Final Jeopardy: Shakespeare Characters (10-1-15)
The Final Jeopardy question (10/1/2015) in the category “Shakespeare Characters” was:
8-letter name shared by a tragic heroine and Uranus’ innermost known moon.
4x champ Matt Jackson has now won $106,000, with 2 runaways to his credit. Both of these new players are hoping to take Matt down today: Ezgi Ustundag, from Durham, NC; and Greg Vinton, from North Platte, NE. Let’s see if one of them can do it.
Round 1: Greg found the Jeopardy! round Daily Double in “Financial Literacy” under the $800 clue. He was in the lead with $3,000, $1,200 more than Matt in second place. He said he was going to have to “do it all to beat Matt,” and he was RIGHT.
Often used in mutual funds, it’s the strategy of investing broadly across a number of investments to reduce risk. show
Greg finished in the lead with $8,800. Matt was second with $5,000 and Ezgi was last with $2,000.
Round 2: Matt found the first Daily Double in “Historic Americans” under the $1,600 clue. He was now in the lead with $13,400, $2,200 more than Greg in second place. He bet $6.000 and he was RIGHT.
Hi, I’m Ken Burns. My film about this man who inspired Robert Penn Warren’s “All the King’s Men” depicts his road to the White House cut short by an assassin in 1935. show
Matt found the last Daily Double in “Theories of Everything” under the $2,000 clue. In the lead with $22,200, he was close to another runaway. The scores of Greg ($11,200) and Ezgi ($2,400) had not changed since the last DD. He bet $6,000 again and he was RIGHT.
Bronsted & Lowry were red & blue in the face when Lewis disputed their theory about these 2 types of substances. show
Matt finished in the lead with $33,000 but it wasn’t a runaway because Greg didn’t give up. He was second with $17,200. Ezgi was in third place with $2,000.
Only ONE of the contestants got Final Jeopardy! right.
“Thousands of years ago, when the Romans and Greeks were naming the planets that were visible to them, they decided to name them after their gods…. The names of moons orbiting planets are also influenced by mythology. This is all except for one planet. The moons orbiting Uranus are named after characters in plays, mostly after characters in plays written by William Shakespeare.” Bob the Alien explains how that came about on his “Tour of the Solar System” website.
Ezgi chose Ophelia, Hamlet’s tragic 7-letter heroine. She kept her whole $2,000 with a zero bet.
Greg also picked a 7-letter name: Titania, from a comedy. He lost $15,801, leaving him with $1,399.
Matt got it right. His $1,401 bet made him today’s winner with $34,401. His 5-day total is $140,401.
In the beginning of the program, Alex Trebek mentioned that Matt is now on the new TOC Tracker on Jeopardy.com. Well, today’s win put him at the head of the 5x winner entries. He’s only got to win 2 or 3 more games to get to the top. Even if he only makes it to 7 games, his winnings could very well exceed 7x champ, Greg Seroka’s $180,401.
2 years ago:: ALL of the players got this FJ in “Children’s Book Series”
The impetus for these books came from a vision the author had “of a faun carrying an umbrella & parcels in a snowy wood.” show
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Is there any way to watch recent Jeopardy episodes online?
Not that we know of. If there was, I wouldn’t have late recaps when it is preempted for breaking news or, like today, presidential press conferences.
I was very happy that Matt won his 5th game and will be back for the Tournament Of Champions, regardlessly, but at the same time, I feel bad for Greg because I think he must have learned that in order to beat a very good player in Matt Jackson, it’s going to have to take someone who is knowledgable, very fast on the signaling button, very good at hunting for Daily Doubles, very good at wagering on Daily Doubles and for Final Jeopardy!, and hoping that Matt Jackson will have a bad day.
There’s is no reason to feel bad for Greg. He played a very good game and was very knowledgeable. He had a good lead for a while there. Even more than that, as I have often said, I truly admire a player who keeps hanging in there even when it looks like a losing battle.
How does Matt know these things? Do you know what percentage of the people on Earth can name the moons of Uranus, and then know which one has the same name as one of Shakespeare’s tragic heroines? You know it has to be less than 1%.
Now, to return to my usual snarky persona: Why, oh why, oh why, would anyone bother writing down a 7-letter name, when they know it can’t be correct and that people like me on the Internet will make fun of them? Or did they not know the names they wrote only had 7 letters? If not, why not?
Some things are just inexplicable, I guess.
It’s not inexplicable. I answered your question in a post here.
//jboard.tv/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=3111
@Tom, I was surprised to learn that a lot of kids probably know the names of the moons of Uranus, esp when I didn’t even know Uranus had moons. LOL. I saw several sites teaching kids specifically about it, like Kids Astronomy. and Cordelia is first on the moon list. So a lot of kids these days might be able to get this answer just from the “innermost” part, without knowing why it is named that.
I was able to come up with Cressida and Cordelia myself though I really can’t recall anything I ever learned about that planet other than its name. I just went with the wrong lady. As for why they wrote down 7-letter names, I have no idea!
Greg put up a wonderful fight—he could’ve been a champion if he had not faced “Watson II”. I do feel bad for him because he looked devastated at his FJ response.
I got FJ ’cause I’ve been an Astronomy freak since I was a kid.
@VJ— “L’astre du jour fait boum…” There it is: 5-day champ, yay!
@Cece. LOL! Je n’entends que Boum! Boum! Boum! — actually he didn’t say it today but he did smack his fist into his other hand like 3x after getting one of the DDs.
I didn’t even want to talk about his chat segment. I thought that was quite peculiar.
I missed the chat segment, so I don’t know what he said. Yeah, the fist smacking were 3 silent Boums – those big DD bets had me at the edge of my seat.
We’ll see what happens tomorrow.
@Tom —I guess it’s because nerves get the best of them.
I didn’t know the answer with 100% confidence, but I guessed the right answer since Cordelia is the most famous 8-letter tragic heroine in all of Shakespeare. That could well have been how Matt did it too.
43/61. Those on Jboard who surmised Matt would have five lock games in a row were wrong, but just barely wrong.
I was hoping Matt would finally win $35,000 or more tonight. Maybe tomorrow! 🙂