Thursday, October 27, 2022

Report on The Jeopardy Second Chance Tournament, Week 2 Finals, Part 1: A Sensation Rises

 

 

The first week of the Jeopardy Second Chance Tournament demonstrated just how much the first group of players deserved their second chance. The second week has actually given us something that I’m not certain the tournament needed, but absolutely couldn’t hurt – a breakout sensation.

On the last day of Season 37 Matt Amodio faced his first real challenge as a Jeopardy super-champion by Nicole Neulist, who fought him to a near tie before getting Final Jeopardy wrong. (Matt got Final Jeopardy right, so it didn’t make much of a difference.) Nicole used her prize to money to make a change to her life, and Nicole changed a name to reflect a non-binary lifestyle to Rowan Ward. I can not state this with certainty but Rowan may be the first non-binary contestant in Jeopardy’s history.

I would not care about this if Rowan was not a very good player, and that is one thing they definitely have proven to be, as well as exceptionally enthusiastic at their job. In the third and last semi-final match, Rowan utterly dominated fellow contestants Do Park and Nikkee Porcaro from beginning to end, dazzling Ken Jennings with their willingness to go ‘all-in’ on a Daily Double when it served their purpose (even if it seemed it wouldn’t) Rowan walked to the biggest runaway in this entire tournament, and finished with the highest winning total of any semi-final game in this tournament.  I am not inclined to pick favorites but going into tonight’s final Rowan looked like the most obvious contender.

Sadie Goldberger was superb in her semi-final appearance and Jack Weller played very well in what turned out to be a (much closer) runaway game, but I still truly believed going in Rowan had the best chance. And Rowan proved my confidence was not misplaced.

Almost from the beginning of the Jeopardy round, Rowan was in complete command. They got off to a quick start, helped by finding the Daily Double on the sixth clue of the game by which point Rowan already had $3800. They wagered everything on THE ANIMAL KINGDOM: “Males of these mammals engage in bouts called necking to establish a social hierarchy.” Rowan knew it was giraffes and went up to $7600. Neither Jack nor Sadie could make up much ground the rest of the way (Sadie was in the red much of Jeopardy round only working her way to zero on the very last clue) and Rowan had $11,800 by the end of it.

Paradoxically, the person who did the most damage to Rowan in Double Jeopardy was Rowan. They found the first Daily Double on the third clue of the round in THE SECOND CHAPTER. Rowan bet big again - $8000- but it worked against them.

“’Ralph says, “We’ve been on the mountain top and seen water all around.”  Rowan was silent before humorously guessing: “What is James and the Giant Peach?” It was actually Lord of The Flies.” Down they went to $5000.

They made up for it by finding the Daily Double on the very next clue in LAKES AND RIVERS, this time betting the $5000 they had left. “This river that flows 2,300 miles before emptying into the Caspian Sea is Europe’s longest.” Rowan knew it was the Volga and jumped back to $10,000.

From that point on, neither Jack nor Sadie had a chance. Rowan’s performance in both rounds could only be described as ‘utter domination.’ They got thirty-seven correct answers and only five incorrect ones. Those are numbers that even the greatest players of all time – the James Holzhauers, the Matt Amodios and yes, the Ken Jennings’ only occasionally achieve. When the round was over Rowan was at an even $30,000 to Jack’s $6400 and Sadie’s $4400. Sadie and Rowan knew that it was going to be tough to make a comeback, but I’m not sure that affected their wagers in Final Jeopardy,

The category was AMERICAN COMPOSERS: “He turned to opera with the 1903 work ‘Guest of Honor’, likely inspired by Booker T. Washington’s dinner at the White House.” Rowan and Sadie knew the correct response: “Who was Scott Joplin?” Jack thought it was Gershwin and lost the most - $3000. Sadie only bet $400 and Rowan bet nothing at all. Going into Game 2 of the final, Rowan is in control of their destiny with $30,000 to Jack’s $3400 and Sadie’s $4800.

I have to say that this may be the one point where Alex Trebek’s absence is sorely felt.  At points like this in every tournament, no matter how wide the margin between first and third could be: he would say: “The person in a distant third often comes back to win the second game and then the whole tournament.” The long-time viewer knew better (Alex himself knew that as well) but whenever he said it, his gravitas could carry the day. Ken said the same thing too both at the end of the first game of the final this week and last week, but it’s a lot harder to buy coming from him because given his history on the show, we know he know he knows better.  He’s been in too many special tournaments before he retired from playing to know very well just how hard it was for his opponents to come back when he was leading them $40,000 to nothing at the end of Game 1 – or by contrast, when he was trailing that badly to James Holzhauer in a similar situation.

But this is Jeopardy and you never know. We’ll certainly see at the end of tomorrow’s final when I report the results.

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