This is Jeopardy - Failures of the Superchampions, Part 2

 

Author’s Note: This was originally meant to be a two-part article but because the stories involved are more complicated then can be summed up in a single article, I’ve decided to write three separate articles, possibly a fourth, in the lead-up to the Tournament of Champions. Many of the names in this article will be familiar to recent fans of Jeopardy as the majority of them have appeared in the Jeopardy Invitational Tournament this past March or I have advocated for their inclusion in future tournaments in my previous articles on Jeopardy. I will do my best not to regurgitate past articles whenever possible.

 

I was eagerly anticipating the 2013-2014 season of Jeopardy well before it began. By that point I had been watching the show long enough to know that they had a history of doing Tournament on significant anniversaries of the show’s run and since the 30^th season was coming I expected the same.

I was proven correct as early in October the Battle of the Decades was announced and the show began preparing for what was the best postseason tournament in its history to that point. What I had no idea of knowing – what no Jeopardy fan could have known – was that before the first round of that Tournament started, the show was going to witness the arrival of the kind of champion the show hadn’t seen in nearly a decade.

On January 28, 2014 Arthur Chu then a compliance analyst from Ohio, made his first appearance on Jeopardy. He won $37,200 in his first game and when the week ended he’d won $102,800 in four games.

He then had to wait three weeks for his next appearance as the first round of the Battle of The Decades took place, followed immediately afterwards by the 2014 College Championship. (This was won by Terry O’Shea, who we’ll actually be talking about later in this same article.

When regular season play returned on February 24, he promptly won five consecutive games, all but the last runaway victories and on the eighth game he won $58,200. After win number nine he had to then wait another week to defend his title as the 1990s round of the Battle of The Decades was taking place. He then promptly won two more runaway games. Finally on March 12^th his remarkable run came to an end after eleven wins and $297, 200 in earnings.

I’m honestly more impressed Arthur did as well as he did with so many layoffs between his appearances then his actual record which is remarkable in itself. At the end of his run he was now in third place all time in both games won and money won in a Jeopardy players original appearance. His approach to the game was clearly modeled after Roger Craig as Alex pointed out talking to Roger during his appearance during the Battle of the Decades. He went to the bottom of the board, sought out the Daily Double and bet big on them. It had worked for him with the same level of success as it had for Roger and for longer.

It had been almost nine years since any player had won this many games on Jeopardy. It would be less than six weeks before someone arrived who won that many games – and then some.

Julia Collins didn’t seem like a great Jeopardy player when she won her first game on April 21^st, barely inching out a victory over two game winner Frederique Delapree. By the end of the week she was still there having won over $100,000. She was also there at the end of the following week with 10 wins and $220,610.

Then like Arthur her run was interrupted by the Battle of the Decades, in this case for the final two weeks of the tournament. She was back on May 19^th – and picked up right where she left off. Slowly and methodically she kept winning games and money. At the end of that week she had fifteen wins and over $300,000. On May 29 she had nineteen wins, tying David Madden’s second place mark. The next day she outpaced him. Her luck only held one more day as she was unseated by Brian Loughnane after 20 wins and $428,100.

This was not only one of the greatest performances in Jeopardy history but the best for a female contestant by a long shot: the previous record in games won by a female contestant had been set the previous season when Stephanie Jass won seven games. Julia was a more traditional type of Jeopardy player than Arthur, starting at the top of categories and waiting until they were done before moving on to the next one. She didn’t seek Daily Doubles out and she was far more conservative in her wagers than Arthur had been. She was methodical in her skill, rarely winning enormous sums of money in her wins the way later super-champions did. No one, certainly not me, could deny her dominance or effectiveness.

Around this time – as much in regard to the Battle of the Decades as the arrival of Arthur and Julia –  the idea of trying to figure out who the greatest players in Jeopardy history was starting to take root in my mind. Writing about it in some fashion hadn’t occurred to me but I was starting to take it more seriously then the casual Jeopardy viewer or even the long time fan. In a sense the Battle of The Decades was solidifying the idea because by the end of it Alex himself had referred to the three finalists – Brad Rutter, Ken Jennings and Roger Craig – as perhaps the three most significant players in Jeopardy history. Roger had the one-day record, Ken had won the most games and Brad, by virtue of his wins in the Million Dollars Masters and the Ultimate Tournament of Champions, had won the most money. When the finals were over and Brad had emerged victorious – again – Brad, Ken and Roger were ranked first, second and third in all-time money won. By finishing third in the Tournament Roger had earned $50,000 which put his total winnings to that point at $530,200.

So around the time of the next Tournament of Champions the following November I knew that it was significant in a way that past ones hadn’t been. If either Arthur or Julia won the grand prize of $250,000, they would vault ahead of Roger and become the third highest money winner in Jeopardy history. That being said I was also in a position that no fan of Jeopardy had ever been into that point: there were two champions who’d won more than ten games in this tournament and I’m not sure anybody could honestly have told you at the time which one had a better chance of winning the grand prize.

Like everyone else I assumed that one would end up winning the Tournament. However I didn’t believe for a moment that it would be easy for either to get to the finals if for no other reason that even without the two of these super-champions the 2014 TOC roster was incredibly, almost ridiculously strong.

For one thing, there was only one player in the entire roster who had won fewer than five games. (I’ll exclude the College Champions and the winner of the Teachers Tournament in this list.) Three players had won six games: Andrew Moore, Sandie Baker and Jared Hall. And in what may have been the biggest sign of how changes were coming, there were also two eight game winners: Drew Horwood, who won $138,100 in March of 2013 and Ben Ingram, who’d won $176,534 in July of that year. In almost every previous Tournament of 2007 to 2013 they would have been the leaders in games won. In the 2014 TOC, they were tied for third place.

In his first appearance Arthur started slowly against Andrew Moore and Rani Pfeiffer. But in Double Jeopardy Arthur resumed his natural dominance and by the end of Double Jeopardy had $21,000 amassed a runaway victory. He made it look easy.

“20-time Jeopardy champion” (that was how Julia introduced herself in the Tournament of Champions actually started out stronger and led practically from beginning to end against Joshua Brakhage and Jim Coury, the winner of the 2013 College Champions participating that year. Going into Final Jeopardy she had $16,200 to Joshua’s $11,800.

And then in Final Jeopardy it went wrong. The category was THE US CONSTITUTION: “The three Latin phrases found in the Constitution are ‘pro tempore’, ‘ex post facto’ & this legal 2-word phrase.” Jim and Joshua both knew the correct response: “What is habeus corpus?” Julia wrote down: “What is magna gloria?” That cost her $7100 and dropped to her to second place with $9100. Her only hope was for a wild card spot.

She got in – by the skin of her teeth. The four high scores for non-winners made it in and she had the fourth highest score.

Redemption came for Julia in her semi-final match which was played against Terry O’Shea, the winner of the 2014 College Championship and Jared Hall who’d won six games and an impressive $181,001 in the course of them. Both Terry and Jared had won their quarterfinal matches so Julia was, at least theoretically, the odd one out.

Again Julia took an early lead and managed to hold it throughout the game, helped by a mistake by Jared on a Daily Double early in Double Jeopardy that he never came back from. She had $12,000 at the end of Double Jeopardy to Terry’s $8200 and Jared’s $7600.

It came down to Final Jeopardy and the category THE OTHER SIDE OF THE GLOBE: “This capital city, which at 12,330 miles is farthest from Madrid, is named for a soldier who spent time in Madrid.” Julia was the only player who knew the correct response: “What is Wellington?” (the capital of New Zealand named for the Duke of Wellington.)

Arthur won his semi-final game somewhat more convincingly though it wasn’t as easy as Julia’s victory. The third semi-finalist would turnout to be Ben, who ran away with his semi-final match. All three players managed to be the only player to get Final Jeopardy correctly though in Ben’s case, he was the only one who took it seriously.

As Alex himself remarked in the introductions to the first game of the finals Ben, Julia and Arthur were already an impressive field: combined they had already won 39 games and just over $900,000. The first game of the finals was one of the greatest games I’ve seen played in a Tournament of Champions in over thirty years of watching the show.

In the Jeopardy round of Game 1 Ben and Arthur spent much of the match battling for supremacy and it wasn’t until the end of the round that Arthur pulled ahead with $8400 to Ben’s $6400. Julia struggled throughout the round and finished in a distant third with $2400.

Julia managed to change her fortune early in Double Jeopardy with a category that the show rarely goes back to: “INITIALS TO ROMAN NUMERALS TO NUMBERS.” Alex explained: “I’ll give you an example. If we said, ‘French bag maker,” that would be Louis Vuitton. We take the letters LV, and that translates to what number? 55.”

Julia went right for it and found the Daily Double in it. She bet the $4400 she had:

“For the judge best known for the 1994 O.J. Simpson Case.” She responded: “What is 51?” (LI, Lance Ito.) She was right back in it.

The round was fundamentally dominated by Julia and Arthur with Ben only able to ring in four times the entire round. He made them count and got $6400 out of them.

By the end of the round Arthur had been superb with 29 correct responses and just one mistake the entire game. He’d accumulated $25,600. But Julia and Ben were anything but quiet: Julia finished the round with $18,200 and Ben with $12,800.

Now I should mention that while I’ve had a lot of luck with Final Jeopardy throughout the Tournament of Champions over the last decade, I have always found their Final Jeopardys in the two-game finals ludicrously difficult. So, it’s worth noting, did the three contestants during that period. Such was the case here.

The category for Game 1 was 20^th CENTURY PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS: “In this year, there were no presidents or vice presidents running but three of the 4 men on the 2 major party ballots would later become President.”

After the music ended and the lights went up, Alex acknowledged: “This was a tough one.” Ben’s response was revealed first: “What is 1920?” He was correct. Harding won the President; Coolidge would ascend to the White House after Harding’s death and the Democratic Vice President that year was FDR. Ben gambled and bet everything to double his score. Julia had guessed 1952. And it cost her $11,800. Arthur thought it was 1932 and he lost $10,000. In the blink of an eye the tables were turned: Ben was in the lead with $25,600, Arthur was in second with $15,600 and Julia trailed with $6400.

In Game 2 Ben got off to a fast start in the Jeopardy round but Arthur managed to catch and pass him on his last correct response. At the end of it Arthur had a narrow lead with $4200 to Ben’s $3800 and Julia, who struggled throughout, had $1200.

Arthur got off to a fast start in Double Jeopardy and had a chance to pick up a lot of lost ground when he found the first Daily Double in McWRITERS. He bet the $7000 he had: “In 1962 ‘Marshall McLuhan wrote ‘Electronic Independence recreates the world in the image of a global’. Arthur guessed: “What is ‘web” when it was village. (No one I should mention got a single clue correct in this category including yon scribe at home.) Arthur recovered by finding the other Daily Double and by the end of the round he had moved back into the lead with $10,400 to Julia’s $7600 and Ben’s $6600. Julia’s low score meant she wouldn’t be contended for anything other than second place and that it was between Arthur and Ben for the grand prize.

The deciding Final Jeopardy dealt with SHAKESPEAREAN GEOGRAPHY. It too was a mother: “Of the 5 cities mentioned in Shakespeare play titles, it’s the only one not found in Europe.” Alex acknowledged it was a tough one.

Ben wrote down: “What is Cairo?” As Alex pointed out Cairo didn’t appear in a Shakespeare title. Ben lost $4201, bringing him down to $2399. His two-day total was now $27,999. Julia couldn’t come up with anything. She lost $2000 and guaranteed herself a third place position.

It was all on Arthur. His response was: “What is Thebes?” As Alex explained afterwards the play was Pericles, Prince of Tyre. (That city is located in what is now Lebanon.) That Arthur had bet everything was irrelevant; Ben was already ahead of him and it was Ben who became the winner of the 2014 Tournament of Champions.

It’s hard to consider Ben’s performance an upset, considering that he’d played by far the best of all three finalists. He won both his quarterfinal match and semi-final in fairly convincing fashion and was the only contestant to give a correct response in Final Jeopardy in either Final. Arthur played exceptionally throughout the entire Tournament, no question, but Ben was clearly as good as him at least in the Jeopardy rounds.

At the time I was by far the most stunned by how disappointing Julia’s performance overall had been: she only got one Final Jeopardy correct in all four games she played, backed into the semi-finals and with the sole exception of her quarterfinal, she didn’t play particularly well. Though I didn’t know it until a few years later Julia’s performance was a harbinger of how super-champions have generally performed once they reach the Tournament of Champions. It always seemed to be a slog for them to get past the quarterfinals and luck was often far more important than skills.

It must also be said that along with being a short series this is a lineup of the best of the best and none of the players were undeserving of being there. Once you get to the TOC, it doesn’t matter if you’ve won five games or twenty, you’re all starting out at the same place. I’d learned that with David Madden; I’d clearly forgotten it when it came to Julia – and like all Jeopardy fans, I’d have to keep learning this lesson.

In the next article in this series I will deal with the incomparable Matt Jackson who seemed like an unstoppable force in his original run – only to come face to face in the 2015 Tournament of Champions with an immovable object.