Game Shows Wiki
Advertisement
Roger Craig
Roger Craig
Name: Roger Alan Craig
Born: 1977
Birth Hometown: Newark, Delaware
Occupation: Computer Scientist
Known for: Jeopardy!

Roger Alan Craig (born c. 1977) is an American game show contestant and computer scientist. He held the record for highest single-day winnings on the quiz show Jeopardy! from September 14, 2010 (surpassing Ken Jennings) to April 9, 2019 (when James Holzhauer surpassed him). In 2011, Craig returned to win the Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions. Three years later, he competed in the Battle of the Decades tournament, finishing third overall behind Brad Rutter and Ken Jennings.

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.

Craig holds a first degree in biology and biochemistry from Virginia Tech, 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, Craig has published eight papers in the field of bioinformatics, specifically on topics of combinatorial protein synthesis and protein-protein prediction.

As of November 2011, Craig 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[]

He prepared for Jeopardy! by studying the 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. He then used the spaced repetition program Anki for memorization and tested himself using his own program.

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

He believes his attendance at the two universities helped the most in his success.

Appearances[]

Original Run[]

  • Craig set his record of $77,000 on the second day of the 2010–11 Jeopardy! season on the episode airing September 14, 2010. In his record-setting appearance, Craig 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 gave the correct response to the Final Jeopardy question about the winner of the 2010 Super Bowl (What is New Orleans?), while Craig gave an incorrect response (What is Chicago?). In his seven-day run, Craig earned $231,200, all except $1,000 of which was from winning episodes.
  • On April 9, 2019, professional gambler James Holzhauer broke Craig's single-day record, surpassing it 15 more times during his own run; the record now stands at $131,127 as of April 17, 2019. Holzhauer, like Craig, relied on aggressive Daily Double and Final Jeopardy! wagers to amass his totals. Holzhauer also surpassed Craig's records for most earnings won in a player's first five games and largest successful bet on a Daily Double.
Game No. Air Date Final score Cumulative Winnings Notes
1 September 13, 2010 $37,000 $37,000
2 September 14, 2010 $77,000 $114,000 Craig broke the one-day record, shattering Ken Jennings's $77,000 from his 38 games. In addition, he became the first participant to achieve more than $100K in just two games[1]. Mark Runsvold, the four-time champion from the same season is the other player who also won more than $100K in just two such games ($103,000) #.
3 September 15, 2010 $24,401 $138,401 Roger's first game without a runaway and he holds the winnings record through three games; the entrant closest to his three-game winning streak so far is James Holzhauer's $133,451.
4 September 16, 2010 $28,400 $166,801
5 September 17, 2010 $29,000 $195,801 Craig broke the record for the 5-day highest total winnings from the double era and the second 5-day highest winnings from all-time (Frank Spangenberg’s 5-day record of $205,194 - adjusted for double dollar values).
6 September 20, 2010 $34,399 $230,200 Roger's second game without a runaway.
7 September 21, 2010 $4,599 $231,200 Roger's third game without a runaway. Jelisa Castrodale ends his streak.

Tournament of Champions[]

Craig returned for the Tournament of Champions and faced 4-day champion Brian Meacham and 5-day champion Kara Spak in his quarterfinal match. The end of the Jeopardy! round in that show went viral with Kara’s incorrect response of “what is a threesome?”; however, that clip overshadowed one of the show’s all-time great performances. Roger held a strong lead off of 12 correct going into Double Jeopardy, but found another gear in that round; he picked up an incredible 24 correct responses, leading to a total of 36 in the game, a $32,000 Coryat, and a score of $39,800 (to Brian’s $8,800 and Kara’s $6,000) going into Final. Even dropping $20,200 in Final (with the intention of reaching $60,000 on a correct response) wasn’t enough to stop him from claiming an automatic spot in the semifinals. Kara’s $6,012 would be enough for her to claim a wildcard slot, while Brian finished with no money and was eliminated from the tournament.

His semifinal, against Joon Pahk and Mark Runsvold, was much more closely contested, and Roger was actually in third place for a good chunk of Double Jeopardy. However, clues 20 and 23 were the Daily Doubles in the round; Roger got to them both, and his bets of $7,400 on the first one and $10,000 on the second were enough to vault him from third place into a runaway, guaranteeing him a slot in the Finals.

Craig went up against Tom Nissley and Buddy Wright in the finals of the tournament. Once again, the Jeopardy round was a closely contested match, and it continued into the first part of Double Jeopardy, with Roger only leading Tom $9,000 to $7,400 after 37 clues. However, Roger would find the Daily Doubles on back-to-back clues; doing something that had never been done before, he went all-in both times and was correct both times, taking his score from $9,000 to $36,000 in just two clues and essentially guaranteeing victory then and there. He finished the first day with $50,000, almost three times Tom’s score of $18,800.

While Tom was only behind by $1,000 going into the second day’s Final Jeopardy, Roger’s lead from the first day was so massive that Roger had the tournament “on lockdown”; essentially, he was guaranteed to win the tournament and the $250,000 no matter what he did. Final was a Triple Stumper, but that didn’t matter; Roger finished with $51,200 to Tom’s $18,800, giving him victory and the $250,000 grand prize.

Battle Of the Decades[]

Craig returned for the Jeopardy! Battle of the Decades tournament on April 1, 2014, as part of the 2000s Week. Facing Vijay Balse (2010 ToC winner) 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 ToC winner) and Leszek Pawlowicz (1992 ToC winner).

Craig defeated Pam Mueller (Fall 2000 College Championship winner) and Colby Burnett (Fall 2012 Teachers Tournament and 2013 ToC winner) in the semifinals and advanced to the finals. In the finals, Craig faced off against Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter, but he finished as the second runner-up. In almost direct opposition to the Tournament of Champions, Craig fumbled $10,200 True Daily Double bets in both games of the final, giving him a score of -$800 in the first game (recorded as $0) and $4,000 in the second.

All-Star Games[]

Craig later appeared in the 2019 All-Star Games with team captain Austin Rogers and 2013 Teen Tournament winner Leonard Cooper. His team went home with $75,000 after losing the wild card match.

Records[]

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

Description Set Record Current record
Highest 5-game total on Jeopardy!, first 5 games (unadjusted) $195,801[2] $298,687 (James Holzhauer)
Highest single-game total on Jeopardy! $77,000 (September 14, 2010) $131,127 (James Holzhauer, April 17, 2019)[3]
Largest true daily double bet (unadjusted) $18,000 (November 14, 2011) $25,600 (James Holzhauer, May 17, 2023)
Largest daily double bet (unadjusted)

Trivia[]

  • Craig is known for his extreme aggressiveness on Daily Double wagering clues, having the joint second-greatest number of Daily Double bets at or above $10,000, at seven wagers in five figures. Matt Amodio also got seven during his streak, while Andrew He scored seven throughout his career. (Holzhauer is the only person to have more $10,000 wagers, at a staggering 32.) Craig has only missed three Daily Double wagers in his entire career, though all three were when he wagered five figures.[4]
  • His True Daily Double (all-in) downfall later influenced several others, including Alex Jacob and James Holzhauer. Thanks to that, there have been cases of reverse victory.
  • Until James Holzhauer, He was the recipient of the most prize money in a regular game among the ToC winners.[5]
  • Starting with Arthur Chu in 2014, the number of champions with 10 or more consecutive wins is increasing, and the record set by a talented player in 2019 has been replaced by that talented player, so it is relatively less mentioned these days. Still, considering that there have been no champions with more than 10 consecutive wins since James, there have been no cases of winning ToC, so his achievements can be said to be remarkable.

References[]

  1. As of S40, it is a rare record as there are only 20 three-time champions who have received a total of $100,000 or more.
  2. In total, the record set by Frank Spangenberg is $205,194.
  3. Prior to that, he had renewed himself in the episode aired on April 9, 2019 ($110,914).
  4. The first is his 3rd game, and the other two are the finals against Ken and Brad in BtoD.
  5. Among the previous ToC winners, the longest winning streak is 9 consecutive wins between Dan Pawson (S25) and Buzzy Cohen (S34).
Advertisement