Unlikely. I see to remember them bringing someone back 1-2x per season way back in the day, but I don't recall anyone in the last several years.

The past 3 episodes have been near torturous to watch. Worst group of contestants I've ever seen. That old guy from Wednesday looked like he was going to faint the whole time. In today's episode, they might have broken the all time record for number of clues that no one answered. Just embarrassing. Also, the last question of the first round was very poorly written. States beginning with the same letter and were #48 and 49 could also have been West Virginia and Wisconsin, since the clue never specified what the hell they were #48 and #49 in.

Shocked only 1 got Pokémon, with “Catch” in the clue.

Agreed, that surprised me.

But I wouldn't have expected anyone to come up with "Bremen" as the smallest state in Germany at FJ on Monday. Not sure if even half the people in Germany would know that one. Most people think of Bremen as a city, not a state. I thought that was a pretty tough question.

Where’s Waldo... Another incredibly easy final.
Trying to figure out who wouldn’t have ran into these books, like 16 and younger and 80+?

Otherwise I’d say Waldo was a massive favorite

Foreigners. I know Waldo from Halloween costumes and TV shows that mention it like Modern Family, but have never held a book in my hand.

That’s fair... I just assumed a massive amount of people in like a 15 year age range(?) saw them in every grade school class.
Idk, they were just always there.

OTOH, I thought "Wiener Kongress" was ridiculously easy because I was told about that extensively in high school history class, but apparently people in the US only learn about Napoleon but not about the aftermath of his (first) reign and wars.

What in the holy hell was that final jeopardy wager?

This 3 day champ feel incredibly weak, very weak competition

Truly one of the worst wagers of all time. There is 0 value in winning the game outright, especially if you feel like you have an edge on your current 2 opponents (which he obviously did) versus two new people the next day.

Yeah this guy sucks. He's been up against incredibly weak opponents in his wins.

Hey, out of curiosity, does anyone know if in the history of Jeopardy it's ever happened where a defending winner the next day doesn't make it to FJ due to a negative score? I have to imagine it's happened at some point but I don't believe I've ever seen it.

Came upon this a few minutes ago:

http://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/news/jeo...bfcL&ocid=iehp

They changed the rules immediately after Arthur Chu's run so that if the game ends in a tie there is a single question the determine a single winner. The change has not been needed since it's implementation so I'll cut you guys a break on not knowing the rules.

The odds show that it's pretty much a toss up whether you should wager $0 or $1 in this situation. Basically category dependent.

Many defending champions have not made it to FJ the next game.

I disagree. It's obviously very important how comfortable you are with the FJ category. But without any preference, statistics show that going for the win is the right choice.

So if you don't like the category and/or think you have superior buzzering skills for the tie breaker, betting $0 is probably the right play. But other than that, $1 is certainly no mistake here.

I wasn't aware of the rule change so knowing that, obviously betting the $1 isn't so bad. It's definitely category dependent and dependent on how you think you'll stack up buzzer-wise. But if I were him, considering how yesterday's game went where he not only dominated $$ wise but also he buzzed in before the other 2 an extremely high % of the time, I would've liked my chances at a 1 question playoff. So unless I felt really comfortable with the FJ category, I would've still bet 0 and taken my chances.

Not to mention that in this case, it might've a 3-way tie. If you like the category, you go for the win.

They changed the rules a year or two ago. They no longer bring back everyone that ties. Now there is sudden death playoff Q.

Actually, it looks like when up against 2 players, it's slightly correct to go for the win, but the equity is the same if only 1 player can tie you. If we assign 50% chances to getting a question right or beating 1 player in a tie breaker, and a 33% chance to beat 2:

In the case where only 1 player can tie:

If we go for the win, we

Win outright 50% of the time when we get it right
Win 25% of the time when we lose but he misses too, so 75%

If we go for the tie, we

Win 50% of the time he misses
Win 50% of the 50% of the time when we go to tie breaker, so also 75%.

When both opponents could tie us:

If we go for the win, we

Win 50% of the time we get it right
Win only 1/4 of the 50% of the time we get it wrong, so 62.5% total

If we go for the tie, we

Win 25% of the time they both miss
When one gets right and the other gets wrong (50% of the time) we win the heads up tie breaker 50% of the time, so 25% equity
When both get right to lead to a 3 way tie breaker (25%) we win the 3 way tie breaker 33% of the time, so 8.33% equity = 58.33% equity.

In both cases, I'm going to make my decision based on my confidence of the FJ category.

I only assumed 50% chances of getting the question right for the sake of simplicity, but does anyone know actual statistics of the % of time contestants get FJ right?

It's been a while since I've watched, didn't know about the rule change.

Objection retracted.

We are usually over a 50% favorite to get FJ correct. Definitely can based on liking or not liking the category.

Almost a must bet in this case. 3 way tie really kills the tiebreaker odds.

I'd assume a two time champion has significantly better odds to get FJ right than the average contestant?

FJ today was weird, how many female Europeans who could have won "Times Person of the Year 2015" could you come up with? I ended up with exactly one.

I have info from seasons 26-29 I think. Leader going into FJ was correct at 53-54% rate. Believe I've seen that it has always been at least a little above 50%).

Also good to know that if first is correct then 2nd is right also about 60% of the time (first being right is an indicator of an somewhat easier question).

Of course if it's 15th century Venetian poetry and your dissertation just happened to be 15th century Venetian poetry you might want to take that into account.

As already touched on, this math is inaccurate as far as Jeopardy goes. The 8 total possibilities do not break down evenly. The two most common outcomes are RRR and WWW.

If I remember the math I did on it (in a 2-way possible tie) the leader has ~81% chance to win going into FJ either wagering $0 or $1. Naturally category confidence can move the needle either way. The numbers also take into account the percentage of times the 2nd place contestant does not wager everything.

So if you're the leader and the 2nd place contestant is not wager savvy, I'd strongly suggest wagering $0.

Holy ****, black guy today sweating so hard his glasses were actually fogging up.

Heh, girlfriend and I were talking about that.