This Jeopardy! Super Fan and archivist has helped train the all-time greats

Andy Saunders, from Guelph, Ont., runs the Web’s preeminent Jeopardy! fan web site and by no means misses an episode.

Andy Saunders watches every episode of Jeopardy! solely as soon as and with out pausing the TV, which in itself is an achievement contemplating all of the work occurring behind the scenes at his residence in Guelph, Ont.

Armed with an Excel spreadsheet and an internet site, The Jeopardy! Fan, Saunders recaps each present with nuanced statistics, comparable to what share of the time every contestant is first on the buzzer; what every participant’s rating would have been if all wagering on Every day Doubles had been disregarded (higher identified to hardcore followers because the “Coryat rating”, named after a former contestant); and mathematical simulations to foretell, for instance, that fellow Canadian and 22-day Jeopardy! champion Mattea Roach has a 46 per cent likelihood of extending her present win streak to 25 video games.

And that’s not counting on a regular basis spent shouting out responses to the clues he thinks he is aware of, whereas updating his practically 11,000 Twitter followers that embrace former Jeopardy! company hosts, match of champions winners and even the official Jeopardy! social media account.

“I normally watch on my own,” Saunders says. “If there have been different folks, I believe they’d be involved by all of these items that goes on.”

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It wasn’t all the time a solo affair. Saunders was in diapers when the every day syndicated model of the present premiered with Alex Trebek as host in 1984. Saunders’ dad, a trivia buff, grew to become such a fan that he would document each episode on VCR so the household may binge watch on weekends collectively. By the early Nineteen Nineties, they had been so invested within the present that the class reveals grew to become a part of the enjoyable: the phrases began as a jumble, so his dad would pause the tape and skip ahead frame-by-frame to see who may accurately guess the class first.

Saunders joined trivia competitions like Attain For The Prime in highschool and by college graduated to Quiz Bowl. But it surely wasn’t till he was learning at Brock College in 2004, as Ken Jennings began his historic 74-game profitable streak Jeopardy!, that Saunders says he advanced into  a “superfan” of the present.

That very same yr, Saunders grew to become one of many founding archivists of J! Archive, a fan-maintained database monitoring each single Jeopardy! clue, greenback quantity and contestant’s response courting again to season 1 of the sport present in 1984. It’s an internet site that Jennings used for analysis and former Jeopardy! champion Amy Schneider credited as the most effective preparation for her 40-game win streak through which her whole earnings exceeded US$1million. In the meantime, when Trebek was first instructed in regards to the J! Archive, he reportedly replied: “Come on, folks. Get a life.”

“Alex, being barely extra old fashioned, most likely would have thought: ‘why do they care a lot about Jeopardy?’ Saunders says. “Which is ok. I had no downside with him pondering that in any respect.”

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Saunders’ time spent sustaining The Jeopardy! Fan—a web site he took over from Jeanie Kenkel in 2015 (who as soon as completed as runner-up throughout her lone look on the present in 2012)—now encompasses nearly all of his work due to Patreon assist, merchandise gross sales and promoting.

READ: What reply eluded Jeopardy’s winningest feminine contestant?

He has witnessed first-hand the affect hardcore followers like himself can have. When Michael Davies took over as govt producer in 2021, for instance, Saunders says the sport present took higher discover of the grassroots effort to compile statistics, as if it had been some sort of sporting occasion. Jeopardy!’ just lately added every day post-game “box scores” by itself web site, together with information on every contestant’s longest streak controlling the board. 

Saunders, nonetheless, has by no means managed the board himself. He’s auditioned a number of occasions—and even met Trebek as soon as in individual throughout a 2017 audition in Toronto when the late Jeopardy! host made a shock audition look—however he has but to be chosen as a contestant.