My Personal History With Jeopardy Super Tournaments, Part 4: The Battle of the Decades

 

Over the next several years I began to slowly but surely  study the history of Jeopardy in a more regular fashion. In what was a pattern for me, I did so in a slip-shod fashion more or less stumbling in to it.

Around 2005 the Jeopardy archive, a website in which a devoted band of writers have been detailing the history of every Jeopardy game ever played, began to put up its first entries online. Because I resisted the internet far too much well into my twenties I didn’t become aware of its existence until 2010. No, that’s not true. I found records of games relating to the Ultimate Tournament of Champions on Wikipedia, but it took me another two years to realize that they were linking to a separate archive. And it took me another five years to start using the site to its full potential. It has been a reliable resource for me ever since but it took a long time for me to realize it.

I was also trying to track down old Jeopardy games on the Internet, which is how I found out that YouTube existed. (Don’t judge me.) The internet has never been entirely helpful when it comes to tracking down old Jeopardy games: there have been licensing issues that have never let them stay up for long, nor has streaming been willing until fairly recently to fill in the gaps. For much of the 2000s, the main source that I had for Jeopardy was cable channels like the Game Show Network and by this time in my life, I had a job and was rarely at home to see these games. (Ah how life gets in the way.)

Around this same time, Channel 55 more or less stopped broadcasting Jeopardy and only ABC was showing it.  At this point our home did not have a DVR and even if we had, I doubt I would have had the wherewithal to use it: it took me until 2007 to learn how to successfully program a VCR.  (Talk about coming late to the party.) By this point Jeopardy was slightly less important to me and watching every episode no longer matter at much.

The sole exception would be in regards to the annual Tournament of Champions, which I made every effort to either watch or record every episode. During this period it increasingly became clear that while you might be able to stay on the show until you were beaten, there was still no guarantee that you could win a Tournament of Champions. This became clear in the first after Jennings’ run in 2006 in one of the biggest examples of that.

In a weird quirk of fate the player who would have the second-longest run after Jennings made his debut on Jeopardy less than two months after Jennings had been defeated in the Ultimate Tournament of Champions. David Madden, Madden was barely out of college when he debuted on Jeopardy on July 5, 2005. He was never as dominant as Jennings was during his run, even though he ran away with his first seven games.  But he was very good. He managed to win nineteen consecutive games and just over $430,000 before he was defeating in early September of 2005.  I naturally assumed he would cruise to victory in the Tournament of Champions. Not only did he not win, but he did also not even make it to the finals and in fact he was thrashed in his semi-final loss to Bill MacDonald who had won four games. That year’s winner was Michael Falk, who is to date the only three-game winner of a Tournament of Champions.

No one would get remotely close to double digits in victories for the next nine years. (I’ll get to one of the contestants later in this entry.) Indeed, in the nearly nine years following Madden’s defeat, only two players – Dan Pawson and Jason Keller – would win as many as nine games.  And very few players would even manage to win as much $200,000 over the next several years as well. Jennings’ record not only looked remarkable it really seemed like well live the rest of my life before anybody even came close to getting near double digits.

This didn’t mean there weren’t interesting and brilliant players over the interim, however. In 2008 Larissa Kelly became the first female contestant to win more than five games: she won six and $222,597. When she finished second to Dan Pawson in the 2009 Tournament of Champions, she set the benchmark for money won by a female contestant.

At the start of the 2010-2011 season,  a graduate student named Roger Craig did something no one would have thought possible and broke Ken Jennings one-day record when he managed to win $77,000. Roger’s approach was the opposite of Jennings’: he would check the bottom of the board first, hunting for the Daily Double and when he found it, would bet everything he had whether he was in the lead or not. For the first time, Alex actually compared someone else to Ken. Roger’s initial run was short compared to the super-champions of today – he won $230,200 in six games – but he was so dominant I was certain he would the next Tournament of Champions. I held fast to that opinion even when Tom Nissley won eight games and $235,405. In this rare case, my faith was rewarded: Roger romped to victory in the 2011 Tournament of Champions and took home  $250,000.

Another very impressive win was managed by Colby Burnett. In 2011, perhaps in acknowledgement of how many successful champions on the show were teachers, Jeopardy aired its first ever Teachers Tournament. In November of 2012 Colby Burnett, a high school world history teacher from Chicago, won the Tournament $100,000. Less than four months later, he managed an impressive string of victories to win that year’s the 2013 Tournament of Champions.

All of these players and many more made their impression but I still wondered if and when Jeopardy would try another Tournament similar to the UTC. In 2011 Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter had faced off against IBM’s Watson in what was considered a major event, but I barely paid it any mind, thinking that it was little more than a promotional exercise than anything else. Colby Burnett’s triumphs had taken place in Season 29.  Jeopardy had aired a special tournament in its tenth season and the UTC had more or less been an acknowledgement of the 20^th. I believed if the past was prologue, Season 30 would have a similar one. My hunch was proven correct.

The Battle of the Decades is in my opinion the best event tournament that Jeopardy has held in nearly forty years. Every element of it, from the choices of the participants to how the Tournament ended up being played, to the quality of the games themselves, were nearly perfect all the way through. Alex said as much at the end of the last match and his opinion should count for something.

The breakdown, compared to the Ultimate Tournament of Champions, was far simpler. Fifteen players from each ten year period of the show’s run would play off in five matches in the course of a week. The winners would face off in a traditional tournament format: each quarterfinal match would feature one representative from each decade to play against each other. This would lead to five winners and four wild card spots and so on from there, with the eventual winner receiving one million dollars.

Even though the calendar did not work out exactly: the players invited back were classified as representing the 1980s, the 1990s and the 2000s. Fourteen players were extended invitations and the fans would vote on the last player out of a field of five. That part may have been the only wrinkle of the tournament I objected to, not so much as the idea of it but because of the five players that were to be voted on. I will get to that reasoning as I go through the representatives. Other than that, I think few fans of the show – myself among them – could object to almost all of the players invited. There are a couple of exceptions I’ll get too with each decade.

The 1980s, which technically represented 1984-1993 invited every living winner of a Tournament of Champions back. Jerry Frankel, who won the first Tournament of Champions in 1985, had tragically passed away two years after his victory. Bob Blake, the winner of the 1990 Tournament of Champions, was touring and declined his invitation. The other seven returned.

Also invited were four players who had participated in many of the special tournaments in the interim: Leslie Frates and Frank Spangenberg have been in every previous super-tournament, India Cooper had been invited to the last two, and Leslie Shannon, who had been one of the more notable absentees from the UTC was invited back. Jerome Vered was invited due to his finish in the UTC. Phoebe Juel, the College Champion of 1993 was somewhat questionable but she’d been a semi-finalist in the 1993 Tournament of Champions and played respectively in the UTC.

The only player whose presence I questioned was someone I considered a political invitee. In April of 1987 Richard Cordray had won over $40,000 in five games and had been a semi-finalist in the 1987 Tournament of Champions. He had not participated in a tournament since. Why was he invited back? Those of you who know politics might know that in 2012 to head the Consumer Financial Bureau.  Before that he had served as Treasurer of the State of Ohio and eventually attorney general; he would later make a run for Governor before losing to Mike DeWine. Which I supposed is nice, but I would rather have seen Eric Newhouse invited back instead.

The choice of fan favorite bothered me as well. While I knew little of the five players listed as fan favorite before their original appearance, I fundamentally knew enough of them during their runs as the UTC to know that Andrew Westney, who had won the Teen Tournament in 1989, was my fifth choice. Later when I learned the history of all of these players (I won’t go into it here) Westney’s selection was even more inexplicable. Yet he ended up getting voted on by the fans.

I had less trouble with the selections from the 1990s (1994-2003). All nine winners of the Tournament of Champions, including Brad Rutter of course, were invited back. Pam Mueller, no doubt because of her appearance in the UTC, was extended an invitation, as were four participants from the Million Dollar Masters, among them Claudia Perry who had been ineligible for the UTC.  I questioned the appearance of Jill Bunzendahl Chimka who I had no memory of her original appearance and had not seen her in the UTC. I would later learn that in four games she had won $85,099  which at the time was the most money a female contestant had won. While I might have been able to come up with some alternates from the UTC, Jill’s choice was a valid one. And while Shane Whitlock was not necessarily my first choice as a fan favorite, his track record as both a College Champion and in the UTC (he had made it into the quarterfinals before he had been defeated in Final Jeopardy) was a more than valid choice.

The group from the 2000s: (2004-2013) were mostly a good group though there were some issues. The seven winners of Tournaments of Champions were invited back as well as Ken Jennings. Three of the female invitees had been selected for setting marks for female contestants: Larissa Kelly, who I mentioned earlier; Stephanie Jass, who with seven victories was at the time the record-holder for most wins by a female contestant and Maria Wenglisnky, who in the fall of 2005 had become the first female contestant to crack the $100,000 mark. Another player, Vinita Kailasanath, a College Champion who had participated in the 2004 Tournament of Champions, had an impressive record in both that Tournament and the UTC.

Two of the remaining invitees may have been chosen because David Madden was not participating. (Alex said that there was some kind of conflict of interest that made him feel he could not participate. This would not be a permanent situation.) That may have been why Tom Kavanaugh, who had won eight games that same season, may have been selected in his place. The player whose presence I questioned the most in hindsight was Keith Whitener who had won seven games and finished second in the 2013 Tournament of Champions. He was a good player but compared to Jason Keller, who had won nine games and more than $212,000 (he’d won nearly as much as Keith in only six games) I think he was a poor choice. Compared to Tom Nissley, who ended up having to be voted on as a fan favorite, he was a poor choice as well.

That all said, I did not know nearly as much about this group going into the Battle of the Decades. Many of them I remembered very clearly and I was inclined to take Jeopardy at their word when it came to their greatness.

Unlike all prior tournaments in the show’s history, the Battle of the Decades was spread out in a drip-drip-drip fashion. The 1980s round took place in February, The 1990s in March, The 2000s in April and the final two weeks played out in May. In many ways this was an interesting approach as it help anticipation for the finals build more and more with each week.

All of the matches in the first round were superb, with only two runaway games. It should not come as a huge shock that Ken Jennings one his first match in the tournament in a round but Brad’s initial win in the first round only became a rout when he got the last clue in Double Jeopardy correct to lock up the game. This was vital because his closest opponent Mike Dupee knew the correct response to Final Jeopardy and Brad didn’t. He knew how lucky he was at the end of it.

Unlike the UTC, the Battle of the Decades was a great tournament because the cream rose to the top more easily than it had. With two exceptions, all thirteen winners of the first Round had previously won a Tournament of Champions and the fourteenth was Ken Jennings.  Besides Jennings, who basically routed Michael Falk and Vinita Kailasanath, the other fourteen were closely fought from beginning to end with the lead frequently changing throughout both rounds. I’m still not sure even now which first round group was the best of the three, but I am inclined to lean towards the group from the first decade.  Maybe it was merely I had the hardest time competing against them and the easiest against the group from the 2000s but I think there’s something more solid than that. All of the Final Jeopardy clues in every match were incredibly difficult and there was a fair amount of struggling throughout. But in the first round, the group from the 1980s got the most correct Final Jeopardy responses than the other two: the fifteen players gave a total of eight correct responses, while the group from the 1990s gave only five and the group from the 2000s gave just four. That did not mean that collectively one group was smarter than the other as you’ll see.

The winners from the 1980s featured some of the early greats in Jeopardy history: Chuck Forrest, Mark Lowenthal (who had collaborated on a book about Jeopardy after the original appearances) Leszek Pawlowicz, Tom Cubbage and Tom Nosek who I mentioned in the very first entry. Since none of them had gotten past the first round of the UTC (Forest had earned a bye but had lost his second round match) it was a particularly impressive showing by the ‘Seniors’.

The 1990s group gave a similarly strong showing, this time with Robin Carroll and Rachael Schwartz, who to this point had never got the first part of any tournament they’d been invited back for, coming from behind in each game to win. Brad Rutter, as I mentioned prevailed as did Mark Dawson, who had won the 2003 Tournament of Champions and was the first player to win a $250,000 as a result. The fifth winner, who I had been rooted for but was not sure she could succeed, was Pam Mueller.

Pam had previously proven her worth against great players before but not like this: her opponents in the first round were Ryan Holznagel, who’d won the 1995 Tournament of Champions and Dan Melia, who’d won the 1998 Tournament of Champions. In addition, both men had performed very well in the UTC, though not nearly as well as Pam. But thanks in part to the sweeping the category AS ‘IF’ in Double Jeopardy, Pam went into Final Jeopardy with a lead.

The category was BORDERS: “Twice as long as Hadrian’s Wall, Offa’s Dyke was the traditional border between these 2 lands.” Dan was on this one, as Alex said, “like a shot: “What are England and Wales?” Unfortunately he did not have as much money as he wanted: he had just $5700 and went up to $19,700. Ryan thought it was The Netherlands and Germany but his small wager kept him ahead of Dan. Pam had $17,000. She wrote down: “What are Scotland and Wales?” but she bet nothing and ended up with a brilliant victory.

I knew a bit less about the competitors in the 2000s than the other two groups but there was one player I thought had the best chance of making it to the finals even before it started: Roger Craig. I figured his track record was good enough to get him. He struggled a little in his first round match against Vijay Balse and Stephanie Jass but moved into the lead early in Double Jeopardy and managed to keep it. He didn’t quite run away with the game, but he was in great shape at the end. The fact he got Final Jeopardy was enough to make me think he could go the distance.

In addition to Roger and Ken, the three other winners won in implausible fashion. Colby Burnett had the thinnest of margins over Celeste DiNucci (winner of the 2007 Tournament of Champions) going into Final Jeopardy: he had $16,400 and she had $16,200. It came down fundamentally to wagers more than anything else. Colby had bet just enough money for him to win only if Celeste responded incorrectly. And he was so stunned it worked out at the end, Could would drop his head on the podium when it was over.

The third match would feature a battle between Tom Kavanaugh, Russ Schumacher and Larissa Kelly. Larissa dominated the match from the start of the Jeopardy round and almost to the end of Double Jeopardy. Until the penultimate clue she had a runaway game. Russ found the Daily Double on WOMEN ON  U.S. STAMPS. He had $10,400 to Larissa’s $22,800: “1n 2005, for what would have been her 100^th birthday, the U.S. and Sweden issued stamps featuring this movie legend.” Russ knew it was Greta Garbo and gained $5000. He now had enough money to stop her from winning outright.

It came down to Final Jeopardy. The category was MONARCHS. “In 2005 the Kul Sharif Mosque of Tatarstan was reopened 453 years after it was destroyed by this man.” On a blind guess I somehow came up with the correct answer: “Who is Ivan the Terrible?” Russ wrote down Constantine but lost nothing. Larissa wrote down Suleiman and would lose $8001. This dropped her to $14,799 and gave Russ an improbable come from behind victory.

The final match of Round 1 was between Dan Pawson, Maria Wenglinsky and Keith Whitener. Dan got off to a decent start but there were some tough questions here in the Jeopardy round, particularly in the category COMPUTER ABBREVIATIONS.  As a result Dan had a small lead with $4700 to Maria’s $2200 and Keith’s $1800.

In Double Jeopardy Dan managed to pull to a substantial lead but Maria caught him late in the round on the second Daily Double. She pulled ahead of him in the last bit and lead with $18,100 to Dan’s $15,700. Keith was still in contention with $4200.

The Final Jeopardy clue was one of the toughest in the entire tournament. The category was 20^th CENTURY NOVEL QUOTES: “It was one of those pictures…so contrived that the eyes follow you...beneath” the picture was this 5-word quotes. None of the contestants (or me) knew the quote was from 1984 and the quotation was “Big Brother is watching you.” Once again, it came down to wagers. Dan lost only $3000 and when Maria wagered $15,000, Dan managed a comeback victory.

The quarterfinal matches were not at the level of the first round battles but they all did have their own moments of suspense. In them, the decade that had the most success were those who competed in the 2000s with Roger Craig, Russ Schumacher and Ken Jennings all winning their quarterfinals. All had different kinds of wins: Ken led throughout but did not pull away until he found the second Daily Double in Double Jeopardy; Roger was in third at the end of the Jeopardy round of his game and did not move into the lead until he got both Daily Doubles correct in Double Jeopardy and Russ Schumacher spent much of the game trailing his contenders Pam Mueller and Tom Nosek.

Ken’s rout was impressive because it came against two former Tournament of Champions winners: Tom Cubbage from the 1980s and Rachael Schwartz from the 1990s. Tom ended up qualifying for a wild card spot. Roger enjoyed a similar triumph over Robin Carroll and Leszek Pawlowicz; Leszek also qualified for a wild card.

Russ’ win was especially notable because the Jeopardy round was more or less dominated by Tom Nosek. Tom would fade somewhat in Double Jeopardy but Pam, in her second consecutive match, showed great strength against two Tournament of Champions winners.  She would leap to a large lead when she found the first Daily Double in Double Jeopardy and add $5000 to her score.  She would not have the same luck on the second Daily Double, this time in YUCKY HISTORY:

“As in the Western “Flesh & the Spur”, Indians used staking people to these as a torture – or at least white settler said so.” Pam thought it was horses when it was actually anthills. It cost her $3000. She still maintained her lead and at the end of Double Jeopardy it was a very close match: Pam had $17,400, Russ $15,400, and Tom had a more than respectable $11,200.

The category for Final Jeopardy was the deceptively easy sounding U.S. STATES. The clue wasn’t: “Between 2006 & 2013 it went from 39^th to 6^th in per capita income and its unemployment rate dropped to the nation’s lowest.” Russ was the only one who knew the correct answer: “What is North Dakota?” (As Alex said, it was because of an oil and gas boom.) Russ wagered only $1300. Tom wrote down Texas and lost $8800. Pam thought it was Washington and would lose $2602. Pam would have enough to qualify as a semi-finalist in the wild cards; she ended up being the only female competitor.

Brad more or less romped to victory against Dan Pawson and Mark Lowenthal after a huge wager on a Daily Double in READ ‘ING’ . He had $32,400 by the end of the round and the fact that he (nor anyone else) knew Final Jeopardy was irrelevant.

The last quarterfinal match was the most closely fought. Chuck Forrest would go into the lead early in the game and while Mark Dawson and Colby Burnett kept creeping on him, they never caught him. This did not make the game any less exciting. Colby made a spectacular recovery in Double Jeopardy and managed to go from just $200 at the end of the Jeopardy round to $11,800 at the end of Double Jeopardy. But it was a pretty even fight: Chuck had $14,400 to Colby’s $11,800 while Mark trailed with $10,600.

The Final Jeopardy was another tough one in FAMOUS BOOKS: “It was published March 26, 1830; a very popular work with the same name premiered March 24, 2011.” All three players struggled with this and only Colby came up with a response: “What is the Time Machine?” It was actually The Book of Mormon. Fortunately for all three players, nobody lost much. Mark lost $2000, Colby $800, Chuck $2500. Chuck had enough to become an automatic semi-finalist; Colby’s score was high enough for a wild-card.

The first semi-final match was essentially a meeting for the ages as Chuck Forrest would express his admiration for the ability of Ken Jennings while Jennings told Alex how Forrest had been an inspiration for him growing up.  In the Jeopardy round Jennings totally outdid the old master as well as Russ Schumacher.  He had amassed $15,000 to Chuck’s $2800 and Russ’ $800 by the end of the Jeopardy round. It looked like he was about to have his biggest runaway yet.

Then early in Double Jeopardy Chuck demonstrated that the old dog was capable of new tricks when he found the first Daily Double in 4-SYLLABLE WORDS:

Chuck: “I never got a chance to say this before, but let’s make it a true Daily Double.”

“Adjective for the perfect embodiment of something, or something a Dionne kid must have.”

Chuck knew the answer: “What is a quintessential?”

He doubled his score to $9600.

Then a few moments later Ken would lose $6000 on a Daily Double. As the round continued, for the briefest of moments, the master had the student by the lapels. But Ken got the last four correct responses and time ran out with four clues left. Still Ken’s lead was nowhere near insurmountable: he had $18,600 to Chuck’s $15,200.

Final Jeopardy told the tale. The category was 19^th CENTURY POEMS. “Written about the U.S. occupation of the Philippines, a Kipling poem said, ‘Take up’ this now controversial phrase.” Chuck knew the correct answer: “What is the white man’s burden?” He gained $11,000. Ken also knew it and had wagered $11,801. In his three wins, Ken had defeated five prior winners of a Tournament of Champions. More than anything else, this convinced me he was the greatest of all time.

Brad Rutter had no trouble against Leszek or Tom Cubbage in his semi-final, getting an insurmountable lead early in the Jeopardy round and never even being remotely threatened by either of these great players.  He finished Double Jeopardy with $32,800, nearly five times Tom his nearest opponents total. He walked to his spot in the finals.

I had assumed going into the semi-finals that both Ken and Brad would easily make it to the finals. The last semi-final match featured three fairly evenly matched players: Colby Burnett, Pam Mueller and Roger Craig and I honestly didn’t know who would come out on top. This match was by far the most evenly fought, though in part it was because Roger kept getting in his own way. He gave a whopping eight incorrect responses in both Jeopardy and Double Jeopardy and on many occasions he’d ring in and draw a blank. The fact that he was still in the lead at the end of the Jeopardy round was remarkable, but it was pretty close: Chuck had $5200 to Colby’s $3600 and Pam’s $2800.

In Double Jeopardy Pam would find the first Daily Double on the very first clue of the round in WORLD LITERATURE. Copying Chuck she said that she had never gotten to say this before, but that she would make a true Daily Double. She responded correctly and went into the lead.

Roger then got in his own way by getting the $1600 and $2000 clues in ADVERBS IN SONG incorrect and by he found the other Daily Double, he was now in third place with $3200. He made fun of himself by saying: “I’ve always wanted to say this. Let’s make this a true Daily Double. (Roger had, at this point, done so on three of the previous four Daily Doubles he had found in his earlier wins.) The category was PRESIDENTIAL FIRSTS:

“He was commander-in-chief the first time the U.S. formally declared war.” He knew that it was James Madison (the War of 1812) and moved into a tie for the lead. He went ahead on the next clue and managed to maintain his lead for the rest of the round. Pam dropped back a little and finished with $7200. Colby had $11,600 and Roger was ahead with $18,000.

The Final Jeopardy category was tricky: NAMES ON THE MAP: “Visited by Jacques Cartier in 1534, it was later named for Queen Victoria’s father, the Duke of Kent.”  The clue referred to Canada, but no one came close to the response: Prince Edward Island. Roger lost the last of his three competitors and became the third finalist.

In the leadup to the first game of the finals, Alex said how appropriate it was that these three men were competing: Roger had the highest one day total, Ken had won the most consecutive games, Brad had won the most money. And unlike the battle in the UTC, this fight would be close all the way with multiple twists in terms and not determined until the final clue.

I have to tell you that I’d been competing fairly evenly in the semi-finals. I had been competitive, if not at the level of Ken and Chuck, in the first game, had been blown out by Brad the same as everyone else and had done respectably in the third. I did not expect to do well in this finals but when you hear how things turned out for me…you may have reason to doubt my reliability as a narrator.  All I ask is that you trust me.

I started by sweeping the category DOCUMENTARIES (movies have always been a strong category for me) but I didn’t do much better for the remainder of the round. My sole comfort was after Brad found the Daily Double in the Jeopardy round, he bet everything he had and lost it all. Roger would move into the lead by default and he would hold it for the rest of the round. I think I was even with Roger at the end of the Jeopardy round with roughly $5000. I was certainly ahead of both Ken and Brad who were at $3200 and $2000 respectively.

In Double Jeopardy Brad immediately made things worse for himself on a $1600 clue in ELIZABETHEAN  PLAYS & PLAYWRIGHTS when he mistook Christopher Marlowe for Ben Johnson. (So did I.) All three players spent most of their time in the first half of the round in the $1600 to $2000 clues and I made money and bounced up and lost a bit. One clue I’m proud I got right that Brad got wrong was one in HATE SONGS for $1200:

“While serving in the Army during WWI, Irving Berlin was inspired to write the song: “Oh! How I Hate to” do this. Brad guessed: “What is peel potatoes?” and everybody laughed. Ken, like me, knew it was “Get Up in the Morning.”

I wasn’t eligible for either Daily Double. Brad would find the first in HISTORIC DATES and get it right.  Roger found the second in MEDICAL TERMS. At the time he had $10,200 and was in first place. He was sort of egged on by Ken to bet everything and that’s what he did. This moment was heartbreaking for me at home because I knew the correct response:

“Doctors use this 5-letter term for swelling or bloating in the body due to an excess build-up of fluid.” Roger had no idea it was edema and lost everything. He took it well – better than I would under the circumstances -  but he eventually would go into the red and would not be around for Final Jeopardy. At the time, I recall having something like $12,600 in front of me, just ahead of Ken at $12,000 and trailing Brad slightly at $14,000.

The Final Jeopardy category was one of my great strengths: THE ACADEMY AWARDS. I bet conservatively and wagered $2600. In hindsight I’m not so much surprised I knew the answer to Final Jeopardy but that neither Brad nor Ken did. I have often wondered if Roger knew it.

“I of the 2 movies in the last 30 years, one a drama and one a comedy, to win Oscars for Best Actor and Best Actress.” Ken had no idea and Brad wrote down Terms of Endearment. I knew both: The Silence of the Lambs (which I wrote down) and As Good as It Gets.  Ken lost $5000. Brad lost $4000. At the end of Game 1, I was ahead of both players going into the second game.

Game 2 of the final had some good categories for me in the Jeopardy round. THE COSTUME DESIGNS OF WILLIAM IVEY LONG (he’s a theater composer and really this is the only place a category based on him would show up) was a good one for me as well as OSCAR-WINNING SONGS. I was certainly have a much better day that Brad was. At the first break, he was at -$800 and when he found the first Daily Double he acknowledged he didn’t have a lot to work with. He wagered $1000 and got out of the hole. He was in a distant third with $1800 when the round ended. Ken and Roger were very close to each other with Ken ahead with $6000 to Roger’s $5400.

The Double Jeopardy round was déjà vu for Roger in more ways than one. He found the first Daily Double on the fourth clue of the round and he had $10,200, exactly as much as he’d had the last time. This time Ken pleaded with him: “Don’t do it” but he still bet everything.

This time I had to go along with him as I had gotten the $1600 clue correct before he’d found it in LAKES AND RIVERS. I wasn’t as confident as Roger; I had $8000 or so, I just bet $2000.

“Sharing the name of a city, it’s the largest lake entirely within a Canadian province.”

I honestly don’t remember what I guessed. Roger’s guess was more heartbreaking: “What is Lake Manitoba?” Manitoba was the province Lake Winnipeg was in. Down he went to nothing and he still took it well.

The second Daily Double came up three clues later and again I was eligible. I had $8400 when Brad found it in NONFICTION. I bet $2000 as did Brad. He did better than I did:

“The title of this essay collection by David Sedaris refers to his attempt to learn to speak French. “ I thought it was ME SPEAK PRETTY ONE DAY when, as Brad knew, it was Me Talk Pretty One Day. He was at $4800.

I had some decent moments the rest of the way – most of them in the category B.C-ING YOU, but I also made more than my share of mistakes particularly in the category MODE OF TRANSPORT. I thought the title of THE WORLD’S FASTEST INDIAN  referred to a car and not a motorcycle. I admit I was doing better than Roger when the round ended – he admitted that with $2000, he was out at the end of the round – but I think had somewhere between ten and eleven thousand dollars at the end of the round and I was behind both Brad and Ken. Brad was in second with $11,800. Ken was ahead of Brad with $13,600.

The decisive Final Jeopardy category was SECRETARIES OF STATE. “Serving 160 years apart these 2 Secretaries of State are the only ones who never married.” Now I worked out early that one of them was James Buchanan – he was Polk’s Secretary of State and famously a bachelor President – and I did the math and guessed the other had to be Condoleezza Rice, though I wasn’t sure of her martial status. Roger came up with it. So did Brad and he bet nothing. Ken wrote down: “Who are Buchanan and Albright?” His wager was irrelevant and Brad had once again triumphed over Ken to win a million dollars. This time, he was truly astonished at his victory.

This was the first super tournament I had ever won. I took it modestly, considering how much these players had ground me into the dirt throughout this tournament.

The Battle of the Decades represented the end of one era on Jeopardy and the beginning of another. In many ways it was a last hurrah for most of the great champions from the first decade of the series, many of whom are now at the age when a return to the show is unlikely. Indeed Tom Nosek and India Cooper have since passed away. Several of the other players, such as Frank Spangenberg and Jerome Vered, who had super in the UTC, could not get past their first round match. Of the fifteen players who represented the 1980s, only Tom Cubbage and Chuck Forrest are still relatively young enough that they might appear in another tournament. As for those who represented the 1990s, there is a strong possibility that some will return. (As we shall see in the next entry, some have already come back) While Dan Melia, who was nearly seventy at the time of his appearance is likely to old, some of the other players such as Rachael Schwartz and Robin Carroll may one day return. But in a sense this tournament may very well have been the last real link to the five game limit era.

Indeed, while the initial rounds of the Battle of the Decades were going on, there was a sign of a new kind of Jeopardy champion. Arthur Chu, who has since become one of the most controversial Jeopardy players of all time, would win 11 games and $297, 200, the most won by any player since David Madden had won 19 in 2005.  When his streak was over, he was third in both games won and money won in his original appearance.

When regular play resumed after the finals, Julia Collins would win her eleventh game having waiting two weeks since her tenth victory. She won ten more before she finally lost. A new breed of super-champion was coming to Jeopardy and the show would soon reflect that.

In the final installment in this series, I will deal with the Jeopardy All-Star Games and the new breed of super-champions that had begun to appear before and after.