JEOPARDY! champion Isaac Hirsch has slammed the show after it shared a social media post that hit a little too close to home.
The game show‘s account on X, formerly Twitter, posted a tidbit about the longest initial runs players have had just days after Isaac’s elimination.
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“Fun fact: No one has EVER won exactly 10 games in their original run on Jeopardy! Isn’t that weird?” the show asked on the social media platform.
Isaac, who was eliminated one game shy of a 10-game win streak, replied in the comments.
“Yes, very… weird,” he wrote.
His run as Jeopardy! champ ended on July 16 after his ninth win due to a math mistake on his part.
Going into the game, fans felt Isaac was a shoo-in to hit game 10, possibly even going on to win more games.
He amassed an impressive $215,390 as the reigning champ from July 3 until his loss.
In the game, he faced off against Erika Stromerson and Jay Fisher, who has since gone on a win streak of his own.
Isaac’s troubles started early in the game as he stumbled into last place after struggling with a $3,000 fish Daily Double.
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Jay stormed ahead with $7,000, Erika had $600, and Isaac had just $400.
“You are in third place, I believe, for the first time in your run,” host Ken Jennings pointed out.
During Double Jeopardy!, Isaac’s woes continued when he found two Daily Doubles back-to-back.
He missed the second Daily Double, worth $5000, but was correct on the next one and made a cautious bet just under the allotted amount.
He and Jay duked it out for a while and Isaac landed in a close second place going into Final Jeopardy with $15,300 and Jay sitting at $16,200.
The category in Final Jeopardy was “1960s People,” and the clue was, “He said that California prison psych tests he took were ones he had designed, so he made himself look docile and unlikely to escape; then he did.”
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, host and 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!.
No one correctly guessed Timothy Leary and as the results were revealed, Isaac realized an even bigger mistake.
He accidentally over-wagered with $14,000, which dropped his total score to $1,300.
Jay wagered $14,001, which made him the new champ with a one-day total of $1,799.
Isaac did a 360 at his podium, holding up his pink wagering scrap paper to the camera.
He appeared shocked to realize the amount was too much to win if he guessed incorrectly, which he did.
‘BAD MATH’
After the game, Jeopardy! fans flocked to Reddit to discuss the events of the episode including Isaac’s shocking loss.
“Ah man, I’m disappointed that Isaac lost, but at least he’ll be back on the TOC,” one fan posted on the forum.
“Rough day for Isaac, but the fatal blow came when he made a fatal wagering error in the Final Jeopardy,” wrote another fan.
“Had Isaac wagered any amount less than $13,500. He would have won.”
Isaac himself weighed in on the Reddit thread, owning up to his mistake.
“Okay, so why did I wager $14,000? The short answer is I did the math wrong (Although I guess it’s kind of obvious based on how I spent the first minute after the game looking at my scratch paper in horror),” he explained.
“I was trying to subtract 14,401 from 16,200, and somehow came up with 1300 instead of 1800 as the number I needed to arrive at if I got it wrong, hence the 14,000 wager.”
He went on to say that the on-air blunder was brutal for him, adding that it was all he’ was able to think about afterward.
“I spent the weeks after the taping seeing the bad math in my sleep. I remembered basically nothing about most of the games last week, but EVERYTHING about this game,” he continued.
“All credit to Jay, who absolutely murdered me on the buzzer, especially in the first round. This was bound to happen – I barely survived yesterday and I was just really, really tired.
“It’s been a fun experience watching these air back and I appreciate how nice people have mostly been to me. I’ll have a lot to prove in ToC.”
Isaac concluded, “Not least that I can do basic arithmetic.”
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