Final Jeopardy: Big Countries (10-14-13)

The Final Jeopardy question (10/14/2013) in the category “Big Countries” was:

In area, it’s the largest former Soviet Republic after Russia & the largest nation that doesn’t border an ocean.

New champ, Greg Buzzard won $24,000 in last Friday’s game. Today he takes on these two players: Chris Gaiman, from Slatington, PA; and Loren Gianini, from West Hartford, CT.

Chris found the Jeopardy! round Daily Double in “Current Events” before the first break. She was in second place with $1,800, $400 behind Greg’s lead. She bet $500 and she was RIGHT.

In 2012, a Scottish skipper found one of these, also a song by the Police; it had been adrift for 97 years and 309 days. show

Chris finished in the lead with $4,500. Greg was second with $2,800 and Loren was last with $1,600.

Greg found the first Double Jeopardy Daily Double in “The U.S. Owes.” He was in second place with $5,200, $900 behind Chris’s lead. He bet $1,200 and he was RIGHT.

This country owns around 8% of all U.S. public debt, more than any other. show

The round ended with two clues left on the board in “Zoology.” The second Daily Double was under one of them.

Greg finished in the lead with $14,400. Chris was next with $9,700 and Loren was in third place with $4,800.

Only one of the contestants got Final Jeopardy! right.

WHAT IS KAZAKHSTAN?

“Kazakhstan is the world’s largest landlocked country by land area and the ninth largest country in the world; its territory of 2,727,300 square kilometres (1,053,000 sq mi) is larger than Western Europe. It has borders with (clockwise from the north) Russia, China, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan, and also adjoins a large part of the Caspian Sea.” (wikipedia)

Loren thought it was The Ukraine. She lost $4,000 and finished with $800.

Chris got it right and added $4,701 to her kitty, to finish with $14,401.

Greg wrote down “Kazkhistan”. Alex explained that the misspelling changed the pronunciation of the country’s name, so it was going to cost him that $6,600 bet he made. He landed in second place with $7,800.

So Chris Gaiman is our new Jeopardy! champ. Very nice! We love it that spelling still counts for something in some places — sort of, on Jeopardy! If he had only had that “i” before the second k instead of after the h, it would have been acceptable, right?

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8 Responses

  1. Sylvia says:

    I believe they should have accepted the spelling of that very hard word. I will continue to watch jeopardy but that was unfair.

  2. MBhang says:

    I am going to stop watching Jeopardy. This Kazakhistan should have been acceptable. I agree – this was a rip off.

    Shame on Sony, shame on Aleks Trabake (I refuse to spell his name correctly). What a crock!!!

  3. vj says:

    @dickensah — it was perfectly consistent with the ruling against Thomas Hurley, who spelled Emancipation with an extra letter (EmanicipTation) that changed the pronunciation

  4. dickensah says:

    I was fine with the ruling…
    But it was inconsistent with the whole “kid misspelling” controversy a while back, when Trebek said “you know we don’t normally penalize misspelling…” because in that case they did.

  5. john blahuta says:

    i have to respectfully disagree with doug, katy and stubs: it was to be expected that at least one contestant would spell it wrong. (and we don’t know whether loren would have spelled it correctly!). even europeans have problems in spelling kazakhstan – relatively new on the international scene- correctly and they are used to slavic and all kinds of different spellings and languages, being squeezed together in a relatively small area. so “kazakhstan” should NOT have been a fj subject. the same problem would most likely have happened with azerbaijan or kyrgyzstan…….

    but eventually chris DID get rewarded, not only for being right but also for being able to come up with the correct spelling. being from europe myself i can tell you that before the “iron curtain” fell and for some time thereafter most europeans did not even know where exactly kazakhstan is….AND they have problems to spell some countries right, even if they are in “western” europe. not too many europeans would e.g. be able to come up with all 4 official spellings of switzerland…..

    so congrats to chris for a game well played ,for getting fj and for spelling it right. a win well deserved!

  6. stubs says:

    ARE YOU KIDDING? MOST WORDS THAT YOU MISPELL SOUND DIFFERENT. I’M DONE WITH THIS LOSER TREBECK. I AGREE WITH DOUG. TREBECK CAN HAVE HIS FRENCH! GREG WON IN MY OPINION!!!! HE KEPT SMILING HOWEVER AND SHOWED SOME CLASS UNLIKE TREBECK WHO THINKS HE HAS CLASS!

  7. Katy gale says:

    What a rip off.. we will no longer watch the show.
    It is obvious you choose whom ever you want to win.
    Mr buzzard was the winner. Shame on you.

  8. doug says:

    What a rip off! He is a native american-try spelling what his ancestors names are-discrimination!