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And itswonderful.Bring in the era of youngsters!
(ByJeopardy!standards, anyway.)
I never think about myself as being a particularly young person, Roach told us with a laugh.
Everybody I hang out with is also in their 20s.
Or, who knows, maybe evenAmy Schneiders.
How much fan mail has yourwristreceived?My wrist has received fan mail.
If anything, my wrist received a lot ofhatemail.
A lot of people really didnt like it.
I saw a couple fan cams of my wrist, which is funny.
What wrist fan cams have you seen?Mostly a series of two-second clips of me making a gesture.
I dont remember what songs were playing with the visual effects.
They show my wrist, and my score increased by like $8,000.
It was dedication, for sure.
Im a poor excuse for a young person; Im not that great at video editing.
Youre the firstJeopardy!megachampion on that Gen-Zmillennial cusp.
How does it feel to be representative of this younger guard of players?It feels weird.
Im not sure if I consider myself more Gen Z or millennial.
Im in that weird five-year period between 1995 and 2000 where people are not clearly one or the other.
Its not entirely negative.
Im assuming with your mannerisms?I dont behave onJeopardy!the way I behave in the office.
If I was going to work, Id behave more professionally and be more subdued.
I remember saying to a friend, Im not going to court.
Im not going to a job interview.
But I respected the institution by playing the game really well.
Im enjoying myself a lot, and thats why I played the game that way.
People have commented, Shes playing the same way shed play along while at home on the couch.
If anything, Im less animated at home.
Sure, I play it in a relatively casual way.
Anything thats new or different is going to take some getting used to.
Its not good or bad.
One of the things that makes the game interesting is the people who are playing arent professional game-show contestants.
Were regular people who have real jobs.
Me talking through things wasnt so much nervous chatter than stream of consciousness.
That was helping me make decisions.
Its hard to tell what contestants thought of me, though.
Obviously, none of these people had met me before.
I tried to make conversation with as many people as I could.
I think I was taken aback by myself, to be honest.
I dont consider myself to be a particularly extroverted person in my day-to-day life.
Im not in the center of the room at a party.
I havent historically been that great at meeting new people and connecting with them fast.
It takes a while for me to develop relationships.
I was surprised how extroverted I was on the show.
Fellow megachampion James Holzhauer defined his strategy as strategically aggressive.
Matt Amodio went by cautious.
How would you define yours?Looking back at it, my strategy was bad.
I think I probably shouldve played a lot more strategically.
If Matt was cautious, then I was overly, overly cautious.
I would describe my strategy as loss minimization rather than gain maximization.
I was never somebody who would buzz in on clues and then think of the answer.
My Daily Double wagers were really small.
My Final Jeopardy wagers were generally not that large.
Risk aversion was the way I played it.
Theres nothing wrong with descending each category clue by clue!Oh my God, yeah.
The reason I didnt bounce around is I thought it would be too confusing.
Especially when there are categories that have specific running themes or sequences.
There are so many different things you have to pay attention to while playing.
That was me trying to minimize errors.
Theres that Tom Brady mind-set again.
What was your relationship to the show prior to playing?
Was it always your dream to be a contestant?It was a lifelong idea.
I thought would be really cool; I never thought it would actually happen.
I never had cable, so I couldnt watch all the time.
I wasnt somebody who had been trying for years to get on.
I took the test one time on a whim, and it worked out extremely well.
c’mon, everyone, take the test.
You have nothing to lose.
The worst thing that happens is nothing, which is the same as before.
As a contestant, theres something really special about being onstage with the greatest player of all time.
Someone who understands in a very visceral way what its like to be in your position.
Mayim is fantastic, but she doesnt have that same experience.
