Will that guy on Jeopardy ever lose?

"if you don't think color matters, gtfo." strong play dude

no idea why you think i'm picking a fight with you about a conversation topic that feels utterly self evident and couldn't have been less aggressively phrased but if it makes you happy

jc: what's your standard for placement there if not average per game, number of games won and total cash winnings? Dude had about the highest margin of victory I've ever seen. Are you going by likeability or something?

Jackson, Chu, Collins all made the show unwatchable by removing any doubt for so long. I wasn't watching during Jennings' run but I'm sure it was interminable to see the same person demolish the competition every day for months.

Arthur Chu is considered "far" nerdier than Ken Jennings??!?! Really?

I actually think, far from being unwatchable, it's amazing watching the same person win day in and day out.

A few months before Chu blew up the Forrest Bounce, there was some guy from Georgia (named Andrew, I think) who did the same tactics and won five or six in a row. He was another one of those intense, fast-paced players but he mentioned both the Georgia Bulldogs and Ric Flair during his chats with Alex, so I know I could talk to that guy about at least two things if we ever met.

Watching somebody dominate Jeopardy like these folks do is like watching a World Series where one team wins every game by 10 runs. Exciting if you like that time, but boring if you're a fan of competition.

er, like that team.

his level of gamesmanship was SO HIGH; he knew to stall when he was ahead and rush answers when he was looking for the daily doubles so that he could maintain a pace that felt a little too rushed but clearly fell in his comfort zone.

this is otm, the episodes immediately after his run felt like amateur hour even though they were average, run-of-the-mill jeopardy matches.

I'm not really watching Jeopardy for the competition though. I mean if anything I am competing with the players.

I don't think other sports are exactly comparable, but I'm certainly not unhappy watching a pitcher dominate every start (unless that pitcher is Roger Clemens fuck that sweaty stubbly dickhead).

well there has to be some consideration for the best players under the 5-day limit regime and when the clues were all worth 1/2 less money.

just like from the ultimate tourney of champs and the decades stunt tourneys there've been a lot of really skilled players that its easy to forget abt when someone looks that dominant for a quick stretch

When somebody like Maddux or Pedro or Arrieta are on an all-time run the games can still be close depending on how the other players do. I guess it'd be more comparable to individual sports like tennis or golf, and I wonder how much precedent there is for an athlete in one of those sports to not just win a bunch in a row but completely blow the opponents out for a dozen straight events.

I think it's safe to say that Jackson is one of the best Jeopardy players ever. How he ranks exactly against Frank Spangenberg is really immaterial and basically immeasurable.

xp it's pretty rare for a single individual to do it (Woods and Federer are closest recent examples, in tennis there are usually either a couple of dudes or player has at least one weaker surface) but I don't think most people think it's boring when it happens.

no idea why you think i'm picking a fight with you about a conversation topic that feels utterly self evident and couldn't have been less aggressively phrased but if it makes you happy

― a llove spat over a llama-keeper (forksclovetofu), Thursday, October 29, 2015 3:13 PM (17 minutes ago)

a lot of the backlash to arthur was racially motivated, though he was a lot more charismatic than matt. matt's not really comparable to arthur at all other than they both won a lot

i don't think i'd argue those points... but the fact that they won a lot is exactly what we ARE talking about!

The way Chu was chewed up online certainly makes me wary about the emphasis on Jackson's weirdness as opposed to his near-unrivaled dominance in games

Chu also seemed (and continues) to connect as a personality through social media in a more calculated and opinionated way. I dunno if Jackson even has a twitter account?

it's a bummer to me that Matt didn't have a mainstream Linsanity moment but i guess i overvalue jeopardy's culture share

chu's "weirdness" was tied into a stereotype of asian americans tho. idk what race has to do with the perception of matt's weirdness

he didn't (to me at least) immediately code as clearly black or white or indian or whatever and i daresay that offers greater ease to casually cast him as "other" and weird and social outlier.
he wasn't doing himself any favors but in the end it felt really clear to me that his mannerisms were at least partially gamesmanship and it worked!
in any case, the stress on the race point (which I continue to hold as valid) is not necessarily more important than potential ageism in terms of perception; it just apparently rubbed somebody on thread the wrong way.
i don't really wanna talk about intersectionality all day; it just rubbed me the wrong way that there was a dogpile to stress what a freak this kid is when what really sets him apart was how truly fucking amazing he is at playing the game.

"dogpile to stress what a freak this kid is"

seems like you pulling rhetorical bullshit might be the problem here forks, what do you think?

"He kind of weirded me out at first"

"he's a total weirdo"

"v creepy"

yes, that's exactly what you described.

RS, is this line of argument in character? I'm pretty sure i never really noticed you on any other thread except as a background voice so i don't know if i touched a nerve or this is just par for the course and i should ignore you. Please advise.

i guess i am enough in the background that you haven't roped me in with your weird smears in the past? maybe just stop being a dickhead and we can all go back to being buddies.

the episodes immediately after his run felt like amateur hour even though they were average, run-of-the-mill jeopardy matches.

Yeah totally, I remember thinking they seemed really bland but one of them had all three contestants with $10,000+ going into final which is usually a pretty good game.

I'd have felt bad being the person to beat Jackson or Chu or whoever, just knowing you happened to catch them in some fluke off-moment when they are obviously so much better at it than most people and you'd probably lost the next episode anyway.

xp I consider myself advised.

The guy who bumped off Matt seemed genuinely surprised. I seem to recall no one got the final jeopardy question right?
There were at least three of the Jackson episodes where the people playing against him had really solid games but still couldn't climb the mountain. It's a fluke-y game!

I wonder how much precedent there is for an athlete in one of those sports to not just win a bunch in a row but completely blow the opponents out for a dozen straight events.

ronda rousey

usain bolt

Tyson, too, I guess.

If Matt Jackson's Jeopardy dominance resulted in 13 second episodes, I'd be cooler with him.

Anyone who's done high school quiz bowl has met dozens of guys with Matt Jackson's playing personality/style. It was actually kind of refreshing to see the play-to-destroy strategy on the usually more congenial Jeopardy stage!

i mean, that level of intensity is what you find in any quiz bowl match, including the quasi-oppositional stance to the person reading the questions. Given that this guy is basically a college quiz bowl legend, it's not surprising that he plays like that.

He was much better than the polo shirt wearing grad student / stand up comedian guy who won a couple of days a few shows after Matt left, I wanted to punch that guy all the time.

― joygoat, Thursday, October 29, 2015 12:54 PM (5 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

if this guy stayed on any longer, one of his interview anecdotes was bound to be a murder he committed imo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9g3--WYH8SY

the girl with the broken arm came into her second match with a "did i just win jeopardy?" face and that's never a good sign

"Groan"

Right? He downplayed a lot of his standard hypermasculine gamesmanship, definitely had a different level of respect for the competition. That's the first time I saw him miss two out of three daily doubles and he was still a beast. Betting $2 on final was a REALLY ballsy move.

Surprised to learn this thread wasn't about Ken Jennings' current joke controversy re: the Star Wars fan who died. (Which I thought was both cruel and kind of amusing, if hacky). Still can't believe he got away with "Nothing sadder than a hot person in a wheelchair.” (Which I didn't even think was a joke, but I certainly thought he was both ballsy and an asshole to not backtrack on at all).
He seems to have lots of pals in the comedy world who have his back a lot.

Tournament finals should be a blast. Rooting for Alex Jacob personally but would be happy with any of them winning.

Alex with the "ALEVE" punchline to the final answer yesterday was some grade A jeopardy comedy

Matt Jackson's jazz hands while answering "What is Cabaret?" tonight was all kinds of adorable.

alex came in with a specific strategy and it worked big time. poor matt looked broken.

what a game, definitely gasped at Alex risking 10k on that daily double and then pulling it out

Double or nothing TWICE! In retrospect, it's the one strategy that was going to work against a player that strong and the chips fell the way he needed them to. If Matt had gotten one of the doubles, it's an open question as to who would've won with a final jeopardy question that no one got right!
... i thought it was man in the iron mask too...

I guessed that too, but the Count of Monte Cristo shows up a lot on Jeopardy. From searching the J! archives, there have been over 50 clues about it in the past.

Just found out Alex used to be a champion poker player, so I guess he knows betting strategies well.

Always assumed The Count of Monte Cristo was a more famous novel than The Man in the Iron Mask. Maybe not in America?

Truly painful for me to learn that an FJ in the finals this season came down to The Count of Monte Cristo, a book I've read probably a dozen times since 9th grade. ;_; So it goes, so it goes!