Grand Slam - Random Trivia Answers

• A1) Linguini. Lou Romano provided the chef's voice. Trivia is the core of the first, General Knowledge, round and a significant portion of the final, Mixed, round. In the Grand Slam finals, trivia was also the focus of the additional Contemporary Knowledge round.
• A2) Wild Bill Hickok. The lawman, born as James Butler Hickok, was holding two pairs, aces over eights, in a saloon in South Dakota. The identity of the fifth card is disputed.
• A3) JAVA. The company had been using SUNW, which originally stood for Sun Workstations but later expanded to Sun Worldwide. Sun developed the portable Java computer language in 1995.
• A4) Indian Ocean. The Pacific Ocean lies to the east and the Southern Ocean to the south of the island continent.
• A5) XX. Roman Numerals are a standard Grand Slam category, but contestants only need to know the values (I=1, V=5, X=10, L=50, C=100, D=500, and M=1000) and the order rules (a smaller value on the left of a larger value is subtracted, otherwise all values are added). So LX=60, XL=40, and 60-40=20 gives XX.
• A6) 16.4. Many of the addition and subtraction problems can be solved much more quickly by using a different order. Calculating (11.3+8.8)-3.7 from left to right involves a carry and a borrow, but rearranging to (11.3+(8.8-3.7)) doesn't. Remember the commutative property and convert the minus sign to addition by a negative number if necessary.
• A7) 2. Similar to the above, a simple rearrangement of terms reduces this to a simple division problem. 9x-7=3x+5 becomes 9x-3x=7+5 (subtracting 3x from and adding 7 to each side) becomes 6x=12 becomes 12/6=x, so x is 2.
• A8) 612. There are simple tricks to test for divisibility by the numbers 2 through 12. For the number 9, just add up the digits in the number. If the result is divisible by 9, so is the number. So 412->4+1+2=7 is not. Then just count up, 512=8, 612=9, bingo.
• A9) U. Both Ken Jennings and Ogi Ogas keyed off of the letters E (5), J (10), O (15), T (20), and Y (25), which are the multiples of 5. If you remember EJOTY, you'll know instantly that F is 6, 6+15=21, and the answer is U, the letter after T. Michelle Kitt and Ogi actually memorized all 26 values, practicing translating words into numbers (TRIVIA=20 18 9 22 9 A) until it became automatic.
• A10) (Ulysses) Grant. I don't know any real trick here except to suppress your tendency to split words at the spaces. Scan for words as quickly as you can from left to right as if you're doing a word find puzzle.
• A11) Robin Williams. These are just plain hard. I borrowed this one from Joe Ks site, and browsing through lists like that will help. But if it's an anagram you've never seen before, Ogi Ogas recommends that you "should look slightly to the left or slightly above the word" and "trick you brain into thinking it's reading". Hopefully, the answer will simply pop out.
• A12) Ellen Burstyn. These are simpler than the anagrams above, as the letters are in order, but you still may have to try a few combinations. Start with the first given letter and work to the right: BEL-, BUL-, BER-, BUR- might be enough here. Ogi's anagram technique also applies.

You can also play Grand Slam on the GSN website or try the UK version.

Once again, kudos to Ken Jennings on his terrific tournament. In four games, only Victor Lee lost to the Jeopardy genius by less than a minute. Congratulations to Ogi Ogas for a tremendous runner-up performance and for explaining some of his excellent Cognitive Trix.