Final Jeopardy: European Capitals (4-5-19)
Today’s Final Jeopardy question (4/5/2019) in the category “European Capitals” was:
Remove 2 letters from within the 6-letter name of this capital & you get the name of a capital from a neighboring country
New champ James Holzhauer, a pro sports gambler from Las Vegas, NV, won $43,680 yesterday. In Game 2, he takes on these two guys: Satish Chandrasekhar, a medical student from Jupiter, FL; and Marshall Shelburne, a computer programmer from Los Angeles, CA.
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: Bodies of Water – Legal Terms – Make Time for Time – James Bond & Friends – “Q” – Monet-Punny
Satish found the Jeopardy! round Daily Double in “Legal Terms” under the $1,000 clue on the 10th pick of the round. He was in the lead with $3,800, $1,600 more than James in second place. He bet $2,000 and he was RIGHT.
You appeared to be adversaries, but had a secret pact with your pal to make illegal gains; you’re guilty of this 9-letter crime. show
Satish finished in the lead with $6,800. James was second with $5,200 and Marshall was last with $4,400.
Round 2 Categories: Colleges & Universities – Book Title Names – Some Kind of Wonderful – Which Tall Chief? – 18th Century Science – Academy of Country Music Awards
Satish found the first Daily Double in “18th Century Science” under the $1,200 clue on the 7th pick. He was in the lead with $12,400 at this point, $5,200 more than James in second place. He bet $4,000 and he was RIGHT.
Next time you grab a soda, you can thank Joseph Priestley, who dissolved this gas in water in 1768, making it fizzy. show
James found the last Daily Double in “Colleges & Universities” under the $1,600 clue on the 14th pick. In second place with $12,400, he had $2,000 less than Satish’s lead. He bet $11,914 and he was RIGHT.
Nicknamed “Sadie Lou”, this New York college dropped the words “for Women” from its name in 1947. show
James finished in the lead with $29,114. Satish was next with $18,800 and Marshall was in third place with $4,000.
Only ONE of the contestants got Final Jeopardy! right.
Unless you were already familiar with this little tidbit from somewhere else, the best approach was to run through the 4-letter capitals as quickly as possible: Bern, Kyiv (Kiev), Oslo, Riga and Rome. That’s in alphabetical order but however you did it, Berlin should be obvious as soon as you hit on Bern.
Sporcle Quiz: Time for those 6-letter European capitals
Marshall went with Lisbon. That cost him $1,555 for a $2,445 finish.
Satish didn’t have response. He lost $6,200, leaving him $12,600.
James got it right. He bet $9,812 and won the game with $38,926. His 2-day total is $82,606, “most impressive” as Alex Trebek said.
A triple stumper from each round:
MONET-PUNNY ($800) Dealers often applied this glossy material, also a floor covering, so now conservators do some Monet laundering
WHICH TALL CHIEF? ($200) This 6’5″ French President was nicknamed “The Big Asparagus”
2 years ago: Only ONE of the players got this FJ in “British Novels”
The title of this 1908 novel is an allusion to the hotel in Florence where the novel starts & ends the next year. show
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James looks like a young charles grodin.
@Albert, I think more like Paul Rudd
Why is James betting fancy wagers on the Daily Doubles?
@Richard, they have a special significance to him. Read this article about his bet in FJ yesterday
Shrek says “Well, uh…. That explains a lot.” James said Happy anniversary because he’s married.
VJ, Going to the 4-letter capitals first was indeed the best route! I wish I had thought of It but I went the other way. I think that Marshall just wrote down Lisbon to have something up there.
What an odd nickname the Big Asparagus is.
Hi kassidy, I do a lot of those world city quizzes on Sporcle so that pretty much steered me on that path.
Yes, the Big Asparagus is definitely unique! I plan to use it very soon in addition to some of the other food related nicknames in my repertoire, like Noodle Brain. lol
P.S. That was the first I heard of it in regard to le général but I knew he was a tall fella.
Hi, about the “19th Century Science” daily double, how does something happening in 1768 qualify for this category? 1768 is eighteenth century, right?
yes, klm — that was a typo on my part (the category list above had it right) and I knew I did it but I forgot to fix it in all the other misfires around here today. It’s fixed now.
Congrats to James on his huge 2-day total and props to Satish for snagging two of the DDs and giving him some good competition.
The power company showed up and shut everything off for a few hours today to check the cables and said they are coming back one more time next week. People were complaining that they were digging up their yards and what not on the neighborhood app but so far, they didn’t do that to us.
Anyhow, I managed to get this up with as little delay as possible and the extra clues too.
LINK: 11 more clues
The only problem is, that Bern is not legally a capital. One of the oddities of Switzerland…no capital but 4 official languages. And it turned out a response WAS necessary since it was not a runaway.
Chances are that James is familiar with European capitals since he probably bets on European football which is played all year long. James is probably familiar with a lot of European cities, not just capitals.
Satish may have misread the clue (What are..)? And Lisbon? I tried every possibility but taking out 2 letters from Lisbon does not get you anywhere.
Impressive scores again and James’ bet on the last DD…WOW! Obviously he has a wide range since that last DD is nowhere in a professional gambler’s ballpark and the college is not exactly one of the highest profile (though top quality!)
CONGRATULATIONS to James for win # 2 and a very, very nice 2 day total!! He must have been confident since he bet more than he had to in FJ.
Then give proof that Bern IS the illegal capital of Switzerland.
@John Christian, Bern is the de facto capital of Switzerland. This article explains it.
There’s a list of countries with more than one capital on wikipedia. Although Switzerland is not mentioned anywhere.
Oh my gosh. James made a gutsy move on that daily double. It kind of reminded me of Philip tiu’s third game with his historical daily double and his response of Vancouver. This is the second biggest win so far. Glad James got final right but unfortunately Marshall didn’t get anything going today. We finished this week off with a five time winner and I do think James could do the same if he keeps this up. But still where did that response of Lisbon come from john?
@Lou
Beats me….wild guess maybe?
Actually, that was Philip Tiu’s 2nd game, when he set the record for the highest Daily Double wager: $19,000.
$82,606 is the 4th highest amount of money won by a champion in 2 days. The 3rd highest is $82,901, by Chris Fleitas. The 2nd highest is $103,000, by Mark Runsvold, and the highest is $114,000, by 2011 Tournament Of Champions Winner: Roger Craig, with his 2nd win being the 1-day record of $77,000.
Wow.