‘Jeopardy’ Fans React After Ben Chan Breaks Tournament of Champions Curse

Martin Holmes March 6, 2024, 7:47 am

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Order has been restored to Jeopardy!‘s 2024 Tournament of Champions thanks to fan favorite Ben Chan, who won Tuesday night’s (March 5) episode in dominant fashion.

Chan, who won nine consecutive games in Season 39 before a controversial wrong-letter ruling knocked him out, entered the TOC as one of the front-runners. However, so far, this has been a cursed competition for the favorites, turning into the Tournament of Death with Cris Pannullo, Hannah Wilson, Juveria Zaheer, and Ray LaLonde all losing their quarter-final games.

The philosophy professor from Green Bay, Wisconsin, broke the curse on Tuesday as he faced off against Emmett Stanton, a freelance writer from Baltimore, Maryland, and Justin Bolsen, a public policy economics student at Brown University from Canton, Georgia, who won last year’s High School Reunion Tournament.

Chan set the pace right from the off when he clinched a true Daily Double and took an early lead with six correct clues. He continued to dominate throughout the first round, ending with 14 correct responses and $11,400; meanwhile, Stanton stood at $3,200, and Bolsen trailed with $1,600.

In Double Jeopardy, Chan maintained control, finding another Daily Double and adding $4,000 to his total. Stanton had a chance to get back into contention when he landed the last Daily Doube, but he blew it and ended up in the red.

By the end, it was a runaway for Chan, who answered 28 correct clues, surpassing the 300 mark for career correct answers, making him the 38th member of The 300 Club.

Despite not answering Final Jeopardy correctly, Chan won the episode with a huge $29,800 and cemented his spot in the semi-finals, joining the likes of Luigi de Guzman, Yogesh Raut, and Celebrity Jeopardy! winner Ike Barinholtz.

Viewers were super excited to see Chan break the curse and “restore order” to the TOC.

“YES! FINALLY! I’m so ecstatic to see one of my favorites play super well,” wrote one fan on the Jeopardy! Reddit forum. “It was quite refreshing to see a super champ at his level dominate in his QF match, but I expected nothing less from Ben.”

“That was the kind of dominance we expected from most of the other favourites, right?” said another commenter. “Great job, Ben! Very smooth gameplay there, though I think he might have struggled with some of the laughably small pictures of the Jazz legends.”

“Wow, this has got to be the first game where the outcome was, like, totally expected and not an upset or toss-up,” added another. “Congrats to Ben for his 10th victory also being his 10th runaway and for entering the 300 (correct responses) club!”

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“Reminder to everyone that Ben probably could have been a 30+ day champ if he hadn’t written ‘Benedict” instead of ‘Benedick’ in his FJ response,” said another fan.

“Whew. Order is restored, for now,” added another.

Another wrote, “Dominant game from a big-time champion. Ben looked like he hadn’t missed a beat.”

Commenting on the game on TheJeopardyFan.com, Chan wrote, “This just to say — I do love that there are so many J! stats, and the 300 Club is in my favorite stat! Maybe it’s because my baseball fandom pre-dates advanced sabrmetrics, and the 300 Club reminds me of comforting old-timey counting stats.”

If Chan keeps up this level of gameplay, he might be adding 2024 TOC winner to his stats.

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