They still do the chaperone thing, and, as you say, everyone is incredibly nice. The part I didn’t expect, but made sense, was that the minute you lost, you had to leave the cocoon because you were technically no longer a contestant. You were escorted in to the green room to gather your things, could wave goodbye, and off you went! By the end of the first day when there were just five of us left before the last game, it was a little peculiar. Very Hunger Games-ish.

There were a lot of relieved contestants in the green room when they introduced someone else as the returning champion, believe me.

One thing I remember from the day is the presence of a chaperone with contestants who hadn’t taped their episodes yet.  Because of the game-show scandals from the 50s, there’s a third-party company that ensures you have no contact with the writing staff (which includes Alex) prior to taping.  A number of us had afternoon tapings, so even during lunch at the Sony studio, there was someone there keeping an eye on you.  They were perfectly nice, of course, but the show folks do take that aspect seriously.

I did as well, but the host was someone named Art Fleming, the announcer was Don Pardo, and the amounts played for were a bit smaller.

With the question dispute, they definitely stop the clock. I saw a few that were under a minute, and then one I witnessed took at least ten minutes. They stop the clock, and often ask contestants to turn their backs to the game board and not talk to each other to prevent any advantage in seeing what the judges are working on or seeing the game board categories and remaining values.

Then they restart the clock and typically do a pickup from Alex in which he says, “Judges” and so forth.

Alex has some kind of timer. He can try to pick up the pace. At one point in my third game, airing tonight, during a break the contestant coordinators asked us to stop using extra words because we weren’t clearing the game board! They emphasize this throughout, actually. I found myself unknowingly saying things like, “May I have ‘thoroughbred thurgood marshalls’ for $1,000, please, Alex,” which wastes a lot of time!

Just wondering, if they “stop everything” for the judges to figure out whether a question is correct or not, how does Trebek “know” when there is less than a minute left. It seems like it would be a bit of a nightmare to try to figure out how much “edited” time had elapsed while the show was being taped. Is there a big timer in view that they stop every time someone gets a daily double, or during the “judges” moments?

I strongly suspect that when Trebek moves on, the rule will be modified to exclude anyone who’s been on since 1984, full stop.   If not…yeah, I’ll be scrambling to audition again.  

Like I said — cruel.

Seriously, though, if you have a competitor who is strong enough to tie with you at a high dollar value, that’s not the person you want to compete against on the next show, because fickle fate won’t smile on you.

Also, I had to assume she would bet 100% ($12,000). I couldn’t assume she’d bet $11,999 (which she did). Thus, if I’d tried to make sure I tied or won at $5,400, and we were both right, I would still have won at $24,000 to $23,999. If I’d bet $5,399 and she’d opted to bet $12,000, I would have lost. We are not allowed to collude, so couldn’t discuss that strategy. Thus, it made more sense for me to play to win instead of play to tie.

The short game on Jeopardy is to win first place. The long game on Jeopardy is to win at least three games and enough money to be invited to the Tournament of Champions each year which carries with it a $5,000 minimum appearance fee and top prizes of $250,000, $150,000, and $75,000.