Paolo Pasco, a Harvard grad and Jeopardy! phenom, is gearing up for Jeopardy! Masters. And if you think his journey to trivia glory was just about memorizing facts, you'd be missing the delightfully absurd reality of modern competitive quizzing.
Turns out, the secret isn't just knowing everything. It's knowing everything, making epic mistakes, and then knowing even more.
From Mall Food Courts to Master Status
Decades ago, Pasco's mom actually auditioned for Jeopardy! too. Back then, you had to show up in person. Ken Jennings, now the host, once drove 12 hours just to take a test. Today? Pasco took his assessment on his phone, from the bustling, aroma-filled expanse of a mall food court. Because apparently, that's where champions are forged now.
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Start Your News DetoxHe then went on to win seven games and the coveted Tournament of Champions. Now, he's headed to Jeopardy! Masters in August. No big deal, just another day at the office for someone who can recall the capital of Burkina Faso while simultaneously pondering the optimal soft pretzel topping.
Pasco's background as a crossword creator certainly helped him build a formidable mental database. But when he started training for Jeopardy!, he stumbled into a vast, thriving online quizzing universe. We're talking about dedicated competitions like Quizzing in Progress and LearnedLeague, along with entire communities exchanging tips and running practice games. There are even flashcard sets containing virtually every Jeopardy! question ever posed. Which, if you think about it, is both impressive and slightly terrifying.
He wasn't just soaking up knowledge; he was strategically attacking his weak spots. Bodies of water, for instance. He drilled them. His girlfriend even built a website, The Triviary, with curated quizzes specifically to help him. Other contestants use it too, because sometimes, you just need a custom-built quiz to identify the difference between a strait and a sound.
The Accidental Crossword King
Pasco also watched the crossword world explode. He notes the community "blown up," especially after Wordle turned everyone into a daily word sleuth. The American Crossword Puzzle Tournament this year saw so many registrations, they had to close sign-ups two months early. Next year, it's moving to a bigger venue for the first time in nearly 50 years. The demand for well-crafted word puzzles is apparently insatiable.
His timing was impeccable. As Wordle took over the internet, Pasco was already crafting puzzles for major publishers. Outlets saw the potential in "short and casual daily-style games," leading to postgraduate gigs at The Atlantic, LinkedIn, and TED Conferences, where he now reigns as games editor. Because, naturally, the path to a high-powered media job now involves knowing the five-letter word for 'sarcastic remark.'
Pasco still considers himself a relative newcomer to the deep end of the trivia pool. He recently competed in the World Quizzing Championships, where he answered 240 questions. He significantly improved his score but was still awestruck by the sheer depth of knowledge on display, particularly from seasoned quizzers like Victoria Groce.
His biggest takeaway? Making mistakes is the fast track to brilliance. "The best way to learn something is getting it catastrophically wrong somewhere else," he says. So, as he prepares for Jeopardy! Masters, his strategy is simple, if daunting: "just to learn everything." He knows there are levels of dedication to quizzing that would make most of us retreat to a nice, quiet book. But if his Jeopardy! run falls short, at least he always has crosswords. And the satisfying knowledge that he's probably already gotten something catastrophically wrong, and learned from it.
