Like many Jeopardy contestants, I find that people love asking me about the experience. I, in turn, love talking about Jeopardy! A question nobody has ever asked me is “what’s it like to answer a clue?”
Why answer this unasked question? First of all, folks might find it interesting that something that looks so simple on TV is actually quite complicated. Secondly, for future contestants, I think that figuring out how to optimize each tiny aspect of the “clue loop” could help them perform at their best.
So let’s jump into my head, mid-game.
…And there I was…
One of my competitors got the last clue, so they’re picking the next one. As they say the category and dollar number, immediately, I start scanning the gameboard for the location of the next clue1. Why? Because the text of the clue appears in the spot in the gameboard grid where the dollar amount was2.
As soon as the text appears, I scan it, trying to come up with an answer as quickly as possible. Thank goodness I’m farsighted, because the text is kind of small. As much as possible, I want to block out what Ken is saying so that I’m totally focused on figuring out the answer.
I should mention at this point that using my brain in the studio is not at all like using my brain at home. While I’ve never felt panicked onstage, it does have a huge impact. And big money is on the line. When I’m up there, it feels like I’m down by a fraction of my normal brainpower3.
If it’s a long clue, before Ken is done reading, I need to make my decision of whether to try to buzz in or not. I may not have figured out the answer yet, so I have to decide whether I want to try to win the buzz so that I get another 5 seconds to figure it out. If it’s a short clue, like a wordplay one, I have to decide to buzz on gut feeling. The clue amount, scores, and remaining gameboard also factors into whether to risk buzzing.
I’ve decided to buzz. I lock my eyes on the “enable lights”. You can’t see them at home, but in the studio, they are a strip of white lights on each side of the gameboard that tell you when you can buzz in. If you buzz too early, you get locked out for a fraction of a second, which is more than enough to ensure you won’t get the buzz in a competitive situation.
Now, one of two things happen.
I don’t get the buzz
My heart drops.
Assuming the other contestant gets it right, that’s twice the swing in points as if I got it right. I wonder, was I too late or too early? How do I need to adjust for next time? This feeling is even worse if I’ve failed to win the buzz for a few clues in a row. Worse still if the clue is in my wheelhouse. Also, what’s left on the board? Is the game slipping away? My mind starts to spiral4.
But! I can’t get sucked down a rabbit hole. For one thing, maybe the other person is wrong. If so, the enable lights come back on and it’s a race between me and the remaining person to try to score on the rebound.
In any case, I have to get locked in and reloaded for the next clue. Forget about what just happened. I can pick maybe one micro adjustment to try to improve my buzzer speed, but mostly, it’s time to focus on doing the exact same thing on the next clue.
Or…
My red lights light up
My heat skips a beat.
All eyes on me: the legendary Ken Jennings’ eyes and those the couple hundred people in the studio audience. Also, the future eyes every friend, family member, and stranger in the United States who will be watching. I must make my vocal cords work and not sound weird. I must try to look normal.
But first, I might still need to figure out the answer. The lights blink out one by one as my time runs out. I need to keep in mind whether the category has any special rules — like maybe every response starts with “S”5. Sometimes, this helps to find the answer. Other times, it means I need to abandon my first thought and find something that fits.
I’ve got my guess. I awkwardly rephrase it in my head in the form of a question, omitting any unnecessary information possible — if it’s a person: last name only. Slipping up on an unnecessary first name could make an otherwise correct answer wrong.
I speak with confidence, even if I’m not sure. When I’m at home, I find it annoying when people act surprised they got a question right when they’re obviously making an educated guess. Act like you belong! Just one of many ways self-consciousness comes into play.
If I’m wrong, it’s an even worse gut punch than failing to win the buzz, because I drop points. At home, any wrong answer is an annoyance. Onstage, the point values matter, and a wrong answer hurts badly6.
If I’m right, I quickly pick the next clue. The faster I do this, the more advantage I have to keep the momentum rolling7. But the category names are often awkward, so even here, I need to focus on making the words come out of my mouth correctly. Even though everything went well in this case, I can’t let myself lose focus from excitement.
Set pace to grueling
Then, I run the clue loop all over again. Throughout the game, I’m also trying to control my attention, breathing, posture, and muscle tension. Don’t let my nervous system run away. Gotta stay locked in to the task at hand.
There are 30 clues per round and each round only has about 6 1/2 minutes. Most of the time, the contestants complete all 30 clues. Daily Doubles and wrong answers take more time, so that means the typical clue is less than 13 seconds. That’s not a lot of time to cycle through all of the brain states needed to be successful.
The pace is also what makes Jeopardy the best game show of all time. No other trivia-based show compresses as many questions into so little time. In a lot of ways, it’s not a pure trivia show. Many of the clues are carefully designed so that you can come up with an educated guess. I’d describe it as a show of solving trivia-based puzzles.
From the experience of being up there, I realized how similar it is to playing sports. So much of success depends on being locked in, able to control your focus moment-to-moment, and to react quickly. It’s very possible to lose on Jeopardy while knowing all the answers. Or to win while only knowing half.
When I was invited to come back on Jeopardy for Champions Wildcard Tournament, I remembered most, but not all of this. To train, compared to my first time, I de-emphasized cramming knowledge, and I tried to focus on anything that would help me perform better in each part of the clue loop. Having another crack at Jeopardy let me notice even more details. I wrote this piece shortly after competing, while it was all fresh in my mind.
In the infinitesimally small chance I’m invited back again, I’ll be even more prepared, but I suppose I’ve also just given my best insights away to my hypothetical competition. Oh well!
- Finding the clue feels different when the board is still full versus the end of the round. It helps to have a very clear mental image of where to hunt for the dollar amount, to minimize the amount of searching with your eyes. The clue also does appear on other monitors, but there’s a lag of almost a second, so I found it most useful to look at version on the board. ↩︎
- It actually also does appear on a single screen, which is tracking the main broadcast edit, but there’s a slight lag. I found it distracting to look at this screen. ↩︎
- In my Champions Wildcard match, I had a category which was simply multiplying the clue value by a single number given in the clue. This made for very short clues. I had enough faith in my mental math to try buzz in immediately. This faith turned out to be misplaced. This also speaks to my brain not working like it does at home. ↩︎
- In my 2nd Jeopardy match, there was an entire category on Baltimore, a city I once lived in. I couldn’t believe my luck. Unfortunately, Sam Stapleton blew me away on the buzzer. Not only was I getting frustrated by the buzzer, I was also bummed to lose questions in my wheelhouse, and I was self-conscious of my friends and family being disappointed that I didn’t get those questions. ↩︎
- I can’t emphasize enough how helpful it is to have the category hints/constraints front of mind. So many points get lost forgetting this. ↩︎
- I still remember “West Pakistan” coming out of my mouth instead of “East Pakistan” as the former name of Bangladesh in my first Jeopardy match, causing my potential runaway win to slip away. I still won, but this small mistake cost me several thousand dollars. I lost $2000 instead of gaining it, and this meant I had to bet bigger on Final Jeopardy, which I would end up getting wrong. ↩︎
- It would help to have a very clear plan for which clue to pick next. If you can press the pace, you may be able to keep your opponents just slightly behind you and potentially gain a mental advantage. Conversely, there are contestants who play slow, and I suppose this can also have psychological advantages against someone who wants to push the pace. ↩︎
Never Down, Always Up 