In shock from tonight’s FJ. Holy ****.

Wow

Edit: P2's wager is way, way, way worse than P1's.

I don't think this is true at all. I can see arguments for $0, $1, $9000 (ish), and everything. Numbers between $1 and $9k are probably valid too.

Just saw tonight's episode. What the **** did I just witness? Did this guy feel like since last episode he was the beneficiary of his opponents' idiocy that he had to pay it forward this episode with mind numbing dumbness of his own? They should take all 3 of these idiots out behind the studio and put them down.

Answering Tibet for that clue shows that you're in the bottom 0.1% of Jeopardy contestants with regard to "Asian geography". Betting anything other than $0 is complete lunacy.

Nope. A huge issue for contestants is wishy washy wagering, trying to give themselves some small chance of winning while not wagering everything. And this usually reduces their winning chances tremendously. You make the wager that gives the best winning chances. It's that simple. And you can't try to anticipate what stupid wager the person next to you is going to come up with under the lights when they haven't prepared for the situation.

So, in this very binary instance, you've got two options and it's almost totally dependent on how you feel about the category. This FJ wager plays out almost exactly like a DD in the first round. The only valid optimal wagers are the minimum or the maximum. You rarely see it on the show, but I've always said it takes just as much guts to correctly wager nothing in FJ as it does correctly wagering everything.

To her credit, I think the category was "Asian Countries", not geography.

But not being able to come up with an actual country that's not ~2.5k miles East of the Persian Gulf and Caspian Sea still is mind boggling. I mean even writing Russia or Saudi-Arabia would be kinda reasonable, at least they are both really big and in that region.

May be even more dependent on what you think your opponent is going to do.

Jimeny Christmas, have not seen Wednesday yet, but saw the chatter so looked on the J Board

Manny Abell: 19000-17000=2000
Joanna Kimmitt: 9600+399=9999 (New Champ)
Chelsea Feltman: 9200-401=8799

Way to play for 2nd and back into the win with a giant gift from 1st.

You said a lot of words without any real substance. You keep saying there are only 2 bet choices without any real evidence to support that.

I think the math has been done earlier here. So throwing the question back at you- with the current tiebreaker rule what is another option aside from 0 or all-in (assuming 3rd is distant).

P1 and P2 could secretly agree to both wager the same amount, low enough that P3 can't win but >$0. Might not be a legal option, but we didn't assume they play by the rules.

:/

Really?

Broadly speaking: P1 & P2 agreeing to wager the same amount >0 & <AI is not a nash equilibrium unless P1 & P2 are both exactly 50% to correctly answer FJ & 50% to win a tiebreaker question.

OK, let's assume P2 tells Alex about his pathological obsession with halfs. He also gets all three DD and always bets 50% even though that doesn't make any sense. What's P1 best FJ wager now if he thinks he's answering FJ correctly 50% of the time and assumes it's the same for P2?

Making the standard assumption of a concave utility function w.r.t wealth (i.e risk aversion), P1 should bet 0. Assuming a linear utility function, P1 is indifferent between *all* possible wagers.

I think betting enough to leave you with 2x 3rd place + $1 is an option too?

If you have the post # for the math I'd love to see it.

What’s the reason to randomly needing a first name, when 95% of the time the last is enough.

For example, “In 1995 decades after the assassination of her husband Medgar, she became head of NAACP”

Guy answers who is “Evers”, they needed first name too. Granted I have no knowledge of this, but feels like Evers is enough.

If they accepted it, then the way the clue was worded basically came down to "tell us the most famous Medgar's last name". Too easy imo.

I agree they should have said something about needing the 1st name (unless it's clearly spelled out in the rules already).

Not random at all. You always have to give the first name when the answer to the clue is a relative with the same last name of the more famous person referenced in the clue.

I get that...
I just wasn't as familiar with Medgar I guess

Would be like saying the wife of former Chicago bull and greatest basketball player ever, and you say "Who's Jordan"

Another just happy to be here, not even going to try to win Friday (plus a bonus tie wager offer):

Tom Blake: 10200-200=10000
Tim Suba: 9800+9799=19599
Kathleen Kosman: 16400+4000=20400

At the end, why are they standing at the podiums now vs going into the middle of the set to chat?

I’m the leader of the Nan Fan club

Nobody was able to come up with Esteemed Character Actress Margo Martindale