Today’s (January 23, 2012) Jeopardy champion, just after the first commercial break, tells Alex Trebek he is a Life Master. His name is Kirby Burnett, from Prior Lake, Minnesota.
However, I cannot find that name in the player / rating lookup. Does anybody know anything about this person?
Nice try, but no cigar. The conversation with Alex Trebek went like this:
Trebek: Kirby Burnett is a poker dealer from Minnesota and a Life Master in chess.
Burnett: Yes, that’s right.
Trebek: For some reason the two don’t seem to go together. One is very intellectual, and one is more risk-taking.
Burnett: Well, I think they’re both pretty tough schools. In poker, the real skill is in managing your luck, whereas in chess, it’s head-to-head competition, it’s more – there’s a lot of fighting spirit involved there, too.
It’s possible that he is Kevin Burnett, who is a life master from Iowa (inactive since 1999) and Kirby is either his nickname or changed name, or he has been inactive so long that he does not show up in MSA.