Final Jeopardy is, of course, an incredible test of a person’s ability to get an extremely difficult trivia question correct, but it’s also a test of a person’s ability to game out how things can go based on certain wagers. It takes some assuming how things will go elsewhere in the game, but making the right bet based on how much money you/your competitors have and understanding your limitations about the topic at hand better than everyone else can tilt the game.
An all-time great example of this occurred earlier in the week, when the Final Jeopardy category was “European Landmarks.” The situation heading in: Tim and Jon, the latter of whom was a two-day champion, were tied at $14,200, while Melis was way behind with $2,000. No one ended up getting the question right, but thanks to Melis making an ultra-savvy bet — both in terms of her dollar amount and her understanding that Tim and Jon had to go for broke due to the fact they were tied — she ended up coming out on top.
From last to first… This is one of the wildest Jeopardy finishes of all-time
pic.twitter.com/t2KlD4QZ2h
— BroBible (@BroBible) March 4, 2021
In a fun twist, a person claiming to be Melis went onto Reddit and explained how things played out, saying that the wording of the question tripped the contestants up and that there was some added drama in the proceedings.
For final J! I discarded the Louvre because of IM Pei, originally thought La Sagrada Familia but knew it had to be French, thought maybe it had something to do with national pride and wrote something incorrect knowing it was incorrect, since my response didn’t matter anyway.
Yes there was a mess up during FJ where Mike couldn’t read Tim’s answer and we had to pause taping a for a good 5-10 minutes before the camera rolled again and Tim’s answer was revealed to be incorrect, increasing the tension even more.
Considering how dramatic this was for those of us at home after it got cut up and aired, another 5-10 minutes to wait seems particularly wild. But hey, to the winner goes the spoils, and that includes getting to flex a bit on Reddit.