Melanie
Hirsch vs. Michelle Tsai vs Guy Barnum
Game
1
In many ways Game 1 of the finals
of Week 2 seemed like it would be the polar opposite of last Week's Game 1
Final - a fast start that ended with
something that looked like it would give one player an enormous advantage going
into the second game. It turned out differently than anyone expected, certainly
me.
In the Jeopardy round Melanie got
off to a quick start when she found the Daily Double early in ON THE BOOKSHELF.
She wagered the $1000 she could:
"Anthony Swofford's
experience in the First Gulf War led to his memoir called this, also the
nickname of a Marine." She knew it was Jarhead and took the lead.
From then on it was a back and forth between her and Guy with Guy eventually
taking the lead back in the final clues of the round. Still it was incredibly
close: Guy had $6000, Melanie was next with $5600, Michelle wasn't far behind
with $4800.
Early in Double Jeopardy Michelle
took the lead, helped by Guy getting a $2000 clue incorrect SCIENCE &
NATURE. She found the first Daily Double early in PLAYING THE NUMBERS. She bet
the $6400 she had:
"A readjustment of the
frontiers of Italy' was 9th on a list totaling this number of
proposals in 1918." She knew this referred to Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen
Points and doubled her score to $12,800.
In the next three clues her lead
expanded as both Melanie and Guy got clues wrong in the category THE KAISER'S
COLLEGE OF MUSICAL KNOWLEDGE and she got two clues correct. By the time she
found the other Daily Double in PEOPLE & PLACES she had $16,400 to Guy's
$2000 and Melanie's $2800. She bet $3000:
"Outside of India Canada has
one of the largest populations of followers of this religion founded by Guru
Nanak." She knew it was Sikhism and went up to $19,400.
Michelle would finish Double
Jeopardy with an impressive $24,600 built on the fact she only got one answer
wrong. Melanie gave thirteen correct
responses but gave four incorrect ones (almost all of them in Double Jeopardy)
while Guy gave 22 correct responses but three incorrect ones and all of them
were in $2000 clues. As a result Guy had $8000 and Melanie had $6000 going into
Final Jeopardy of Game 1.
The category for Final Jeopardy
was 18th CENTURY LIT. "In this work, 'the boys and girls would
venture to come and play at hide-and-seek in my hair."
Melanie's response was revealed
first. She wrote down: "What is Gulliver's Travels?" That was
correct. Like me she reasoned that the people playing in the hair were
Lilliputians. She did what she had to do and bet $6000, giving her $12,000.
Guy's response was revealed next
and he also wrote down: "What is Gulliver's Travels?" He also
bet everything, giving him $16,000.
Michelle, however, wrote down:
"What is Rapunzel?" It cost her $5400, leaving her with $19,200.
So at the end of Game 1 it is a
far closer match with just $7200 separating first place from third. It is still
anybody's game going into Game 2.
Game
2
In the Jeopardy round Guy
struggled early while Melanie would get off to a fast start helped by finding
the Daily Double on the third clue in HISTORY 'P's and 'Q'. The only one with
money at $800, she bet the $1000 she could.
"Surname of General Grigory,
wooer of Catherine the Great; he was said to have fabricated fake villages to
win her favor." Melanie knew it was Potemkin and moved up to $1800. She
held her lead for the rest of the Jeopardy round though Michelle closed the
distance substantially by the end. Melanie finished with $6200 to Michelle's
$5400 while Guy trailed badly with $800.
Early in Double Jeopardy Guy got a
golden opportunity when he found the first Daily Double in ALPHABETICALLY
FIRST. He wagered the $3600 he had:
ALPHABETICALLY FIRST…of the
traditional birthstones." He pondered and as time ran out he guessed:
"What is agate?" It wouldn't have mattered if he'd gotten it in time;
agate was not a birthstone. They were looking for amethyst. He dropped to zero.
Four clues later he found the
other Daily Double IN A MYSTERY. (And so you know in Double Jeopardy we had
consecutively A RIDDLE, RAPPED, IN A MYSTERY, INSIDE AN ENIGMA. Churchill would
be so proud. Anyway…)
With only $1600 Guy bet the $2000
he was allowed to. "In this short story by Edgar Allan Poe, C. Auguste
Dupin solves the mystery of an apparently stolen item being used for
blackmail." This time it worked out for Guy he knew it was 'The Purloined
Letter'.
The match continued at a more even
level then we'd seen in Game 1's Double Jeopardy. Guy and Melanie each gave 16
correct responses – Melanie only gave one incorrect response; Guy gave four
including his incorrect Daily Double. Michelle gave 19 correct responses and
three incorrect ones (there were at least two she wished she could have taken
back when she gave them.)
At the end of Double Jeopardy
Michelle was in the lead again but with a much narrower margin then at the same
point in Game 1. She had $14,600 to Melanie's $10,600 and Guy's $9200. With the scores so close at the end of Game 1
, it was anybody's game going into Final Jeopardy.
The category was THE 21ST
CENTURY. The deciding clue was: "In 2015 a foreign government said this
would be abolished to 'increase labor supply & ease pressures from an aging
population." This would be the first Final Jeopardy in the Second Chance
Tournament to this point that all three players got correctly (and I was
completely stumped by)
Guy wrote down his response at the
last moment. "What is The One Child Policy?" That was correct; China
ended in a decade ago. Guy bet $3801. That gave him $13,001 today and his two
day total was $29,001.
Next came Melanie. She also had
the correct response. She wagered almost everything: $10,500. That gave her
$21,100. Her two day total was $33,100.
It was all on Michelle. She had
"What is The One Child Policy?" Her wager was $601. That put her at
$15,201. Her two day total was $34,401 and by a very narrow margin she had
well-earned $35,000 and her spot in Champions Wildcard.
(For those who don't understand
the math as well. At the end of Day 1 Guy was her nearest opponent and she was
betting enough so that if he bet everything she would have $1 more than him.
There's a possibility Guy miscalculated going into Final Jeopardy but I'm not
sure it would have made much of a difference.)
Once again we've had a week of
even more thrilling matches and an even more exciting final that last week. For
what's it worth Week 2's contestants were clearly more on the ball when it came
to Final Jeopardy than Week 1's: out of the fourteen contestants still present
in Final Jeopardy across the week, eleven of them came up with correct
responses. Oddly enough Michelle, the ultimate winner was the only one of the
three finalists to not respond correctly to all three Final Jeopardy
clues in the games she played but she more than earned her Second Chance. (And
I love her fashion choices by the way.)
We'll ring out the year with the
third and final week of Season 41 Second Chance. And I'll ring in 2026 with the
recap of Week 3 semifinals.
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