Jeopardy! recap for Tue., Nov. 21 – Champ Eric doubled up on DD1 to hold a clear lead after round one, then Wilbur got rolling to the front in DJ and protected his advantage with a small bet on DD3 to end the round. Going into FJ it was Wilbur at $10,200 and Eric tied with Kiana for the second spot at $9,200.

DD1 – STATE CAPITAL HAIKU – Mark Twain called it home/Founded 1635/knows Courant events (Eric won $2,800 on a true DD.)

DD2 – “INSTA!” – It’s the ceremonial process of placing a new official in a job (Kiana lost $1,000)

DD3 – TRUUE – Chapter 5 of David McCullough’s 2015 biography of them is titled, “December 17, 1903” (Wilbur lost $1,400)

FJ – CLASSIC ALBUMS – Hailed as the “greatest album of all time”, in 2017 it returned to the top of the charts 50 years after its first release

Kiana made a small $1,300 wager, clearly in the hope that both opponents would miss. That’s exactly what happened as Wilbur knew the correct response, but ran out of time to complete it. Kiana was correct to win with $10,500.

Triple Stumper of the day: No one knew the word from the Greek for a sophisticated “world citizen” is cosmopolitan.

Clue selection strategy: A word of advice to future contestants – if there’s a first-round video category with guest clue presenters, get it out of the way quickly. They will extend the first round as long as it takes to finish such categories. So if it’s saved for last, it can result in DJ getting cut short as happened here, with five clues left over.

Correct Qs:

DD1 – What is Hartford?
DD2 – What is installation/instating?
DD3 – Who were the Wright brothers?
FJ – What is “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”?

P.S. Wilbur only got as far as “Heart” before time ran out. Also, despite what it says in the clue, I have rarely seen “Sgt. Pepper’s” cited as the greatest album by The Beatles, much less the greatest of all time. Influential and iconic, but not the greatest.