ultra-champion Matt Amodio chats about trivia, celebrity, and his showing on Jeopardy!
By virtually any metric, Matt Amodio is one of the most successful quiz show contestants of all time.
Now Amodio has returned for the second installment ofJeopardy!
This time around, however, the ultra-champ hasnt done too well.
Thankfully, the quiz star still has some time to get things back on track.
The first round of cuts forJeopardy!
The 2024 Jeopardy! Masters standings through May 13, as compiled on Jeopardy.com
Masterswont occur until the conclusion of episode 6 on Wednesday, May 15.
Why has this been such a particularly challenging tournament?
Thats kind of by design, because the winners just keep floating to the top of the pyramid.
The pyramid gets harder and harder and players get more skilled and more skilled.
I knew going into this that it was going to be a tough one.
Victoria and Yogeshs performances have indeed been impressive.
Do you think they built up a Steph Curry-esque hot streak there that they were able to maintain onMasters?
I dont know exactly what it is.
They certainly played more recently than me and the returning Masters [Schneider, Holzhauer, and Roach].
But there was still a break.
And Im reluctant to attribute any of [their success] to just being a hot streak.
Skills like how many buzzer attempts they make and things like that are available in thebox scoresnow.
That all shows that their knowledge base is incredibly wide.
Whats its been like getting to know them and compete against them?
Ive definitely developed friendships with some of the people on the show that Ive seen now 34 times.
So its cool to have that built.
I know TV itself is at a turning point.
Theres a lot of disruption and change to the mechanisms of delivery and the layout of the industry.
The fact that its able to happen in primetime means that it doesnt necessarily disrupt the syndicated schedule either.
So it is a golden era in the sense that people who wanted more and betterJeopardy!have it.
Whatever you want as aJeopardy!fan, theres more of it.
I think you might be selling yourself a little short in that answer.
Wont happen again!]
people just like witnessing greatness in any medium.
I can certainly say thats true for me.
Because watching James original run was a bit of an epiphany moment for me.
That kind of puzzle has always excited me.
Watching him definitely lit a fire under me.
So yeah, I can anecdotally agree with that for sure.
During your first match onJeopardy!
Mastersthis year, your anecdote was about coming back to Cleveland to see the eclipse.
What was that like?
Did you go tothe Guardians home opener?
I come back home quite frequently.
My parents still live in Medina and my brother lives in Ohio.
So we get together a lot and go to as many Guardians games as we can.
Im a huge baseball nerd.
It was just such a special moment.
It was just really cool.
Do you have a wrong answer from your trivia career that haunts you?
The one that really haunts me is from one of the games late in my original run.
I got a Daily Double and it ended up being a computer science question.
I am a PhD in computer science at the moment so I felt like everything is aligned.
Alan Turing was the was the correct answer.
Jeopardy!has turned you into something of a public figure.
Whats that been like for you?
I know different people can take different approaches.
My approach has been to make a run at minimize that effect as much as possible.
I dont really do anything differently.
I dont seek out attention.
But I dont make a goal out of it.
Theres, of course, a fleetingness to celebrity.
Everybodys celebrity is fleeting, and perhaps aJeopardy!contestants is moreso than others.
That might bother somebody else but it really doesnt bother me at all.
That seems like a comfortable level of celebrity.
Outside ofJeopardy!, how are things going?
Hows the new job?
Anything you want to talk about?
I am busy and I think that plays into the first question of how Im doing on the show.
I I have a full, well-rounded life and I am treasuring the part thatJeopardy!plays in it.
The remaining episodes of Jeopardy!
Masters premiere on ABC at 8 p.m.
ET on May 15, May 17, May 20, and May 22.
