We are now one full month into Season
43 of Jeopardy. Unlike last season which began guns blazing with seven game winner Paolo Pasco who would eventually
finish with the most dominant Tournament of Champion performance in the current
(and perhaps former) format, this season has opened at a more typical and
measured pace. We've seen quite a few interesting things happen during the
first month, some of which were genuine historic.
For example last Wednesday viewers
witnessed only the seventh regular player, to game to end in a Tiebreaker round
and the first since Season 40 when Drew Basile would use it to continue his
remarkable run on Jeopardy. In this case Ron Clarke managed to end Greg
Monson's already impressive three game run in a way that will earn him a place
in Jeopardy lore – and almost certainly assure him a return in next year's
Jeopardy Wild Card Tournament.
On a separate note to this point
Jeopardy is going through a fascinating period. Ever since Ben Ganger won five
games in the final week of April of 2025 we haven't had a single player who has
won exactly five games. To be fair we've had a lot of players who've won
considerably more than that - as
we all know we minted a near record number of super-champions in Season 42 –
but oddly enough no one has won exactly five games since then. This pattern has
essentially continued throughout the first six weeks of Season 43: Matthew
Riggle and Rian Robertson each won 4 games and will be returning for the 2028
Tournament of Champions but we still
hadn't managed that many.
This week it looked like that might
change. It started with what was by far the most exciting game of the new
season as Frank Merchlewitz – who had nearly had a tiebreaker situation last
Friday – defended his title against Aster Wise and Anthony Cantor, a television
and podcast producer from Toronto. The Jeopardy round was a back and forth
between Frank and Anthony with Frank finishing in the lead with $9600 to
Anthony's $6000 while Aster had $3200.
Early in Double Jeopardy Anthony took
the lead and found the first Daily Double in LITERARY TITLE CHARACTERS. With $11,200
he made the biggest Daily Double wager of the season betting everything he had:
The title character of the
second-published in 'The Chronicles of Narnia' , he's the rightful heir to the
throne." Anthony
knew it was Prince Caspian and jumped to an incredible $22,400 early in the
round. He held that lead almost until the end of Double Jeopardy until Frank
found the other Daily Double in BY THEIR HATS SHALL YE KNOW THEM.
Frank had $16,800 to Anthony's
$26,800. So he then broke the record Anthony had just set by wagering
everything he had:
His porkpie hat was on a 1948 cover of
Physics Today & faithfully reproduced decades later on film.
There was a long pause. Finally Frank
said: "Who is Oppenheimer?" He was correct.
The scores were impressive when the
round ended. Frank had $34,400, Anthony had $27,200. Aster, stuck between them,
had $6000. Both Anthony and Frank had gotten 21 clues correct but Frank had
gotten just one incorrect response to Anthony's two.
The Final Jeopardy category was MOVIE
PROMOTIONS. In 2001 20th Century Fox used a Coast Guard helicopter
to 'rescue' a prop before a homecoming at this company's Chicago HQ.
Aster's response was: What is a car?
She lost $5000.
Anthony was next: : What is Wilson?"
As Ken said "The movie was Cast Away,
it was Wilson the volleyball returning home to Wilson Sporting Goods.
Anthony added $10,000 to his total, giving him $37,200.
It came down to Frank. He wrote down:
"What is McDonalds?" He went big wagering $20,001 and Anthony won
with the biggest one day total so far this season.
For the rest of the week Anthony
managed two small runaway victories and on Thursday managed a narrow win despite
getting Final Jeopardy wrong. (It's possible his opponent Christine Bobal will
be given a Second Chance; Carson Davis, who was the only one to respond
correctly definitely will.) So yesterday he went up against Shannon
Leigh Goodwin and Ajin Tee to try and win his fifth game.
It looked early on like it would be
his day: Shannon got off to a fast start in the Jeopardy round and was ahead
with $7200 to Anthony's $4000 and Ajin's $1800. But Anthony had come from behind
yesterday so it wasn't impossible. And again early in Double Jeopardy he did
manage to take the lead back getting up to $9200 before he found the second
Daily Double in 5-SYLLABLE WORDS. He bet big $6000:
Wild fluctuations in the market
getting you anxious? It's just this, from the Latin for 'to fly'. Anthony couldn’t come up with anything
and neither could I; it was volatility.
By the end of the round he had $8000
to Shannon's $12,000 and Ajin's $3200. He'd gotten 21 correct responses but
he'd gotten six incorrect; while Shannon had gotten 17 correct responses and
not missed one. But the fact is even had he gotten the Daily Double correct it
wouldn't have matter because of how Final Jeopardy went.
The category was PULITZER-PRIZE
WINNING FICTION. Inspired by the story to tell similar ones, Taylor Sheridan
wrote the foreword to the 40th anniversary edition of this novel.
Ajin wrote down: "What is On
The Road?" He was wrong. He lost $3000.
Anthony couldn't come up with
anything. However he bet nothing.
Now Shannon mentioned in her interview
that among the shows she worked for over the years was Taylor Sheridan's Yellowstone.
So it might have given her an insight. I didn't need to work for him to
figure it out what she came up with: "What is Lonesome Dove?" I
knew that Sheridan basically writes modernist westerns and McMurtry was one of
the most famous western writers of the 20th century. Shannon added
$4001 to finish with $16,001 and made her a deserving champion.
We'll have to see if Shannon can
succeed where others have failed in winning five games. (Or more, of course,
that would be good too.) As it is we now
have three four game winners who are officially qualified for the next Tournament
of Champions:
Matthew Riggle: $95,602
Rian Robertson: $64,101
Anthony Cantor: $77,199
It's conceivable Greg Monson, who won
$60,300 will be invited back as well, but there's a long way to go so I won't
count my chickens before they're hatched this year. Still we've already had
some thrilling games and big payoffs even if we have yet to crown a super
champion or even a five game winner.
I'll see you next in November when I
suspect the various rosters for the Second Chance and Champions Wild Card will
be revealed. Stay tuned and remember if
you leave comments, you won't be penalized if they're not in the form of a
question. (I'm sorry, I couldn't resist.)
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