The End of Jamie

We all knew it would eventually happen. Multi-day, multi-month Jeopardy champion Jamie Ding has been defeated, but not before prevailing in 31 games and winning nearly $900,000. Not bad for swallowing an atlas at six years old.

Jamie didn't get any of the Daily Doubles on Monday's, April 27th telecast. And by that I mean he didn't land on them. His opponent, in the No. 3 slot, was Greg Shahade. Greg is introduced as an International Master chess player. His wife has twice been a U.S. chess champion.

Greg is a somewhat odd looking guy with very odd mannerisms. He is decidedly near-sighted and has to push his head forward and squint to read the clues. If people didn't like Mattea Roche for her waving hands, this guy bobs and weaves and grabs the podium. He's even flat stuck out his tongue contemplating an answer. He's full of tics. Time will tell how often we keep seeing him.

But I guess all's fair in Jeopardy, despite what could be suspicions as to who gets the Daily Double selections. You still have to answer correctly, and still have to bet the right amount, so I'm sure there's no shenanigans behind the board.

Greg started out like a house on fire, and was quickly pouring gravel on Jamie's head. Greg landed on all three Daily Doubles and quickly pulled away from Jamie when he went all in and doubled his score.

Eventually, despite Jamie answering correctly, his goose was cooked, when going into Final Jeopardy. Jamie had less than half Greg's total. The mathematical elimination before the clue is even read.

Jamie went out with class, writing TTFN, Textspeak for Ta-ta for now. Ken Jennings of course knew what it meant.

Jamie's in the NYT and the WSJ with stories and interviews on his run. Thirty-one wins remarkably only leaves him in 5th place overall for wins. 

Ahead of Jamie is James Holzhauer with 32; Matt Amodio with 38; Amy Schneider with 40; and all-time No. 1, Ken Jennings, with 74 wins in 2004. It is hard to repeat even with a second win, let alone start stringing them out so that you need to bring lots of a change of clothes to the tapings.

Is Ken's 74 equal to Joe DiMaggio's consecutive hitting streak of 56 games? Looks that way so far. After Trebek's death, Ken had to assume the role as host.

Greg Shahade won game No. 2 on Tuesday night. I have to say, he's not easy to watch. His body movements have at least me (and maybe others) rooting against him. 

Time will tell if Greg has to bring better clothes to the tapings and has to get rid of his Richard Nixon 5 o'clock shadow.

Stay tuned.

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