Andy here with his second Q&A of the weekend. As you may or may not remember, Jason Keller and I are both tournament Scrabble players and directors! Thus, I took the opportunity to ask Jason some questions prior to the taping of the Tournament of Champions last month (I figured I’d do that so as to get pre-Tournament thoughts as genuine as possible!)
Andy: You won 9 games. Do you have any regrets about how your run went?
Jason: No and yes. I basically played the games the way that I wanted to play them. I’ve seen friends go out on their first show, sometimes due to some really bad luck, so to say that I had regrets about winning nine games might seem silly. On the other hand, I played the last four games on almost no sleep and had traveled from LA to Newark to Cambridge, Maryland and back in the four days prior to that taping. I think I missed a few things that I would have gotten if I were fresher (the Edsel final though that didn’t cost me, and the Harry Truman DD that did among other things). Also, I was dreading the reaction that people would have to my midgame interviews, because I wasn’t happy with a lot of them.
Andy: How much studying have you been doing? Any areas in particular?
Jason: A little bit of studying, but not a lot. I couldn’t put a figure on it, but I have looked at past ToC’s and the Ultimate ToC on the J-Archive, and also looked at some Oscar things and some things about NASA.
Andy: How much do you think LearnedLeague has helped in your preparations, if at all?
Jason: It kept me thinking about diverse subject matter and it reminded me of certain things. I would be surprised to see some of that subject material make it on to Jeopardy!, but maybe I’ll be lucky. Maybe there will be a clue that shows a picture of McKayla Maroney doing her not impressed face. 😉
(Aside from Andy: The only LearnedLeague sports question I have missed in my two seasons of LL was a picture of McKayla Maroney doing her ‘not impressed’ face in London.)
Andy: Dave Leach, the player who beat you, is also in the tournament. Are you out for revenge? Do you hope you get a rematch?
Jason: It’s a distant thought at best. I am coming into the ToC with about the same expectations that I had coming into my regular season appearance: it could be fantastic or I could fall flat on my face and submit an angry editorial to a local paper.
Andy: What player in the field, other than yourself, do you think has the best chance to win?
Jason: I hear a lot about Stephanie Jass being a player to beat.
Andy: Have many people recognized you from the show?
Jason: Quite a few, and not just in the Scrabble and crossword worlds. Just after my run, I was giving presentations about college testing to students at a local high school, and I got about ten questions about Jeopardy! and none about testing. I’ve had drivers stop and wave to me when they see me walking. Some random people on the street have recognized me. After the Albany New Year’s Scrabble tournament, one of my opponents came up to me and said that I looked familiar to him because of Jeopardy! and not Scrabble.
Andy: During your run, I found that a lot of people weren’t showing the same respect towards you that other superchampions have received in the past. Did you find that as well?
Jason: I knew that there was a bit of disrespect out on the Internet. I think it shocked me a little bit, not because I demanded respect, and not even because some people have blinders on that block out anything other than wagering and luck, but because I had made similar disrespectful statements in the past, and being the subject of it made me wonder how I ever could have done that. Going through taping, I realized that most contestants don’t put out their absolute best efforts when the cameras get rolling, and now when I get to watch Jeopardy! I try to keep that in mind. And I know that even the greatest of Jeopardy! champions have had their fair share of luck.
Andy: A little bit off the topic of Jeopardy!, but Jeanie really wants to know how you got so good at crosswords! So, how did you get so good?
Jason: Does Jeanie want to know how Joon Pahk got so good at crosswords? He’s much better than I am and he got better faster. 🙂
Practice makes perfect, or well, it makes better. You get accustomed to seeing certain words and knowing certain constructors’ predilections. I do the daily New York Times and once a week I do Matt Gaffney’s Weekly Crossword Contest puzzle. I used to do the LA Times, Newsday and CrosSynergy/Washington Post crossword on a daily basis, and some weeklies as well (Wall Street Journal, Philadelphia Inquirer, Boston Globe). I may start them back up again after I complete taping. cruciverb.com has links to most of them. I’ve also gone through quite a few crossword books. I also recommend Amy Reynaldo’s How to Conquer the New York Times Crossword, which gives some helpful tips for solving.
Andy: (also, figured I’d pass on a message from John Pahk: “Make sure to win.” I echo the sentiment.)
Jason: I shall do my best, or almost my best.
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Thanks once again for answering these questions, Jason! Best of retroactive luck to you! Jason’s quarterfinal airs Friday, February 15th.