ABC to air Jeopardy GOAT tournament

[clemon79]

The vibe I get is that Brad didn't do _nearly_ as much homework as the other two leading into this. (And, really, four and a half million bucks later, why should he - it would almost look bad if he walked in and won *this* one too.) Ken worked on his buzzer timings (and studied up on Basic Jeopardy Facts) and James is the freshest of the three in terms of game experience.

The DDs are going to continue to be hit early, for the most part, by necessity, as everyone realizes that James is going to aggressively fish for them and the only counterattack for that is to fish yourself to keep them away from him. Anyone whose game depends on a big DD swing is going to have problems.

[BrandonFG]

I'll add to this that Brad has had the "unfortunate" luck of hitting these DDs very early in the rounds as well. The entire tournament may have changed if Brad hit these DDs later on in the matches, and of course, got them right.

This doesn't really add to the point, but I noticed on a couple of occasions, the Daily Double was the first clue selected in the Double Jeopardy! round, with the second being found a few clues later. Obviously coincidence, but a very odd one, IMO.

[clemon79]

This doesn't really add to the point, but I noticed on a couple of occasions, the Daily Double was the first clue selected in the Double Jeopardy! round, with the second being found a few clues later. Obviously coincidence, but a very odd one, IMO.

That said, the odds of it happening go way up when it's virtually guaranteed that the first twelve clues of the round are the bottom two rows of the board.

[weaklink75]

Robert Mills announced on his twitter that they’re going to rerun the first 3 eps this Saturday (8-11 EST) if you missed them or aren’t interested in the Ravens/Titans game...

https://twitter.com/millsy11374/status/1215729189833232384?s=21

[BrandonFG]

Meanwhile, the tournament's ratings increased every night, and each airing outperformed Games 1 of last year's NBA Finals, Stanley Cup, and World Series. Granted, the first two aired in June, so they might get a bit of a free pass.

[nowhammies10]

Methinks because ABC's programmers know the results already and have done this moving around to keep the buzz around the show lasting through the weekend and into next Tuesday, Ken takes it in 4.

[Sodboy13]

Regarding Brad's performance: I wrote this on another board after Wednesday's match.
- - - - -
I don't want to lapse into a Ringer longform here, but Brad Rutter's performance in these first two matches really showcases the fragile and ephemeral nature of peak human ability. This is a guy who has won dang near $5 million playing Jeopardy, beating all comers repeatedly, save for a computer specifically designed to beat him. Going into the tourney, I had him taking it in 4 or 5. He's basically the same age I am, and clearly in better physical shape than I am. But, just like when you see it with a veteran athlete, it seems like he longer has the ability to hit that highest gear, both with his brain and with his twitch reflexes on the buzzer. Jennings and Holzhauer are blowing him away - Rutter finished last night's second game with a score you really don't see outside of Celebrity Jeopardy.

I have no doubt Brad could still walk into your local upper-tier pub quiz and pants everybody, and he could likely roll off a string of wins against the standard pool of everyday Jeopardy contestants. But that ability to win at the highest level just seems gone, and I don't know if it's possible to get that back once that fades. It's given some added weight to how I feel about not nailing as many answers on the show as I think I should, or the gradual but consistent increase in my forgetting of things I need to find or do.

[TLEberle]

I don't know how long before airing the All-Stars event was recorded and I didn't track Brad's statistics specifically but I recall his team won in more or less a route. Easy win in the semi-finals and a fairly easy romp to victory in the final as well. Whatever degradation happened either was masked by his teammates or non-existent until after that.

[nowhammies10]

I don't know how long before airing the All-Stars event was recorded and I didn't track Brad's statistics specifically but I recall his team won in more or less a route.

The teams for the All-Star Games were chosen in September '18, taped in January '19 and aired that February.  GOAT taped in early December.

[Fedya]

This is a guy who has won dang near $5 million playing Jeopardy, beating all comers repeatedly,

To be fair, Ken Jennings would have won the Decades tournament had he gotten the second FJ right, so that tournament certainly wasn't a rout.

[Kevin Prather]

This is a guy who has won dang near $5 million playing Jeopardy, beating all comers repeatedly,

To be fair, Ken Jennings would have won the Decades tournament had he gotten the second FJ right, so that tournament certainly wasn't a rout.

Brad was also one clue away from not getting out of the first round.

[chargeradiocom]

I was having a conversation with a family member who’s watched part of the tournament but is normally a casual J! viewer at best. Of Brad, she said, “He’s really not as impressive as the other two.” I briefly ran through his credentials & why he deserves to be there. She said, “So he’s just really not on his game.” I thought that was a fair assessment.

But I imagine there are a lot of people watching the GOAT who are normally only occasional J! viewers, who know Ken & James, but haven’t paid much attention to Brad. Considering he’s a lower-key pop culture figure than Ken or James, many of them probably don’t know his backstory (the on-air player profiles notwithstanding). And while they know he could kick their own tails in a trivia contest, they probably see him as being in over his head against Ken & James.

Of course, Brad has likely won enough J! money already that he doesn’t too much care what the rest of the country thinks.

[Joe Mello]

I would suggest that Brad's performance is both an outlier result but even still one that was probably going to happen at some point. Please correct me, but I only recall one instance where he utterly dominated a match (the UTOC finals), so most of my perception of him is that he is very very good but also able to catch the breaks you need when all other factors are equal. I do think James is a factor in that Holzhauer is on that tier above most other megachamps and having two opponents on that level may be too much for Brad to handle. Brad's still catching the breaks with Daily Doubles, but he's failed to capitalize for once. I think less yips and a lesser opponent would mean a less bad performance.

Also, I think there's some validity to the model mentioned in this actual Ringer longform that gave everyone a 30-some percent chance of winning. Failure was always an option, we just didn't expect an epic one.

/Unless you remember he's from the Philadelphia area, where epic failure is often the only option
//Except in Super Bowl LII

[PYLdude]

This is a guy who has won dang near $5 million playing Jeopardy, beating all comers repeatedly,

To be fair, Ken Jennings would have won the Decades tournament had he gotten the second FJ right, so that tournament certainly wasn't a rout.

Brad was also one clue away from not getting out of the first round.

And if you want to go unnecessarily further back, he almost got KO'd in the UTOC; he entered his second match in third place going into Final and needed Steve Chernicoff and Michael Rankins to go bust as well as get the answer right (which he did).

/met both Steve and Michael in Las Vegas two years ago...shook hands with both, nice couple of fellows
//also heard Steve drop an S bomb which I was surprised to hear...why I could never figure out

[Mr. Armadillo]

This doesn't really add to the point, but I noticed on a couple of occasions, the Daily Double was the first clue selected in the Double Jeopardy! round, with the second being found a few clues later. Obviously coincidence, but a very odd one, IMO.

That said, the odds of it happening go way up when it's virtually guaranteed that the first twelve clues of the round are the bottom two rows of the board.

Brad has hit a Daily Double on the first clue of Double Jeopardy in four of the six games.  And missed all four of them. 

On one hand, that's a lot of deep holes to climb out of...but on the other hand, he's also "earned" the first selection in Double Jeopardy all six games, so...yeah.