Front Burner - Canada’s Jeopardy! superchamp: Mattea Roach

Episode Date: May 11, 2022

Mattea Roach's 23-game winning streak on Jeopardy! is both an intellectual feat and the quiz show at its most entertaining. The Canadian superchamp responded to countless topics with 92 per cent accuracy, netting $560,983 US in winnings. But the 23-year-old also narrowly triumphed in a number of neck-and-neck games, brought personable quips and commentary to an often straightlaced stage and was visibly having fun in even the most high-pressure situations. Roach's winning streak ended with a $1 loss in Friday's episode of Jeopardy!. Today, she joins us to explain why her life felt directionless before getting the invitation, what she discovered about herself on set and why the show has become an intellectual institution.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Jamie Poisson. And you have just moved back into the lead, but it's a narrow one. Okay. Um, you know what? If I wager a lot and lose today, like whatever, I had such a good run. So let's try and do like, um, honestly, 8,000. Mattea Roach is at this crucial moment of her wild run on the quiz show

Jeopardy and she's waving her hand like crazy as if she's conducting the show. Conducting herself to nail this question. To gently tease another person. Okay well I should have wagered more. What is rib? Born in Halifax and living in Toronto, Mattea is now Canada's longest-winning Jeopardy! champion, with the fifth-longest streak in the show's entire history. Her marathon run came to an end in Friday's episode, stopping at 23 wins, one for every year of her 23 years of age.

Even the contestant who beat her by a single dollar couldn't believe it. $299. Danielle Mauer with $15,600. Even the contestant who beat her by a single dollar couldn't believe it. Matea ultimately won over $560,000 US and became the youngest so-called super champion ever. Matea is seriously smart and the intellectual pride of Canada right now. She's also captured social media's adoration for her big on-air personality on a traditionally straight-laced show. We thought we'd reflect back on some of what we've learned about our champion over the past few weeks. She once crashed a car in slow motion and didn't drive again for six years. Her childhood nickname was either Poor Cinderella or Porcelain Gorilla, depending on who you ask. And she's added to the growing number of women and queer people

dominating on the Jeopardy stage. Today, Matea Roach is great to have you on the show. Hi, Jamie. Thanks for having me. So look, just days before you got the call to be on Jeopardy in January, I know you had a New Year's conversation with a friend about sort of like your direction in life. And what did you tell your friend about, about how it was going? Yeah, so I think the real problem at the time was I felt like I did not have a clear direction. I think it's a really common feeling for people that are in their early to mid 20s that have just

gotten out of maybe undergrad, or if they were in college, they've just gotten out of college. And, you know, there's just this sense of uncertainty of not knowing what the next year, couple of years of your life is really going to hold. So at the time I was waiting to hear back from a couple of law schools, I wasn't really working full-time and didn't have any clear leads on full-time jobs. So I just had this sense of other people in my life seemed to have a clearer idea of what they were doing. And even though that wasn't actually true, you know, you always feel like you're a little bit behind. So that was how I was feeling in the, in the days leading up to when I got the call to go on Jeopardy.

And when you got the call, what was it like? Like when you found out you were going to be on the show? I was just really shocked. For whatever reason, I had assumed, you know, I did the gameplay audition and it had gone fine, but I didn't feel like it went so amazingly well that they were definitely going to cast me or anything like that. I had just kind of forgotten about it. It wasn't something that was keeping me up at night thinking, oh, you know, I wonder if I'm ever going to get a call to go on.

Basically, it just gave me something at that point, I figured it was something to look forward to for the next couple of weeks and work towards, you know, maybe instead of looking really aggressively for a job, I will spend a bit more time studying to go on the show. And you know, that same friend that I had that conversation with at New Year's was like, yeah, probably delay your job search, it might be financially better for you to study for Jeopardy. And at the time, I was like, oh, no, probably not. But it turns out, yeah, it very much was. How do you study for Jeopardy? Like, like take me through that. Yeah. So I know that there are some people that, especially people that try to get on the show

multiple times, they'll study even before taking the original online written test, the anytime test. For me, I didn't bother to do that because I had very much done it on a whim and I never really studied either for the subsequent stages of the audition process. So for me, the studying really began at the point where I got the call to go on the show. And at that point I figured, okay, well, if I'm actually going to do this and I'm really going to be on television, I should probably try and do it the right way. But the problem is that when you only have a three week window to prepare, there's such a wide variety of things that you can be asked about that it's very difficult to actually study material, right? You're not going to be able to learn all of the possible things that they could ask you about.

You wouldn't be able to do that even if you had like a year or more to study up, right? But obviously the less time you have, the more sort of strategic you have to be with the time that you spend. So what I did rather than studying hard material was I looked at archives of games to get a feel for how the writers construct clues because oftentimes what will happen is that a clue will have a piece of trivia in it that's maybe quite obscure but then there will be wordplay in it or there'll be some other kind of cue that's supposed to direct you to the right answer because from the perspective of the writers and the producers at the show obviously they want the show to be challenging and academic but it's not very entertaining television to have too many clues that are going

unresponded to because the players are not able to figure out what's meant within the time that's allotted. So getting that sense of how is the clue written and sort of seeing each clue as almost more of a puzzle than a straightforward question, like that was really what I was trying to do during my time preparing. A Union soldier's song said General McClellan, who let a Confederate army escape after this battle, was too slow to beat him. Mateo Roach, did she know her U.S. Civil War? What is Antietam? Because it rhymes. Yes, you cannot fool a former Rick Astley backup singer so easily. There's certain things that like people that are really into Jeopardy will call Pavlovs because it's basically like, if you see a certain combination

of words, you know that that's going to be the answer irrespective of what other information is included in the clue. So things like if we're talking about a Chinese architect, it's like basically always going to be I.M. Pei and you're not expected to know other Chinese architects very often. Yeah, things of that nature. I think that's like, again, like if I had tried to learn from scratch, like everything about the Civil War, which was an area that I knew was really weak for me, I don't know that I would have been able to do it in a way that would have been at all helpful. But I guess beyond these strategies and techniques, like it is jaw dropping watching you, like, you know,dropping watching you. Like, you know a lot of stuff, right?

Felines, 16. Mungo Jerry and Bustopher Jones are memorable characters in this T.S. Eliot work. Matea. What is Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats? That's right. Like you got 92% of your responses right. And I guess, what in your life do you think prepared you for winning on a show like Jeopardy? I guess if I could put this question another way, like how do you learn so many facts and

keep them in your head? I would say just like a general curiosity would be one thing. You don't retain as much information as I was able to deploy on the show without wanting to retain that information and also like seeking it out actively. Right. So I think that people who do well on Jeopardy tend to be people that have just sort of an innate desire to learn things. And if they're in a conversation where they realize there's something that they don't know, like they want to look it up rather than just being like, ah, who's to say, right. It's like, we have computers, like we have our phones basically all the time. If you don't know something, I don't know why you wouldn't

just go look for it. So that's part of it. I think the other thing that helped in terms of my ability to do well on the show, like less so with the information, but more so with the being able to pull it out under pressure was my debate experience in high school, just like the experience of having to stand in front of people and give not a completely extemporaneous speech, but a speech that you have very little time to prepare. That prepared me pretty well for just the like stress and the sort of performance aspect of having to do Jeopardy. And I think that that's an element of it where sometimes people that have really strong trivia minds and are really smart, but maybe don't handle stress very well, like they can trip up. Right. And then they don't look as smart as they really are when they actually are on the show.

This term for an unidentified aircraft also may cause hostility as you go one over par on a golf hole. Carrie. What is UFO? No. Matea. What is a bogey? That's correct. Going into your first Jeopardy game, I wonder, like looking back, what were your expectations?

Or even your wildest dreams for how it could change your life? So my expectation when I was traveling to Los Angeles to tape the show was that at the time that I was going down there, Amy Schneider was still playing. That's right. The latest super champ became the first woman in Jeopardy history to win more than a million dollars. Schneider is just the fourth person to ever cross the million dollar landmark. She joins Ken Jennings, James Holzhauer and Matt Amodio as the show's biggest winners. Obviously, she had finished taping quite some time before, but like I didn't know that. Right. So I thought I was going to be as Roan Talsma, who eventually did beat Amy, put it he referred to it as like the Schneider slaughterhouse. Like I thought I was going to be going through the Schneider slaughterhouse and I was just going to be toast. But then I also thought, you know, like there's been so many contestants who've gone on these long streets this season.

You know, if it's not her, there's going to be somebody else. So I was prepared to just like go in and not do very well. When I got to Jeopardy and realized that there was not a long running contestant at the time that I was going to start playing, then I thought, okay, well, you know what? I stand a fighting chance here, but everyone here is really smart. Everyone here has passed the same tests that I passed. And there's a number of people that, you know, do a lot more trivia than I do. Right. Like I had never heard of like learned league and some of the other online trivia stuff that a lot of people who end up on Jeopardy participate in. I was somebody that had been like a casual viewer of the show in high school and then not even really watched it that consistently as an adult because I didn't have cable. So I

figured that I could win a game, but it would take a lot of luck. And my wildest dream when I was going down to the show was I was like, oh, wouldn't it be cool? I had about like $25,000 Canadian left owing on my student loan at the time that I went down to tape. I guess that's like still true. That's still how much is left on it. And I thought to myself, like, wouldn't it be awesome if I won maybe two games and I could pay that off? And then I won enough money to pay that off in my first game. My student loan is paid off. Congratulations. That's it.

There it is. It's gone. They have no hold over you. I'm hoping to go back to school so like there will be more. But now you start from zero. Now I start from zero. Yeah. Oh, my God. Now I start from zero. Yeah. Oh my God. So everything after that, I was like, okay, well, I've already exceeded my wildest expectations of what I thought I could do coming on here. So after that, I was just out to have fun and like, keep winning money.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization. Empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income?

That's not a typo. 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. You talked about how you just wanted to have fun. People have noted how like your personality really kind of jumped off the screen during your run. The last time around, you have more than twice Julia's score, Mika. personality really kind of jumped off the screen during your run. And how do you think showing your personality on TV, like, like that changed the way that maybe you even think about yourself? Yeah, I mean, it's interesting, like, to hear people comment about how my personality comes off on

television. Everything about the way that I was coming off on television was authentic. I was not doing a bit for the cameras. I was just actually having that much fun. But I'm definitely somebody that in my life has tended to be more introverted and more subdued in the way that I interact in public and in group settings and that sort of thing. And like not somebody who necessarily enjoys myself that freely or that often. And so to watch myself back on TV, just having the time of my life,

I think has made me realize like, okay, this is something that I can hopefully tap into. And yeah, I mean, my life has changed certainly in terms of the money. I think my life has also changed in terms of like how I'm going to be able to access joy in my day-to-day life, if that makes sense. Yeah. Tell me, tell me more about that. What do you mean by that? Yeah. Just that I think when I was on the show, it's like, you're so overstimulated the entire time that you're there, right? It's like you go in, you can't look at your phone all day. Like you never really know what time it is unless you

wear a watch. I was confused about what time of year it was too, because I was taping in like January, February, but it was Los Angeles. So it was sunny. I was like, I don't know when it is, where I am, like what's going on. You know, you're in this sort of intense pressure cooker environment because the stakes are really high, but the environment is very positive, despite how stressful it can be. Like, at least I found it very easy to enjoy myself while I was there. And to not like second guess that enjoyment, right? I think that a lot of people when they're doing something that is enjoyable, or at least like, this is certainly what my experience has been in the past, like, you almost take yourself out of it by thinking about how it's not going to last forever and you know you you get worrying about

different other things that aren't really related to what you're doing but with Jeopardy it's like it was so intense that you couldn't focus on anything other than the thing that you had to do which was like play more games and try and keep winning right yeah um yeah and I think that it just sort of like is going to make it easier for me to not fall back into that sort of, oh, but you know, what if this happens? And then like, things don't turn out well for me as a result, if I had too much fun. There were some like super, you know, hardcore Jeopardy watchers who felt like maybe you're having too much fun. Like that's not what you're supposed to do on Jeopardy. And what would you say to them?

Well, one thing that this experience has taught me is like, I'm going to be so much less judgmental of anybody who goes on any non-scripted television show, regardless of what it is. It's an experience that you can't prepare for until it happens to you is what I would say. The other thing that I would say is that I don't think that me enjoying myself impeded me from playing a really good game. Right. So it certainly didn't. Yeah. Yeah. Like I think that even if you have the attitude of like, well, you know what, I am not here to see antics. This isn't the prices, right. I just want to see contestants play the game really well. I think I did do that also, you know, for me, like there, there were some people that said that I didn't respect the institution of the show or whatever. Like to me, I felt like I showed respect by being very good at what I was there to do. The other thing that I think people have to remember too, is like Jeopardy tapes five episodes in a day. So if a contestant goes on a long run,

like you're seeing it over the course of maybe a month or, or, you know, in the case of like Matt Amodio or Amy Schneider, multiple months, for the contestant who's playing, it's like all happening at once. Like you do a week's worth of shows. I did not know that. I did not know that. Okay. Yeah. And so what might be, you know, a normal change in how someone comports themselves from one day to the next, if they have time to process things like that's not going to happen on the show, right? Because you're literally between games, you're going to get changed and you're getting hair and makeup touch-ups. And then you basically

turn right around and you go back and tape another one. So you're going to be acting the exact same way as you probably did in the previous game, because it's literally like half an hour later, like nothing has changed for you other than you you than that you've won one more game. Members of the LGBTQ community have, of course, cheered for you as another queer Jeopardy champion. But there was also this controversy over an NBC News tweet, which identified you as, quote, a lesbian tutor. And so for you, in what way do you think that your identity is relevant to your appearances and wins on Jeopardy, sort of, if at all, if at all? your appearances and wins on Jeopardy sort of, if at all, if at all? So I don't think it matters in any way that's related to how I performed, right? Like I think that Jeopardy is a show that

although, you know, most of the content is sort of drawn from a certain idea of like a Western canon of what's considered to be important general knowledge for people to have. Like, I think that Jeopardy is a game that anybody, regardless of like their gender, regardless of sexual orientation, race, like cultural background, whatever, like everybody who is raised in the US or Canada has the capacity, I think, to do well at it. I think that my identity matters

because I'm somebody who, from the time that I was like a young teenager before I even realized that I was not straight has been being identified by other people as being queer. I'm not really sure initially why it was like now I definitely dress in a way that's like pretty consistent with what certain people would identify as being like how lesbians dress. And, you know, like I have nose piercings, which is like kind of, I don't know, some people would say like a sort of stereotypical queer woman thing to do. But when I was like a young teenager, I didn't have any of that. I don't know if it was how I walked. I don't know if it was how I spoke. I don't know like what really people were picking up on, but people were picking up on something. And so I knew I was not going to be able to go on television without people picking up on the fact that there was something going on there, even if they couldn't put a finger on what it was.

So to me, it was important to be out front about my identity because I'm not sheepish about discussing it really anywhere else in my life. Like I didn't want this to be like the one place that I didn't talk about it because it almost makes it come off as though I don't feel comfortable discussing it or don't feel comfortable disclosing when that's like the opposite of true in the rest of my life. So I definitely didn't intend to be out on Jeopardy as like a way of making a statement to other people. But I do know that there have been a number of people that have appreciated me being visible and especially me being like a younger gay person who's not like a television character, right? I'm literally just appearing on the show as myself. I think, you know, at least from what I've garnered from Twitter, it seems to have meant a lot to some people. And so I'm glad that just by literally going on and being myself, I've been able to have some sort of positive impact. But yeah, mainly I was just like, I don't want to go on television and be hiding something and be uncomfortable, right? Because I'll probably play worse if I hold back aspects of my personality

or how I might present myself. so final question i know uh we've we've talked about how you're going back to jeopardy um but like what what else is next for you um you know what i don't really know um i was waiting on decisions from law schools at the time that I went down to tape Jeopardy. Yeah. One rejection before my episode started airing, one acceptance since they started, and I'm waiting on a couple more decisions. So it's likely that I will be going back to school in the fall. That's like, you know, unless something really crazy comes up, like that's what I'm planning on doing. I don't know where, I don't know really what's after that. I think the thing that's really changed for me since the beginning of the year is that before I felt this sense of like overwhelming

dread at the uncertainty that was going on in my life whereas now I'm very lucky to have a bit more of a financial cushion to get me through any rough patches that might happen to me and you know a couple more doors that are opening for me. So even though I don't know necessarily what the next thing is for me, what I'm going to be doing in a couple months time, I'm much more at ease with that state of affairs

than I was a couple months ago. Matea, thank you. Thank you so much for this. Thanks so much for coming on. All right. Thanks so much for having me. All right. That is all for today i'm jamie poisson thanks so much for listening and we'll talk to you tomorrow For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.