We’re back in the Jeopardy! Greatest of All Time tournament groove with Match Two, which reunited us with our smart-guy trio — Ken Jennings, James Holzhauer, and Brad Rutter — as they continued to respond to extremely difficult clues in the form of questions. (Seriously, test to your luck with the trickiest of ’em here.) While Holzhauer ended up as the match’s champion by a solid margin, the entire hour served as an enjoyable à deux challenge between him and Jennings, while Rutter, once again, acted as the runt of the intellectual litter. Here’s a recap of what you need to know from Wednesday.
First Place: James Holzhauer, 82,414
Holzhauer only led Jennings by a modest 4,314 with the first game, but, after not landing on any Daily Doubles during the inaugural match on Tuesday, finally found his sweet spot: Betting every single one of his points when he found those DDs on the board. Holzhauer added a formidable 38,100 in the second game, bringing his total to 82,414. He was also the only person to answer the second Final Jeopardy question correctly, which involved a meeting of two very famous (and very short) 19th-century leaders. Okay, we’ll give you the clue to ponder, just for fun:
Tall, lanky Joel Barlow was an ambassador carrying messages between these two world leaders, both mocked for being short.
Second Place: Ken Jennings, 57,400
Jennings, who borrowed Holzhauer’s signature all-in-poker-chips hand movement for his Daily Double wagers (“He now owns 10 percent of whatever you do,†Rutter joked), played as solid of a match you’d expect from his cucumber-cool reputation: He ended game one with 40,000 and ultimately finished the match with 57,400, which was due to his incorrect Final Jeopardy! answer about the aforementioned 19th-century chaps.
Third Place: Brad Rutter, 14,400
Things couldn’t have gone worse for Rutter throughout the match, which culminated in the second game with a negative number of points: Thanks to a quick sequence of incorrect guesses, he couldn’t participate in Final Jeopardy with his -3,600 sum. His final total, 14,400, solely came from the first game. (One positive thing was that Rutter, after failing to answer all three of his Daily Doubles last night, got his one of his Daily Doubles tonight correct! But the other one … nope.) He also had to be reminded of his portlier past, when Alex Trebek jokingly commented on how much he’s physically changed throughout the past two decades. “You kept winning more and more money,†Trebek noted, “as you were losing weight.â€
VIP: Ken’s doodles
It’s facing the wrong way, but we’ll let it slide.
Honorary GOAT: The Simpsons
Those writers really do predict everything, don’t they?