Not long after Jamie Ding's run
came to an end last week there were a series of interviews with the man who has
now won more games and more money than all but four people in Jeopardy history.
Jamie has been enormously honest in his interviews and he admitted that by the
end of his run he was started to feel more than a little fried.
Throughout Jamie's run I was
preparing to write a piece involving 'Signs a Jeopardy Super-Champion Is About
To Lose'. While this may sound like clickbait it came from nearly two decades of watching
Jeopardy super-champions (particularly in the last few years) and having
attempted to write a book on the subject a few years back.
Because Jeopardy is a
competition. It may be more mental than physical but the physical part plays
into it: both in terms of being quicker on the buzzer then your opponents and
being able to play well at a consistent level. And Jeopardy players are not
Watson: they're only human. It would be inevitable that they'd get tired the
longer they were doing the same thing, the same way a professional athlete does
over several months of playing.
This was almost non-existent in
the first twenty years of Jeopardy. With a limit of five wins, to be a great
you had to just get through one, two days of shooting at the most. Then several
months later you would come back and if you could win four games over two days,
you were officially the best player of the year. But to make the leaderboard of
legends as they've now established it you have to play five games a day for
days at the time. It's inevitable that at a certain point you'd hit a wall.
We now have a fairly large sample
of super-champions to look through to see if this fatigue exists and when it
becomes evident. To be clear the four players immediately ahead of Jamie Ding –
James Holzhauer, Matt Amodio, Amy Schneider and Ken Jennings – never really
showed any sign of this fatigue up until the end. Jennings and Schnieder's
losses came as a shock to audience, Holzhauer was outplayed by Emma Boettcher
and Matt Amodio's encounter was with a super-champion of his own Jonathan
Fisher. But that still leaves us with fifteen players to look through and see
if there were signs. That said, there were factors for each of them that we
have to consider as well.
So let's start with the era from
Jennings streak to the passing of Trebek in 2020.
DAVID MADDEN 19 WINS 2005
David's run straddled the end of
Season 21 and the start of Season 22. So considering that there was a six week
layoff we can only wonder if some rust might have developed over the summer.
During the first week of Season 22 he won his first five games and he managed
to run away with two of them. That being said he also got three of five Final
Jeopardys incorrect including one the day before he lost.
By the time he ran into Victoria
Groce in his twentieth appearance he was clearly starting to flag, particularly
considering how close his last few games were.
I think by the end of it.
ARTHUR CHU, 2014, 11 WINS, 2014
Arthur's eleven wins took place
in an odd way. He won four games, rested three weeks as the Battle of the
Decades: The 1980s and the 2014 College Championship took place, won five
straight, rested another week as the Battle of the Decades: 1990s took
place and then came back for his next two wins. He ran away with game 10 then
won his eleventh. On the 11th it was clear he was having some
trouble: he got 24 correct responses, including 2 Daily Doubles but he also got
8 incorrect responses including the last Daily Double in Double Jeopardy. He
still ran away with the game but he was clearly starting to flag.
The next day he also gave 23
correct responses but also gave 6 incorrect ones including a Daily Double that
cost him everything and from which he could never recover. He also got Final
Jeopardy wrong. I think there's a clear sign that win 11 was a sign of just how
fatigued he was.
JULIA COLLINS, 2014, 20 wins,
2014
Like Arthur Julia's streak was
interrupted by the battle of the decades. Having won ten games, she rested for
the final two weeks of the Battle of The Decades then won ten more. That said
its pretty clear by the 20th game she was running out of steam
against Sami Siegelbaum and Wendy Hardenberg. She got 21 correct responses and
four incorrect ones, including both Daily Doubles. By the end of the Final
Jeopardy she barely was ahead of both of them and had to get Final Jeopardy
correct to win her 20th and take second place from David.
She came out swinging the
Jeopardy round of her 21st game, got the first Daily Double
incorrect and then Brian Loughanne moved ahead of her in Double Jeopardy very
close to the end. She got Final Jeopardy wrong and Brian got it right. I think
its clear Julia was starting to lose momentum by that point in her run. But it
was 20 games, who wouldn’t?
MATT JACKSON, 13 WINS, 2015
In Matt's case there was no
warning at all. He was still running at full steam in the last two games before
that. He slowed down slightly in Game 14 'only' getting 19 correct answers,
including both Daily Doubles and getting two responses incorrect. But he was
still leading going into Final Jeopardy, by the narrowest of margins over
Michael Baker.
This was a triple stumper for
Final Jeopardy and it came down to wagering. Michael bet the least and it ended
up paying off. I don't think Matt was really tired; I think his luck just ran
out.
SETH WILSON, 12 WINS, 2016
With Seth it was hard to tell
because he was never quite as dominant as his predecessors. His model of
victories were closer to that of Ryan Long. He did just well enough to win many
of his games and much of the time he won because of his opponents mistakes.
That said in his 12th victory he was incredible getting 26 correct
responses and only 1 incorrect one. For that matter he was even better in his
13th appearance getting 27 correct response and 3 incorrect ones. He
was ahead of Margie Eulner Ott in that appearance and he got Final Jeopardy
right. The difference was he only bet $5 and Margie bet everything.
In his case I don't think he was
running on fumes so much as his luck ran out.
AUSTIN ROGERS, 12 WINS 2017
Austin might have been slightly
fatigued by the time of his 12th win. He got off to a great start in
the Jeopardy round and had $12,600 by the end of it. But in Double Jeopardy he
started to flag he got all three of his incorrect responses and only five
correct ones. Brian his nearest opponent found both Daily Doubles and got one
of them wrong. Austin still managed to win a runaway but it was the closest one
and it was by far his lowest score at the end of Double Jeopardy $15,400.
He improved the next day with 21
correct responses but also got five wrong the most he'd managed to that point
in his run. That combined with a near perfect performance by Scarlett gave her
the lead going into Final Jeopardy. I'm not the kind of person who goes by
Coryat score but according to it he finished with $11,000 and its only because
of the Daily Doubles he got that he actually had $16,600 at the end.
For that reason I think Austin
really was starting to flag by this point. Which is understandable: he was
playing at a level that hadn't been seen in a while. You can only average
$35,000 per win for so long.
For the record there were no
signs James Holzhauer was slowing down. He gave 25 correct responses in his 32
game. Emma Boettcher was just as perfect with 21 correct responses. The
difference was she found 2 Daily Doubles to his one. That's how great you had
to be to beat Holzhauer. You had to be perfect.
JASON ZUFFRANIERI, 19 WINS, 2019
Jason won six games at the end of
Season 35. When Season 36 began he actually seemed to have gotten better with
each victory. By the time he reached win 19 there were no real signs of
flagging. He'd given 26 correct responses to run away with it yet again. His
opponents had each done very well: getting 15 correct response apiece but not
well enough to stop him from running away with it.
And he was perfect in his
twentieth appearance getting 25 correct responses with zero mistakes. The
difference was Christine Ryan and Gabe Brison-Trezise managed to find all three
Daily Doubles ahead of him. Even then Gabe had to get two of the last three
clues correct to make sure that Jason couldn't run away with the game. When
Gabe got Final Jeopardy correct and Jason got it wrong that finally ended
Jason's streak.
I don't think there was any sign
of fatigue with Jason.
So with Arthur Chu, Julia Collins
and Austin Rogers there's clear signs that they were starting to run on empty.
For Jason Zuffranieri, James Holzhauer, Matt Jackson and Seth Wilson there's no
proof of that: a combination of meeting better opponents and bad luck in Final
Jeopardy brought them down. With David Madden I can't say definitively one way
or the other and as we all know Ken beat himself.
In the next article I'll look at
the super-champions in the post-Trebek era, sans Amy Schneider and Matt Amodio.
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