I think Ken nails the real issue when he mentions this isn't the first "Daily Double hunter" the show has seen. Realistically, excluding Chuck Forrest, who was bouncing around the board to keep his opponents off-balance as opposed to hunting for daily doubles, it's been going on for a few years now from more than a few players. So why is Arthur Chu getting the attention now?
I'd hope it's for the fact that he has a bit of a grating buzzer practice (I'm surprised he isn't anchoring his hand against the lectern to reduce any windup and help with precision) and that he was flippant with some Daily Doubles early on (the $5 sports "I don't know" caught me off-guard), but I have a feeling it's more sinister than that.
He is just the first daily double hunter in the days of the angry internets. This is mostly a crazy media story. For once, I applaud Slate for running a thoughtful piece by Ken Jennings.
Within the past year I saw someone who was DD hunting; Trebek commented on it as well. The player did well, and I expected that more players would pick up on this approach. I think while this guy was winning his opponents also started doing it, but once he was beaten I did not see this again until Chu.
So there has been at least one other person doing this in angry Internet days yet this kind of deliberate playing still seems rare.
>optimally playing this game isn't really that interesting
Disagreed completely. Doesn't become uninteresting to me. Of course I watch it to see how many questions I know and shout the answers out at the TV. ;)
If they didn't want people to play the game that way, then they can change the damn rules.
Interesting for the audience I mean. There is a fighting style in fighting games called turtling which is an extremely defensive position that waits for other player to make mistake and capitalize on it. It's a very good strategy but really dull one to watch.
I'd hope it's for the fact that he has a bit of a grating buzzer practice (I'm surprised he isn't anchoring his hand against the lectern to reduce any windup and help with precision) and that he was flippant with some Daily Doubles early on (the $5 sports "I don't know" caught me off-guard), but I have a feeling it's more sinister than that.