Last night was the final round of man vs. machine.  And this round was much more competitive than the previous rounds. 

The round started off pretty much how the previous ones did, with Watson building a huge lead.  But then something cool happened.  Ken Jennings found his mojo and quickly built a nice lead up on both of his opponents and ended up in second place going into final jeopardy.  He could have bet the farm and probably won, but he played for the second place victory.  It really didn’t matter since Watson had built such a big lead in the previous two rounds that neither contestant could catch him.  But if this had been a straight up round, Ken Jennings could have won.  That made it worth watching. Brad’s total score from this round plus the previous rounds was $21,600. Ken finished just a little ahead with $24,000. What about Watson?  The computer finished with an overwhelming total of $77,147

All in all, in impressive display by all involved.  We just wonder how IBM will raise the bar even higher.