Final Jeopardy: World Leaders (6-25-14)

The Final Jeopardy question (6/25/2014), in the category “World Leaders” was:

Since 1953, 5 consecutive siblings have been this country’s head of state.

New champ, Jennifer Blanton won $29,601 in yesterday’s game. Today she is up against two players: Alana Norton, from Woodbury, MN; and Jesse Yu, from Staten Island, NY.

Round 1: Jennifer found the Jeopardy! round Daily Double in “Churches & Cathedrals” under the $800 clue. She was in third place with $1,800, trailing Jesse’s lead by $2,000. She made it a true Daily Double and guessed Tallahassee. That was WRONG.

The San Miguel Mission in this state capital began holding masses in the early 1600s. show

Alana finished in the lead with $5,600. Jennifer was second with $4,200 and Jesse was last with $2,800.

Round 2: Jesse found the first Daily Double in “Asian Cities” under the $800 clue. He was in second place with $3,600, half of Alana’s lead. in second place. He made it a true Daily Double and he was RIGHT.

In 2010, this largest city overtook Singapore as the world’s busiest container port. show

Jennifer found the last Daily Double in “Summer Reading” under the $1,200 clue. She was now in the lead with $8,600, $600 more than Alana in second place. She bet $600 and she was RIGHT.

It’s Ron Kovic’s memoir of his loss of innocence & mobility in Vietnam. show

Jennifer finished in the lead with $12,400. Alana was next with $8,000 and Jesse was in third place with $6,000.

NONE of the contestants got Final Jeopardy! right.

WHAT IS SAUDI ARABIA?

King Abdulaziz (aka Ibn Saud) ruled Saudi Arabia from 1932 until 1953. He decreed that his sons would succeed to his throne after his death, unlike monarchies where the crown passes to the oldest, and then to his heirs. Ibn Saud’s first son was born in 1900 and his last in 1945. Out of 45 sons, 36 lived to be adults and these 5 (who all have different mothers) have since been the Saudi King: King Saud 1953-64, King Faisal 1964-75, King Khalid 1975-82, King Fahd 1982-2005, King Abdullah 2005 to present. (Abdullah had already been de facto king for a decade, after Fahd had a stroke in 1995).

King Abdullah’s brother, Prince Salman is next in the line of succession at this time. After him, there are 11 brothers still living. Click here for the line of succession to the Saudi throne.



Jesse thought it was Thailand. He bet and lost it all.
(Thailand’s King Bhumibol succeeded his brother in 1946.)

Alana thought it was Denmark. She lost her $5,000 bet and finished with $3,000.
(Queen Margrethe II of Denmark succeeded her father in 1972.)

Jennifer wrote down Sweden. She lost $3,601 and ended up with $8,799.
(King Carl XVI of Sweden succeeded his grandfather in 1973.)

So Jennifer remains champ with her $8,799 win today. She now has a 2-day total of $38,400.

Here are the last 2 triple stumpers in Double Jeopardy!

SUMMER READING? ($1600) Despite this Faulkner novel’s title, one of its main characters is Joe Christmas

CHESHIRE CATS ($2000) Bowman’s capsule, part of this blood-filtering organ, is named for Nantwich, Cheshire’s William Bowman

2 years ago:: Only ONE of the players got this FJ in “Early Films of Oscar Winners”

The 1995, 2003 & 2006 winners for Best Actor all appeared in this 1982 teen comedy. show

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47 Responses

  1. jacobska says:

    I wonder what month and week this Jeopardy episode was taped. I subscribe to the Economist magazine and there was an excellent article in the April 5, 2014 issue titled “the Saudi Succession” which had a fascinating diagram showing the succession of the brothers.

    It is a fascinating read with a superb diagram.

    • jacobska says:

      Julia first appeared in April and said the show was taped in February which leads me to think there is a 2 month gap between taping and airing.

    • Jesse Yu says:

      My episode taped March 11. And yes, I am the same Jesse Yu who wound up in third here.

      My reasoning was that I had read the clue wrong and though of heads of government, not head of state. I was running out of time, and I remembered that Thailand’s Prime Minister was currently in the news because of protests against her rule and the military was threatening another coup. The protestors were angry in part because she was the sister of a previously ousted Prime Minister, who had been removed in another coup. The brother stuck in my mind, so I guess Thailand with little time left. I guessed wrong.

      I bet big because I needed to, and needed to get the clue right with everyone missing it in order to have a chance. I messed up big after my high point of hitting the true Daily Double in the Asian Cities category of Double Jeopardy, missing clues left and right after that. Wish I could’ve gotten a bunch of those back. I figured that I knew enough about World Leaders, so I bet it all and missed it, as did everyone else. Oh well, it was still a fun experience and meeting Trebek was great, as he’s a very funny guy.

      Trebek told us in the after episode interview segment that he was the one who came up with the clue himself, as he had read that fact earlier, thought it was interesting, and then submitted it to the writers to turn into a clue, which they did for Final. I told Alex of my reasoning, but he corrected me on the clue and explained the reasoning behind the correct reading and answer.

      I just wish I had a different Final, since the previous (and future) Finals have seemed to me to be somewhat softballs, so I had hoped this one would be as well. It was not to be, unfortunately.

      • jacobska says:

        You weren’t that far off really. With Yingluck being a female the clue stated “siblings” so I can see why you responded that way. Thanks for letting us know when it was taped. March and April there was a lot of discussion in business media about the succession situation in Saudi Arabia. Are you taking any international business courses at all?

        I know you are a math major, so what happened with the visa question? Is it that you didn’t have time to think?

      • Jesse Yu says:

        I wasn’t taking any international business classes at the time, but I did take one or two a semester or two ago. I was in a Chinese history class when I did the taping, so I guess I had China or (South) East Asia on the brain. I tend to read the New York Times a lot on the bus going to school and coming home, so I pick up a lot of international news stories through that. That’s probably why I thought Thailand, since the protests there in Bangkok were heating up around that time after going on for a while and the military was threatening another coup. My mom watches a lot of Chinese TV news through CCTV-4 on our satellite, and they covered it a lot since it was in their backyard and they had a lot of financial interests in the area, so I had a lot of Thailand thinking there.

        The visa question was a brain fart, I had forgotten the category was 5 letter words. I remembered reading about limited “genius” visas in the Times a little while back that are a separate category from other the general visa categories, and that seemed like as good an answer as any, before I remembered that the category was 5 Letter Words… So yeah, brain fart.

        • vj says:

          well, having extraordinary ability is kinda the definition of a genius, Jesse, so that is why it made me laugh. If someone is only a genius in a certain area, you’re still not going to say a genius of limited ability.

          PS – this is coming from someone who gets laughed at all the time for mixing words up when she talks.

          According to wikipedia, Psy got a genius visa.

        • Jesse Yu says:

          Yeah, probably read the clue wrong in that regard. I though the “extraordinary ability” part was referring to the type of visa, not the person who received it or something like that. Oh well, should’ve taken more time to do so. Brain fart there. Another question that I wish I could’ve gotten back.

    • vj says:

      thanks for sharing that with us, Jesse. At least you had a monarch who succeeded his brother 🙂

      The thing they say the most about King Bhumibol these days is that he has been on his throne longer than any other monarch. My favorite trivia bit about him is that he was born in the USA (Cambridge, MA).

    • eric s says:

      Thx. As hindsight is 20/10, I would advocate a zero wager in your position. Because the difference between you and Alana was less that between her and Jennifer, she couldn’t catch Jennifer without putting herself in jeopardy. Jennifer pretty much had to cover Atlanta’s double. Thus, both had to miss for you to win. They’re probably only going to miss on a tough question, so unless the category is “mathematicians”, I would say zero bet is best for you.
      Again, I want to stress that the game goes fast and it’s hard not to fire a bet out there. So, I’m always advocating that potential players should learn certain game theories before they play. Any thoughts (as a player and mathematician)?

      • Jesse Yu says:

        I haven’t studied game theory yet as a math student, though I am looking out for a class on it as one of my required math electives.

        Really, Jennifer has stated in other places that she’s a math nerd, so I figured that she’d bet “optimally”, as in, enough to cover Alana if she doubled up. She had over twice my amount, so I needed help to win. Always bet to win.

        Again, I considered the $0 bet, but with Jennifer holding twice my score, it wasn’t a good move to try and win. I dunno, if I had done that I would be up another $1k from Aleve, but I didn’t, so…

        I thought I had a good shot with the World Leaders category, since I figured I knew enough about them. Also, I mentioned that the previous (and future) Final Jeopardy questions were softballs in my opinion, so I was hoping for a similarly tough question where I might have an advantage in knowledge. It didn’t work out that way, though…

        Oh well.

        • eric s says:

          My analysis had Jennifer at 10.4. Lol. Are numbers important in analysis. Very nice of you to come here. Come back.
          I usually get the analysis right, I assure you.
          Thanks for the time.

        • Jesse Yu says:

          Yeah, numbers are really important for analysis. No problem for your mistake. I’ll be sure to be back soon.

  2. john blahuta says:

    i am surprised that nobody came even close in fj.
    well, at least jennifer can do some math. i am still wincing thinking of the 7K bet by chris yesterday.

    when you think about the hundreds of princes in s.a. and how tight the monarchy has to hold on to power, at least ONE contestant should have guessed right in fj.

    • eric s says:

      John made the point a while ago about players wasting money by ringing in too often. It certainly seemed that Jesse was a prime example.

      • vj says:

        He sure was! My favorite was in 5-letter words. A U.S. O-1 Visa is for this type of foreign person “of extraordinary ability.” Jesse: What is a genius?

        It’s not just that it’s not a 5-letter word. LOL!

        • jacobska says:

          VJ, you forgot to add he is a math major.

        • Jesse Yu says:

          Yeah, that was a serious brain fart. I wasn’t thinking and I missed that one. I really was ringing in too much, especially after my high point of hitting the true Daily Double. The three misses on the other questions in the Asian Cities category (my cousin slammed me for missing Sana’a and mixing it up with Aden), the 5 letter word clue, the last clue in Cheshire (my other cousin ribbed me for saying Gall Bladder instead of Kidney)… Really wish I could’ve had a few of those clues back.

          My cousins kept saying that I rang in too much near the end, and I kinda agree.

          Oh, and I am a Math student, about to graduate next year from the City University of New York College of Staten Island. I also had a 1600 SAT score and went to the best public high school in New York City.

        • eric s says:

          Jesse, see the question below, if you could.

        • jacobska says:

          Best H. S.? I hope it was Stuyvesant. My alma mater in the Pony Express days. Back then we said it was the best high school in NYC. Entrance exam needed and highly competitive.

        • Jesse Yu says:

          Sup, Stuy buddy! Class of 2005, in the new building in Battery Park City. Still have to take a test to get in, but the city has added more schools to the Specialized High School Exam, and now you only get into your first choice of school if you qualify for it with the test score, instead of automatically getting acceptance into Stuy based off of your score and then going down to Bronx Science and then Brooklyn Tech. Now SI Tech is included as well as Brooklyn Latin and 3 other schools that have opened on CUNY campuses.

          My first year of school was 2001, 9/11 happened on my 2 full day of class. Man that was a serious Charlie Foxtrot. Stuy is only 3 blocks down the West Side Highway from Ground Zero and the World Trade Center site, so you can imagine the stuff I went though that day. Not going to go too much into that, but I can if you guys want.

          Stuy is even more Asian nowadays (seriously, 60% Asian, 36% white, less than 5% combined black and hispanic when I went there, now 10 years later 72% Asian, 26% white, still less than 5% black and hispanic). I remember an article in the Times like 3 years ago talking about how there are only 40 or so black students in the entire school, with a student body of over 3k. Seriously, I could count the number of black students I saw in a day on one hand.

          Hasn’t changed much in that regard, despite what Mayor DeBlasio, the Public Advocate, some members of the City Council, including the Speaker, and other community activists are trying to do by changing the admissions criteria to Stuy and the other Specialized High Schools. Really hoping that doesn’t happen, since I’m not sure if potential students can’t do well on the test, they won’t be able to handle the workload.

          Yes, I took Asian test prep courses in Flushing on the weekends and summer to prepare for the test, but there are free test prep programs for people if they want to take advantage of it…

        • jacobska says:

          Okay! Now we are talking. Glad to hear Stuy has maintained its rep. I knew I was rooting for you for a reason. It always had the best of the best. Don’t know if you read my post a few days ago where I commented that credentialed people don’t fair well on Jeopardy because they are too specialized in their field. Most of their time is spent conducting research in their field. Classic example would be medical doctors, etc. For that reason I said I would never go on there. I applaud you for your bravado. Good luck in your field, you are much more brave than I will ever be as a contestant.

        • Jesse Yu says:

          I did not read your previous post, but I guess it makes sense.

      • jacobska says:

        @Eric, we blew it on our Jesse prediction big time.

        • eric s says:

          Didn’t know he was a student, he was a little too green. I think the raw intelligence was there, though.

        • Jesse Yu says:

          As I said above, I am a Math student, about to graduate next year from the City University of New York College of Staten Island. I also had a 1600 SAT score and went to the best public high school in New York City.

        • Jesse Yu says:

          An yeah, I was pretty nervous. Really green, and I happened to throw my cousin under the bus during the interview segment wrt Arthur Chu/my cousin Arthur Chiu. He was supposed to be at my viewing party, but got there late after the episode aired. He was chatting with my other cousins who were watching the episode, though, and they told him what I said. I also warned him about that the last time I saw him, so he didn’t take it too badly. However, I offered to show him the video of the episode, including the interview segment after he got here, and he said that he might punch me if he saw it… But now there’s a meme photo floating around the internets that references that interview segment, it’s on my Facebook.

          Also tend to clear my throat a lot if I trip over saying something really quickly when I’m nervous, like I did the first time I picked a category. My other cousin ragged on me for that, and another said that was so me.

          Tried buzzing in if I thought I knew the answer, but sometimes you take a chance and wind up wrong. It happened to me a couple times, and I really wish there were a 5 or six clues i could’ve gotten back. Oh well, it was a fun experience flying out to LA and meeting Trebek. And I’m up $1k, so that’s not bad!

        • vj says:

          LOL. I will check out the meme. Yup, you’re up $1K less the 40 buck lunch. 🙂

        • eric s says:

          Jesse, I’ve been to a taping and was pretty floored at how fast the game goes: it must be pretty easy to get caught up in the moment. You played well in spots, so I think that you have to consider it a success.I’m just glad that as a math student, you didn’t blow the final bet and send me to rant and rampage. Good luck in the future, but I doubt that you’ll need a lot of it.

        • eric s says:

          Jesse, any words of advice for the aspiring contestants in the crowd?

        • Jesse Yu says:

          A lot less than $1k, minus the $40 lunch, the $330 round trip flight to LA, and the (discounted at a contestant rate) hotel stay, which all adds up. Then meals and other stuff that I did on my first trip out to LA, which will not leave me with much to spend after this.

        • Jesse Yu says:

          Yeah, the episode really goes by quickly. You do your best to get your score up and try not to miss too many questions, but it is really quick. Easy come, easy go.

          I was really nervous before they started taping, when we were in the green room going over paperwork and makeup and stuff like that. I was drinking way too much soda and water there, and had to use the bathroom too many times after all that liquid went through my system. Tried to calm myself down and bleed off some energy and adrenaline through pushups right before we were ushered into the stage and the seating, and it kinda helped a bit…

        • Jesse Yu says:

          You’d be surprised at my current situation. I’m trying to make the best of it, though.

          Did my best, and everyone told me that I kept the game close throughout the entirety of it. If only I hadn’t exploded in the second half of Double Jeopardy and kept it even closer.

          Bet the only way i could in Final, and while it didn’t pay off, I had a lot of fun and got to meet Trebek and got a trip to LA. All in all, it was a great experience for me.

        • Jesse Yu says:

          As for aspiring contestants, do your best in the contestant quizzes in January.

          Study all the trivia you can, too. I retain a lot of useless trivia from things I read or shows I watch. Sometimes I find myself on Wikipedia, clicking through wikilinks to tons of topics, and find myself looking at the clock 6 hours later after the sun has gone down and I have clicked through over 300 links. I can try and recall some information from the pages I’ve read there, though.

          After the contestant quiz, if you figured you did well enough, just go on with your life and don’t worry about getting the callback for an audition. I took my quiz back in January 2013, thought I did well enough, answering what i took to be over 40-45+ questions correctly, and then forgot about it until I got the audition email callback in March. Went to the audition in May, then did well enough there (again in the 40-45+ range) to qualify to compete, in my opinion. The contestant coordinator told us that we would be in the pool for 18 months, and not to try any other contestant quizzes in case we get entered into the pool twice and no one at their production or compliance companies wants that. Again, I forgot about it, thinking in January 2014 that I hadn’t gotten it since I hadn’t heard from anyone since late July-early August, which is when they said that they were starting to tape their new season. Even thought about taking the contestant quiz again in January 2014, but I didn’t since I still had a chance and didn;t want to mess that up. Then, as I was leaving my parents’ laundromat in Queens, I got a call, asking me if I was still interested and if I could come out a month later.

          If you live in the LA area, you have a better chance of getting on, since you’re local and the producers always need someone local in case someone no shows. You might not actually be needed, but then they’ll call you back a couple months down the line and then they’ll make sure to put you on one of the episodes they tape that day. If you’re not on, or if you flew to LA and were bumped for a local, they’ll make sure you’ll be on the next day.

          Just keep trying to go at it, and if you do well enough, you’ll eventually get that coveted callback. Good luck to you!

        • eric s says:

          I wish you all the luck that you need, and more. Nice that you came here.

        • eric s says:

          Fantastic answer.

        • Jesse Yu says:

          Yeah, I was Googling myself the day after my episode aired and going through a serious Facebook backlog of people responding to me and all the updates I put out about the episode and all the responses I had to them, and this blog was one of the first results. Still need to get through the forums where I frequent that have Jeopardy topics and respond to those people there…

          With any luck, I’ll be done by tonight…

        • eric s says:

          You mind a non-personal game theory comment?

        • eric s says:

          Jesse, game theory tweeted @esteele921 & #final wager (advocated zero bet in your position). Please don’t take it personally, but get back to me if you want. Great luck!

        • Jesse Yu says:

          No problem eric, ask away.

          Also vj, the link works for me, even if I’m not signed in on Facebook. Maybe try it again with the whole link? Or I could try a link shortener?

        • Jesse Yu says:

          Hmm, as I said before, I thought I knew World Leaders well, and I was in last place, so I had to bet big if I wanted to win. Jennifer had a lock on me this game with more than twice my score, so I couldn’t overtake her even if I wanted to. Always bet to win, and I had to bet it all to even have a chance. If I hit it and no one else did, then I would’ve come out on top. Instead, no one hit it and I would up with 0 instead in third.

          A $0 bet was my second thought, though I discarded it rather quickly, since I would need Jennifer to make a massive overbet in order to win. Probably could’ve edged by Alana if I $0 bet, and doubled my prize money to $2k, but I always try and bet to win. Jennifer mentioned on another board being a math nerd who works out optimal bets, so I doubt she would’ve bet huge and bombed it to give me the win.

          Anyway, the Final Wager blog agrees with my betting strategy. His take is linked here

        • eric s says:

          Jesse, game theory question is above, please find it.

        • eric s says:

          Jesse: it starts with Thx…
          This stuff get jumbled on my phone.

        • eric s says:

          Unfortunately, the final wager is not always right. You do agree that they both had to miss for you to win, right? Do you agree that they were going to bet enough that a miss was going to put them under your initial amount?
          If yes to both, betting is an increased risk with little return.

        • eric s says:

          Sorry. I was wrong. Had Jennifer at a smaller amount. Ha, ha…..eh.

        • Jesse Yu says:

          I guess I’ll respond above, try and make this less jumbled.

    • vj says:

      I was more than surprised that two of them went to Europe at all with that. A span of over 50 years — all brothers. Had to be someone with a lot of kids, and yup, that sure is one BIG family!

      • john blahuta says:

        sure is! abdul azis who is going on 80 is supposed to have alzheimer’s. some say abdullah is the 45th son of ibn saud….but that is even tougher to follow than the british monarchy. i guess they will run out of “brothers soon, then the question will be WHO?

        in a family where nephews assassinate uncles and brothers half brothers it’s hard to tell. IF the house of saud falls, make that WHEN, it will be a very critical point for the monarchistic (absolute) system at all in saudi arabia.