Jeopardy! Who is the GOAT?

Around here that would be considered a warm up question. That doesn't explain however why I yelled out "London Calling!" on the Clash question when the answer was clearly Combat Rock. Guess I was having a bad day.

 

The DD that Brad missed yesterday in the first round -- for which he answered Michael Faraday -- when the correct answer was James Clerk Maxwell --- the only reason I got that right prior to the answer being announced -- was due to my having a entire year of Maxwell's equations in a field theory course I took (as part of my electrical engineering major).

I don't know about the rest of you. For my part, I will say that -- I get a fair number of questions correct in the regular episodes. I got far fewer in this tournament. These were significantly harder questions.

On last night's show, I did get a couple of the "Math to Roman Numerals to Initials to People Names" questions correct (ahead of the show), but I had to do the "math equation answer to roman numeral" in my head immediately when the clue appeared on the screen, and then figure out who the person was who had those initials -- and even then I was lucky to get the answer before answer was given on the show -- Ken got most if not all of those questions right (with the exception of the "Courtney Love" answer), and he was getting those answers faster than I was, without breaking a sweat (or so it appeared).

Those are the categories I have the most problems with -- things like "before and after" but with three things to combine, not two.

 

Holy ****, I did that too!

 

That trophy should have had an actual goat on it!

 

I did too. Though I corrected myself before the question was answered. I had to save face in front of my wife.

 

I'm not surprised that he won.

 

the speed at which Ken was getting these sorts of questions really cemented him as something special in my mind. it wasn't the "buzz in and then figure it out" thing you often see with these questions. he put it all together right away.

this was a lot more fun than I expected, not only because these guys are legitimately pretty funny but also because James did not just run away with it the way I suspected he might. I think Ken's 74-game streak is arguably more impressive but I didn't think he'd be this good after such a long layoff. in his book & on his Twitter he's expressed doubts about returning to his peak after that long of a layoff. but he really is still that good. and I do think he'd make a good host. honestly I have no clue who the replacement host for Alex could even be - we don't really have "game show hosts" like we used to.

I'm also surprised that James missed the FJ but I can see how it happened. Ken has said that you need a wide breadth of knowledge but you don't really need to get too deep on any particular topic - the answers often are "the one you've heard of". basically, you need to know the stuff that would be on say, Wikipedia. James knew that Hamlet was Shakespeare's longest play so "Horatio" was a good guess.

 

I took a class in University called "The Shakespeare Tragedies: The madness we call love and the loss thereof" so I nailed Iago. Plus if you notice my name I got The Clash question no prob lol

 

Congrats to Ken Jennings, I think Ken may make a good host if that would be something he would want to do. Hopefully Alex will be around for awhile.

 

Can I put in a good word for Brad Rutter? Yes, a disappointing performance, but we all have had occasions where things did not go well and in front of other people. Brad had to deal with that on national tv - for a week. I probably could not have put up with that, not just civilly but with good humour and as good naturedly as he did.

 

I could for 250,000. Easily.

 

Sure, and I would think that most of us could easily. But to put it into financial context, considering Rutter has already made over $5 million on Jeopardy, $250,000 doesn't really amount to very much. For a guy who makes 50k to 100k, that's the equivalent of 2,500 to 5,000.

I just felt like doing a little math this morning is all.

 

If that word is “a-hole” then yes.

This wasn’t his first rodeo there cowboy. He was a 5 game winner. He had played in numerous Jeopardy! tournaments. And the so called biggest money winner of all time had his posterior handed to him on a silver platter. On Monday, after 4 rounds of Jeopardy! And two Final J’s, he had 1,400 points. 1,400!!! And this was due solely to the fact that he bet NOTHING in FJ of Game 2.

Everyone can have a bad game. But EIGHT bad games. No. Just no. He’s not even in the same universe as Jennings and Holzhauer.

I agree with @GodShifter, for $250k, I personally could have made it work.

However, for Rutter, this proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that he is nowhere near the greatest of all time, and he was thoroughly outmatched. And if it were mathematically possible, he would have a negative percentage claim on the Greatest of All Time. Furthermore, he embarrassed himself so bad, that he should never be allowed back in a Jeopardy! tournament again.

Good Riddance!

 

One strategy that Ken did in this tournament, which I also recall him doing on his long 74 show run in 2004, was to buzz in without necessarily knowing the answer, and then figure out and say the answer before the time ran out.

This would be very effective against other good players if you were good on the reflexes and could beat the others to buzz in at the appropriate time, as Ken seemed to be doing consistently. Of course, you would also have to be confident you could figure out the answer often enough to make the risk worth it. I do not remember any occasion during the four days when Ken rang in and then couldn't give some kind of answer before the time ran out. I do remember each of the other two do that at least once or twice, but that's all.

 

I don't remember the specifics of Game 2, but it might have been that Rutter was so far behind, it wouldn't have mattered what he bet in FJ (but that would only apply if it was a runaway [or close to a runaway], and I think that is the game that Holzhauer barely won, so I don't think that was the case). The other possibility is that he was betting on the others to miss (were the other two close in score, and so would have to bet high to defend against each other?).

I'm going to disagree about the previous poster's assessment of Rutter currently. Rutter is still pretty good, he'd beat the "tail" off of many people. Just not these two opponents, at this time. IIRC correctly, he DID win a tournament several years ago that included Jennings and others.

But the combo of Holzhauer and Jennings, plus his own admittance of not recalling everything and also possibly a slight loss of reflexes at his age, did him in. Even if he gotten all those DDs he missed, it probably wouldn't have changed anything in the long run.

 

Regardless, after this showing, he has no business being in any more "GOAT" Jeopardy contests. He might be able to slay an average opponent, but that wasn't the deal here and he looked really bad. He might be the number one money winner, but he was a huge loser in this tournament. No excuses.

 

The "GLOAT" ?

 

Agreed about the GOAT comment, if it is these three again. There are others who could easily fill that 3rd spot. I disagree if we're talking about a tournament group of 15, as they did a few years ago with these big champions -- and is what they do for the annual tournaments.

But please note I was addressing daca's earlier comment that said Brad shouldn't be in ANY future tournaments (that statement was not qualified by GOAT, and I am pretty sure that was on purpose -- to me, as I said in the preceding paragraph, it depends on how the tournament -- whether called GOAT or not -- is set up). I'm not convinced that many of the other possibilities for the 3rd spot (in this tournament that had only three players) would have fared much better -- but we'll probably never know.

 

It just looked to me like the other two, James and Ken, were locked and loaded. Brad looked like he didn't prepare at all for this tournament.

 

I remember watching some when both Ken and James were winning during their streak. I never saw the show when Brad was on it, but I see multiple comments(here and elsewhere) echoing your sentiments. He must have really been an arrogant jerk during his run. If that was the case, I'd imagine it does feel enjoyable to see someone get his hat handed to him for multiple days. I may need to see if I can find some old youtube clips of his previous run.

 

I noticed that James began doing much worse from the moment that he booed Green Bay after giving his answer to what body of water does Lambeau know and the Fox River empties into. From then on Ken beat him handily. I think of it as Curley Lambeau's curse.

 

I realize that Rutter was awful during this game, but some of you are really attacking him like he's actually a terrible player. Particularly @daca. Did he kick your dog?
Prior to this match, Rutter had beaten Jennings the previous 3 times they faced each other. And he had only ever lost a game to IBM Watson, never a human.

I think it was a probably a combination of overconfidence, unpreparedness, and perhaps having lost a step, but he was certainly awful in this match. And James and Ken were just en fuego throughout which added to Rutter embarrassing himself.

 

Yeah, the notion that Holzhauer threw the game or that it was rigged is just silly. There would be HUGE consequences for the producer if they rigged the game and it was discovered... why would they want to take that risk? And like you said, there is no plausible reason why anyone would throw the game. The most obvious indicator that it was not rigged though is the fact that the tournament only lasted four episodes. Given the huge ratings it was drawing, does anyone think that was the optimal outcome the producers of the show wanted? If it was rigged, it would have run the full seven episodes.