December 8, 2017 Recap (Bobby)

You done good, Bobby. Well done.

Congratulations Bobby! Very impressive! Hopefully the car will come in handy, or you could sell it and pocket the cash.

Friday shows they seem to try to squeeze 5 rounds in, which is nice for those who appear on such shows .

The blue player was a standby contestant for my tape day. Her Mom was on Wheel back in the day and won "lovely parting gifts". Sorry to hear that she did not fare much better (although $1,000 is a heck of a lot better than 12 cans of Glade Light and Hershey Krackel). She had a delightful personality.

Wise choice on the BR category as well. People is a narrower range than it seems.

The pity thousand is not taxed.

But here's the thing... she had no spendable cash. If she flipped the $10K, it would have been a shot in the dark for her next consonant because the obvious T and S are over with, and there are two obvious vowels. I would have done the same thing. I mean, she probably would have went with N or R next and both of those were there, but how often do we see people flip the $10K with no spendable cash and then screw themselves out of it with a wrong consonant afterwards?

This is why I think the Mystery cash should be effective immediately rather than a prize, but that's another thread.

acwof: My sister's name is actually spelled "Katy". Closed captioners got it wrong.

TU1/TU2: I've always felt that I'm not quite as good at Toss-Ups as I am at the main game, but I clearly had nothing to fear here.

Interviews: I'm pleased with my interactions here. They did cut one bit: I said that Natalie was probably a better singer than I am, and Pat said "Well, I'll be the judge of that."

R1: This was an easy puzzle with a lot of strategic letters. I could feel the LaT coming up, so I solved in lieu of trying for the G's.

R2: Figures that the only puzzle I no-letter during this whole session is the one where it's not my turn... To be fair, I bet a lot of people no-lettered this.

R3: Remember, if it gets back to you, you don't absolutely have to spin. I think I caught Pat off-guard because so few contestants do that. Mom said she was worried when I asked to solve so early, but then she remembered what round it was. I liked my Oahu/Wahoo! reaction.

TU3: Nerves got to me and I rang in too soon. I was hoping that maybe I could pull the answer anyway, but I got stuck on CHANCE for the last word and couldn't shift gears in time. At least blue did the same thing, so I felt less bad.

R4: I didn't know it until after I spun, so of course Lose a Turn comes then...

R5: I was smart to pick a vowel early on, because both of the E's were in strategic locations. My sister joked that I was able to get this one because I've watched 2 Broke Girls with her.

I liked my quip about yellow's MDW and Pat's "Hush" response to it.

I can't even begin to tell you how excited and nervous I was when I realized I'd won! I think Pat truly thought I was gonna pass out.

BR: Thing is out because I don't want to get stuck with something like A MINOR QUIBBLE or NEW BABY BUGGY. I didn't want to go with Around the House because I thought it might be something over-specific that I've never heard of (like MOKA POT in the old Facebook game), so People it was. I actually didn't have either word from just RSTLNE, so I was relieved when Pat said "You've got a good shot at this" and I heard all that dinging.

Mom got to ask Vanna about her kids. Hard to believe they're now 20 and 24.

During the credits, Pat asked me if I knew the BR before I called my letters. I told him that I didn't, but I was thinking CH- and PH- beginnings, and that I thought the T__N was a -TION ending. He said, "Well, you did something that most contestants don't do in the bonus round, and that's THINK." I have to wonder if this was an indirect dig at Haley...

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Lynnette told me that she was on CBS Card Sharks when she was 11, and that her family was on LMAD about five years ago, in addition to her mom being on in the 80s. I was hoping she'd win something to carry on her legacy.

There were two alternates in the audience. One was a 20something college girl who kept falling asleep. She said she was up until 4 AM doing her midterms, and the CCs asked why she didn't stay home and get some sleep.

For those who don't know, when you pick your BR category, they show all three on the board, preceded by asterisks.

Overall, a ton of fun. I wasn't afraid of doing something stupid, but I was still afraid that the Wheel might hate me. Sure, I could've won more, but I felt I did my best. And in general, even making it to the BR at all was a job well done.

There were no replacements. Pretty much everything was WYSIWYG here.

Bobby, you did AWESOME!!! 

I figured you'd get the first two Toss-Ups and the first main puzzle.. I kinda wish you went for the remaining quadruples in R1 and R3, but why risk another spin? Especially if you know the latter is a Prize Puzzle!

Your interactions with Pat were hilarious! Especially when it came to Natalie's $1 million wedge.

Natalie did a good job as well. Now when I think about it, she probably should've gone for the Mystery wedge since the sparkly green one (which complemented her dark green outfit, as Pat pointed out) would've been much more of a long shot. But she won A NICE CHUNK OF CHANGE.

Sigh...poor Lynnette. Things sure came full circle for her with her being in the audience for her mom's episode and the tables being turned for this one. But the wheel just wouldn't cooperate...I sure hope she had fun.

Some rather short front game puzzles tonight, eh? (The longest was the Prize Puzzle, at 20 words.) At least there weren't any Crosswords.

And of course, I no-lettered R2.

I thought the BR was EXCITING when the E popped up, but I'm glad you picked the right letters for the car, Bobby! Way to go!

My rating: 7
Weekly rating: 7

Again, congrats Bobby! Now here's to an even bigger and better second Secret Santa week!

OH MY GOD MY VOICE IS SO ANNOYING

I agree with Tony here, independent of whether the Mystery cash is spendable or not. You can't let the MDW cloud your judgment for the rest of the game, for the exact reason that Tony mentioned--it's totally useless without winning the game first. In this puzzle especially, it really wouldn't have mattered as much, since the entire RSTLNE combo was in the puzzle and she likely would've gone with one of those consonants next (like you said). Then when she gets her regular cash, she buys all the vowels she wants.

One thing that I should note: if Natalie had flipped, and assuming the rest of the game played out the way it did, Bobby still would've won. Natalie had $7,100 at the end of the game. Adding $10K to that puts her at $17,100...still behind Bobby at $17,398.