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I don't think I could ever play Jeopardy, not well anyway. My mind doesn't work that way, my memory of facts isn't good enough, my retention average at best.
I've never really watched it that much and I never considered that there could be a strategy to play, much less a unique one. I mean pick an amount in a column, buzz in and, for some reason, give your answer in the form of a question.
Jeopardy simply had never made it onto my radar screen...until last week and a man named Arthur Chu.
Arthur Chu beat eight opponents and was champion four nights in a row a couple of weeks ago. His total winnings are $102,800 and he'll hope to continue his run on February 24th.
Chu caused quite a stir amongst Jeopardy enthusiasts because of the strategy he deployed.
As pointed out by Mandi Woodruff of Yahoo Finance, "typically, players play 'top to bottom' - selecting a clue with the lowest dollar value and working their way down to higher-valued clues on the bottom of the game board. It's not a rule, but the game has been played that way for so long that viewers and players alike are accustomed to that progression path."
"I thought [my strategy] would draw attention," Chu told Woodruff. "But I never understood why this traditional way of playing the game has been kind of locked in."
Woodruff writes that Chu "targeted the $1,000 clues first, snatching them away from his competitors and jumping around the board to maximize his chances of stumbling on the coveted Daily Double, which are usually hidden among the higher-valued clues."
Winning the larger amounts first also put immediate distance between him and his competitors and made it much more difficult for them to catch him with only the smaller valued clues left.
Through all the beefing of traditionalists and the irritation of Alex Trebek, Chu stubbornly refuses to adjust his strategy.
And all I can say is...good for him. It's working.
I'm all for the contrarian.
Well, as long as one is not contrary just to be contrary, driven by ego. Then the contrarian is simply irritating.
So let me amend my previous statement: I'm all for the constructive contrarian. And by that I mean those who are a contrarian at the right times, who know how to choose their battles and whose motivation is to improve the situation as opposed to just being heard.
How beneficial constructive contrarians are to life and business. People willing to look at a set of facts or circumstances from angles that we might be blind to or dismiss too easily. We need them. And we need them to be stubborn.
The constructive contrarian can be the leader's best friend. Constructive contrarians challenge leaders and make them justify their decisions and processes. Leaders would do well to embrace them.
And Alex Trebek would do well to embrace Arthur Chu. Indeed, Jeopardy is doing well by having him.
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