Who Is Larissa Kelly?

My brothers and I have been fans of Jeopardy! since we were quite young. After getting a DVR from Comcast (I might talk about that more in a later post), I have not missed an episode. Most of the reason I watch is to play the game with my brothers, so we/I typically don't watch everyday. A lot of the time, a week or two will pile up on the DVR and we'll watch two or three games a night.

Of course our favorites to watch are the tournaments, especially the teen and college tournaments, since they are usually easier and we can get quite a few correct answers. I was left a bit disappointed after the most recent College tournament, though, as the questions seemed harder and there weren't really any standout players. In fact most of this season's questions seem a bit harder than in the past. That being said, I haven't really been looking forward to Jeopardy! That is until last week.

On Tuesday, May 20, 2008 Larissa Kelly defeated one day champion Mary Kay Schmidt with a final score of $45,200. While that number is impressive, what is more impressive is how she got there - a $7000 Double Jeopardy! wager followed by an $8000 Double Jeopardy! wager. Now I'm not easily excited, but that nearly did it for me. I hate the typical small, strategic wagers you see from most contestants. I say, if you get on Jeopardy, go for the glory! And that is what she has done for a total so far of 6 wins and $222,597.

With a record like that, one might wonder if she could beat Ken Jennings' record of 74 wins. I didn't watch much of Jennings' games as I did not have a DVR then, so I can't make my own comparison between her game and his. Earlier today, I set out to find a good comparison and found a great one here at andysthoughts.com.

In his blog post leading up to the chart, Andy considers the possibility of Kelly beating Jennings, but goes on to say, "I don’t think that’s going to happen. In fact, I don’t even think that she will pass David Madden’s total of 19 games." You can read his reasonings here.

While he presents some strong arguments, I don't like to agree with his conclusion. As I've already stated, I don't like strategic wagering. It's just not exciting. Unfortunately, what he says makes sense and in all likelihood, she will be finished soon enough. I hope she can go on to dominate with her big wagers, but only time will tell. In fact tonight's episode will air in about an hour so I'll be able to see if she makes it very any farther soon.

Another great Jeopardy site I found today is j-archive.com. It is a fan operated site that has all the questions and answers and results for a great many of the episodes.