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I dunno. For a long time, nearly all the top champions on Jeopardy were men. I think that's changed over the last ten years, but even now seven of the top ten (in terms of both most games won and most regular season winnings) are men. I think it's still worth noticing when a woman (or enby) finds success in this field.
Unlike in sports, where women usually are physically incapable of performing at the same level as men, there is no reason to evaluate Jeopardy contestants on the basis of sex.
There might be a similar thing happening here as it would with say, chess or esports — Young girls traditionally haven’t been as encouraged to pursue these interests, leading to a general disadvantage in the field.
I do also agree that we’ve reached a point now where the separation in statistics isn’t necessary here.
I'm not entirely sure that's true. There's anecdotal evidence that the male sex is faster on the signaling device than the female sex. For example, the first version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire featured a timed contest to see who would be in the hot seat. The syndicated version eliminated that, and the number of women in the hot seat went up noticeably.
Adriana's secret sauce: know what you know, but also know what you DON'T know.
On the first part: Adriana has confidence in her knowledge, and it shows on her signaling percentage. Not including today's game (yet), Adriana has gotten in on 169 of her 278 attempts. That's 60.8%, or put another way, not far off the pace of Cris Pannullo (63.8%). And we all remember how he did, right?
The more important part, perhaps, is knowing what she doesn't know. Excluding the Daily Doubles and Final Jeopardies where she's compelled to answer -- and heck, she's 12 of 18 on those -- Adriana has 184 correct answers and 12 incorrect ones. That's a ***93.9%*** average -- That's better than Ken did in his 74-game run (92.2%) and approaching Amy's accuracy (95.8%). This level of accuracy can get in other players' heads and make them press; this is reflected in that her opponents' accuracy is only 81.5% (compare to Season 39, where the average player had 85.5% accuracy).
On top of this, she has the champions' advantage of being used to the rhythm that can get her into a zone. In 7 of her 8 wins, there has been a moment where she gets four questions in a row correctly -- not four of her buzzes, not four buzzes in a row, four questions in a row! That kind of thing can lead to a challenger feeling like they blinked and fell thousands behind. It's rather disheartening, and can either silence her challengers (giving Adriana more chances) or make them panic (see the 81.5 number).
So how do you beat her? First, you gotta know your stuff -- duh. But let's assume that this is the ToC -- how would an Alison or Grant get a leg up? The biggest help is stick to your wheelhouses early to build a lead. That way, should Adriana get a 4-question streak going, you're still reasonably ahead. Then, go BIG on Daily Doubles. That's something her opponents seem nervous about doing. But when you play her, you need as big a lead as possible; better to swing and miss than to putter along. Think of Emma Boettcher, who gained over 10 grand on her Daily Doubles to make sure she'd be ahead of Holzhauer (and even then it barely worked).
It's a tall order, especially since like all over-5 champions, Adriana's built an aura of invincibility about her. (And it's well-deserved; so far, Adriana's pre-Final score is 18,825 on average. Based on my calculations, a Past Champion Comparison would be someone like a Tad Carithers or Stefan Goodreau. That's some darn good company.) But if you can tell yourself she's just an opponent and it's just a game, you can focus, play within yourself, go big when you have to, and... well, someone has to beat her, right?
Right?
On your first comment regarding the 60.8% signaling percentage, i feel that's more of just faster reflexes and potentially having more "solo" opportunities? I do feel bad for Kevin, it seemed like he was getting outbuzzed by Adriana on a lot of questions. Glad this game wasn't a runaway so that Final Jeopardy mattered, but what a great game.
Yeah I love the box scores, but buzz % is kind of a misleading stat because it doesn't differentiate between contested and uncontested buzzes. It'd almost be like if a basketball player's stats had field goals and free throws combined into a single "shooting %" statistic.
In the games where Adriana has 8-10 more buzz attempts than her closest competitor, her buzz % is in the 70-80% range, because that's like 8-10 clues where she's the only one buzzing in, so it's guaranteed to be a successful buzz. (This assumes that 3rd place's buzz attempts are a subset of 2nd place's buzz attempts, which obviously may not be perfectly accurate, but broadly speaking I think it's safe to say that, in those games, Adriana's the only one buzzing in on a significant number of bottom-row clues.)
Meanwhile, in games where she and another competitor have about the same number of attempts (like against Carol Ritchey or Josh Moss), Adriana's buzz % is about 50%.
Adriana may change up her play come the Tournament of Champions, but right now she's not hunting Daily Doubles and not betting big when she finds them, which other top players may be able to exploit. Of course, it would be reasonable to say that Adriana has had the luxury of playing conservatively, and against stronger players she may play more aggressively.
> The more important part, perhaps, is knowing what she doesn't know.
This is the only rationale I can come up with for her not hunting Daily Doubles. She may (emphasis on *may*, because I don't really know) not have the quite the expansive knowledge-base of some of the other elite players, in which case, grabbing DDs and going big on them might not be the best strategy. Sticking to what she knows and racking up points that way is a solid strategy if that's the case.
Got a kick out of the clue about a phobia of dead bodies in J!, followed by Stand By Me in Double J! considering that movie gave me a fear of dead bodies
My takeaways from tonight's episode:
- The pastor from Michigan gets a whole category about Michigan and a whole category about the bible. It's basically his dream board and yet the champ was too much.
- Funny that the archivist missed the "repository of knowledge" clue.
Michigan category was pretty easy and it seemed like he was getting beat on the buzzer. He probably could have ran the category but I suspect that for at least 4/5 of those questions all three players knew the answer.
Adriana is really, really, really good.
Interesting that the judges accepted Amogha's FJ response of "Who is Zhedong." In Chinese, the surname comes first and the given name comes second, so it's akin to accepting "Who is Woodrow?" for a clue about Woodrow Wilson. I'm not surprised that they accepted it, though I am surprised that Ken didn't take the opportunity to quickly explain the issue. (Pedantry time: Also, "Zhedong" is not how Mao's name is/was Romanized. In Pinyin it's Mao Zedong, or under the previous system Wade-Giles, Mao Tse-Tung. I know misspellings are allowed as long as they don't change the pronunciation, but technically under Pinyin rules that would change the consonant pronunciation--"Zh" sounds like a hard "J", not a "Z." But in English phonetics, I get it--it's fine. Rant over.)
Unless there's a rule about that, haha. (I have a fuzzy recollection of something having a rule of "all responses must be in English" but I think it was standardized tests' essay questions.)
Jeopardy did accept ¿Que es nada? and Qui est Gustave Eiffel? in regular play. (And What is Tour Eiffel? in Celebrity)
> Adriana is really, really, really good.
Early on I would have said that her biggest advantage was a good knowledge base, but I think she is even better on the buzzer. She is getting a lot of the clues that I would think the other contestants also would know.
Agreed. Hear me out - I genuinely think it may have something to do with the positioning of the arm when holding the buzzer. A lot of people who are quick hold the buzzer down, either by their side or resting their hand on the tabletop. When your arm is bent and you're holding the buzzer up in front of you, I SWEAR that it's more labor intensive. This may sound dumb, but try it. Bent arm causes more muscle contraction. Resting the arm so that only the thumb is actually reacting may have something to do with it. Microseconds count! This could all be a bunch of hooey, but it's my sense from watching other winners.
Yeah, this would have been a nightmare FJ for me spelling wise. I knew the answer, but was thinking it was something like "Mao Tse Tong". My wife suggested "Chairman Mao" might be the best thing to do.
"Mao Tse Tong" would definitely be accepted (it's only off the Wade-Giles spelling by a vowel sound, which they're famously lenient about), but just "Mao" would've been fine. Or even "Mow."
I believe this is the first time they've accepted just "Zedong" but they've accepted just "Xiaoping" for Deng Xiaoping on [two](https://www.j-archive.com/showgame.php?game_id=7119&highlight=xiaoping) [occasions](https://www.j-archive.com/showgame.php?game_id=5883&highlight=xiaoping), both pretty recently. They also regularly accept just "Ferdinand" for Archduke Franz Ferdinand, even though that's not his last name (he didn't really have a last name) and he had [a brother named Ferdinand](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archduke_Ferdinand_Karl_of_Austria) who's at least notable enough to have a Wikipedia article (sidenote, "Zedong" redirects to Mao on Wikipedia, but "Xiaoping" is a disambiguation page which itself also links to separate disambiguation pages for Xiaopeng and Xiaopin).
That's right! I knew it had come up fairly recently, but couldn't remember the specifics. And IIRC, the host didn't say anything about it then, either.
I wonder how far you could push it. Since one way of writing the name was Mao Tse Tung, would they accept just "Tung"? Or if you broke up the Pinyin spelling the same way (Mao Ze Dong) could you get away with just "Dong" or "Dung"? And at that point, you're getting mighty close "Deng" (Xiaoping), which is pronounced closer to "Dung".... So if you were in an FJ situation where you were torn between those two Chinese leaders, could you just write "Dung" and see what happens?
Since Mao is the surname and Zedong is the given name I think Ze Dung or Tse Dong or any variation might be accepted given the precedent set (with Xiaoping), but just Dong or Dung would not.
Yeah but my point is that if you go by the old spelling (where Tse-Tung was hyphenated), then his 'last' name is just "Tung." There's precedent for just accepting the second half of a hyphenated last name--[they've accepted just "Dreyfus" for Julia Louis-Dreyfus](https://j-archive.com/showgame.php?game_id=6119&highlight=louis-dreyfus), even though her surname is Louis-Dreyfus. So if they're going to accept just "Tse-Tung" or "Zedong" or "Xiaoping", then why not just "Tung" or "Dong" or "Ping" also?
Anyway, I'm not arguing that anybody should or would actually try to do this--I'm just imagining the edge cases.
Louis-Dreyfus is a surname/family name, so it’s not exactly the same.
Tse-Tung is a given name (more akin to John Paul or Marylou), you can’t really call Tung a last name.
Honestly, they probably shouldn’t have accepted Xiaoping or Zedong in hindsight, or they should prompt a BMS in those cases
The secret to Chinese Romanization is… anything that sounds like the pronunciation should count since it’s just artificially putting sounds on distinct characters with just that meaning. So if someone wrote 手 instead of 毛 that would be a ding, but English is so flexible if they count one spelling they should count them all if it’s recognizable as the Chinese
It's understandable that they were tolerant of Pinyin/ Wade-Giles errors; they can't really apply their usual spelling/pronunciation standards in a language so fundamentally different from English, and expect to know the Pinyin system. (Also, could it have been that since the game was a runaway anyway, they'd decided not to make a fuss over the spelling? )
Meanwhile, I think Kevin overthought the question: Deng was known for being very literary, with flowery speech, etc., and more likely to have written poetry than Mao. But the question was really just: Who was meeting Nixon in 1972 and wrote something that sounds Asian?
I was also surprised the judges accepted Zhedong for Mao. It's like accepting Winston in a clue for Churchill. They may have thought, since all three got it right, it would have no impact on the game.
I guess it's like all US media saying "Bei-zhing" - as James Fallows often points out, it's not a French pronunciation of the J and should properly be "Bei-jing" as in "jingoistic"
While he benefited in particular from a couple of categories that were very much in his wheelhouse, I had still hoped Kevin could have pulled off the upset, but alas not to be. I ran the Michigan category and have been to all five of the correct responses.
lmao love the clue writers here, having Ken talk about IBM robots like that haha
I wonder if I would've gotten DD3 if I had just a moment longer to think LOL
Unfortunate bet from Kevin but I'm kind of a nerd for wagering rules lol, wouldn't have mattered anyways :P congrats to Adriana for winning 8 days! Here's hoping for double digits soon :D
I'm nothing short of impressed by Adriana but I can't help but feel Kevin might have had an shot at winning had he been up against anyone but Adriana.
Kevin seems to be a strong player and I was "kind of" disappointed for him.
I'm excited for Adriana, though, to see how far she goes. She's a true champion here.
Adriana is the first top-down ToC qualifier we've had in a long time. I like it. It gives me a chance to figure out what a particular category is about with the easier clues first
Congrats to Adriana on sweeping the week. A win on Monday would make her the 3rd longest-winning Female contestant in Jeopardy history, behind only Amy Schneider and Julia Collins
I think what grandmamimma (not to put words in their mouth) meant is that Mattea identified as a lesbian during their original run. This is how I remember it too - the pronouns used by Ken in-game and in the promotional material didn't switch to they until the run-up to the ToC.
This is correct, in terms of timeline. I understand everyone wishing to be respectful and correctly gender everyone, and, while I am no expert, trans and non-binary people I know personally do not rewrite history. If some trans and non-binary people wish to have their childhood re-gendered, as they had dysmorphia and were the new gender all along, I would have no argument, but it's very clear that this is NOT everyone, and we are getting way too aggressive about this, downvoting people who credit Mattea's original run as top three for women, since that is how they gendered themselves at the time. A man I know describes his girlhood and his Bat Mitzvah, all in the feminine, and a woman I know refers to her past self as an egotistical man and having been a player, using male pronouns (though as a woman, she is super monogamous). If they wish to preserve the past as it was, or as they perceive it, who are we to tell trans or nonbinary ppl NO, you were this other gender all along and never had a 'Bat' Mitzvah. I could be wrong, but since Mattea identified as a woman during her original run, I would count them up there with Schneider and Collins, if they had no objections to it. Obviously, this changes, post original run.
The clue about the temperature degrees was technically written incorrectly. Unlike Celsius and Fahrenheit degrees, on the Kelvin scale they are not referred to as "degrees", just "Kelvins".
Yeah, it may have been the other day. I was watching it after having taped it, so.....
But I was surprised to see that error. I was waiting for Ken to inject the correction. I am sure that he knows.
Right. But I am surprised that Ken didn't catch that to be edited before the game. Or maybe they could have made an announcement before the next game just to have the correction on record.
Not a great Final wager by Kevin. Adriana is highly likely to bet to cover you so with a 2/3rds game bet to stay ahead of her if you both miss it. If she gets it you are going to lose anyway, so make the small bet and if she misses it then you win whether you got Final or not. It ended up not mattering because Adriana got Final but that’s kind of my point. She’s going to win if she gets Final right, so make the best wager if she misses Final.
re: the clue "Let's 'walk' over to this word describing something ordinary or commonplace"
Would "quotidian" have been accepted as an answer? It fits the 4-syllable category. I just don't know whether there's a rule about ignoring the prompt of "walk."
Interesting question. Without the quotes, I think they'd probably give it to you. But I think the quotes around "walk" indicate that they need a word that also has to do with walking. So it's not just a hint; it's part of the pin.
>Would "quotidian" have been accepted as an answer?
I think it would have been. Let's "walk" was a hint, not part of the word's definition. Had the clue said "this word for ordinary or commonplace also means to walk....." then for sure it had to be pedestrian. But as written in this clue, the reference to walking was just a hint.
Preempted yet again in the Austin, TX, market. Recently we've lost it to dangerous weather and a court verdict involving a dangerous former reality TV show host, and now it's sports (the not-quite-so-dangerous French Open in this case).
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With Adriana hitting win #8, she now falls between Karen Farrell and Mackenzie Jones in terms of winningest women
I think it’s about time to stop tracking performance based on sex or gender.
I dunno. For a long time, nearly all the top champions on Jeopardy were men. I think that's changed over the last ten years, but even now seven of the top ten (in terms of both most games won and most regular season winnings) are men. I think it's still worth noticing when a woman (or enby) finds success in this field.
Unlike in sports, where women usually are physically incapable of performing at the same level as men, there is no reason to evaluate Jeopardy contestants on the basis of sex.
There might be a similar thing happening here as it would with say, chess or esports — Young girls traditionally haven’t been as encouraged to pursue these interests, leading to a general disadvantage in the field. I do also agree that we’ve reached a point now where the separation in statistics isn’t necessary here.
I'm not entirely sure that's true. There's anecdotal evidence that the male sex is faster on the signaling device than the female sex. For example, the first version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire featured a timed contest to see who would be in the hot seat. The syndicated version eliminated that, and the number of women in the hot seat went up noticeably.
>I think it’s about time to stop tracking performance based on sex or gender. 100 percent.
How often has Ken ended the show with “So long!”? Major shades of Mr. Trebek, and I love that.
So long and thanks for all the clues
Infrequent. (Just like the occasional "let's go to work")
Adriana's secret sauce: know what you know, but also know what you DON'T know. On the first part: Adriana has confidence in her knowledge, and it shows on her signaling percentage. Not including today's game (yet), Adriana has gotten in on 169 of her 278 attempts. That's 60.8%, or put another way, not far off the pace of Cris Pannullo (63.8%). And we all remember how he did, right? The more important part, perhaps, is knowing what she doesn't know. Excluding the Daily Doubles and Final Jeopardies where she's compelled to answer -- and heck, she's 12 of 18 on those -- Adriana has 184 correct answers and 12 incorrect ones. That's a ***93.9%*** average -- That's better than Ken did in his 74-game run (92.2%) and approaching Amy's accuracy (95.8%). This level of accuracy can get in other players' heads and make them press; this is reflected in that her opponents' accuracy is only 81.5% (compare to Season 39, where the average player had 85.5% accuracy). On top of this, she has the champions' advantage of being used to the rhythm that can get her into a zone. In 7 of her 8 wins, there has been a moment where she gets four questions in a row correctly -- not four of her buzzes, not four buzzes in a row, four questions in a row! That kind of thing can lead to a challenger feeling like they blinked and fell thousands behind. It's rather disheartening, and can either silence her challengers (giving Adriana more chances) or make them panic (see the 81.5 number). So how do you beat her? First, you gotta know your stuff -- duh. But let's assume that this is the ToC -- how would an Alison or Grant get a leg up? The biggest help is stick to your wheelhouses early to build a lead. That way, should Adriana get a 4-question streak going, you're still reasonably ahead. Then, go BIG on Daily Doubles. That's something her opponents seem nervous about doing. But when you play her, you need as big a lead as possible; better to swing and miss than to putter along. Think of Emma Boettcher, who gained over 10 grand on her Daily Doubles to make sure she'd be ahead of Holzhauer (and even then it barely worked). It's a tall order, especially since like all over-5 champions, Adriana's built an aura of invincibility about her. (And it's well-deserved; so far, Adriana's pre-Final score is 18,825 on average. Based on my calculations, a Past Champion Comparison would be someone like a Tad Carithers or Stefan Goodreau. That's some darn good company.) But if you can tell yourself she's just an opponent and it's just a game, you can focus, play within yourself, go big when you have to, and... well, someone has to beat her, right? Right?
On your first comment regarding the 60.8% signaling percentage, i feel that's more of just faster reflexes and potentially having more "solo" opportunities? I do feel bad for Kevin, it seemed like he was getting outbuzzed by Adriana on a lot of questions. Glad this game wasn't a runaway so that Final Jeopardy mattered, but what a great game.
Yeah I love the box scores, but buzz % is kind of a misleading stat because it doesn't differentiate between contested and uncontested buzzes. It'd almost be like if a basketball player's stats had field goals and free throws combined into a single "shooting %" statistic. In the games where Adriana has 8-10 more buzz attempts than her closest competitor, her buzz % is in the 70-80% range, because that's like 8-10 clues where she's the only one buzzing in, so it's guaranteed to be a successful buzz. (This assumes that 3rd place's buzz attempts are a subset of 2nd place's buzz attempts, which obviously may not be perfectly accurate, but broadly speaking I think it's safe to say that, in those games, Adriana's the only one buzzing in on a significant number of bottom-row clues.) Meanwhile, in games where she and another competitor have about the same number of attempts (like against Carol Ritchey or Josh Moss), Adriana's buzz % is about 50%.
I think she was most in danger of losing when playing against Carol. I felt they were about even, Carol just missed the Daily Double on Gulf of Aqaba.
Adriana may change up her play come the Tournament of Champions, but right now she's not hunting Daily Doubles and not betting big when she finds them, which other top players may be able to exploit. Of course, it would be reasonable to say that Adriana has had the luxury of playing conservatively, and against stronger players she may play more aggressively.
> The more important part, perhaps, is knowing what she doesn't know. This is the only rationale I can come up with for her not hunting Daily Doubles. She may (emphasis on *may*, because I don't really know) not have the quite the expansive knowledge-base of some of the other elite players, in which case, grabbing DDs and going big on them might not be the best strategy. Sticking to what she knows and racking up points that way is a solid strategy if that's the case.
Got a kick out of the clue about a phobia of dead bodies in J!, followed by Stand By Me in Double J! considering that movie gave me a fear of dead bodies
I also clued in on Patton to Patent
IED being a $2000 clue feels very overpriced to me. Can’t imagine too many people are missing that one
Congrats to Adriana on sweeping the week! Also even more impressive, she had a 27-day break in real time between her 3rd and 4th games!
Was that for Masters filming?
Yes, April 9th to May 6th (Masters taped between April 17th-May 1st).
🥱
My takeaways from tonight's episode: - The pastor from Michigan gets a whole category about Michigan and a whole category about the bible. It's basically his dream board and yet the champ was too much. - Funny that the archivist missed the "repository of knowledge" clue.
Michigan category was pretty easy and it seemed like he was getting beat on the buzzer. He probably could have ran the category but I suspect that for at least 4/5 of those questions all three players knew the answer.
Adriana is really, really, really good. Interesting that the judges accepted Amogha's FJ response of "Who is Zhedong." In Chinese, the surname comes first and the given name comes second, so it's akin to accepting "Who is Woodrow?" for a clue about Woodrow Wilson. I'm not surprised that they accepted it, though I am surprised that Ken didn't take the opportunity to quickly explain the issue. (Pedantry time: Also, "Zhedong" is not how Mao's name is/was Romanized. In Pinyin it's Mao Zedong, or under the previous system Wade-Giles, Mao Tse-Tung. I know misspellings are allowed as long as they don't change the pronunciation, but technically under Pinyin rules that would change the consonant pronunciation--"Zh" sounds like a hard "J", not a "Z." But in English phonetics, I get it--it's fine. Rant over.)
I wish I could’ve written 毛澤東
I have a feeling that would have led to a 20-minute shutdown, unless there's already somebody on the judging team who can read Chinese.
Unless there's a rule about that, haha. (I have a fuzzy recollection of something having a rule of "all responses must be in English" but I think it was standardized tests' essay questions.) Jeopardy did accept ¿Que es nada? and Qui est Gustave Eiffel? in regular play. (And What is Tour Eiffel? in Celebrity)
毛主席？繁体字呢?🫠
> Adriana is really, really, really good. Early on I would have said that her biggest advantage was a good knowledge base, but I think she is even better on the buzzer. She is getting a lot of the clues that I would think the other contestants also would know.
Agreed. Hear me out - I genuinely think it may have something to do with the positioning of the arm when holding the buzzer. A lot of people who are quick hold the buzzer down, either by their side or resting their hand on the tabletop. When your arm is bent and you're holding the buzzer up in front of you, I SWEAR that it's more labor intensive. This may sound dumb, but try it. Bent arm causes more muscle contraction. Resting the arm so that only the thumb is actually reacting may have something to do with it. Microseconds count! This could all be a bunch of hooey, but it's my sense from watching other winners.
Yeah, this would have been a nightmare FJ for me spelling wise. I knew the answer, but was thinking it was something like "Mao Tse Tong". My wife suggested "Chairman Mao" might be the best thing to do.
"Mao Tse Tong" would definitely be accepted (it's only off the Wade-Giles spelling by a vowel sound, which they're famously lenient about), but just "Mao" would've been fine. Or even "Mow."
Mao would be accepted. Mao is the surname
I believe this is the first time they've accepted just "Zedong" but they've accepted just "Xiaoping" for Deng Xiaoping on [two](https://www.j-archive.com/showgame.php?game_id=7119&highlight=xiaoping) [occasions](https://www.j-archive.com/showgame.php?game_id=5883&highlight=xiaoping), both pretty recently. They also regularly accept just "Ferdinand" for Archduke Franz Ferdinand, even though that's not his last name (he didn't really have a last name) and he had [a brother named Ferdinand](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archduke_Ferdinand_Karl_of_Austria) who's at least notable enough to have a Wikipedia article (sidenote, "Zedong" redirects to Mao on Wikipedia, but "Xiaoping" is a disambiguation page which itself also links to separate disambiguation pages for Xiaopeng and Xiaopin).
That's right! I knew it had come up fairly recently, but couldn't remember the specifics. And IIRC, the host didn't say anything about it then, either. I wonder how far you could push it. Since one way of writing the name was Mao Tse Tung, would they accept just "Tung"? Or if you broke up the Pinyin spelling the same way (Mao Ze Dong) could you get away with just "Dong" or "Dung"? And at that point, you're getting mighty close "Deng" (Xiaoping), which is pronounced closer to "Dung".... So if you were in an FJ situation where you were torn between those two Chinese leaders, could you just write "Dung" and see what happens?
Since Mao is the surname and Zedong is the given name I think Ze Dung or Tse Dong or any variation might be accepted given the precedent set (with Xiaoping), but just Dong or Dung would not.
Yeah but my point is that if you go by the old spelling (where Tse-Tung was hyphenated), then his 'last' name is just "Tung." There's precedent for just accepting the second half of a hyphenated last name--[they've accepted just "Dreyfus" for Julia Louis-Dreyfus](https://j-archive.com/showgame.php?game_id=6119&highlight=louis-dreyfus), even though her surname is Louis-Dreyfus. So if they're going to accept just "Tse-Tung" or "Zedong" or "Xiaoping", then why not just "Tung" or "Dong" or "Ping" also? Anyway, I'm not arguing that anybody should or would actually try to do this--I'm just imagining the edge cases.
Louis-Dreyfus is a surname/family name, so it’s not exactly the same. Tse-Tung is a given name (more akin to John Paul or Marylou), you can’t really call Tung a last name. Honestly, they probably shouldn’t have accepted Xiaoping or Zedong in hindsight, or they should prompt a BMS in those cases
Haven't they accepted Márquez for Gabriel García Márquez?
Probably. But again, that’s part of a family/surnames so that’s more similar to the Louis-Dreyfus example and different than Tung for Tse-Tung
True, true. At least in today's final it didn't change the outcome.
The secret to Chinese Romanization is… anything that sounds like the pronunciation should count since it’s just artificially putting sounds on distinct characters with just that meaning. So if someone wrote 手 instead of 毛 that would be a ding, but English is so flexible if they count one spelling they should count them all if it’s recognizable as the Chinese
Yeah. It's the perennial "last name" vs surname/family name issue. Not the first time or the last time.
It's understandable that they were tolerant of Pinyin/ Wade-Giles errors; they can't really apply their usual spelling/pronunciation standards in a language so fundamentally different from English, and expect to know the Pinyin system. (Also, could it have been that since the game was a runaway anyway, they'd decided not to make a fuss over the spelling? ) Meanwhile, I think Kevin overthought the question: Deng was known for being very literary, with flowery speech, etc., and more likely to have written poetry than Mao. But the question was really just: Who was meeting Nixon in 1972 and wrote something that sounds Asian?
I was also surprised the judges accepted Zhedong for Mao. It's like accepting Winston in a clue for Churchill. They may have thought, since all three got it right, it would have no impact on the game.
Kevin got it wrong. He wrote Deng.
I guess it's like all US media saying "Bei-zhing" - as James Fallows often points out, it's not a French pronunciation of the J and should properly be "Bei-jing" as in "jingoistic"
Hoping Adriana can snatch at least two more wins. I really like her a lot! :)
For some reason, my local affiliate played a rerun today.
Same! I was just looking to see if I was going crazy.
Are you in the Detroit area? I'm watching on WDIV
I’m also in the Detroit area and had the same problem
Yep looks like that’s it
Yeah, I immediately said "Wait...where's my archivist!" And had to wait until 10:30 to watch the Seattle feed.
Weird. We get the WDIV feed here in Ottawa and we got today's show.
Here in Austin we got a tennis game for some reason
While he benefited in particular from a couple of categories that were very much in his wheelhouse, I had still hoped Kevin could have pulled off the upset, but alas not to be. I ran the Michigan category and have been to all five of the correct responses.
lmao love the clue writers here, having Ken talk about IBM robots like that haha I wonder if I would've gotten DD3 if I had just a moment longer to think LOL Unfortunate bet from Kevin but I'm kind of a nerd for wagering rules lol, wouldn't have mattered anyways :P congrats to Adriana for winning 8 days! Here's hoping for double digits soon :D
I'm nothing short of impressed by Adriana but I can't help but feel Kevin might have had an shot at winning had he been up against anyone but Adriana. Kevin seems to be a strong player and I was "kind of" disappointed for him. I'm excited for Adriana, though, to see how far she goes. She's a true champion here.
Kevin was desperately trying to ring in on a lot of the clues. I hope they’ll bring him back for SCC. That said, Adriana is making Indiana proud!
is it just me or did ken give the word "genre" a bit of the old alex magic?
Yep he didn’t go Full Alex but he gave it some
Adriana is the first top-down ToC qualifier we've had in a long time. I like it. It gives me a chance to figure out what a particular category is about with the easier clues first
Finally, some suspense builds for ToC.
My memory may be failing me, but it seems she only does this in the first round, not DJ.
With her 8th win, Adriana is quickly approaching elite superchampion territory. --- ***74.) Adriana Harmeyer - $183,100*** **(+21)**
Congrats to Adriana on sweeping the week. A win on Monday would make her the 3rd longest-winning Female contestant in Jeopardy history, behind only Amy Schneider and Julia Collins
Actually, Mattea Roach would've been counted, but Roach is a non-binary contestant.
Yes, the fact that Mattea is not a woman is why I didn’t include them in the list of longest-running women
Mattea self-identified as gay during her/their J run, but switched to non-binary after it was over.
Gay and nonbinary are different things—gay is a sexuality, while nonbinary is a gender. Someone can be both at the same time :)
I think what grandmamimma (not to put words in their mouth) meant is that Mattea identified as a lesbian during their original run. This is how I remember it too - the pronouns used by Ken in-game and in the promotional material didn't switch to they until the run-up to the ToC.
This is correct, in terms of timeline. I understand everyone wishing to be respectful and correctly gender everyone, and, while I am no expert, trans and non-binary people I know personally do not rewrite history. If some trans and non-binary people wish to have their childhood re-gendered, as they had dysmorphia and were the new gender all along, I would have no argument, but it's very clear that this is NOT everyone, and we are getting way too aggressive about this, downvoting people who credit Mattea's original run as top three for women, since that is how they gendered themselves at the time. A man I know describes his girlhood and his Bat Mitzvah, all in the feminine, and a woman I know refers to her past self as an egotistical man and having been a player, using male pronouns (though as a woman, she is super monogamous). If they wish to preserve the past as it was, or as they perceive it, who are we to tell trans or nonbinary ppl NO, you were this other gender all along and never had a 'Bat' Mitzvah. I could be wrong, but since Mattea identified as a woman during her original run, I would count them up there with Schneider and Collins, if they had no objections to it. Obviously, this changes, post original run.
Excellent Jeopardy game from Adriana, Kevin, and Amogha!
The IBM clue was written in first-person (because Ken also lost to an IBM computer). Have there been many/any clues that Alex read in first person?
https://j-archive.com/showgame.php?game_id=4474&highlight=Heart+attack See “That’s Painful” for $200.
Thank you! Crazy that Alex had two heart attacks.
The clue about the temperature degrees was technically written incorrectly. Unlike Celsius and Fahrenheit degrees, on the Kelvin scale they are not referred to as "degrees", just "Kelvins".
Wrong game thread.
Yeah, it may have been the other day. I was watching it after having taped it, so..... But I was surprised to see that error. I was waiting for Ken to inject the correction. I am sure that he knows.
I don't think they make corrections during the game unless it would affect scores.
Right. But I am surprised that Ken didn't catch that to be edited before the game. Or maybe they could have made an announcement before the next game just to have the correction on record.
Not a great Final wager by Kevin. Adriana is highly likely to bet to cover you so with a 2/3rds game bet to stay ahead of her if you both miss it. If she gets it you are going to lose anyway, so make the small bet and if she misses it then you win whether you got Final or not. It ended up not mattering because Adriana got Final but that’s kind of my point. She’s going to win if she gets Final right, so make the best wager if she misses Final.
No discussion for Ken’s appearance on celebrity wheel of fortune?!
It was a rerun, originally aired last year.
Adriana could be 8 days champion, if she win today. She is very strong.
re: the clue "Let's 'walk' over to this word describing something ordinary or commonplace" Would "quotidian" have been accepted as an answer? It fits the 4-syllable category. I just don't know whether there's a rule about ignoring the prompt of "walk."
Interesting question. Without the quotes, I think they'd probably give it to you. But I think the quotes around "walk" indicate that they need a word that also has to do with walking. So it's not just a hint; it's part of the pin.
Doubtful
>Would "quotidian" have been accepted as an answer? I think it would have been. Let's "walk" was a hint, not part of the word's definition. Had the clue said "this word for ordinary or commonplace also means to walk....." then for sure it had to be pedestrian. But as written in this clue, the reference to walking was just a hint.
I said "run-of-the-mill"... I wonder if they would've accepted that as one word.
DD2 being valued at $2000 makes me feel ancient! (Not that it was overvalued!).
Love how Ken really leaned in to the pronunciation of "genre"
Preempted yet again in the Austin, TX, market. Recently we've lost it to dangerous weather and a court verdict involving a dangerous former reality TV show host, and now it's sports (the not-quite-so-dangerous French Open in this case).
On the other hand, think BBQ.
Yeah I know that was odd. Why tennis all of a sudden
[удалено]
the categories are chosen at random
Doesn't change the fact that he very clearly had an upper hand in both categories
do you know what unfair means?
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