Final Jeopardy (Alexandra Cooper Mysteries) - Linda Fairstein [107]
As he hunted for Daily Doubles, Jennings lost control of the board several times, but he was making money. He had $3,600—$800 less than Watson—when he called for the $600 clue in Breaking News. The space-gun sound rang through the auditorium. A human finally had a Daily Double. Jennings bet everything he had and then saw the clue: “Senator Obama attended the 2006 groundbreaking for this man’s memorial, a half mile from Lincoln’s.” Jennings paused. “I was about to say FDR,” he later admitted. But then he wondered why the Jeopardy writer would mention Obama before he became president, and “figured it had to be about civil rights.” And so he answered: “Who was Martin Luther King?” That was correct, and it raised Jennings’s total to $7,200. By the end of the Jeopardy round, Jennings had $8,600. Watson trailed at $4,800, with Rutter third, at $2,400.
There was one more Double Jeopardy board in the match: thirty clues, two of them Daily Doubles, plus Final Jeopardy. Jennings’s best chance on this home stretch was to double his money on the first Daily Double, double it again on the second, and again—if necessary—in Final Jeopardy. If he got to $10,000 before beginning this magical run, he could conceivably end up with $80,000. No one had ever pulled that off on Jeopardy—much less against the likes of Watson and Brad Rutter. The all-time single-game record in the show was Roger Craig’s $77,000, and his competition had been far humbler. “I knew the odds were stacked against me,” Jennings said. “It was my only shot.”
He and Rutter both started off hunting in the high-dollar clues, but it was Watson that landed on the first Daily Double. It was the $1,200 clue in the Nonfiction category. The computer bet a conservative $2,127—and promptly botched a devilishly complex clue: “The New Yorker’s 1959 review of this said that in its brevity and clarity it is unlike most such manuals. A book as well as a tool.” Watson, clearly mystified, said: “Let’s try ‘Who is Dorothy Parker?’” (The correct response: “What is The Elements of Style?”)
Even without landing on a Daily Double, Jennings added to his lead. Nearing the end of the game, his winnings reached $20,000, $2,000 ahead of Watson. The second Daily Double was still on the board. Reaching $80,000 was still a possibility.
But then Jennings made a blunder that would no doubt haunt him for years to come. He had control of the board, and the only remaining category with likely Daily Double spots was Legal “E”s. Jennings was certain that it was hidden under either the $1,200 or $1,600 slot, but which one? His theory, widely accepted among Jeopardy aficionados, was that the game would not feature two Daily Doubles on the same board under the same dollar amount. But what was the dollar amount of that first Daily Double? Jennings seemed to recall that it was $1,600, so he asked Trebek for the $1,200 clue in Legal “E”s. It turned out he had it backward. This was a mistake that Watson, with its precise memory, would never have made. The $1,200 clue described the person who carries out the “directions and requests” in a person’s will. Watson won the buzz and answered, “What is executor?” It then proceeded to the clue Jennings should have picked. The space guns went off. Watson had the last Daily Double. The researchers in the room, who understood exactly what this meant, erupted in cheers.
“At that point it was over,” Ferrucci said. “We all knew it.” The machine had triumphed. In the few clues that were left, Rutter and Jennings carried out a battle for second place. In the end, as the computer and the two humans revealed their Final Jeopardy responses to a clue about the author of Dracula, Bram Stoker, Jennings added a postscript on his card: “I, for one, welcome our new computer overlord.”
Watson, despite a few embarrassing gaffes,