‘Jeopardy!’ Tournament of Champions Begins With Stunning Runaway Game

Dan Clarendon February 24, 2024, 1:00 pm

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Ken Jennings, Emily Sands, and Matthew Marcus on 'Jeopardy!' — Jeopardy Productions, Inc.

Host Ken Jennings said this year’s Tournament of Champions games “promise some of the best Jeopardy! ever played,” and Friday’s quarterfinals opener lived up to that lofty expectation.

When it came time for the Final Jeopardy! round, Season 39 six-time champ Suresh Krishnan had a score of $0 and was eliminated from the competition, Season 39 four-time champ Matthew Marcus had a score of $7,400, and Season 37 three-time champ Emily Sands had a runaway score of $21,800. No matter what Matthew wagered, he couldn’t catch up to Emily, who had earned her spot in the ToC with her Champions Wildcard win last year.

Earlier in Friday’s game, Emily bet big during a Daily Double, adding $7,000 to her score by identifying the Capuchins as the order of friars with 3,500 skulls housed in a Roman church.

Suresh, on the other hand, missed two all-or-nothing Daily Double attempts — one involving a “witty city ditty” triple rhyme and another about Wolfgang Petersen directing The NeverEnding Story — and lost a total $5,400.

In a Reddit community devoted to Jeopardy!, fans of the syndicated game show raved over Emily, a project manager from Chanhassen, Minnesota, who now advances to the semifinals.

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“Holy s—t,” one fan wrote. “Emily is so strong. Didn’t show any nerves at all. She seemed more relaxed than many of the filler contestants on Celebrity Jeopardy! It’s not just the knowledge base and buzzer skill, but confidence might play a huge role in this ToC, too. Emily has set the bar high already for the upcoming matches.”

Another Reddit user wrote: “She is strong and not afraid to try to put the game out of reach! Go Emily!”

A third person commented, “Wow, Emily was dominating, and with a smile the whole time, too, lol. Didn’t seem strenuous at all.”

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Suresh entered the thread, too, “Yep. Emily was amazing. She was super fast on the buzzer as well,” he wrote. “I had put in a lot of buzzer practice from the games to now, and it did not help. … I would have regretted not going all in and losing, and that was certain the way Emily was playing. If I had gotten the two Daily Doubles, I would have had a great shot at it. (I knew the [Final Jeopardy!] response.)”

Emily chimed in as well, telling Suresh she was trying to beam The NeverEnding Story “directly into [his] brain” during his second Daily Double.

“You’re the best!” Suresh responded. “It tells a lot about you that you were sending me good vibes on this one.”

Emily also commented on the level of difficulty during Friday’s game. “These were hard boards, to be sure,” she said. “The contestants watching from the green room later told me they were spooked by the level of difficulty.”

Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions, Weekdays, Check Local Listings