Some Jeopardy! viewers have been left questioning the sport’s guidelines after two contestants completed with tied scores behind the day’s winner, however one was then adjudged to have completed 2nd and the opposite third.
The surprisingly uncommon occasion occurred on the finish of the Monday, November 11 episode which featured one-day champ Rachel Marcus, a author and marketing consultant from New York Metropolis, dealing with Chris Spencer, a medical author from Washington, D.C., and Joey DeSena, a growth engineer from Raleigh, North Carolina. After nabbing all three Each day Doubles, DeSena stormed to a close to runaway by Ultimate Jeopardy. He had $18,200, Spencer had a decent $9,400, and Marcus was proper behind at $8,000.
The “nineteenth CENTURY AMERICA” Ultimate Jeopardy clue was, “It brought on wealthy amusement that the identify of this President, whose spouse didn’t enable dancing, was just like that of a dance. It was a triple-stumper as nobody got here up with the proper response of “James Ok. Polk.” Ken Jennings quipped, “Polk couldn’t polka,” explaining the reply.
DeSena dropped simply $703 to win and grow to be the brand new champ with $17,497. However right here’s the place issues bought fascinating. Marcus and Spencer each practically went all in, so each have been left with $1, grinning on both aspect of him. Marcus was named 2nd place and she or he bought a comfort prize of $3,000, and Spencer was named third place and given $2,000.
Followers took to social media, confused how the standings and comfort prizes have been determined since they completed with the identical rating, some questioning if it was as a result of Spencer was the returning champion.
“Rachel and Chris have been tied at $1. Why did Rachel win the second place prize?” one fan titled a Fb submit in a Jeopardy! fan group.
“Defending champion,” claimed one other, as a 3rd joked, “Possibly they flipped the coin?” Others chimed in to share the longstanding rule: the placements are then primarily based on essentially the most cash earlier than Ultimate Jeopardy.
“If two gamers find yourself tied for second place on Jeopardy!, the cash is decided by taking a look at their scores going into the Ultimate Jeopardy spherical,” a fourth consumer wrote. “The contestant with the upper rating earlier than the ultimate query will formally be awarded second place, which means they obtain the upper money prize related to that place.”
“As a result of she was forward of Chris going into FJ,” surmised a fifth.
“Alex [Trebek] talked about this rule quite a bit throughout its first 1984-85 season,” wrote a sixth. “If two gamers are tied for second, after Ultimate Jeopardy!, whomever was main on the finish of Double Jeopardy! will obtain the 2nd place prize.”
Others nonetheless weren’t happy and questioned if the rule may very well be lifted or amended.
“Jeopardy! couldn’t afford to provide each of them the $3,000?” requested a further fan within the thread.
“They might pool the $3,000 and $2,000 money prizes, and provides them $2,500 every?” theorized an eighth.
“Give them what they earned,” roared one other. “The runners-up are nonetheless getting ripped off. Not honest in any respect.”
“Fascinating,” another fan wrote. “To me each ought to have received $2,500 because it’s concerning the last rating not how you bought there.”
What do you assume? Ought to each gamers be given the identical comfort prize and each named runner-up on this situation? Or is that this a rules-are-rules scenario? Tell us within the feedback part!
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