Free Final Jeopardy by Stephen Baker

is Jones?” Trebek paused and glanced at the judges. If there had been another prominent female track star named Jones, Jennings, like thousands of others, would have been a one-time loser on America’s most popular quiz show. But the judges knew no other stars named Jones and approved his vague answer. “We’ll accept that,” Trebek said. Ken Jennings won the game and $37,201, becoming the new
Jeopardy
champion.
    Millions of viewers witnessed the drama that June evening. Many of them probably figured that, like most champions, the skinny computer programmer who snuck through in Final Jeopardy would lose the next day or the day after that. In fact, by the time the “Jones” show aired, Jennings was already well into his streak.
Jeopardy
recorded its games two or three months ahead of time, and Friedman’s team usually taped five games per day—a grueling ordeal for winning contestants. Between games, Trebek and the winner left the stage to change clothes, appearing ten minutes later with a new look—as if it were another day. Within an hour of his first victory, Jennings won again. In two days, he won his first eight games, then headed back to Salt Lake City. During his streak, he commuted between the two cities without disclosing what he was up to. Like all
Jeopardy
players, and even members of the studio audience, he had signed legal forms vowing not to disclose the results of the games before they aired. His streak was a secret.
    As the weeks passed, the games seemed to become easier for him. He grew comfortable with the buzzer, could pick out the hints in the clues and read the signals of his mind. More often than not, Jennings did not just beat his competitors, he blew them away. After the first two rounds of a game, he had usually amassed more than twice the winnings of his nearest rival. This was known as a lock-out, for it rendered Final Jeopardy meaningless. As time passed, Jennings fell into a winning rhythm.
    Millions of new viewers tuned into
Jeopardy
to see the summer sensation. In July, as Jennings extended his streak to thirty-eight games, ratings jumped 50 percent from those of the previous year, reaching a daily audience of fifteen million.
Jeopardy
rose to be the second-ranked TV show of the month, trailing only the CBS prime-time crime series
CSI
. In an added dividend for Friedman,
Jeopardy
’s rise also boosted ratings for its stablemate,
Wheel of Fortune,
which followed it on many channels.
    Jennings, with his choirboy face and awkward grin, was a far cry from the tough guys on
CSI
. But he was proving to be a cognitive mauler. Some of his fallen opponents (who eventually numbered 148) took to calling themselves Road Kill and produced T-shirts for the growing club. Yet even while Jennings racked up wins he flashed humor, some of it even mischievous. One $200 clue in the category Tool Time read: “This term for a long-handled gardening tool can also mean an immoral pleasure-seeker.” Jennings, his knowledge clearly extending into gangsta rap, responded: “What is a ‘ho’?” That produced laughter and oohs and aahs from the crowd. A surprised Trebek struggled briefly for words, finally asking Jennings: “Is that what they teach you in school, in Utah?” His response was ruled incorrect. In fact, it could be argued that Jennings’s gaffe was right—and far more clever than the intended answer (“What is a rake?”). He could have challenged the call, but he was so far ahead it was barely worth the bother.
    What was so special about Ken Jennings? First, he knew a lot. A practicing Mormon who had spent his childhood in Korea and had done missionary work in Spain, he knew the Bible and international affairs. He’d devoted himself to quiz bowls much of his life, the way others honed their skills in ice hockey or ballet, and he had a fabulous memory. Still, his peers considered him only an excellent player, not a