It's not entirely a free shot...right now, she's winning the Triple Stumper since a wrong Final response from those scores only drops her to $14,399. To go for the lockout, she has to give up this advantage if she's wrong. She'll still be ahead, but she now loses the Triple Stumper if Tim (or even Sam) bets small/nothing.
But yeah, agreed that lock-or-small-lead is a much better situation than guaranteed-big-lead-but-no-lock. One of those 'bird in the hand is worth 20,001 in the bush' situations or something.
To clarify, the scores immediately BEFORE the 30th clue, the DD, are:
Sam Meyer - $9,000
Tim Kuehn - $10,000
Chris Hauck - $17,200
She has three [main] scenarios: (a) bet $5-$2,800; (b) bet $2,801 to $7,199; (c) bet $7,200 to The Farm.
In (a), she doesn't materially affect what happens in FJ! regardless of her answer
In (b), she gets a Lockout if she's right; if she's wrong, it doesn't materially affect FJ!
In (c), she gets a Lockout if she's right; if she's wrong, she loses her lead going into to FJ!
So when I say 'free shot', I mean that if she chooses any value in case (b), she gets an extra chance to take the game away from her opponents and she's home and hosed. And if not, she's still in the box seat going into FJ!. Apart from losing a bit of cash, I can't see the major risk.
I know there are 'tipping points' for FJ! strategy, but it seems a little silly to deny yourself a golden chance to kill the game off now than worrying about a technical bundle of hypothetical scenarios should you miss FJ!.
Are there any stats published for DD success vs. FJ success?