At the 14th annual MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference Friday morning, Jennings sat down with FiveThirtyEight founder Nate Silver to discuss the classic game show and his record-setting 74-game winning streak. In their hourlong conversation, Jennings dished on his experience as well as the preparation behind his success.

“Nobody knows if they’re good on ‘Jeopardy!’ until they go on ‘Jeopardy!’ ” Jennings said. “People are just scared [expletive] and rightly so. The longer you’re there, you’re getting a little more comfortable.”

So, what exactly did he do leading up to his first appearance back in 2004?

At home, Jennings would watch “Jeopardy!” standing up behind his recliner, which was about the same height as the podiums at the production studio. He also utilized his 2-year-old son’s Fisher-Price Rock-a-Stack toy, sans plastic rings, as a makeshift buzzer because the diameter of the pole roughly matched that of the buzzer.

Jennings would watch multiple episodes in a row to develop stamina because “Jeopardy!” films a week’s worth of shows in a single afternoon. (The contestants change their outfits in between tapings.) His wife, Mindy, would keep score for him.

“Playing ‘Jeopardy!’ is nothing like watching it,” Jennings said. “Watching ‘Jeopardy!’, it seems like a sedate, polite experience.”

From his practice, Jennings learned he was answering about 76 percent of “Daily Double” clues correctly, which is higher than average, so he felt comfortable betting large amounts.

He later learned that “Daily Double” clues are not placed randomly on the board, which meant contestants could specifically hunt out those opportunities to cash in. According to Jennings, the “Daily Double” clues are most often found in the third or fourth row and to the left.

“A human physically looks at the gameboard, reads through some clues, sees what kind of clues might be ‘Daily Double’ friendly, and marks it,” Jennings explained. “They’re trying to scatter them, but attempted randomness is not actually randomness.”