Final Jeopardy scenarios

Another friend of mine is on Jeopardy! today, which seems like an appropriate occasion to post some other thoughts on J! strategy I've had recently.

Everyone knows that it's important to enter Final Jeopardy with the lead - if you have the lead, and you wager enough, and you get it right, you win. Almost everyone knows that it's very good to be in the lead with at least double the score of second place, what Alex calls a "runaway" and the rest of us call a "lock" - you can wager zero and win no matter what your opponents do.

Most people do not understand the relative importance of these two factors, and that there's a third threshold which is as important as either of them. ( Read more... )