From the article:

> The Jeopardy! match with Watson was essentially rigged due to the computer’s superhuman reaction time.

From many anecdotes I've heard from previous Jeopardy contestants, buzzer technique is more than half the battle. That's part of the reason Ken Jennings was able to go on winning as long as he did - he continuously refined and developed better intuition for when to buzz.

Many contestants (a large portion of whom likely participated in college Trivia Bowls and were seasoned trivia buffs) could answer the vast majority of Jeopardy clues with relative ease.

The reason for this is that Jeopardy, in order to have household appeal, cannot legitimately engage in an increasingly difficult arms race for its questions - it has to have a capped ceiling in terms of clue difficulty.

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jorams 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

That is covered in the article:

> Recently, however, that long-held truism has been shaken: The show has started releasing statistics about buzzer attempts, revealing that some contestants, especially those in the game’s upper echelons, ring in much more often than others. It’s not that the buzzer doesn’t matter—it just matters much less than was previously believed, a shake-up that has reelevated the importance of subject-matter expertise.

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tialaramex 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> in order to have household appeal

Difficult questions are fun, there's a reason the UK show "Only Connect" does well. Yeah, I'm not going to know what's going on when the question relies on knowing the difference between Finnegans Wake and Finnegan's Wake, but when you list decreasingly obscure eliminated Google products I know what's going on by clue three even if many contestants only even recognize the fourth clue.

Among HN readers I'm guessing "Control" and "Shift" already set people on the correct path before they see "Alt" or "Option" but a lot of word focused people doing such a quiz will be studying the words - counting vowels, thinking about meanings in other languages before they realise it's about keyboards.

Jeopardy already puts a small spin on things with the reverse format, they could work on that harder to deliver a more challenging quiz that's still getting the audience.

	▲	vunderba 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		I really like NAQT's (National Academic Quiz Tournaments ) take on questions, where it goes from more obscure to less obscure the further you get into the text. For example: Though he suffered from Bright’s disease, he allowed himself to be considered for his party’s nomination, but he lost to James G. (*) Blaine. Once known as a Stalwart, he declared his independence by signing the popular Pendleton Act. For ten points—name this New York politician who acceded to the presidency upon the 1881 assassination of James Garfield. The asterisk indicates bonus points if a player correctly answers the question before the host finishes reading past that mark. But this kind of format where you can "buzz in early" would be a pretty drastic departure for the show.