Comments on: Ogas VS Jennings: Who Wins “Grand Slam”?

By: Chris

Chris — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 18:55:18 +0000

Im glad jennings won, ogas just pissed me off how he would shut his eyes and not smile. At least jennings smiled and had a good time.

By: Scott

Scott — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 20:09:26 +0000

Lobs, I appreciate your view that Grand Slam played “up” to the audience (as does Jeopardy and WWTBAM). But remember that even those games have a fair dose of pop culture (as did other games represented, such as Greed, Twenty One, and Weakest Link). It seemed strange to have this suddenly “new” round — but as Ken Jennings stated on his blog today, the final General Knowledge round had no pop culture in it at all. Did this give Ken a conceivable advantage in that later round? Perhaps, but it also gave Ogi an advantage he hadn’t had before in the General Knowledge round. The contestants knew the format in advance, and Ken absolutely killed in the final Mixed Round anyway.

By: lobster

lobster — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 15:18:01 +0000

say what you will but the addition of pop culture category cheesed up the game a little, didn’t it? This is supposed to feature the smartest vs the smartest, and so I maintain, how is knowledge of Jay Z’s clothing line representative of superior intellect? Here you have two steel-trap minds going head to head on questions of intelligence, high-pressure math questions, sculptors, authors — and so the mere mention of Beyonce brings locomotive brake squeals to my ears :D .. rips the needle off the record.. the ultimate gameshow buzz kill.. i know the point was to show “well-roundednesss” but isn’t it more impressive to see these genius-level experts rattle off answers about quadratic formulas and cotangents? :p

By: Scott

Scott — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 13:11:31 +0000

In a prior post I somewhat vindictively rooted for Ken to win because Ogi was coming off as so arrogant…I just could not take it anymore. Let me now wish Ogi well not only for a fantastic and breathtaking first 2 rounds, but also for his humility in achieving second place (no small order there). I doubt anyone else could have given Ken a better run for the championship.

By: Scott

Scott — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 13:09:58 +0000

Next year (Michael Davies, are you listening?) — a few changes, and more game, less in between chatter.

1. Change the Numbers and Logic round to “Numbers” — include not only mathematical answers / problems, but have the answers all be numerical (i.e., how many games was Ken Jennings’ winning streak on Jeopardy!; what year did Richard Nixon resign?).

2. Don’t allow switchbacks on the same question. They will be more valuable and more strategic if you prevent a player from switching back the same question. This would dynamically change the game play, in a good way.

3. Keep the contemporary knowledge round, but excise those sorts of questions from General Knowledge (which, oddly enough, everyone considered Pop Culture until the Ken-Ogi final).

4. Make the final round a real “mixed” affair, but start each player with 2 minutes instead of 1 minute. More emphasis on the final round, more chance of catching up from behind.

By: David Howell

David Howell — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 12:29:12 +0000

I don’t think the extra pop culture round was necessarily critical. It didn’t kill off Ogi so much as it killed off the spectacle in a manner that couldn’t have been predicted.

But as with Jeopardy!, Ken came through by being assured on everything from Shakespeare to Snoop Dogg, and rather a lot more in between in this format too. And he’ll probably take some pride in beating Brad’s conqueror - which is what I hope Ogi is remembered as, rather than ‘the nearly man of game shows’ as I fear he will.

By: Neville

Neville — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 01:02:06 +0000

BUtler, I agree. Anyone who gets so far in a contest of champions is definitely not a loser :)

By: The Great Butler

The Great Butler — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 00:15:06 +0000

As soon as I saw the added Contemporary Knowledge round, I know plenty of people would get their panties in a wad claiming Ogi got cheated.

This whole thing reminds me of how people through a collective hissy fit when John O’Hurley lost on Dancing with the Stars and forced ABC to run a pretty much rigged rematch just so he could win. (I say it was rigged because all the demand for John to win was what caused it, and all the people who demanded a rematch—in a long forgone conclusion—would then vote for him. His opponent had no chance from the beginning of the special match to win. Another similar incident would be how Survivor used the “America’s Tribal Council” to award Rupert a million just because of his massive popularity)

Ken earned his win, and Ogi did a damn good job but just ran out of steam. Even Ogi himself has refused to blame his loss on the slightly altered rules. A lot of people need to take an example from Ogi, who has been the most gracious loser I’ve ever seen. Even calling him the loser doesn’t seem fair considering how well he did.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 23:11:01 +0000

so ogi, did you get any sort of consolation?

By: l.e.

l.e. — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 22:42:10 +0000

GSN isn’t showing repeats anytime soon, it seems. I can’t believe I missed it yesterday…