Trivia about Trivia: Obscure Record Holders

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zerobandwidth
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Trivia about Trivia: Obscure Record Holders

Post by zerobandwidth »

Brad Rutter has still won the most money on Jeopardy!, Ken Jennings still has the longest regular-game winning streak, and Roger Craig still has the largest one-day score, but there are a few other records that I'm not so sure about, and the Wikipedia list of notable contestants doesn't yet include these. Can anyone with more encyclopedic knowledge confirm or refute them?
  • Excluding the current champion at any particular time, Michael McKean is the only remaining undefeated human player of multiple Jeopardy! games, having won every celebrity tournament in which he's competed, including a defense of his title in the Celebrity Invitational. (This intentionally excludes events like Kids' Week and Power Players Week where each contestant always plays exactly one game.) I guess maybe there were some pre-limit ToC winners or other tournament winners (teen/college/seniors) who didn't play in future masters tournaments and thus had no opportunity to lose games...? There's also some gray area in considering Brad Rutter, since he was a five-time undefeated champ before the limit was removed, won his ToC and the Ultimate ToC, but was technically behind Jennings in human vs. human play in the IBM Challenge. It would be interesting, at least, to try to note all undefeated players somewhere.
  • Christy Gibson seems to have set the "anti-Craig" mark for lowest final score at $-6400 on 09 July 2012, and deserves some sort of fruit basket or tasteful greeting card for surviving the experience. The previous record, as far as I've found citations, was apparently $-5100, but I can't find who that might have been.
  • Did Elyse Mancuso just set a new record in 2012 for highest score in a two-day tournament final, at $79,600?
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Re: Trivia about Trivia: Obscure Record Holders

Post by ahirbhairav »

zerobandwidth wrote:Brad Rutter has still won the most money on Jeopardy!, Ken Jennings still has the longest regular-game winning streak, and Roger Craig still has the largest one-day score, but there are a few other records that I'm not so sure about, and the Wikipedia list of notable contestants doesn't yet include these. Can anyone with more encyclopedic knowledge confirm or refute them?
  • Excluding the current champion at any particular time, Michael McKean is the only remaining undefeated human player of multiple Jeopardy! games, having won every celebrity tournament in which he's competed, including a defense of his title in the Celebrity Invitational. (This intentionally excludes events like Kids' Week and Power Players Week where each contestant always plays exactly one game.) I guess maybe there were some pre-limit ToC winners or other tournament winners (teen/college/seniors) who didn't play in future masters tournaments and thus had no opportunity to lose games...? There's also some gray area in considering Brad Rutter, since he was a five-time undefeated champ before the limit was removed, won his ToC and the Ultimate ToC, but was technically behind Jennings in human vs. human play in the IBM Challenge. It would be interesting, at least, to try to note all undefeated players somewhere.
  • Christy Gibson seems to have set the "anti-Craig" mark for lowest final score at $-6400 on 09 July 2012, and deserves some sort of fruit basket or tasteful greeting card for surviving the experience. The previous record, as far as I've found citations, was apparently $-5100, but I can't find who that might have been.
  • Did Elyse Mancuso just set a new record in 2012 for highest score in a two-day tournament final, at $79,600?

Elyse did. Did you know that my neighbor's cousin, who also happens to be a friend of mine's classmate was a wild card this year? Correct response: "Who is Krishna Bharathala?"
Last edited by ahirbhairav on Fri Apr 19, 2013 8:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Trivia about Trivia: Obscure Record Holders

Post by Turd Ferguson »

zerobandwidth wrote:
  • Excluding the current champion at any particular time, Michael McKean is the only remaining undefeated human player of multiple Jeopardy! games,
    [...]
  • Did Elyse Mancuso just set a new record in 2012 for highest score in a two-day tournament final, at $79,600?
Elyse Mancuso was undefeated in 3 (or 4) games. Since they've stopped inviting the Teen tournament winners to the TOC, there are probably others, too. You'd either have to add another qualifier to your first statement, or David St. Hubbins won't be the only one.
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Re: Trivia about Trivia: Obscure Record Holders

Post by Paucle »

Barbara Lowe also never lost. 5 time champion who never played in any ToC.
Granted, she left under a cloud, but she still went 5-0.
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Re: Trivia about Trivia: Obscure Record Holders

Post by zerobandwidth »

Turd Ferguson wrote:Elyse Mancuso was undefeated in 3 (or 4) games. Since they've stopped inviting the Teen tournament winners to the TOC, there are probably others, too. You'd either have to add another qualifier to your first statement, or David St. Hubbins won't be the only one.
Good point.

Compiling a list of undefeated players might be much tougher than I thought.
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Re: Trivia about Trivia: Obscure Record Holders

Post by hanzz »

Christy Gibson seems to have set the "anti-Craig" mark for lowest final score at $-6400 on 09 July 2012, and deserves some sort of fruit basket or tasteful greeting card for surviving the experience. The previous record, as far as I've found citations, was apparently $-5100, but I can't find who that might have been.
The previous record holder I believe was actually Heather Chapman with a score of -$6,200, though I certainly unintentionally gunned for it with my CC Day 1 Final score of -$6,000.
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Re: Trivia about Trivia: Obscure Record Holders

Post by dhkendall »

zerobandwidth wrote:
Turd Ferguson wrote:Elyse Mancuso was undefeated in 3 (or 4) games. Since they've stopped inviting the Teen tournament winners to the TOC, there are probably others, too. You'd either have to add another qualifier to your first statement, or David St. Hubbins won't be the only one.
Good point.

Compiling a list of undefeated players might be much tougher than I thought.
I asked a similar question about undefeated players (excluding all tournies, so all celebs and teens are out) and boardies volunteered quite a few names, so, yeah it is a list. (I think there were a few early season undefeateds who passed away before the UToC that can count as well.) If someone can find my post and the replies to me, it would gel you, as the question's been asked.
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Re: Trivia about Trivia: Obscure Record Holders

Post by zerobandwidth »

hanzz wrote:
zerobandwidth wrote:Christy Gibson seems to have set the "anti-Craig" mark for lowest final score at $-6400 on 09 July 2012, and deserves some sort of fruit basket or tasteful greeting card for surviving the experience. The previous record, as far as I've found citations, was apparently $-5100, but I can't find who that might have been.
The previous record holder I believe was actually Heather Chapman with a score of -$6,200, though I certainly unintentionally gunned for it with my CC Day 1 Final score of -$6,000.
At least you put in a great showing on day 2, and yeah, if you already knew ahead of time that any negative score would be zeroed out, it makes much more sense to "go big" and try to get back in it. While watching Gibson's game I got the sense that she, too, was stuck in the gambler's dilemma, of taking ever-increasing chances to try to make up the gap, but she didn't have any chance for redemption in a second game. And, unlike Chapman, Gibson's arithmetic spelunking wasn't accelerated by a DD loss; -$6,400 was her "Coryat score" as well.

So, what do you like in a fruit basket? :)
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Re: Trivia about Trivia: Obscure Record Holders

Post by cheezguyty »

zerobandwidth wrote:Did Elyse Mancuso just set a new record in 2012 for highest score in a two-day tournament final, at $79,600?
Matt Zielenski won the 1995 Teen Tournament with a two-day total of $42,300 on pre-doubled boards.
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Re: Trivia about Trivia: Obscure Record Holders

Post by seaborgium »

dhkendall wrote:I asked a similar question about undefeated players (excluding all tournies, so all celebs and teens are out) and boardies volunteered quite a few names, so, yeah it is a list. (I think there were a few early season undefeateds who passed away before the UToC that can count as well.) If someone can find my post and the replies to me, it would gel you, as the question's been asked.
If tournaments are excluded, why should it matter if people died before the UToC? Every retired five-time champion from Elise Beraru to John Beck is on the list then.

Everyone who has won a regular game of Jeopardy, besides the reigning champion, has lost at one point or another. [edit: except Barbara Lowe, as mentioned above.] Even Jerry Frankel, who won the first ToC and never got the chance to play again, has one loss to his name, having entered the semis as the last wild card.

Undefeated player outside Kids' Weeks and Teen Tournaments: Ulf Jensen.

As for other obscure records, I'd like to suggest "largest failed TDD from which the player recovered to the point of having a lock game," and nominate myself as the record-holder ($4,800 to $0, second game). (If there's a bigger one you know of, let me know.) Roger probably has the largest single DD loss of anyone who won the game in which it occurred ($10,000, third game), unless there was someone who already had a huge lead, hit a late DD, and had room to bet five digits without endangering a lock. (And then, of course, did so and got it wrong.)
Last edited by seaborgium on Tue Sep 11, 2012 5:44 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Trivia about Trivia: Obscure Record Holders

Post by teapot37 »

I've had this as my signature for a while, but I actually am curious how many people I share this distinction with, and if anybody has more losses on their record.
Not many people can say they've lost four times on Jeopardy!.
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Re: Trivia about Trivia: Obscure Record Holders

Post by hanzz »

teapot37 wrote:I've had this as my signature for a while, but I actually am curious how many people I share this distinction with, and if anybody has more losses on their record.
Not bad! I've got three to my name.

ETA upon further thought: Cliff Galiher has four losses to his name (both his quarters and both of the ToC finals). And, of course, Ken Jennings has 6 (Nancy Zerg, all three of his UTOC games, and both Watson games).
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Re: Trivia about Trivia: Obscure Record Holders

Post by jeff6286 »

hanzz wrote:
teapot37 wrote:I've had this as my signature for a while, but I actually am curious how many people I share this distinction with, and if anybody has more losses on their record.
Not bad! I've got three to my name.
If you count a 2-day tournament final as 2 separate games, then there could be players who have lost a regular game, then a TOC quarterfinal, then won their semi and lost both games of the final, for a total of 4 losses, without even considering something like the UTOC. Stefan, in the 2010 TOC fits this description, as does Cliff Galiher from the 2007 TOC. I believe that is it since the 5-time champion rule was retired, so any player to lose more than 4 games would, I believe, had to have been involved in the UTOC, M$M, or some other special tournament.

Actually, now I that look at the record of Chris Miller (teapot37), he finished outside of 1st place in 5 separate games, counting both halves of the 2-day cumulative UTOC Semifinal, as well as his 6th regular game, TOC Quarterfinal, and TOC Semifinal. So if you're counting a 2-day cumulative score affair as just one game, then it would seem nearly impossible for anyone to have more losses than that.

However, if you consider teapot37 as having 5 losses, counting the 2-day Semifinal, then he is in pretty good company. Jerome Vered has lost 5 times, finishing behind Leszek Pawlowicz in both games of the TOC Final in 1992, and finishing behind Brad Rutter in all 3 games of the UTOC Final. Ken Jennings lost his 75th regular game to Nancy Zerg, then finished behind Brad in all 3 games of the UTOC Final, then also finished behind Brad in the first game of the IBM Challenge. So he has lost 5 times to humans, and 6 times overall.

So depending on how you quality the question, there could be a number of different contenders for the title of "The Biggest Loser", although I think the most likely candidate is me simply for the amount of time I spent researching while writing this post. :(
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Re: Trivia about Trivia: Obscure Record Holders

Post by econgator »

jeff6286 wrote:lost both games of the final
I don't see how you can "lose" the first game of a final.
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Re: Trivia about Trivia: Obscure Record Holders

Post by Rackme32 »

Paucle wrote:Barbara Lowe also never lost. 5 time champion who never played in any ToC.
Granted, she left under a cloud, but she still went 5-0.
Barbara Lowe... I don't usually remember names of contestants, but hers sticks in my head; probably because she won a bunch of money several years earlier on a game called Bullseye (I think) with Jim Lange. She was a favorite contestant of mine (and the ex-wife's) during her runs on both shows.

I always wondered why she didn't play in the TOC... What happened? What "cloud"?

Just searched in the J! Archive for her, can't find her there, either.
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Re: Trivia about Trivia: Obscure Record Holders

Post by econgator »

Rackme32 wrote:I always wondered why she didn't play in the TOC... What happened? What "cloud"?
She violated eligibility rules. She was on a different show under a different name.
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Re: Trivia about Trivia: Obscure Record Holders

Post by Magna »

This blogger comments on this (see #3):
http://fbeuks.blogspot.com/2009/04/jeop ... ourri.html

I think the incident may have been mentioned in one or more of the many books about the show.
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Re: Trivia about Trivia: Obscure Record Holders

Post by Rackme32 »

Magna wrote:This blogger comments on this (see #3):
http://fbeuks.blogspot.com/2009/04/jeop ... ourri.html

I think the incident may have been mentioned in one or more of the many books about the show.
Interesting... I've never read any of the books on Jeopardy! (amazingly, considering how big a fan I am), and I guess Google doesn't find blog content very well, if at all...

I know Ms. Lowe won on Jeopardy! and Bullseye under the same name, several years apart... Guess I didn't happen to watch whatever other show she appeared on that got her in trouble. She was an awesome player, and our pick to win the ToC that year... She brought it on herself, though.

I do remember that she looked like she had a wig on, and that she also didn't look the picture of health; We thought at the time that she had maybe had recent surgery or something, and never dreamed that she may have been disguising herself to avoid detection.
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Re: Trivia about Trivia: Obscure Record Holders

Post by jeff6286 »

econgator wrote:
jeff6286 wrote:lost both games of the final
I don't see how you can "lose" the first game of a final.
Well I didn't say that you had to count those, I was just saying that "if" you were to consider that as 2 losses, then some players could accumulate quite a total. By "lose", I simply meant not accumulating the greatest total in either game, but of course you can argue that players in one particular game of a cumulative final aren't necessarily trying to win that particular game, only to have the highest total at the end of the finals, so there certainly is no reason that you have to count each individual game as a win or loss. I was just trying to see what player has finished outside 1st place in the greatest number of games, and this would be the easiest way of amassing a somewhat large total.
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Re: Trivia about Trivia: Obscure Record Holders

Post by Bamaman »

Some players lose their quarterfinal game simply by not making what would be a proper wager because they feel they have enough to get a wild card spot.
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