‘Jeopardy!’ Champ Left ‘Kicking Herself’ After Game-Swaying Moment Shocks Fans

Darian Lusk October 21, 2024, 7:30 pm

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for the October 21 episode of Jeopardy!]

Jeopardy! fans never hesitate to call out a player over an unwise Daily Double or Final Jeopardy wager, and on October 21’s episode, the wager in question wasn’t oversized but of the rarer, play-it-safe variety.

Kelly Gates, a librarian from Medford, Massachusetts, came in as the returning champion after closing the book on three-day champ Rishabh Wuppalapati. She faced Tristan Brown, a re-entry employment advocate from Richmond, Virginia, and Marcus Ghiringhelli, a record store clerk from Portland, Oregon.

Entering with a one-day total of $23,201, Gates was in control by the end of the Jeopardy! round. After slighting Ken Jennings by sharing that she named her pandemic-era sourdough bread starter “Ryan Yeastcrest” (“Sea-crust” was right there!) she led with $5,200, Brown $3,800, Ghiringhelli, having missed the Daily Double had $3,000.

In Double Jeopardy, Ghiringhelli missed the second Daily Double, rendering him all but out of the contest, while Brown lept into the lead. This made things very interesting when Gates found the third Daily Double under the “Nonfiction” category with $7,600 to his $9,400.

Jennings even remarked before her wager: “This has been a strong category for you,” hinting she should go big considering her profession (and that she won her first game off a literature Final Jeopardy clue). However, she only bet $2,500.

Despite getting the “Silent Spring” clue correct, the conservative bet allowed Brown to re-take the lead by the end of the round.

Going into a suddenly fraught Final Jeopardy, Brown led with $14,600, Gates had $11,300 for Kelly, and Ghiringhelli $5,700. The “Italian Words and Phrases” clue was: “This theme tackled in art by Bellini & Michelangelo isn’t explicitly mentioned in the Bible, but is part of the “Seven Sorrows of Mary”.”

Neither Ghiringhelli nor Gates correct, the latter only dropping $500. Brown was the only one correct with “Pieta,” adding a big $8,100 to win and become the new champ with $22,700.

Fans took to the Reddit thread for the episode, with many noting that, even if it likely wouldn’t have impacted the results since the new champ got the sole Final Jeopardy get, Gates should have gone bigger on a crucial Daily Double that was right up her alley.

“Not that it would have changed the outcome (since only Tristan got FJ right), but I really think Kelly should have wagered bigger on DD3–the category was non-fiction books, and she’s a librarian! She had an opportunity to cement the lead going into FJ in a category that plays directly to her biggest competitive advantage,” one fan wrote.

“Completely agree about DD3. It’s rare that the category you get for a DD will align that closely with your strengths,” wrote a second.

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“Don’t know that it would have changed anything, but was very surprised that Kelly, a librarian, put such a small wager on DD3 in a “non-fiction” category,” echoed a third.

Gates buzzed into the thread to write: “I was kicking myself when I got it right, but I don’t read much nonfiction! It makes me feel better that I would have lost in FJ anyway.”

Others congratulated Ghiringhelli on the hard-fought win, one more surmising: “Exciting game! Congratulations to Kelly, Marcus, and Tristan!”

What did you think of Kelly Gates’ conservative DD3 wager in her wheelhouse category? And how did no one know “There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly”? Let us know in the comments section below!

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