Ken Jennings talks to Jeopardy! the wins and tricks of James Holzhauer

Ken Jennings is the greatest Dangerous! player of all time. You have a trophy and a million dollar check to prove it.

In Tuesday night's game, the fourth in the first-time set Dangerous! circumcised, Jennings, a 45-year-old author from Washington state, succeeded Brad Rutter and James Holzhauer for the GoAT title. He came into the tournament as a titan: In 2004, he won 74 games in a row, a streak that crowned him with the trivia god light. The money was great – between his first run, the invitation-only contests, and this week's new buyout, he earned more than $ 4.5 million in winning – but the cultural impact was great. In the years that followed, Jennings wrote books, magazine columns, and puzzles for any factoid fans who wanted to move their inner Ken. Dangerous! it was part of his life.

However, i The Greatest of All Time heroism provided something completely new. He comes up against Rutter, who beat him in the 2014 Decade Contest, and Holzhauer, who wrote his game and changed him Dangerous!Joker, challenged Jennings' skills and legacy. Who can say no?

Polygon spoke to Jennings shortly after his big win to understand the pressure of the match, focusing on his own Dangerous! work, and wonder aloud if there are any future answer questions about the future of GoAT.

Polygon: First off, congratulations.

Ken Jennings: Thank you very much. I watched it yesterday and it was on good TV. I usually hate watching myself, but I love this race. Dangerous! he does an excellent job.

What do you go out to watch?

I said I wasn't going to watch it, and then my family just kept watching it, and I've been getting a little irritated because I just Dangerous! fan my whole life. Like, I've watched this show since I was ten years old. It was very good for me and my idea of ​​what a smart person is and how important reading is. And this is just a well-made, well-shot game in a well-placed way. I think they just knocked it out of the park. They are a national treasure, and this was an opportunity for Alex's real victory with the show. I had to watch.

Photo: Eric McCandless / ABC

Were there any doubts about the return of the game? Putting your shadow on the line is not easy.

I actually said no. When they told me they wanted a big event with me and James and Brad, I said, “No, I think I'm past mine Dangerous! prime. And luckily, they talked to me. I was very stressed about this whole thing, and then the game started with every wash, because I love playing the game so much, and all those good memories came back. Brad and James are free and fun, and it was a wonderful week, I think, win or lose, for all three of us.

How far have you devoted yourself to the show? How long should you do?

Shortly after James ran, I received a phone call saying, “Hi, everyone wants to do this three-person show. We will do so at Christmas. And I thought, No, anyway ?! Like, I thought I was out, but they pulled me back inside. I was with me Godanger Part III moment. That gave me a couple of months, and I knew who I was going to face – which was nothing new Dangerous!; you don't know who the last players will be, but at this point I don't know – so I could look at the tapes. I might get used to both of these players, and especially James – like, I watch his game and see if there is a way to beat him. It turned out that, the only way to beat James was to play like him.

Watching the tournament, it seemed obvious that this was not how you played Dangerous! during your actual launch.

In my own time, though, I was playing one game at a time. My strategy has always been to get out of this game, you know, to stay comfortable, have a good time, and move on. And that turned out to be a great strategy for postponing a long boat – just playing as I did in my bed. But that would not work against James Holzhauer. You will need to be aggressively abused by the Daily Doubles, and you will have to bet big on every opportunity that comes your way. Switch to the fence, and sometimes you will miss it, but it's best of the seven, basically, you swear to the fence and hope to connect a few.

So how do you prepare for the tournament?

I've watched the tone of James & # 39; s games, especially so that I don't panic. The secret of James & # 39; s success is simply dominating it right out of the gate so that other entrants feel like they have lost their first sellers. As in their own disguise. And so a lot of it was just visual thinking, No, this is definitely going to happen. because this guy is awesome as hell. Oops, don't get them out of the game.

How important is your relationship with Alex in playing the game? Do you understand his manner of speaking?

Well, we all have that relationship, right? If so Dangerous! fan, you're in your living room every night. Like, people really think of him as part of a family. And so I've heard it for decades, and I feel like it's built into my biology right now, you know – it's like your heartbeat or your brain waves. I know how you'll read the index all the time, and that gives you a rhythm in the buzzer. So I looked at a ton Dangerous! to prepare for this, just get back to the tone of his voice and try to repeat it. In my first run, I felt like as long as I followed that rhythm, I couldn't be beat. Like, my thumb just got a good second. I was just trying to get back to that happy place.

When does the buzzer allow you access?

You cannot speak suddenly when you can. You should wait for Alex to finish reading this question. When he does, someone somewhere lowers the button, activating your buzzer. And if you worry at first, before your buzzer is activated, you are locked for a fraction of a second. And then, the longer you take it, the more it gets. So there is a very narrow window – maybe, like, a syllabus with a syllabus or half after Alex finishes reading this question – where you want to call them crazy. You'll have to get that millisecond.

You have a wealth of trivia knowledge, but suddenly, Dangerous! it's like shooting proton torpedoes in the Star Wars. Do you have a background playing virtual games that help you with that connection?

I have a feeling of being too much to compete at games. I'm not that great video game the gamer. I became so addicted to it Mario Kart 64 in college, and I had very lousy courses for the semester. I tried to get the demon back from the bottle without moving. But that's a rising generation. This is James Holzhauer's generation and the next generation Dangerous! players. All will be trained by Nintendo or trained by PlayStation.

Is James basically disturbing how Dangerous! to be played in the future?

Certainly. I was on Dangerous! for six months, and I haven't done anything, anyone will ever think of it as a duplicate plan, because I already dread the answers. But he had an amazing way of thinking. He looked up Dangerous! and I thought, For 35 years, people have been playing this wrong. I have an idea, but I'll try it for the first time on stage. I will play the game in a completely different way. And if you're a very talented, accurate player like that, that can't be avoided. I think you will see a lot of strong players in the middle Dangerous! next time, trying to play his way and winning big. And I think you'll see a few misleading players trying to play his way and hurt themselves.

Photo: Eric McCandless / ABC

What section is on the board and makes you sick?

Honestly, I'm a great analyst. It is Dangerous! The secret: You should know a little about everything. So even if it's something I don't like – even if it's hockey, like, I know there will be an accessible ice hockey article where I will be able to find more information. I love the word stuff, but maybe I'm not good at it, like company stuff: business and industry, corporate history and consumer culture and all that. I'm not big. I'm at this point where pop music can scare me. That's why you should be small Dangerous!. It's not just a thumb; you still need to know who Cardi B is.

Which brings us to an important question: Where did you learn the "boomer OK" to use during the race?

Everyone knows "OK boomer"! I've been insulting about Baby Boomers all my life. My kids will grow up in the underwater world because of Baby Boomers. I would not be hit by that.

Is there a question from your many runs in progress Dangerous! does it bother you to this day?

I think the hardest pill to swallow was the time I had the best chance of beating Brad, who cleared my watch three times ago, but I had only one question for him to beat me. And you have to say that the secretary of state was single, and I guessed that Madeleine Albright instead of Cooleza Rice, Brad came back and won that match. Because I didn't know enough about the love life of U.S. federal clerks I still think about that sometimes on a sleepless night.

Your record startup is in progress Dangerous! It has changed your life by giving you the opportunity to change careers and have a reputation as a great person in Trivia. What will winning this tournament do for you?

I think it allows me to keep going. It has always bothered me to continue finishing in second place in all this Dangerous! contests, and that's what kept me coming back for more. And I feel like I can now retire happily and become a competitive ex-cheerleader. I did everything I intended to do in the show, a little past my department, and it was time to tie my spurs and buzzer into the sun.

Alex doesn't want to retire, but in theory, Dangerous! it will continue without him. Can you come back to host?

Hey man. For me, I can't even think of that question, because Alex is not the place for me. She is not related to the show. To answer that question, you may need to think of some kind of Dangerous! without Alex Trebek, and I'm not emotionally ready for that. I mean it can be very flattering, really. Obviously, that is a dream job.

OK, so when can we expect it? The Wheel of Luck?

If my country needs me, then I'll be there Sex.