I am Arthur Chu, #3 winningest Jeopardy contestant in regular-season play in history, with 11 straight victories and total cash winnings of $298,200. Ask me anything.

On stage, you're incredibly focused, intense and ruthless. In the green room, you were just as nervous as the rest of us and very polite and gregarious.

Was your on-stage persona part of your strategy, or a byproduct of your training leading up to your tapings?

Also, how hard was it not spilling the beans? I lost, and I still wanted to tell everyone everything.

Sincerely, Guy who lost to Arthur

Wow, I'm really impressed now that I know I beat a PhD! (Okay, actually I knew Julie was a PhD, but I'm getting a hunch you're not her.)

I guess you could say that trying to keep up a fast momentum and being hyperfocused on the game was a "strategy", but it wasn't really a conscious strategy to intimidate people. I think when I said that the game is "about intimidation" a lot of my critics took that to mean I was a dick, like I walked into the green room, folded my arms and spat "Buncha lousy maggots" at all y'all.

In reality the main thing was that I knew that lots of Jeopardy contestants are smart but it's their emotions that make them lose. And I was really really intent on not letting my emotions get to me -- in the end I was unsuccessful and went "on tilt" once I started having a bad day, leading to my loss, but it was being a "robot" onstage that kept me from freaking out and kept me focused enough to still pull out victories even after taking big losses.

I certainly didn't want to be rude or mean to anyone, purposely. But I've always been kind of a withdrawn person (some people might say "inscrutable") and one of those people where it's hard to get to know the "real me". My wife's commented on it, how people who know me in different contexts have completely different views of my personality -- my coworkers at the office tend to think it's a miracle if I speak more than ten words in one day while people I do improv or stand-up comedy with think I'm the biggest loudmouth asshole they've ever met.

Like I've said in interviews, I tried to draw on what little acting training I had and say "If I'm going to be a Jeopardy champion, I'm going to play the part of a Jeopardy champion while I'm up there". And hey, it worked.

As far as not spilling the beans, there certainly were moments where I felt like I wanted to jump up and brag about it. But I'm also the type who enjoys keeping secrets, especially when the secret is something awesome -- I actively enjoyed dropping hints that I really wanted people to watch my episode and "support" me so that they'd think I lost my first game. I had one of my friends say "If anyone doubted Arthur has skill as an actor they should see how embarrassed he was about asking me to watch his first Jeopardy game".

Anyway, best of luck to you -- I don't know who you are but everyone I played against was good people, and with a name like FartPoopRobot you don't need Jeopardy to take you far in life.

What are the ramifications for "spilling the beans"?

If you really honestly irrevocably spill them? Probably forfeiting your entire prize (which you don't get until your whole run on the show is over).

Usually what happens is people accidentally spill the beans, the producers give them a stern talking-to and they take down the offending tweet/FB post/whatever. But the stakes are a lot higher when you're me and legitimate news organizations actually consider your success newsworthy.

Hey #ChuChuTrain, from all of us over at /r/DailyDouble: congratulations on your 11-day win streak!

Our question: Is there any tension amongst the contestants in between tapings? Also, what does Alex Trebek smell like?

And finally, we would like to invite you to participate (as contestant or guest host) in our weekly Double Jeopardy contest tomorrow at noon, where you will have the chance to win one month's worth of Reddit Gold, bringing your total winnings to $298,204.99.

Yours,

Not Really Alex Trebek

No discernible smell. And there's certainly tension, in general and specifically toward me once I started winning a lot and everyone started seeing me as the primary reason their dreams of winning big on Jeopardy would crash and burn -- no one was anything but nice to me but obviously you could sense that that tension was there.

But I was surprised by how nice everyone ended up being. After Padraic lost to me he actually went up to me and gave me a note with a list of tips for where to find improv training and groups in the Midwest after he'd heard I did improv, because that's what he makes a living doing -- a really nice gesture he didn't have to make. And I mentioned how Diana came up to me at the end of a taping day and said that it was an honor to be playing against me, no matter what happened -- which definitely softened the blow when she destroyed me the next day.

And I may take you up on such an invitation sometime but unfortunately I'm going to be on my way to get on a plane back to Ohio tomorrow at noon (assuming you mean noon Eastern Time).

1. Are you going to come out with a trivia almanac named "What Chu Know?" sort of like the one Ken Jennings has?

2. Do you get tired of standing when filming 5 games in the row?

3. Anything funny/weird happen backstage?

4. When you practice/study for the next game what materials do you try to cover?

Thanks, you've been fun to watch!

1. I'd be lying to say that I haven't thought about how to "monetize" my success on the show but the problem is Ken Jennings has already basically colonized the space of "Trivia merchandise created by famous Jeopardy champion". I'd just be competing with him with "Trivia merchandise created by less successful Jeopardy champion".

If I ever do write something it'll probably be more addressed at the social-media backlash and the backlash-to-the-backlash and the whole weird phenomenon of being a media "villain", which to me is the much more unique part of the story.

1. Oh yeah. It's not that standing itself is that bad -- I used to stand a lot more when I worked as a tour guide -- but standing and THINKING that long is exhausting. It's really chilly in that studio but I was soaked in sweat by the end of a day of taping. Hence the patented "Chu Lean" I adopted on the podium.

It didn't help that after a month of studying for Jeopardy I had reached my peak lifetime weight (no gym, no walking, just studying all the time) right before going on national TV. I think you can tell from looking at my interviews now that I've dropped about 20 pounds already from that peak.

1. Not really. We were all too nervous and in the zone to really act out. One of my contestants, I forget who, was rubbing his "lucky Yoda" (as in a Yoda keychain, get your minds out of the gutter) before the show and I remember thinking I could blame Yoda if I lost to him.

Oh, one random thing is when we were walking around on our tour of the set I wandered away from the other contestants and reached out to touch the metal scaffolding of the Jeopardy set to confirm it was real. I got a powerful static shock for doing so. Decided to take that as a positive omen.

1. The only time I had any downtime between shows was between the Friday Jan. 31 show (in reality the last show they filmed on Nov. 13) and the Monday Feb. 24 show (in reality the first show they filmed on Nov. 19). I went home and immediately started back in on the flashcards, covering specifically the things I felt I hadn't covered enough in the month previously -- stuff like The Dreaded Opera, Pulitzer Prize Winners, and, yes, Sports. (I literally went on Wikipedia for their entries on ESPN's Top 100 Sports Personalities of the 20th Century just to memorize their biographies.)

It didn't end up helping that much, but you do what you have to do. For the first and only time in my life I paid for airplane wi-fi on my first flight to LA because I felt like I still wasn't "done" studying and didn't want to waste any time.

Hey, former Jeopardy champ here. Your run was interrupted by two Battles of the Decades, and the College tournament. Did you get any production breaks because of these, or were your appearances uninterrupted? It sounds like the champ that beat you got a chance to see you on TV before she taped.

Uninterrupted. My appearances were taped in three days of taping, one on November 13th (the first week, in January), the second on November 19th (the second week, in February) and the third the next day on November 20th (the third week, in March).

I understand why Alex says it but it kind of bugged me that he went out of his way to say I had a week to study during the 90s Tournament when I had no such thing.

Diana didn't watch me on TV -- she was the alternate for the Nov. 19th taping (my week of games from Feb. 24th to 28th) so she watched all those games before going back to the hotel and coming back for the next taping date. That's a privileged position to hold -- Julie Singer did something similar before beating CHip Bell in the game just before I beat her.

so the schedule is already set in advance by the time they tape your games?

Is it TV magic, when Alex say things he said, or did he really say that in front of you?

I mean obviously they didn't tape everything in the order which the games appeared.

It's all set in advance. The tournaments were filmed completely separately from regular season play, so the tournaments hadn't happened at all yet while these games were being filmed -- he likes to throw in references to what's "really happening" on the date the show will be aired so the viewers will feel like it was all filmed in order.

Arthur, the first night you were on jeopardy, I tweeted you ("Please, Arthur, do not win #jeopardy. I will not watch another episode with you on it" @amyedwardst). You tweeted back and I felt really bad/guilty. Did I hurt your feelings? I really am very sorry. Congratulations on your winnings! I miss you being on the show.

Ha ha, no hard feelings. I think you were one of the hate tweeters who felt bad and apologized? That takes a lot more guts than either disappearing or doubling down on it, which seems more common.

I don't really get mad on a personal level with haters because, well, how can I take it personally when they don't know me as a person? It's such a clichéd lesson to say you've learned but having been on the "celebrity" side of the fence I kind of see how messed up it is, people making judgments about you based on one thing you said or one face you made in front of a camera.

It's human nature and it's part of the fun of watching TV. We all do it. I still do it, though hopefully only to people who are so rich and famous they don't care. The fun of watching TV is the freedom to snark and be bitchy and make snap judgments without the blowback you'd get from doing it to your coworkers or roommates.

I don't begrudge anyone that really. Just, you know, be aware that that's what you're doing and be willing to walk it back if you discover your words reached further than you thought. (If Justin Bieber is here reading this - hey, man, hope you're doing okay and sorry for pretty much everything I've said about you ever.)

[deleted]

Alex is the referee here, not anyone's enemy. I will disclaim any "Arthur vs. Alex" memes to the grave - we are all friends with Alex.

That said, though, having my head pasted on any athlete's body is a great honor.

Congratulations! Lifelong Jeopardy! fan. Loved the strategy and loved that someone was finally playing the game seriously. Cutthroat. You weren't out to be America's Next Top Best Friend. You were there to win money. It's how I'd hope to play if I ever had the chance.

So, Ask You Anything.

• With your winnings I heard that you're taking a trip to China. What is your favorite Chinese dish?
  
• Any other plans for your winnings?
  
• How much was left after taxes?
  
• Have you made any fun purchases or splurges?
  
• Have you met Ken Jennings yet?
  

I keep trying different ways to do markup to separate my answers to separate questions and Reddit keeps munging them. Let's try quoting you in my response:

"With your winnings I heard that you're taking a trip to China. What is your favorite Chinese dish?"

I am partial to any Chinese dishes -- or any dishes at all -- that involve fried carbs. You can tell the long-term effect this has had on my health.

My favorite dish would be niangao, a.k.a. "New Year's cake". Not a dessert pastry as the term would suggest but a noodle-like dish made of thick chewy chunks of rice flour fried in animal fat. See here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nian_gao

"Any other plans for your winnings?"

I've been doing a ton of research to try to figure out where to distribute my charitable donations, since I am committed to donating a sizable chunk to charity and want to make sure it goes where it can do the most good.

For the most part though my primary plan is to put the money in safe investments and let it grow. A few hundred thousand is not enough to retire on, but it makes great seed money to speed up retirement.

"How much was left after taxes?"

Got to talk to a CPA sometime soon about figuring that out. It's a complicated thing once you get that much money.

For the record I don't have it yet so I can't give a firm answer to this yet. My back-of-the-envelope estimate is that I'll probably get to keep about $200K of the $300K.

"Have you made any fun purchases or splurges?"

I ended up having to tell my whole family about my Jeopardy winnings to explain to them why I bought uncharacteristically expensive gifts for them last Christmas. The most lavish one was a gift for my brother, who's graduating college, so as a combined graduation/birthday/Christmas gift I got him a big flatscreen TV and XBox.

"Have you met Ken Jennings yet?"

Not in the flesh, but we've corresponded. As you may have seen he did an interview with me on Slate.

Were you surprised by how mad people got about your playing style?

I wasn't surprised that there was a negative reaction - in researching past contestants like Roger Craig and Dave Madden who've had a similar playstyle I saw a ton of hate for them from Internet Mean Girls (especially on Television Without Pity, which is like Internet Mean Girl Central).

I was still surprised to get as much hate as quickly as I did -- I thought people might get mad at me after I'd been on the show for a while, but I kind of got freaked out at how many negative tweets there were after just my first night.

It may just be that the world is getting more and more connected and more and more people are on Twitter now than that I'm that much more repulsive than Roger and Dave. Who knows.

but I kind of got freaked out at how many negative tweets there were after just my first night

While I think tweet-stalkers are freaks, nonetheless, we know they are out there. And I have to say, I'm surprised at your surprise at how quickly the hate came.

Cuz I gotta level with you, man: When I saw your first episode, I kept saying to my wife "man, this guy is a DICK." Only, it wasn't because you were jumping around the board, or anything. I don't even remember that part (I've been watching on and off for 20+ years, and I seem to recall the occasional player doing that).

It was your demeanor. To me, you had a look on your face like you hated everyone. And you just had the look of one of the dudes in my engineering classes who rocked the 4.0 but couldn't hold down a conversation. And I recall the whole cutting-Alex-off-bit thing happening frequently and I found it annoying and a hair direspectful.

Anyway, then I forgot about that first episode. I don't watch the show religiously, so I just assumed you lost a game or 2 later like many champs. Then, weeks later, I started reading articles about your streak and Ken Jennings did a blog post about the "controversy." And while once I recognized your face, I thought "yeah, that guy, he was kind of rude," it wasn't until I read these awful tweets and articles from these uptight assholes that I began to look at things differently.

Yes, your demeanor had rubbed me the wrong way, but what was this nonsense about "ruining the culture of jeopardy" or "not letting people answer" ?

So I watched five of your episodes in a row, and realized you indeed had a strategy, that you were in deep, deep concentration during the entire show, and, that all these assholes had their shorts in a bunch for completely ridiculous, unfounded reasons, and I guess you could say I was on the Chu-Chu-Train permanently. I was seriously disappointed when you lost last night.

I guess I don't have a question. I just want to say I think the instant-hatred stemmed from your point about how people who don't know you very well have a certain impression of you, and folks in your improv class who get your intentions and your dark humor have a different one entirely. You can't get to know someone really well from an 18-minute quiz show, and it's all about putting your best foot-forward. Which, for the record, I don't think you are required to do when in a competition, but I wouldn't be as shocked at people's first impression.

I think I probably suffer from Resting Asshole Face, the gender-swapped variant of the more well-known ailment Resting Bitch Face.

How much poon did you slay after the show?

That's really between me and my wife. A gentleman never tells. Though it's never a bad thing to come home to your wife and tell her you just made $100,000 for one day of work.

How many games do they film in a day? I assume you didn't play eleven games over eleven days.

Five games in one day. One week you see on the show is one taping day -- so the Monday game is the game we played at like 10:30, the Tuesday game was 11:00, the Wednesday game was 11:30, then we have a lunch break, then Thursday and Friday (the actual timing is loose because of unexpected delays and such).

The one thing I wish more people knew about Jeopardy is what a marathon it is and how compressed it is. You really get almost no time to rest at all between games and playing game after game in a row really takes it out of you. Ken Jennings must be a robot.

... tell her you just made $100,000 for one day of work

Did she know exactly how much you won and how long the winning streak was? Who else did you tell? Isn't it risky there could have been an accidentally leak and compromise the contract?

They expect people to tell their freaking spouses. Ken Jennings told his wife.

And that was on the break after the filming of the first week's worth of episodes. For the next batch of episodes she flew out with me to watch the taping personally.

Do you feel like they tried to push you off the snow? As in giving that girl the double jeopardy when she had it wrong?

That's a pretty serious accusation and ever since the old quiz show scandals (like in the movie Quiz Show) rigging a quiz show is actually a federal crime you can go to jail for, so I wish people would stop bringing that up like it's no big deal.

For the record, Alex Trebek doesn't actually make any judgment calls. The judges at the judges' table do, and the judges are sitting with Karen Love, who's a "contestant advocate" who doesn't work for Jeopardy but for an independent compliance firm that audits Jeopardy (kind of like Price-Waterhouse-Cooper for game shows). It's her job to take our side should there be any accusation of unfairness -- Standards & Practices takes this stuff very seriously.

So no, I have no serious theories that I was somehow "pushed off" the show. Things like whether Alex hesitated too long to correct Diana on "peptide ulcer" are purely subjective judgment calls -- it's always been the rule that if you correct yourself before Alex says anything Alex has to take your second answer, and how long Alex hesitates before ruling you wrong is a matter of him being a human being and trying to make a good show. (You'd all hate him if he instantly jumped on you saying "WRONG" as soon as we said anything.)

I've had some questionable calls that were called in my favor and some that were called against me. It's just part of the game. As in any sport it's the crappy players who get up in arms about the game being "rigged" instead of playing well enough to compensate for any potential questionable calls.

Do you think that your playing style will have a lasting effect on the way Jeopardy is played?

There've been contestants with a similar play style before who had little lasting effect on the game -- hardcore Jeopardy fans like to remark that casual Jeopardy fans have no memory (because honestly a ton of folks watch the show sporadically when they can catch it, not as appointment TV, so people can miss even long 5- or 6-day runs.)

But since my run was stretched out thanks to the tournaments in between giving time for the media coverage to build and since there's been this whole frenzy of coverage just about my strategy, this time might be different. I certainly won't turn down credit if future historians mark my run as the beginning of "Moneyball Jeopardy".

When the reddit category came up, it seemed like you had to pick it. Are you a redditor?

Other than jeopardy, what's your greatest accomplishment?

Did you have fun?

"When the reddit category came up, it seemed like you had to pick it. Are you a redditor?"

I've never really posted on Reddit but obviously I've been linked to it a bunch of times, have some familiarity with the culture, etc.

I'm just one of those millennials who still thinks it's kind of exciting and weird whenever I see something that shows some part of the weird Internet culture I live in has penetrated mainstream consciousness and is now "serious business". Having a Final Jeopardy category about Twitter still seems really surreal to me.

"Other than jeopardy, what's your greatest accomplishment?"

It sounds really corny to say "Getting my wife to marry me" but it's true. A better way to put it might be getting my whole life together to the point where I was ready to get married, which 10 years ago I thought I would never have been able to do before I turned 30.

"Did you have fun?"

I feel like quoting Remember the Titans where Denzel goes off on Turk from Scrubs for saying he wants to play football "for fun".

Yes, in retrospect I had a blast. It was an amazing experience -- but at the time it wasn't fun, it was pure pain and sacrifice. It's the kind of "fun" that's fun in your memory because you worked your ass off at something incredibly hard and against all odds you got good at it and it paid off -- but at the time you're suffering.

Hi Arthur! I think you were a great contestant. My husband and I were cheering you on every night. My question though is this: was it as awkward between you and Trebek as it seemed when you said how gerrymandering was pronounced? As a viewer, it seemed like Trebek was taking a dig at you. Thoughts?

Well, people don't usually talk back to Alex so I was the one out of line there. In my defense it was after I was kind of freaking the hell out about "McDarmand" and worrying they were going to dock me all the time for pronunciation from then on, and I really was feeling defensive about how the heck I was supposed to know how Mr. Gerry actually pronounced his name when nobody knows anything about Elbridge Gerry except from the word "gerrymandering" which is said with a soft G.

You seemed off your game in that last show. Was it fatigue?

Alex said to me during one of those credits segments "I think fatigue will be the thing that takes you down" and he was right.

Swarthmore College represent! We were all pulling for you, man. Can you think of any particular moment or story from your time there that led to your participation on Jeopardy?

Well, certainly my whole history playing college quizbowl was a natural foundation for ending up on Jeopardy -- in fact I think most of the really big Jeopardy champs have some quizbowl connection.

(Julie Singer, who I beat in my first game, looked like she was headed to a long run before I cut her off at the pass and I learned later that she was a quizbowl legend, which doesn't surprise me.)

You vs. Watson. How confident would you feel in that match?

Not very. Watson is a machine programmed to beat people at Jeopardy. Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter were coming into it with way more experience and natural buzzer mojo/knowledge base than me and got smoked.

I don't think it's something to be ashamed of. The point of machines is that they do things better than any human can. I also can't run faster than a Ferrari, bench-press more than a hydraulic lift and if you fill me with hot water and coffee grounds the beverage that comes out tastes awful.

What's your biggest regret from the show?

So much ridiculously good stuff has happened -- not just the money but the insane 15 minutes of fame I've gotten, the Twitter fan following, the crazy experiences like being flown out to NYC on ABC's dime to be on national TV -- that I'd be an ass to say I regretted any of it. Like I said I even have to be grateful to the haters because I'd never have attained the status of "supervillain" if not for their outsized negative response to me.

I guess I do kind of regret being pressured by the producers that I should "do a voice" for Alex because that voice kind of sucks now that I hear it.

Are you kidding me? The brief pause after you did that voice and Trebek's look of exasperation was classic. Thank you so much for accepting to do the voice.

[deleted]

People keep asking for clips and getting completely ignored- which seems weird for Reddit. In fact I rarely ever see videos of Jeopardy. Is there a pretty solid copyright infringement there that /r/IAmA mods happen to be the only mods that crack down on due to AMAs being so popular?

I, personally, have it in my contract that if I help people violate Jeopardy's IP I can forfeit my winnings. Anyone who puts up YouTube videos of my games under my name is not me.

Two questions for you Arthur:

1. Pretend you were 18 years old and wanted to get on College Jeopardy. How would you prepare?

2. On twitter, you mentioned that your past Reddit history was sordid. What exactly does that entail?

1. If I were 18 years old I'd do exactly the same thing I did do. The strategy doesn't change that much, excep that the College Championship is a tournament so some of the considerations for wagering strategy change (there's no point in going for a tie in tournaments).

It'd be easier in that when you're in college it's a lot easier to neglect classes and friends for the sake of Jeopardy than for a grownup to neglect work and your spouse (or, at least, the consequences are deferred).

Even so I'm glad I didn't actually go on the College Championship -- regular-season Jeopardy is when you have the chance to win the most money, because there's no limit on how many games you can win unlike in a tournament where the prize is a fixed amount. I'd recommend everyone try to get on real Jeopardy rather than Kids' Week, the Teen Tournament or the College Championship for that reason, unless you're absolutely sure that you're at your peak knowledge now and will only get dumber as you age.

1. I was kidding. I think Jeopardy just thinks it'll look better for me to use a "real"-looking handle than a Reddit name that's a bunch of random letters that I barely ever used.

That or I'm actually an alternate identity of the REAL founder of r/creepshots. What do you think?

My parents and I had zero interest in Jeopardy show until you came into the spotlight. None of us knows any questions to the answers but we watched all your games anyway and cheered you on. Now that your reign is over, our interest in Jeopardy regressed back to practically zero, although, we gained some appreciation for the game.

To me, you were like nerdy version of Linsanity; chusanity? I followed you on twitter and watched all your interviews so I know the whole story already.

As a landed immigrant Asian living in N. America, I'm always curious about my fellow Asians, so my question to you is, what generation Asian are you, Arthur? I presume, your ancestors are from China?

Thank you for being awesome.

Ken Jennings proposed "Chuphoria", which is my favorite one though "ChuChuTrain" was the hashtag that ended up sticking the most.

My parents are both immigrants, so I'm first-generation Chinese-American. I was born here, in Albany, NY (and hilariously I recently did have to jump through hoops to get my "long-form birth certificate" in order to prove this).

Are you aware there is a call for you to become an AV Club writer? Would you say yes?

I had not heard about this. Where is this thread?

If I could actually get paid to be an AV Club writer I would freak the hell out

How did you and your wife come up with the "effect" (@elizaeffect) and "affect" (@arthur_affect) Twitter username convention? Pretty clever.

She was looking for a new standard screen name to use for everything and wanted it to be a science reference -- I convinced her that since her name was "Eliza" she should be "ELIZA Effect" in reference to the conversation simulator program and people's tendency to want to believe the program is a real person. Because Eliza is a geeky cute girl on the Internet and everyone knows those are always fake.

"Arthur_affect" is just because I did not have a Twitter for a very long time and eventually created one at her insistence and so just made one that was an obvious ripoff of hers.

I'm a huge fan. I just bought a sport coat on clearance last night. It is tan and corduroy. Could I wear it with jeans? It's got brown patches on the elbows. Does this necessitate brown belt and shoes?

Don't let anyone force you to conform to their fashion "rules". Wear that shit with yoga pants.

Do you use any special learning/memorization techniques or are you just good at remembering things?

By the way, I feel personally saddened by your loss.

I read up on Roger Craig, 2011 champion and one of my heroes, and he swore by a "spaced repetition" flashcard tool called Anki.

The website is here and I highly recommend it:

http://ankisrs.net/

Favorite tweet from the haters?

The most mind-blowing one was the one that literally said "I hope your wife dies". That's beyond even clever trolling to just straight-up mental problems. Also kind of funny that they weren't clear on exactly what I meant when my wife was sick. (Shit, I don't know what I would've done if she really did have a life-threatening illness.)

As a Cleveland Villain, do people often compare you to LeBron?

Well I haven't moved to Miami yet

were you ever tempted to tell Trebek to "suck it"?

Actually doing old SNL jokes when you're actually on Jeopardy just seems so gauche. It's like making the pun on someone's name that you know everyone's been making since third grade (which is an experience I've had a lot these past few weeks). Or like going "I'm Rick James, bitch!" to Dave Chappelle when he's onstage and making him storm out of the building and ruining everyone's night.

How did you meet your wife?

(Great streak, by the way. This is going to sound super weird but I'm a little fascinated with you.)

There was a nerd club at Swarthmore College called SWIL ("Swarthmore Warders of Imaginative Literature" -- yes, I know, groan). It was as quirky and nerdy and filled with incredibly messed-up nerd drama as you might imagine.

Eliza was one of the co-presidents of SWIL, and I was SWIL's resident troublemaker and gadfly. We had a contentious relationship that blossomed into romance over time.

Could you beat Ken Jennings in a game of Jeopardy? In a fight?

I'd love to get the chance to try someday, though I probably won't get that chance unless Jeopardy runs another "Decades" tournament in the future.

I honestly think that Ken has natural talents way, way above the rest of us mere mortals, though. The fact that no one's come close to his 74-win record testifies to that -- I can testify to the fact that it's just so TIRING playing game after game after game, and while there are other contestants who have had individual games as good as Ken's best game there isn't anyone who's had his incredibel staying power. He must have a nuclear reactor hidden inside him or something.

That's not to say I don't think I could take him, especially if I got lucky with the categories that day.

The sheer fact that so much of his dominance comes from stamina, though, worries me about fighting him physically -- he looks like an innocent boy next door but if he can play 74 games of Jeopardy in a row without feeling it he could probably punch you in the temple 10,000 times while your teeth were sunk right into his crotch all without getting the least bit fazed.

OK, suppose you're in a match with Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter. At the end of Double Jeopardy it's anyone's match (Brad is, of course, leading.)

What Final Jeopardy category are you most hoping for?

Those two guys know a lot but I BET they don't know as much as me about Captain Planet villains

Captain Planet Villains

What's backstage like? Did people talk shit to you? Did Alex? Show staff or producers?

Backstage is very friendly. I do believe everyone was genuinely good people but also I just think there's no room for bad mojo in an environment so tense and nervous. You can't really talk smack to people when you're going to be cloistered with them all day just before what may be one of the most stressful experiences of your life.

I never saw Alex at all backstage, though he was very nice to everyone during the little chats during the credits. The crew were also great to me - though I confess the best part was overhearing snatches of conversation behind my back with two camera guys going "This kid is too damn good!"

Hey there, Champ. It’s been a pleasure watching you run the board the way I always thought it should be, hunting for the daily doubles, and in doing so throwing off your competition. Way to buck tradition! On that note, is there anything you’d suggest producers change or add to the game in order to mix it up a little and make it even more fun?

The biggest thing they could do would be to have a sidebar showing the name of category when the clue fills up the screen, so that the people viewing at home won't get so easily confused if the contestant doesn't say the category clearly or bounces from category to category. That in and of itself was a major reason people hated me.

As far as mixing it up with the content, I'm surprised by how much they're already doing that -- social media came up several times during my Jeopardy run, for instance. Once in a while the show is a little tin-eared with trying to keep up with The Kids These Days but for the most part I feel like the writing staff is pretty self-aware and good at playing with their image (Johnny Gilbert reading Eminem's "Rap God" was one of my favorite things ever).

You said on Twitter that you weren't allowed to do endorsements as part of your deal with Jeopardy. Is that just for while you were on air, or longer? How long does it last?

I had a conversation with the Jeopardy PR people today and they said that they think I'm free to do what I want now that I'm not an "active contestant", but I'll still double-check with the lawyers when I can. Don't want to screw myself, especially since the check hasn't come yet.

And after all the "endorsements" I've been offered have generally either been pro bono or just silly, minor stuff. It's not like anyone has come to me with a $10 million offer to market Reebok Air Chus (I guess they'd be shoes scientifically designed for standing up all day while frantically clicking a buzzer).

How does it feel to get shut down by Trebek?

How does he treat you off-camera?

What does he smell like?

Oh, losing $10,000 on a judgment call is infuriating and leaves a sick feeling in the pit of your stomach. I'm amazed I was able to come back from that and still win that game.

What makes it worse is that Trebek didn't "shut me down" -- he initially GAVE me that Daily Double, congratulated me, everyone applauded me, etc., and then the producers shouted "CUT!" and stopped taping while they conferred with each other and then said they were taking it away from me. That's a really nerve-racking process, and it really really sucks to go "back in time" and have Alex basically undo the victory he just gave you and "rule you wrong" for the cameras.

And yes, I did kind of act like a dick after that but I'd challenge all of you to ask yourselves how you'd feel if you just lost $10,000 for pronouncing a syllable wrong.

Alex was always very cordial and polite and supportive both on- and off-camera, as far as I could tell. I think people who felt like he was ragging on me were reading into things -- possibly because they imagine that he was the one "ruling me wrong" as opposed to initially ruling me right and then being told by the producers I was wrong.

But we really didn't interact that much -- Alex disappears pretty quickly after each show is done taping and we certainly don't hang out in the same green room with him before the show. He's a very nice guy but he's an old-school Hollywood pro and I get the feeling he guards his personal life carefully.

No discernible smell that I could tell, though my sense of smell is pretty weak (which is why I can't be trusted to make judgment calls about when to shower).

Arthur, what made you decide "I'm going to go on Jeopardy!" and what voice is your favorite to record?

When you're one of those snot-nosed kids who's always telling "fun facts" to people in conversations in lieu of having anything interesting to say about yourself, "You should be on Jeopardy!" is one of the stock responses people use to shut you up. So it's been in the back of my mind a long time.

Like many guys with a naturally deep voice I got into voiceover because of my penchant for doing Don LaFontaine impressions and going "IN A WORLD..." at inappropriate moments and being told "You should do voiceover for a living!". A lot of my life decisions have been made based on a lot of people saying "You should do X!" in order to get out of conversations with me.

Hey Arthur!

Just letting you know I'm a Cleveland native and I LOVED your interview on Rover's Morning Glory. You are a very well spoken, intelligent (duh), funny man. And you took the "Name that Toot" game in stride.

Good luck in life :)

I am absurdly proud of winning Name That Toot.

Hi Arthur! I was a big fan, especially after I found your twitter. I have a couple questions

• You mentioned a couple times that you studied for jeopardy. How long and how often did you study? Do you think you could’ve made it so far with just your prior knowledge?
• Do you think your live-tweeting helped or hurt your reputation among jeopardy fans?
• Do you interact with the other competitors at all? How about Trebek?
• Since most of these episodes are filmed in close proximity to each other, had word “gotten out” to the other contestants that you were on a streak between the filming of other episodes?

Also, I got the “cynicism” daily double wrong as “egoism”, too. I feel your pain and I’ll still vouch for your response.

It would also be pretty awesome if there was another Reddit AMAs category on the show and you were a question.

I pretty much spent all my free time studying from the moment I got The Call to be on the show to when I flew out -- I even paid for wi-fi on the plane so I could keep on studying while in flight.

People make a lot out of my strategy but studying was just as big a part of my preparation. I made it an appointment to watch Jeopardy every night (since my wife and I are cord-cutters, I had to buy a pair of rabbit ears for this purpose), I watched every single Jeopardy episode I could find on YouTube, I pored through the J! Archive online (great resource for any future contestants) and of course I made tons of flashcards and spent every moment I could reviewing them. This included guiltily spending every moment I could at my day job when I wasn't doing actual work doing flashcards. (To be fair, I think most people who have office jobs fill such moments with Facebook or personal e-mails anyway, but still, I feel guilty.)

I have absolutely no doubt that there is no way I could've made it this far with just my prior knowledge. I know I was smart enough to get on the show because I passed the test, but so is everyone else who gets on the show -- when tracking my scores playing along with people at home I initially rated myself as only an "average" contestant.

I know a lot, but like a lot of geeky people way too much of what I know is geared toward my narrow specific interests and NOT toward the "wheelhouse" categories that Jeopardy loves to ask about, and I knew the chances I might get my "dream board" with a category about "DC Comics" or "Infocom text adventure games" was slim. I knew I had to specifically get a lot better on those narrow categories that have outsized importance in Jeopardy clues, like "World Capitals" and "US State Nicknames" and "US Presidential History". And I was surprisingly successful at doing so in a short time thanks to hyperfocused study with Anki flash cards.

The live-tweeting definitely helped my reputation. Without the live-tweeting the reaction was almost 100% people saying what a humorless, dour, grimly determined douche I looked like on Jeopardy, and had I hid my head in the sand and never said anything the narrative would be "Grim-faced robotic asshole comes and cleans out Jeopardy, makes show unpleasant to watch, is never heard from again".

Just being able to give my perspective and show people there was a human being under all that game theory and strategy really shifted the narrative. It may not have won a lot of people over to my side but it turned the story from just "People hate this guy" to "There's a controversy about this guy", and controversy is what makes news outlets get excited and start assigning reporters.

The contestants I remember best are the ones from the first day of taping, which corresponds to the first week of aired episodes, in January. There is a lot of banter that goes on in the green room -- but, importantly, it's between people who are waiting their turn to be called. Once you actually have been called, you're either coming back as the returning champion or going home -- you don't get any downtime in the green room, you're just filming your episode, changing your outfit and then going back out there. So once I became the repeat champion, my life at the studio became very lonely and it was pretty much Everyone Else Vs. The Champ.

Which is a shame, because the people in my second taping day seemed like cool people I would've liked to get to know and didn't get a chance to -- Padraic and Diana stick out especially in my mind (and I'm not just saying that because Diana beat me).

One thing I do regret is that in order to be a dutiful Chinese son and also to save money on hotel costs I crashed with my mom, who lives in LA, rather than staying in the Doubletree next to the Sony studio. I only realized later on that because a lot of Jeopardy guests stay in that hotel eating breakfast at the hotel is a way for Jeopardy contestants to hang out with each other and get to know each other before the whole filming experience starts. That's something I ended up missing out on completely, and it probably affected my relationship to the other contestants.

As far as Trebek... Trebek's life outside of hosting Jeopardy is a mystery to me. It really did seem like he appears out of thin air to host the episode once the music starts and then vanishes back into the ether when they yell "Cut!" I actually got a little bit freaked out when I saw him doing an interview on Fox News about me -- I'm not used to seeing him in other contexts, it's like when a kid sees their teacher shopping in the supermarket during summer vacation.

The episodes are filmed back-to-back, with one week of aired episodes = one day of taping, so all the contestants who were there that week were literally in the audience watching the shows just before being called to be on the next one. It must've been really nerve-racking from their perspective seeing me go on a roll and knowing they were going to get called up any minute to try to take me down.

And at the start of a new taping day Maggie the producer does in fact tell all the contestants who the returning champion is and how well the champion did the previous day. You could see the mood in the room visibly change when people heard this guy they'd just met had broken six figures of winnings and "might be the next Ken Jennings".

My favorite thing about Diana is that she was an alternate on my second taping day so she ended up watching the whole week's worth of shows without getting called -- and then when she met the new crop of challengers the next day, she carefully did NOT tell them anything about me or that there was a returning super-champ at all, so that no one would press her for any of her insights about my strategy and in order to maximize the disheartening psychological impact of suddenly finding out about me at the studio.

She's a devious one, that Diana, and a worthy successor to me.

Do you regret that True Daily Double from yesterday?

I regret getting it wrong. I don't regret risking it -- it was the only way to save the game at that point.

Man, I've been watching Jeopardy my whole life. Your episodes were some of the most exciting in years. Do you think Alex has it out for multi-day champions? I've always gotten that impression. My friend's cousin won a bunch of days a couple years ago and it seemed like Alex was ready to push him off the set, if not a cliff.

Don't think so. Alex went on Fox News and said he doesn't hate me, for whatever that's worth.

I think Alex knows that, even when they're controversial or disliked, multi-day champions boost ratings and what's good for the ratings is good for him.

First of all, congratulations. I most certainly did not hate you on the show, so i think I'm.in the minority on that. I was wondering during your run, did you have a wagering strategy on DD's? It almost seemed like you just bet high, regardless of the category( except for the sports category). Also, looking back what could you have done differently in your loss?

I had a rough heuristic that unless it was a DD I thought I wouldn't get (i.e. the sports one) I would bet only as much as I needed to safely get the game "put away". When the game was close that meant a True DD, when the game was not close that meant trying to at least double up my lead.

In my loss? I should've just buzzed in less when I wasn't actually sure -- I was making wild guesses on impulse that weren't any good. Had I not lost that momentum then even that horrible "cynicism" DD wouldn't necessarily have killed me.

SAT Score?

1. 800 Verbal, 780 Math. (This is the old SAT when Writing was not part of the "SAT I". I did take the Writing test as an "SAT II", and although it's not the same as the Writing test that's part of the standard SAT now I did get 800 on it so you could say my "modern" SAT score would be 2380.)

What's the hardest part of training for Jeopardy/getting through the whole process to become a contestant

The "training for Jeopardy" part was really grueling, for me. The thing that made it hard is actually that "becoming a contestant" is pretty easy -- you just take a quick test online, and if you pass and you get picked they call you out for one day of auditioning (which is just taking a written test in person and then playing a mock game of Jeopardy so they can make sure you aren't a crazy person).

After that you just live your life and you have to wait for a year and a half before you know that you're not in the pool anymore and can audition again. It's really easy, if you have a busy life, to completely forget that you did audition for Jeopardy until you get The Call to be on the show -- and then you have to make up all the time you didn't study in the past year and a half in 30 days.

What are some of your favorite hobbies?

Other than tweeting about Jeopardy? I used to be really into improv but there's not much of a scene in Cleveland. I do really love doing community theater -- had a blast doing the Cleveland Shakespeare Festival last year -- but it is something that takes up a ton of time.

In what spare time I have I'm a gamer, I love genre fiction, I love artsy thinky movies -- but as with many people getting busier as they get older I find I have to digest things in snack-sized pieces. I'm now more into small indie games than giant AAA epics, short stories more than novels, short films more than features -- and I like to posture about how the shorter versions are neglected art forms with an elegance in how they communicate a message sparingly but really it's just that I need to be able to finish something in half an hour after work.

Which charity would you pick to donate part of your winnings?

I hate answering questions like this because it feels like if I pick a specific organization I've made a commitment to them and I'll get crap for it from them if I end up changing my mind and not giving to them.

That said -- and I'll go out on a limb here and say something potentially controversial, though maybe not for a Reddit audience -- I'm super troubled about the things we continue to learn about the US government's surveillance of the Internet, the way our wars are being conducted overseas without a proper sense of law or accountability, etc.

I have a lot of differences with Wikileaks as an organization and Julian Assange in particular as a person, but it's the only organization big enough and loud enough to be making a major difference with those issues right now and I cannot believe how incredibly fucked up it was that the whole banking industry basically colluded to make it impossible to donate money to them and most people did not apparently see anything wrong with this.

So yes, even if I get in hot water for saying it I want to send some money their way.

I've also been looking at fibromyalgia charities, at charities aimed at helping the poorest in the world (I think very highly of the mission of GiveDirectly and Results.Org and similar groups targeted for maximum "bang for your buck" for donations) and at political causes I believe in (ACLU, Common Dreams, Economic Policy Institute).

I've also got things I want to donate to for purely personal reasons -- theaters I've worked with, my alma mater, etc. I consider that kind of donation to be a separate thing from "charity" per se and budget for it separately.

But this is all up in the air right now and I'm open to convincing if people want to convince me that my thoughts are totally off base and there's some other cause I should be donating to. I have to say that while I have a lot of differences with the culture of GiveWell and the "effective altruism" community, that the conversation they're having in that community is an important one and paying attention to what GiveWell, Giving What We Can, Peter Singer, etc. are saying is a good first step for anyone who has a lot of cash they want to get rid of.

hey Arthur. props to you from Parma. had fun watching you the past few weeks. question:

• have you made any impulse buys since winning? ie going to Cleats on non-wing day?

Well, I was a lot less reluctant to pick up the tab for my brother's failed attempt at the Melt Challenge than I would've been.

Arthur, Were you and your wife at an improv comedy show in Bar Harbor, ME this summer where the actors told the story of how you two met and fell in love? If so, we were one of the only other couples in there with you and the story was freaking hilarious!!! Congrats

That was us

Hiya Arthur! It was a lot of fun watching your run. My question is simple: What's next? Feel free to be as vague or specific as you want. Thanks!

Trying to get some semblance of a normal life back in order before moving forward.

I'm actually relieved that the media will lose interest after this because this level of fielding interviews and attention and whatnot is just unsustainable energy-wise. I now have a much greater empathy for how real celebrities crack up and get arrested for shoplifting.

Were you ever involved in scholastic bowl/ quiz bowl in high school or college?

I played Academic Bowl in middle school for one year in 8th grade when I lived in Boise, Idaho. Some really surreal, hilarious memories from basically doing the Academic Bowl "bush leagues" -- driving around from sleepy cow town to sleepy cow town through Idaho, racking up trophies along the way. Real slice of American life.

Did Quiz Bowl in college to but was a lot less successful at it. Did accumulate some horrifying stories that I'm sure my Quiz Bowl teammates have been telling to everyone while I've been on TV.

I still believe in Chu. Will you save us from our Computer Overlords?

I am no savior against the Machine Apocalypse. I have reached the point where I am physically incapable of urinating without a smartphone in my hand. I have already succumbed.

What are the aspects of the show that the average viewer may not be familiar with?

The single biggest thing is that episodes are taped back-to-back, as I've remarked elsewhere, so anyone you see who does a two-game or three-game run really did play all those games in a row. I think if you get this and get how stressful and tiring that is you'll cut people on the show a lot more slack for their "stupid mistakes".

Do you think Diane's recovery on that Daily Double was legitimate?

If I tried to give her crap for that then all the people would start coming out of the woodwork yelling about "Green-witch" and "Robe-ess-pierre" and "Freemen's/Freedmen's Bureau". Let's just say that "acceptable pronunciation" in Jeopardy is a subjective thing and let it go.

How do you think you would do in a game of Jeopardy against Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter?

If I were to play against them right now they'd tear me into tiny pieces. But I have some time to change that before I ever would conceivably have to face them.

How much do you hate pronouncing words?

Ugh, randomly mispronouncing words is such a stressful thing on Jeopardy. I would do SO much better on the game if I could answer questions by typing on a keyboard, even if that would obviously be less telegenic.

We loved watching you Arthur! #TeamArthur Did you have to travel back home while the other tournaments played or did you stay in a hotel?

There wasn't actually a break in filming for the tournaments. I crashed with my mom while I was in LA and I only had to go home once, between the week 1 taping on Nov. 13 and the week 2 taping on Nov. 19.

You remind me of those card counters from the movie "21".

Question time: Have you ever taken an IQ test?

I've taken those fake Internet ones a ton of times and do pretty well on them. I took a legit IQ test for a gifted program when I was a little kid and ended up testing with a college-level IQ and freaking everyone out, though I think that was mainly based on having a college-level vocabulary -- that's the story I tell on the King of the Nerds audition video you can see on my YouTube channel.

Firstly, you should have no qualms about how you played the game. I would have done the same thing to win money, granted it was within the rules of the game.

That being said, my brother refers to you as the Tyrant, while I refer to you as the Renegade. Which do you prefer?

Renegade. If anyone was ever the tyrannical despot of Jeopardy it was obviously Ken Jennings. All I ever did was hold Jeopardy in a temporary state of siege.

Also, for the Mass Effect fans out there -- <<RENEGADE INTERRUPT>>

Can you talk the producers into having a Jeopardy All-Star show with you taking on Ken Jennings and IBM's "Watson"?

There's a ton of people who should go on an "All-Star" show ahead of me.

Did you read the book Prisoner of Trebekistan: A Decade in Jeopardy! before going on Jeopardy? How did your experiences compare with the author's?

Read excerpts from it but never actually got around to checking out the book from the library. I feel like Harris talked a lot about the common-sense fundamentals of Jeopardy studying that I also found invaluable, but that I focused more on "Moneyball" tactics -- stuff like the Forrest Bounce and DD wagering theory -- that was never as big a deal for him.

Hey Arthur, I loved watching you kick ass on Jeopardy and am really bummed that you won't be there to continue this method (though I suspect many will try to emulate it now.)

My questions are the following:

1. During your bids for Final Jeopardy, are you able to ask other contestants exactly how much money they have to make your bid?
2. Had you been trying to get on the show for many years? Or was this your first attempt at trying? I've tried in vain to pass the Online Contestant Test, but will keep trying.
3. As a fellow glasses-wearer, what made you make the switch to contacts?

Thanks for making Jeopardy even more awesome than it already is!

"During your bids for Final Jeopardy, are you able to ask other contestants exactly how much money they have to make your bid? "

No. You aren't even allowed to try to peek. They put up dividers between the podiums for that purpose.

"Had you been trying to get on the show for many years? Or was this your first attempt at trying? I've tried in vain to pass the Online Contestant Test, but will keep trying. "

This was my second try, so I got lucky. I'd already taken the test, passed the test and gotten into the in-person audition and then never been called for one two-year cycle, so I didn't have high hopes for this one.

"As a fellow glasses-wearer, what made you make the switch to contacts? "

The fact that my glasses completely coincidentally broke in the airport -- the arm just came right off on one of the sides -- just before I flew back after the first day of taping, and I didn't have time to replace them before I had to fly back to LA to start taping again next week. I have contacts that I use mostly for when I'm in a show (community theater), and I don't find them particularly comfortable but luckily I was able to adjust to wearing them.

Told myself, "there's no way winningest is a real word" I was wrong. So very wrong.. have an up vote for teaching me something

I learned this was a real word when I worked on my college newspaper and was trying to proofread the sports section

Arthur! Huge fan, man. My family and I watch Jeopardy religiously and we loved watching you give Trebek hell. A question and a comment: do you find it annoying that a question being correct requires such correct pronunciation (referring to the "A posteriori" answer)? Also, I'm pretty sure your answer of 'egoism' in the philosophy category was correct.

"Egoism" would be an arguably correct answer if they hadn't mentioned Antisthenes, who is specifically the founder of Cynicism

Arthur, what is you're favorite game/quiz show besides Jeopardy?

I got really into Millionaire fever at the same time the rest of America did but I'm over it now. In general I think "modern" game shows put too much emphasis on the drama at the expense of having lots and lots of questions.