“Stupid?

Here’s what I think.

You have to understand that most of the people who play on
Jeopardy! (and try to keep your nasty remarks to a minimum
here, please!) are not like other people. We absorb
information, we give it out under any circumstances, we get
called know-it-alls, geeks, squares. Nobody will play anything except games of chance with us. No Trivial Pursuit, no Scrabble, no Boggle, nothing fun.

You have no idea how great it is to find yourself in the
contestant’s room with 15 other people who are a whole lot
like you. More than you’ve ever seen in one place! And you form almost instant friendships because for once in your life you’re with people who aren’t afraid of you but
embarrassed to admit it, who *like* being like this. And in some cosmic irony, you have to compete with each other.

I think it’s obvious that the two $8,000 guys did just what
you’re supposed to do – the maximum. And the leader – he
did it on purpose, because he didn’t want to beat those
guys.

Not stupid at all. Lovable.

And I didn’t think it was such a bad question!”

So now you have the rest of the story!!!!!!!

The critics have no humanity. Or is it sense of humor?

http://edition.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/TV/03/19/tv.jeopardy.three.way.ap/

And why not, its not like he’s gonna beat that Jennings guys record, he may as well make it onto the books that way.

But yeah, the 4-eyes with the big nose knew he could win betting over $2400.

Don’t make fun of the way he looks. His hands are seriously deformed, probably birth defects.

So you do the arithmetic and forget a dollar. Doesn’t make him stupid, just maybe a little absent minded. He’s a serious geek. He proposed to his wife via a puzzle he submitted to a puzzle solving mailing list they were both on.

Or, like others said, this was intentional to keep his competition week. It certainly raises his profile, maybe not as much as Ken Jennings, but more than the avg Jeopardy champ.

My cousin was on the show. He says it’s all about the button. That and remembering to phrase the answer as a question.

My Jeopardy fantasy is to get the answer, what are the first three words in the bible, and give the question, “What is b’reisheet bara elokim?” And then argue with the judges that the original Hebrew is the correct answer.

BTW, there was a faulty question the other day. I can’t remember it but the “correct” answer was wrong.

that guy was an idiot for not better a dollar more then the max, that was stupid!

Defector01 on March 19, 2007 at 1:32 AM

that guy was smart to keep it a 3-way tie…he knew exactly who his competition was going to be, and obviously felt comfortable with them!

- The Cat

Years ago, I used to have a bit of fun with my coworkers when we would watch Jeopardy together during our lunchbreak. I knew that during football season, KGO would delay Monday’s show, so I watch Monday’s program at home on another of the local channel and then rewatch the same show with my friends the next day on KGO. Of course I would get every question correct and just smile as their jaws dropped in utter amazement. Yes, I did fess up after a couple of months. But I did have them wondering for awhile why I wasn’t on the show.

While in LA, I used to enjoy going to Jeopardy tapings quite often. One time, I was seated next to two ladies, one of whom could not refrain from answering aloud. Of course this disrupted the taping and Alex had to stop the show three times! to admonish the audience, first generally, then pointedly addressing the woman specifically. She finally realized that she simply could not help herself and with profuse apologies had to leave.
It so happened that after each block of taping, the show would have a drawing for a tv to give the audience members. Yep, you guessed it. Hers was the winning ticket. And I still kick myself for not having the presence of mind to ask her for her ticket as she left. And she’ll never know what her mouth cost her, besides the public embarrassment, of course.

Only one person in 25 million would be smart enough to build a lead going into Final Jeopardy, smart enough to calculate how much he had to bet to tie his opponents if they both doubled their totals — and then stupid enough not to add a dollar to that amount. pure gold! :)

It’s how good you are with the buzzer.

Just ask Ken Jennings. He’s a smart guy, but when the other two contestants have to figure out the timing and you’ve been doing it all week– you have a built in advantage.

I always wanted to get on Jeopardy! and not bet one dollar over the next person. Why not? That way everybody wins, or at least everybody with the same dollar total.

Besides, wagering so you beat the next person by a dollar is kind of a sh!tty thing to do. “Ha ha! I beat you by a dollar, LOSER!”

If you were playing chess or checkers where the strategy or battlefield doesn’t really change, going for a tie might be a wise move. Here it’s not.

I’ve thought for years that you should always plan to tie, since you’ve proven that you’ve beaten those two players already (a “known known”) but you have no idea whether you will beat the next two players (a “known unknown”).

Maybe you need to be a sole winner to qualify for Tournament of Champions? (That would be an ‘Unknown Unknown” – kudos to Rumsfeld for the game-theory terms.)