roger Craig, and Stephanie Jass. Vijay won the Tournament of Champions in 2010. I feel like I've known Vijay forever, but only first met him in person at the taping. He and I "met" on the old J! message board (where he used a pseudonym) when I was on the show originally, and then he sent me one of his creative invitations to watch him on the show (see yesterday's post to see the one he sent for this tournament!)
Roger was scary good -- he set the single-day record ($77K) and then went on to win the ToC in 2011 with the help of back-to-back true Daily Doubles. He became well known for using data mining techniques to optimize his preparation for the show. (He also apparently knows even more about Prince than I do: https://www.youtube.com/watch?
And Stephanie was a 7-time winner in 2012; the most games ever won by a woman on the show. She's also a professor, and a Valpo grad! We had a great time sharing Valpo memories, and she's one of the most delightful people you'll ever meet. She used her winnings to fulfill a dream of putting on a cabaret show a few weeks ago!
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| Russ and Stephanie say, "Go Valpo!" |
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