(electronic music)
- [Johnny Gilbert] Her 20 straight wins
rank her number two in the history of Jeopardy.
An administrator of a female-centric website,
from Wilmot Illinois, Julia Collins.
In 2004, his 74 wins and two and a half million dollars
in earnings set the benchmark by which
all others are measured.
A writer from Seattle, Washington, Ken Jennings.
One of Jeopardy's most memorable contestants,
he earned over $400,000 during his 12-day streak.
A bartender from New York, New York, Austin Rogers.
- Welcome back, captains.
It gives me great pleasure to have been the one
to release you from sequestration purgatory.
I've often though that that was probably the most
difficult part for any contestant competing in a tournament.
You don't get a chance to see the games that go
before you because we don't want you to know
what the scores were for the teams that did not
win their games.
I can't tell you what the scores were for the two teams
that were runners up in last weeks' games.
I can tell you that match number one
was won by Brad's team.
Does that surprise you, Ken?
- Doesn't surprise me at all.
That's often what happens when I watch Brad play Jeopardy.
- Really?
Yeah, his record is intact, he has never lost
to a human being in any tournament.
You guys had the misfortune to play
against that IBM computer, of course.
Now, one thing the three of you have in common
is that after your appearances as contestants
and champions on Jeopardy, you all got to be media stars.
Julia, was it ever overwhelming for you,
because as soon as you won that 20th game
and close to half a million dollars, every talk show
in America wanted you as a guest.
- It was exciting, but it was a little overwhelming.
It was quite unexpected.
- It's hard to cope with sometimes, right,
because you're a quiet person and all of these people
are coming at you from all different corners.
Now Ken, you were a champion for 74 shows in a row,
and you know of course, you've heard the story
of David Letterman making jokes about
you and me moving to Massachusetts and taking out a license
because we spent so much time together.
- It was a magical summer for both of us I think.
- Yes, it was.
But your great run on Jeopardy managed,
more than any other contestant I think, to change your life.
You left Utah, you moved to Washington state,
you started writing more than you had in the past,
you've created games, you've written books,
and so, what has the impact been on your life,
and on your family's life?
- It's totally unexpected.
Nobody goes on Jeopardy thinking they're
going to get famous.
And sometimes some do, and it's a weird thing,
but it's really been a great joy,
the fact that I work home now,
that fact that I work from home now,
that I write books,
I'm home when my kids come home from school,
I can do the carpool, you know,
the main thing, Jeopardy it just bought me more
time with my family, which has been great.
- And your family, and you and I talked about this
backstage last week, your family has grown.
I mean, when you started on the program,
that was 15, 16 years ago, and now how old are they?
- My son was two at the time and he's now 16,
I just got a cellphone picture this morning
of him driving a car around--
- [Alex] I hope it was your car.
- Driving a rental car around a parking lot,
so fingers crossed that everything went well.
- And are the kids more aware now,
and I imagine they are, of your great success
as a player on Jeopardy?
- Yeah, my kids are 16 and 12 and I remember they were,
my son was too young to even notice
anything weird was going on.
You know, he'd see me on TV, but, I got to go
on Sesame Street, and I remember telling him,
hey Dylan, I'm gonna be on Sesame Street,
it's me and Grover, look, and he was like,
yeah, you know, I know Dad, I know Grover,
now they hang out, big deal.
Like he had no idea anything fun was going on.
- Now Austin, your great success as a champion
on Jeopardy has brought you a whole slew
of new opportunities and yet, in spite of that,
you still have kept, I won't call it your day job,
but your night job, you're still a bartender.
- Alex, I'm just a humble bartender from New York City.
No, of course.
My bartending job is fantastic, I get to hang out
with my friends and wake up at 10:00 at night,
it's absolutely perfect.
Day jobs are for, you know, suckers.
But the great thing is all these opportunities
like Ken's and like Julia's that have opened up,
I have a great podcast where I've been traveling the world,
literally, southeast Asia, all over the United States,
Europe's the next on the docket, interviewing
really interesting people--
- Are you guys recognized still whenever you travel
around the country?
- 20 times a day, people come into my bar
and ask for autographs and selfies.
20 times a day.
- It happened at the airport yesterday.
Got me through TSA quicker I think.
- [Alex] And Julia?
- I fly under the radar, but it's happened
at inopportune times like in a rental car line
when I was half asleep, things like that.
- Alright.
Let's, the three of you are going to lead your teams
in match number two.
We're gonna start with you Julia,
and take you back to draft day,
and how you selected your team.
Let's take a look.
- [Sarah] Julia drew the
fourth and ninth picks in the draft.
- I want somebody who's gonna be a good teammate,
but also a tough competitor.
So, you know who I'm going for, Ben Ingram.
- We were competitors once, we are now friends.
She is a very very good player and a knowledgeable one, too.
- [Sarah] For her second pick, Julia chose
12-game champion Seth Wilson.
- So I'm really excited to be playing with Julia,
she was definitely one of the captains I was hoping
would pick me.
- It was a full field of great players
and I got two of them.
- [Sarah] This is team Julia.
(applause)
- Now Ben beat you in the Tournament of Champions,
and yet you became good friends after that,
and that was one of the reasons you selected him
for your team.
- Yes, you know, I knew he was a tough competitor,
but he's also a really nice guy, a loyal guy,
easy to get along with, and like I said,
a really good player, I mean, he beat me, so,
I thought that said a lot.
- It does indeed.
Now Ken, let's take a look at your selection
of your teammates.
- [Sarah] Ken drew the third and 10th picks in the draft.
- What are you looking for in a teammate?
- Maybe it's just because of like, how I came up
on Jeopardy back in the day, Alex, but I really
respect a long regular season streak.
I'm gonna go with Matt Jackson.
I had Matt, for example, seeded very high
and I couldn't believe he was still there
for the third pick, I was happy to grab him.
- [Sarah] For his second pick,
Ken went with a proven competitor, Monica Thieu.
- The first time I met Monica, she beat me
head to head at a trivia game, so I remember.
- I think that we have someone who can specialize
in every round.
- [Sarah] This is team Ken.
(applause)
- Now Ken, did either one of those teammates
influence you in terms of how you are approaching
this tournament, because I know Matt,
he prepared how many flashcards in preparation?
- It's upwards of 300,000 I think?
Both Matt and Monica are very serious, knowledgeable
Jeopardy players, students of the game,
and so Matt's done laser like focus on studying,
and Monica has sent me data visualizations
of different Final Jeopardy and Daily Double configurations.
They're extremely serious about Jeopardy,
it scares me a little.
- And Monica, one of the youngest.
Austin, we're gonna take a look now at you
making your selection for this All Star games.
- [Sarah] Austin drew
the second and 11th picks in the draft.
- No one probably wants to be on my team
because I'm reckless.
So, hey Roger Craig.
Roger Craig has the sort of ballsy level of
laissez-faire betting strategy that might
either one, jive, or two, become oil and water.
- [Sarah] For his second pick, Austin chose
former Teen Tournament winner Leonard Cooper.
- We got youth right here, which can balance out
what we got going on.
We're gonna either kill it or just explode.
- [Sarah] This is Team Austin.
(applause)
- So the two of you fellows chose the youngest players
in this entire competition.
But Austin, Roger I understand kind of amazed you
a little bit with his preparation for this event.
Roger, I remember when I was training,
we're gonna call it training because I really
didn't prepare much, for my initial run on Jeopardy,
and I remember watching this video where this guy
was breaking down on an X/Y axis the statistical analysis
of where Jeopardy clues come up and what is more apt to,
and so I'm like hey, Roger, I was looking at this thing,
and Roger's like, that was my YouTube video.
So I actually trained for regular season Jeopardy
by watching a video of the guy who is now on my team,
so I married up.
- Okay, good for you.