First of all, winning the "Greatest Of All-Time" tournament doesn't actually determine who is the GOAT, haha.
It counts for something, and arguably for a lot since it's the only chance to see them head-to-head. But naming it the GOAT tournament doesn't actually mean this becomes the single determining factor.
(The NFL can create a contest between Tom Brady and Peyton Manning and call it GOAT WARS, but it's still up to consensus to weigh all factors. Being the producer of the game doesn't mean you're the god of GOATmaking.)
Make sense?
So if you think Ken winning the GOAT tournament locks him in as necessarily the GOAT, well, I consider that an unreasonable criteria and discard your opinion.
(Ken might be the GOAT though! Just not singularly because he won the tournament.)
The tournament.
I think the primary takeaway from the tournament is that both James and Ken are a level up on Brad, lol. No offense to Brad. He's a great player too, and it showed that there's a pretty clear gap. So I think the tournament basically dignified the greatness and the next-levelness of both James and Ken.
Between James and Ken, it felt like a total grind.
I appreciate dampening the variance by making each "game" a combined score from two games. But I actually would have rather seen them play normal Jeopardy!, and make them win 5 or 6 or 7 games to get the title.
(Obviously, how it lines up within the TV schedule probably has a lot to do with how they design the tournament. But changing the format for what's supposed to be the thing that determines the GOAT is very "meh" to me.)
I'm sure someone has crunched the numbers and figured out who buzzed in most often and who had the best score outside of Daily Doubles and stuff like that. (Things that would usefully suggest who played the best.)
I'd like to see those numbers. Winging it by memory and naked eye, I'm comfortable saying it was pretty even. And if the numbers would suggest one played better than the other, I doubt it was by much.
In general I'd say it was a deserved win by Ken, but that we don't really know who would win if they did this 1000 times.
Original streaks on the show....
The version of Ken who had his original run on the show is absolutely 100% NOT as good as James during his original run on the show.
If you imagine James coming in as a random contestant against Ken 1.0, he's a huge favorite to win. If Ken came in as a random contestant during James' original run, he's absolutely not a favorite.
(Presumably he plays the old school way and is a big underdog. If he learns what's going on backstage and adapts in real-time, like some of James' opponents did, then it's probably close to 50/50. But it's hard to say if he'd be a willing game theory player in a format where the points equate to real money, especially if James' streak hadn't gone on for long enough where it had really sunk in for him that this is the right way to play.)
So I'm very comfortable saying that contestant James who we saw have his original run on the show is better than contestant Ken who we saw have his original run.
Whether he had a greater run is more open to interpretation.
Ken won more games (74 to 36). They won about the same amount of money, and James of course has all the records for most money per game.
Winning streak is a big deal and kind of the purest metric. But also there's so much variance there. Against a good player who learns from what James is doing and also plays the game-theory way, it gets reduced to not a very high-edge game.
In general, there's plenty of variance at Jeopardy!.
So to me, James' streak is really kind of the same animal as Ken's streak. 74 vs 36 is the same animal, wat?? Well ya, sort of. Because both streaks are wildly long and show total dominance, and running into the whammy on game 75 rather than 37 is largely a luck-based thing.
If they had the opportunity to try again and again and again, then longest streak (or average length of streak) would start to be more decisive and more of a singularly determining factor.
So all things combined (and remember, I'm talking strictly about Ken 1.0 during his original run compared to James during his original run)..
James is more dominant and clearly "better" and the one you'd want if all the money was on the line
Ken's streak was longer
Total money won was about the same
To me it feels like James' run was greater.
If he's playing in a more talented and more dominant way, hitting the whammy on game 37 rather than 75 isn't enough to make me like Ken's run better.
It's fair to consider that other players learning from James and adapting and reducing it to a low edge game is an aspect of what he did (so it becoming a low edge game is a natural consequence of his strategy), whereas Ken playing his way in that era would maybe be expected to go on deeper runs more often.
But also James should go on $5-10M runs more often than Ken. So whether "money" or "streak" should matter more has a lot to do with how we compare them.
If James' streak was something like 12 games, then I think there's just not really enough there to consider him. Because then even besides having a more pedestrian streak, you also don't have as much to go on and as much sustained dominance.
Kind of like the Gronk GOAT question. Gronk's career was short, but I'd say it was long enough (if maybe just long enough) to count as a normal NFL career. And it was enough to prove sustained excellence, where you know this is Gronk's level of dominance and the real expectation from him.
But then there's Ken 2.0..
Ken with the game-theory, uncomfortably wagering all of the points.
Again, I'd love to see the numbers regarding who answered more questions etc etc during their game. But to me he felt maybe a hair better than James.
But so then the question is, how much does that matter?
To prove a concept, let's go back to beerpong in college. I was the GOAT.
(I'm a humble guy, but that's just facts and how I'm universally recognized. Humility doesn't trump calling it as it is, or connecting on a good metaphor.)
Let's get carried away and toot my horn with some irrelevant details though: I was basically an Aaron Rodgers and Tom Brady type of GOAT. Most talented to the naked eye, and I did all the winning and had the clutch reputation and all the glory.
Winning streaks is essentially what you'd play for and what would determine greatness. (It means more than the Jeopardy! streaks, because you try again every night, and over time the best players will go on the longest streaks.)
So imagine we're like 24 years old and everything is behind us (I have all the records and all the sustained greatness), we get together for some beerpong, and one of the other players has leveled up and is arguably a little bit better than me now.
So?
You can say he's better, right now. But by what standard can you say he's greater? My body of work still trumps his.
I think this is one of the trickier GOAT analyses out there.
To summarize:
let's grant that right now Ken is a hair better
James 1.0 was wayyyy better than Ken 1.0
James 1.0's original run, I think, is a hair greater than Ken 1.0's original run
Ken won the thing that they call the "GOAT tournament" and literally has the title of GOAT in the eyes of the Jeopardy! producers
So hard. At the end of the day I think their original run on the show has to just count for so much. That has to be the brunt of how you measure them.
If one or the other had shown they're decisively better than the other in the GOAT tournament, I think that would count for a lot, since comparing their original runs is so difficult, and head-to-head is a uniquely good little peak. (Example: I think you can safely take Brad out of the running based on the tournament.)
Winning the tournament in what was largely an even battle only counts for a little, I think.
Ultimately I just really fall back on the beerpong metaphor..
James is the GOAT!!!!!
baha.
When you watch the tournament and see Ken play amazing and walk away with a GOAT trophy, it's hard not to be a #prisonerofthemoment and think it has to be Ken. Ken gets all the credit, and it would be totally fair to call him the best player right now.
But for GOAT.. I think their original runs on the show matter so much and need to maintain a critical focus, unless they keep playing more and more of these tournaments.
You're still the GOAT, James.