Ballard man surpasses $150,000 on Jeopardy

Nobody can stop Ballardite Tom Nissley, who won his fifth consecutive Jeopardy tonight with a bang. Behind a bit for the final question, Nissley bet it big when the category was “20th Century Novelists.” Not a bad bet for Nissley, who works at Amazon.com and edits the Omnivoracious blog.

The only contestant to nail the answer (“Who is William Somerset Maugham?”), Nissley vaulted into even bigger money — now standing at $151,802. While Nissley is a rising Jeopardy star, he still has a long ways to unseat the all-time champion, Ken Jennings, who won 74 consecutive episodes in 2004 for a total of $3,022,700 in winnings.

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8 thoughts to “Ballard man surpasses $150,000 on Jeopardy”

  1. If you’re digging all this jeopardy action, you should check out Bob Harris’ book Prisoner of Trebekistan. It’s about a lot more than the show, which was just a catalyst that changed the author’s life.

  2. Does anyone remember that old “Cheers” episode where Cliff Clavin got on Jeopardy and totally kicked everyone’s ass with categories like “US Postal Service”, “Living With Your Mother”, and my all time favorite “Useless Facts”?

  3. In the earlier days of snowboarding contests the winners were honor bound to spend a minimum of 10% of their winnings immediately at the bar on all the other competitors. The 10% rule started to lose favor after the second Olympics when the prize money was going up into the tens of thousands and fewer of the competitors were heavy drinkers. Not even sure if it’s enforced anymore. …ahhh the good old days…. Now I don’t think Tom is obligated to any such rule, but if he cares to do it anyway let me know where and when please. I’ll even order my drinks in the form of a question. “For $5 the answer is a Gin and Tonic.” “What is my next drink?”

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