It would be nice to know how Watson would perform in a final jeopardy like format. But from the perspective of AI research, isn't the really important thing that Watson can answer Jeopardy questions on a level roughly comparable to (very very talented) humans? Winning is just icing on the cake.

P.S. Are any of Jennings, Watson or R.whatshisname? good enough that they could just buzz in on every question and end up with a positive score? I read speculation that Jennings was intentionally buzzing in before he'd confirmed that he knew the answer, just for the sake of beating Watson to the punch.

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Occupy Babel!

In buzzer competitions you usually want to buzz in before you know the answer. Then you figure it out while they call on you.

That's true, but there's still some variable under the player's control here. There are questions where none of the players buzz in. They're obviously waiting for some information, at least in some categories (perhaps Jennings decides he's going to buzz in every time on the category "Biographical Facts Concerning Jennings").

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Occupy Babel!

IIRC if somebody buzzes in before the (human) person behind the switch decides the question has fairly been asked, they get a 3 second penalty before they can buzz in again. If they try again before the penalty is up, they get another second or two added. Maybe the man behind the curtain was a fraction slow activating the buzzers for a question and everybody's buzzer got locked down?

Actually, I think I remember reading that Watson has an unfair advantage there too; he senses the current when his buzzer is live.