Half the Field Bet Bold, and Mutombo Still Fooled Them

2,443 players, 24,430 guesses, and a week where bold wagering was the default — 53% of all bets went 3x, the highest share I've seen in recent weeks. Players who went bold hit 79% accuracy against 68% on 1x bets. That gap is real and it held. The bold-and-right rate landed at 57%. Then Dikembe Mutombo happened, and none of that math felt quite as good.

By the Numbers

Total guesses

24,430

Average accuracy

74%

Hardest celebrity

Dikembe Mutombo (28%)

Easiest celebrity

Keanu Reeves (99%)

Biggest upset

Dikembe Mutombo

Players this week

2,443

Perfect rounds

146

Wager mix

1× 42% · 2× 5% · 3× 53%

What stood out

Patti LaBelle split the field exactly 50–50 — 50% alive, 50% deceased, across 335 players. She's alive. That's the closest call of the week and a genuine coin flip. Anne Rice was nearly as messy: 51% of players called her alive, 49% called her deceased. She's deceased. Second-closest split on 392 guesses.

Dick Van Dyke ran into the same problem — 51% of players called him deceased. He's alive, 49% accuracy. Sophia Loren pulled the same trick: 53% called her deceased, she's alive, only 47% correct.

On the other end, Keanu Reeves was the gimme at 99%. The 1% who missed that one should probably take a week off.

Featured: Dikembe Mutombo

The hardest miss of the week, and it wasn't subtle. 72% of players called Dikembe Mutombo alive. He's deceased. That's 28% accuracy on 264 guesses — worst on the board by a distance. What made it worse: this was a bold-wagering week, and the wrong-direction confidence likely cost players meaningful points. The 1990s–2000s athlete ran on a smaller sample, but the error was consistent across the field. No wager tier got it right at meaningful rates.

Honorable mentions

• Joan Baez at 32% accuracy — 68% of players called the 1960s–1980s musician deceased. She's alive. Quiet trap, same direction as Mutombo.
• Noam Chomsky at 42% — 58% called him deceased. Alive. The cautious play was still wrong.
• Quincy Jones at 46% — 54% of players called him alive. He's deceased. Third miss in that direction this week.
• Philip Glass at 44% — 56% called him deceased. Alive. Four misses in the same rough demographic band is a pattern I'll leave to the data.
• 146 perfect rounds out of 2,443 players. That's roughly 1 in 17, which is solid — especially given how many near-coin-flips sat in the middle of the board this week.