Ever since Maurice Ayache was a little boy, even before he could really hope to guess any of the answers, he had watched Jeopardy! on TV. He watched Alex Trebek for years, before there was a Will Ferrell impersonation of the host and before, in a move decried by many a fan, Trebek shaved his famous mustache. Ayache was always an enthusiast, but he never actually thought he would have the chance to be on the show. Then, last summer, Ayache, after taking the Jeopardy! online test, got a call to audition. He drove up to Los Angeles, took another written test, and went through the show’s audition process, which involved taking part in a mock game. He made the cut, and on Dec. 14, he joined an elite group: he became a Jeopardy! contestant. Ayache summed up the event succinctly. “It was a lot of fun, it was pretty nerve-wracking, and it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience,” he said. When Ayache found out he would be a contestant on the show, he promptly got himself a pen with a clicker on top. Every night he would watch the show and practice answering (in the form of a question, of course) and clicking the pen to practice the timing and motion of the buzzer contestants use on the show. “The buzzer ends up being a very big factor,” he said. “Most contestants probably know most of the answers, but a lot of the game is determined by who buzzes in at the right time, who gets the Daily Doubles and how you wager. The buzzer makes a very big impact.” Ayache didn’t pore over textbooks to try to absorb years’ worth of knowledge, but he did brush up on the American presidents and Shakespeare’s body of work (both, he said, tend to be popular categories on the show). Other than that, “I decided to take what I already knew and hope for the best.” There were, however, a few categories he hoped wouldn’t creep onto the board. Ayache said he joked before he went on the show that with his luck, he would probably get a category relating to something he knew next to nothing about — something like ballet. Much to his dismay, the double Jeopardy round featured a category called “Ballet Miserable.” Despite the serendipitous stroke of bad luck, however, he managed to answer two clues in that category correctly. As for Jeopardy!’s celebrated host, Ayache said meeting Trebek was, for him, a “bit strange.” “It was weird meeting this person you’ve seen on TV your whole life,” he said. “But he was a nice guy, and he has a more sarcastic sense of humor than what you see on TV.” Trebek, he said, answers audience questions during commercial breaks, and it’s during those times that his true humor comes out. And what does the audience usually want to know? “He gets two questions all the time: what he thinks of the Will Ferrell impression, and will he ever grow his mustache back,” Ayache said. “His answer was no, he’ll never grow it back.” Ayache didn’t win the game, but he did play well, answering several esoteric questions that, truly, could only be answered by someone worthy of being a Jeopardy! contestant. There were, however, a few questions he felt should never have escaped him. One involved a clue about businessman and gangster Arnold Rothstein, a topic he had recently been discussing with his girlfriend, and the other was the final Jeopardy clue: “Designed by Norwegian Gustav Vigeland, it depicts three naked men with their hands on each other’s shoulders?” Ayache, thinking it would be too easy if the answer were the Nobel Prize, “over thought” the question and guessed the Olympic medal. When it came to nerves, however, Ayache didn’t show his hand at all. Though he said he dealt with being nervous “poorly,” his performance didn’t belie it. “At the beginning, it’s impossible not to keep thinking, ‘I’m on TV, I’m on TV,’” he said. “But then you get into the game, and you think of it less as a TV show — something that’s affecting your life — and more as just a game you’re playing. And that’s better, because it makes you a better player.”