We’ll take the category of “Game Show Contestants” for $800, Ken.
Question: This attorney lives in Arlington and recently played in the Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions.
Answer: Who is Luigi de Guzman?
De Guzman, a 43-year-old Courthouse resident, made it to the semifinals, where he lost to Troy Meyer in the episode that aired March 11. But he won lots of friends and lifetime rights to being the most interesting person at parties, in light of his experience.
“Jeopardy! is a little more fun [to talk about] than bank regulation,” jokes de Guzman, who works in the financial services group at the Paul Hastings law firm.
The popular game show’s Tournament of Champions is a yearly competition among the players who won the most games during the past season. De Guzman secured his spot by winning five rounds of Jeopardy!—and $140,700—in 2022. He now enjoys sharing fun facts about being on the show, which celebrates its 60th year on the air this month.
“No. 1, everybody always asks me, ‘What’s the study guide look like? What did they give you to study?’ They don’t. It would be a federal crime for them to do that,” he says, referring to the Communications Act that passed in 1960 after several quiz show scandals came to light. “They take that so seriously [at Jeopardy!] that when there’s an audience, you can’t really even look out into the audience and acknowledge them…for fear that somebody’s passing you answers.”
Second, he says, the show films five episodes a day at Sony Pictures Studios in Culver City, California. The schedule is hectic. If you win a game, you have just minutes to run to wardrobe, get changed, get your hair and makeup retouched, and hit your mark on the set before filming starts again.
“You don’t have much time to think or actually be scared,” de Guzman says. “The game that gets broadcast is 24 minutes on air, and that’s taped in almost real time.”
Something else people don’t realize, he adds, is that it can be tough for contestants to read the clues.
“When you watch on TV, they put the whole text of the clue on TV [so] it’s really easy to read,” de Guzman says. “We have to read the clues in that little spot where they show up on the board. It’s about 20 to 30 feet away. I played my first game entirely on [host Ken Jennings’] voice because I could barely read the clues. That was when I realized I need new glasses.”
Being on television and the glamor that comes with it is definitely fun, he says. “I think every person should get a chance to sit in the Hollywood hair-and-makeup chair once in their life. You’re never going to look that good again,” he jokes.
Plus, it’s nice to look your best when you’re getting chummy with fellow contestants. The tournament, which he calls TOC for short, has a “nerd summer camp” vibe, he says.
“They put us up in the same hotel,” de Guzman says of the players. “We all hang out. We’ve all seen each other on TV. Many of us have seen each other over Zoom or have corresponded in some way. You show up and this is the first time we’ve seen a lot of these [contestants] in real life. It’s like you’ve been pals for years.”
De Guzman moved with his family to Northern Virginia from Honduras in 1989, when he was 8 years old. He attended Oakton’s Flint Hill School, participating in both the Virginia Junior Classical League and National Junior Classical League, which play in quiz bowls. Even then he was a winner: His team claimed the Virginia state championship several times, and was crowned national champ four times.
“I was always kind of a trivia guy,” he says. “When I was little…we were all sitting around eating dinner and playing Jeopardy!”
For years, family and friends encouraged him to try out for the show. He was reluctant until around 2007, when Jeopardy! began offering qualifying tests online. He continued to take the tests off and on until 2020, when he was offered an audition. That step involved taking a proctored test and playing a game to see how he came across on camera. He first appeared in episodes that aired in July 2022.
“I’m a little unusual in that I didn’t do any real preparation for the tests,” de Guzman says. “If you watch the show a lot—like you watch it every night or you DVR it and watch on Saturday while you’re folding your laundry—you’re probably in pretty good shape. You have a sense of what it is they like to ask, how they like to ask it, how you go about answering the clues…. I always tell people that if you sit on your couch and find yourself being able to play along, you already have everything you need to try out. I would absolutely encourage everybody to give it a shot.”
While the final rounds of the TOC will air this week, de Guzman says he’s taking a break from game shows for a while. “I’m going to take some time and hang out and then figure out what else is on,” he says.
What’s he doing with the prize money? Last summer he used a chunk of it to visit a friend in Amsterdam and view a retrospective of works by the 17th-century Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer, one of his favorites. Next up, he may visit a cousin in New Zealand and make a few updates to his condo.
The biggest takeaway of all? Be yourself, he urges, whether it’s on TV or in everyday life. “You never know whose day you made just by showing up and being yourself. You don’t know who’s watching and you don’t know who might have really needed you to just show up. That’s really important.”