The final round definitely has. The categories are ridiculously vague and they avoid puzzles with the six letters given, four most common letters after them, and multiples of any single consonant.
I haven’t watched Jeopardy regularly since I was a teenager but it has become easier since then. Maybe it’s become harder to prevent another James Holzauer (sp?) from happening. Wonder if they’ll start randomizing the Daily Double locations soon.
This is a pretty piping hot take. I don’t know anyone who watches regularly who thinks it is easier now. It’s not that hard to evaluate as there are online databases of all the questions going back decades.
Yeah, I think you’re just absorbing more pop culture and history knowledge as you age and that makes Jeopardy easier.
Was gonna say this, I don’t watch much but those puzzles are impossible most of the time. Often they’re very short on top of everything, which sucks for getting any context (“oh great the whole puzzle is two four-letter words and I got one letter in each, I only narrowed it down to 37000 combos”). And I’m sure there’s some temptation to really pick unusual letters, because you look like a fucking genius if your K and double Z are in there or something, but man you have to feel like a total moron when they’re not.
Good point.
The bonus puzzles are definitely harder, but can still be gotten if you can put yourself inside the heads of the writers. This is especially true with puzzles where there are obvious adjectives, they’ll often use words with the least common letters, like QUICK or JAZZY or GLITZY, or a couple of repeating letters.
I had a Facebook memory come up last week where my wife nearly started yelling at me for coming up with this one (category: What Are You Doing?):
_ A _ _ _ A _ _ _ N _ (RSTLN E MDFH A)
Backpacking?
And FU for getting that in the actual time window the contestant got, if you did. It took me like two mins (and I’m pretty pleased with myself about that, lol).
My wife and I hate it when someone picks the category “Phrase” for the bonus round.
Just the other day, she said, “Yes, let’s pick the category where the answer can be literally anything using English words instead of say, ‘Things in your kitchen.’”
Phrase and Thing are both off limits for me. Both could be literally anything the writers feel like making up. What Are You Doing isn’t much better.
Great solve! I saw “backtracking” immediately and then got “backpacking” from that but took me close to the 10 seconds allotted. Making quick and ridiculous solves is one of my few party tricks.
Recently I solved this Song Lyrics puzzle with no letters on the board. Ignore the slashes, had to put them in for this to format correctly, they are just spaces between words.
“_ _ _ _ _ / _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ / _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ / _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _”
ETA: Sorry to hijack the Jeopardy thread but I guess WoF discussion are ok in here? I have some other fun puzzles/solves I remember from the auditions and tests and my episode if you guys are interested.
KARMA KARMA KARMA KARMA KARMA CHAMELEON?
Love to hear about anything from your experience. I would’ve liked to try out for Wheel, but they stopped accepting Canadians awhile ago. I’m lucky that Jeopardy reversed that policy.
Nailed it!
I did an AMA on a different forum which shall not be named, but I don’t remember if I put any of the good puzzles in there. I’ll dig that up when I have time later tonight and add some puzzles here. Have you been on Jeopardy yet?! I vaguely recall one or two UP members saying they had been contestants but I may be making that up. I think we have one other WoF alum here too.
It’s because you put the letter U in words that don’t have a U.
Not yet. Auditioned twice, but no call. I was hoping to get a third based on the last online test, but then the pandemic hit and I suspect they decided not to try out Canadians since they can’t cross the border.
And good luck with Jeopardy! Hopefully they open it back up to Canadians soon.
Yep, taking two weeks off of Jeopardy. Will watch an episode available on Netflix each night instead. I implore everyone else to do the same
I’m with you. I can’t stomach watching someone host who’s so antithetical to the essence of the show.
Think you posted something about it on 2p2.
Feel bad for the contestants. I know the actual structure of the game is unchanged and the players still get their shot at prize money and TOC spots, but there are a bunch of people who aren’t going to watch solely because of the host.
I have no idea what the people in charge of that decision were thinking.