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?]
