JEOPARDY! champion Isaac Hirsch has been called out by fans for making a wagering error that nearly cost him the game in tonight’s nail-biting Tournament of Champions standoff.
Despite making the potentially costly blunder when he did the math wrong during Final Jeopardy!, “luck” was on Isaac’s side as he ended up snagging a ToC victory against two tough adversaries.
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The customer support team lead from Burbank, California collected a whopping $120,187 last July after he won five consecutive games.
On Wednesday’s episode, he went up against fellow season 41 returning champs Amy Hummel, an ER doctor from Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Mark Fitzpatrick, a content manager from Riverside, Connecticut.
In an attempt to start the game swinging big, Isaac bet it all on a true Daily Double after he found the first coveted clue.
Under the category “Elemental Names,” host Ken Jennings read: “According to a study published in 2016, this venomous pit viper was responsible for 39% of snake bites on U.S. kids.”
Isaac failed to answer with “what is a copperhead?” – leading to a $3,200 deficit.
Despite the loss, he regained the lead heading into the Double Jeopardy! round with $5,000.
Amy was close behind with $4,000 while Mark remained in third with $1,200 going into the second round.
Mark was able to get in the game when he doubled his score after finding the second Daily Double.
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Following correctly answering the question under the “Around the World” category, Mark doubled to $8,800 – taking the lead from Isaac.
Isaac quickly gained back his lead from Mark but once again, the standings changed after he found the third Daily Double.
Under the “Movies After You Press Play” category, Isaac’s total once again dropped, this time by $5,000, when he missed the clue.
The incorrect answer made Isaac fall to second place as Mark took over the lead with $18,400 going into Final Jeopardy!
Isaac went into the last round in second with $13,600 while Amy maintained her third-place standing with $5,600.
Ken, 50, then revealed the last category to be “Scientist’ Names” as the players placed their wagers.
“The first man to observe bacteria & protozoa had a name containing the Dutch word for this much bigger creature,” Ken read as the final clue.
Only Isaac was correct with the answer of “What is a Lion?” – boosting his score $4,000 to win the game with $17,600.
Mark dropped $8,801 when he got the clue wrong while Amy nearly bet it all – leaving her with just $1 by the end of the game.
Fans pointed out that although Isaac’s wagered would put him $1 ahead of Mark if he got the question right and bet $0, he didn’t correctly do the math to beat out Amy if she had replied to Final Jeopardy! accurately.
Jeopardy! Universe
Jeopardy! first aired in 1964 until 1975. Then the nighttime version began in 1974. Since then, many spinoffs of the game show have emerged. Here they all are:
Jeopardy! – (syndicated) 1974 to present, weekdays on ABC at 7 pm ET.
Tournament of Champions – 1984 to present, features the top champions who have appeared on the show since the last tournament.
Second Chance Tournament – 2022 to present features hand-selected non-winners from the season prior, where the prize is entry into Champions Wildcard.
Champions Wildcard – 2023 to present, features all one, two and three-day champions from the season prior worth entry into the Tournament of Champions.
Jeopardy! Invitational Tournament (syndication) – 2023 to present, features past greats invited by producers to vie for a slot in Masters.
Jeopardy! Masters (primetime) – 2023 to present, features the six highest-ranked Jeopardy! champions competing against each other.
Celebrity Jeopardy! (primetime) – 1992 to present, has celebrities compete against each other to raise money for charity.
Pop Culture Jeopardy (streaming) – 2024 to present, will feature teams of three tasked with pop culture trivia on Amazon Prime, hosted by Colin Jost, airdate TBD
Jeopardy! has done away with specialized tournaments like its College Tournaments, Kids Week, and Professor’s Tournament to gear towards a more sports-like model, with Masters being the top of the Jeopardy pyramid.
Other versions of Jeopardy! have fizzled out throughout the years as well, like Sports Jeopardy!.
“I was also rooting for Isaac and I’m glad he won (though it felt a bit like luck due to a wagering error? work on that math, Isaac!), but Mark continued to impress,” one person said.
Explaining the error further, another viewer wrote: “He unnecessarily brought Amy back into the game by wagering too much on FJ.
“If Isaac had missed and Amy was correct, Amy would have won due to Isaac’s overbet. With a smaller bet Amy would have been shut out and Isaac would only need Mark to miss in order to win.”
In another comment, also added: “The other part of the error was 4,000 was not enough to cover passing a zero wager by Mark.
“So Issac should have gone smaller, but if he wasn’t going to do that, he should have bet at least enough for force Mark to bet something and be correct to beat him if Issac was correct.”
While another congratulated the champ: “Im really happy Isaac won, great game from him, very unlucky with the DDs!”
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