Line #7 Headscratchers/Jeopardy


1	* It's wrong how they rank post-doubled champions (2001-present), especially those with unlimited tenure (2003-present), alongside the pre-doubled, tenured winners (pre-2001), as if there never was a difference between the two groups. The $100,000+ Frank Spangenberg earned back in 1990 is not the same $100,000 on the show today. It's like ranking Trebek-era champions alongside Fleming-era champions. There has to be consistency.
2	** That's why they played the Ultimate Tournament of Champions.
3	** It's ranking the regular winnings of all the post-doubled/untenured winners alongside those of the pre-doubled/tenured winners. Those two groups won under completely different rules, and more notably, under two completely different scoring systems.
4	* What does the main page mean "Aired in a 7-8 block"? Where this troper lives, at least, "Jeopardy!" Airs at noon every weekday, and it's just on episode, immediately followed by ''Series/TheBoldAndTheBeautiful''.
5	** Different stations run the eps at different times. [[Tropers/IuraCivium This Troper]] spent almost eighteen years in an area where the show did indeed air in the 7-8 block, only to move out to college and find that the local network affiliate there ran the shows at 4:00.
6	*** Generally speaking, it runs in a 7-8 block (usually with ''Series/WheelOfFortune''). Some local stations run it at different times for their own reasons. But the majority have been running it along with "The Wheel" in that 7-8 block for the last 30+ years.
7	*** This troper had "Jeopardy!" on at 3pm, "Hollywood Squares" at 3:30pm and "Wheel" at 6:30pm (WFAA-TV, Dallas, TX).
8	* If they can bother to edit the show to ensure that all 60 clues are played in tournaments, why can't they do the same in every other game? Leaving clues on the board looks unprofessional. And unless the contestants are total sloths (granted, a couple have been), it's not like it's going to take ''that'' long to get that one last clue played.
9	** Because it's especially important that the players get as many clues as possible to have a better chance of going further in the tournament. This is doubly true in the quarter-finals, as the highest-earning non-winners get a "wildcard" pass to the semis.
10	*** I know ''why'' they do it in tournaments. But why don't they do it in regular games too?
11	*** This bothers me. I understand it if they happen to have a lot of particularly difficult clues, but often they've come to within one clue of completing the board, so why can't they add enough time to make sure that clue is shown? I myself think that boards would be cleared if they cut down on unnecessary chit-chat (I know they're trying not to have dead time by chatting with the contestants, but when those go a little long, the first round gets shortened for time) and reduced the hesitation period, especially if a number of clues that stump contestants come up in quick succession.
12	*** This is actually very easy to answer (with an opinion of course). One word: Advertising. They sell that advertising time and the more they can sell the more the network can make. During a Tournament they can afford a ''loss'' of advertising seconds because theoretically more people are watching, but during ''normal'' episodes, every second counts. You may not think so (and I agree that it would be nice if they completed the board), but I would bet that they have oodles of data that shows those precious seconds gain them a lot of money they might lose otherwise.
13	*** It could simply be that packing the 61 questions in for tournaments sometimes requires numerous tiny editing cuts to fit everything in that just isn't worth it in regular games. In a tournament, they do this for fairness, but in regular games, they run out of time instead - it's not strictly unprofessional, just the rules of the game which are changed for tournaments. The most bothersome thing is that those questions go to waste unless they can be shoehorned into a future category.
14	*** Apparently they use unused clues in "Potpourri", or at least, they did in 2004, when I went to a taping and someone asked about that.
15	* Why does every contestant in the lead for Final Jeopardy purposely settle for a one-dollar margin of victory when they could get more money by wagering more while still staying ahead of the 3rd-place player if he got it wrong? For example: going into Final Jeopardy, Player 1 has $3,000, Player 2 has $7,000, and Player 3 has $12,000. Player 3 will most likely wager $2,001. But what he doesn't know is that he can get more money for a win if he bets against Player 1 rather than against Player 2. If Player 3 wagers $5,999 instead, he'll get more money for a right answer ($17,999 instead of $14,001) yet still get the same 2nd-place consolation prize for a wrong answer since he'll still beat player 1 no matter what ($6,001 - $6,000 if Player 1 got it right and went all-in), and all without looking like a jerk to the guy in second place. Why don't more contestants realize this?
16	** Some people do. Under the [[http://www.j-archive.com/help.php J! Archive]], the two strategies are referred to as Venusian and Martian wagering strategies, respectively.
17	* Why did they remove the co-champion rule? If it didn't exist, players like Michael Dupee and Dan Melia would never have had the chance of becoming 5-time undefeated champions or winning their Tournament of Champions. And it negates the awesomeness of the three-way nonzero tie from 2007.
18	** Probably a couple of reasons. One is that occasionally a leading contestant will play "nice" and make their bid so that second place with tie if they double; kind of annoying and almost unsporting for this to be at the whim of that contestant. The second reason is that it makes it slightly less predictable when queued contestants will play. Imagine coming into a taping, and they say "there were a lot of co-champions this taping, so you're being pushed forward to the next one." Which is a bit of a shame because it was kind of cool when it happened.
19	** There may have been budgetary issues. Possibly. But the notion that removing the co-champion rule cleaned up the taping schedules makes more sense.
20	** It also keeps contestants from going for ties as a tactic to keep a beatable opponent in the game in order to keep winning.
21	* Does anybody know what happens if the first clue a contestant chooses is a Daily Double?
22	** The contestant can wager up to $1,000 in the single Jeopardy round no matter their current score, so it would be no different there -- just anti-climactic.
23	** If you have less than the maximum value of the clues available in the round ($1000 for Jeopardy, $2000 for Double Jeopardy), you can risk any amount up to that value.
24	* What's with how they rank the highest-scoring players? Since they doubled the clue values, they've ranked post-doubled era winners right alongside winners from the pre-doubled era, which is rather inconsistent in measurement.
25	** Generally, they double the scores for the official rank.
26	* Why do they almost always film the answer monitor screens instead of just showing them electronically? They do both, and it seems obvious that they prefer to film the screens and only do an electronic transition when a player makes an unanticipated selection.
27	* Why can’t we have normal ''Jeopardy'' in the one-hour, three-round ''Celebrity'' format? It feels like a shame to only have that extra time and extra questions used when it’s the more dumbed-down questions given to the celebrity contestants.
28	** The only game show that really works in the one-hour format is "The Price is Right". "Celebrity Jeopardy!" is in primetime on ABC. "Jeopardy!" is syndicated, and is often paired with the more successful "Wheel of Fortune".

Context Headscratchers / Jeopardy