Fri, October 1, 2004

Ever since I shared the grid for TV premiere season, I've been meaning to roll out my Jeopardy! score sheets for everyone to enjoy. We've finally earned a brief respite from the evil Ken Jennings regime, so I cracked out the pages and started playing along with the current Tournament of Champions. The questions are a little harder, but there's usually at least a few that I can handle. I was particularly proud of my performance on one of last week's shows.

It's not uncommon for me to get 100% of my responses right – not that I'm so smart, I just usually won't ring in unless I'm pretty sure of my response, and ToC questions generally leave less room for uncertainty; you know it or you don't. And of course I have the luxury of ringing in for every question, while the TV contestants have to compete with each other. But that's why I write down the number of clues attempted by each contestant and the number each gets correct. That way, I can calculate the average numbers and adjust my totals accordingly. It's not a matter of recording how well I'd do on a particular episode of the show, just where my game is generally and what areas need work, should I someday try out for the show again. Still, I'm delighted by the number of responses I knew in a ToC game, particularly the cell biology questions in Double Jeopardy! – I even got the $2000 clue!

Last night, I used up my last scorecard at home. Since I needed to print some more at the office today anyway, I decided to undertake a slight redesign. I had never factored in the fact that – during the show – it's necessary to count the contestants' guesses as hash marks; I can't just write down a number. So, the Correct/Attempted section gets really crowded. I separated the two areas, creating a special space for the hash marks and a quick way to distinguish correct hash marks from attempted. The numbers themselves don't need that much space, so it was no problem to slide them to one side.

Also, I added little numbers to the section where Daily Double results are recorded, as a small visual identifier to go with the mark that goes on the left side of the scorecard. This information, along with the Final Jeopardy! information, is recorded in order to study betting strategy. Not hugely useful, but I may as well write it down while I'm watching anyway. Same with the little marks that identify which clues were Daily Doubles in each round; not likely to be hugely important in hunting for Daily Doubles in the future, but really easy to record, so why not?