At the beginning and middle of Troy’s fifth game, Ken admiringly pointed out Troy’s consistency in correct responses. However, he found himself outplayed in the ensuing Double Jeopardy! round, with David nearly catching up and David and Kristina each picking up a Daily Double. Still, Troy managed to hold onto the lead and sew up the game with a correct Final Jeopardy! response, making him the newest five-game champion. Let’s take a look at what Troy’s gameplay looks like.
Attempt Volume
The first key in Troy’s run is the absolute volume of attempting he’s doing. At 50.0 attempts per game, he ranks second among 5+ game champions in the box score era, and with an estimated attempt value of $43872 he ranks first. He’s generally consistent in attempts, with just one outlier in the set — the fifth win, where his attempt value dropped below $40k due to the relatively weaker showing in DJ. This is, of course, still a good game, but the closer nature of the gameplay shows.
The high-attempt environment from the last two weeks has continued into this one, so Troy is continuing to play in a demanding set of circumstances. The causes of that environment remain open for question (including if he is helping to cause it), but he has had success in it.
Timing
Because of the high-attempt environment, Troy hasn’t had much opportunity to get large numbers of clues to himself. Instead, he has had to rely on buzzer timing to get in, and with the exception of the fifth game’s DJ, he’s been able to do that. This placement in the timing-versus-solo spectrum is distinctive among streaking champions so far in the data.
The lack of solo opportunities has driven down Troy’s Buzz Value % (what percentage of attempts he rings in on, weighted by clue value), but he maintains a high Accuracy Value % (the percentage his score on buzz clues is of the clues he rings in on, weighted by clue value). It actually started out higher on his first tape day but has slowly drifted downward in the second one. Despite this, the Accuracy Value % number is still an elite result, especially with the volume of clues he’s getting to.
Daily Doubles
Although Troy is clearly selecting with Daily Doubles in mind and finding 1.40 DDs per game, he is finding about 0.22 fewer Daily Doubles per game than he should based on the number of correct responses he gives. Although it might be lower than expectation, 1.40 DDs is still a good number of opportunities and Troy has capitalized on them with one of the higher average amounts of money earned on DDs each game.
What to Look For
This is the section in which I muse on what the future of the streak might bring, forgetting and/or ignoring that I have very little basis for prediction coming out the descriptive metrics. But sure, here’s some thoughts:
Due to the number of attempts from competitors, it’s difficult to make comparisons from Troy to previous champions. It’s clear he can be made vulnerable through an opponent or two picking up good rhythm and getting the DJ DDs, but four runaways out of five wins is a strong record.
His hunt-oriented clue selection means that his DD+ is likely to go up from negative, which means more Daily Doubles. Given his wagering, particularly on early DDs, look for some high scores to result — or a miss might throw a game into chaos.
The most-likely time for the attempt environment to reset itself is probably the start of a tape day on a Monday show, so I’m interested in seeing what happens if Troy wins into next week. Of course, anyone coming in on that day would end up knowing they’re up against a 7-day champion with a high total at that point, and might lean into aggression.
If I’m guessing on what depressed Troy’s fifth game DJ, it would be the “How Many Dotted Letters?” category. This was the purest version of a WTF Wordplay category during this streak, and Kristina and David took all the money that was earned. Troy has had success with less-wild word and wordplay categories in previous games (particularly with a historical anagrams one, where strong history could offset the weird anagrams), but another bizarre one could play a role in the future.
I’m always gonna be mad that Yogesh didn’t draw Troy, but it is increasingly apparent that Troy would have murked him.