Today’s contestants are:
- Manav, a undergraduate student, has fun on Saturdays at Waffle House;
- Renée, a branch office administrator, finds youthful behavior at casinos as well as middle school; and
- Mattea, a tutor, did her best Mariah Carey on a first date. Mattea is a 17-day champ with winnings of $396,182.
Jeopardy!
OLD YORK // MOVIES”!” // POETS & POETRY // IRON // LANDMARKS // RHYMES WITH THESE
DD1 – $600 – IRON – At about 1,000 feet, it was the tallest iron structure in the world when it was completed in 1889 (Renée moved into second place by adding $2,000 to her score of $2,400.)
Scores going into DJ: Mattea $9,800, Renée $5,200, Manav $3,000.
Double Jeopardy!
PHILOSOPHY // CELEBRITY SIBLING SURNAMES // DOUBLE DOUBLE-LETTER WORDS // NORTH AMERICA // CATCHING YOU SHORT // BALLET & OPERA
DD2 – $1,600 – PHILOSOPHY – It’s the philosophical study of art & of the judgments of art & beauty (Mattea won $2,000 from her total of $12,200 vs. $5,200 for Renée.)
DD3 – $400 – BALLET & OPERA – M-M-M-My Verona! On February 9, 1965 Nureyev & Fonteyn danced this ever-doomed couple in London (With four other clues remaining, Renée added $5,000 to her score of $16,000 vs. $20,600 for Mattea.)
Renée rallied impressively in a vocabulary category, took the lead late on a rare top-row DD, but Mattea got first place back going into FJ at $22,600 vs. $21,000 for Renée and $600 for Manav.
Final Jeopardy!
BOOKS OF THE 1970s – Aptly, members of a Black family in this novel have Biblical names: Pilate, Hagar & the title one, an ancestor of the protagonist
Only Mattea was correct on FJ, adding $19,401 to win with $42,001 for an 18-day total of $438,183. Renée chose to go for a huge bet, which forced her to be correct on FJ to have a chance, while with a smaller wager Renée could have won if Mattea missed without having to be correct herself.
Odds and Ends
Wagering strategy: The best play for Renée on DD3, especially since it was a top-row clue, would probably have been to bet enough to ensure first place going into FJ if correct. Against a top-quality champ, this is one of those situations where the category doesn’t matter, you just have to go for it, although the end result would have been the same.
Triple Stumper of the day: No one knew the age-old philosophical question about how many of these body-less entities can fit on a pin concerns angels.
Judging the writers: The correct response to today’s FJ clue was the same as for a Daily Double exactly one week ago.
Correct Qs: DD1 – What is the Eiffel Tower? DD2 – What is aesthetics? DD3 – Who are Romeo and Juliet? FJ – What is “Song of Solomon”?