WARNING: JEOPARDY! SPOILERS AHEAD! DO NOT SCROLL DOWN UNLESS YOU’VE WATCHED THE JAN. 7 EPISODE OR WANT IT SPOILED!
Are we all ready?
Okay.
Tuesday kicked off Jeopardy! The Greatest of All Time, pitting legendary champions James Holzhauer, Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter against each other in a multi-night battle to declare who’s the GOAT of the quiz show hosted by Alex Trebek. After all the joking trash talk and possible leaks, we finally got to the actual games.
Here are the results from Tuesday night — we’ll break it down to the two games the trio played, along with who won the entire first match (and again: SPOILER ALERT! Everything is below this awesome photo of Holzhauer and Alex Trebek):
Game 1
The group was neck and neck after the first round, but Jennings went all-in on a Daily Double in the Double Jeopardy round and nailed it, while Rutter did the same on the other Daily Double and missed it. That left Holzhauer without his best weapon and by the time Final Jeopardy came, Jennings was up to 33,200, Holzhauer had 16,600 and Rutter had 5,200.
The Final Jeopardy category was Presidents & The Bible, and here was the clue:
“Silent” Calvin Coolidge was inaugurated in 1925 on a Bible open to this 6-word first line of the gospel according to John.
All three got the answer: “In the beginning was the word.”
After the first game the scores were:
Jennings: 45,000
Holzhauer: 33,200
Rutter: 10,400
Game 2
Once again, the three were pretty close after round No. 1. But Rutter got two chances at Daily Doubles in Double Jeopardy and missed them both, sending him back to zero twice. Holzhauer and Jennings dueled, with both of them missing answers and Rutter making a furious comeback. By the end of Double Jeopardy, Holzhauer led with 15,000, Jennings was in second with 12,200, and Rutter had 10,000.
The Final Jeopardy category was Astronomers, and here was the clue:
This man’s name was given to a comet that crashed into Jupiter in 1994; he’s the only human whose remains lie on the moon.
Both Holzhauer and Jennings nailed it: Who is Eugene Shoemaker?
Their second-game scores were:
Holzhauer: 30,000
Jennings: 18,400
Rutter: 0
Overall Match winner
Remember, the winner of the night is the total points scored in both games together. So here are the final totals:
Jennings: 63,400
Holzhauer: 63,200
Rutter: 10,400
Ken Jennings took a 1-0 lead over his opponents.
