Jeopardy!‘s second (of two) Second Chance finals series began on Thursday (January 9) night’s episode, and at least one contestant is publicly hanging his head over his performance in that game.
Sam Cameron, a finance manager from North Dakota, took to Reddit to share his disappointment with his gameplay, writing, “Uffda! Sorry for stinking up the stage this match! There is a lot I could say about this game, but instead I’ll just offer you this New Year’s wish: may your most cringe-inducing moments not be similarly captured on National TV this year.”
So why was Cameron so hard on himself? Let’s take a look at what happened.
In the game, he went toe-to-toe with Florida student Enzo Cunanan and Hawai’i-based journalist Drew Goins. For the Jeopardy! round, things got off to a sunny enough start for Cameron — until he found the Daily Double, in the category “All Around the U.S.,” and didn’t know that Pikes Peak is the attraction Colorado Springs boasts to be “America’s Mountain.” That mistake cost him dearly, as he lost a whopping $3,800. And even though it was the only question he got wrong, by the end of the round, he trailed Cunanan’s $2,400 and Goins’ $1,200 with just $400.
In the Double Jeopardy! round, Goins discovered the second Daily Double and capitalized on that. (In the category “Word History,” he correctly identified Oxbridge and Camford as university name mashups coined by William Makepeace Thackeray and added $2,800 to his tally.) But when Cameron found the third Daily Double, he was evidently still burned by his mistake in the first round because he wagered just $100 and then got it right. (In the category, “Classic TV,” he knew that Oz was HBO’s first original hour-long drama with the tagline, “It’s no place like home.”)
“My jaw dropped in that category when Sam only bet 100 bucks on the DD — not even enough to get out of the hole,” one fan commented in response to the wager on the Reddit thread. Another justified the decision, though, writing, “Because the 1200 and 1600 clues in that category were both triple stumpers, so he had every reason to think that he wouldn’t know the 2000 clue either.”
By the end of the second round, Cameron was still well behind with $1,700, trailing Cunanan’s $13,600 and Goins’ $10,400, but he managed to make up some major ground in Final Jeopardy.
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The clue of the day, in the category “Animals in Science,” was, “The first mammal species sent on a rocket to space, it’s perhaps more famous for an antigen in its blood.” Both Cameron and Cunanan correctly identified the rhesus monkey (or macaque) as the answer, while Goins answered incorrectly with mouse. Cameron doubled his score to end with $3,400, while Goins ended with $5,000 and Cunanan led the pack with an impressive $21,800.
There’s still another day to go, so we’ll have to wait and see whose two-day cumulative score carries them to the Wildcard event to join the first Second Chance winner Will Yancey.
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