‘Jeopardy!’ Fans Are Saying Same Thing After Low-Scoring TOC Game

[Warning: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for the Wednesday, January 21, episode of Jeopardy!]

The Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions continued on Wednesday for game three. Fans all same the same thing about the low-scoring game — it was “tough.”

Analytics engineer Ben Ganger from Goshen, Indiana, played against data analyst and college administrator Cameron Berry, from Brighton, Massachusetts, and product service coordinator Bryce Wargin, from Kansas City, Missouri. Whoever won the game would advance to the semi-finals game against the game four winner and Laura Faddah, who received a bye in the tournament.

Wargin got on the board by answering the first clue correctly. Ganger then swooped in and gave the correct response on clue two, which led to him finding the Daily Double on clue three. He had $1,000 in his bank and made it a true Daily Double.

In “19th Century America,” the clue read, “Deposits of this mineral were discovered around 1815 in Ticonderoga, New York, leading to a whole new industry.” “What is quartz?” he answered incorrectly.

“No, you needed to think about Ticonderoga pencils here. What is graphite?” host Ken Jennings said. Ganger dropped down to $0. Wargin retook the lead with $800.

The game went on to have six triple stumpers in the next 12 clues. The highest score was $1,000, which was a tie between Wargin and Berry.

However, the game didn’t get any better when the show came back from commercial. There was a Triple Stumper on clue 16 and two wrong responses from Ganger, which put him in the negatives. However, he quickly recovered, answering three in a row correctly.

At the end of the round, Berry and Wargin were tied again at $2,800. Ganger had $800.

In Double Jeopardy, Ganger fell back into the negatives with three incorrect responses in four clues. Berry found the first DD on clue 11. But, before he could answer, a scoring error for Ganger was corrected as the judges determined the name he said was actually right. That put him in the positive with $2,000.

Berry had the lead with $7,600 and wagered $4,400. In “First of All,” the clue read, “In 1868, this company named for 2 men made the first Swiss wristwatch, for a countess; men preferred to keep White-Rabbiting.” With a sigh, he answered, “What is Victorinox?” but he was wrong. The correct response was Patek Philippe. He dropped down to $3,200, but stayed in first place.

Ganger moved into second place with $4,800 when he found the second DD on clue 15. He made it a true Daily Double in “How Dare You.” The clue was: “Though no one knows the origin of this 3-syllable word for ‘fool,’ one theory involves a familiar Latin phrase meaning ‘not of sound mind.'”

He answered incorrectly with “What is invalid?” The correct response was nincompoop. Ganger dropped down to $0.

The round consisted of six Triple Stumpers and seven incorrect responses, including both DDs. The game ended with totals under $10,000: Berry had the lead with $8,800, Wargin ended with $5,200, and Ganger had $2,000.

“This is our first non-runaway game of the TOC,” Ken Jennings said.

The category for Final Jeopardy was “Old Books.” The clue read, “This 1653 work includes information on the care & use of proper equipment including lines, floats & rods.” It was a triple stumper with none of the game show contestants answering The Compleat Angler.

Ganger’s response was “What is The Art of Fishing?” He wagered $0, ending him with $2,000. Wargin’s response was “What is On Fishing?” He wagered $4,999, leaving him with $201. Berry’s response was “What is The Ideal Fisherman?” He dropped down to $7,199 after wagering $1,601.

Berry advanced to the semi-final game. Tune in on Thursday to see three new contestants compete for the next spot.

Fans couldn’t believe how this game went and called it “tough.” “Well…that was certainly a game,” a Reddit user said.

“D**n, that was a rough toc game. There’s always one like this every toc, so it’s not unusual,” another wrote.

“Congrats to Cameron! that was a tough one,” a third added.

“Today was a tough one!” a fan said.

“Completely shocked at the triple miss on FJ!” one commented.

“After the rocky start, I thought the game would ramp up after the contestant q+a. Then I hoped things would click in double jeopardy. Then no one got FJ. So I’m focusing on a 180 tomorrow,” another wrote.

“Really tough game, the questions were certainly what one would expect from ToC,” one last fan said.