Jeopardy Second Chance Tournament Recap, Conclusion
Week 2 Finals Summary and the Lineup for Champions Wild Card
Today marks the end of the Second Chance Tournament. On Monday the next phase of the Jeopardy postseason — Champions Wildcard — begins. After the recap I’ll begin the official roster of who will be competing in during the next two weeks but for now let’s go into the official recap of the 2 Game Final.
Game 1
The Jeopardy round started out fairly even with all three players. At the first break Enzo and Sam were tied for the lead with $2400, twice Drew’s total. Late in the round Drew found the Daily Double in ALL AROUND THE U.S. Hoping he didn’t regret it, he bet the $3800 he had. He would very quickly do so:
“Colorado Springs’ website for this nearby attraction dubs it ‘America’s Mountain.” Sam guessed Devil’s Peak, instead of Pike’s Peak. He dropped to zero. It was very close at the end of the round: Enzo lead with $3600 to Drew’s $3200 while Sam was at $400.
Things very quickly got worse for Sam in Double Jeopardy though they weren’t really going well for anybody at first. By the time Drew found the first Daily Double he was ahead almost by default with $4000 to Enzo’s $2800 and Sam’s nothing. He wagered $2800 in WORD HISTORY:
“William Makepeace Thackeray coined both of these mashups of 2 top British Universities.” Drew almost ran out of time before he gave the correct response: “What are Oxbridge and Camford?”
Most of the rest of the round was a back and forth between Enzo and Drew for the lead. Sam got to the other Daily Double in CLASSIC TV and by that time he was at –$800. This was not a category he was comfortable with: he just bet $100:
“It’s no place like home” was a tagline for this series about prison life, HBO’s first original hour-long drama.” Sam knew it was Oz. He managed to get back on the plus side with $1700 by the end of Double Jeopardy, well behind Drew’s $10,400 and Enzo’s $13,600.
The Final Jeopardy category for Game 1 was vague: ANIMALS IN SCIENCE. “The first mammal species sent on a rocket to space, it’s perhaps more famous for an antigen in its blood.”
Sam’s response was revealed first. He wrote down: “What is a rhesus monkey?” That was correct (the Rh factor in blood is named for him.) Sam did what he had to and bet everything.
Drew wrote down: “What is a mouse?” It cost him $5400.
Enzo could have been penalized for being too specific: “What is a rhesus macaque?” Fortunately for Enzo the rhesus monkey is a macaque.” He added $8000 to his total.
At the end of Game 1 Enzo had a significant lead over his challengers with $21,600 to Drew’s $5000 and Sam’s $3400. He had a big lead but as we’d seen the previous week, anything could happen in the second game.
Game 2
Drew got off to a fast start in the Jeopardy round. He’d already amassed $3800 when he found the Daily Double in PLAY (In this tournament, it was next to PLUG.) With a lot of ground to make up he had little choice but to bet everything:
“This play describes Laura Wingfield as having a ‘fragile, unearthly prettiness.” Drew struggled with this before guessing: “What is Doll’s House?” It referred to, in fact, The Glass Menagerie. He dropped to zero. As a result Enzo would regain the lead and maintain for the rest of the round, finishing with $4600 to Sam and Drew’s $2200 apiece.
Drew got to the first Daily Double in Double Jeopardy on the fourth clue of the round. Yet again he had $3800 when he found it in BEGINS WITH A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT: “A breach or infringement, the U.N. has a process to file human rights ones.” It took him a moment before he said: “What is a violation?” (starts with viola) and he took the lead with $7600.
He then went hunting for the other Daily Double and for three clues no one rang in with a correct response. Therefore he was eligible for it when he finally reached it in MOVIE TAGLINES:
Ken: What are you thinking?”
Drew: “I’m pretty bad at math, so…True Daily Double.”
There was laughter and applause.
“2010: ‘You don’t get to 500 million friends without making a few enemies.” Drew knew it was The Social Network and had officially quadrupled his total.
But his comeback was not the only one in this game. Sam was just as sharp as Drew was and though he didn’t find a Daily Double he had the best play of all three finalists in Game 2, 21 correct responses and only one incorrect one. Enzo by contrast struggled mightily giving only eleven correct responses and four incorrect ones. Three of them came in Double Jeopardy.
Therefore at the end of the round there had been an even more dramatic reversal than we saw in last week’s Game 2. Drew was in the lead with $18,400, Sam was next with $16,600 and Enzo was in a distant third with $3000. And unlike last week, all three players had a chance to win the finals.
The category for Final Jeopardy was NOTABLE AMERICANS: “Saying he fell in love with his country while a prisoner in someone else’s, he dedicated the rest of his life to public service.”
Enzo’s response was revealed first: “Who is John McCain?” That was correct. He wagered all but a dollar putting him at $5999. His two day total was now $27,999.
Sam’s response was revealed next. He didn’t have it. “What is Lafayette?” He lost $7801 which dropped him to $8799. His total was now $12,199 and he was eliminated.
It came down to Drew. He had also written down John McCain. He bet very big: $13,201. That put him at $31,601 — which was already ahead of Enzo’s two-day total. Combined with his $5000 the previous day he had officially won $35,000 and advanced to Champions Wild Card.
In all my years of watching Jeopardy tournaments I have rarely seen a comeback as remarkable as the one that Drew Goins’s waged to win his spot in Wild Card. The closest that comes to mind is Buzzy’s Cohen’s coming back from zero at the end of the first game of the 2017 Tournament of Champions to win the entire tournament after a remarkable performance in the second game. To say that Drew made the most of his Second Chance is more than mere hyperbole.
On Monday Champions Wildcard begins in earnest. Here is the complete roster of the fifteen players who will be competing in it for the last spot in the 2025 Tournament of Champions:
Eamonn Campbell — 2 Games, $43,200 (Season 41)
Paul Clauson — 2 Games, $36,300 (Season 41)
Jen Feldman — 2 Games, $27,850 (Season 41)
Evan Dorey — 1 Game, $29,200 (Season 41)
Joey DeSena -2 Games, $44,698 (Season 41)
Jay Fisher — 3 Games, $28,200 (Season 40)
Adam Hersh 1 Game, $29,000 (Season 41)
Davey Morrison — 2 Games, $29,012 (Season 40)
Aiden Orzech — 2 Games, $49,599 (Season 41)
Stevie Ruiz — 2 Games, $35,987 (Season 41 — Last Official Qualifier)
Marko Saric — 2 Games, $26,600 (Season 40)
Mehal Shah — 2 Games, $$46,062 (Season 41)
Will Weiss — 2 Games, $27,600 (Season 41)
Will Yancey — Second Chance Week 1 Winner
Drew Goins, Second Chance Week 2 Winner
As a fan of Jeopardy I will criticize it was does something I feel is wrong and praise when they show signs of progress. Having now seen the official roster of the Champions Wild Card as well as their plan for how Second Chance will work I will now officially praise the producers for having learned from the mistakes of last year’s postseason and have clearly learned the correct lessons.
First there is now the fact that both Will and Drew will have to play in Champions Wildcard to earn the single slot still available in the 2025 Tournament of Champions.(I’ll be going over that prior to the TOC which will be just as two weeks.) As I said in the first entry in this series they’ll have to prove they can make it — and as observers will have noted in my recaps both of them have to an extent.
Second unlike last year when the Wild Card for both rosters was so diluted it became meaningless the producers have made solid choices by exclusion. Where last time every player who won a game seemed to earn a slot all of the Wild Card Tournaments the producers are far more selective. You will note, with just two exceptions, all of the players involved have won two games and in the case of many of them they won more in two games than quite a few of the three game winners who have already earned spots. Adam Hersh and Evan Dorey are the exceptions and their respective one day totals are the most money won earned in a game in Season 41 so far. Jay Fisher is somewhat questionable but his three day total is very low and considering it’s less than both Evan and Adam’s one day totals there’s a certain logic to not given him the same invite to say David Erb.
And last and on a personal level given the immense difficulty of clues in Season 41 so far I find it a lot harder to say any of the players haven’t earned their opportunity to come back. With Season 40 it is a closer question but as you’ll note not a lot of them are from that season.
So good job everybody connected with the show and I’ll be with you next Friday with my reports from the quarterfinals.