Why did Ken Jennings finally lose Jeopardy?

[dduardo]

Ken Jennings, Why!

Ken Jennings has finally lost Jeopardy. This is a very sad day indeed.

I'm a little mad that CNN had it on the news before the show actually ended. Arrr

 

[Moonbear]

Who is Ken Jennings and why is this such a big deal?

 

[dduardo]

You don't know who Ken Jennings is? He is a software programming from Utah who has been Jeopardy champion for the longest time. Overall, he won 2.5 million dollars.

 

[jcsd]

What's Jeopardy?

 

[dduardo]

AHHHHH! I can't take it anymore!

http://www.jeopardy.com/

 

[Moonbear]

You don't know who Ken Jennings is? He is a software programming from Utah who has been Jeopardy champion for the longest time. Overall, he won 2.5 million dollars.

Wow! Nope, haven't watched Jeopardy in ages.

 

[check]

lol. I too am sad. My econ. prof. told the class that Ken's going to lose tonight (he heard it on the webbernet or something) so I watched. I had been watching it for a while before but haven't recently.

Anyway, get did well, very well. And it's sad that it takes someone like Ken 2700 correct answers and several months to win $2,500,000 and someone else can win that much on 'super millionaire' or that old show 'greed' in an episode by answering <20 questions.

 

[dekoi]

Who beat him?

That guy was incredible.

He probably just got lazy and wanted to go back to Utah.

Perhaps a conspiracy?

 

[Gonzolo]

Jeopardy is a long-running TV game show. Ken Jennings is a common contestant who happens to have won 74 (I think) games in a row, much more than any other contestant.

A lady named Zerg beat him on the last question. The audience (and her) was almost shocked to see him lose it. He was a good sport about it.

 

[Dooga Blackrazor]

My English teacher is thinks he may have been paid to lose. She said she saw him looking down as if he were reading. It was also mentioned that he answered FedEx to a question that was asking about "What firm employs millions of white-collar employees" - not sure about the amount or paraphasing accuracy. The answer was H&R Block.

 

[chroot]

The answer was "Most of this firm's 70,000 seasonal white-collar employees work only 4 months a year."

I too found it hard to believe that Jennings really thought that FedEx only operates for only four months a year. I'm not much of a conspiracy nut, but I wouldn't be surprised if he threw in the towel on purpose. He might not have been paid to quit; he may have just decided $2.5M was enough, and wanted to return to his normal life.

- Warren

 

[The_Professional]

I read that he plan to stop after 3-4 million. But considering that he's also looking to donate 10 percent of his winnings to the Mormon church and he will get only half of 2 million after taxes he should've stuck in there.

 

[check]

My English teacher is thinks he may have been paid to lose. She said she saw him looking down as if he were reading. It was also mentioned that he answered FedEx to a question that was asking about "What firm employs millions of white-collar employees" - not sure about the amount or paraphasing accuracy. The answer was H&R Block.

Why the heck would they pay him to lose? Jeopardy ratings were up 22% from the same time last year because of him.

 

[Dooga Blackrazor]

She didn't give any insight as to why that might be possible. Perhaps the fans that had already came to the show because of him were getting bored. It could have been a new publicity stunt to see how far the next person goes, who knows.

 

[dduardo]

Zerg lost badly today. She came in third place with $2. I'm thinking Fedex had something to do with Ken's depature. They even had a clue based on Fedex today. I think that is a brillent marketing strategy because they knew everyone would be talking about Fedex the next day.

 

[Gokul43201]

I thought Ken Jennings lost sometime in the summer ! Haven't watched jeopard in months now...don't nearly get home in time.

 

[motai]

The answer was "Most of this firm's 70,000 seasonal white-collar employees work only 4 months a year."

I too found it hard to believe that Jennings really thought that FedEx only operates for only four months a year. I'm not much of a conspiracy nut, but I wouldn't be surprised if he threw in the towel on purpose. He might not have been paid to quit; he may have just decided $2.5M was enough, and wanted to return to his normal life.

- Warren

I didn't see the show myself (happened to be busy that evening) but I heard from some of my relatives who did see it that Ken and Alex seemed rather down at the beginning of the show and he wasn't his usual cheerful self. They also said that he placed rather large wagers on his daily doubles, which seemed rather unusual for him because he likes to round off with decent sized sums.

 

[BobG]

The answer was "Most of this firm's 70,000 seasonal white-collar employees work only 4 months a year."

I too found it hard to believe that Jennings really thought that FedEx only operates for only four months a year. I'm not much of a conspiracy nut, but I wouldn't be surprised if he threw in the towel on purpose. He might not have been paid to quit; he may have just decided $2.5M was enough, and wanted to return to his normal life.

- Warren

This isn't too big a distraction from his normal life. They film 5 episodes a day (you have to bring at least two or three complete outfits so you don't wear the same on two consecutive 'days'). He competed around Feb or Mar for the summer shows. Then, still being the champ, he had to start competing again starting around Aug, or so. The episode where he lost was filmed sometime in Sep.

In any event, he said he was surprised to find the biggest adjustment to losing was not competing every day. Appearing on talk shows isn't quite as fulfilling.

If he didn't do his own taxes every year, he might have gotten the last question right. H&R Block has offered to do his taxes each year for free for the rest of his life, so I doubt he'll ever miss that question, again. (I have to admit FedEx was a pretty lame answer - what, does he think every FedEx employee works for four months, then gets stranded on an island? Wii-iilllson! ).

 

[Smurf]

I'm Ken Jennings, I was indeed paid to throw the game, they offered me another 2.5 million dollars to do it because Zerg wanted to convince her new boyfriend she was marriage material, apparently he didn't trust her because she had already been divorced 12 times and had taken half of the wealth in each of the marriages. They broke up after the show because she used his money to pay me.

 

[nbo10]

I think Jennings threw the game. He missed three questions that were worth ~15000 dollars and each one was easy compared to other answers he knew the questions to.

 

[Up_Creek]

If you think about it, he's not really going to be much worse off now anyway. 1.) He can go back to work, which he didn't quit, so he must like it

2.) He's on leave from work now, because he's got a book deal, and that's almost guaranteed to make over $2.5 million anyway.

3.) He's making the rounds on talk shows, do they pay for that? I wonder...

4.) Again, almost a guarantee he'll get endorsements now (IE Fed Ex, H&R block ect)

Did anyone else find it ironic that H&R block offered to do his taxes for free? A man who just won millions of dollars on a game show. If he survived that long, he's smart. He's a computer programmer or something, good with numbers, likely does his own taxes. Anyway, I thought it was dumb that they offered to do his taxes, never mind for free. Typical America 'the rich stay healthy while the sick stay poor' ;)


Anyway, just my $0.02

Jordan Veale

 

[check]

hehe. On a related note, I just found this video clip of Ken getting a question wrong. Personally, I think they should have accepted what he said because technically it's also correct. Hilarious! http://www.ebaumsworld.com/hardjeopardyq.html

 

[mattmns]

hehe. On a related note, I just found this video clip of Ken getting a question wrong. Personally, I think they should have accepted what he said because technically it's also correct. Hilarious! http://www.ebaumsworld.com/hardjeopardyq.html

rofl that is hilarious