‘Jeopardy!’ Fans React After Controversial Yogesh Raut Wins TOC Thriller

Martin Holmes February 29, 2024, 7:36 am

Jeopardy!‘s 2024 Tournament of Champions continued on Wednesday night (February 28) as the divisive Yogesh Raut made his return to the Alex Trebek stage to take on Jake DeArruda and Nick Cascone.

Raut, who won three games during Season 39, drew controversy last year when he posted a Facebook rant about Jeopardy!, referring to the long-running game show as “not important.”

“Jeopardy has not nor will ever be the Olympics of quizzing,” Raut wrote at the time. “Jeopardy is not the problem; its centrality to American quizzing culture is…. There will never be healthy quizzing culture in this country until we can learn to stop pretending Jeopardy! is important.”

Despite his comments, Raut was invited back for the Tournament of Champions, which kicked off last Friday, and he made the most of his opportunity.

The entire episode was a back-and-forth battle, with each contestant dominating at different points. After the first round, it looked like DeArruda would storm ahead, as he stood at $14,400, compared to Raut’s $5,600 and Cascone’s $1,000.

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However, things changed in Double Jeopardy, as Raut picked up a couple of big-value rebound responses after DeArruda’s incorrect guesses. Then, Cascone found both Daily Doubles back-to-back; yet, just like Hannah Wilson in Tuesday’s game, Cascone made a huge wager on the second one, only to get it incorrect and drop out of contention.

Raut picked things up in the latter half of the round, proving to be super quick on the buzzer and answering a total of 17 clues correctly across Double Jeopardy.

Going into Final Jeopardy, Raut stood at $26,800, DeArruda had $14,400, and Cascone trailed with $2,400.

The Final Jeopardy clue (“In 1959 Bob Bartlett & Hiram Fong each won a coin flip to gain this alliterative title”) ended up being a triple stumper, as none of the three players came up with the correct response (“What is senior senator?).

Raut ultimately won the episode with $24,799 and cemented his spot in the upcoming semi-finals.

Fans took to social media to discuss the episode and Raut’s victory, with one Reddit commenter writing, “That was [an] intense game.”

“Jesus. It looked like Jake was going to run away with the game after SJ, and then it looked like Nick was about to steal the game from both players when he found both of the Daily Doubles,” said another. “Then after that, Yogesh went on an absolute tear. All three players would have been deserving winners.”

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Another added, “For a moment there, I thought Jake would have the astonishing accomplishment of being able to beat two of the very best quizzers in the world, but Yogesh proved that he probably has the strongest knowledge base of this field. It cannot be understated that a 26K coryat score in a Tournament of Champions setting (where the material and the competition is much tougher) is seriously impressive!”

“What Yogesh did in DJ was a tour de force,” said one commenter. “I always love seeing that level of elite knowledge and talent rewarded in this game. Was very satisfying to see, without any disrespect or denigration to his fellow competitors. Good for Yogesh, brilliantly played.”

“Fun game with lots of momentum swings. Yogesh put up a monster, all-Coryat score of $26,800,” wrote another. “I suspect that his knowledge base is deeper than most of the field, so the harder TOC boards work to his advantage.”

Cascone himself also commented on the Reddit thread, writing, “Yogesh is just too good on the buzzer. Bad set of categories for me, a TV category and then an actress category. Seemed a little repetitive! Anyway, I met my stretch goal and got to the ToC. Apparently more people have been to space than have made it to this dizzying height!”

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