Anyone who makes it through the screening process has the knowledge to answer at least 80% of the clues correctly. What separates the winners and losers is how well they can time buzzing in. The catch is, if you buzz in too early, the system locks you out for 1 second. So you have to wait until the perfect moment to buzz in.

Which is why no human ever stood a chance against Watson. Watson was programmed to buzz in at the absolute perfect time. No human could do that repeatably.

It may sound strange, but winning $700K on Jeopardy! says a lot more about your hand-eye coordination and your innate sense of timing than it does your knowledge. Sure, he knows more stuff than your average person, but I'd bet he is "only" in the 90th-95th percentile, and nowhere close to being the smartest person out of billions on the planet.


Oh, it does also say a little about his understanding of statistics and game theory. I haven't watched him, but I assume he follows Watson's strategy of fishing for the Daily Doubles and betting big when he finds them. But don't really have to be smart to do that either, just have to understand the rules of the game.