Alex Trebek suffers 'minor heart attack'

the fact that he could have still lost makes it all the more badass

Was totally rooting for Leonard. The everyone-at-zero game was weird enough, but for Leonard to not only bet $18k on a Daily Double, but to also be all "Hi, I just won" on Final was brilliant.

The guy next to him was kind of hilarious, frantically flailing around with his buzzer and shouting all his responses.

I love the contestants that aren't afraid to get a few wrong.

My impression is that smart Jeopardy gameplay involves not guessing if you're not 100% sure of the answer. Barrett, the Young Republican guy in the final, had his momentum stalled several times in the final with wrong guesses, especially the Bible category in day 1.

xp -- that was Barrett, I couldn't stand that unctuous toadying shit.

in a vacuum, shouldn't it be correct to guess if you're 51% sure of the answer?

nope

it's just poor strategy; if you don't know the answer, you can't be penalized if you don't guess, whereas if you guess and get it wrong you are definitely penalized

basically it's SAT test strategy mapped onto a game show

It's a math equation - say you're 60% sure of the answer and the question is worth $1000.

Getting it right (1000 x .60) vs. getting it wrong (-1000 x .40) ~ an EV of +$200 for guessing

Plus, buzzing in gives you a few additional seconds to get the answer...

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lyoxgsfrLb1qdmmiqo1_400.gif

I'm always buzzing in for alec trebek ;)

I love Leonard!! Barrett was THE WORST. UGH.

that gif

It's a math equation - say you're 60% sure of the answer and the question is worth $1000.

Getting it right (1000 x .60) vs. getting it wrong (-1000 x .40) ~ an EV of +$200 for guessing

Plus, buzzing in gives you a few additional seconds to get the answer...

hmmmmm...this makes sense to me IF jeopardy was, as you said, played in a vaccuum - with no other players competing. because when you incorrectly answer in jeopardy, you're not just losing $1000 (or whatever), but it's very likely that another player will buzz in and correctly answer and GAIN $1000, meaning that there was a $2000 net loss.

i'm glad i saw this thread, because when i was making that gif (many months ago), it got me thinking about making a series of vibrating chest hair gifs. they take a long time to make but they're so satisfying

chalk that up under the heading "posts I never thought I would read"

don't even get me started on the other kinds of hairs

all strangely satisfying

hmmmmm...this makes sense to me IF jeopardy was, as you said, played in a vaccuum - with no other players competing. because when you incorrectly answer in jeopardy, you're not just losing $1000 (or whatever), but it's very likely that another player will buzz in and correctly answer and GAIN $1000, meaning that there was a $2000 net loss.

well what I meant was, you have to keep the other players' scores in mind. like if you're at $20000 and 2nd place has $8000, you should guess a lot less, and vice versa if you're way behind. but what you're saying doesn't really figure in, because if you just don't answer and another contestant gets the answer, you're still looking at a $1000 net loss by that math.

Barret was actually a robot project of Tagg Romney's.

funnily enough I was just reading this

the 18k bet was a good move because the daily double was on the 2nd row (questions get harder the lower down the board they are). i don't think they put daily doubles on the first row, so that was the easiest possible daily double to get, so might as well bet it all.

I like Barrett. I'm clearly only ever going to (fantasy) date Republicans.

he did singlehandedly make the teen tournament entertaining, which I usually dislike watching (I schedule my workouts around Jeopardy, damnit). I love the contestants that aren't afraid to get a few wrong.

― frogbs, Wednesday, February 13, 2013 8:25 PM (58 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

did you see the ep last week where the kids were betting like insane gamblers and everyone ended up with $0?

That was hilarious -- a semifinal match with nobody going to the final. If any bit of tv deserved the sadtrombone, that was it.

i did not but i do think that contestants are maybe too conservative on Daily Doubles in general.

but what you're saying doesn't really figure in, because if you just don't answer and another contestant gets the answer, you're still looking at a $1000 net loss by that math.

ooooh, you're right. so let me do it again, then, assuming a 2-player version of Jeopardy, and an 60% chance that you know the correct answer, and an 60% chance that your opponent knows the answer

Deciding not to answer
Opponent gets it right (-1000 x .6) vs. Opponent gets it wrong (+1000 x .4) + an EV of $-200, relevant to your opponent, for choosing not to answer

Deciding to answer
You answer the question correctly (1000 x .6) vs. You answer the question incorrectly and your opponent answers correctly (-2000 x .24) vs. You answer the question incorrectly and your opponent answers incorrectly (0 x .16) ~ + an EV of $120, relevant to your opponent, for choosing to answer.

so you're right, the correct choice would seem to be choosing to answer, even if you're only 60% sure.

relevant = relative, fuck

also, this doesn't take into consideration the possibilities that a)you decide not to answer, the opponent answers incorrectly, and then you hop in with the correct answer (2000 x .?), and b)you answer the question incorrectly and the opponent decides not to answer (-1000 x .?)

Exactly - the point I was trying to make though is that if you penalize the guesser because their opponent would then get it right and "double" the loss, then you also have to give them credit for getting it right and not letting the opponent even try. As a whole, your opponents are going to average way in the positive on questions you don't answer so if anything I'd think that's more incentive for just guessing, especially when you figure it over a 3 player game.

with three players there's more incentive to let the other two duke it out if you're not reasonably sure.

I can see why since "net +" is really hard to calculate w/ 3 players but I still don't see why you wouldn't want to answer anything you were more than 50% sure of. I'm saying that if not answering/getting it wrong results in a big net$+ for an opponent then it seems to suggest that answering even when you're at like 45% is correct. Like in Z S's example, it would be more in favor of guessing if your opponent was more than 60% to get the question right. Your average Jeopardy contestant can get like 70-75% (according to Ken Jennings' book, that is) and you can't assume that YOU being "only" 60% to get it means your opponents are.

how do you calculate on the fly if you're more than 50% sure of an answer? you're treating that like it's a real statistic instead of just meaning "i think i know the answer but i'm not confident about it"

"frogbs, how did you score a zero in Jeopardy!?"
"I was so busy calculating the probability that I knew the answer that I forget to buzz in ;_;"

you just activate your Terminator HUD and have it calculate the probability really quickly

http://images.wikia.com/terminator/images/archive/d/dc/20080606144629!T-888_HUD.jpg

Basically, in addition to the standard EV of guessing something you're more than 50% on, getting it right also deprives your opponents of answering, which is a hidden bonus.

my jeopardy strategy if I ever get on would be to just to eat a lot of taco bell the night before and then fart a lot and hope that it distracts the opponents enough to give me the edge

ideally I would be in the center position

"um, can i have the center position?"
"why?"
"....*fart*"

with more people, the more likely it is that one of them does know the correct answer. if the other two are about evenly matched, they'll cancel out each other while you steeple your hands and murmur "excellent" in your best burns voice.

ken jennings' secret is finally revealed. no wonder he couldn't beat a computer.

how do you calculate on the fly if you're more than 50% sure of an answer? you're treating that like it's a real statistic instead of just meaning "i think i know the answer but i'm not confident about it"

Given what Ken writes in Brainiac I think that people who compete probably have a good sense of it. I agree that in most situations this kind of math is useless because for most questions it's either you're 98%+ sure or can't offer anything but a wild guess (and Jennings does talk a bit about how trivia contestants do this). I definitely think there are questions for which a contestant has an answer in mind but isn't totally sure and I'm arguing they should go for it anyway. There are also questions for which a contestant doesn't know the answer right away but can figure it out with the extra 3-4 seconds that buzzing in gives you. Certain categories that feature wordplay are pretty good for this.

a lot of questions also lend themselves to being narrowed down by the two chumps who answer ahead of you. like "this stooge was the stoogiest of the three stooges"

on average, how many answers do the contestants whiff on every show?

the amount of whiffing depends on whether or not dayo is the center contestant

Hubris is a bitch. Barrett was so sure he was right on a lot of those wrong answers...his jaw-drop reactions were satisfying.

xp to no-one in particular

speaking of that reminds me of a pretty infuriating episode where a Double Jeopardy category was "Also a chess piece". All the answers were chess pieces which means there were only 6 possible answers. The first four were hit, then the last was a Daily Double. Meaning there's only two possible answers left, and you have the entire clue to go off of. And yet the contestant only wagered like $3000 instead of their whole stack. I mean I know that guessing wrong sucks but you have to think you're 90% or more to get that one right.

Hubris is a bitch. Barrett was so sure he was right on a lot of those wrong answers...his jaw-drop reactions were satisfying.

"But Rush Limbaugh told me it was like this!"

http://i.imgur.com/C0gJTe6.jpg

Clarifying some points (in response to reports on Sajak's idiocies):

I consider myself a social liberal and a fiscal conservative. I believe that climate change exists, and is contributed to by human activity. I have seen firsthand the effects of climate change, in trips to Antarctica and Mt. Kilimanjaro, both of which are showing huge changes due to global warming. I’m in favor of equal pay for women, and the Lilly Ledbetter act. I believe in equal rights for the LGBT community; in fact, this winter, I braved the Minnesota winter weather to attend a gay wedding (which was officiated over by my wife).

damn... thats brave

All Minnesotans appear to think their winter is the worst thing on earth.

I've been to Cloquet, MN in January, so they're not too far off the mark

All Minnesotans appear to think their winter is the worst thing on earth.

Considering that there are more people who live in Minneapolis-St Paul alone than the entire state of Alaska, what you're really seeing is that there are more people around to complain about the winters.