Final Jeopardy: International News (4-16-19)
Today’s Final Jeopardy question (4/16/2019) in the category “International News” was:
In 2014 this 10,000-square-mile region moved its clocks forward 2 hours to Moscow Standard Time
8x champ James Holzhauer, a pro sports gambler from Las Vegas, NV, having won $460,479, is now No. 2 in all-time winnings in regular play. In Game 9, his challengers are: Adam Lozeau, a public defender from Saint Paul, MN; and Katie Grosteffon, an ergonomist from Lexington, KY.
Click here to leave well wishes and prayers for Alex Trebek. There’s also a link to where you can make a donation to pancreatic cancer research in his honor.
Round 1 Categories: A Year Ending in 9 – Also a First Name – A Thurber Carnival of Quotations – Behind the Scenes – 5 Jeffs – Yeah, We Saw It on the Internet
James found the Jeopardy! round Daily Double in “Year Ending in 9” under the $800 clue on the 8th pick of the round. He was in the lead with $5,800, $4,800 more than Adam in second place. He bet all of it and he was RIGHT.
A year before the Pilgrims even landed, a Thanksgiving of sorts was held by newly arrived settlers to Virginia. show
James finished in the lead with $19,400. Adam was second with $3,200 and Katie was last with $400.
Round 2 Categories: Canadian City Nicknames – Press Your Luck – Literary Allusions – Boys in the Band – Sounds Like Pig Latin – The Franklin Institute
James found the first Daily Double in “Literary Allusions” under the $1,600 clue on the 15th pick. He was in the lead with $27,000 now, $18,200 more than Adam in second place. He bet $11,381 and he was RIGHT.
Meaning extremely large, this adjective comes from the name of Rabelais’ giant of a 16th century character. show
James found the last Daily Double in “Pig Latin” under the $1,600 clue. There were 8 clues left after it, worth $6,000. James had an unbeatable $46,381 and Adam was second with $10,000. James bet $17,000 and he was RIGHT.
The Book of Daniel gives us this 3-word phrase for a hero’s unexpected flaw. show
James finished with $66,181, another stupendous runaway, and Adam was next with $11,200. Katie, at zero, was out of the game.
Only ONE of the contestants got Final Jeopardy! right.
The Russian Federation annexed the Ukrainian territory of Crimea in March 2014, an action that was highly criticized by the international community and continues to be disputed. One of the changes made was switching to Moscow Time and this resolution was soon adopted: “To establish across the Republic of Crimea the time standard in accordance with the third time zone with the time change at 2 am on March 30, 2014, by moving the clock two hours forward.” RT, a Russian TV station, posted an article showing people celebrating in the Crimean city of Simferopol when it happened.
From 7/8/2014: MUST YOU BE GOING? ($1200) To this troubled peninsula–maybe not, especially after it voted to join Russia in March 2014
Adam wrote down Crimea then second-guessed himself and crossed it out! He was trying to squeeze Siberia in but couldn’t finish it. He lost everything but one dollar.
James got it right. He bet an even $40,000 and won the game with $106,181. His 9-day total is $566,660.
“Happy Birthday no one” – Awww, too bad James doesn’t look at birthday lists… he could have wished Kareem Abdul-Jabbar a Happy Birthday.
One triple stumper in the FRANKLIN INSTITUTE category:
($1600) Beethoven & Mozart wrote for this instrument that Ben Franklin created, which he said gave him the greatest personal satisfaction of all his inventions
2 years ago: Only ONE of the players got this FJ in “Military Innovations”
The U.S. Navy’s photonics mast has replaced this familiar device. show
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I don’t see Alex involved in any scandalous hanky-panky. What is GIMMEE A BREAK!
Ha! You must be forgetting the Charles Van Doren scandal in the 50s. Made popular by the movie “Quiz Show”. We all thought then that “everything was on the up and up”.
So exciting…..way to go James.
Wow, another day, another James Holzhauer perfection. Had Adam DIDN’T crossed out Crimea, he would’ve been right, but too late, because he changed to Siberia. Also, this marked the second game which there was a DISMISSAL. If James’s unbelievable performance continues going into Holy Week, he would be near reach of $1,000,000. By the way, his win of $106,181 means that the three highest single-day winnings belong to James. What a stunning performance. Let’s see where he’s going.
P.S. Crimea is UKRAINE, not Russia.
@John Christian, let me direct you to this article: The Annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation
The U.N. is divided on that, about 50 countries gave NO opinion and yes, de iure the Crimea is Ukraine, but de facto Russian. Also, the vast majority in the Crimea are Russians. A rather complex issue, and you can take one thing to the bank: Putin is not giving it up. It’s the main port for the Russian navy that is ice free all year. Thus Russia has access to all oceans.
Back in the 70s, my old history professor said all you have to know about Russian history is that they are looking for a warm water port. He was being sarcastic, but there is some truth in that.
@Mark
It’s absolutely true. I don’t think he was sarcastic. A warm water port gives Russia access to all oceans.
@VJ
Maybe it seemed stupendous to me since
1. I’m European
2. the annexation was covered all over the place in the U.S. and everywhere
3. I have been to Russia (including Ukraine and the Crimea)
4. I read European papers on the net on a daily basis for over a decade and when Russia
annexed the Crimea, it was all you read in British,French,German, practically ALL
European papers. I guess I transferred my view to Adam.
So boring.
Really? Nobody is holding a gun to your head to watch, right? Just switch the channel or turn off the TV. And just out of curiosity: what exactly do you find “boring”?
One could argue that the winner of the match being almost guaranteed at the start is boring. One could argue that watching 3 players leaving many clues unanswered and betting small amounts of money is boring. One could argue that watching a dominate player destroy the competition and making large wagers is exciting. One could argue that a game with all three players in the running to the very end is exciting.
Seems to be a matter of personal preference to me.
@JP
But nobody is forcing her to watch, right??????? So watch Wile E. Coyote…..
That is correct… my response was limited to your question regarding whether or not the show, with James, is boring.
Sometimes people watch something they find boring. There are multiple TV shows that I’ve watched the last season of out of a feeling of obligation to see it to the end, rather than interest. Same with a lot of people, myself included, for sports.
Sometimes there are circumstances that will cause someone to endure boredom because of other overriding aspects, like the value of a relationship with a friend or family member.
@JP
Still, time is precious and the one thing you NEVER get back. So as far as I am concerned I sometimes “sacrifice” so called “obligations” and do things I consider worthwhile.And when you get to be my age you realize more and more HOW valuable time is…….😉
With now the 3 highest scores all-time in 9 games, James on pace to cross $1million after 16 games (7 more) and eclipse Jennings earnings with 32 more (in 41)! James and Ken have similar accuracy but because James is betting much higher on DDs and FJs commiserate with 90%+ accuracy. James is entering FJ with a guaranteed win at a slightly higher percentage. If this continues his chance of beating Ken’s 74 game streak is probably higher than if Ken were to take his place!
Why did you cross off the right response for siberia, Adam? You could have been close to james’s total and yet you threw it away. That’s not very smart on his part. But Katie is the second dismissal so far since last week. John and VJ, if you were in Adam’s situation would you guys have stuck with the original choice here? James nailed all the daily doubles and he is up to almost a half million.
@Lou
For me it was a gimme. Crimea was the right response, not even the slightest doubt. Ask yourself this: why would RUSSIA set their clocks to MOSCOW time??? Moscow has already Moscow time and Vladivostok is 7 hours ahead, Kaliningrad one hour behind.. Russia used to have 11 time zones, now just 9…(since 2014). So “Russia” should have been the LAST answer coming to mind. Possibly just a mental block or so….???
@Lou
P.S.
But since it was a runaway it didn’t matter in the end. Just a stupendous mistake.
@John, It was a simple matter of something occurring to him that made him think his first instinct was incorrect but I would hardly call it “a stupendous mistake” since the outcome of the game was not going to change whether Adam’s response was right or wrong.
And I’m sure Adam would have made a different bet if Katie was in FJ and could get to $800, so the outcome would not have changed if they let her have a $400 clue either.
LINK: 10 more clues from the game
You’re right. Adam made a HUGE mistake and crossing out the correct response costs him.
Oh for heaven’s sake, it didn’t cost him a penny
I was impressed by his correct response to the third daily double. I knew it pretty quickly, because I’m very familiar with the Bible, but that seems like a very obscure reference to a fairly obscure idiom. But perhaps I am overestimating the obscurity of the reference.
Part of me wonders if the clue writers and producers pick (consciously or unconsciously) more difficult clues for the daily doubles when a very strong champion comes a long, to give him a challenge and to make things more interesting. As a week’s worth of games are prepared and taped in a single day, you would only see this effect, if it existed, on the second week of a champion’s run, which is the current situation…
@JP, I was more impressed with him immediately knowing the nursery rhyme in the same “Pig Latin” category: ($2000) A nursery rhyme says, “I had a little pony his name was” this, “I lent him to a lady to ride a mile away” and I thought, “How cool! He must have read Mother Goose to his daughter a lot to remember that one.”
I was unhappy that the guys didn’t let Katie get a $400 clue at the end so she could play FJ! How not cool.
I think that James has gone the Roger Craig/Matt Jackson archive-mining-for-flashcards route in preparation for the game, so I think he has a good chance of knowing any clue that has appeared at least a couple times (the response to the clue you mention has 6 hits in the archive).
That’s why I think his inevitable loss will come on a missed daily double (or two) on ‘new’ or rare clues, or clues that are more riddles than recall. But those clues are less frequent as daily doubles, so it could be a while…
I might add that I may or may not be going down the archive-mining-for-flashcards route, and that I may or may not have instantly known Dapple Gray for that reason, despite my never having heard that name outside of the show…
I looked at the 6 clues, JP — they give the name in 4 of them and to me that always means they don’t expect the players to know it. The two where they didn’t give the name were triple stumpers. One of them you only had to know that the word has the name of a tree in it —
TREE-LETTER WORDS $1000: A mottled coat for a horse, there was a gray one in a nursery rhyme
So I’m still impressed 😃
Don’t get me wrong, I certainly think it’s impressive. The whole run has been and will continue to be unbelievably impressive. But no result will surprise me given the preparation he appears to have gone through.
Okay, JP! I’m glad we both agree it was a cool get though I prefer to think that he came by that knowledge by reading Mother Goose to his daughter. Maybe he was passing it on because his parents read Mother Goose to him when he was little and he loved the Dapple Gray rhyme .
Jeez, what can you say? Once again – I believe for the third time in a row- James found all 3 DDs and this time no mistake. I don’t want to diss players, but Adam: WHY OH WHY did you cross out Crimea? RUSSIA IS ABOUT SIX HUNDRED times AS BIG AS THE CRIMEA…and Katie? No factor at all.Only 4 answers, one of them wrong if I counted right. So again congratulations to James. This WAS rather simple, yet only 1 correct, since we had only 2 left for FJ and one of them crossed out the right answer….🙄
In the weekly statistic it will probably show as “difficult” (1 right) when it really wasn’t.
I know I said it before, but I would feel a little more comfy if the TV viewers could see where the DDs are BEFORE a round starts…..that way even any REMOTE possibility of manipulation would be eliminated.
There is not any manipulation. Everything is on the up and up. The highest standards are at work in every Jeopardy game. To suggest otherwise is insulting. This is the United States of America, not Europe or Australia or South Africa or Crimea.