‘Jeopardy!’ Fans Ecstatic Over ‘Ice Cold’ Champion Who Just Broke ‘The Curse’
The “curse” is broken on Jeopardy! Throughout the season, fans have noticed that even the most successful champions haven’t been able to get past five wins — until now, that is.
On Wednesday night’s episode, Adriana Harmeyer became a six-game champion in a stunning runaway, leading one former “curse” victim to cheer for her success.
Harmeyer, an archivist from West Lafayette, Indiana, came into the game with a five-day cash winnings total of $116,200 and was the third five-day champion of the season, following Alison Betts and Amy Hummel. She faced a new pair of challengers in Allee Mead, a writer from Grand Forks, North Dakota, and Kyle Sorlie Titlow, a geographer from Washington, D.C.
In the first round, Harmeyer had some solid competition from Mead — the latter was just one answer shy of tying her correct answers score of 10. Ahead of Double Jeopardy, Harmeyer had $5,800 to Mead’s $5,400 (with Titlow well behind at $1,600).
Double Jeopardy, however, was a very different story for Harmeyer. She found both Daily Doubles (and gave modest $2,000 wagers, so that even when she got one of them wrong, she ended up with even money and edged out her competitors for a chance to score big bucks). Plus, she just plain ran the board with correct answers.
Before Final Jeopardy could begin, she’d already had the win in the bag, with $19,400, which was more than double Mead’s $9,400 (while Titlow had just $2,400).
All three contestants got the right answer — Bath was the answer to this clue in the “British Places” category: “This city owes much of its early history to a temple dedicated to Sulis Minerva & a ‘sacred spring’ found there.” But Harmeyer wisely bet just $500 so as not to sabotage her own assured victory, adding $19,900 to her winnings for a six-day total of $136,100.
Weighing in on this big win was Alison Betts, who wrote on Reddit, “Woohoo, she did it, she broke the 5 day curse!!! I would like to nominate Adriana to be captain of the ToC Ateam. (Please do not take this as willingness on my part to play the role of Bosco, I could not rock that hair.”
Meanwhile, another commented that Harmeyer “is making this look easy!” And one fan wrote of her gameplay skills, “Adriana is a sneaky ice cold player. She’s not DD-hunting that much and not very aggressive with her wagering but by the end of DJ, she has a runaway game! Just pure buzzer skill and huge knowledge base. I hope she continues her streak, I would love to see how far she takes this!”
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