Bobby Supreme

Title inspired by the 2025 Oscar Award nominated movie "Marty Supreme" starring Timothee Chalamee as a table tennis legend who pursues excellence in ping pong. I've always wondered what that's like, to be one of the best in something, to be on a quest to be the very best in something, like the training montages in the Rocky movies or any sports feel-good movie you've ever seen. For the last year or so since I learned I would be in the Jeopardy contestant pool, that's essentially what I've been doing: trying to be good at something. Definitely not trying to be the best ever at Jeopardy, I could study non-stop every day for years and years and never be as good as the best trivia players in the world; no I wanted to try to become the best Jeopardy player that I could be, to be "Bobby Supreme." Thanks to Jeopardy I could pursue a dream even at the ripe old age of 38 years old (soon to be 39), when most people my age are just growing old with their lives pretty constant, or just taking care of their babies and children until they become adults and allow them to pursue their own dreams, not pursue their own dream. Jeopardy put me in an obsessive "Jeopardy brain" mode, where everything from the time I woke up to the time I went to bed was categorized into 2 things: 1.) something I might need to know for Jeopardy and could be in a Jeopardy question, and 2.) everything else, including chores, bills, jobs, wife, and eventually.....Baby girl Yan (don't worry Social Services, I did hold off on studying once Baby Yan was born and actually took care of the baby). And I did devote time to work that was needed, money is still a motivating factor for me and there's no guarantee of any Jeopardy winnings, except maybe the $2,000 or $3,000 consolation prices once you lose. I studied everything I could get my hands on, encyclopedias, newspapers, old books about old movies, new books about new movies, kids books, foreign language books, I watched movies while donating blood with the subtitles on just to learn foreign languages. And of course, watch the show. Jeopardy fed my obsessive personality that if I really like something, I'm into it 100% and nothing else really matters (and then when I lose focus, I will lose a significant amount of interest in it). From studying for Jeopardy, I understand why it's a popular show and has been in the American culture zeitgeist for many decades, since the 1970's: The little dopamine hit from getting a question right is really addicting, like the endorphin hit you get from running or little bites of chocolate. Studying for Jeopardy had the similar incentives: I was conditioning my brain and feeding it with information so that the next time a question involving, leatherback turtles or transpiration, let's say, comes up, I am equipped with the requisite knowledge to get that hit of dopamine. Essentially, I'm banking dopamine points. (Problem is, not everything that you stick in your brain sticks, necessitating some rote memorization, or mnemoics, flashcards, or other brute force methods to shove that information into the brain so that it doesn't just forget it when you go to sleep.) I'm sure I forgot a LOT of the stuff during the several months I spent studying for Jeopardy, but a lot of it did stick, and still sticks today. And on May 7th (Thursday), I get the opportunity to show the whole world (or at least, about 7 million viewers, 9 million when superchamps are on like Amy Schneider is on......or Jamie Ding is on his 31-day run like he is now) how much I know, or......fall flat on my face. That's the fear, of course, for any Jeopardy player: you study all this stuff, spend hours and hours of your time dedicated to this game (it is just a game) that you love, and you're only going to use a tiny fraction of that knowledge on the actual game that you play, more than a fraction if you're lucky and play more games because you win. That's the nature of the game: you don't know what's going to come up, so you have to study everything, or at least topics you think are most likely to come up. For me, all that studying is worth it regardless of the outcome, because sometimes the trip is not about the journey, not the destination: I know that all my preparation gave me the tools necessary to win at least a game of Jeopardy, if not more; the rest is luck, opportunity, and a little bit of magic. Did I find magic on Jeopardy? Tune in to find out May 7 (or stream it next day on Hulu or Peacock, at which point you risk spoilers and not really being in the moment of a live sports event like what Jeopardy is meant to be, but at least you watched it!) -Bobby Supreme