Jeopardy is a game of reflexes and psychology and momentum as much as it is a test of knowledge. It's not about who knows the answer – usually all three of us know the answer – but who can buzz in and spit out that answer the fastest, under pressure. And in that context "Throwing opponents off" is very much the name of the game. The tiny bit of help you get from being the only one to know what clue is coming next, plus the confidence boost you get by "throwing off" the other players by presenting them the clues in an order they didn't expect -- that's invaluable.

The stakes in Jeopardy are really clear. Coming back to play again is so important it outweighs everything else – you still have a better chance to make more money even if you win with $1 (as one champion in Jeopardy history famously did) than if you get sent home with a consolation prize and your Jeopardy experience is over. You shouldn't even think of your score during the game as "dollars", because it isn't dollars, it's points, which only transform into dollars if you win the game. Otherwise, if you get second place, even if the board says you got second place with $49,000 or whatever, that money all disappears and you just go home with the consolation prize. This is something I think a lot of people watching at home aren't clear on and don't remember when they think about wagering.

World capitals, state nicknames, state capitals, the US presidents – those are Jeopardy's favorite categories that they come back to again and again, and you do best by spending your time optimizing your knowledge of those.

Every Jeopardy fan knows what we call "Pavlovs", hints that should immediately make you jump on a specific response. Often that's a combination of a nationality and an occupation; for instance, I got a clue in one of my games based on knowing that if Jeopardy says "Norwegian composer" they mean Edvard Grieg.

You have to give a lot of credit to the sitcom Cheers. Jeopardy strategy wonks call this "Clavin's Rule" after Cliff Clavin. Yes, if you really honestly believe that you're so smart you'll never get anything wrong, you'd just bet all-in on every single bet and maximize your winnings. But I can guarantee that on the off chance you get a total brain-fart on the Final Jeopardy after dominating the rest of the game and you become one of Jeopardy's infamous champions who drops down from the lead to $0 in Final Jeopardy and goes home with the consolation prize, you will feel a LOT worse than if you won the game but get ribbed for "not winning by enough". I think everyone who's seen that episode remembers Cliff's well of despair and self-loathing in the bar after the show and has sworn that no matter what else we screw up, we won't be THAT guy.

Jeopardy on the set is not like in your living room. Knowing the answer is not the game, winning the buzzer race when everyone knows the answer is the game. And winning the buzzer race is purely a matter of psychology and nerves.

I did get pep talks from Maggie Speak, the contestant producer, trying to shake me out of my shell and get me to be a little warmer and more engaging out there, but she also never made me feel bad about the fact that I was playing to win or tried to guilt trip me out of it, as some have intimated she might. Indeed, at the very beginning of our contestant orientation, before any of us had played, she said that the game was only interesting if we tried our hardest to win, if we all went out there thinking we could be the next Ken Jennings and really believing we could be.

And even though I was trying to keep my head down during that orientation and not call attention to myself, Maggie looked right at me and said:

Arthur knows what I'm talking about! He just got this determined look on his face. He's going to impress me out there, isn't he?

And, you know, I hope I did.

The haters online are right to an extent. I'm just up there being a machine, playing the game. Mowing through the questions mechanically with this detached mien like a crazy person. That is not the most likable side of me on TV; that's the side of me I had to let out in order to win. (I'm sure that's a theme in the movie Gladiator too, it's been a long time since I've actually seen it.)

And yet. There have been tons of really smart successful Jeopardy contestants. There have been tons of really charming, likable Jeopardy contestants, even though Jeopardy as a whole is kind of a haven for awkward nerdy people on TV. (There's even a Tumblr dedicated to finding the best-dressed, most attractive Jeopardy contestants.)

I can't remember the last time I saw ANY of those people, smart, attractive, charming and successful as they were, on the news, having a meme built up around them, being interviewed on Good Morning America, having editorials published about them by past contestants, becoming a hashtag on Twitter...

I'm neither bragging about this nor complaining about it. I don't fully understand why it's happened, but one factor I think is central to it is that in Jeopardy and everywhere else, people claim to be upset by something that shakes things up and introduces conflict and controversy but they also crave it, they're drawn to it.

We love game shows because we want them to be "real", because they aren't cast with trained actors with rehearsed lines and well-developed roles, but because the cast comes from the rank and file of ordinary people like you, with all the randomness and diversity of the real people in your life, thrust into this very high-stakes situation and forced to react on the fly. We watch game shows and reality – or at least I watch game shows and reality shows – in the hopes of seeing something different than what we see all the time in scripted TV, something strange, something that reminds us that people are more diverse and complicated than our preconceptions allow.

Am I making too much of it? Perhaps. But there's a narrative that's been spinning out based on my play on Jeopardy that would never have arisen if I'd done a better job of being a well-dressed, charming and "normal" Jeopardy contestant. Tons of people on both sides are putting all this projected emotion onto me because of what I happen to represent to them – all because I was just a regular guy without a publicist who was responding organically to the incentives the show laid out for me. To me that's TV magic, that's ratings gold, that's what everyone who creates game shows and reality shows should hope for.

And so I can't really regret it. Yeah, a lot of people who know nothing about me hate me for no rational reason but a lot of people who know nothing about me love and admire me, also for no rational reason. It's gotten me a way way bigger fifteen minutes of fame than I ever expected or that any Jeopardy contestant realistically expects. God willing there'll be some longer-lasting opportunities that come out from it but even if they don't, this has been one crazy awesome ride.

• Editor's note: this essay has been condensed from answers Chu provided to an email interview to a reporter.