Here are today’s Tournament of Champions contestants:
– TJ Fisher, a marketing specialist from San Francisco, California;
– Paolo Pasco, a puzzle writer originally from San Diego, California, who won yesterday’s opening game of the round; and
– Scott Riccardi, an engineer from Somerville, New Jersey.
Jeopardy!
LET’S SEE SOME I.D. // ON THE ENDANGERED & THREATENED LIST // COVER SONGS // BACK IN THE USSR // BAGS // WORDS OF MOUTH
DD1 – 800 – WORDS OF MOUTH – A WWII ad campaign warned Americans about the risks of giving info to the enemy, leading to this 4-word rhyming slogan (Paolo doubled to 3,600.)
Scores at first break: Scott 2,200, Paolo 5,800, TJ -1,800.
Scores entering DJ: Scott 2,600, Paolo 6,800, TJ -1,400.
Double Jeopardy!
BEFORE, DURING & AFTER // ODD POLITICAL TERMS // THAT’S A LONG TITLE // U.S. GEOGRAPHY // THERE ARE SPIES IN MY TV // AFRICAN-AMERICAN TRAILBLAZERS
DD2 – 1,600 – BEFORE, DURING & AFTER – Piscine entry in a Douglas Adams sci-fi series that’s in an unusual or uncomfortable situation listening to a Handel suite (On the second clue of the round, Paolo doubled to 16,000.)
DD3 – 1,200 – THAT’S A LONG TITLE – This Swift title continues, “for Preventing the Children of Poor People from Being a Burthen to Their Parents…” (On the next clue after DD2, Paolo added 6,000 up to 22,000 vs. 2,600 for Scott.)
Paolo played DJ to perfection, finding both DDs with his first two selections, doubling up on DD2 and extending the margin on DD3 on his way to another runaway into FJ at 31,200 vs. 9,800 for Scott and 4,600 for TJ.
Scores entering FJ: Scott 9,800, Paolo 31,200, TJ 4,600.
Final Jeopardy!
AMERICAN ARTISTS – His 1967 New York Times obituary called him a “painter of loneliness”
Everyone was correct on an unusually easy FJ clue for this level of play. Paolo added 1,105 to take his second game with 32,305.
Final scores: Scott 9,800, Paolo 33,305, TJ 7,777.
That’s before their time: For a top-row clue, the players did not recognize “For You”, “Atlantic City” and “Cover Me” as songs written by Bruce Springsteen.
Clue selection strategy: If the host introduces a category as a “ToC favorite”, that’s probably the first place I’d go to hunt for a DD too.
Correct Qs: DD1 – What is loose lips sink ships? DD2 – What is So Long and Thanks For All the Fish out of Water Music? DD3 – What is “A Modest Proposal”? FJ – Who was Hopper?