Final Jeopardy: American Plays (5-2-19)
Today’s Final Jeopardy question (5/2/2019) in the category “American Plays” was:
A character in this 1944 play is said to be like a piece in her own collection, “too exquisitely fragile to move from the shelf”
20x champ James Holzhauer, a pro sports gambler from Las Vegas, NV, is up to $1,528,012 now. In Game 21, his opponents are: Jessica Efron Sauer, a bookkeeper from Munster, IN; and Josh Archibald-Seiffer, a music director and pianist from Seattle, WA.
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Round 1 Categories: State School, That Great School – Nonfiction – World of Sport – Hey, “B.B.” – An Epic – Of Biblical Proportions
James found the Jeopardy! round Daily Double in “Nonfiction” under the $600 clue, with 9 clues left after it. He was in the lead with $6,800, $2,800 more than Josh in second place. He bet it all and he was RIGHT.
Mark Kurlansky wrote a whole book on the history of this, “The Only Rock We Eat”. show
James finished in the lead with $14,800. Josh was second with $4,600 and Jessica was last with $200.
Round 2 Categories: Tricky Trails – On The Calendar – “For” A Song – Sci-Fi Tech – Homophonic Verbs – Tory Spelling
James found the first Daily Double in “Sci-Fi Tech” under the $2,000 clue on the 14th pick. He was in the lead with $25,600 now, $18,600 more than Josh in second place. He bet $9,812 and he was RIGHT.
In “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, sticking a Babel fish in your ear will do this. show
James found the last Daily Double in “Tory Spelling” under the $1,600 clue, with 11 clues left after it. In the lead with $37,012, he had $28,012 more than Josh in second place. He bet $7,000 and he was RIGHT.
This 19th century Tory was nicknamed Dizzy. show
James finished in the lead with $51,212. Josh was next with $10,200 and Jessica was in third place with $1,400.
TWO of the contestants got Final Jeopardy! right.
Tennesee Williams’ semi-autobiographical play evolved from “Portrait of a Girl in Glass,” a 1941 short story. Williams then transformed it into a 1943 spec script that was rejected by MGM. When he changed it into the 1944 play, it soon catapulted him to fame. The character referred to in today’s clue, Laura Wingfield, was based up on Williams’ sister Rose. The “too exquisitely fragile” description (from the play’s production notes) is mentioned in Rose’s 1996 NYT obituary. Also, learn 15 facts about “The Glass Menagerie” on Mental Floss.
From 2011: PLAY CHARACTERS ($400) Amanda, Tom & the fragile Laura Wingfield are all characters in this Tennessee Williams play
Jessica wrote down “A Doll’s House,” (1879, Norwegian). She bet and lost it all.
Josh got it right. He didn’t bet anything so he stayed at $10,200.
James got it, too. He bet $29,403 and won this game with $80,615. His 21-day total is $1,608,627. Julia Collins’ 2014 record 20 games has now been beaten and James is second, all by himself, in most consecutive games won.
A triple stumper from each round:
WORLD OF SPORT ($800) The 2018-19 season of auto racing’s world endurance championship concludes with the 87th running of this event
(James tried “Paris to Dakar” again and laughed when it was wrong for the second time!)
“FOR” A SONG ($1200) Zayn Malik & Taylor Swift teamed up on this song from “Fifty Shades Darker”
2 years ago: TWO of the players got this FJ in “Novels”
In a Spanish translation of this novel, Chapter 1 begins, “Era el mejor de los tiempos, era el peor de los tiempos” show
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OK, VJ, he has got to go now—mission accomplished. Other J hopefuls “have promises to keep, and miles to go before they…”
Let’s spread the moolah around. 🙂
Well, he is gonna go tomorrow, Cece — one way or another. If he wins, we won’t see him for 2 weeks. If he loses, we won’t see him till the next ToC.
James is winning not because of his methodology, but because he is extremely well informed all around. Strategies mean very little if you don’t know the answer to the question.
Thumbs up, Darren. I totally agree that James is smarter than the average bear, but can we say that his methodology is why he’s raking in the big bucks?
Much has been said about James’ incredible depth and breadth of knowledge, clue picking strategy, wagering courage, and, of course, buzzer speed. But I think the most impressive feature of his game might be his 20/21 FJ solve rate. That is insane for the average person sitting at home, but to do so on the Jeopardy stage, under pressure, in under 30 seconds is unbelievable, even if the clues have seemed a tad easier the last couple weeks.
You can brute force j-archive to memorize facts, take ten minutes to create simple (fairly obvious) clue-picking and wagering strategies, and practice (and get lucky) with buzzer speed. But being that consistent on FJ is the biggest display of intelligence, in my opinion. Typically the facts behind the FJ clues are among the most common 25% of responses in their respective domains, but to parse the clue, seizing upon the key words and discarding the red herrings, and to get inside the writers’ heads almost perfectly under that kind of pressure is crazy.
@JP
It is extremely rare. We should have more people with his qualities in our general populace.
It also seems he can not be distracted, no matter what.
Everything you have said is true, JP. Let me add that James has gone into FJ! 19 times with a runaway game so the pressure factor, imo, was nil. I don’t think he cared about losing his FJ! bet in those games (not to the extent of being careless with his response, of course). I just took a look back through his games and here’s what I came up with:
In 8 games, 2 players got FJ! (incl James)
In 7 games, 1 players got FJ! (only James)
in 5 games, 3 players got FJ!
In his 6th game, only Lewis got FJ! but James had a runaway. Idk why, but James didn’t look like he was sweating it in that European Capitals FJ! against Satish in Game 2.
To me, the only time he seemed to be under a bit of pressure in FJ! was in Game 18 with Adam.
@JCA
Game 110….at his average winnings that would give him around over 8 million bucks…..
We would be talking very serious money. Not that his current winnings are anything to sneeze at!
Well, one more regular gameplay left and we’re heading into the Jeopardy! Teachers Tournament and I have a feeling that the winner will be a woman. James Holzhauer, he has now two weeks to prepare. Back then, Ken Jennings’ run was cut by the College Championship and the Tournament of Champions, and he went on to start the 21st season as the returning champion. I hope James will remain the champion once Season 36 starts.
Did you see a taping of Jeopardy! watching him go to his 110th game?
I know you’re not talking to me, but no, I didn’t.
I was talking to John Christian Ambion.
I know that.
Congratulations to James and to Josh on getting final right. Even if Josh doubled up James still retains the victory. So now with Julia Collins’ record shattered, He is going for Brad’s record next. 21 wins is very impressive. I think he could be in the 2 million dollar mark soon. How did Jessica confuse Ibsen with Tennessee Williams, John?
@Lou
Not knowing that Ibsen was Norwegian would be a strong possibility. FJ was “American” plays….Tennessee Williams was American, Ibsen was not. Obviously she overlooked it, the response “A Doll’s House” was not that far off themewise….
You know, Alex can see their responses before he talks and today he mentioned paying close attention to the category as well as the clue before any responses were revealed, so it seemed to me that he thought Jessica just forgot or overlooked the category.
I didn’t notice the category myself this morning and I was thinking A Doll’s House could be a wrong answer, but thought nah, based on the time period. Then I did see the category and thought double nah. lol
It will be September 25th, assuming the new season stars on September 9th and they don’t start the season with a TofC or other special shows, when James 75th game, if he gets there, would air.
You really have to say that with the exception of Adam lately the other players are cannon fodder for James. Now solely in possession of #2 in games won he could certaily break Ken’s money winning after the TT, at this pace it would take 12-14 days of play before the summer break. The 74 wins…. a different story. So congrats to James but also to Josh. Making over 10 K against James is not bad, he got FJ and would have had over 20K had he bet it all. Players have won with much less. Unfortunately Jessica was no factor at all today. So… will James go undefeated before the TT? We shall see tomorrow.
Funny, you should say that on the same day he beat Julia’s record. I remember that phrase being thrown around a lot during her run. I also remember that there were more triple stumpers in her games than during James’ run. To me, it was a strange phenomenon that if Julia didn’t ring in on a clue, her opponents didn’t either and I had remarked that it was like they were thinking “if she doesn’t know it, neither do we” lol
Yeah, sometimes it looks James’ opponents are hypnotized, intimitated, frozen, whatever you want to call it. Like prey looking at a snake…..just scared somehow.
Will we ever have a giant killer?
Yes, we will, and I’d like to have that Giant Killer sooner, rather than later.
Why? Let the man win 2 million and beat his own one-day record one more time
Look VJ, I am enjoying James’ run, but I want James to lose at some point. So that, I can do my made-up JEOPARDY! Tournament Of Champions for the 11th time. Yes, that again, and here are the quarter-final match-ups:
Mon. Jonathan Dinerstein vs. Dana Wayne vs. Emily Frey
Tue. James Holzhauer vs. John Presloid vs. Bif Reiser
Wed. Steven Grade vs. Anneke Garcia vs. Lindsey Shultz
Thu. Claire Sattler vs. Jackie Fuchs vs. Will Dawson
Fri. Eric R. Backes vs. Dave Leffler vs. Mary Ann Borer
Also, I know that my mom kept saying that I can push James over to my next made-up Tournament Of Champions. So that, I can allow the winner of the 2019 Teachers Tournament to be in this tournament, knowing in the next TOC, I will put James in the left most podium in 1 of the quarter-final games, but in 2013, I made a rule that says that I cannot start the tournament, until all players’ runs have ended. Sorry mom, but rules are rules, and I must follow them.
@William There will be a giant killer if James reached his goal of erasing Ken Jennings’ records and as I said, he will lose at Game 110.
I don’t think that’s gonna happen.
Everything will come to an end. The only 2 questions are: when and how.
@John B./I. The how is I don’t know, but the when is when he ended his accomplishment of breaking Ken Jennings’ record of 74 games and $2.5 million. He will lose at around Game 110.
The answer is yes.
Well, Joe Jonas and Sophie Turner are married. And guess where that wedding held? In the words of Alex Trebek, “Don’t miss it, James.”
James got a key to that city today and it was officially named James Holzhauer Day throughout Clark County.
LINK: 10 more clues from the game