Ping Jeopardy! fans
 

For those who watch Jeopardy! (or anyone, really) we now have an 11-day champion who is doing pretty well. David Madden, an American student who lives in Berlin, narrowly won last night after trailing leading into the final jeopardy question, when the leader missed it because she gave a technically incorrect answer, using a colloquial name for the "Ode to Joy" rather than referencing Beethoven's entire ninth symphony.

In any event - David has been tough, but perhaps not overpowering. He also has a completely empty personality, in my judgment, making him a guy I now root against.

If you're inclined to watch the show... I guess this makes things more interesting.


(sorry - bumped an old thread in the archives withmy first posting of this)

We also are rooting against him... He comes off very high on himself unlike Ken who was more humble.

I missed last night's show, but saw that he had made it up to 10 days. My daughter still regularly asks when Ken will be on again.

Strange coming from you. :)

Sorry, couldn't resist the potshot.

He is an ugly, smug little prick. I really wish that the jerkwad would stop making faces while Alex is talking. And Ellyn came SO CLOSE last night!!

/tk

Classy.

Awwwwww...just kidding, as denoted by the smiley!

First rule is don't f*ck with the Jeopardy threads.

Second rule is DON'T FUCK WITH THE JEOPARDY THREADS.

First rule is you must answer in the form of a question.

As in "who is the American living in Germany who somehow manages to keep winning despite emulating a Star Wars character's spastic movements when hitting the response button?"

I am fascinated by the intensity of the hatred of certain Jeopardy champions.

He's an excellent player, whose knowledge of current events, geography, and history runs very deep. But I think he's a very beatable champ, as we almost saw last night, for the following reasons:

1. Buzzer control. For a player who has played a dozen games, his command of the buzzer is beyond pitiful. Most 200 & 400 questions are won by players with the best reflexes, and a strong player should win over 50% of those. I'd be surprised if he even won his fair share of 33% of the tossups.

2. DD Strategy. He seems to be loosening up a bit with this, but his strategy seems to be find the DDs early in the round, and bet small. This may be a response to the fact that Ken Jennings' one weakness was his overbetting on DDs, I don't know. What it does mean is that he's had a lot of razor-thin runaways, games where he's catchable in FJ, and a low rate of money per win.

3. Pop culture / Wordplay categories. His knowledge in these categories seems to simply be not up to snuff, and it could catch up with him eventually.

Still, he's a very good player, I'm just surprised that he's lasted this long.

People get jealous when somebody else is smarter, richer, and more famous than they are.

Especially when that fame comes solely from an appearance on a syndicated game show.

Tough crowd in here. Me take me rock back to dum threds.

You know, I didn't hate Ken Jennings. I was impressed by him; not only by his Jeopardy prowess, but also by his genial character. He seemed to be a very likable guy, and I give him major props for everything he did.

This David guy. Arrogant prick if I've ever seen one. And what is up with those faces he makes?!?!?!

/tk

I don't hate him. His knowledge is remarkable, really. Jeopady is all about buzzing in, and his spastic hand-waving costs him a lot of time.

If he were up against Ken Jennings (who buzzed in on anything he thought he *might* figure out in five seconds), he'd never get the chance to answer a question.

My wife and two of her female friend hate him as well. He seems okay to me. I actually root for him just to annoy the wife. :)

Nice QuikSand parody! :)

yes yes, very well done.

Thanks. ;)