Jeopardy!, Part Three: Aftermath

I had three wishes/goals for my Jeopardy! appearance.  First, to score a true Daily Double.  Second, to win at least one game.  Third, to not completely embarrass myself with a stupid answer.  As I managed all three, I have no regrets.

I have been overwhelmed by the unexpected number of people who have contacted me over the past few days.  I thought a half dozen or so people might try to google my music blog.  I certainly wasn’t expecting the dozens of emails and Facebook messages and hundreds of extra blog hits. I am moved by all the positive comments I have received, especially given the internet’s reputation for snark.  I am still wading through some of these, but do know I appreciate them!  I thought I’d use this last installment to address a few questions that have come up repeatedly.

First: what was up with Wednesday’s Final Jeopardy wager?

As I mentioned before, I went into Jeopardy! with almost no strategy in place.  I was lucky enough on Tuesday that I could use the four-fifths rule, making betting a no-brainer (especially since I felt comfortable with the category).  On Wednesday, though, I had only a slim $400 lead.  Worse, I was facing a non-wheelhouse category.*  I had been 90-95% confident I could correctly guess a “20^th Century Artists” clue, but only about 50-60% sure I’d get “Computer Science” right.  I decided I had two options: either bet nothing, in which case I would certainly be wiped out if Tom or Elisabeth got it right, or bet some absurdly large amount to cover whatever they wagered.  Obviously, I chose the latter option.  I decided I would rather risk coming in third with an incorrect answer than bet nothing and lose with the correct answer.   (This is an easier stance to live with since I’d already won once, of course.)

(*You know what is in my wheelhouse? Media law.  You know, like copyright? Ahem.)

As for the precise amount of the wager? Well, if I had gotten the answer right, I would have ended up with the exact same score I had finished with on Tuesday:

Tuesday: $19,000 + $14,601 = $33,601
Wednesday: $20,000 + $13,601 = $33,601

That’s it.  Nothing mathematical or strategic about it.  Alex Trebek actually remarked on this symmetry during the taping, but his comments were edited out for broadcast. Really though, since I was already betting enough to make me lose if I missed, I should have wagered $19,201 to lock out Tom completely if he bet it all and won – but I choked.  (I also rightly guessed that Tom wouldn’t bet it all anyway.)

Second, to clarify: I don’t currently have a television, but I do love TV! Otherwise I would never have watched Jeopardy!.  Currently I can’t afford cable or high-speed internet, and I have no space in my tiny apartment (= nun’s cell) for a TV set.  Still, most of my favorite shows are online (either on Hulu or the Comedy Central website) and I watch those whenever I can pick up a strong enough internet connection.  The rest I watch on DVD or when visiting my mom.  I also read The A.V. Club every day, which helps fill in gaps about programs I wouldn’t otherwise know about.

Third, I have no broadcast experience.  I was, however, a drama kid in high school.  As a result, I don’t have any problem with public speaking.

Finally, while I live in a woman’s residence run by nuns, I have no plans to become a nun myself!

I would like to encourage everyone with even a passing interest to take the online test the next time it is offered.  I had a wonderful time from start to finish.  Unfortunately, it was literally a once-in-a-lifetime experience  – that is, unless the Jeopardy! staff changes the rules or Alex retires. In the meantime, I’m considering trying out for another game show once I’m legally eligible.  If I do, though, it’ll just be lagniappe.  After all, I’ve already played the only game show that matters.

Read Full Post »

Jeopardy!, Part Two: Day of Reckoning

Taping day starts bright and early, so I made sure to get plenty of sleep the night before.  At 8am, a shuttle is sent to the Culver City hotel where the contestants are staying to transport us to the Sony Pictures Studio.  There, we sign loads of legal documents, get our makeup done and work with the contestant coordinators on our anecdotes.  The anecdotes were the part of the experience I dreaded most of all.  First of all, you have to submit three pages’ worth of one-line stories.  Then there was all the struggle of putting down good stories: i.e., nothing too self-aggrandizing, nothing that required too much detail, nothing too lame.  No matter how many awesome life experiences you’ve had, getting a nice pithy story suitable for television is still difficult!  The coordinators narrowed each person’s anecdotes down to three, wrote them on an index card, and passed them along to Alex Trebek for him to choose.

After getting these basics settled, it was on to the practice round.  Jeopardy! tapes five episodes in one day, back to back to back. During the practice round, all of the week’s contestants rotate in and out every few questions.  The idea is to get used to the buzzer and to answering questions loudly and clearly. (The practice round is also where I decided to write my name and my Final Jeopardy answer in all caps – lowercase looked too messy in my handwriting.)

The recurring theme of most Jeopardy! contestants’ complaints is those buzzers.  Quiz Bowl had gotten me accustomed to using them, but it also meant I was in the habit of buzzing in as soon as I was confident in my answer.  On Jeopardy!, however, there’s a very precise moment when you are allowed to buzz in.  After Trebek finishes reading the question, lights flash on either side of the game board to indicate that contestants can buzz in now.  Buzz before those lights come on – even a split second before – and you’re locked out for a fraction of a second.  That doesn’t sound like much time, but it means everything when your two competitors also know the answer.  So during the practice round, I obediently waited until I saw the lights flash.  But by the time your brain registers the flashing lights and signals your thumb to press the buzzer, you’ve already missed the boat.  The only solution is to get into the rhythm of game, at which point you instinctively know when to buzz in without even looking at the board.

In addition to giving you a chance to learn the buzzer system, the practice round also gives your potential competitors a chance to size you up before the big game.  As a result of my buzzer trouble, I hardly answered any questions (or questioned any answers, to be more precise) during the practice round.  In fact, the only one I remember answering is one I got wrong.  There were some definite sympathy vibes aimed in my direction. I can truthfully say I played the practice game sincerely, but I’d be lying if I didn’t add that it had crossed my mind to throw the practice round to psych out my potential opponents.  As it ended up, my nerves ended up doing the work of under-representing myself for me.

All of the contestants were then seated together in an audience section to wait to be called for a particular taping.  Our friends and family members attending the show (in my case, my mom and grandmother) were seated in the section next to us, but we were instructed to not so much as look at them to prevent cheating.  The studio audience – people who had gotten free tickets to attend the day’s showing – sat on the other side of the audience section.  We watched a short video on the history of Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune (the other big Sony Picture Studios game show) and waited for our names to be called.  I wasn’t drawn for Monday’s show, so I got to sit and watch it as an audience member. The game goes by in real time and most of the editing is done live in studio as the game plays out.  During commercial breaks, Trebek answered audience questions and redubbed flubbed clue readings.  The contestants sipped water and had their makeup touched up.

Finally, Monday’s game wrapped up with Dan winning his third game in a row.  The coordinators called Justin and I to the stage for Tuesday’s game.  Both Justin and Dan had killed it during the practice round, while I had struggled. “I have no hope of winning,” I thought, “so I may as well relax and have fun.”  My fears were confirmed with the first category Dan selected: hockey.  I know nothing about sports and less than nothing about hockey. I didn’t even have a semi-related guess for any of the clues.

Luckily, my fortunes improved from there.  (If I don’t know anything else, I know music and food.)  In addition to having more favorable clues, though, I think the biggest advantage was being able to focus and not let my nerves best me.  I also benefited from a successful true Daily Double, which helped boost both my score and my confidence level.  I was still having some trouble with the buzzer – there were several clues that I must have been the only one to buzz in on, or I surely would have been locked out – but I had settled into a groove.

One last great hurdle still remained: Final Jeopardy. I always hated this segment because it relies at least as much on strategy as on knowledge.  I’d seen many episodes with strong players choking at the end because they didn’t know the answer to this one question, or because they had failed to make a suitable wager. My only real strategy the whole game came from a Slate article my dad had forwarded me on how to bet during Final Jeopardy.  Fortunately, the Heteronyms round boosted me into a big enough lead that I could use the formula that the article outlined.  If Justin (in second place) bet it all, my wager would cover his with an extra dollar to break the tie.  In the process, I had to bet $14,601 out of the $19,000 I had netted so far.  A terrifyingly hefty wager, to be sure, but one made easier when paired with a subject I actually knew something about (“20^th Century Artists”).  I double-checked my calculations, entered my wager and waited for the clue to be revealed.

As soon as I saw “1950” and “no chaos damn it,” I let out a sigh of relief.  Jackson Pollock! Of course! The game was immediately over for me.  I knew I had won.  All three of us had the right answer, but I had the extra advantage of going into Final Jeopardy with enough of a lead to guarantee winning.  I stayed stoic until my wager was revealed.  Then all three of us contestants were directed to the middle of the stage to talk with Trebek over the closing credits.  I then quickly filmed a rambling interview with a Jeopardy! crew member for the show’s “Winner’s Circle” page.  After that, I ran to the dressing room to change blouses and ran back to the stage to claim the defending champion’s far-left lectern.

How did I do on my second day? Tune into your local Jeopardy! affiliate to find out! And check back here in tomorrow for Part Three!)

Read Full Post »

Jeopardy!, Part One: Preparations

If you follow me on Facebook, Twitter or Tumblr, then you probably already know that I’m appearing as a contestant on today’s (1/11/11) episode of the quiz show Jeopardy!. It wouldn’t be entirely accurate to say that it was my dream to be on the show.  It’s more like something I always knew I’d do eventually, like going to grad school or moving to New York.  I’ve always been a trivia collector and have a pretty good memory.  I was also on the Quiz Bowl teams at LSU and UT, so I had some experience with quickly pulling out random facts.  The hard part would just be convincing the show that I was worth having on.

I first took the online test in 2009.  Immediately I knew that I had only done so-so – there were too many answers I guessed on or just didn’t know.  But when I retook the online test in January 2010, I felt much more confident.  There were still a few I didn’t know – science is my weak spot, and I know next to nothing about sports – but I was impressed by how much easier it was the second time around.  I hadn’t studied in the interim; I was just lucky to have more questions I actually knew.  So I was thrilled to get an email in April inviting me to an audition.  I had listed New York as my city of choice because I hoped to be living there by then.  I was still in Baton Rouge at the time, but luckily I had also been invited to an interview at the Chelsea residence where I now live.  Time was on my side.  I packed a suitcase and a backpack, booked a one-way flight into JFK and landed a bed at the HI New York Hostel.

Two days later, I hopped the 1 train to a hotel in Midtown for my audition.  There were around two or three dozen other potential contestants trying out at the same time, but appointments had been going on all day.  The try-outs consisted of two main parts: a 50-question written test and a practice round against your fellow contestants.  The practice round, the contestant coordinators said, was mainly to get you used to the buzzers and playing the board.  It also gave them a chance to question us about personal anecdotes for the post-commercial “getting to know you” segment with Alex Trebek.  When the audition ended an hour or so later, I felt relieved.  I had gotten nearly all of the test questions right (I only remember missing one about sports), had run the category on ’80s movies during the practice game and got some laughs during the anecdote segment.    (I was also one of the few people who didn’t say I’d use my prize money to travel, which might have helped me stand out as well.)  We were all told that our names would be on file for the next 18 months.  The next step was to wait.

I was working night reception at a temp job in early-to-mid September when I got a call from the contestant coordinator.  Would I be available to come to a taping at the end of the month? Well, I had a trip to Chicago planned, but nothing I couldn’t rearrange.  After all, you don’t say “no” to Jeopardy!.  The next couple of weeks were a flurry of travel plans and studying.  I decided against trying to cram new material, as I knew from Quiz Bowl that it would only backfire.  Instead, I focused on refreshing myself on material I learned in high school and college.  I memorized the US presidents, world capitals and the periodic table of elements.  I took geography quizzes and pored through the Stanford Archive for old high school Quiz Bowl tournament questions (college-level being a bit too arcane ).  Most useful was the J! Archive, a site containing nearly every clue from nearly every episode of Jeopardy! ever aired. Appearing on the show is a once-in-a-lifetime chance.  I was going to do this right.

Truthfully, though, the questions weren’t the thing that worried me the most.  Everyone who appears on the show has a similar level of general knowledge – otherwise, they wouldn’t have made it past the online test or the audition.  What wins or loses the game are all of the unknown quantities: how well you operate the buzzer, how nervous you get in a big studio when taping an internationally broadcast game show, and the big scary “if” that is “Final Jeopardy.”  How well did I juggle these unknowns? Watch to find out! (And please check back tomorrow for Part Two.)

Read Full Post »