“I’m here for a good time, not a long time.”
Those words proved to be prophetic for Baltimore train travel enthusiast Emmett Stanton, who got onboard Jeopardy!’s Tournament of Champions train Tuesday night but never made it out of the station to his intended destination: the show’s semi-finals round.
It was the fifth ride on the Jeopardy! train for the Baltimore-based freelance writer and travel buff, who won three times in Season 39 and earned a four-day total of $74,600. The shows aired on September 16, 19, 20 and 21 of 2022.
During his 2022 appearances, Stanton told host Ken Jennings about his love of train travel – so much so that it became a running theme. He brought it up again on Tuesday’s program, making him perhaps the next best thing Amtrak has to a national spokesperson.
“I try to take the train whenever possible,” he said on the September 16, 2022 show. “I travel a lot internationally for work and that’s a lot of flights, so when I’m here home in the States, I’d rather take the train, take a little time to relax.”
Daily Double downfall
This time he was up against the speeding locomotive known as Ben Chan, a philosophy professor from Green Bay, Wisconsin, and nine-game Jeopardy! winner who dominated most of the show, which was taped in California in February.
Stanton was competitive in the beginning and had earned $3,200 by the end of the first round with his correct responses to Jeopardy! clues, which he phrased in the form of a question.
But he stumbled in Double Jeopardy! when he bet everything he’d won on a Daily Double (DD) clue — $4,400 — and didn’t come up with the right question. Before he announced his wager, seeing that Chan was ahead and likely to win, Stanton explained why he was going for broke:
“OK, I’m here for a good time, not a long time,” Stanton said. “Let’s make it a true Daily Double.”
“All right, bettin’ it all,” Jennings replied with admiration.
The clue to the Daily Double was: “After writing the name of a prophet, English-speaking Muslims write this, PBUH for short.” Stanton’s reply was: “Who is Isaiah?” The correct answer was. “Peace Be Upon Him.”
Providing the wrong question to the Daily Double took Stanton down to $0. After that he fell into negative territory by giving more incorrect answers, dropping to minus $2,400 at one point. His score at the end of the second round was minus-$2000. Because he was below zero at that stage, he was ineligible to compete in the Final Jeopardy! (FJ) round and had to leave the stage.
“Emmett, I’m sorry to say that your run-in with that Daily Double means you will not be with us for Final Jeopardy!, but thanks for coming back to the tournament,” Jennings said.
Chan and contestant Justin Bolsen, a Brown University student, both responded incorrectly in Final Jeopardy!, where the category was “Chemical Elements” and the correct response was “What is promethium?” Chan won the game with a total of $29,800 and is headed to the tournament’s semi-finals. Bolsen finished with $9,958.
Promoting train travel
Besides receiving $5,000 for being a 2024 quarter-finalist, Stanton got a chance to promote train travel one more time.
In the interview session with contestants, Jennings asked Stanton what he did for fun with his winnings from the shows in 2022.
“When I was on the show, I talked a lot about taking the train,” Stanton reminded him. After the 2022 shows were taped, “I took a whole month. I went from Baltimore all the way to Seattle. I stopped in 10 cities along the way for two or three days each, and then when I got to Seattle I met up with Martha Bath, who vanquished me in my original run. We got together for lunch and she autographed a biography of Albert Einstein, which was the question that she beat me on. Then she invited me to Pub Trivia with her, and we demolished the competition…It was a good time for me to hang out with the people’s champion, which is Martha.”
“You didn’t call me. I would have come,” said a hurt-sounding Jennings, who was born in a Seattle suburb.
Stanton’s home base of Baltimore is considered the birthplace of American railroading because of its role in the creation of what became the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. It’s also the home of the B&O Railroad Museum at 901 West Pratt Street.
Jeopardy! continues today with another Tournament of Champions quarter-finals episode at 7 p.m. on WBFF Fox45
‘A privilege and an honor’
In an interview with Fox45 that was taped after the game in February but before the program aired on Tuesday, Stanton said he didn’t do anything different to prepare for the Tournament of Champions than he did for his previous appearances.
“My first time around,” he said, “I really just felt that I’m an experiential learner. I learn by doing things. And so I sort of thought, you know, I either know it or I don’t know it. You really can’t control whether or not you’re going to win. There are so many other variables. And so I said, let’s go in and have fun. That’s what I did my first run. It worked really well the first time.”
Was there added pressure this time because it was the Tournament of Champions? he was asked.
“The pressure is more the privilege of getting to compete with such great champions,” he said. “There are so many people there who we saw go on runs of five, 10, 21 games even. So to be on the same stage as those incredible competitors was more of a privilege and an honor than a pressure.”
Stanton said his favorite moment from the Tournament of Champions was off-camera.
“They had us go to the Jeopardy! honors ceremony and…see one of the original writers, who sadly passed away, get inducted into the Hall of Fame,” he recalled. “As a writer myself, it was a really great honor to be there and see that.”
Final thoughts
Posting on Reddit on Tuesday night after his episode aired, Stanton congratulated Chan and Bolsen on their performances and provided some thoughts about the game and his run.
“The game played out pretty straightforwardly,” he wrote. “I knew I had to bet big on that DD because Ben was already making it a runaway, and unfortunately I got tripped up in the wording of the clue — entirely my own fault! I’ve been looking forward to seeing the episode air, because I couldn’t for the life of me recall why I was trying to remember which English-named prophet is believed to be Dhu al-Kifl. Even worse, Isaiah’s not the right answer to that, so not only did I answer the wrong question, I answered the wrong question incorrectly! But those are the breaks — in gameplay you don’t quite have enough time to reread a question.”
As far as his Jeopardy! run went: “I know some people don’t like to talk about how luck factors into the show, but I’m happy to embrace all the luck that came my way,” he said. “There are so many variables that impact whether or not you win a game. Categories are random, and while some contestants can’t face a board that makes them all that uncomfortable because their knowledge base is so broad, I’m definitely one who needs a good board! I also got lucky on my original run in mostly facing contestants who liked to work the board from top to bottom. I knew the TOC would be more aggressive, and I knew I would have to step out of my preferred game play to stay in it. But if you live by the sword….well, you know the rest!
“Lastly, and related, bearing in mind how many factors are out of your control, I went in, both in 2022 and at the TOC, determined to have fun, and I really hope everyone can sense how much fun I had every step of the way! I never thought I’d win one game, let alone three, and even after that I never expected to make it to the TOC. The entire experience was all positive. When I stepped down from the podium before Ben and Justin started their FJ calculations, I got a standing ovation from a crowd full of Jeopardy legends, fans, and my new friends’ families. I had a smile on my face the whole time, and when one of the contestant coordinators switched into consolation mode, I was able to honestly say I didn’t need any consoling, because I’d had the time of my life.
“Also, when the FJ category came up, I whispered to the contestant team ‘thank f*** I wasn’t up there, I don’t know anything about chemistry!’ and the sound tech who had my audio in his ears doubled over stifling a laugh! And sure enough, when the answer came up, that was the first time in my life I’ve ever heard of promethium, so….good fortune to me!”
Stanton closed by saying he hopes viewers enjoyed the game and keep watching.
The quarter-finalists, semi-finalists and finalists “have really put on a show for you,” he said. “I’m proud to be a part of Team #PowerOfThree – we’ve had a good showing, even if I couldn’t notch us another win today!
“p.s. Take the test! It’s free, it’s online, it’s anytime!”
Jeopardy! recap for Tue., Mar. 5
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