Daniel Pawson '03, a 27-year old legislative aide to state Sen. Bruce Tarr, R-Gloucester, was recently named the big winner in TV's 2009 Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions. Pawson took home $250,000 in cash prizes after outscoring a tough field of 14 other competitors.
The Tournament features the longest-running champions from the past season or seasons of the popular quiz show. In 2008, Pawson took home the fourth largest amount of prize money in the show's history, thus qualifying for the elite $250,000 round.
Pawson took the lead after contestant Larissa Kelly, who finished second, missed a question on British royalty in "Final Jeopardy"a question Pawson answered correctly.
"There's no real way to anticipate the Final Jeopardy question," Pawson said, "and the critical hint in the clue is often substantially unrelated to the category that gets revealed at the end of Double Jeopardy. It's really a question of just getting lucky, I suppose."
For Pawson, Tournament preparation involved playing hundreds of simulated games, including standing at a makeshift lectern and playing along during the daily broadcast.
"I also played games out of the online archive of Jeopardy games, j-archive.com," Pawson said, "and made between 1,000 and 1,500 flashcards on some of the most common Jeopardy subjects: world capitals, Shakespeare, opera, explorers, etc. The more I studied, the quicker the recall came, so that I could see the critical hint in a clue and immediately get ready to answer."
Good Study Habits
The flashcards paid off for Pawsonliterally. "I had a category about explorers where four of the five clues came right off the flashcards," he said. "I bet everything I had on a daily double in 'women authors' in the Tournament final, and the clue was on my flashcard.
"There was a 'difficult world capitals' category, also in the Tournament final, where every answer was on my flashcards," he continued. "If you know what to studyand playing hundreds of simulated games gives you an idea of what the most common subjects arethe game is not as hard as it might appear."
As far as pre-game strategizing goes, Pawson said the best thing for any beginning contestant to remember is not to try to answer all the questions.
"Answering too often when you're not sure is a great way to spiral into the negative numbers and end up a non-factor," he said. "Be cautious unless you have a very good idea of what the answer is, and then buzz like crazy when you can."
The second-best thing, according to Pawson, is to treat the Daily Doubles like a weapon. "Too often, people are too conservative with them," he said. "If they're in a category you know nothing about, then bet small, but otherwise, you're considerably more likely than not to know the answer, and you can really separate from your opponents by betting large on these clues."
Pawson credits a "huge swath" of political knowledge gained at CMC as instrumental in his Tournament victory.
"For most people, Chester A. Arthur, the answer to one of the Tournament Final Jeopardies, is just a musty old name in a list of presidents," he said. "Because of Professor Jack Pitney's U.S. Presidents class, to me, he's a political hack whose claim to fame pre-Presidency was as the holder of one of the great spoils jobs in American history who then went completely against expectations and instituted civil service reform as President."
Pawson said it's infinitely easier to remember something when you have that kind of background knowledge.
"I don't know that I could've gotten it from a better place than CMC."
After giving Uncle Sam and the state of Massachusetts their fair share of his winnings (about $90,000), Pawson said he's going to add to his house down-payment fund, donate to charity, pay off almost all of his student loans, and then travel to Paris and Barcelona for a well-deserved vacation.