High School Reunion Semifinal Preview
The semifinal matchups put like with like, in terms of gameplay
There is, of course, a problem with doing a semifinal preview, and that problem is that I’ve only seen five-ninths of the quarterfinals.
That said, I have seen five-ninths of the quarterfinals, which isn’t nothing. My feeling on this tournament as it progresses is actually pretty similar to how I think Celebrity Jeopardy! went — the quarterfinals tended to but didn’t always end up with players showing some clear advantage in the buzzing game. The difficulty has been lower than normal, but I suspect it will go up a little for the semifinals, and more for the finals, as it did with the celebrities. The key attributes to watch for remain the same: Attempt Value as a measure of competition on the buzzer, and Conversion Value %. Conversion Value % breaks down into Buzz Value % (getting in) and Accuracy Value % (being right). Of these, buzzing is probably going to tighten with the competition, as everyone advancing is at least decent with timing. Accuracy is going to matter comparatively more, especially if the difficulty goes up.
That leads to an interesting issue. We have some semifinalists who are attempters, some who are converters, and none that is really strongly both. And the quarterfinals… well, they just happen to match with this graph pretty well.
So let’s extrapolate on this from too little data:
Semifinal 1: The Attempters
Lucas Miner vs Jackson Jones vs Avi Gupta
Lucas Miner
$10600 Buz$ (7th) from $30074 in attempt value (6th) for 35.2% conversion (7th)
Conversion breakdown: 59.2% buzz value (6th), 59.6% accuracy value (6th)
Jackson Jones
$13400 Buz$ (5th) on $43534 in attempt value (1st) for 30.8% conversion (8th)
Conversion breakdown: 55.6% buzz value (8th), 55.4% accuracy value (8th)
Avi Gupta
$9400 Buz$ (8th) from $35903 in attempt value (2nd) for 26.2% conversion (9th)
Conversion breakdown: 48.5% buzz value (9th), 54.0% accuracy value (9th)
All three of these semifinalists had comparative difficulty getting in, and difficulty with accuracy. Lucas and Jackson still went into their respective Finals with leads, while Avi needed FJ itself to get to the win. Lucas is the only semifinalist to have a negative Timing Value, but he had the second-best Solo attempting. (Which might have hurt him, with the accuracy problems.)
I haven’t factored in contestants’ previous performances here, but what we’ve seen from them in the past says these were probably negative outliers in general. Still, I put a lot of credence in the game that just happened, and so the playstyles in this game have the potential to create a lot of rebounding.
Semifinal 2: The Moderates
Justin Bolsen vs Stephanie Pierson vs Claire Sattler
Justin Bolsen
$13800 Buz$ (4th) on $30667 of attempt value (5th) for 45.0% conversion (4th)
Conversion breakdown: 58.0% buzz value (6th), 77.5% accuracy value (3rd)
Stephanie Pierson
$9200 Buz$ (9th) on $22555 of attempt value (9th) for 40.8% conversion (6th)
Conversion breakdown: 72.7% buzz value (3rd), 56.1% accuracy value (7th)
Claire Sattler
$11400 Buz$ (6th) on $26458 of attempt value (8th) for 43.1% accuracy value (5th)
Conversion breakdown: 64.3% buzz value (5th), 67.1% accuracy value (5th)
These three semifinalists form a middle band — attempts are median or lower, but conversion hovers around median. Interestingly, these three semifinalists are also the ones with the lowest DD+ in their games, implying that we could see more variability as someone’s going to encounter the Daily Doubles and use them, even considering that Justin and Stephanie both had notable True Daily Doubles in their games.
Semifinal 3: The Converters
Caleb Richmond vs Maya Wright vs Tim Cho
Caleb Richmond
$18600 Buz$ (2nd) on $32363 of attempt value (3rd) for 57.5% conversion (2nd)
Conversion breakdown: 66.1% buzz value (4th), 86.9% accuracy value (1st)
Maya Wright
$15400 Buz$ (3rd) on $27004 of attempt value (7th) for 57.0% conversion (3rd)
Conversion breakdown: 79.2% buzz value (1st), 72.0% accuracy value (4th)
Tim Cho
$20000 Buz$ (1st) on $32010 of attempt value (4th) for 62.5% conversion (1st)
Conversion breakdown: 75.0% buzz value (2nd), 83.3% accuracy value (2nd)
Expect this game to feel fast and tight. None of the three is an out-and-out attempter, so that feeling might not come if the categories don’t sit well with any of the three and we hit Triple Stumpers. But if the categories do hit, there’s going to be fire. These semifinalists know what they know, have good timing, and can go for it.
All three of these players put together runaways in their quarterfinals. I don’t think any of them will this time, but that’s only because of the competition.
Programming Notes
I am leaving Phoenix soon but I’m continuing to travel, so we’ll see how viewing and updates fit in over the next week. In the mean time, site data updates will continue as normal and it’ll just be writeups here that are rescheduled.