Prisoner of Trebekistan: A Decade in Jeopardy! (20 page)

STAND-UP COMICS

I attacked the category instantly, since I had personally worked with, opened for, or spilled something on at least a few dozen possible responses. The very first clue, in a coincidence I wouldn’t appreciate until writing this book, was this:

BEFORE 1997 SHE WAS BEST KNOWN FOR HER STANDUP, HER SITCOM & HER BOOK “MY POINT…AND I DO HAVE ONE”

I hadn’t met Jane yet, and won’t for a few more chapters, but at the very moment this clue was revealed, she had stopped naming carbonated beverages that rhyme with “Squeema” for a living. Instead, she was working as a writer on a particular TV sitcom.

Starring Ellen DeGeneres.

Everything really does connect to everything else.

I later realized that attacking
STAND-UP COMICS
(while possibly a good idea in general, especially if they use a guitar or a large box of props) was for me a tactical
Jeopardy!
mistake.

Many players dive straight into their strongest subject, hoping to run up a score before hitting a Daily Double, thinking this is the best way to maximize those opportunities. I know that’s what I was thinking, anyway. But I was also just trying to get comfortable, and thus reaching for the familiar, so the strategic explanation was really just a rationalization.

I had not yet realized that by attacking your weakest category immediately, you’ll probably get the hardest clues off the board with the least possible amount of money at stake. If there’s a Daily Double in the weak category, it will barely matter, while hitting it late puts you in a difficult betting situation. And if the Daily Double is in a stronger category, you’ll be more likely to hit it when it can do you the most good. If you hit this Daily Double late in the game, you’ll have significant control over the outcome.

I’m tempted to elevate something like “attack your weaknesses” to a step on the Eightfold Path, but it occurs to me that attacking your weaknesses is sort of what the Eightfold Path itself already does. And I have a real weakness for metastuff.

On the second clue, the librarian from Iowa actually beat me to the buzzer. However, when he made his first choice on the game board, his voice wavered, and his hand reached up to touch his face. This odd gesture of intense stress is the sort of thing any good poker player would recognize as a “tell.”

A few moments later he was actually working
up
the game board, not down, seeking the comfort of easier clues. He was very, very nervous.

So I probably owe the guy dessert, too.

During the first commercial break, I mentally played ahead again, letting my mind roam the category
THE OLD WEST
while making small talk with Glenn, Grant, and the twenty-three makeup commandos keeping my forehead de-shined. I continued thinking all the way through the contestant interviews, a habit that might account for the fact that I always wind up blithering, no matter what Alex asks.

This paid off moments later on the $300 clue:

CIBOLA, AS IN THE 7 CITIES OF CIBOLA, IS THE SPANISH WORD FOR THIS LARGE ANIMAL OF THE PLAINS

At the time, I spoke almost no Spanish, and so the only hint for me was this:

LARGE ANIMAL OF THE PLAINS

How many large animals actually roamed the plains of the Old West? There’s only one obvious response, of course: the buffalo. But that’s assuming there weren’t also vast herds of, I dunno, oversize something-elses following the Sioux back and forth. Normally I would have needed another second to double-think my response. I would have scanned my mental inventory of old movies for stray packs of rhinos, hippos, or giant albino squirrels roaming the Dakotas, buzzing in only after finding nothing
but
the buffalo. I would have been a second late.

But I’d been thinking ahead, and this had included a two-second replay of Kevin Costner stumbling around on his knees hollering
“Tatonka!”
in
Dances with Wolves.
This word had been crucial in the film as the single initial common ground between his character and the Lakota Sioux. So, buffalo had to be
the
large animal of the Plains.

What is the buffalo?

—forever cemented my intention to play ahead in every spare moment of any game.

At the first commercial, I had $3000 after responding to only six clues, again keeping my hand off the buzzer for roughly a third of the game so far.

The other two players, each of whom had buzzed in on expensive clues and missed, had $400 combined.

As the first round ended, this was the $500 clue in the category
“NUT”S TO YOU:

IT’S CONNECTICUT’S “SPICY” NICKNAME

I knew nothing about spices, and a few weeks earlier had known only about half of the state nicknames. Even given the letters
N-U-T
as part of the response, this would have been impossible for me.

But there had been a complete list of state nicknames in Chuck Forrest’s book, which I had just glued into my head with enough gratuitous action to fill Jerry Bruckheimer’s dreams for a decade.

What’s the nutmeg?
I responded, my mind flashing pictures of
Little Women,
giant scissors, and insurance adjusters trying to protect their groins.

The law student from New York and the librarian from Iowa, on the other hand, seemed to be well-adjusted people living normal lives.

They didn’t stand a chance.

In Double Jeopardy, my Festival of Chuck continued.

Who is Poseidon?
for $200.

Who is Ares?
for $800.

Who is Anubis?
for $1000.

Two grand in the first category, on three responses I couldn’t have guessed at just one month before. The first two were straight from Chuck’s book. Not bad for a twelve-dollar investment.

This particular clue would have been completely impossible a few weeks earlier:

THE TYBEE LIGHTHOUSE AT THE MOUTH OF THE SAVANNAH RIVER IS NAMED FOR THIS GEORGIA FOUNDER

But there I am on the tape, confidently banging in:
Who is Oglethorpe?
for $800.

To this day, I couldn’t tell you Oglethorpe’s first name. No idea. But I did have a clear mental picture of Ted Turner—a famous Georgian—founding a state as a good place to leer lustfully while getting drunk and throwing up. Georgia. Ogle. Throw-up.

Chuck’s book and a few others, my study of how memory works, and a gleeful mental shamelessness were providing about one-third of my entire score.

My good fortune continued as well. Thanks to one particularly unhinged romance, a couple of the clues in
PSYCHOLOGY
were entirely too familiar.

Suddenly, even my truly horrible experiences were popping up and proving themselves useful. I was starting to wonder if it was possible to screw up your own life so frequently and memorably, in so many different ways, that eventually you can only succeed on
Jeopardy!

That’s probably your call more than mine.

Still, keeping my hand
off
the Jeopardy Weapon was again the only way I could win. I had no idea whatsoever of the responses for a full one-third of the round. However, when I did ring in, state-dependent retrieval did its stuff: checking the tape, my light came on fourteen times out of eighteen attempts.

I didn’t know the exact numbers during the game, of course. But I do remember noticing that my light coming on wasn’t even surprising anymore.

As the game wound down, several clues were “triple stumpers,” leaving all three of us staring vacantly into the middle distance. This sort of Zombie Jeopardy slows down the game considerably. Rounds with multiple triple-stumpers often run out of time before all of the clues have been played.

Soon, only six clues were left on the board: four in
AROUND THE HORN
(about brass musical instruments) and two in
MOVIE BIOGRAPHIES.
I had $11700, the librarian had $5200, and the law student had $2500. I was nearing a second runaway, and it seemed that only a few of the remaining clues would be played.

But then I made yet another tactical error: I forgot to consider the remaining Daily Doubles. Both were still hidden somewhere on the board. It had not quite occurred to me to keep track.

However, since
Jeopardy!
never puts two Daily Doubles in the same column, there had to be one in
AROUND THE HORN,
and the other in
MOVIE BIOGRAPHIES.
To finish off the game, I only needed to take them out of play—just hunt around the bottom where Daily Doubles live, making small, safe bets—and the game was over. Since
MOVIE BIOGRAPHIES
only had two clues left, I had a fifty-fifty chance of finding a Daily Double immediately.

Instead, because we had played slowly already, I glanced up at the game board, saw the scores, and decided to try to run out the clock by playing cheaper clues. For just a moment—a period of perhaps three seconds in real time—I was no longer trying to win; I was trying not to lose.

Less than ten seconds later, the law student had control of the Daily Double in
AROUND THE HORN;
she would also have a fifty-fifty chance of finding the other on the very next clue.

Even as far behind as she was—she now had $2900—two correct responses could bring our scores roughly level, with just a few clues left. I had let my fear of losing control over the outcome lead directly to losing control over the outcome.

That’s so philosophically perfect I could just plotz.

And so, our next step on the Eightfold Path of Enlightened Jeopardy, one that quite plainly belongs at the end:

1. Obvious things may be worth noticing.

2. Remember the basics: the basics are what you remember.

3. Put your head where you can use it later.

4. Doing nothing is better than doing something really stupid.

5. Admit you don’t know squat as often as possible.

6. Everything connects to everything else.

7. You can often see only what you think you’ll see.

8. Just play each moment. Let go of outcome.

You’ve probably already noticed that most of these steps are applied over and over, and that my own successes and failures correlate generally with how closely they’re followed. This will continue.

I’ll only point it out occasionally, but it’s there all the time if you look.

You might have also noticed a few similarities between the Path of Enlightened Jeopardy and certain Eastern philosophies. Maybe by now you’re starting to think that’s what this book is really all about.

I refer you to step number seven.

Still, you might wonder if I’m covertly trying to share some ideas that extend beyond learning stuff and being a good quiz show contestant. Maybe I’m even planning to start a cult. Perhaps I hope someday to have a squadron of smooth-skinned young devotees mindlessly chanting inside my armed compound, while aging celebrities burn their infomercial money seeking my counsel during the moments I can spare between bribing politicians and taking unseemly advantage of pert new initiates. Before long, I’ll dissolve into hedonistic twilight, finally dying surrounded by people who adore me for all the wrong reasons, trading cheap constant pleasure for what could have been greatness.

Come to think of it, that sounds
fantastic.
I’ll get right on it.

On the other hand, it’s possible that useful ideas are inherently universal, and so of course there’s some resemblance. Similar bland counsel about being observant and modest might exist in books concerned with everything from hair care to jet repair. But that’s still not the explanation.