Let me state here, as it may not be clear from what I wrote above, that I greatly admire Ken, and I like him as much as anyone can like a brief acquaintance. He is a smart and funny guy, and I just wish that I didn’t have to meet him under these circumstances. It’s pretty rough to realize that I could probably be a multiple-day J! champion now if only not for him.

I had a nasty shock during the first practice game; my four months’ of buzzer practice was useless. I had constructed a “buzzer” out of PVC pipe, a doorbell, and some electrical tape from the hardware store, and had been using it all summer for hand-eye-brain coordination practice while watching TiVo’d episodes of J!. My mock-up buzzer turned out to be a bit larger in diameter than the real one (about 3/4 to 7/8 of an inch), but not enough to make a significant difference. In fact, I had made three such mock-up buzzers of varying diameters, but felt that the 1-inch diameter one was closest to how big the real one felt in my hand. My suspicion was that Ken did not rely on the lighting system that indicates when you can buzz in, and instead simply timed his response to the established pattern of brief delay once Alex Trebek is finished with a clue. Ken basically admitted this on some TV interviews, and I thought it could work for me too. In groups of three we all went onstage and played about half a round of Jeopardy per group. Beforehand, I asked whether the person controlling the signal lights would be the same as during the real games, and we were told that it would be the same person. This seemed to be good news, because my strategy was based on getting the timing correct. But when I tried to employ my practiced short-delay-pattern-approach, I flailed miserably. The contestant coordinators try to give you tips if you are struggling, and although I can not fault them for doing this, I just found it annoying. I was trying to vary my style in a systematic manner, but I kept being told to do it in one particular way that I wasn’t convinced was the best. I was hoping to ring in first on ~50% of the clues, but was getting more like 15%. More often than not, I buzzed in too early and locked myself out.

On my second practice game, however, I tried to see what would happen if I just waited for the lights and tried to press the buzzer as fast as possible. The wait-for-the-light-but-respond-quickly approach worked much better for me, and I was first to buzz in on well over half of the clues. The stage manager actually asked me to put the buzzer down and let the other contestants have a chance, which made me feel much better. I was still worried, though, because my two mock opponents in this practice game were women, and were probably slower on the buzzer than Ken would be. Call me sexist if you like, but it is my studied opinion that, in general, female J! contestants are either slower on the buzzer, less likely to ring in if they are not very sure of their response, or both. I still didn’t know if waiting for the lights would work against Ken, but I didn’t seem to have a choice, as the other method wasn’t working for me. One of the female contestants I had not practiced against was doing a great job in the practice game, and I was afraid they might put us both up together.

We went back to the green room, where Maggie Speak asked to hear our “Hometown Howdies” since she hadn’t been present when we did them earlier. Maggie had given us a sample Howdy earlier that included the word "***", so I thought that mine would pass muster. Unfortunately, she nixed that idea, and asked that I use the word “butt” instead: I guess I can live with that. Maggie then said she was going to announce the first two contestants to go up against Ken. I jokingly offered to make a wager that would be up first, but there was no time to complete a bet before she announced it was me and Beth. Oh ****! Which one is Beth?! Was she the stronger female contestant or not? I hadn’t paid enough attention to their names. Oh ****.

Whew! Beth was not the person I feared it was. Beth was the cute recent college graduate with multiple piercings, who said she hadn’t studied and wanted to get a stuffed animal in her picture with Alex. To be fair, it wasn’t her stuffed animal. Her roommate was a 3rd grade teacher, and this was their class mascot. We picked our positions randomly and I got podium #2. I hadn’t really thought beforehand about which podium I would like, but this one at least gave me the ability to talk equally with both opponents during the breaks.

We walked out to the stage and assumed our positions. I noticed with surprise that the audience seating was only about 60-65% full. I expected a maximum capacity crowd interested in finding out whether Ken was still champion. The stage crew briefly debated who would stand on lifts behind the podiums (podia?) and who would not. They decided that Beth and I would both stand on 3-inch lifts while Ken would stay on the floor. We were all roughly the same height without the lifts (OK…I’m about 2 inches shorter than Ken), so I’m not sure how they made this decision. In retrospect, though, it felt better to be standing a bit taller than Ken than it would to have been shorter than him. We then taped our “Hometown Howdies”. The TV market that Beth was from apparently only allows the contestants to state their name, city of origin, and ask the viewer to watch them on JEOPARDY! It really sucks that people from such TV markets don’t get a chance to say something more interesting. When I did my “Howdy”, I stumbled a bit over the phrasing and said, “Hi! I’m Jeff Suchard from Orange County, California, and I brought along my ‘Thumb of Doom’. Someone is going to get their butt kicked on JEOPARDY! today… Watch…and see if it is me or Ken.” I wondered whether they would make me do a re-take, but it apparently came across well enough. The audience cheered, and that was the main purpose anyway; pump up my ego, and possibly ruffle Ken’s feathers a bit.

The categories were revealed, and I liked the first one (Science & Nature), hated the second one (Sports Venues), and didn’t have strong opinions about the rest. The last category was “Got Milk?”. As soon as I could, I started picking the Science clues, trying to build up cash before searching for the Daily Double. I felt it was key to keep the Daily Doubles away from Ken, so that he couldn’t set up a runaway game. Assuming that I couldn’t outscore Ken, I could at least keep within striking range. I found that it wasn’t particularly difficult to ring in first using the wait-for-the-light method. Sure, several times I was beaten to the buzzer anyway, but I was able to ring in first on at least half of the clues I tried to. The $800 clue in Science, however, was mine and was a Daily Double. I had less than $1000 at the time, but bet the maximum allowed. I wasn’t going to get any better opportunity than this; too bad it came so early. The clue asked about something specific that causes mutations. Obviously there are many types of mutagens and sources of ionizing radiation. I did not see any additional sub-clue that would focus my answer, such as mentioning radon, Roentgen, etc. I responded with, “What are radioactive elements?”, hoping that if the expected response turned out to be one of any number of radioactive elements, Alex would ask me to get more specific, indirectly giving me more time to examine the clue. The correct response was X-rays. I don’t even recall what happened next, but I must have gotten several more questions correct. At the first commercial break I was in the lead with $2400, while Ken had $1200.

During the breaks the contestants face away from the board. The contestant coordinators and some stage crew come out with water and try to keep you entertained while you wait. This first break went pretty long, since the judges were apparently checking a response regarding condensed vs. evaporated milk (from the “Got Milk? category. Ken had given the incorrect response, and Beth got it on the rebound. I knew it from the get-go, but wasn’t able to ring in first either time. Damn this faulty “Thumb of Doom”!). Since the judges were taking so long, I suggested to Maggie that they might want to review my Daily Double response, since X-ray machines all have a source that contains radioactive elements. I didn’t think there was a great chance they would credit me with a correct answer, but it doesn’t hurt to try and there is at least some possibility they would go for it. So we all waited and talked about movies we had seen and which ones were worth seeing. I was pleased that there were no obviously entertainment-related categories on the board, because Ken would clean up on those. While I have very good rapid recall ability for most things, my brain just doesn’t work very fast in coming up with people’s names. I suggested that an entertainment-related category I would like to see would be “Intracardiac Drug Injections in the Movies”. Maggie thought this was very obscure, but Ken rapidly came up with, “What is ‘Pulp Fiction’? [John Travolta injects epinephrine into Uma Thurman’s heart in one scene]”, and I added, “What is ‘The Rock’? [the Nicholas Cage film that features an intracardiac atropine injection to counteract the effects of VX nerve agent]”.

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