Jan 30-Feb 3, 2023: A Week of Daily Doubles
Jake DeArruda and Patti Palmer both go big on Daily Doubles, plus the Celebrity Jeopardy Final
Although this post is getting published on Tuesday, all data is through the previous Friday, February 3, 2023.
Champion Highlights
Jake DeArruda
Jake played a fast-paced game exemplified by his buzzer timing statistics, coming in in the upper third of this cycle’s champions in timing and attempt value metrics. His accuracy was high but average for a champion, though that’s still good enough to slot him statistically into the near-upper tier of champions for this season. It’s also worth calling out Jake’s work with Daily Doubles. With $7700 per game on 1.8 DDs per game, he averaged more money earned on DDs each game than anyone else this season who played more than once. Yes, including Cris Pannullo, who earned an average of $7664 on 2.3 per game.
With both a good base rate of earning and the money from DDs, Jake took four crushes (but only one runaway) into four Finals. However, he never got a Final correct. Any string of non-runaways takes getting Finals right to maintain, or luck will catch up eventually.
Patti Palmer
That luck showed up in the form of Patti, who used a strong wager on DD3 to prevent Jake from running away on February 1. In keeping him to just a crush, Patti was able to win by soloing the Final, and the wagering put her as the highest 1-game champion of the season.
Patti had attempt data above contestant average but buzzer timing well below, making her victory difficult but achievable with the DD and the strong wager. She wasn’t able to keep up in her second game, though, losing in a runaway to Matthew Marcus. We’ll return to Matthew next time, as he continues to accumulate data.
Celebrity Jeopardy Final
There’s a few notable issues in analyzing Celebrity Jeopardy. First, there’s not a lot of data. Second, any analysis is less useful for predictive purposes because the three Triple Jeopardy Daily Doubles introduce all sorts of variability. Third, the level and style of competition changes dramatically from the quarterfinal to the semifinal to the final, and possibly across brackets. As a result, going into the game last week, I didn’t think there was a lot to separate Wil, Patton, and Ike in the data, aside from maybe Patton’s relative weakness on the buzzer within his bracket.
But all you really need to understand the final is to look at the timing metrics for the game.
Gameplay was definitely different for this game. All three players attempted over 70 times, with Ike at 71, Wil at 76, and Patton hitting 81. Ike is just much better on buzzer timing, ending up with 40 buzzes to Patton’s 25 and Wil’s 21. All players also went for a bottom-up approach that points at DD hunting. Ike and Patton were successful here, while Wil had bad selection luck and ended up not finding any.
With timing combined with getting three of the DDs, including two in TJ, Ike was able to put together a large but not crushing lead. Patton’s DD earnings kept things close enough to try to steal a win, but Ike’s correct FJ response got him the trophy. Congratulations, Ike!
Attempt Watch 2023
The rolling average of attempts fell this week, though it remains higher in 2023 than it did through 2022. Nothing much on my mind about this aside from reporting it. I moved to a 5-game average to more clearly show the effects of each week, since I’m tending to post this weekly, and the noise is not too noisy.
I did build a similar graph to see if trends in BuzI (incorrect responses on buzzes) echoed peaks and troughs, as increased incorrect responses lead to more attempt opportunities. This graph is on a 20-game average as it is noisier, and it didn’t strike me as anything in particular in comparison with the attempt graph. I was, however, struck by something else — my goodness, James.
I don’t know if I’m more astounded by his own accuracy or how thoroughly he suppressed everyone else’s ability to be wrong. Probably the latter, considering that his large wins ought to have kicked off a death spiral pattern for some opponents.