Haters gonna hate, I suppose, but...

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Johnblue
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Re: Haters gonna hate, I suppose, but...

Post by Johnblue »

Haters gonna hate, I guess. The two other boards I read about J! are almost universal in their dislike of Chu. I think since we're encouraged to be polite at this board in case the players read comments, some are holding back. I'm one of them, frankly. I didn't think I'd like this Decades thing but it's a wonderful break!
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koam
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Re: Haters gonna hate, I suppose, but...

Post by koam »

Arthur's a great player and I really like and understand what he's doing.

But the attention that his "story" has garnered has got to be traceable to some misinformed reporter who knows about one-tenth as much about Jeopardy! as most avid fans do. Most of what Arthur's doing isn't new, as he concedes http://hereandnow.wbur.org/2014/02/04/j ... arthur-chu (great interview with the current Champ).

It must be a slow news week or something because this story really caught fire. I saw it on CNN's feed on facebook yesterday. I don't know where the seed for the story first caught on, but it would be interesting to track how the story has cascaded around the media so rapidly. And, for the most part, commenters on the online stories are supportive of Arthur's strategy and success. A vocal minority finds it disruptive to their viewing pleasure (too complex and disorderly for them, but not unfair)...and a tiny minority thinks it's somehow unfair. The media has fueled this with incendiary headlines that caught all of our attention, as well as the attention of millions of other serious and casual Jeopardy! fans.

Arthur's Jan 31 episode http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TT0TH7NV2Q
mahatma
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Re: Haters gonna hate, I suppose, but...

Post by mahatma »

A small irony: despite the fact that Chuck Forrest is currently featured on the 'Battle of the Decades', none of the media mentions of Arthur's strategy have noted the connection.

A larger irony: however many squeaky wheels are out there feeling angry about the 'DD hunting', they are rooting against what is usually deemed an admirable quality in other competitions: hard work. Imagine if a supremely talented basketball player refused to work out, eat right, and practice basketball. They would be derided for letting their talent go to waste, would they not? So why the hostility toward a competitor who, in addition to being talented, outworks his opponents?
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Re: Haters gonna hate, I suppose, but...

Post by FireAntsDefense »

EndlessEntropy wrote:starting from the bottom
Can't wait for Celebrity Jeopardy! starring Drake.
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Re: Haters gonna hate, I suppose, but...

Post by alietr »

Arthur made the last segment on ABC Nightly News tonight.
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Re: Haters gonna hate, I suppose, but...

Post by dhkendall »

Golf wrote:
ArthurChu wrote:"I could've added sports to my list of things to memorize but I still wanted to have time to have sex with my wife."
Ever hear of multitasking? :twisted:
Won't work. It's well-known that thinking of baseball while having sex benefits the former activity at the detriment of the latter.
Fleeboy wrote:In a single week, Arthur has generated more buzz than any human J! contestant since K. Jennings, yet (as far as we know) still hasn't clinched a spot in the next ToC.
What about Roger Craig? What about Colby? (Well, OK, maybe he didn't get as much press buzz, but his hate club rivals Arthur's) And have we all forgotten about Thomas-gate? Won't someone think of the children?
"Jeopardy! is two parts luck and one part luck" - Me

"The way to win on Jeopardy is to be a rabidly curious, information-omnivorous person your entire life." - Ken Jennings

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georgespelvin
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Re: Haters gonna hate, I suppose, but...

Post by georgespelvin »

Arthur made ABC News tonight in a piece which is absolutely sickening in the reporter's almost total ignorance of the show. The piece concludes that Arthur has finally cracked the code of doing well on the show. Uh, ever hear of Ken Jennings who won 74 games and won 2.5 million dollars in regular play? How about Frank Spangenberg who made about as much money in five games as Arthur did in four with clues worth half the value? You'll also be interested to know that Daily Doubles only show up in the bottom two rows of the board. And, oh, never mind, as I said, the story is so ignorant that it's sickening. :(

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/villain- ... d=22350281
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Austin Powers
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Re: Haters gonna hate, I suppose, but...

Post by Austin Powers »

Obviously this media attention is not Arthur's fault (though I doubt he's hanging up when folks call), but it's a little silly to see people act like the bouncing around, and playing in a somewhat uptight, competitive manner, are somehow new.

One thing I really hate about Twitter is how it generates news. Ermygahd, folks on Twitter doubt like Arthur, or the Coke commercial where the lady in the burqa is singing God Bless America in Arabic! Let's run a news segment on it!!!!
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Re: Haters gonna hate, I suppose, but...

Post by econgator »

Grow up, children.
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Magna
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Re: Haters gonna hate, I suppose, but...

Post by Magna »

I can't fathom how journalists can write or report that the "bounce" strategy is novel, just before mentioning that it's named for Chuck Forrest who used it years ago. Or that Arthur has "cracked the code," just before mentioning that Ken Jennings and others have won lots of games too.

To be honest, I didn't find the bounce disconcerting, possibly because I was focused on giving responses to the clues, and not just passively watching the game.
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ArthurChu
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Re: Haters gonna hate, I suppose, but...

Post by ArthurChu »

Well for the record in EVERY. SINGLE. INTERVIEW I've given I've basically led off with "You know, all I literally did was Google 'Jeopardy strategy' and start reading what came up...", I've name-checked the Forrest Bounce (and made the same joke every time, that this "new" strategy was invented on Season 2 of Alex Trebek's Jeopardy when I was one year old), I've name-checked Dave Madden, Roger Craig and Watson and pointed out that media coverage of them was hardly lacking...

But whatever. I'm still picking up the phone and still "milking" the publicity train because -- as someone who long, long before any of this wanted to have opportunities to do stuff like voiceover or acting work -- I'd be stupid not to.

Then again, the fact that "I'd be stupid not to" is my response to obvious opportunities being handed to me rather than "No, no, that would be impolite" seems to be the whole reason the haters are getting off on hating me.

Trying not to be bitter though -- #TeamChu is now a lot more vocal and visible now than the hate train, but I think that's largely because I'm highly active on Twitter and people now know that if they yell at me on Twitter I and my friends will probably see it. I don't think that actually proves that the haters are a minority -- as noted in "safer" spaces like messageboards there seem to be hotbeds of "To hell with this guy" sentiment.

But as I said rather vociferously on my own Twitter, any "consensus" that hates on, say, Colby -- who is one of the coolest people in my view to ever have graced Jeopardy's stages -- have already proved their opinion means nothing to me.
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El Jefe
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Re: Haters gonna hate, I suppose, but...

Post by El Jefe »

Fleeboy wrote: The top story on my Yahoo! homepage now?
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/jeopardy- ... .html?vp=1
Did their gaffe go unnoticed? Hint:
Spoiler
read the link out loud
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El Jefe
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Re: Haters gonna hate, I suppose, but...

Post by El Jefe »

What I've observed about the player-hating in the fan-base is mostly sampling error and a real lack of excellence. Fans are comfortable with the familiar (coddling) warmth of regular progressions like fully-read category titles and predictability. They perceive themselves as representing average/common fans (and they may be right, sad to say).

We in the competitive Scrabble tournament circuit (I am a 1600-rated player on a 500-2200 scale) run across this all the time- most of us have been kicked out of the living room and local club games with the protestation that we're "too good," that it "takes the fun out of the game" when we use words we may not know the definitions to and maximize turns for position/equity not nebulous style points like six-letter words (which are usually a waste).

I suspect other communities are the same- rather than rewarding excellence or competitiveness in a game some sort of imaginary politeness is unfairly expected. "Oh, you are a 'serious' player-- well, I just play for fun." (as if playing seriously can't be fun) In fact British Scrabble used to be very much aligned under this concept- one was expected to set one's opponent up to make a brilliant play.

And yeah, Arthur, the most important money thing (thanks for stressing that)- we get that too. "Well you should really have a tournament where you have the know the definitions of the words, that's the way we played in my household." - to which I say some variant of "do you know how long we would have to argue about how close something was to the definition?" (of course the definition thing is sort of a red herring- they really only want you to play with words *they* know the definition to)

What about that fluffy ABC segment which is misstated and fairly incomprehensible at the end? Even worse, the 20-second clip that is cycled through on the website has a newswoman explaining to the nation that Fidelito was penalized 3 months ago for pronouncing the Seinfeld character [uh-LANE] instead of [E-lane] when he clearly said [HUH-LANE]- Just. No.

Jeffrey
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koam
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Re: Haters gonna hate, I suppose, but...

Post by koam »

Great interviews and responses, Arthur. Thanks.
Last edited by koam on Wed Feb 05, 2014 9:32 am, edited 1 time in total.
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koam
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Re: Haters gonna hate, I suppose, but...

Post by koam »

ArthurChu wrote:Well for the record in EVERY. SINGLE. INTERVIEW I've given I've basically led off with "You know, all I literally did was Google 'Jeopardy strategy' and start reading what came up...", I've name-checked the Forrest Bounce (and made the same joke every time, that this "new" strategy was invented on Season 2 of Alex Trebek's Jeopardy when I was one year old), I've name-checked Dave Madden, Roger Craig and Watson and pointed out that media coverage of them was hardly lacking...

But whatever. I'm still picking up the phone and still "milking" the publicity train because -- as someone who long, long before any of this wanted to have opportunities to do stuff like voiceover or acting work -- I'd be stupid not to.

Then again, the fact that "I'd be stupid not to" is my response to obvious opportunities being handed to me rather than "No, no, that would be impolite" seems to be the whole reason the haters are getting off on hating me.

Trying not to be bitter though -- #TeamChu is now a lot more vocal and visible now than the hate train, but I think that's largely because I'm highly active on Twitter and people now know that if they yell at me on Twitter I and my friends will probably see it. I don't think that actually proves that the haters are a minority -- as noted in "safer" spaces like messageboards there seem to be hotbeds of "To hell with this guy" sentiment.

But as I said rather vociferously on my own Twitter, any "consensus" that hates on, say, Colby -- who is one of the coolest people in my view to ever have graced Jeopardy's stages -- have already proved their opinion means nothing to me.
Great post, Arthur. Thanks for being here.

Arthur, on Jan 31 show, why did you stop hunting for DDs when there was one still left on the board? (After the first DD in DJ, you went back to clear all the top row, and then the 2nd row.) Another player (Tarn) ended up finding the remaining DD. And why did you go for the lowest-dollar clues at that point, rather than try to make more money as fast as possible? Have any of the reporters asked you about this?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TT0TH7NV2Q
Golf
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Re: Haters gonna hate, I suppose, but...

Post by Golf »

koam wrote:Arthur, on Jan 31 show, why did you stop hunting for DDs when there was one still left on the board? (After the first DD in DJ, you went back to clear all the top row, and then the 2nd row.) Another player (Tarn) ended up finding the remaining DD. And why did you go for the lowest-dollar clues at that point, rather than try to make more money as fast as possible? Have any of the reporters asked you about this?
He answered this in that game thread.
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Re: Haters gonna hate, I suppose, but...

Post by John Boy »

Austin Powers wrote:Obviously this media attention is not Arthur's fault (though I doubt he's hanging up when folks call), but it's a little silly to see people act like the bouncing around, and playing in a somewhat uptight, competitive manner, are somehow new.

One thing I really hate about Twitter is how it generates news. Ermygahd, folks on Twitter doubt like Arthur, or the Coke commercial where the lady in the burqa is singing God Bless America in Arabic! Let's run a news segment on it!!!!
This morning's Plain Dealer has a story about the "local guy" doing well on the show, and his run (at least his run of televised shows) isn't even over yet.

In keeping with all the other commentators, more attention is given to the "stir" he is creating by playing the game in a slightly different way from what we're used to seeing. It's almost as if he discovered a way to press the signaling button with his toes, or found a way to use his Google Glasses to come up with the answers (not a bad strategy, now that I think of it).

It seems more attention is being given to his DD-hunting than to the fact that he seems very good on the buzzer and very knowledgeable about J! material. I think it's kind of a shame that that's overshadowing his stellar performance in handling the material and succeeding on the show. Oh well....
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koam
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Re: Haters gonna hate, I suppose, but...

Post by koam »

Golf wrote:
koam wrote:Arthur, on Jan 31 show, why did you stop hunting for DDs when there was one still left on the board? (After the first DD in DJ, you went back to clear all the top row, and then the 2nd row.) Another player (Tarn) ended up finding the remaining DD. And why did you go for the lowest-dollar clues at that point, rather than try to make more money as fast as possible? Have any of the reporters asked you about this?
He answered this in that game thread.
Yes, thanks. Just found it. He said it was a gaffe that he made twice...and has corrected course for the future.

I haven't noticed any reporters even mentioning it. I guess they didn't watch his shows before reporting on them.

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=1786&start=20#p98214
ArthurChu wrote:Never attribute to some subtle strategic maneuvering what can be attributed to just plain stupidity -- compounded by exhaustion. (The one reason I dislike the "illusion" J tries to enforce of each episode being on a different day is that it totally obscures what a test of stamina being a repeat champ is -- I think most runs we see on the show would look incredibly different if champs got to get a good night's sleep between every episode.)

Yes, TWICE I got so relieved with the flood of endorphins after hitting and getting the DD I completely forgot there was a second one lurking out there. I didn't fully grasp the magnitude of this error until Tarn hit the DD and only her underbetting saved me from losing this game.

I had previously thought I was very smart as Mr. Strategery for going back to the low dollar values after the lead was "safe" -- after totally screwing that up twice I vowed when I came back to NEVER stop going for high value clues first just so I couldn't make this mistake again. We'll see how well that works out for me.
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ArthurChu
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Re: Haters gonna hate, I suppose, but...

Post by ArthurChu »

To El Jefe:

I have no issue whatsoever with people who don't like it when people play "too competitively" in a social setting and want to put in "ground rules" to make the game "fun for everyone". In a social game the only purpose of playing the game is for people to have a good time, and no one should really dictate to anyone else how they have fun.

Two issues that I don't think people really understand, though, is that purposely "dumbing down" your play is really HARD after you've been playing at a higher level -- you really can't "unsee" strategic opportunities you're aware of once you become aware of them, and learning how to purposely emulate the thought process of a less-competitive player so you can play the game the "fun" way without making it look like you're being a jerk by deliberately "throwing" the game is if anything a more draining intellectual exercise, in many cases, than just playing your best.

Second issue is that JEOPARDY IS NOT A FRIENDLY SOCIAL LIVING-ROOM GAME. It is a HIGHER-STAKES game than most of us will ever play in our lives. HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS AT STAKE.

A lot of people make a distinction between playing "for fun" and playing "for money" and will forgive cutthroat "asshole" tactics if you're playing "for money", even if the amount of money is small (a living-room poker game with a buy-in of like $20). And yet they expect people to be "nice" when playing for tens or hundreds of thousands of bucks? In a game that you only ever get to play once in your lifetime, where the punishment for losing is a consolation prize that mostly gets eaten up by airfare and hotel costs and never, ever getting to be on any other version of this show hosted by Alex Trebek again? (Says so right there in your contract.)

Srsly.
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Re: Haters gonna hate, I suppose, but...

Post by pappy97 »

DHicton wrote:I really admire Arthur Chu's game play. He's doing it exactly right, as far as I'm concerned. One reason I feel this way is that in my own personal experience, the difficulty of the clues is completely random, having nothing to do with dollar values or whether it's the first round or the second. So why not, as they say in bridge, get the kiddies off the street as soon as possible? You have more cash to work with when you hit a Daily Double.

He's also doing what Watson did, and that was pretty successful.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... ctics.html
I love the strategy and am surprised we haven't seen more of it, and by that I mean more very high or very low wagering on DD's and going for ties. On the other hand, you could argue this run will lead to copycats and if casual people stop watching and Jeopardy loses ad revenue because of the common complaint that it is not fun to watch because people watching the show can't handle all the jumping around with the categories, Jeopardy will change its rules. That would suck, but so it goes.

My beef, and pretty much my big beef with his play, is that he so flippant and (seemingly) proud about his not knowing anything about americana, pop culture, or sports. Take the hockey question. He fired off his "I don't know" so fast that it, IMHO, appeared flippant and disrespectful. It certainly came off that way. You could argue he just wants to hurry through it, but even with "5 bucks" on the line, most Jeopardy! fans turned contestants want to get every question right. They want to play the game. He didn't even want to throw out a blind guess. Then on his Thursday 1/30 show, in Final Jeopardy, comedic actress cat, clue about lady having bunch of noms in 2013 Emmys and his "guess" is "Mary Tyler Moore"? I suspect he's intelligent and aware enough to know it wasn't MTM. He couldn't have guessed literally anyone else? Again, it appeared to be a flippant answer. Sure it didn't matter because he won, but he did bet $2000 and that is $2000 he simply gave away by not giving a decent guess.

Play to win, fast play, hunt out DD's early, large values first and small values later, bring 2nd place with you to the next game so the next game only has one unknown opponent, all fine under current rules and perfectly fine strategy. But there is no need to disrespect the game, it doesn't help, and as the flippant Mary Tyler Moore response shows, it could hurt your winnings (not saying he knew the answer, but a non-flippant guess would lead to a better chance of getting it correct). I suspect he may come here and say he doesn't mean to be disrespectful and doesn't think he's being flippant, but it certainly comes off that way on TV.
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