Anybody watched Jeopardy lately?

[darwinbulldog]

The current reigning champion is the most dominant player I've ever seen. I imagine there will be a lot of players trying to copy his style in the near future. The guy at #7 below is the one. That's how much he's earned so far in 8 days. He could move up a few more spots tonight.

Total Jeopardy! earnings
1 Brad Rutter 4,888,440
2 Ken Jennings 4,223,414
3 Roger Craig 530,200
4 Matt Jackson 511,612
5 Jerome Vered 499,102
6 Julia Collins 478,100
7 James Holzhauer 460,479
8 David Madden 432,400
9 Ben Ingram 426,534
10 Dan Pawson 420,902

[CW]

I have not watched it recently, but I did see where this current champ won his first 2 games and won quite a bit in just those games. A poker forum I read also mentioned this guy is a poker pro of some sort, so he knows about gambling and game theory.

I'm familiar with Ken Jennings, of course. How did Ken and the #1 guy get over $4 million, by winning the tournament of champions?

I don't recall his name, but there was a really quirky bartender from New York that went on a nice run awhile back. He was very entertaining. There's a YouTube montage of his highlights.

[darwinbulldog]

Everyone in the top 6 has a good chunk of money from the various tournaments. That's almost 99% of Brad's prize money. Ken is the only one who made anywhere close to a million dollars in his initial run. It ended up being over 2 million. The shaggy guy from a couple of years ago is Austin Rogers. He's a lot of fun to watch.

The current guy is always announced as "a professional sports gambler," but I don't know if that includes playing poker or just wagering on sporting events. Anyway, he clearly knows what he's doing, in addition to knowing pretty much everything that comes up in the game.

[clydepepper]

He won another $106K today and is now in third place all-time.

It took Ken Jennings 77 shows to win $2.1M on Jeopardy.

James (yes, we're on a first-name basis) has taken only 9 to amass $566K

I just hope Alex will be around as long as this guy might be.


Interesting as this is happening, Charles Van Doren, who won $129K on the game show 'Twenty-One' in 1956 & 1957 after being given the answers beforehand, died this past week.

This scandal was the basis of the movie, 'Quiz Show'.


=

[darwinbulldog]

Haven't watched today's episode yet (on DVR), but that's only a slightly surprising outcome. He's now got the top 3 paydays in the history of the show. It's...Ruthian.

And the quiz show scandal was supposedly the inspiration for the answer and question format on Jeopardy. (Hey, what if we give the contestants all the answers as part of the game?)

[rats60]

Brad Rutter played on Jeopardy when you could only win 5 games. He has won every tournament of champions he has played in, including multiple wins against Ken Jennings. It will be interesting to see James and Brad go head to head one day.

[Leon]

My wife is addicted to Jeopardy. She is amazed this current champ keeps doubling down on daily doubles.

Originally Posted by clydepepper

He won another $106K today and is now in third place all-time.

It took Ken Jennings 77 shows to win $2.1M on Jeopardy.

James (yes, we're on a first-name basis) has taken only 9 to amass $566K

I just hope Alex will be around as long as this guy might be.


Interesting as this is happening, Charles Van Doren, who won $129K on the game show 'Twenty-One' in 1956 & 1957 after being given the answers beforehand, died this past week.

This scandal was the basis of the movie, 'Quiz Show'.


=

[CW]

Originally Posted by darwinbulldog

Everyone in the top 6 has a good chunk of money from the various tournaments. That's almost 99% of Brad's prize money. Ken is the only one who made anywhere close to a million dollars in his initial run. It ended up being over 2 million. The shaggy guy from a couple of years ago is Austin Rogers. He's a lot of fun to watch.

The current guy is always announced as "a professional sports gambler," but I don't know if that includes playing poker or just wagering on sporting events. Anyway, he clearly knows what he's doing, in addition to knowing pretty much everything that comes up in the game.

Interesting. Thanks, Glenn. I just spent a few minutes on Wikipedia fully educating myself on Jennings' and Rutter's gameshow careers.

And, yep, the player I was trying to recall was Austin Rogers. It would be one thing to be quirky and funny, but combine that with being a sharp contestant and it makes for good entertainment. Here's a montage of his run on the show:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTjPoz7MMKs

[barrysloate]

He set the all-time one day record tonight with over $137,000 and his ten day total is just shy of 700K. He has the top four single day totals. Wow, what a machine.

This is the first night I've seen him, and I am amazed at his speed. You need to be young to bring up information so quickly, and you have to be smart, well read, and fearless. He may be the best Jeopardy player ever.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by barrysloate

He set the all-time one day record tonight with over $137,000 and his ten day total is just shy of 700K. He has the top four single day totals. Wow, what a machine.

This is the first night I've seen him, and I am amazed at his speed. You need to be young to bring up information so quickly, and you have to be smart, well read, and fearless. He may be the best Jeopardy player ever.

If he's really smart he'll invest his winnings in PSA 10 cards.