Jeopardy Champ Claire Sattler Talks Strategy

This month’s "Jeopardy! The Greatest of All Time” Tournament, with Ken Jennings, James Holzhauer, and Brad Rutter made us curious about the inside workings of the classic game show. So we turned to Claire Sattler ‘23, winner of the 2018 Jeopardy! Teen Tournament. The Bonita Springs, Fla. resident majors in both biomedical engineering and theater.  

How long had you wanted to get on the show? 

I always loved watching Jeopardy! When I was 9 or 10, I was watching the kids’ tournament for 10- and 12-year-olds. I distinctly remember answering every question on the board, and I ran into the kitchen and said ‘Mom, Mom, I got all the questions right on Jeopardy!’ Then she watched me answer all the questions on the next round, and was like, ‘This kid knows a lot of weird trivia.’ So when I turned 10, I took my first online Jeopardy! test, but I didn’t make the cut. 

But you kept at it.

Yes, at the end of my junior year I found out I was going to audition again, in New Orleans in the summer between junior and senior years. Because of school being hectic, I had to keep moving my ACT [American College Testing] date. The day I scheduled it for was the day I was auditioning for Jeopardy! So my parents moved my ACT to New Orleans and I took it there before the Jeopardy! audition. The school ran late, so I had about 30 minutes to run across town, get changed, and run downstairs to the audition.  

And you got the final call soon after?

I was working an internship and got home the first day and my whole family had gathered. They were recording me, and I was like ‘What’s going on?’ and they say ‘We got a phone call today…’ and that was it.  

How did you prepare?

I went into it with the mentality of ‘I’m not winning this - my only goal is to get to the semifinals and not lose to a freshman in the first round and then be a laughingstock. I used a website called ProtoBowl, which is like a real-time quiz bowl game. You can play high school- and college-level and there’s a whole subset of Jeopardy! questions. I think the most helpful thing I did to prepare was research strategy - knowing exactly the correct things to do statistically under pressure. But I was sitting with an iPad pressing a screen, which is not the same as using a buzzer. 

So how do you practice buzzing in?

That’s really difficult, and it’s one of the biggest things about being on Jeopardy! When I was in high school, I was really invested in the college tournament. Lilly Chin from MIT, who won that year, made a video where she said to practice with those little plastic toilet paper holders that you can compress, because they’re about the same size as the Jeopardy! buzzers. I brought one from my home on the plane with me to California. My parents would read me a question and I would press the button on the toilet paper holder. 

How do you know so much trivia?

My parents were always good about getting me books to read and I just always liked learning new information. It’s not like I sat and read encyclopedias. I have a lot of weird pop culture knowledge - I watched a lot of TV growing up [laughs]. My two strongest categories, even in high school quiz bowl, were the science questions and the pop culture questions. 

Did you follow the “Greatest of All Time” tournament?

A little bit, I was on tour with my a cappella group, so I didn’t have much time. Also, it’s a little hard to watch Jeopardy once you’ve been on - you watch people give their interviews and you remember a cringey thing you did or you remember when you answered this one question really wrong. It’s a little stress-inducing, because it was one of the most enjoyable experiences in my life, but also one of the most stressful ones. It was terrifying; I’ve never felt my heart beat so fast as it did when I was standing on that stage.  

What’s Alex Trebek like?

Before the game, audience members ask him questions, and sometimes they’ll ask really ridiculous questions. Someone asked, ‘When was the last time you got in a fistfight?’ And he says ‘About 15 seconds from now - put ‘em up!’ He’s got that wit, and he wants everyone to have a great experience there, and I so respect that.

Any advice for aspiring Jeopardy players?

I would say, get your plastic toilet paper holder out and learn how to buzz. And I would say study up on, situationally, what you should do for betting. There’s only a few betting strategies you should employ, but if you don’t know the strategy of the game before, it’s hard to come up with those ideas on the spot.