Saturday, February 15, 2014

Arthur Chu (Not Required)

Trent brought up Arthur Chu last week. He’s the Jeopardy champion who uses “game theory”. I found a few things on the internet about his play (a long interview at Mental Floss, a short piece with some video at Yahoo Finance, some snarky opinions at The Daily Mail). 

I found very little indicating that Chu is using any game theory, as the field is known to social scientists. I found a lot indicating that Chu may have some theories about this specific game.

In particular, Chu’s “bouncing” around the board doesn’t seem any different than choosing to be unpredictable in any game. Last I checked, I’ve been playing tennis that way since I was 11.

And Chu’s “strategy” for Final Jeopardy doesn’t seem any more nasty and devilishly insightful than the standard strategy used by bidders in The Price Is Right. And no one complains about that.

I wonder if there’s some racism involved. Or lookism … Chu isn’t exactly photogenic.

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