Game show contestant from Kamloops reflects on ‘stressful’ experience

Jeopardy was ‘very surreal’

Photo: Curtis Bogetti
Kamloops’ Curtis Bogetti (right) poses with Jeopardy! host Ken Jennings while taping two shows of the hit trivia game in early September.

Curtis Bogetti had a moment standing on the Jeopardy stage, looking out from behind a podium he spent years watching on TV.

“It’s one thing when I’m preparing for it, I’m sitting on my couch watching TV, but you’ve got all these different cameras pointed at you, you’ve got all these crew people around and it’s just a very surreal experience,” said the 31-year-old from Kamloops.

“Your heart starts beating faster, you start sweating — but it all happened so quickly.”

Bogetti was featured on the trivia game show over two episodes this week, winning on Tuesday night’s show thanks to his knowledge of an 11th-century French poem. He earned $30,000 from that game before failing to extend his reign as Jeopardy champion on Wednesday.

While viewers watched the arc unfold over two days, for Bogetti it all happened in quick succession.

“They make it look like it’s a different day every time, but really the returning champion is just changing their shirt,” Bogetti said.

Bogetti, who’s a phD candidate, said the Jeopardy crew shoots five shows in a day at Sony Pictures Studio in Culver City, Calif., and his were shot in early September.

“They just give you that you’re taping a day, and you show up that morning and they just start filming these games,” Bogetti said.

Bogetti said the whole operation ran like a “well-oiled machine” and everyone was very professional and friendly.

“A contesting coordinator will come in before and on the breaks and just remind you to have fun and [that] you’re there to just play a game, but it was definitely one of the most stressful things that I’ve done in my life,” he said.

Bogetti said there was no heads up on what sort of categories or questions would be on the board ahead of time, noting the show goes to great lengths to keep that a secret to ensure there’s no chance of players cheating.

“You get nothing,” he said.

Stunned by own win

When he saw the board, Bogetti said he felt comfortable, but on his first buzz in he got the question wrong.

He remained unfazed.

“I was at negative $1,000 first thing … but there’s not a lot of time to really sit and dwell on it because it just keeps moving, so I just kept buzzing and luckily things turned around after that,” he said.

Bogetti had a strategy to his game — find the Daily Double to keep it out of your competitors’ hands.

“The idea is, if you get the Daily Double, obviously not only can you bet a bunch of your money and hopefully come out much higher, but you’re also preventing the other contestants from getting one of those Daily Doubles,” Bogetti said.

“Even if you find it and you get it wrong or you don’t make a ton of money, at least it’s not an opportunity for one of them to get it.”

His big move on Tuesday’s show came early in Double Jeopardy when he uncovered his first Daily Double and used it to double his money to $17,200. The category was Olden Lit — a subject he knew well — and the clue was about a medieval French poem called Song of Roland. Bogetti knew the answer was Charlemagne.

Bogetti was stunned to win the game, and had his parents with him on the trip watching in the studio audience.

The win on Tuesday took some of the sting out of Wednesday’s defeat.

“I think that because I’d won a game that was beyond my wildest dream of what could have happened,” he said. “And I knew I had that money is like a sure thing, so everything else just felt like extra.”

Applied twice

Bogetti got the idea to apply to be on Jeopardy a few years ago while watching the show with a friend.

“You play along and I was getting quite a few of the right, so I think someone just said, ’Oh, you should try out for that,’” he said.

His appearance on the show, came after his second time auditioning.

Trying out was a simple process as, Bogetti said, all it took is a free, online test on jeopardy.com.

“It takes like two minutes, you just sit there and type in your answers to a bunch of questions,” Bogetti said.

“They just give you 10 seconds to type in your answer, and they don’t tell you how you do so you’re not getting any feedback.”

Bogetti was back in Kamloops after filming in California, and he had to keep the results a secret from his friends and family leading up to the air date.

“I was tight lipped, and didn’t tell anyone that I won, or anything,” Bogetti said, adding that was worth it because he got to see people’s reactions to his victory.

Bogetti grew up in Kamloops, but moved away for university in Montreal and New York, where he studied clinical psychology. He just finished a residency in Toronto and is now in Vancouver, where he’s about to start a postdoctoral fellowship.

Bogetti said anyone thinking about trying out for Jeopardy should give it a shot and visit the website.

“I just encourage anyone to try out. You never know what’s gonna happen,” Bogetti said.