It’s Saturday, which means it’s time for my weekly editorial here at The Jeopardy Fan!
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My Thoughts On The Toilet Paper Roll Holder
Earlier this week, I tweeted out about something that Mira Hayward brought up in one of her contestant interviews—regarding the use of a toilet paper roll holder for buzzer practice.
Here’s a history lesson for those who weren’t paying close attention to Jeopardy! before James Holzhauer: back in 2015, Tournament of Champions winner Alex Jacob was asked about his preparation regimen. He then basically said that he practiced signaling using a toilet paper roll holder, as a standard roll holder has a similar size and springiness to a regulation Jeopardy! signaling device. Since then, this piece of advice has been oft-published, oft-used, and oft-repeated, and while it may be helpful, I do still personally believe that this is a placebo effect.
Contestants in the 2020s are much more willing to talk about preparing by playing online Jeopardy! games than they would have been willing to in the 2010s. Recent players like Jesse Matheny have been very open about how much those games have helped them, even bringing them up on the show. What might not be as known is that variations of this have been around the community for nearly 20 years, and these online games have been churning out champions—even ToC winners—for almost all that time. With my knowledge of this, I would say that “online practice reps” played a much larger role in Alex Jacob’s success than a toilet paper roll holder did.
So, while I think the toilet paper roll may be somewhat helpful, I do think it is a placebo—and the suggestion made originally by Alex Jacob was a very well played long con troll job that will never truly go away.
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I’ve Been Saying For Years That We Need This—And Last Night Gave Us The Reason Why
In the Reddit thread for last night’s game, Emily Sands said that she was deliberately sandbagging her buzzer attempts at the end of the two-game final during her Champions Wildcard competition in an attempt to “throw off the scent” of anyone potentially scouting her statistics in the Tournament of Champions.
Interestingly enough, this fits in to what I have said multiple times (like last month, and shortly after this data started being released) on this website in the past: this is exactly why we need granular by-clue data, preferably with specific timing per clue, so that we can filter out the noise that some contestants are now deliberately introducing into the data.
I should also note as a reminder that the prediction model as used here on The Jeopardy Fan does not currently use the attempt statistics in any way—I still believe that simply using correct/incorrect responses in that part of the model accurately represents both knowledge and buzzer skill. (It should also be noted that the “in first on buzzer” stats compiled here at The Jeopardy Fan also can’t be sandbagged in this fashion—due to the denominator being “clues seen”, buzzing in excessively late and not buzzing in at all are treated identically.)
In Closing
Quarterfinals #2 through #6 are this week, with Cris Pannullo returning on Monday. Enjoy!
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I am glad to hear that for your prediction model you do not currently use the buzzer attempt statistics in any way and that buzzing in excessively late and not buzzing in at all are treated identically for the statistics. That seems the most sensible to me, but I had wondered about it.
I do not understand what the act of “sandbagging buzzer attempts” is. I also do not understand how one contestant scouting other players’ statistics can help them anyway. Isn’t the key for each player for each clue to buzz in as quickly as possible, but not TOO quickly — in terms of not before you are allowed to AND not before you KNOW the correct response or at least know so much about the subject that you are SURE that you can think of the exact correct response in the time you will be given to respond? I would assume that also considering how fast you think anyone else will buzz in would be detrimental to your own best timing (regardless of whether you are correctly familiar with other contestants’ buzzer statistics or have been misled).
Are we sure that anyone claiming to have manipulated their statistics to “throw off the scent” of anyone potentially scouting them is not just trying to do so just by making the claim, perhaps not actually having done any manipulation?
Emily describes the “sandbagging” behavior in the linked Reddit thread: intentionally buzzing in on clues she didn’t know as Ken was already calling on another contestant.
I agree that anyone who is adjusting buzzer tactics based on box scores is probably playing themselves, especially considering that there are two opponents in any Jeopardy game. I guess the theory might be to make an opponent overconfident and hopefully fluster them when they’re not as successful at buzzing in as they anticipated.
I think we can be confident in this case at least that the claim itself is not a psyop, as it was posted well after the ToC finished taping. Unless Emily won it all, and is setting herself up for Masters…
It just occurred to me that this might have been more about the number of attempts than the buzzer percentage. By advertising a very large number of buzzer attempts, Emily might have made future opponents feel that they would have to buzz in on bunch of clues they were marginal on in order to stay competitive.
Thanks, I had tried the links and they didn’t work for me (so I wasn’t even positive that I was right that they were links and not just highlights).
The information/supposition you provided makes lots of sense.
Was your “Toilet Paper and Sandbags” headline an attempt (just for the fun of it) to make us think this would be about disaster prep? [Or, more specifically, maybe something about Jeopardy! workers, players, audience, and host getting trapped in the studio by flooding from the hard rains in California?] If so, you “got” me. If not, I was nonetheless amused when it turned out to actually be about toilet paper HOLDERS and sandbaggING instead of sandbags.
I was on my high school’s quiz team 30+ years ago. We were part of a league with seven other schools in the Greater Cleveland area (and my senior year we were on the local TV show, but they used a different signaling device, so that’s not relevant here). For league meets, we used signal devices similar to those used on “Jeopardy!”, roughly the size and feel of a toilet paper roll holder. I think practice with one of those can give you the feel and if you play along with the show can give an approximation of being on stage and how you feel most comfortable with holding the device. However, even with a similar resistance, there’s one thing that the roll holder doesn’t give you; the sense of where the “trip point” on the device is.
One hint that my older brother (who proceeded me on the quiz team) gave me was finding that point on the device where just a slight bit more pressure on the button trips the circuit. He said that tenth-of-a-second saved is often the difference between getting in first and missing out on the opportunity. And for “Jeopardy!”, you probably need to be on the stage and actually have the device in hand and an opportunity to test it before you can know that point.
This knowledge also served me well with the team I was on attempting to represent my university in College Bowl later on. While we unfortunately did not win that tournament, we placed well.