How Strategy Helped Me Win A TV Game Show

It wasn’t cheating!

I love playing trivia. You don’t have to be smart to be good at it — just have a good memory. I remember everything I learned in primary school, most of what I learned in high school, and not much of what I learned at University. You know that’s when sex and drugs and rock’n’roll took over. Not really, but I did skip a lot of classes to play with the boys — cards — what were you thinking?

Fortunately for me, lots of trivia questions happen to be stuff you learn at school. I started playing pub trivia twenty years ago — sometimes three times a week. I didn’t always win but usually placed and won a voucher for a meal the following week. The real money came with the jackpot. My friend and I won the jackpot three times — $500 twice and a whopping $800 once.

But nothing compared to my win on The Chase. I was one of the first chosen in Australia so hadn’t seen any Australian Chase shows. I loved the English version though I wasn’t very good at it.

I thought it would be fun. I honestly didn’t expect to win. The stats were only one team in eight won against the Chaser. I was flown to Melbourne and taken to Channel 7 studios to tape the show. The team met each other mere seconds before the taping started. I was picked to be first. “Why me?” I asked.

“I can see you’re the one with the most bubbly personality,” the producer replied. How is that important, I wondered, but said nothing.

Then they choose which Chaser we are to face. I had seen Issa and said hi so I was pretty sure we wouldn’t get him because we knew each other from playing pub trivia against each other.

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