Peter Dyakowski on Jeopardy

I spent a weekend working with Dave Madden a few years ago, and got to talk to him about his Jeopardy! success. He was actually the first person to bounce around the board - and he knew he was pissing off Trebek - but he said he did it to keep his opponents from getting into a rhythm. It screwed up Trebek as well, apparently. Madden was invited to the Battle of the Decades tournament they just finished, but he turned it down. He runs his own nationwide academic tournament, and uses the some of the same question sources as Jeopardy!, so he felt it would be a conflict of interest. Honorable man.

I've wanted to try out for the show for years, and spent last weekend with two former champions who encouraged me to go for it. Two things stop me; knowing that no matter how well I played in the rehearsals, they'd put me through the interview process and find me too boring. And fear that, even if I made it, I'd completely embarrass myself with at least one totally asinine answer.