Season 40 Crowns Its First Five Day Jeopardy Champions
A Breakdown of Alison Betts: How Her Games Went And Where She Compares in Recent History (Some of It Will Surprise You)
Having spent a considerable amount of time and words trying to bury Jeopardy on Tuesday, I imagine some might consider it somewhat hypocritical for me to praise it on Friday. But one must give credit to where its due and the fact that Jeopardy has it’s first five game winner of the season just six games into ‘regular’ play is a considerable accomplishment. More to the point it is my habit of writing on superb Jeopardy players for this column and few who have watched the show for the past week can denied Alison Betts one of them.
On the second day of Season 40, Jeopardy watchers were introduced to Alison Betts. She gave four correct responses in her introduction and jumped to $9000 at the end of the Jeopardy round. Challenger Brian Hardzinski gained a lot of ground back in Double Jeopardy and it was only due to an incorrect response on the penultimate clue of the round that Allison moved back into the lead. Had she not you would not be reading this article.
In Final Jeopardy the category was SPACE SHUTTLES. “2 space shuttles were named for craft commanded by this man who died far from home in 1779.” Alison knew the correct response: “Who is Cook?” (Discovery and Endeavour) She won $28,600 on her first day and was gracious in victory to her challengers.
Her next two victories were utter runaways and in her first three victories she was averaging $32,500 a win. In her fourth game she got off to another great start and had $6800 at the end of the Jeopardy round.
Then in Double Jeopardy challenger Eric Reimund did something no one had since her first win: got to a Daily Double ahead of. He managed to double his score to $4800 and closed the gap considerably. One clue later, he found the other Daily Double in SAY IT IN SPANISH and then fell victim to one of the oldest rules in Jeopardy:
“A song often heard in Spanish-speaking countries at Christmastime is this ‘Sabanero’, meaning ‘My Little Christmas Donkey.” Eric paused for a long time before saying just as time ran out ‘burrito’. This was the correct response but because he didn’t phrase it in the form of a question he lost $4000.
He managed to make an impressive recovery and on the last clue of Double Jeopardy passed Alison for the lead with $11,600 to her $11,200. It was the first time in her run that she went into Final Jeopardy behind — and that, ironically, may have preserved it.
The Final Jeopardy category was WORDS & THEIR MEANINGS: “Churchill gave this word a new meaning when he called for a ‘talk with Soviet Russia upon the highest level…a parley at” this. Alison guessed: “What is Yalta?” It cost her $1000. Eric had written down: Himalayas?” The correct response was a summit — Churchill was calling a high level conference a summit. It cost Eric all but a dollar. Allison had won with $10,200 and again she was gracious in victory.
Game 5 was a very tough fight for everybody. Alison built an early lead over Vidya Ravella and Jeff Plate but it was not an easy one: there were many incorrect responses and clues that stumped all three players. Alison herself gave eight incorrect answers during the match. At the end of the Jeopardy round Alison was ahead narrowly with $3600 to $2200 apiece for Jeff and Vidya.
Vidya moved ahead on the first two clues of Double Jeopardy. Alison got the third clue correct and found the first Daily Double on the next one in THINGS TO DO IN THE CITY. Clearly uncomfortable with it she still wagered the $4800 she had:
“In June, take in the ‘white nights’ of this city; after 19 hours of daylight, bridges across the Neva are raised at nights so boats pass.” She knew it was St. Petersburg and doubled her score to $9600.
Two clues later Vidya found the other Daily Double in WORDS FROM MYTHOLOGY. She wagered $6000: “This shield or breastplate of the gods now means the protection of any powerful entity.” Vidya struggled before guessing aurora instead of Egypt. She dropped to $600 and would finish the match in the red. Alison managed to play just well enough to finish with $12,800 and lockup her fifth straight win. Final Jeopardy added just $1000 to her final total.
From the start, it was clear that yesterday’s match against Rob Blumenstein and Marko Saric was not going to be a picnic. Alison didn’t help her cause when she found the Daily Double in the Jeopardy round in SECOND CITIES (Each response would be the second-most populous city in its country.):
“The historic site Pedra de Sal in this second city has been called ‘the birthplace of samba.” Alison guessed: “What is Buenos Aires?” It was the next country over: Rio De Janeiro in Brazil. He lost everything she had. She rebuilt quickly and had $2600 at the break and was in the lead with $5000 when the Jeopardy round ended. But Marko had $4400 and Rob had $3600, so it was clear it would be a fight to the death.
Rob got to the first Daily Double on the second clue of Double Jeopardy in 9-LETTER WORDS. He bet the $3600 he had: “This verb can mean to create through skill, or to construct a lie or forgery.” Rob knew it was fabricate and jumped into the lead with $7200.
Three clues later Marko got to the other Daily Double in BOOKS IN HISTORY. He had $6000 and was narrowly in second. “Economist F.A. Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom came out in 1944 when this woman was at Oxford and was a huge influence on her later policies.” Marko knew it was Margaret Thatcher and added $2900 to his score, putting him in the lead.
The rest of the match was fought pretty evenly among all three players. Rob only got ten correct answers and one incorrect one, but that was enough for $9600. Alison got 19 correct answers and three incorrect responses, which put her at $11,000. Marko managed 22 correct answer but also gave six wrong ones, and he finished with a very narrow lead at $12,900. It was anyone’s game going into Final Jeopardy.
The category was an easy sounding one ALPHABETICAL AMERICA. The clue wasn’t even close. “Until Alabama became the 22nd state, this one was first alphabetically.” All three contestants went to the obvious choice: Arkansas. But Arkansas didn’t become a state until after Alabama did. The correct response was Connecticut. So it came down to wagers.
Rob bet $9559, leaving him with $41. Alison wagered $8500, leaving her with $2500. Marko bet $9101, which would have given him enough to beat Alison by $1 had she been correct and wagered everything. Instead it left him with $3799 — enough to win and ended Alison’s streak at five games and $121,500.
Alison could have won if she’d wagered less but Rob’s close third place score forced her hand. Her $8500 was clearly enough to finish ahead of Rob if he wagered everything and she was hoping Marko would make a mistake.
As it is Alison’s five games, while not the record of a super-champion are still impressive. Indeed it’s the most won by any Jeopardy contestant since Ben Chan’s nine day run last May. There were two players in Season 39 who qualified for this year’s Tournament of Champions but each of whom won significantly less money in a similar or even more games. Ben Goldstein won $49,298 in five games last June and Suresh Krishnan won $96,595 in six games. (She was also running dead-even with Matthew Marcus after four games, though he lost in his fifth appearance.) Alison is also the first woman to win five games since Hannah Wilson managed to win 8 games last season.
Going back to Season 38, she also finished significantly higher than Megan Wachspress who won $60,603 in six games and more money than Tyler Rhode who won $10,5901 in five games. And though speculation is the devil’s playground here’s how she was running in comparison to some of Season 38 super-champions after they had punched their ticket into the Tournament of Champions:
Matt Amodio: $147,800
Jonathan Fisher: $117,700
Amy Schneider: $170,400
Mattea Roach: $117,200
Ryan Long: $105,801
Alison Betts: $121,500
I expected her to be running well behind Amodio and Schneider, but her comparison to the other three was a shock
That being said, she compared a lot worse with some of last year’s big winners at a similar point in their run. Here are the biggest winners of Season 39 at Game 5, aside from the ones I’ve already listed (I’ll leave Cris Panullo out of the equation)
Ray LaLonde: $132,200
Stephen Webb: $139,281
Hannah Wilson: $147,801
Ben Chan: $157,000
Troy Meyer: $170,401.
In other words Alison is clearly a very good Jeopardy champion but calling her a great one is hard to say. What is clear is that in her play she was fun to watch, spirited in her banter with Ken, and incredibly gracious in victory. She is the kind of Jeopardy champion the show often produces and who we always need. Whenever the next Tournament of Champions takes place I more than look forward to her presence and I’m sure fans of the show will too.