So just who the heck is Larissa Kelly?

Last month, this blog saw a ten-fold increase in its hit count, thanks to my posts about Jeopardy! champ Larissa Kelly. A comment from Anonymous that you’ll find back here says that UC Berkeley has done “a big splash” about Larissa. Click here. You can tell the article was written at a university — it includes footnotes! Thanks for the tip-off, Anonymous. I read a lot of your poems in English Lit.

Larissa’s Last Stand

Well, I guess the May ratings sweeps period is over, now that Larissa Kelly is no longer on Jeopardy!, and my hit count will fall to its usual level. It was sad seeing Larissa lose Wednesday night, because if she hasn’t been the best known person in America for the past week, she’s probably been the most liked. But hey, if she had to lose, at least it was to a bald guy. 😉

Here is a 20-minute video of Larissa’s complete seventh, and last, appearance on Jeopardy!, until we see her in the Tournament of Champions. To me she seemed to be getting tired towards the end, and that’s certainly understandable.

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Wannabe Jeopardy! contestants would do well to heed Larissa’s advice.

I think the main advice I would have for future contestants is to practice playing past games at www.j-archive.com, and to not look too much at the scores while playing, unless you need to make a wager. The questions come so fast that looking up and keeping track of how you’re doing can be very distracting.

Congrats, Thanks, and Goodbye to Larissa Kelly!

Well, it sure was fun while it lasted! Larissa Kelly gave it a good run, but her reign as Jeopardy! champion has come to an end. Larissa is the first female to win more than five games, and she’s the #1 woman for money won in regular games. As my friend SamJay has pointed out elsewhere, she will undoubtedly be back for the Tournament of Champions. We look forward to seeing Larissa then. Here she is winning Tuesday’s show, and tomorrow I’ll wrap-up with her loss.

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This video is from an SD recording. The previous two videos were taken from Verizon FiOS HD. Even in this greatly reduced format I think the difference in brightness and color quality is apparent. The picture below is a cropped snapshot of my HD screen, as taken with a digital camera. Click to enlarge.

Larissa Kelly on Jeopardy!

Best wishes to Larissa and her husband Jeff! With the real estate market the way it is for the foreseeable future, they should have no trouble making the most of turning Larissa’s winnings into a down payment on a home.

Everybody Loves Larissa

In just twenty hours, my post about Jeopardy! phenomenon Larissa Kelly accounted for nearly 15% of the 100,000+ hits this blog has seen over the entire month. I know a good thing when I see it, so with Larissa being our all-time ratings champion, here are a couple of minutes from Monday’s show. A physician was one of the contestants, yet surprisingly he failed come up with the health-related Final Jeopardy question.

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Larissa in Jeopardy!

My friend SamJay is a lifelong fan of Jeopardy! and last week he suggested that I tune in. The last time he told me to do that was early in Ken Jennings’ record sweep. This time the contestant who’s creating a sensation is Larissa Kelly. She’s originally from Newton, MA, and The Boston Globe had an item about her a couple of days ago at this link.

Her winning way
Grad student Larissa Kelly, who grew up in Newton, made some history on “Jeopardy!” this week. Kelly, 28, became the highest-money-winning woman in the game show’s long history, tallying $146,197 in just four games. Kelly, who attends UC-Berkeley, will try to extend her winning streak next week.

Jeopardy! insiders are saying Larissa will be around for a while. Exactly how long is unknown, but for now she seems to be on a roll. Here’s a heavily-edited video of Larissa’s appearance in last Friday’s show. Double Jeopardy had an Alfred Hitchcock theme, and I got all of the Hitchcock answers. The clip is chopped-up, so not all of the answers and questions match. Larissa was up against some excellent competitors, and it was only a bit of luck that saved her in Final Jeopardy. It will be interesting to see how long Larissa’s luck holds.

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