pook

Not that I've been following it, but I missed his loss today on Jeopardy and wanted to see how he went down. Anyone got a link to some video?

soma

He lost?!..

gremlinx8

It was in final Jeopardy. He didn't have a great second round either. The question was something like: This white collar industry's 70,000 workers work about 4 months a year. The answer was H&R Block and he guessed FedEx.

oblar

As hindsight I can easily see how H&R Block made it just due to the tax season, but I knew the quesiton before I saw the episode so I am not sure how I would have done on the spot.

What really killed him this time around were the two daily doubles he found. He bet 4,000-5,000$ on each one and lost them both. In final jeopardy he was only down 4,000$ so just losing the second daily double would have left him as untouchable.

I loved how everyone groaned when he showed that he didn't have the correct answer and they realized if he had bet 0$ she won by 1$ anyways.

warrrreagl

Anyone who doesn't remember Bastogne deserves to go down hard!

NUTS!

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vox_rox

Here's my question: How could he miss two daily doubles, one in an area he is well acquainted with, and then miss perhaps the easiest final jeopardy question this calendar year?

Answer: He's tired of being there and wanted out. The gal that beat played a great game, and a $14,000 + payday is not bad on jeopardy, but I think Ken tanked to get off the show.

Thoughts?

McG

This was my initial thought also. Not sure how he couldn't get the Bastogne question, I don't know many of the jeopardy questions, but I did know that one.

vox_rox

That was exactly what I was thinking. This guy ripped through that entire category, knows a tremendous amount about American military history, and even answered a couple of final jeopardy quesitons about war that were arcane to say the least, yet he missed this question, and he was SMILING about it.

Really, I can say with absolute certainty that he honestly didn't know the answer, but something looked odd, that's all I'm saying.

Again, I want to stress that he was still up against the first person I've seen in several weeks who was truly a good contestant, and I am THRILLED that she won. But something still tells me something is not as it seems.

Peace,

Pierre

RallyEX

I think it was rigged or he tanked it, one of the two. I caught him on letterman last night and on Anderson Cooper 360 today... he just acted like he was on vacation, he seemed relieved that he was finished with the whole thing. Maybe he got sick of flying in for the show every week, who knows?

But yeah, I think he tanked it or it was rigged... somethin.

Mephisto2

Who is Ken Jennings and why is this worth a thread?


Mr Mephisto

Carno

Does anyone remember what the Bastogne question was?

Ken Jennings is the guy who played 74 rounds of Jeopardy, earning around 2.5 million dollars. Apparently he finally lost. I've never watched him though.

Mephisto2

Does he get to keep the money he already won?


Mr Mephisto

Pragma

Yes, after each show, the amount he won on that show is added to his total winnings. He's just amazingly brilliant, knows tons of random facts, and has been responsible for Jeopardy regaining a large amount of popularity.

tspikes51

Ken Jennings is a true American hero. He has been on America's most popular game show for an unprecedented amount of time (73 games, the rules used to limit the appearances to 5), and has made over $2,500,000. He knows more facts than anybody can dream of (having won awards for doing the same myself, I can dream of a lot), and still seems to have time to keep a pleasant and somewhat social personality, especially for a Mormon. He is my hero.

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Carno

I was actually pretty confused when people started all this talk of Ken Jennings. I thought for years that Jeopardy wasn't even on anymore..

MSD

http://www.ifilm.com/ifilmdetail/265...o&refsite=6721

There's your video

oblar

as far as the thoughts that he purposefully lost the game, I would have to agree..

It just seemed out of his character for him to miss so many questions and the final jeopardy question is the one that seemed really odd to me, but I don't blame him. He was on for a long time..

I wish I could have seen him play more often. I caught him early on during the summer, but then I began school and missed many of his appearances, until this last one. I remember one guy early on had him on the run up until final jeopardy (the other guy missed it). However, that was the first time I have seen it close with Ken. It made me really feel bad for the other person that game. She didn't even ring the buzzer in the first round, and in the second when she finally started buzzing in she only managed to get about 50% of them right, so ended up with about 2k$ while the other two had close to 20k$ each..

skier

whether planned or not, I'm sure he's been proposed to have his own "beat ken jennings" show, or something similar.

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yabobo

He gave it up for sure. No mortal man could/can beat him...
Yea, I know it was a women, don't mean it that way....
Even if you were not a fan of jepordy you had to tune in to see this
phenom!

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Cynthetiq

I haven't seen it yet.. it's sitting on the Tivo

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omega2K4

SuprNova had it. I think it was around 200MB.

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aurigus

You can download the whole thing from my server here

Note that I did not cut out any commercials, there is a 3 min lead in and out time, and I noticed the audio is slightly askew in the middle of the video, unless that is just my work machine choking on the divx. I'll work on a better version, or if someone wants to send it to me I'll put it up. It's 140 Megs, encoded with Divx.

Pragma

Excellent speeds, aurigus - thanks for the link.

TexanAvenger

First of all, I believe Wheel of Fortune still claims to be "America's Game." And I think it was 75 appearences. But what does his Mormonism have to do with anything? I keep hearing people saying he's good, especially for a Mormon/be very nice for a Mormon/etc. Not that I am, myself, Mormon, but what's all the hype about it?


But I will agree that he, at least in part, won my heart after a while because he was so calm and pleasant throught the entire thing. That, and his EXTREME knowledge of trivia, for which I am sincerely jealous.