Yesterday afternoon, on this very website, some cranky dingus ranted about the Jeopardy! Teen Tournament and called for its death. “WAH,” he said. “Everything is dumbed down, and sometimes they reference popular music, and the other night — AND YOU WON’T EVEN BELIEVE THIS PART — Alex Trebek even danced. It’s horrible and I hate it. WAH WAH WAH.” Two things became abundantly clear upon reading this whiny manifesto: One, the writer needs a life, or a hobby, or something, because devoting hundreds of angry words to a syndicated game show is kind of sad. And two, he was wrong. Wrong wrong wrong.
You see, on last night’s episode of the Teen Tournament, less than six hours after that post went up, something amazing happened. Something I’ve never seen before. All three contestants wagered everything in Final Jeopardy, and all three of them got the answer wrong, and they all finished with zero dollars. Zero dollars. And since no one finished with anything, Alex Trebek had to dust off the Jeopardy! rulebook, which stated that none of them got to advance, and two contestants from another episode would move on. To recap: They competed for half an hour, through three rounds of questions, then everyone tied for last and went home empty-handed. It was easily one of the goofiest things I’ve ever seen on the show, and I wish it would happen more often because the look on Trebek’s face was priceless.
Long live the Teen Tournament.
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What was the final Jeopordy answer that caused them all to guess the same thing and yet still get it wrong?
What capital city has sections walled off for Catholics and Protestants.
Something along those lines.
I don’t know but the answer wasn’t “Eleventy-Billion.”
It was about where the “peace walls” that separate the Protestant and Catholic sides of a city are in Ireland. They all answered Dublin, but it is actually Belfast.
you know your city fucking sucks when 2 different kinds of white christian people can’t agree not to throw bombs at each other. ireland is the worst.
Northern Ireland is a completely different country from Ireland. Of course, that’s a pretty big part of the problem, but jaroslav, sure, whatever you say.
Ireland has given us Guinness so they can’t be that bad.
They’ve also given us Jameson’s so they’re pretty high on the awesome list
If you want to see just how crazy the Irish can be you should watch the documentary “Knuckle.” Don’t know if its Ireland or Northern Ireland, but they are fucking nuts.
My favourite part of that episode was Trebek trying to find other word to call them besides losers.
Couldn’t we just say, “The teen who doesn’t win”?
Why on earth would you wager everything when you have the lead??? Just wager enough to beat the next guy…
was it the 1st half of the final round? dont they make the final cumulative of 2 shows? they could just all be starting today from scratch.
I thought that in the tournaments that they played for a grand cash prize, and that the money in each game is more like points toward winning that round, not money you can take home. In other words, it makes even less sense to wager everything if you have the lead. You’re not going home with that money, so just bet enough to win. I haven’t watched Jeopardy in a long time, so maybe they’ve changed the tournament rules.
It’s not, its still the semi finals which means none of them move forward they all just go home with nothing
You see the moment when he realizes his mistake before they reveal his wager. Still not as sad as seeing the girl on day 1′s heart break on the last question of the game.
The guy with $16,400 doesn’t know JEOPARDY!. Had we wagered $7,601 like you should in that situation, he’d have won.
I love the confidence. Like, “Yeah, eff this. I’m betting it all.” Was it smart? No. But at least he was wrong CON GUSTO.
I bitched and moaned about that kid’s stupid, stupid move for about 5 minutes. My girlfriend was so sick of hearing about it.
Strangely enough, being in 2nd place by a fairly close margin isn’t such a bad place to be. Similar to the above situation (but with simplified amounts of money), if the leader has 15,000 and you’ve got 10,000, you can assume he’ll bet 5,001 (so he’ll have 20,001 to your 20,000 if you risk it all and you’re both right). And then you just bet $0, so that if you’re both right, he’ll win, if you’re right and he’s wrong you’ll win (15,000 to 14,999), and if you’re both wrong you’ll win (again, 15,000 to 14,999). Basically turns it into a coin toss for you that’s completely dependent on his answer, which is the best you can ask for given that you’re already in second place.
The wagering acumen of the contestants from adults to teens angers me a great deal.
I’ve seen episodes in which a contestant gets a Daily Double as the last clue on the board and doesn’t wager enough to have more than half of first, infuriating.
He should have written his bet “16.4 thousand big ones”
I was most upset about the girl in third place. Doubling her money meant nothing; her only play was hoping the other two guys were such idiots that they bet everything and lost, so bet $0. And then the other guys actually did that, and she had her chance, and lost. So she sucked at answering questions AND in strategy. How did she get on Jeopardy in the first place?
She got a couple wrong in a row midway through the show and she was never the same
And that’s an ugly blouse too!
I think she was too dead-set on… Dublin… her money…
Nice one, Crazy Ira.
People in 3rd place do that stupid bet all the time. There’s usually a reason you are in last place – it’s because the other two are smarter than you. The worst part of her stupid bet is even if she was right she only would have won because the first place kid was a moron – if he bet $7,601 like he was supposed to she still wouldn’t have had enough to pass him. I guess she was gambling that not only was she going to be the only one to get it right but that the other two would stupidly bet everything. I guess it nearly paid off.
Even worse, I was rooting for Tori!
And, I do NOT think that she sucked at answering questions (or that her blouse was ugly). Joe and Kelton were probably just too fast for her. Often in the semifinals, smarts are good as long as you answer the questions, but you need to ring in fast.
However, if any of them had bet one dollar or more less, they would have won. Hey, if she got the $600 question wrong and the $1000 question right, that’s what I call an accomplishment!
Also, her name is Tori Amos.
It really is.
Haha! Stupid teens, amirite?
To be fair, that question was pretty hard for teens. Heck, I wouldn’t expect most adults to know that. The category was too misleading – “Capital Cities”. Why would they think of anything but National Capitals? And the question was poorly written, not specifying that they were looking for something that wasn’t a national capital. Who the hell would make Final Jeopardy a trick question during the Teen Tournament?
Belfast is a national capital. It’s the national capital of Northern Ireland… which is a wholly different country than Ireland.
Yeah, there’s nothing ‘tricky’ about that question.
Belfast is not a National Capital. Northern Ireland is a constituent country of the United Kingdom.
If you want to be pedantic and intentionally obtuse, yeah, it’s a constituent country but that’s like arguing that Edinburgh isn’t Scotland’s national capital because Scotland isn’t a country. Or that Aruba isn’t a country because it’s part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
By definition a national capital is the capital of a nation-state. So, yeah, Ediburgh is not a national capital, nor Willemstad for that matter, because neither Scotland nor Aruba are countries but constituent countries. They’re about as much national capitals as Sacramento or Zurich.
Who’s being intentionally obtuse again?
Okay, so a constituent country isn’t a country even though it has the word country in it? Got it.
If those teenagers are thinking, “Well, I know Belfast is the capital of Northern Ireland and it has walls to separate Cokes and Pepsis, but Northern Ireland is only a constituent country so uh…Dublin!” then they’re as bad at dinner parties as you are.
Yep. Constituent Country =/= Country. Thinking that a constituent country is the same as a country for that reason is like thinking that the State of Israel and the State of North Dakota or the Commonwealth of Australia and the Commonwealth of Kentucky are roughly the same thing.
And no, those teenagers weren’t thinking that. They’d never think of Northern Ireland because they’re on the spot and it’s not a country. They were probably thinking something closer to, “What’s a country divided between Catholics and Protestants…Ireland…capital of Ireland…Dublin.” If they were to make the leaps in logic to even justify thinking of Northern Ireland, then they’re as bad at dinner parties as you are.
Holy shit, it’s a fucking country. Go to Northern Ireland and tell them they’re not a country.
This is the kind of obtuse bullshit I’m talking about. You can argue constituent country all you want, but at the end of the day, England is a country, Scotland is a country, Wales is a country, Northern Ireland is a country. If you don’t agree with that, then fine, but you’re wrong.
I’m done here.
Clearly you have never heard of the United Kingdom. I’d recommend you check that out.
@IdleRich: I’ll look forward to rooting for the Northern Ireland and Wales teams at the next Olympics.
@Stinky: Well there are national football teams for both Wales and Northern Ireland that compete in FIFA, and the Olympic football team for this year was known as the Great Britain and Northern Ireland Olympic football team.
@LoveWaffle: Never heard of it.
Belfast is the capital of Northern Ireland. Period. It’s therefore appropriate to the category, and they’re all fucking retards.
Dublin is not divided between Protestants & Catholics. Anyone who knows anything about the Troubles knows that Dublin isn’t where shit went down.
If you want to argue bullshit about “constituent countries” vs. “countries,” you’re arguing semantics that no one gives a shit about. Including academics (like me) who specialize in this shit. No one’s saying Belfast is a “national capital.” The city is the capital of its political region. Like Sacramento is the capital of California.
And yeah, they’re all idiots. But “teen” and “idiot” are synonyms.
Actually LOTHP, you’re quite wrong. They’re all smart, young people, and some of the smartest people I know are teens (including myself).
It was a good match, but I’m a bit dissapointed of the outcome (I wouldn’t have known it anyway).
WOW. Rarely do I encounter a conversation on the internet SOOO uninformed that I feel the need to chime in. Nations, states and countries are not what you think they are, with country perhaps having the fuzziest definition.
For starters, states and nations are not the same thing. You can have states that are not nations (California), nations that are not states (The Cherokee Nation), entities that are both (France), and entities that are neither (my dick).
Northern Ireland is *most definitely* both a state and a nation, though it is not a completely sovereign, independent, state (and therefore you might hesitate to call it a country). *States* have associated capital cities, so there was nothing wrong with the category.
The issue was that the category was so vague these kids never had a chance.
Consider a question that was asked today, the first game of the Tournament of Champions. The category was “Olympic Host Cities”, and the answer was “Helsinki”. While I don’t remember exactly how it was asked, I do remember it started with “This world capital on the Gulf of Finland…”
From the category, the distinction as a “world capital,” and the geographic location, the question was almost “who’s quicker on the buzzer” than who actually knows it. For a question like that with so many clues to be asked in the Tournament of Champions, it’s inexcusable that these kids were given the question they were with that vague a category.
“This is not… this not… this not really happening to me.”
-Going trough Tori’s head at the moment this picture was taken.
I remember watching regular Jeopardy some time in the mid to late 90s when no one won. The tone that Trebek said how it had only happened once before reminded me of that clip of Kronkite saying Kennedy had been assassinated.
By definition a national capital is the capital of a nation-state. So, yeah, Ediburgh is not a national capital, or Willemstad for that matter, because neither Scotland and Aruba are countries but constituent countries. They’re about as much national capitals as Sacramento or Zurich.
Who’s being intentionally obtuse again?
Posted in wrong place.
Be sure to put that in your college applications. “Participated in worst game of Jeopardy ever.”
How times have changed. I remember when the Teen Tournament was the hardest one. Now, it’s even easier than the college one, and the kids suck.
Nice work fellas, no, seriously:
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Trebek was nearly apoplectic at the inherent racism of the results.
“OMFG the black kid looks like the biggest idiot to ever play this game! The NAACP is going to destroy me over this!” was racing through his mind.
The Teen Tournament exemplifies the confidence and stupidity of youth and I think it is needed to keep our children grounded. Let them look into the bright vision box and realize that their shit does indeed stink and they need to work to be like their pappy. Beer guts don’t grow on trees. Neither do brains.
These people train for weeks or even monthes to get ready for these questions. They’re not stupid; a lot of them are smarter than me (and I’m pretty darn smart!). As long as they get that $10000 (what they’re guaranteed if they are in the semifinals), their parents must be proud of them.
People work for a brain! That’s why they are on this show in the first place! Plus, being on the show probably works great for their college resume.
Holy shit, this is amazing
Clearly they’re too young to have seen Jax bro-walk across that wall in season 3.
These teens have obviously never learned the important Clavin’s Rule.
And I never thought I would skip a Jeopardy post because I was behind on the tourney and didn’t want spoilers.