I like games: “Ticket to Ride,” Hearts, “Mafia,” Pinochle … and of course, “Jeopardy.” Especially “Jeopardy.” It always brings out the show-off in me. I love to pop off answers before the contestants can. Behold my genius, friends and family! No matter that my confident answers are often wrong — hey, I not wagering actual money.
So I have a grudging admiration for Arthur Chu, even as I get why so many people are pissed at him. By approaching the game as nothing more than math problem, he’s making it less fun for those of us who routinely ignore statistical probability. Even worse, he’s never even slightly apologetic or sportsmanlike about crushing his foes and amassing more than $238,000 in the process. The guy is a pudgy Mr. Spock, and we are exasperated Dr. McCoys: “I’m a doctor, dammit, not a computer!” Except Chu doesn’t even bother to lift an eyebrow.

There’s a reason Alex isn’t smiling.
Washington Post writer Caitlin Dewey probably has it right when she posits the real reason we find Mr. Chu so irritating:
Chu’s strategy seems to fit into a larger cultural pattern: Now that everything can be measured, quantified and reduced to statistical probabilities, there’s no space for romance or instinct anymore.”
Yep. We don’t like people who play only to win. I’ll take Smug Jerks for a thousand, Alex.
Personally, I like it when the contestants just work their way through each category from top to bottom, but I understand the advantages in NOT doing that.
And I have to like a guy who plans to devote part of his winnings to helping his wife finish her fantasy novel about “talking dogs in the ancient Near East”. If that’s not love, I don’t know what is.
Good point!