I think a lot of people being tried are champions. Maybe I am wrong about this.
Ken was a champion (GOAT tournament and longest regular season winning streak). Buzzy Cohen was a champion (though he just hosted the tournament of champions for last season). I think Aaron Rodgers won a celebrity Jeopardy game. Anderson Cooper also won I believe. Don’t think the other guest hosts were Jeopardy champions but I could be wrong on that. Don’t think Mayim was a contestant on the show.
I actually thought Ken would not be a good host. Thought of the big time champions, Brad Rutter would have been the best. But Ken has done a great job. Buzzy was a good host for the ToC (didn’t think his personality would fit well as a host). Don’t think being a champion is a prereq though.
A lot of the guest hosts last spring and summer were TV personalities, like Anderson Cooper, Savannah Guthrie, Dr. Oz, and most had ‘day jobs’ and weren’t trying to be permanent hosts.
As we can see by Ken’s performance, it takes a while to get good at it. I think he’s very good now and has the right amount of friendliness with the contestants. I’d like to see Mayim do only the tournaments or nighttime specials. I like Ken for the day to day stuff and don’t like them switching off.
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Have I missed something? Is Ken on vacation? I really like him, and he certainly found his path
Ken and Mayim share hosting. I think Ken gets more weeks, but Mayim does the tournaments too.
Mayim I believe has other commitments, such as a sitcom on Fox (and maybe her snake-oil endorsements?). Ken OTOH works for the show as a consultant or something similar.
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Ken has also withdrawn from his other show The Chase.
Some people are reading that to mean Ken is looking to free time to be the permanent Jeopardy host. Or maybe its more wishful thinking than anything meaningful in terms of who will be the permanent host. I do think the producers of the show would like to have a female host.
The original plan was to have Mike Richards be the M-F host, while Bialik would do the prime time tournaments. Substitute “Ken Jennings” for “Mike Richards” and the original plan would still work!
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Most people review the initial plan as being somewhat rigged (by Richards). He made it seem like it was anyone’s game and he was just subbing in for a couple weeks because Covid restricted who they could have guest host and then he ended up getting the gig. There was a lot of backlash when he was announced as the host (then the stuff hit the fan with the other issues that resulted in him leaving the show).
To me, they wanted to have someone other than a white man host the show. Richards weaseled his way into the gig. But I have no inside info on that.
Another good win in a close game . Husband got Final Jeopardy right . I didn’t but as soon as he said his answer, I knew it was right!
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Nice come from behind win by Ryan. Aaron would have lost even had he gotten Final Jeopardy right because he bet nothing. A lot of people lately going into Final Jeopardy with the lead who do not make cover bets risking a loss even if they get Final right. Presumably Aaron wasn’t comfortable with a sports category.
Ryan now tied with Jonathan Fisher with 11 wins. Jonathan won more money so he likely would be seeded higher right now. Another win may help Ryan avoid Matt and Amy in the tournament of champions (until the final if they all make it). Could go against Mattea instead who “only” won 23 games. 
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Ryan has done well with sports categories, so I expected he would get Final Jeopardy correct. Aaron perhaps bet nothing because he was not a sports guy? Ironically, at 25K that was probably his biggest win in recent games?
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I think that was one of his top 3-4 scores in his 11 day run. He had a couple runaway games with little margin to bet a couple times. And didn’t make cover bets a couple of other times when Final Jeopardy was not a runaway but he had a lead. Tonight he was behind so he bet big. Though based on Aaron’s $0 bet, Ryan only needed to be $2k to get a win if Ryan was right.
Saw something today which indicated that of the 14 contestants who won 10 games, all of them won at least 11. No defending champ has lost game #11.
Ryan continues to win with some close calls. I like him and cool to see a guy without tons of formal education and prep go so far.
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How did nobody get the Battle of Trafalgar? The clue made it clear it was a naval battle. In the end though Ryan won through savvier betting.
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Yeah, husband said the same thing. Waterloo was a land battle. But, there were other answers that nobody got today.
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I like Ryan. Calm, methodical player. Knows a lot of trivia too.
His bet worked out because Megan got the Final Jeopardy question wrong. Had she gotten FJ right, Ryan would have lost. But she did not make a cover bet meaning had Ryan gotten final right (with a max bet), Megan would have lost even if she got FJ correct.
I always believe that if you are leading going into FJ, the one thing you cannot let happen is getting FJ right but losing the game. You have to bet enough so that cannot happen (a cover bet). If you are in second, you can take advantage of that and play for a triple stumper (at least a double stumper) and win the game from second. And if you get it right, good chance the person in the lead will get it right and you will lose of they make a cover bet. But recently, several contestants with the lead going into FJ have not made cover bets. Gives you a chance to make the max bet from second and win even if both first and second place get FJ right.
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What is Ryan’s educational background? There’s gotta be more to him than being an uber driver. It’s like the long-running champ whose name escapes me was described as a bartender, but had an extensive education.
Ryan likes cats. He’s talked about cats a couple times.
I thought the woman who was ahead should have bet nothing, hoping Ryan would get it wrong. It seemed an iffy topic to me.