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Ken Jennings Gets a New Challenge
insomniakxz writes "Producers of Jeopardy announced Tuesday a "Super Tournament," which will pit Jennings in a final match against two survivors of a competition between nearly 150 past five-time winners with a prize of $2 million. Host Alex Trebek called the tournament the "quest for Ken.""
He not only knows just about everything, but he's also remarkably good at putting together the pieces and figuring out a tough question that he didn't already know.
I remember one question "After several decades off it, works by this man seen here have returned to The New York Times bestsellers list in 2003"
He didn't recognize the picture at all, but figured it might be Tolkein given the LOTR craze (nobody else got it). That's damn quick thinking, and he answers a lot of questions that way, i.e. without knowing the answer beforehand - he works through trivia questions the way you'd work a math problem. Most jeopardy players rely solely on their memory banks, and that's how he beats them.
does anyone think another contestant has a chance?
I do. If Ken had been on the show in an earlier year he would have left after his 5 day run and few people would know who he is. The question is how many people like him did come in earlier years, had their 5 day run, and left without much press or fanfare? My guess is at least one. Maybe he is the best player the show has ever had, but that would be pretty coincidental for the best player ever to come on shortly after they did away with the 5-day elimination rule.
Even if he is the best ever, he has gotten a number of Final Jeopardy questions wrong. Typically when that happened he had double the money of second place contestant so it didn't matter. It seems unlikely he'll be in that position in the tournament, so as to the question of whether anyone else has a chance then the answer is yes, even if Ken is the best ever, for the simple reason that he might miss the Final Jeopardy question.