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Catch me on Jeopardy! this Tuesday! Until then, check out this series of posts reflecting on my experience.
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

It’s March 5, the night before my Jeopardy! taping. I’m at my parents’ place in Pasadena watching the show, clicky pen in hand. And I’m killing it. Clue after clue, category after category, I’m rattling off answers like the champion I’ve always wanted to be. Maybe my studying has paid off (unlikely); or maybe the game is just easy and up my alley (more likely — you be the judge). Either way, I can’t help thinking, “if this had been my game, I would have won”, which becomes, “I could actually win this thing.”

Of course, then I remember that I’ve gotten fuzzy on African capitals, and I never really had a chance to study 70s and 80s music, and I could be overconfident on my Shakespeare, and this is freaking Jeopardy!. The feeling of infinite possibility passes.

I sit down to dinner with my parents. We’re talking about Final Jeopardy wagering strategy. My intended approach to this problem is wholly driven by one article I read in Slate a couple of years ago. The central premise of the article is that, if you are in second place but not too far behind (as it turns out, no more than a third behind), you can wager so that you’ll win if both players get it wrong. The assumption behind this analysis is that the leader will always wager so that they’ll have more than double the second-place player’s score — an assumption I buy, because a leader is extremely unlikely to risk losing in the scenario that both players will get it right, regardless of how he feels about the category. This is how I plan to wager if I’m leading.

The article argues that too many second-place players lose unnecessarily because they make stupidly aggressive wagers, and I’m inclined to agree. I resolve to follow this article’s recommendation to the letter, regardless of the category — but before I do, I pick up a pen and notepad and do the algebra that will convince myself of its conclusions. I haven’t solved an inequality like this in years; it’s like riding a bicycle, but I have my mom check my work just in case. I compute the expression for calculating the correct second-place wager before realizing it’s much easier to just calculate the number on the fly than to try and remember a random formula.

With this exercise complete, it’s time to drive to the Doubletree in Culver City, the hotel near the Sony Pictures Studios where Jeopardy! grants contestants a discounted rate (no, they do not cover the cost). I have to be at the studio at 8 AM, and I have no desire to drive from Pasadena to Culver City during rush hour on one of the most important days of my life. I get there, check in, and open my laptop to start frantically reading about The Doors and The Who and The Rolling Stones and all the other rock groups that I’ve heard of but from whose oeuvres I probably couldn’t hum even a few bars. Akshay tells me the Stones did “Start Me Up”, which sounds totally unfamiliar to me; I listen to it on Spotify and exclaim to an empty room, “oh, that song!” Chrix IMs me and tells me to go to bed, which I do around 11 PM.

It takes me a long time to fall asleep.