‘King of the Nerds’ exclusive: Raychelle Keeling on strategy, Stratego, cosplay, and more
There were times when we thought that Raychelle Keeling could win this season of “King of the Nerds,” mostly because she had some similar attributes to last winners: She was under the radar, good at avoiding Nerd-Offs, and she seemed pretty well-liked in the house.
Interestingly, what eliminated her was mostly that she almost too well-rounded a player. Ben was afraid of her unknown skill set, which is why she was thrown into the Nerd-Off. Then, she had a stroke of bad luck playing Stratego against someone in Lily who actually knew the game really well. Meanwhile, she had to get a crash course on it at the last second, and still had a very good shot at it until she made a couple of errors on the board.
Raychelle gave us some great insight on her game in an email Q&A this week. Take a look at it below!
CarterMatt – One of the interesting comments from last night was Ben saying that you were almost a little too much of a wild-card, since he wasn’t sure how much you knew about given subjects. Was it a strategy of yours to almost hold back on some of your nerdy knowledge?
Raychelle – It was definitely part of my strategy to hold back some of my knowledge. I never see it as a good idea to throw all of your cards on the table in front of other competitors. I wanted to come off as not much of a threat; therefore, people would not think to throw me into a nerd off. This was a great plan throughout the show UNTIL having to prove myself in that individual challenge. :)
We didn’t get a chance to see much of the Secret Six through your eyes. Who were some of your closest allies?
I actually had an alliance with everyone in the house pretty quickly so it was not just a secret 6 thing. Kaitlin and I had talked episode 2 about working together because we got along so well….and as far as being intimidated by Kaitlin, I knew that she would beat me at some things but there was plenty of stuff that I had more knowledge in, so to me, it was smart to keep her around and on my side. As far as the secret 6 go, my bond was definitely with the Team Smash side of things. In particular, I had the strongest bond with Jonathan.
After that Nerd-Off, are you ever going to be able to look at Stratego ever again? Will you forever shake your fist at it when you see it in a store?
I actually quite enjoyed Stratego and will probably play it many more times, just with less stress :):) Of course, I will shake my head at myself for forgetting the goal of the game and getting into my own head! Reality show challenges take a lot out of you and sometimes your mind just goes elsewhere. It is unreal! I literally forgot to just grab her flag and ended up just chasing her astro nerd around the board!
Given that you probably had one of the coolest costumes during that cosplay challenge earlier this season, how much fun was that to be a part of? Is there any particular challenge standout for you?
I definitely loved the cosplay challenge and my outfit that I made! I mean, who else can claim to be a robot character that is also part of the set background, specifically a space ship! It was awesome, but actually the 2 challenges that stood out to me the most was the nerd anthem and the forensics challenge. I have always loved to sing and dance so the nerd anthem felt like home; however, the most important part of the nerd anthem to me was the lyrics. I have felt unaccepted many times and I felt like our anthem would reach out to people who feel the same way and show them that no matter what there are people somewhere that accept them, and they are not alone. The forensics challenge also stood out to me because I have done something similar, and I excel at it.
I asked Colby this, and it would be good to get your take, as well: What did you mean when you said that much of the house wasn’t too pleased to have a Jeopardy champ in the game after he left? Was it commentary on his threat level in the game, or the feeling that he’d already had his metaphorical moment in the sun?
We (or at least myself) really did not care rather or not Colby had “a moment in the sun” before this show. Everything that I felt and said about Colby was strictly strategy. Colby was a powerhouse and very good at EVERYTHING and had knowledge over EVERYTHING. That is a huge threat so of course we all wanted him out! He very well could have easily won that 100 grand. One thing that I will say though, is that Colby did say a few times (even in this interview) that 100 grand would not change his life and that was not true for the others. So a lot of us felt like we would rather see the money go to someone that could really use it to help them achieve their goals.
Since you are the resident gamer this season, this seems like a fun question to end on: If you could have a Nerd War / Nerd-Off themed around one game, what would it be?
FF7. I love this game so very much. I know all the characters, backstories, towns, spells, and secrets. I have played the game at least 7 times all the way through (and it is a long game). It has my favorite materia system which I could talk about for days. Basically I would dominate this so it would be the perfect category for me :)
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Bonus points to Raychelle for saying FF7! Granted, these points are kind of like “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” points and really don’t matter, but points nonetheless!
If you missed it, we dissected some of this past episode and previewed the “King of the Nerds” finale with Zack Storch yesterday, so check that out at this link! Also, sign up now if you want to score some other TV updates on all we cover via our CarterMatt Newsletter. (Photo: TBS.)