We thought it was weird that the lady in the middle wagered $1000 on the $800 clue Daily Double and wagered $2000 on the $1600 clue DD.

The triple stumper FJ was easy for anyone who follows international soccer.

It made sense if you understand the feeble minds of women. I predicted both wagers to my girlfriend. Obviously, strategically it did not make sense.

My 9 year old son also thought she bet it backwards.

TOC!

Austin seems like he has a somewhat easy matchup

Talking of easy FJs...

BTW, I think Buzzy's optimal bet there is $0. Maybe something small like $1-$100. Thoughts?

Agree on Buzzy. Basically a Clavin wager considering his total was probably already safe. Max 1,000.

Ridic easy FJ to the point I thought it was a trick somehow.

IIRC pre-FJ, Buzzy had 16,400 and P had 15K. Buzzy could have anticipated that P wasn't going to risk a lot (because of WC considerations), but that P might make the $1401 bet to secure the win. So something like $100 from Buzzy seems fine; I think a $100 bet is more defensible than $0.

The above might sound results-oriented, but I think it's a super standard spot for quarterfinal match wagering when the WC is a factor.

Of course, given the category "Music and History" and given Buzzy's background (music exec IIRC), I don't totally hate his wager.

On yesterday's FJ, I knew the two landlocked kingdoms (super standard geography question), but I didn't know which one was more south. As the music was playing, I thought to myself that, for this coin flip, I'm going to go with the one that I can spell correctly - and that would have been incorrect (Swaziland)

Damn, Austin got spanked by the little Asian girl.

Growing up in the rural midwest helped with the canoe DD, seemed super easy to me but I guess a city person might not be familiar.

Yet he's still very live in the tournament.

It looked to me like once he got to where a double up would almost always lock up a wild card, he just sat on his hands and didn't try to ring in on categories he didn't like (or didn't let it bother him that he couldn't ring in) and put his tournament hopes on getting FJ right.

Asian girl dominated the buzzer

My fellow microbiologist and neighbor (2nd town over) showed the boys tonight.

I think it's pretty hard to make sure final jeopardy is of comparable difficulty on all days this week. Not sure if they're doing a good job on that so far?

FWIW, the Austin episode probably helped the conspiracy theoriests who said the show purposely matched him with slow buzzer players so they could use his streak for pre-season advertising.

And how do they tell who is slow on the buzzer?

He generally got his but kicked on the buzzer. After missing the DD, he did just enough to get through. Alan's game all the way.

One part of the audition process involves playing mock games, buzzer and all. (I do not believe the above conspiracy theory, though)

FWIW, I don't believe it either. There are probably not that many players who are as fast at the buzzer as the Asian girl and Austin probably just got lucky that there wasn't anyone around who was both very good and very fast during his run.

That said, the producers not only know how fast players are at the buzzer but probably also have a pretty good understanding what categories they are particularly good/bad at. I just don't think the risk of having jeopardy-gate as a result of systematic manipulation would be worth the benefits they could reap from it.

Agreed. In the briefing from Legal when I was on WWTBAM, they addressed that concept directly. For that show the theory was, if you verbally eliminated 2 of the 4 choice, then 50-50'd it, they purposely gave you the two you didn't eliminate. They made the point if there ever any evidence, the show would be off the air, and the producers would be bankrupt from the lawsuits.

Well, that was the theory that idiots grasped at. In the briefing they state the 50/50 choices are selected well before taping.

In Harry Eisenberg's Jeopardy book it's detailed how everything is put in place before contestants are even selected. What is not entirely known is how they make the groupings for the QF and SF matching.

That must have been one of the worst final jeopardy wagers of all time. Has there ever been a ToC where 16000 didn't get you a wild card? The chances of that to happen have to be <5%. If anything, bet something like 1000 max..

well in WWTBAM 50/50 doesn't mean "hey we know the actual answer so we randomly took away 2 of the other 3 incorrect ones" - it means "hey **** yourself these 2 answers are the ones you think might be right so use all your lifelines, gl on your inevitable flip and don't take our money"

+1, I'd be curious to know more about how this is handled (if at all).

I seem to remember that during the previous 2 ToCs, that some of the FJs were surprisingly easy (same as a few FJs in this year's tournament). Obviously some questions will be easier to some folks depending on background, but I'd hope that there is some extra work by the producers/writers to determine appropriately similar difficulty levels across the 5 QF final questions.

Of course, after the QF matches, it doesn't matter.

Definitely one of worst wagers ever. Wasn't from someone on for the first time. Was a guy who somehow won 4+ games. No reason to bet 7k. Likely wouldn't win the game to get it right, and he can't think he needs 23k to get a wild card. Can't think 9k would be enough to get you the wild card. I suppose there's an outside chance it would be enough. As you said, guy can bet a grand if he wants but there's really no reason to bet anything.