Roger Craig (Jeopardy! contestant)

Early life and career

Craig, who was 33 years old at the time of his initial Jeopardy! appearance in 2010, is a native of Ferndale, Pennsylvania. He grew up there and later in Virginia, where he graduated from Annandale High School in 1995.

He holds a first degree in biology and biochemistry from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, and a master's degree and Ph.D in computer science from the University of Delaware. He was working on his doctorate at the time of his first appearance on Jeopardy!, and completed the degree later in 2010.

In his scholarly career, he has published eight papers in the field of bioinformatics, specifically on topics of combinatorial protein synthesis and protein-protein prediction.

As of November 2011 he was living in Newark, Delaware, and working as a computer scientist. He is the founder of Cotinga, a company which performs data analyses and creates learning applications for smartphones. Craig was a guest on KFC Radio of Barstool Sports on August 23, 2012.

Preparation

Craig prepared for Jeopardy! by studying the online archive of past questions maintained on the J! Archive website. Using data-mining and text-clustering, he identified the topics most likely to occur in game questions, then used the spaced repetition program Anki for memorization and tested himself using his own program.

Craig played quiz bowl as a student at both Virginia Tech and the University of Delaware. Before his Jeopardy appearances, he played numerous Jeopardy scrimmage matches against his friends with quiz bowl experience.

Craig believes his attendance at the two universities helped the most in his success:

Let's face it, for Jeopardy!, the name of the game is breadth not depth. I think the main reason both universities helped so much is that they cover just about all spheres of learning in extraordinary depth.

Appearances

Craig set his record of US$77,000 on the second day of the 2010–2011 Jeopardy! season on the episode airing September 14, 2010. In his record-setting appearance, he had a score of $47,000 after the game's first two rounds, then wagered and won $30,000 in the Final Jeopardy! round. Prior to Craig, the single-day record of $75,000 was held by Ken Jennings.

Craig lost to North Carolina sportswriter Jelisa Castrodale in his seventh appearance. He had the lead going into the Final Jeopardy round, in the category "Sports and Media". Castrodale won when she gave the correct response to the Final Jeopardy question about the winner of the 2010 Super Bowl, while Craig gave an incorrect response.

In his seven-day run, Craig earned $231,200, all except $1,000 of which was from winning episodes. This total is the sixth-highest amount of money won non-tournament on the show, ranking Craig behind Ken Jennings, Julia Collins, David Madden, Arthur Chu, and Tom Nissley.

In 2011, Craig returned for the Tournament of Champions, which aired in November 2011. In the semi-final match, described as "a bloody, epic, inter-planetary death match... the Jeopardy! equivalent of a title-unification fight", Craig beat Joon Pahk and Mark Runsvold, the sixth and tenth regular-play all-time money winners on the show. On the first night of the two-day finals, he became the first player in the history of the show to uncover two Daily Double items in succession, wager all of his money on both, and win both times. When he hit the first of his back-to-back Daily Doubles, he wagered his entire pot of $9,000, and won when he correctly identified Anne Brontë as the author who wrote the 1847 book Agnes Grey under the pseudonym 'Acton Bell'. After switching categories and uncovering the second daily double, he wagered his entire pot of $18,000, winning when he correctly answered, "What is Suriname?" after being given the clue "Although Dutch is the official language, Sranan Tongo is spoken by most people in this South American country." His $18,000 win was, at the time, the largest successful Daily Double wager in the show's history.

Craig won the Tournament of Champions. In the finals, he defeated Buddy Wright and Tom Nissley (the latter being the show's fourth highest all-time non-tournament money winner), to win the $250,000 tournament prize.

Craig returned for the Jeopardy! Battle of the Decades tournament on April 1, 2014, as part of the 2000s Week. Facing Vijay Balse and Stephanie Jass, he defeated Balse by $1 and advanced to the quarterfinals. He won in the quarterfinals on May 5, facing off against Robin Carroll (2000 Tournament of Champions winner) and Leszek Pawlowicz (1992 Tournament of Champions winner). He also defeated Pam Mueller and Colby Burnett in the semifinals and advanced to the finals where he placed third. Craig was hurt in the finals by two "true Daily Double" wagers, one on each day of the two-day final, in which he risked over $10,000 and responded incorrectly both times. However, if he had responded both correctly he would have won the tournament without having to wager anything in Final Jeopardy!

Records

During his Jeopardy! appearances, Craig set the following records:

NOTE: Unadjusted references the 2001 rule change regarding dollar values. The all-time record for a five-game total, adjusted, is $102,597 with pre-2001 rules ($205,194 adjusted) by Frank Spangenberg.