Law Students

Dan on Jeopardy: TOC Semifinals

By Andrea

The Press:

Gloucester Times: Tarr aide advances in 'Jeopardy' champs tourney
Cape Ann Beacon: UPDATE: Tarr legislative aide moves ahead on 'Jeopardy'

The Preview:

Sometimes casual Jeopardy watchers assume that the show purposely tailors the categories toward the contestants, or that it tells them what to study. Absolutely not. Any overlap between someone's profession or interests and the clues is a total accident. So say, if someone happened to get a category on a subject on which he had taken not one, but several, law school classes, that would be weird. But would he convert, or would it be another "U.S. Presidents" FAIL?

The excitement about this game wasn't only that Dan had made it to the semis, but that his Vegas entourage  had now expanded to mega-size - from six to ten people! Dan's parents and two of their friends were already there, and my law school buddy R came out from California because his consulting gig hadn't started yet.

On Friday, the day off between the quarters and the semis/finals, our beloved friends AR and Mikey drove up from Arizona, and brought along two other buddies for company. I was originally afraid they'd drive up to find Dan was already out of the tournament, but figured we'd at least drink and gamble our sorrows away. Telling them we'd get to watch him again was much better. I was also afraid we couldn't get tickets for the extra friends, because we'd already tapped out our 8-guest limit. But with a couple calls, we found a contestant who had extra tickets and kindly gave them to us (thank you Lisa!), and now we had our very own home team ready to go.

On Friday night, Dan, R, and I went over to Fremont Street, where the AZ friends were staying, laden down with Dan's entire flash card collection. We played some cheap slots and blackjack and ate some pizza, and someone made the obligatory liquor store run, but then we passed out the cards and gave Dan the trivia murder board of his life. I remember him laying on the hotel room floor with his hands over his eyes, becoming one with his inner Trivia Robot. Someone had the literature cards. Someone had vice presidents. Someone had weights, measures, and currency. I might have had artists and composers. He did awesome, and it got everyone all pumped up to think maybe we were helping him get one last edge.

Watch and see if we did...

Full post as published by Peanut Butter Burrito on March 18, 2009 (boomark / email).