Will that guy on Jeopardy ever lose?

Pix or didn't happen

did yall watch the Geography Bee when it was on a couple months ago? those particular nerd kids made me happy

http://cdn.abclocal.go.com/images/wls/cms_exf_2007/_video_wn_images/8888502_600x338.jpg

This dude rules

COLBY 4 LYFE

This guy's face. I mean, seriously.

http://i48.tinypic.com/3327xxz.png

He was so offended when Alex asked if he knew that Colby is a kind of cheese

I know! It was awesome.

h8 colby

he never stops mugging

otm he has zero self-awareness also

but good for him winning mad bank & hopefully i never have to see him again

I honestly can't figure out if that look of his is arrogant-smugface or bad-social-skillsface.

he's def not cool is the problem

videobombing trebek's signoff today was n/l though can't front

COLBY IS MISUNDERSTOOD

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeKJJhp_jJQ

just watched several clips, dude's hilarious. can totally believe he's a good teacher.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgSgg0mfi3A

I loved Colby. His eyebrows have been the highlight of the last couple of weeks.

Has anyone noticed that nearly all of the women on Jeopardy in the last couple weeks (since I started watching again after like 20 years) are incredibly buxom? What is that? Don't know if this has anything to do with the rumor I heard that AT has been known to make the moves on female contestants!

no i havent noticed that

didn't mean anything by it, just noticing after watching two weeks straight. also, people seem to win much more than when i last watched!

rumor has it that alex trebek is retiring just so that he can spend even MORE of his time hitting on women

i was p mad that no 1 could pull gore vidal for that final a few days ago

http://www.businessinsider.com/jeopardys-controversial-new-champion-is-using-game-theory-to-win-big-2014-2

controversy!!

Dumb article and controversy. Tons of people have used the category bouncing strategy before, dating back at least to Chuck Forrest in the 80's, I have no idea why this is just news now. I do agree that it makes the show worse to watch.

‏@arthur_affect
Chuck Forrest pioneered my jump-around-like-a-lunatic strategy on @Jeopardy -- in 1985, when I was one year old #ForrestBounce

There's tons of recent examples too. This is not uncommon at all.

He's a bad boy who can't live by the rules

Am I misremembering or didn't Ken Jennings do this as well?

Yes, he did.

still pretty awesome imo

The recent guy who really gamed the system in a cool way (and also bounced around categories hunting for DDs) was Roger Craig: http://www.npr.org/2011/11/20/142569472/how-one-man-played-moneyball-with-jeopardy

*I remove a card from my hand and place it face down on the table. I slowly slide the card forward. In one quick and fluid movement, I flip the card over. It is the Race card.*

In all seriousness, he does represent a sort of convergence of several nerd stereotypes - the nerd, the Asian nerd, the antisocial nerd, the nerd who doesn't care about social mores because he is ultra-'rational', who only does something if he ends up 'better off' than his previous position, who moves upwards on the Coase curve

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TT0TH7NV2Q

So I just watched an episode and I don't get it - he's gone for business casual, okay - he is well-spoken (I think the bio mentions that he does voiceovers or is a voiceover editor?) - he doesn't seem any more aggressive than many other players who have appeared on the show

I mean as far as I know almost every Jeopardy strategy article advocates this kind of thing so I'm not sure what the story is. Roger Craig's methods were a lot more radical in my opinion, certainly not cheating but overall not dissimilar from the dude who taped every episode of Press Your Luck to find the on-board patterns that would allow him to "go infinite"

Well............ it's probably because he's Asian

I gather it's "playing to tie" that's the interesting game theory part.

Explained here: http://youtu.be/hRfXzrTDY-Y

lol, would love to hear more of this game theory = antiasian racism hypothesis

and it's totally dissimilar from press yr luck guy who simply cheated

yeah I hadn't heard of the "playing to tie" thing before and I guess I don't really understand it

memorizing the board patterns isn't cheating! if it was they wouldn't have paid him.

lol, would love to hear more of this game theory = antiasian racism hypothesis

― balls, Wednesday, February 5, 2014 10:43 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

My tongue was half in my cheek (and look who I was responding to) but

As others have pointed out he's not the first Jeopardy pro-gamer to use game theory in playing

After he's gone viral about half the stories on the first page of a google search are about his 'game theory' techniques, the other half just call him the 'Jeopardy Villain'

Oh & looks like this guy went to Swarthmore. Of course

Seems to me that at least half the story here, if not more, is that he is causing the good-natured folks who watch Jeopardy to become upset and it's not their fault. He is at least a social deviant if not worse and the root of his illness must be rooted out and excised

suspect there have been people who have applied game theory to non-academic settings and come off as assholes before. maybe google 'wall street' and 'villain'.

yeah I hadn't heard of the "playing to tie" thing before and I guess I don't really understand it

i haven't watched the video that jmm posted above because i'm at work, but i thought that he wagered an amount in the final round that would allow another (weaker) contestant to tie him so that they would both move on to the next game. in the clip i watched, the other player who he allowed to tie him was way behind him in $ before the final round. if that meant that she was clearly the weaker contestant, then he would have an interest in bringing her along to the next game because that would effectively reduce his true competition. it would just be him, the clearly weaker player that he strung along, and a third contestant.

suspect there have been people who have applied game theory to non-academic settings and come off as assholes before. maybe google 'wall street' and 'villain'.

― balls, Wednesday, February 5, 2014 10:55 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

Everybody loves Leo DiCaprio, though. What a loveable asshole

Anyway I am rolling back my antiAsian theory after reading that Fox News is on his side http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/02/04/jeopardy-contestant-arthur-chu-defends-controversial-strategy/

the press your luck guy "cheated" the same way card counters "cheat", iirc

re: the tying strategy - it's not something you could exploit every game, but he clearly seized on the opportunity to improve his chances for the next game. pretty smart, i'd say!

btw, lol at a the large segment of the internet's reaction to this guy that's like "he's not doing anything great, everyone knows this stuff". yeah, clearly if any of US were on jeopardy we'd be busting out the game theory moves left and right

My impression is that if he's allowing someone to tie him then that person may be a threat to beat him though I was missing that he likely had a huge lead when this happened. Sending a message of "I want you to appear on the next show because I think you're below average" does seem rather villainous even if it is brilliant.