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Meet The Voice Actor Who Hacked Jeopardy

3,751 views · Published 8 February 2014 · 2:49 · Indexed 5 October 2026

Channel: The Fowler Show · 2014 · News & Politics

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When Arthur Chu got the call saying he'd been selected to go on Jeopardy, his first move was thorough and decisive: He went to Google and typed in "jeopardy strategy."P

"I knew that just like in terms of my natural knowledge base, I wasn't ready to go on Jeopardy," Chu told me on the phone this morning. "I wasn't like Ken Jennings—automatically knowing everything from the top of my head. So I had to train."P

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By training—that is, going through Internet message boards and reading up on past Jeopardy winners—Chu developed an unorthodox strategy that has made headlines over the last week. It's rare, controversial, and effective—and it's turned him into something of a grand villain for some fans of the long-running quiz show. Just one glance at his Twitter feed will show you some of the ridiculous vitriolic messages he's gotten over the past few days, as his story—and winning streak—started picking up steam. (He's won four games so far, and needs one more to get into the Tournament of Champions. His next appearance will be televised on February 24.)P

So what makes Chu so unusual? While most players will start from the top of each column on the Jeopardy board and progress sequentially as question difficulty increases, Chu picks questions at random, using what's called the Forrest Bounce to hunt for the three Daily Doubles, which are often scattered among the harder questions in every game. Instead of moving from the $200 question to the $400 question and so forth, Chu might bounce between all of the $1,600 or $2,000 questions—not the kind of strategy you often see on Jeopardy.3P

Chu does this for two reasons. For one, it throws everyone off balance. "It's a lot more mentally tiring to have to jump around the board like that," Chu told me. P

More importantly, snagging those Daily Doubles offers him a massive statistical advantage. Since Daily Doubles allow players to bet up to their entire bankrolls, just one can swing an entire Jeopardy match—and Chu's strategy is to control them all, even just to prevent other players from using them.P

"The only chance you have to give yourself an edge—the only moment of power, or choice you have in Jeopardy is choosing the next clue if you got the last one right," Chu said. "So if you're unpredictable when you do that, and keep opponents on their toes, it's a lot more mentally tiring and might tick off people in the audience, but it lets you gain and keep an edge that's very important to winning the game."P

Chu's Daily Double hunting can be disorienting and unpleasant for an audience accustomed to watching one category at a time.
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Story: http://kotaku.com/meet-the-man-who-hacked-jeopardy-1516792430

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