Jeopardy!‘s Second Probability finals kicked off on a really, very promising notice for one of many contestants returning to the Alex Trebek Stage in Thursday’s (January 2) episode. The 2-day, whole level competitors leg featured the return of newly-minted Second Probability champions Kaitlin Tarr (a ceramic artist from Colorado), Colleen Matthews (a speech-language pathologist from Oregon), and Will Yancey (a historical past lecturer from Texas). And it was the latter who grabbed and maintained many of the momentum all through the complete episode.
Within the first spherical, Yancey discovered the Each day Double actually shortly within the “King James Bible” class and wagered the total $1,000 he was in a position to with solely $600 in factors in his stash (and on the board in any respect). In response to the clue, “And there was conflict once more: and David went out, and fought with” this group, “And slew them with a fantastic slaughter,” Yancey appropriately deduced that they have been in search of the Philistines.
Although he didn’t have essentially the most right solutions for the spherical — that honor went to Tarr with 12 to his 9 — he did have the least incorrect solutions and went into the half with $6,400 to Tarr’s $2,800 and Matthews’ $1,800.
In Double Jeopardy, the unfold grew to become much more pronounced. Early on within the spherical, Yancey discovered the second Each day Double and wagered $2,500 of his $7,200 on the then-new “Tributaries” class. The clue was, “A sheepish response is maybe finest for this, the most important tributary of the Yellowstone,” and Yancey as soon as once more acquired it proper by answering with Massive Horn. He acquired over a dozen others right all through the spherical as properly.
By the point he discovered the ultimate Each day Double, he had a whopping $23,700 amassed and risked $3,700. Within the class, “Novel Title, Drop a Letter,” the clue was, “An Edith Wharton novel drops a letter and laughter spews from a tube.” Yancey had no clue, jokingly answering with “Hilarious toothpaste” earlier than host Ken Jennings revealed that it was really, “The Ho[u]se of Mirth.”
That slight drop didn’t make a lot of a distinction, although. Going into Last Jeopardy, Yancey had a runaway rating of $20,000 to Tarr’s $6,800 and Matthews’ $4,200. Nonetheless, it’s the cumulative rating that may make the distinction on this two-day occasion, so the ultimate was of nice significance to everybody concerned.
For the ultimate clue, the class was, “Science: The ____ of ____,” and the clue learn, “4 of those found within the early 1600s got the names of lovers of a mythological deity.”
Just one contestant appropriately recognized “What are the moons of Jupiter,” and that was Matthews, who added $4,200 to her day by day successful for a complete of $8,400. In the meantime, Tarr was method off when guessing, “What are fossils?” and dropped her rating to simply $1. Yancey additionally didn’t know the reply and as a substitute used his screentime to pay tribute to a misplaced liked one (“What’s within the reminiscence of Carey Harden,” he wrote), however he guess $0 and stored all $20,000 of his winnings for the day.
With that, Yancey has fairly a major lead going into the second day of the finals, so he’ll should step on a variety of rakes to lose that lead in Friday’s sport.
In response to the sport, one fan took to Reddit to query the formatting of the Last Jeopardy clue. As one wrote, “I’m actually hesitant concerning the class title (and with it, particular wording). Not as a result of wordplay can’t be a FJ, however as a result of I don’t know anybody who calls them by the _____ of _____ designation,” including, “I really feel like a unique class (heck, use ‘Quartets’ if you wish to stay imprecise) can be higher, and this has an excessive amount of ‘proper however improper’ potential.”
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