Here’s All of Ben Chan’s Record-Breaking Stats on ‘Jeopardy!’
[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for the May 23 episode of Jeopardy!]
By being one letter off on the answer to May 23’s Final Jeopardy, Ben Chan’s nine-game Jeopardy! run has come to a close.
Although many fans online called the ruling from the judges harsh and that Chan was robbed of his streak, he was still able to leave his mark with his impressive run, breaking records and securing a place in the Tournament of Champions.
According to the Jeopardy! subreddit, Chan has ten games, nine wins, and nine runaways under his belt, making it the seventh longest consecutive runaway streak after host Ken Jennings, James Holzhauer, Matthew Amodio, and Amy Schneider. Chan also has the longest consecutive runaways from a debut game, a first from any contestant in the show’s history. The post explains Ben received this history-making news after the show.
Ben’s game is on 🔥🔥🔥 Wouldn’t you agree? #Jeopardy! pic.twitter.com/qmtuCsjDFB
— Jeopardy! (@Jeopardy) May 22, 2023
The original poster of the stats, AMileFromTrebekStage, quickly researched who the second was and what the leaderboard looks like – discovering Matt Jackson, Cris Pannullo, and Troy Meyer had four runaways in their first game. Since “no one has achieved the first five-game runaways since the five-win limit was lifted,” the user had to find the info via J-archives.
Chan made it to the thread to divulge the incident, saying his opponent Lynn played a perfect game and that he blames “bad flashcards” for his loss. “The ‘Benedict’ misspelling is common, and it worked its way onto a couple of my flashcards,” he said. “Of note: the misspelling is contained in Irene Franck’s On the Tip of Your Tongue, which serious J! nerds will know as a favorite of Karl Coryat, he also noted.
Along with Dan Pawson, Jason Keller, and Buzzy Cohen, Chan is the 4th player to lose their 10th game and was 8 out of 10 on answering Final Jeopardy correctly. He missed his first Final Jeopardy by one digit and his last by one letter.
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