The best part of being really successful at something is the momentaneous signified of satisfaction you get when you condescendingly propose other masses on how to be successful like you .
A flock of peopleasked me for adviceon how to plain the butt of America ’s most beloved secret plan show earlier this yr when I became the third - highest earningJeopardy!champion in non - tournament child’s play history . There was plenty of pontificate about the “ Forrest Bounce , ” about flash card and “ pilothouse class , ” and about “ game theory"—especially wagering theory and betting for the tie-up .
And now that I ’m seem on the Tournament of Champions , I had take there would be even more clamoring for my tips and tricks for success .
Well , that would be the case if the winding had n’t been taken out of my sails when Julia Collins voyage past my track record and David Madden ’s , cease up phone number two inJeopardy!earnings history and kick downstairs me to the fourth spot — all without doing a single one of the things Irecommended that citizenry doshould they appear onJeopardy ! .
Instead , Julia gain mainly by knowing all the right answers and buzzing in really fast . And while “ roll in the hay all the answer and say them before everyone else ” is really the best advice you may give forJeopardy!—or , for that matter , life-time in worldwide — mass are n’t particularly impressed when you say it .
So , rather than dwell on boring proficient analytic thinking , I thought I ’d talk about the intangibles — things that have nothing to do with clue selection or Daily Double wagers , but rather advice handle with the overallJeopardy!tournament experience .
Very few mass ever make it behind the conniption to aJeopardy!Tournament of Champions , but if you ever get yourself one of the favourable fifteen , perhaps these words of soundness can help you make the best of your reappearance to Culver City .
1. You Get To Pick a Green Room Movie—Choose Wisely.
During the quarterfinals friction match of the Tournament of Champions , Jeopardy!staff puts a moving-picture show on in the green room where the objector are attach so we ca n’t hear any yakety-yak from the games being taped . This is because , unlike a normalJeopardy!game , the tourney quarterfinal have four “ savage card ” time slot determined by the final grade .
Jeopardy!always has a stock of DVDs on paw that contestants vote on , and while it ’s a mostly innocent leaning — I’d love to get pump forJeopardy!by watching Lars von Trier’sAntichrist , but , alas , it was n’t offered — there ’s some strategical cerebration behind the choices .
First of all , the flick are all vetted byJeopardy ! ’s writing staff to ensure they stop no looter for the tourney itself . This means that it ’s to your reward to clean a picture that contains a set of pop culture source that you’re able to click off in your mind as thing that wo n’t come up . Scott Pilgrim vs. the World , with its many reference to video recording games and bands , is a good example . Planes , Trains and Automobiles , on the other deal , is fair devoid of ethnical references . Pretty much all you could deduce from that movie is thatJeopardy!isn’t going to ask how far it is from Wichita to Chicago .
In addition , Scott Pilgrim vs. the Worldhas an engaging rock soundtrack consisting of both alt - rock’n’roll classics and unexampled music written for the movie by artists like Beck and Metric . By demarcation , while it features several classic song admit the honest-to-god received “ Red River Valley,”Planes , Trains and Automobileshas many “ quiet ” prospect with lilliputian music or background noise . This mean that Corina , the personJeopardy!assigned to watch us in the green room , would have to keep cranking up the volume to overwhelm out the noise from the studio , making extra workplace for her .
If you ca n’t tell , I was the only one who voted forScott Pilgrim vs. the World . We had to watchPlanes , Trains and Automobiles .
2. People Will Obsess About Your Weight.
Yeah , I was fleshy when I was onJeopardy!thefirst time around . Since then I ’ve become … well , I ’m still fleshy , but significantlyless so . More John - Goodman - in - The Big Lebowski , less John - Goodman - in - Roseanne .
I gather a great deal of weight pass up toJeopardy!due to stress — partly fromJeopardy!itself and partly from the sort of emphasis that comes with not have very much money and therefore having to do unbalanced thing like render out forJeopardy!.I’ve said in public that having a methodical scheme for attackingJeopardy!worked out well enough to enliven me to find oneself a like strategy for undertake my weight job .
This is all nonsense . It was , in world , a planned PR maneuver from the very rootage . Nobody make any scuttlebutt about your appearance if you appear fundamentally the same between your initial coming into court and when you come back for the Tournament . That ’s only interesting if you manage to somehow maintain on the dot the same appearance over the course of 10 year and add up back looking completely identical for the Battle of the Decades , like Ken Jennings did .
But I still hold that even if Brad Rutter were n’t the winningestJeopardy!contestant of all time and the humanity who ’s stick Ken Jennings twice , never lost to a human being , and gain ground $ 4 million total , he ’d still be remember by the general universe as the guy rope who go from looking likethisto bet likethis .
( Brad Rutter , by the way , is also an L.A. local who watches every Tournament of Champions from the studio apartment interview , and he managed to win the audience room access prize for a free download of theJeopardyapp this yr . It ’s some variety of rule that Brad wins everything . )
If you do manage to go on the Tournament of Champions , losing a lot of exercising weight mightily before the tournament taping will guarantee that when Maggie Speak , official contestant producer and unofficial den mother ofJeopardy ! , premise you to everyone , she ’ll postulate you for your “ weight loss mystery ” before she even mentions how much money you win .
It also means that Alex Trebek will ignore the anecdotes you write down on your index lineup and alternatively straight - up ask you , “ How did you drop off so much system of weights ? ” People who see you on TV before but have n’t been keeping track of your medium hits since then will look at you with a kind of awe and go , “ You look not bad ! ”
I learned that it does n’t matter how well you do in the tournament because whether you flame out in the first troll or take home the lordly booty , it will be less significant than the fact that you ’re skinnier now .
By the way , once the tournament is over and I ’m surefooted no one is ever going to indicate a television camera at me again , I design to gain it all back in one twenty-four hours byeating 10 pizzasin bed .
3. Beware the Ant-Covered Railing.
Jeopardy!puts the Tournament of Champions contestant up in the Universal City Hilton , which is a very nice hotel . It has an enormous all - you - can - eat up counter that ’s perfect for getting a chief start on reverting to your former size now that your TV ordeal is over . The hotel is also proper by Universal Studios , meaning it ’s easy to unhinge yourself from studying by snuff it to see that ancient animatronic Jaws you loved when you were a Thomas Kyd .
But one caveat : There ’s a pedestrian bridgework crossing to Universal Studios from the hotel , one of L.A. ’s few tokenish concessions to the inconvenient fact that pedestrian exist . This railing is , for some intellect , constantly covered in ant . Even a single second ’s contact with the train will cause hundreds of ants to instantly transfer themselves onto your clothes and skin .
You will be picking ants off yourself all Clarence Day . This is not contributing to maintaining either the appearance or the mind-set of a champion . Be forewarned , fellow contender .
4. Think twice before agreeing to let someone make a documentary about you.
On the off luck that a film director from Chicago calls you up and says he wants to make a documentary film about your “ post - Jeopardy!journey , ” you should set aside your pathological motive for care and validation for just a moment to think about what the mental process of make a documentary entail .
Understand that even if theKickstarterfalls through that does n’t mean the film crew ca n’t come up together enough money to send a guy wire to your hotel room to enchant B - roll of you studying before the tourney . And it does n’t matter if your optimum study surround involves you being buck naked except for your earbuds and singing along clamorously to Taylor Swift while rapidly riffle through flash card — you’ll be forced to align your study wont to something more “ relatable ” to Middle America .
Consider , before writing thatheartfelt Huffington Post articlepromoting the docudrama , just how awkward it is model in an drome expiration lounge having a dude with a camera staring at you trying to “ capture your cerebration before the with child day , ” terrifyingly conscious the whole time of how badly you want to piece your nose .
5. Don’t miss the real opportunity.
If you ’re aJeopardy!fan , the Tournament of Champions is n’t just a trivia game with a big cash prize , or even a chance to match some of the smartest , nerdiest citizenry in the country . It ’s a fortune to see the type from the nation ’s longest on-going television dramatic event number to life history and recognize you in the frame . It ’s like satisfy the Lord fromGame of Thronesor the gangsters and pig fromThe Wire , only with slightly less violence .
Getting to shake the hand of the “ translation coordinator from Eastpointe , Michigan ” who famously wore the right answer to Final Jeopardy , still fuck off it wrong , and yetwon the gameanyway … Playing cribbage with the “ IT consultant from Florence , South Carolina ” with the astonishing 9/9Final Jeopardy track record , which , forJeopardy!fans , is a statistic as significant as Rickey Henderson ’s 1,406 steal bases ( a fact I only know because of studying forJeopardy ! ) … Meeting the meek - mannered “ supply chain professional from Kenilworth , Illinois ” with thelongest winning streaksince Ken Jennings … Seeing the Dame Muriel Spark flee when she in the end look off against her archway - rival , theJeopardy ! villainhimself … those type of things are what it ’s all about .
Yes , it seems dorky to foreigner who do n’t “ get it , ” but this is our Super Bowl . Whether it finish in triumph or defeat , just participating in history is payoff enough .
Well , no . Who am I kidding : $ 250,000 is still a tremendous amount of money and room way more than the $ 5000 you get for flame out in the first one shot .
So here ’s my real advice : love all the answers and say them before anyone else does .
WatchJeopardy!this calendar week to see if I was able to .
