J! Battle of the Decades

[thejeopardyfan]

I keep checking for a Jeopardy! Battle of the Decades thread and don't see one, so why not start one myself? I was lucky to attend in person, so keep checking The Jeopardy! Fan for an eyewitness account.

[zachhoran1]

I suspect enough talking about it has been done at jboard.tv, so no one bothered to start one here.

[TheConfessor]

I was there too, but only for the ten episodes for the 90s and 00s decades. Were you there for all 15 episodes? It was great to meet you. I was pleased to see a strong performance on tonight's episode by the guy who beat me on Grand Slam. But I have a lot of conflicting rooting interests in this tournament, having met more than half of the contestants and being friends with most of those folks.

I look forward to lots of great matchups and post game discussions and analysis about the Decades tournament. I'm a little annoyed that the media has chosen instead to focus on the non-story about the current 4-game champ, Arthur Chu. He is a solid player whose accomplishments are unremarkable up to this point, and yet his story has gone viral around the world for no apparent reason. I don't know who is orchestrating it, or if it's just one of those things that gets spread through social media by people who rarely watch the show and don't really understand how it works. If he wins 20+ games, then it will be time to fire up the hype machine. Until then, he's just another good player who has done nothing new or unique.

[jarnon]

Spoiler

WTG, Leszek!

[TheConfessor]

I just saw that the J! PR geniuses are actually posting spoilers about how Arthur does in his coming game(s), so maybe they are also the ones who are hyping him to the world.

[thejeopardyfan]

I suspect enough talking about it has been done at jboard.tv, so no one bothered to start one here.

I didn't really think the same crowd hung out here.

[MarleysGh0st]

I'm a little annoyed that the media has chosen instead to focus on the non-story about the current 4-game champ, Arthur Chu. He is a solid player whose accomplishments are unremarkable up to this point, and yet his story has gone viral around the world for no apparent reason. I don't know who is orchestrating it, or if it's just one of those things that gets spread through social media by people who rarely watch the show and don't really understand how it works. If he wins 20+ games, then it will be time to fire up the hype machine. Until then, he's just another good player who has done nothing new or unique.

I just noticed that on ABC World News, this evening, speculating about how Arthur might have "broken the J! code". Whatever fans they were talking about, who were so riled about about Arthur's strategy (jumping around the board and hunting for the Daily Doubles), I can't imagine that they're over on the J! board, where these strategies certainly aren't new.

[thejeopardyfan]

I was there too, but only for the ten episodes for the 90s and 00s decades. Were you there for all 15 episodes? It was great to meet you. I was pleased to see a strong performance on tonight's episode by the guy who beat me on Grand Slam. But I have a lot of conflicting rooting interests in this tournament, having met more than half of the contestants and being friends with most of those folks.

I look forward to lots of great matchups and post game discussions and analysis about the Decades tournament. I'm a little annoyed that the media has chosen instead to focus on the non-story about the current 4-game champ, Arthur Chu. He is a solid player whose accomplishments are unremarkable up to this point, and yet his story has gone viral around the world for no apparent reason. I don't know who is orchestrating it, or if it's just one of those things that gets spread through social media by people who rarely watch the show and don't really understand how it works. If he wins 20+ games, then it will be time to fire up the hype machine. Until then, he's just another good player who has done nothing new or unique.

It was great to meet you, too.
In the blog post to which I've linked in the opening post of this thread, I say I missed M/T/W of 80s week because of a plane snafu. But since you were at O'Brien's a couple weeks ago, here's the story of the night I was there when 80s week taped.
As for Arthur, until several minutes ago Jeopardy! themselves had spoiled how long he wins on its YouTube page.

[Estonut]

Here's an article that describes what he's been doing.

[TheConfessor]

As for Arthur, until several minutes ago Jeopardy! themselves had spoiled how long he wins on its YouTube page.

Did they take down the YouTube video? I assume that was a monumental screw-up on their part. Unless it was somehow deliberately leaked, just to build up buzz for the show. For those who missed it, they had a post-game interview with Arthur Chu and Kelly from the Clue Crew, in which they revealed exactly how many episodes he played and how much money he won.

[silverscreenselect]

There's been plenty of contestants who have hopped around the board looking for daily doubles, who haven't gotten the notoriety he has.

Of course, none of them just happened to have won a handful of games immediately before the regular show went on a lengthy hiatus to build suspense for his return. It wouldn't surprise me if the show contributed to this feeding frenzy.

Unfortunately, his first two shows were preempted here in Atlanta due to the ice storm so I didn't get to see his tie game or his $5 wager. However, I've seen a heck of a lot of contestants kick themselves after making a small wager in a "tough" category DD then getting a question that was only marginally related to the category that they knew cold.

[macrae1234]

On last night's show Alex said someone described Leszek as the Michael Jordan of game shows I said to myself that must make our old friend and bored member Phyllis (Greedphee) the Babe Didrickson Zaharias of game shows

The Tale of the Tape as they say

Phyllis —won almost 500k during appearances as a contestant on Grand Slam, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, Super Greed, Wheel of Fortune, Trivia Trap, Scrabble, and Card Sharks.

Leszek Pawlowicz—won almost 200k during appearances as a contestant on Grand Slam, Jeopardy!, Win Ben Stein's Money, The Challengers, and History IQ. Pawlowicz won the 1992 Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions and finished second in the Tournament of Champions on History IQ in 2001.

[thguy65]

On last night's show Alex said someone described Leszek as the Michael Jordan of game shows I said to myself that must make our old friend and bored member Phyllis (Greedphee) the Babe Didrickson Zaharias of game shows

The Tale of the Tape as they say

Phyllis —won almost 500k during appearances as a contestant on Grand Slam, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, Super Greed, Wheel of Fortune, Trivia Trap, Scrabble, and Card Sharks.

Leszek Pawlowicz—won almost 200k during appearances as a contestant on Grand Slam, Jeopardy!, Win Ben Stein's Money, The Challengers, and History IQ. Pawlowicz won the 1992 Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions and finished second in the Tournament of Champions on History IQ in 2001.

Leszek has also been PAF-extraordinaire for me and others, so should he get credits for assists in addition to his scoring stats?

[macrae1234]

I wasn't in any way diminishing his accomplishments but rather, in this environment, where Phyllis is known saying she deserves recognition for her accomplishments as I am sure her good friend Leszek would agree

[MarleysGh0st]

Has anyone heard from Phyllis, lately? It's been ages since I met her out in Vegas.

[macrae1234]

Well and seeing the country(world) with bridge playing husband, sneaks on once in a while i gave her link when i saw her here last fall

[Bob Juch]

Has anyone heard from Phyllis, lately? It's been ages since I met her out in Vegas.

She posts regularly on Facebook.

[zachhoran1]

Leszek Pawlowicz—won almost 200k during appearances as a contestant on Grand Slam, Jeopardy!, Win Ben Stein's Money, The Challengers, and History IQ. Pawlowicz won the 1992 Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions and finished second in the Tournament of Champions on History IQ in 2001.

I don't believe Leszek was on the Challengers. I think he mentioned once he qualified for the show in SUmmer 1991 shortly before it was cancelled but probably wisely chose J!. He also was in the Fast Finger round on Regis BAM and won a million dollar annuity on the short lived SUmmer 2000 internet game show at Goldpocket.com

[macrae1234]

That shows you how much grand slam knows

[Kazoo65]

Has anybody noticed how HARD the material is for the "Decades" shows (so far?) I thought ToC material was hard, but this stuff is brain-straining.

I expected both Chuck Forrest and Leszek to do well-they both impressed me in their initial appearances. This has been fun to watch and I look forward to see who makes the final 3-I think Ken Jennings will be one of them.

[christie1111]

Has anybody noticed how HARD the material is for the "Decades" shows (so far?) I thought ToC material was hard, but this stuff is brain-straining.

I expected both Chuck Forrest and Leszek to do well-they both impressed me in their initial appearances. This has been fun to watch and I look forward to see who makes the final 3-I think Ken Jennings will be one of them.

I did know Final Jeopardy tonight!

[Snaxx]

Has anybody noticed how HARD the material is for the "Decades" shows (so far?) I thought ToC material was hard, but this stuff is brain-straining.

I expected both Chuck Forrest and Leszek to do well-they both impressed me in their initial appearances. This has been fun to watch and I look forward to see who makes the final 3-I think Ken Jennings will be one of them.

I did know Final Jeopardy tonight!

No need for us to ask

The J! board is a fun read tonight...
http://www.jboard.tv/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=1797

For Final I

Spoiler

quickly arrived at "Ag," immediately thought silver, then thought, wait, Ag is mercury, but then changed back to silver in time when I realized mercury is Hg not Ag. Then seeing the contestants' responses I could have saved a lot of grief by just going with Ag.

[thejeopardyfan]

Has anybody noticed how HARD the material is for the "Decades" shows (so far?) I thought ToC material was hard, but this stuff is brain-straining.

Glad I'm not the only one to think so. My Coryats have been like, whoa. In a bad way.

[macrae1234]

Has anybody noticed how HARD the material is for the "Decades" shows (so far?) I thought ToC material was hard, but this stuff is brain-straining.

You,me and today's contestants

[thejeopardyfan]

As for Arthur, until several minutes ago Jeopardy! themselves had spoiled how long he wins on its YouTube page.

Did they take down the YouTube video? I assume that was a monumental screw-up on their part. Unless it was somehow deliberately leaked, just to build up buzz for the show. For those who missed it, they had a post-game interview with Arthur Chu and Kelly from the Clue Crew, in which they revealed exactly how many episodes he played and how much money he won.

Today on the show's YouTube channel, players from each episode were listed (who plays who, on which day, etc.) Draw your own conclusions.