JEOPARDY!'s latest Champions Wildcard episode couldn't have been wilder as, after a giant lead change, the top two contestants overplayed their hands.
Kit Sekelsky was the only player not to go all-in on a Triple Stumper Final Jeopardy! question, winning out of nowhere.
Jeopardy!’s new-to-Season-40 Champions Wildcard tournament for brief winners from Season 37 or Season 38 had a zany third act on Wednesday.
Henry Rozycki, a neonatologist and author from Richmond, Virginia, faced Kit, a freelance graphic designer from Kent, Ohio, and Leah Caglio, a librarian from Phoenix, Arizona.
By Double Jeopardy, Leah had the momentum with $7,000, while Kit had $4,200, and Henry (who said he sometimes “dreams about" host Ken Jennings) just $800.
It seemed like it was Leah’s game when, with two full categories left, neither Daily Double had been found.
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Henry found one, allowing contestants to answer alone and bet however much they choose, going all in and doubling up to $5600.
More sweat-inducing was that the last Daily Double wasn’t found until the very last clue and the contestants were frenzied trying to find it.
“Bring it,” Henry said, channeling his inner Sam Buttrey when selecting the last clue, knowing it would be there. He boldly decided to bet all but $100, or $8300.
Under "SAINTS GO MARCHING IN" it read: “In 1979 John Paul II made this animal-loving saint the patron saint of ecology.”
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Henry was correct with “St. Francis of Assisi,” as Ken, 49, ruled: “That’s correct, wow! You have the lead at the last minute.”
'IT'S GOING TO COME DOWN TO THIS'
Going into a tooth-and-nail Final Jeopardy, Leah had $15,400, Kit had $10,600, and Henry suddenly had $16,700.
The clue under: “WASHINGTON D.C.” read: “It was proposed in Congress in 1926 in honor of a big 150th anniversary; it opened 17 years later.”
The correct answer was: “The Jefferson Memorial,” but no one was correct so it all depended on wagers.
Kit played it safe, only betting $5000, leaving her with $5600.
However, Leah went all in leaving her at $0.
Henry, who put himself in the lead just moments earlier, then had to reveal his wager.
“What did you wager, Henry? It’s going to come down to this… all of it!” Ken prompted.
Henry revealed he also went all-in and dropped to $0 as someone whispered “Oh my god” and the crowd gasped.
Ken concluded: “He goes down to zero as well. Kit, from third place, you just became our semifinalist!”
Kit covered her face in shock as her opponents clapped, and she was deemed the winner, one step closer to the four-leg special's prize- $100,000 and a ticket to the next Tournament of Champions.
FANS REACT: 'WHAT A GAME!'
Fans were floored by the rollercoaster episode and debated how the two leading players bet.
One Reddit internet user wrote: “WOWIE! I LOVE how this game played out!"
Another wrote: “I will just say strange game."
A third wrote: “Wowzers what an ending! Congrats to Kit. That ending is yet another example of how important it is to study FJ betting strategy."
A fourth wrote: “What a shocker," and a fifth: “Awful wagers."
A sixth wrote: “Still trying to make sense of an all-in wager from first place."
Yet another person posted: “Irony – 'Kit named her dog after Cliff Clavin from Cheers,'" referencing the winner's earlier story. "She was the one contestant who didn’t go all-in. Good for her.”
Someone else argued: "FJ Betting Strategy Rule #1: Going all-in from the lead in a tournament never, ever makes sense. Rule #2: Going all-in from 2nd in a tournament only works when you have less than two-thirds of the leader."
One more viewer wrote: "Leah made a big wagering error by not just betting to cover a double up by Kit, which cost Leah the game in the end given Kit's big bet."
Leah replied on Reddit: "I have no excuse aside from thinking, 'Whee, I want to bet it all!' in the moment, tbh..."
Nine-time winner Ben Chan wrote to Kit in the thread: Congrats! Supremely entertaining show."
TRAPPED IN TOURNAMENTS
Champions Wildcard replaced regular programming as Jeopardy! execs didn't know how long Hollywood's strikes would be.
However, now that the strikes are over, fans are getting impatient since Wildcard is expected to wrap up on December 18, and the tournaments don’t end there.
The game show will then move into its originally scheduled post-season tournaments, including another Second Chance tournament (for Season 39 non-winners) and a Champions Wildcard (for brief Season 39 winners).
Then comes the 2023 Tournament of Champions, followed by the new Jeopardy! Invitational Tournament, which sees producer-picked players from the show’s past competing to be in the next Jeopardy! Masters.
Producers Michael Davies and Sarah Whitcomb Foss previously confirmed this means new contestants won’t return until at least April 2024.
“Our number one, sort of, imperative right now is to get the post-season back on track,” Davies said on the Inside Jeopardy! podcast.
“And then after that, our regular season, as many weeks as possible of the regular season after that post-season.”
“I do want to assure everybody, we are going to get to multiple weeks of regular Virginia, new contestants who have never been on the Alex Trebek stage before,” he continued.
“We’re going to get to that at the end of the season. We should have at least 16 weeks.”
Not all fans are sold on the schedule overhaul as one person wrote on X: "Please bring back regular jeopardy!!!!!!"
"This is lame. I want real Jeopardy! back," wrote another.
"Absolutely. So tired of recycled contestants," wrote a third, a fourth wrote on Reddit that we're "trapped in tournament hell."
“This is definitely an old person complaint, but when the heck will Jeopardy! have NEW contestants who have never been on the show before? It seems like these tournaments of previous contestants have been going on forever,” wrote another.
However, as other fans have explained, the seemingly endless tournaments are justified to an extent.
Jeopardy! felt it "wasn't fair" to have new contestants during the WGA strike since the show has been relying on recycled material.
The TOC was also delayed when many former champs boycotted competing while the strikes were ongoing.
Mayim Bialik, 47, walked out back in May in solidarity with the strikes, and Ken has been the sole host ever since.
Bialik's return date is still unknown even though the strikes are over.
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The last time Jeopardy! aired a non-tournament episode was the Season 39 finale in late July, when Lucas Partridge won his third game.
He, along with Mayim, will most likely be back in April, 2024.
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