JEOPARDY! champ Ryan Manton has been praised for pulling of a rare move that secured the rising star a crucial fourth consecutive win.
However, fans felt “let down” overall by the game and criticized his opponent for appearing like he “didn’t want to be there” and calling out his “nasty attitude.”
The systems administrator from Columbus, Ohio won yesterday’s game by just $1 however, he was able to secure a landslide victory on tonight’s show.
Ryan was up against Emily Stowell-Bui, a children’s librarian from Charleston, South Carolina and Adam Stewart, a power engineer from British Columbia.
The returning champion scored the first Daily Double and increased his prize pot from $1,000 to $2,000.
However, going into the first commercial break, Ryan had just $1,000 and was far behind rival Adam – who garnered $4,400 by that point in the game.
Emily was in third place the whole game and often had a negative score, having -$800 at the first break.
Adam found the second Daily Double about the Archipelagos however, he got it wrong and lost $2,000 – dropping below Ryan.
He pressed his luck again when he found the third Daily Double under the category Possessive Terms and bet it all on a true DD.
“A structure of ropes & wooden steps for ascending a ship’s rigging, or something that appears in Genesis 28:12,” host Ken Jennings read.
Unfortunately, John missed yet again and lost a whopping $6,400 of his prize pot – dropping him far below Ryan’s total.
Going into Final Heading into Final Jeopardy!, Ryan secured $15,800 while Adam was at $2,000.
Emily was still in the red at negative $400 by the last round.
Ken read off the final category, 19th Century Names, and gave the clue: “Shrunken auditory nerves were seen in his autopsy after his 1827 death in Vienna.”
Both Ryan and Adam correctly wrote down Ludwig van Beethoven.
Final scores had Ryan with $15,800, Adam with $2,000 and Emily remained with negative $400.
Fans were proud of Ryan for securing another win and if he scores one more, will have five consecutive wins on a single day of filming the show – a very rare move.
“Congrats to Ryan on win #4! Knock on wood, but if he can win tomorrow, he’ll not only make it to 5 wins, but he’ll have done it in a single tape day. That’s like running a marathon,” a viewer wrote.
‘MISERABLE’ MUCH?
However, some fans were disappointed with the game overall, with one complaining: “Today was a bit of a let down. I did like the flip a letter category!”
“What was with Adam’s nasty attitude? Seemed like he didn’t even want to be there,” a third insisted.
Another agreed, and wrote: “Is it just me or did Adam seem miserable?”
Ryan’s runaway win comes just after he narrowly avoided disaster by winning his previous game by a single dollar.
Jeopardy! Contestant Rules
Passing Jeopardy!’s online Anytime Test is hard enough, but there are also many rules players must follow once they make it to the stage:
- The returning champion is always at the leftmost podium and keeps playing until they lose.
- Contestants don’t have to say “who is” or “what is” in the first round but must do so in Double Jeopardy! and Final Jeopardy.
- Contestants can change their responses as long as Ken Jennings or the judges haven’t made a ruling.
- The minimum wager for a Daily Double is $5. The minimum wager for Final Jeopardy! is $0.
- Written responses in Final Jeopardy! do not have to be spelled correctly, but they must be phonetically correct (the judges decide this).
- If there’s a tie after Final Jeopardy, the tied players enter a bonus clue shootout, and whoever buzzes in first correctly wins.
- If all three contestants wager everything in Final Jeopardy! and are incorrect, leaving them with $0, there will be no returning champion (it’s happened before—six times).
As Ryan headed into Final Jeopardy!, he was nearly eye-for-eye with rival contestant Scott Tcheng after swapping leads throughout the game.
Ryan had $12,400 going into the last round and Scott was just behind with $11,8000.
Ken revealed that the category for Final Jeopardy! would be Science.
“Physicist John Wheeler said he coined this term as a faster way to say ‘completely collapsed objects,’” he read to the contestants.
Ryan appeared to be feeling the heat as he responded with an actual answer for the first time in three games after previously using the opportunity to give personal shoutouts.
He wagered $11,201 and got it correct after he wrote “the black hole” – for a total of $23,601.
Shockingly, he beat his rival Scott by a single dollar – who walked away from the game with a final score of $23,600.
