TOC QUARTERFINAL - Friday, March 13, 2009

Velma and Roxie had teamed up, and Chicago was ending in the Green Room. I was hoping not to get to watch the next movie. There would be one more game before the "dinner" break - it was at least 10 o'clock Las Vegas time, so at home it was 1 a.m. or later. I am usually a night person, but not so much an early-the-next-morning person.

Soon the list of the next three competitors was read - Ben, Lisa, and . . . Dave. I grabbed an peanut butter energy bar and took my place in the makeup chair for the pre-game touch-up. One more trip to the bathroom later, we were miked up and on our way to the set.

Many folks who saw my run on the regular show asked if I was nervous. I could honestly say I was never nervous on the set - I was too happy just to be there and the game was so engrossing there wasn't really time to be nervous.

Why then now, as I took my place at podium #3 for my sixth Jeopardy! game, did I feel so nervous? Partly I guess it was the competition - I had watched these folks play and I knew how good they were. Partly it was because I had never gotten comfortable with the buzzer in practice, while in the practice sessions before my regular games I had pretty much dominated. And partly it was because I had been anticipating this for so long - I had known since June that there was a good chance I'd be in the TOC; I had gotten the call for the regular games about three weeks before the taping. Because it had been over 20 months since the audition, I had pretty much put getting a call to be on the show out of my mind.

Perhaps the primary reason for my nervousness was that everyone I knew expected me to go to Las Vegas and win. There had been no such pressure when I went on the show the first time - everyone, including me, was just happy that I was going to be on. But, after seeing me win four times, I wasn't just the guy who was on Jeopardy!, I was the guy who had won.

As we waited for the game to begin, I adjusted my "stance," trying to rest my right arm comfortably on the podium. It just wasn't happening. I couldn't get the buzzer comfortable in my hand, either. It was like playing golf with unfamiliar clubs (which I would do the next day - more on that in a later post). My physical discomfort was messing with my mind more than anything.

The music started and I heard Johnny Gilbert's introduction. "Smile dummy," I said to myself. Watching last night, that's exactly what I looked like - a smiling dummy. My friend Mike said, "I've known you for 25 years and I've never seen that expression." Thanks for that.

I have to say, though, that my red clergy shirt looked good - or, as one of my students said in class today (I teach Christian Education in the middle school affiliated with my church), the shirt "popped." Why a red shirt? No theological reason - my wife told me to wear it (actually, she said I should wear it, but for me it's the same thing, as I have no taste at all of my own about things like clothes).

And why a clergy shirt? I had waited until my second game to wear one before because I wanted to make sure I embarrassed only myself if my J! experience turned out to be a disaster. But, in the TOC, I wanted to be as up-front as possible about my profession and especially my faith. I hope that in some small way my appearance would say that all Christians aren't the dummies they are portrayed as in the media sometimes (often through the fault not of the media, but of those Christians that speak the loudest, but that's a whole 'nother blog).

There was Alex Trebek stepping onto the new set and away we went. Some random thoughts about the game:

• The main thing I remembered about this game was frustration. Frustration at not being able to ring in most of the time thanks to Ben's incredible timing. Frustration at the two negs on high-value clues in the J! round, especially reciting the first lines of "The New Colossus" when I knew good and well that the name of the poem wasn't there. (To make that worse, Ben told me later that he hadn't known what the poem was until he heard my impromptu recitation.)
  
• I should have been much quicker to get "Eiffel" on the J! DD, but completely missed the big old TOM ("Tease out Metric" or the clue within the clue) of "TOWERING." Glad Alex gave me the time to get the right answer back, or I would've really been in the hole.
• I planned to hunt for the DD's in the DJ round, but couldn't get control away from Ben long enough to do any hunting. He found them both very quickly. That could've been very bad or very good for me - I knew the Harlem/Haarlem one, but did not know the other one. His missing both kept me in the game.
• I can remember feeling like I needed to step it up or this was going to be the last time I ever got to play the game. Fortunately, I did find some timing toward the end of DJ and especially due to "13-letter words" I was able to get to a respectable score.
• In that category, Alex made fun of me because I drew out the pronunciation of "contaminnnnnaaaaation." That's because my first thought was "contaminate," and I realized that couldn't possibly have 13 letters.

Now for the question I've been asked about 250 times since Friday evening (I'm writing this on the following Monday). What was up with my wager? Or, as the question is usually phrased, "Why didn't you bet more?"

Here were the scores - Ben 14,000, Me 11,800, and Lisa 4000. The first consideration was making sure I stayed ahead of Lisa. That meant I wasn't going to wager more than 3799 (so as not to fall behind her possible doubled score of 8000). Second, if Ben made the usual shut-out wager (9001), there was no way I could catch him. If this was a regular show, I probably would've wagered 2200 or 2201 to cover a possible 0 bet by Ben and to assure I would still have enough to beat him if he missed.

But, this was not a regular show. Not only was the winner going to advance, but either of the losers could advance as a wildcard if they were in the top four scores of non-winners of the five quarterfinal games. So, I didn't want to wager so much that I would knock myself out of wildcard contention if I lost. I had researched the previous TOC's and found that the average wildcard cutoff was around 10500. So, I didn't want to fall below there.

My 1200 wager seemed to make sense. I'd be left with at least 10600, I could win if I made it or missed it and Ben missed with a usual shut-out bet. AND the game would be shown on Friday the 13th and I'd have 13000 if I got it. Yes, it made sense.

The category was "World Money." (For those of you not familiar with the J! process, you only know the category, NOT the clue, when you make your wager). Not a good category for me - I hadn't studied currencies of the world so if I needed to know what they call money in Burkina-Faso I was going to be out of luck. But as soon as the clue was revealed I knew the correct response - I had traveled to India about 15 years ago and I still had some Rupees in my desk drawer at home. So I knew I was ok - the only question was whether Ben would know it. If he missed, I figured I would win.

I was heartened somewhat when Lisa missed (sorry Lisa). So India wasn't obvious to everyone - maybe not to Ben as well. I was impatient during the revealing of my response and wager - "Let's see what Ben did!" But, Ben was smiling. Ben got it. Ben won.

Congrats Ben. It was a well-deserved victory!

One more note about my wager. Ben only wagered 1004. Even so, if he had missed, I would've won, 13,000 to 12,996.

I don't remember a THING about the post-game conversation with Alex. All I was thinking was, "Is it enough? Is 13,000 going to be enough?"

To the Next Post - A SITUATION BEYOND MY CONTROL