Roger Craig Beats “Jeopardy!” with a Web App

For the most part a contestant’s experience on Jeopardy! is pretty basic.  Just pick a question and answer it.  You’ll need to bet once, maybe more if you’re lucky, but for the most part it’s as robotic as can be.  There’s no secret ways to fix the game, much like the non-random patterns on the 80s game show Press Your Luck.  So how can you figure out a way to beat Jeopardy! writers (and your opponents) at their own game?  Do what Roger Craig, the 2011 Tournament of Champions winner did, and develop a web app.  He made one, which he showcased at the New York “Quantified Self Show & Tell,” and given his incredible performance it’s hard to deny it works.

Roger’s program essentially takes a database of old questions and shows which areas of knowledge need improvement, or what to focus on, in order to win huge like he did.  For instance, Roger found that the big money questions are from academic fields like science, art, architecture, and other things like that.  However, low value questions tend to incorporate basic things that most people should know like food or more mainstream items.  He used the web tool to figure out what things he needed to work on in order to crack the system of the Jeopardy! board and come out ahead of his opponents.  He said he’s working on an iPhone app version.  Future contestants may want to keep an eye out.

Again, given that he has the single day record and won the $250,000 tournament top prize, it’s hard to deny it works.  Here’s a look at Roger’s speech.

Roger Craig – Knowledge Tracking from Steven Dean on Vimeo.

Source : DigitalTrends