Answer: Fulfilling a childhood dream.
What is: Appearing on Jeopardy! and becoming a champion.
Vancouver resident Brendan Liaw has become the newest Jeopardy! champion, winning the game show on Tuesday night.
“I started watching Jeopardy!, gonna be around nine or 10, and realized pretty early on that I knew quite a few answers, and that felt pretty good,” Liaw told Global News.
“So eventually made a goal to get on the show and possibly win some money.”
Liaw, who is a recent graduate and describes himself as a “stay-at-home son,” said it is not easy to make it onto the game show.
He said contestants have to do a 50-question online test. If they pass that they do a second 50-question online test, then it moves on to an audition, playing a mock game with other prospective contestants and after that the producers have 18 months to call and invite that person on to the show.
If you are not called, you have to go through the whole process again.
“My first audition was 2018 and then I think I did one more in 2021 and then ’23 so third time’s the charm,” Liaw said.
He received the call about four weeks before the taping so he spent that time studying as much as he could.
“But I would say, you know, going on Jeopardy!, it’s like a lifelong studying thing, like, you know, you’re using knowledge that you have accumulated over your entire life, and that comes from reading books and, you know, watching TV and movies, paying attention to the news.” Liaw added.
He even spent time practicing with a buzzer so he could get the timing of the questions and answers right.
When it was finally time for the taping, Liaw said that the contestants don’t find out who is up next until five minutes before the game is played.
“There’s not really any time to process being called on stage and having to play,” he said.
“You just kind of have to go and do it. And you walk on stage, you play. It’s like 40 minutes, the whole taping, I think. And I honestly don’t remember much… it feels like five minutes when you step off and I can maybe remember like a thing or two that I said or did during the game.”
Liaw was actually quite behind the other contestants at one point but ended up becoming the champion and will compete again on Wednesday night.
“I was, in fact, hunting for the Daily Doubles,” he said.
“That’s where you can sort of change the direction of the game. I did not find any. It didn’t pay off. I think I had my daily double repulsor on me that day by accident. So yeah, I mean, it didn’t pay off, but that’s fine, I still won.”
The final Jeopardy! category was NFL Geography.
The clue was, “It’s the state with the lowest population density that’s home to an NFL team.”
While none of the contestants got the answer right, Liaw wagered the least amount of money.
(Side note, the correct answer is Nevada).
“It was definitely a roller coaster of an episode (and) looked bad for me at some point,” Liaw said.
“And then there was the big rebound.”
Liaw said he is not sure of the next steps after Jeopardy!, depending how far he gets.
He has a bachelor’s degree in chemistry and biology and a master’s in political science from the University of British Columbia and he’s contemplating law school next.
For now, he’s just focused on winning more games.
“I think it’s every Jeopardy! player’s dream to go on a big, long streak and win more money and become famous, but it’s a hard thing to do,” Liaw said.
“There are a lot of very smart people out there, as you’ll see on the show, but I think overall, yes, just happy no matter what the outcome is. I at least won one. I can call myself a Jeopardy! champion for the rest of time. And so that feels pretty good.”