"It was a pretty close call," he said. "If you didn't respond within two days, they gave your spot to someone else."
Knobler was mailed a plane ticket to Seattle, where the competition was being held on September 15 and 16. He was given a $200 stipend for travel expenses, as well.
Knobler said the atmosphere on the show was competitive, but friendly.
"Certainly no one was dead set on winning, or at least they hid it very well," he said of his fellow contestants.
Once on stage, Knobler described the experience as "very surreal." "When you're up there, everything just becomes a reflex...it is quite a weird feeling," Knobler said.
Knobler made it through the two semifinal rounds in Seattle to the finals. In the final rounds, he said the competition became fiercer.
"I knew just as many questions as before [in previous rounds], but the buzzing was much more intense," he said. The competitors had to wait for host Alex Trebek to finish reading the question before a light appeared, signaling that they could buzz in.
"It basically became a test of psychological reflex to the light," Knobler said.
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