[Warning: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for the Wednesday, February 18, episode of Jeopardy!]
The Jeopardy! Invitational Tournament is slowly coming to an end. The finals began on February 18 and one contestant ruined their chances of winning the first game when they went all in on their Daily Double wagers.
Roger Craig, Andrew He, and Long Nguyen are the last three standing in the JIT. The first contestant to win two games becomes the champion. They take home $150,000 and advance to the upcoming Jeopardy! Masters. However, Masters has not yet received an official pickup for another season.
“Their journeys on the Alex Trebek stage could not have been more different,” host Ken Jennings said. “But, now they’re here with the same goal: be the first to win two games and thereby become our JIT champion.”
The game started out with a Triple Stumper for the contestants. Craig, from Johnstown, Pennsylvania, and He, from Concord, California, battled it out for first place in the first half of the round. By clue 15, Craig, an applied scientist, had the slight lead of $3,800.
During the interviews, He, a stay-at-home dad, revealed that he watched a YouTube video years ago of Craig talking about his Jeopardy! journey and it inspired him to audition. Nguyen almost gave up on Jeopardy! career and focused on playing pickleball. When he received the call to come back to the JIT, he had to cram what would have been two years of preparation into five weeks. Craig shared that he was happy to help He, but he just hoped He would never beat him in a game of Jeopardy!.
“Well, we’ll see what happens!” Jennings laughed.
On clue 19, He found the Daily Double. He pulled into first place with $4,800 and wagered everything in “A Good Old Job.” The clue read, “The name of this profession is also the action done by the worker who pulls a handle to make fizzy nonpotent potables flow.”
“What is jerk?” He answered.
“Can you be more specific?” Jennings pushed.
“What is a soda jerk?” he answered correctly, giving him $9,600.
Despite Craig running the Sports category, he couldn’t catch up to He, who ended the round with $10,400. Craig had $5,800. Nguyen, from Las Vegas, Nevada, ended the round with $1,600.
In Double Jeopardy, Nguyen, a retired engineer, found the first DD on clue one. He wagered the allotted $2,000 in “People of the World.” The clue was, “The name of this profession is also the action done by the worker who pulls a handle to make fizzy nonpotent potables flow.” Nguyen got the clue right with “What is Nigeria?” giving him $3,600.
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He still had the lead of $14,800 when Nguyen found the second DD on clue 11. Nguyen had $6,800 in his bank and wagered all of his money. There would be a small margin between him and He if he got it right, but if he got it wrong, Nguyen would drop down to $0. He was zero for two in the category, but decided to go for it anyway.
“I hate this category,” Nguyen said. “But, we gotta do it all.”
In “Idioms & Expressions,” the clue read, “To insist on a point until people start to doubt you & it is to do this, spoken by Queen Gertrude in Hamlet.”
“What is ad nauseam?” he guessed. The correct response was, “The lady doth protest too much,” so he dropped down to $0.
“A lot of game left to play. This isn’t over,” Jennings said.
Nguyen only answered four clues right and one wrong, which wasn’t enough to even get into second place. He ended the round with $2,000. Craig had $10,600. He was in first place with $16,400.
The category for Final Jeopardy was “American Authors.” The clue read, “She wrote the foreword for a 1971 cookbook sponsored by the Jackson Symphony League.” The correct response was Eudora Welty, which none of the three game show contestants got right.
Nguyen answered, “Who is Angelou?” He dropped down to $67 after wagering $1,933. Craig wrote, “Who is O’Connor?” He wagered all of his money, ending with $0. He’s response was “Who is Flagg?” He wagered $4,801, ending with $11,599.
That gave He one win under his belt. He beat Craig after all. Tune in on Thursday to see if he sweeps the competition.
Jeopardy!, weekdays, check local listings, stream next day on Hulu and Peacock
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