Jeff Lasky answers your JEOPARDY questions

Everyone LOVED Jeff Lasky’s account of being on JEOPARDY! And why not? It was AWESOME. He received lots of well-deserved kudos. And thank you readers for sending along your thanks to Jeff. This was great for me. Two of my better posts and I didn’t have to do anything.

Jeff read your comments and noted that a few of you had questions, so he graciously volunteered to answer them. How is this guy NOT an all-time champion???

Here’s his reply:

Thanks for all the nice comments on my guest blog. I'd trade all of them to have not finished in third, but oh well. A few answers for folks who brought up good questions. By the way, since it's the big topic of discussion -- it's not just hotel but also airfare that the contestants pay. So it's very possible that the third place prize won't cover your travel expenses. Since I drove up, I only had to pay for hotel and gas.

Hope you all enjoy part two! I don't like it as much- it's the one where I lose.

For Ed from SFV: For the Tuesday taping, people from out of town can be alternates because they've already planned to stay overnight and be in Los Angeles through the second tape day. However, the Wednesday alternates are always "local", which they consider to be Southern California. Unfortunately for me, that includes San Diego, which is a two-hour drive, so I put up the money for the hotel twice, once when I was an alternate and didn't get on and once when they brought me back.

Jax- it's generally about two months between tape and air, but not always. When I appeared on the show, we shot at the end of March and it aired in mid-July, so more than three months.

Wallis Lane- they do not require a hotel stay. I just decided it was easier and I wanted to get as much sleep/rest/stress avoidance as possible. If you choose to drive yourself to the Sony lot, they require you to be there by 7:30.

Tom Galloway- There are a few changes to the audition process. They don't reveal who passed the written test at the audition anymore. Everyone there participates in the full audition process. We were told that 80,000 people took the online test that I passed and that they were auditioning 2,000 of them for 400 spots on the show.

Andy Rose- correct, the producers do give the law firm some suggestions on contestant match-ups to avoid having three people from the same part of the country in one game, etc. They also let the lawyer know which players are back as alternates and that they would prefer those players be on as early as possible in the day.

MikeN- Correct, Sam had opened up a huge, unbeatable lead on second, who in turn had more than twice what I had. One of the things I did in preparing to be on the show was to study betting strategy. It's generally not complicated- almost everyone follows the same basic philosophy. If the game is competitive, the leader should always bet to beat second place by one dollar. The second place player has the most options, depending on how much they trail by. The second place player should assume the leader will bet correctly, so the only way they can win is if the leader gets the question wrong. In addition, you should be able to figure out exactly what the leader will bet (if she has 20,000 and 2nd has 15,000, second should know the leader will bet 10,001). Second place needs to bet enough to clear the third place person and beat the leader if the leader gets the answer wrong. Make sense?

Another point on betting- you're seeing the entire strategy of Jeopardy! change on the daily doubles. The strategy that has taken over is to bet big. James Holzhauer took it to an extreme, but it's not new. Austin Rodgers put up big scores with big gambles. Sam Cavanaugh did that to great effect in my game, essentially locking up the game early in Double Jeopardy. I saw it in person pre-Holzhauer. I was an alternate during 4-game champion John Presloid's run (aired in January). He did the same exact thing in his fourth win, using a true daily double to lock up the game early. Such aggressive betting is essentially a force multiplier to the "returning champion advantage". The champ has already been through that pressure cooker, so they're now trying to be really aggressive early while the new players are still trying to get their footing in the game and on the buzzer.

Thanks again to Jeff Lasky, guest blogger supreme.