Sunday, November 8, 2020

Thanks for everything, Alex

Alex Trebek has been a part of my life for literally as long as I can remember. The heartbreaking news of his death today has brought back a flood of memories. I started watching Jeopardy! as a young kid, and couldn't wait to get home from school each day to see that day's answers and questions.  I tried out for the show and got the call in 2003 (17 years ago!) as a graduate student. I still remember being in the studio for the first time, and it's exactly as Brandon describes it:

 

Jeopardy! went on to pay for an engagement ring, a wedding, and a down payment on a house over the next few years, but I figured that was the end of it. Then the "Battle of the Decades" tournament came around in 2014, and I got to see Alex and the crew again. And more importantly, to share the experience with a whole new set of friends and family, including our (at the time, very young) son.

Through the years with Alex, including one of our son at a watch party in 2014

And these are not isolated experiences -- especially after Alex announced his pancreatic cancer diagnosis a couple years ago, the stories came from far and wide about what Alex meant to them: from family memories made from watching Jeopardy!, to life experiences enabled by winnings on the show, to, in a particularly poignant moment from one of the last shows to air before his passing, a contestant telling Alex that he learned to speak English because of him. And to think, he was working through a truly brutal disease to continue bringing moments like these to all of us.

 

There aren't many people who have had such a important and lasting influence on so many. I know that the show will go on (and there's still a month and a half of episodes to air with Alex as host), but it'll never be the same. I'm thinking of your family in this difficult time, and the Jeopardy! family greatly misses you already. 

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Saturday, September 13, 2014

Some (very late) final thoughts

I promised to write some final reflections on the Battle of the Decades when it aired back in May, but the end of the semester intervened and I never got around to it.  Now on the occasion of the tournament being shown in reruns, I'll revisit what it meant to be a part of it.

When they first announced that they'd be doing a special tournament, I honestly wasn't even thinking much about it.  It was right around the time our baby was born, and work was really busy at the time, and I figured I wouldn't be that high on their list of potential invitees anyway.  But when they decided to invite all the previous ToC winners, it started to get real.

With the level of competition in this tournament, I didn't think I'd have much of a shot -- I was nowhere near "playing shape" and every person in the field was an all-time great.  I got pretty---ok, really---lucky to beat Larissa in my first round game.  That, of course, was fantastic, but the whole experience of spending a few days with the great champions of the 2000s --- every one of them friendly, interesting, wonderful people --- would have been more than enough for me to call this a fantastic experience.  I laughed so much with that group and made some new friends that I know I'll cross paths with again.

I didn't figure the tournament round would be as much fun...we had work to do, after all!  But again, everyone was an absolute pleasure.  That they had a film crew following us around and making a mini-documentary about the tournament was a fun taste of being a "celebrity" without the unseemly paparazzi and phone-hacking.  And the tournament itself lived up to its billing and more: what a treat just to be in the studio to watch it in person, let alone be playing in it!

Then, the wrap party was just icing on the cake.  They decked out the Wheel of Fortune studio in true Hollywood excess, with pink- and purple-hued neon lights and similarly colored drinks at the open bar.  Alex, Harry Friedman (the exec producer), and the rest of the show's staff seemed honestly thrilled at how the tournament went, and it was yet another surreal thing to have the opportunity to be part of.

At the wrap party on the Wheel of Fortune set.
Andrea and me with the incomparable Johnny Gilbert (age 89 at the time, now 90)
With Ken Jennings, along with nice photobombs by Ed Toutant and Sarah from the Clue Crew.

Speaking of the show's staff and crew: it was great to see that almost the entire group was still there from when I had last been at the studio 10 years prior, from the contestant coordinators to the camera crew to even some of the ushers.  I think this is the biggest testament to how well they must treat people, and how much of a "Jeopardy! family" there is.

Finally, the advent of social media provided a fun additional flavor to the whole process this time around.  It was much easier to let a lot of people know that the tournament was happening, of course -- we were able to organize some pretty great viewing parties here in Fort Collins -- but it's bigger than that.  Being able to keep in touch with the other contestants, and amicably talk trash when the shows aired, was a lot of fun.  Using twitter to dig up the nasty things people say about J! contestants was also, um, "fun."

But seriously, I think the coolest thing was that many of my friends from high school and college now have kids of their own who are old enough to watch the show and enjoy it, and seeing the messages and pictures and videos of their kids glued to a quiz show to cheer me on meant so much.  And now during reruns our son (now 13 months old) is at least recognizing the "Think!" music, and also getting a respectable $13K Coryat. ;)

So a huge thanks to the J! powers that be, all the other contestants that I met during the tournament, all of my friends and family, for a few months that I'll never forget.  See you all in the 35th or 40th anniversary tournament?


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Monday, May 19, 2014

What a finals!

I'll post some final reflections on this tournament when I get things wrapped up for the semester, but for now, just a few notes.  I hope you all watched the whole finals of the Battle of the Decades...it was three really great, really smart players showing just how good they are (and having a lot of fun in the process).

However, if you missed it, you may watch me chew on a Sharpie while watching the abridged version embedded below.  Congrats to Brad Rutter, on a hard-earned victory; congrats to Ken Jennings and Roger Craig for equally impressive perfomances, and most of all, thanks to Jeopardy! for putting on this tournament and letting me be a part of it!
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Wednesday, May 14, 2014

Because it's the Cup

The finals are now set.  After my defeat, I got to watch from the audience as Brad Rutter had a really impressive performance, mowing down Leszek and Tom.  And the third semifinal was a great match between Roger Craig, Colby Burnett, and Pam Mueller, with each of them getting a "True Daily Double" and Roger struggling at times but ending up in the lead going into the final.  This final was tough but gettable: Cartier explored eastern Canada and I started off with St. Lawrence but wasn't happy with it, and eventually got to PEI with a few seconds left (just maybe enough time to write it down if I had tried to do so.)

Not much time to write anything more now, but the finals do not disappoint.  Here's the preview from us semifinalists (I appear near the very end):

Enjoy!
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Monday, May 12, 2014

Stuck in the middle

I guess if you're going to get run out of the gym on Jeopardy!, there's probably no shame in having Ken Jennings and Chuck Forrest be the people you're playing against.  (Seriously, I played in a game, in the semifinals, in a tournament, against Ken Jennings and Chuck Forrest.  That this happened is still kind of hard to believe.)

And what a game it was!  I was really only a passive participant, but it was fun to be standing up there watching these two masters plying their craft.  Ken's buzzer timing is truly incredible.  I know what it feels like to be able to ring in whenever you want to -- in my original run of shows, I had been really, really good on the buzzer, mainly from lots of practice beforehand.  I got in that zone during the ToC finals as well.  But I had no chance against Ken.  I'm not really sure whether I was a little early or a little late; probably a matter of picoseconds (cough, cough).  I now know what it must've felt like for the people I defeated in my original run of shows (or any of the 150+ people who had to play Ken previously)...it is really frustrating to know stuff and not be able to get in.

During this game, a whole lot of what Ken got, I knew, but couldn't get in (except for anagrams...I hate anagrams and he's so good at those kinds of categories).  Pretty much everything Chuck got was stuff I didn't know.

After the first round, Chuck and I were a bit in shock that Ken had run up such a big lead.  But, as Alex said, there's lots of money available in the DJ round, and I was very impressed when Chuck got that Daily Double and worked his way back in the game.  And then Ken finds the Daily Double, bets big, and misses...things are getting interesting!  (The "spy novel" category was not loved by any of us.)  Chuck even managed to take the lead briefly, though it didn't last long.  All I was able to do was purloin a letter and yet again forget the category on a video clue (I actually said something like "Russ, look at the category!" after that but I guess they edited it out).   At least I could commiserate with Ralph (but I didn't beat the smart kids this time):
That final is one I very likely would've figured out while sitting on the couch at home -- I knew that poem came from Kipling in regards to the Philippines.  But it didn't come to me right away, and I saw Ken and Chuck both start writing before Alex was even finished reading the clue and I knew I was done and the brain turned off.  (Note to future contestants, if you're ever in a situation where it doesn't matter if you get the final right, like if you bet $0 or made a small bet from a close 2nd place, consider starting to write a response down immediately.  It has a major psychological effect, or at least it did for me.  Same thing happened in my "spam" game...Mike and Elana started writing it down immediately, it didn't come right to me, and I couldn't think straight after that.)

Major congrats to Chuck and Ken on an epic game!
I'll post some more thoughts about the entire tournament and the experience when it's done.  I feel so lucky to have been a part of it, to have made it this far into a tournament with such incredible players (and really great people).  And to have had a chance to share the experience with so many friends and family and supporters.

Finally, in case you missed these:
(The backstory here is that they made all of the 2000s contestants say this when filming the promotional videos for the tournament. We all thought it a little bit silly but it was a great topic for our son's onesie to commemorate the day.)
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Saturday, May 10, 2014

The semifinals are set

After a fantastic game to wrap up the quarterfinal round between three outstanding players (most impressive to me was the classical music category, which is probably one of my strongest J! categories, but I was struggling with those clues while the players swept them right up.), the semifinal field is set.  Chuck Forrest secured the last automatic spot in the semis with his win, and Colby Burnett grabbed the last wild-card spot with his conservative FJ wager.  My Tuesday opponent, Pam Mueller, saw her score hold up for one of the wild cards as well.

The semifinal matchups are:

So I find myself playing against two true legends of the game: Chuck Forrest, the first truly great champion in the show's history and originator of the "Forrest Bounce"; and Ken Jennings (maybe you've heard of him?)

(If you're wondering, nobody really knows how they select the semifinal matchups in these tournaments.  We can make educated guesses, but they often are somewhat puzzling.  In this case they surely wanted to keep Ken and Brad in different games so that they could potentially face off in the finals.)

 How will I fare against these two greats?  Tune in on Monday!

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Friday, May 9, 2014

Ken's good too

After Brad's impressive performance in quarterfinal game 3, we witnessed another dominant win in game 4 (unsurprisingly, I suppose) from Ken Jennings.  The speed with which he mowed through the Roman numerals category was one of the most impressive things I've ever seen on the show.  I would've come up with most of these with maybe 5 seconds to think about it, but Ken seemed to figure them out in about half a second.  (These wordplay kinds of categories are one of his many great strengths.)



That said, I still can't figure out how he knew the "Humpty Dance" but not "Sabotage" in the "90s rap songs" category (and at least he owned up to it):

Brad and I had to pile on a little bit:

Even with Ken's domination, Tom and Rachael were able to build up decent scores going into FJ, and a relatively easy final brought them up to good positions: Tom secured a wild-card spot (and Leszek now also has one locked up) and Rachael made her way into the 4th spot with one game to play...

Current wild-card standings:
Tom C $19,500
Leszek $15,000
Pam $14,798
Rachael $7,600

The last quarterfinal game features Chuck Forrest, probably the first truly famous and great player in the show's history; Mark Dawson, who had one of the most impressive performances in the preliminary round; and Colby Burnett, who's still never lost a game.  This game will set the field for the semifinals next week!

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