It was interesting that Brad mentioned, during his interview, that his recall has been getting a little weaker lately. His poor performance last night, particularly on the various Daily Doubles that he missed, may be evidence of that. James, being the youngest, may have the advantage of sharper reflexes and quicker reaction time.
On the other hand, according to the stats at thejeopardyfan.com, Ken was able to ring in first 44% of the time last night, compared to James’s 33%. If he can keep that up, he’s got a good chance to win. Buzzer speed was always one of Ken’s greatest strengths, and frankly I think this competition is basically going to be decided by who rings in fastest.
As for betting strategy, Ken and Brad have both adopted the Bet It All strategy in Daily Doubles. They may not like it, but they both know that they have to in order to compete with James.
Personally, I’ve A-L-W-A-Y-S rooted for Brad Rutter in his head-to-head match-ups with Ken Jennings. And he’s usually gotten the better of him. But as I recall Brad Rutter actually finished 3rd in the contest between him, K.J., and Watson so I think B.R.'s claim to have never lost to a human on Jeopardy! before last night is suspect.
Yeah, well - in that “Jeopardy! Tournament to end all Jeopardy! tournaments” a few years ago Ken Jennings, in my opinion, should have finished 3rd, not 2nd - there was another contestant named “Ken” in the Final who missed a critical Final Jeopardy! which ended up costing him. Otherwise he was every bit the match for K.J. (back then) that Brad Rutter was.
K.J., despite comments to contrary ahead of time, was almost as good last night as he was 15-odd years ago on the show. I was hoping James Holzhauer would win last night, but this competition is going to come down to between K.J. and J.H. Brad Rutter isn’t the same player he used to be. He’s not as quick on the buzzer OR with responses as he once was. Frankly, if he wins even one game (a half-match) in this Clash of the Titans I’ll be surprised.
Buzzer speed is something that Brad Rutter was ALWAYS better than Ken Jennings at. But that doesn’t appear to be the case anymore. Which is a shame 'cause that makes this “Clash of the Titans” a two-horse race, really.
K.J. does seem especially motivated for this one. Brad Rutter hasn’t seemed himself, at all. If he doesn’t win tomorrow night then I think it’s pretty much “curtains” for him in this competition.
Seriously, though, Brad is looking pretty disappointing for the guy who’s won the most money on Jeopardy! ever. I missed Day 1, but in Day 2 Game 2 he even finished in the red and couldn’t play in Final Jeopardy. That’s gotta sting. I hope he comes roaring back and makes this a three horse race again, because so far he’s looking completely out of his depth, which is a weird thing to say for such an accomplished player.
A few people who have talked to me about the tournament have said, “I know James and Ken, but who is this Brad Rutter guy?” Unfortunately, his performance so far is probably not making them think that he really belongs up there. He just hasn’t played like he usually does in this tournament, to the point where I wonder if there’s something going on with him that’s affecting his performance.
Rutter is tanking because I voted for him in post #2. Sorry about that.
Seriously though, I’m surprised at his performance. Most of what I know about Rutter was from Bob Harris’s book, where he was presented as pretty much a Jeopardy Terminator, just ruthless and unstoppable. (But a heck of a nice guy!) But yeah at this point it looks like a two-man tournament between Jennings and Holzhauer.
So far Rutter’s biggest contribution has been DD sniping. Didn’t he get one on the first clue of Double Jeopardy 3 times out of the 4 games so far?
Ken and James are both playing very well - with only a few strange slip-ups from Ken in the second game of round 1 standing out as odd (of course he won that round anyway). And missing the FJ in game 2 round 2, which wouldn’t have actually mattered, but is a bit ironic since I think one of Ken’s minor quibbles with James’ record-setting feats is that Final Jeopardy questions are in general noticeably easier now than they were when Ken was on (making super-high scores in runaway games easier, and betting hugely more rational).
On FJ, I really hate the kind of question they had on one of the first round games (the one about the first line of the gospel of John) where you either know it or you don’t - absolutely no room for “educating guessing”. The one yesterday about the short rulers was much better I think since you can sort of work it out with some knowledge about the time period.
I’m really surprised by the way Brad Rutter has performed. He looked good in that team tournament they did last year, but this time around he seems a step slow and he’s missing a lot more answers than I would ever have thought he would. It’s almost like watching Tom Brady in last week’s playoff game. But Ken obviously came loaded for bear and he’s going to give James a tough challenge. James would have seemed to be the favorite to me going in just because he’s played a lot more recently and is fresher and should have better timing.
Anybody know when they taped these games? I’d guess that they were taped more recently than regular games to keep the chances of the results leaking out to a minimum.
And I’m really glad that they put this together to give Alex one more time to host one of those special tournament events. It wouldn’t have been the same if they did this after he’s gone.
Actually, it was B.R.'s performance in the All-Star tournament last January that led me to believe that he’s lost something in the interim. His team won that tournament but my wife and I agree that that had more to do with his teammates than it had to do with him.
The show’s open and close themes have been re-orchestrated as well. Rather dark, and definitely gives my subwoofers something to chew on instead of the usual flutes for Think!
And how did all three of them miss a question that a friend’s kid got right?
Brad seems to be slowly getting back in the groove, but it’s coming too slow, and too late. Bummer.
James doesn’t seem to be handling having actual competition well - he seems to have started taking getting questions wrong far more personally than he used to (though he remains congenial when someone else (coughKencough) beats him to it, at least), and I think that was affecting his performance in the second game.
Ken’s performance tonight was amazing! Going into FJ of the second game, he could have bet everything and gotten it wrong, and he still would have won!
James made a completely uncharacteristic number of errors tonight.
Before the tourney started, I was worried that James might just walk over both of them, so I’m glad it’s a real competition. I’d really like to see Brad get into the swing of things and win at least one match.
I’m really enjoying the banter and joking among the three of them.
That’s why I’m thinking he might have gone on tilt - he seemed to be missing more as the night wore on, so I think (and I might be projecting a bit, here, I admit) that his annoyance with himself on missing was throwing him off on later clues, which just made the whole situation worse, and spiraled. Hopefully the rest between matches will give him a chance to recenter… I’m not rooting for him, but I’d hate to see him go out like that.