Final Jeopardy: Etymology (4-1-15)
The Final Jeopardy question (4/1/2015), in the category “Etymology” was:
From the Latin for “to walk before”, a famous example of this 8-letter word was written in 1787.
3x champ Michael Bilow has won $96,000 so far. Today he takes on these two players: Max Henkel, from Madison, WI; and Kerry Greene, from Manchester, NH.
Round 1: Michael found the Jeopardy! round Daily Double in “Nicknames” under the $1,000 clue. He was in third place with $1,200, $2,800 less than Kerry’s lead. He made it a true Daily Double and he was RIGHT.
His love of playing in a Mississippi creek earned blues guitarist McKinley Morganfield this nickname. show
Michael finished in the lead with $5,800. Kerry was second with $4,200 and Max was last with $3,200.
Round 2: Michael found the first Daily Double in “Meteorology” under the $1,600 clue. He was in second place with $6,200, $1,200 less than Kerry’s lead. He bet $4,000 and thought it was Apache. That was WRONG.
A North American people lend their name to this hot, dry wind of the Rocky Mountains. show
Michael found the last Daily Double in “Interred in the Pantheon in Paris” under the $1,600 clue. it was the first clue chosen in this category, but there were only 5 clues left after it. He was in third place with $4,200, $8,400 less than Kerry’s lead. He made it a true Daily Double and thought it was Rousseau. That was WRONG.
A leading French writer of the Enlightenment, he was interred in 1791, a few years after his death. show
Kerry finished in the lead with $12,200. Max was next with $9,600 and Michael was in the red for $1,600 so he was out of the game at this point.
BOTH of the contestants got Final Jeopardy! right.
Here is the etymology for “preamble” from Dictionary.com: “1350-1400; Middle English < Medieval Latin praeambulum, noun use of neuter of Late Latin praeambulus walking before. See pre-, amble." Etymology.com mentions the Old French word “preambule.”
The 1787 document refers, of course, to the Preamble of the U.S. Constitution.
Max bet $3,000 and brought his score up to $12,600.
Kerry bet $7,001 so she won the match with $19,201 and we have a new Jeopardy! champ.
Kerry Greene is a volunteer guardian ad litem. During the chat, she and Alex talked about her work with the non-profit group, CASA, court appointed special advocates for neglected and abused children.
2 years ago:: Only ONE of the players got this FJ in “Art”:
One of its principal members said, “one morning one of us, having no black, used blue instead, &” this movement “was born”. show
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Wow! What a way to go down in flames. I forget to add in my prediction in Spoiler Talk “if 3 contestants remain for fj.”
The brain does get tired. Good 3 day run though Michael.
Btw, congrats Kerry. Good game!
Thanks very much!
interesting detail: michael found 8 of the 9 dd clues this week. but he did know when to be cautious, so again: no 4 x champ.
good bet by both. had both been wrong,max would have won since kerry bet the almost mandatory amount.with both wrong kerry would have ended up with 5.199 and max would have won (though wrong) with 6.600.he could have actually wagered 4.400,ending up with 5.200. but a moot point, congratulations to a new champ
the 4 day jinx strikes again…
sorry, of course..”he did NOT know when to be cautious…”but 96K are a nice consolation amount, even after taxes.
I find your statement, “he did NOT know when to be cautious” absolutely baffling. Can you describe ANY betting scenario in which Michael could have won? There simply aren’t any. Even the extreme scenario of the minimum 5 bet doesn’t do it. Ergo, caution had absolutely nothing to do with his loss. He simply couldn’t convert the opportunities into points.
Clearly a good player had a tough game.
if you get a dd in a category you are not too comfortable with you should not make it a true dd. a player should chose the amount s/he wagers on several criteria:
1.where do i stand in the game?
2. how familiar am i with the category?
3. how much do i have to gain/lose
just to mention the main 3.
at the second dd – only 1.200 behind kerry- his wager of 4K was to high. i mentioned that he found 8 out of 9 dd clues. only today he was not as lucky as on mon and tue. he went to the well once too often. that put him in the hole that made him wager all 4.200 at the last dd, a desperation bet.there is a difference between courageous and hazardous. you can not expect to know the answer at EVERY dd.maybe he became too confident after the first 2 days,especially since he got the first dd right today?
Again, even if he bet nothing on the second DD, he would still have been behind Kerry. Your analysis is not supported by ANY quantitative measure.
@Eric:
Just so you know, very few, if any, of Blahuta’s theories are supported by quantitative measures.
He is entertaining, though.
@ Yowza
have not seen any from you at all.
not using one’s name when being offensive says a lot of a person’s character. unless your name IS Yowza……
Thanks — my theory was that I wasn’t going to lose because I didn’t bet enough!
@Kerry, congrats! And contrary to what Alex thinks, some of us have heard of guardians ad litem 🙂
Yes, Kerry, congrats! I was rooting for you! I’ve heard of CASA, too.
Wow, what an epic flameout. This has to be the largest day-to-day difference in a champion’s score ever.
I was thinking the same thing.
$57,198 one day and -$1,600 the next makes for a difference of $58,798. If that’s not the record, I’d like to know what is.
Again, it points out that Jeopardy is more about being fast on the buzzer and the luck of the categories than it is about knowledge (and intelligence, in that many answers need to be “figured out.”)
The very old television show “Twenty One” was strictly about knowledge, in that the two contestants were asked the same questions separately. Unfortunately, it was also rigged — and I mean, *really* rigged. It was phonier than a politician, and that’s bad.
not necessarily the same question. contestants could chose from 1 to 11, one being the easiest and 11 being the most difficult question. the category was the same per round. choosing the point value gave a player to reach say, 18 ,19 or 20 points and stop the game after 2 categories were played and a contestant thought s/he was in the lead after the 2 rounds.