Has James Holzhauer broken "Jeopardy!"?

I seriously doubt Jeopardy will go broke from a contestant if they pay Alex Trebek $10 million a year to host the show.

 

A guy I went to high school with appeared on that show about 5 years ago. He won one game.

I hadn't seen him in close to 30 years, but he looked the same (he had been balding in high school, so his hair/head didn't look that much different). I immediately recognized him when his name was announced (and the town he was from).

 

WRT to what I have bolded above -- do you mean this in terms of being smart and knowing the stuff, or do you mean some kind of rigging? I suspect it's because they are smart, but I don't want to put words in your mouth. I don't think rigging can occur -- at least not too easily -- because I think the Feds put some really strict rules in place after the 1950s game show scandals.

I have noticed many times that almost all people seem to know many of the answers, but have problems with the buzzer timing.
I've often thought about trying out for the show, but my knowledge base is too narrow and specific. Usually when it happens where I know the answer, but none of the contestants do, it's in a subject area that I've been interested in for decades.
At 50+. my reflexes aren't as good now as they used to be (in regards to buzzer timing). I've noticed that with many older contestants (relative to the younger ones).
My wife tried to get on the show some 20+ years ago (before I met her) --- to even get to the point where you could be chosen, you have to demonstrate some smarts.

 

It’s intelligence that gets you on the show. The thing this guy has over any other contest is his ability to time his buzzer to Trebek’s cadence of speech. He knows exactly when to buzz in, is fast, and knows a crap ton of trivia. Plus, plays with no fear.

He’s going to be difficult to beat.

 

A girl I worked with for 4 years about 7-10 years ago was a big fan of Jeopardy and never missed a show. After work sometimes, a group of us would go out to grab a bite to eat and have a drink and every time she went with us, she would leave early and always stated that she wanted to be home before Jeopardy came on. Well, a couple years ago, I was watching Jeopardy and she was a contestant. She won her first night (beating the previous night's winner,) but on her second night, she lost. On the local news that night, they even mentioned her being on the show (my local news always announces when someone local is on one of the Game Shows.) Every single contestant gets their picture taken with Alex Trebek, I guess as a memento. She posted the photo on her facebook page profile after the show aired. The day of her first show, she posted for people to watch but didn't give any details on what happened. I guess they have to sign a document as not to disclose the outcomes of shows until after they air.

 

Yes I have heard that also from news reports of local contestants from my area. I'm from DC area, there are a lot of contestants from around here.

 

Yup, I read something Jennings said about how, because they tape multiple shows/day, if you're on a winning streak, it really helps you. You come in with confidence and gun for the high dollar categories first, while the nervous newbies are just getting the butterflies settled. Then, by the time they're getting comfortable, all the big $$ is gone and he has a runaway lead. At that point, I wouldn't be surprised if he's just hitting the button automatically, before the clues are even read. If you can solve 19th Century Inventors (or whatever) for $1000 in a split-second, how often are you gonna not know the $200/$400 answers?

 

I have heard from several sources that you can't ring in until Alex has completely read the clue (it's set up that way). If you try to ring in too early, you are shut out for a certain amount of time (I heard 0.25 seconds, but someone told me that verbally -- I'm not sure if 0.25 seconds is right, but you get the idea). The delay is long enough to allow someone else to ring in before you have the chance to ring in again.

So what that means is that Mr. Holzhauer has the buzzer timing, at the end of the reading of each clue, down cold. I wonder -- do the newbies get any practice with this before the taping starts?

If you watch shows from this show's first season (1983-84), you will see that contestants were allowed to ring in and interrupt Alex as he was reading the clue. Contestants read the clue and figured out the answer before Alex finished, and rang in. Very annoying to watch. That was changed rather early, I think.

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I only remember watching a couple shows of the earlier version of Jeopardy with Art Fleming as host, which was on at various times from about 1964 to 1979. I don't know how the ring-in process worked then.

 

A game like this, has to be fun to watch along with, moreso than just playing. No matter how much money is on the line, we have to remember, the real money always has to be the ad revenue generated by a critical mass of people at home, with their brains at least minimally engaged. If your off-shift husband can't get one or two before the buzzer sounds while he's digging-into his pot pie, Marge has no reason to tune it in, especially if she'd rather be watching Entertainment Tonite anyways.

 

You are correct!
Jeopardy's buzzer is totally diabolical, and here's why

I guess I phrased my post incorrectly. I was meaning to say that perhaps the current champ tries to win the "buzzer battle" before even determining if he knows all the answers to the lesser dollar value clues. I'm sure he's got the confidence to figure out the answer after buzzing on those...

 

Smart, not rigged. They get the contestants via regional competitions from a huge pool of people trying to get onto the show, and by the time you're actually on the show you're in the top less than 1% of people can play the game.

It really is down to buzzer skills and betting.

 

I bet he’d beat Jennings if they squared off. I’d like to see him play Watson like they did with Jennings once. That’d be interesting.

 

For years I've been watching most people play the categories in order from top to bottom - 200; 400; 600, etc. It gets very boring and stale seeing that over and over. I'm glad that he's playing this way - it's a nice variety to see a different method once in a while. This kind of strategy does seem to happen a bit more often now than it ever used to.

Up thread it was mentioned maybe they'd make a rule change - I hope they don't. If a contestant wants to go Daily Double hunting from the start they should be allowed to do so. I can't see how they can change the current rules to make it fair - unless it's something like "play in order until the last minute" - but even then if you can't get control it wouldn't be fair for everybody.

 

One thing that does happen is that someone will buzz in even if not sure of the answer --- with the hope they will figure out the answer before the "answering time" expires. The idea is to keep others from buzzing in and getting that money.

 

I agree.

However, I think they should put more Daily Doubles under the lowest valued clue in each round ($100 for first round; $200 for second round). I have seen that happen but very rarely. That would frustrate the Daily Double "hunters" who hunt for it under every clue but the lowest valued ones.

Having Daily Doubles always under higher-valued clues is probably an outgrowth of the thinking that contestants would go down the category from top to bottom. Which isn't always the case now, and is why they should mix it up.

 

As mentioned earlier (but with less specifics than what follows), my wife was in a regional competition in Atlantic City NJ in the '90s.

 

One important part of any game show is giving the viewer at home the opportunity feel smarter than the people on the show. In this case, knowing the answer before the contestants on the show are allowed to buzz in.

I read an autobiography by one of the creators of Wheel of Fortune, and he said that was a deliberate part of the design of the game - having an incentive to delay the people on the show from guessing until the audience had already figured it out.

 

i doubt it, theyre getting a lot of attention/viewers with this, i don't think this will be the norm, its rare someone knows theyre the best and can play this ruthlessly, most are still gonna play more conservatively ....i think

 

Bad betting strategy:



Back on topic, I haven't watched this show in a long time, but reading this thread has me wanting to see this guy. I love when people are able to figure out the way to best these games. (Remember the guy who figured out the patterns on Press Your Luck?)

 

yep his buzzer skills are on point, he mustve studies tape.....these poor regular people don't have a chance

 

I don't think everyone is in the top 1%. Because of demographics. The show clearly favors a broader demographic than what pure testing would produce. Who Wants To Be A Millionaire found this out. Early on, it took a test to get on, and the contestants were 90% white males. Jeopardy! would be the same way. So once past the testing threshold, interview/demographics are a big part of it.

 

It's not that he's winning and winning big or his style of play or that his run seems unbeatable that bothers me. I've seen some previous contestants try the same strategy as his, but not succeed to this extent and I've wondered why others haven't tried something similar more consistently. And he's definitively smart and knowledgeable. But there's a personal quality about about him that is off-putting to me. Maybe it's just me.

 

I've heard in interviews that the key to winning is mastering the buzzer.

 

No he hasn’t broken Jeopardy.
No it isn’t a conspiracy.
Yes this is the best thing to happen to Jeopardy since Ken Jennings.
Yes everybody is beatable.
Yes the moon landings were real.

GET WELL ALEX!

 

Tell him no more.. for now.. it's there show they can kick him off..