Unfortunately for Ben Chang, closing doesn’t count when playing Jeopardy!
De Pere’s assistant professor of philosophy at St. Norbert University ended his nine-game winning streak with a loss on Tuesday’s video game show.
Chan had entered before “Final Jeopardy!” Who is that?” he wrote.
But the correct answer was the characters Beatrice and Benedick.
With one letter wrong, Chan bet $12,201 out of a total of $17,400, losing out to Lynn Di Vito. Lindy Vito bet less, even though she got the answer wrong. DeVito won $11,800 of the $14,800 he bet only $3,000.
Realizing that he had lost, Chan let out a deep sigh and crouched down to the podium.
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Chan wrote on Reddit, “It was so close!” He blamed the mistake on a bad flashcard he made.
“Misspelling ‘Benedict’ is common and is reflected in some of my flashcards. (Note: Misspelling is on Irene Frank’s spellcard.)” at the tip of the tongue, What a serious J! If you’re a geek, you’ll know it as Karl Kolyat’s favorite),” he wrote in his thread, under the handle JeopardyBenBen.
In the written response, Benedict was struck out and rewritten. Another Reddit user asked why it was crossed out.
“I was worried that my first Benedict would be hard to read. It should have been harder to read: 0,” he replied.
Chan won $252,600 during his nine win streak, all of which were solo wins. A runaway win is when a contestant is so far ahead that the next closest contestant has no way of catching up, even if in the final he bets all the proceeds on Jeopardy.
Chan has qualified for the Tournament of Champions later this season.
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In addition to the incorrect answer in Final Jeopardy!, two incorrect answers to the Daily Double question also cost Chan a lot.
He tried to make it a true daily double, which cost him $4,200 in the first round. This put him back to zero after building a $3,800 advantage.
A second mistake cost $3,000 in double jeopardy. He tried to win back the lead from Di Vito, a former museum educator from Colorado.
Otherwise, Chan got 27 correct, while Di Vito got 14 and the third player, Danny Letherman, policy communication manager at Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., got 9 correct.
“Ling played the perfect game!” Chan wrote on Reddit. “I’m especially happy because she’s a very knowledgeable fan of the show.”
While on the run, Chan won three episodes that aired in April, but later tested positive for COVID-19 and was unable to travel for filming. He returned on the May 15 episode and continued his winning streak until he was defeated on Tuesday’s episode.
Please contact Kevin Dittman at 920-431-8416 or kdittman@gannett.com.
