Jeopardy! fans ‘surprised’ as judges allow incorrect answer despite ‘strict’ rules

JEOPARDY! viewers were caught off guard by a rare, lenient ruling during a crucial Daily Double on Monday’s episode.

The judgment call favored one of Adriana Harmeyer’s challengers and nearly ended her astounding 14-day winning streak.

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The West Lafayette, Indiana archivist , who has been on quite a roll, took on Ty Patton and Kelsey Kaunisviita Vockrodt.

In the Double Jeopardy! round, Ty found the last Daily Double in the “LABOR UNIONS” category.

He had $5200, Adriana $15,000, and Kelsey $200 with very few clues left.

He wagered nearly everything, and Ken Jennings presented the clue.

It read, “In 2024, Jalen Reeves-Maybin, president of this union, said he’d like to see all stadiums switch to natural grass.”

Ty responded, “Um, the ‘NFL Players Union?'”

Ken swiftly allowed it, “That is correct,” elaborating that the response the game show was looking for was actually “the NFL Players Association.”

“Much higher game all of a sudden,” the host added.

Suddenly, Ty had $10,200 to Adriana’s $15,000, so it was indeed a big shift in the game.

‘I WAS LIKE, WHAT?’

Fans took to Reddit after the episode aired, sharing their thoughts on the ruling.

“I was surprised they accepted Union instead of Association for that third Daily Double,” one fan wrote in a game thread.

“I know. I was like, what? They are usually strict,” a second fan wrote.

Ty chimed in to explain that he was surprised as well.

“Honestly … me too,” he wrote. “And I only said that because ‘union’ was in the category’s title. That’s why I’m not too salty on some of my other ‘almost’ corrects. It evened out.”

Another fan asked him, “Did they pause and go to the judges? Seemed like Ken quickly accepted it, but I know how good they are at editing stoppages out.”

“They did not,” he wrote back. “No pause. At the time nothing felt odd about it at the time, but watching it, I could see a scenario in which it is not accepted.”

A last fan pointed out that the score swing also change the game from a runaway for Adriana to a much tighter match.

“[Adriana] had this game handsomely in the bag until Ty grabbed $5,000 on DD3. It ended up way closer than it had to be.”

Thus, Adriana didn’t have a runaway going into Final Jeopardy – she led with $16,200, Ty at $13,400, and Kelsey at $2,200.

Both she and Ty aced the movie-related final clue, and Ty while finished with $26,799, the champ added $10,800 to win $27,000.

“That is just barely enough!” Ken admitted as Adriana beamed at her incredible 14-day total of $326,000.

IN THE DARK

During the same match, fans call out an “atrocious” open-ended clue that even host Ken struggled to explain.

In the first round, Ty finished off the category “Human Race” for $1,000.

The clue read, “Using animal fat and sticks, a team of Spanish researchers tried to solve this kind of obvious question about cave paintings.”

“What is ‘how did they paint them?” he responded.

Ken told him that his answer was incorrect and Kelsey buzzed in.

“What is ‘What kind of paint did they use?'” she said, in a questioning tone.

Ken tried to explain the correct answer, but even he had trouble doing so.

“They used animal fat and sticks to try to get some illumination in there,” he said.

“The question is, ‘How did they paint in a dark cave?'”

Reddit users called out the show for the confusing question that seemingly wanted a full sentence.

“Anyone else hate that cave painting question? It seemed really clunky and hard to tell what they were looking for as a response,” one fan asked.

“Yes, it was atrocious. Even Ken couldn’t really articulate the correct response well,” a Reddit user replied.

“The biggest problem is there are several answers that could’ve fit there in addition to the one they were going for. Both of Ty’s and Kelsey’s worked. The clue said this ‘obvious’ question. It wasn’t very obvious if none of the three players got it and two offered other plausible answers,” said another.

“Yeah I agree. Sometimes there are clues like that where the answer is some weird almost sentence that they are looking for,” a third added.

Another fan joked that maybe the clue was written in the dark, referring back to the answer.

“That was horrible lmao, really hoping they don’t do anything that clunky in the future,” said another.

SLAY-DRIANA HARMEYER

Meanwhile, Adriana first arrived on May 31’s episode and has held court all of June, making her Season 40’s first super-champion.

Fans are going wild, as it’s been nearly two years since there’s been a 10-plus-day winner, the previous being 13-day champ Ray LaLonde .

Adriana’s 14th win meant she’s outplayed Ray and now has the longest streak since 21-day champ Cris Pannullo in fall 2022.

However, Adriana plays nothing like Cris, who went a vicious 48 for 49 on Daily Doubles.

Instead, Adriana has an old-school strategy that sets her apart from all other streakers in the post-Holzhauer era.

She is a rare, top-down player who refuses to hunt for Daily Doubles.

She’s only found 14 of the 39 hidden clues in her streak, and she doesn’t bounce across the board to find them.

She relies on pure knowledge, going an astounding 305 correct and 33 incorrect on clues overall and 11/14 on Final Jeopardy.

“Adriana is a sneaky ice-cold player. She’s not DD-hunting that much and not very aggressive with her wagering, but by the end of DJ, she has a runaway game!” one fan recently wrote on Reddit.

“Just pure buzzer skill and huge knowledge base. I hope she continues her streak, I would love to see how far she can take this!”

On the Inside Jeopardy! podcast, staffers also talked about Adriana’s refreshing, old-school style .

“Yeah, we haven’t really had someone who’s played as straight-ahead. I know Alex [Trebek] would have loved a player like Adriana.”

“Because there was nothing he appreciated more than a player who took a category in order.”

“It has been refreshing to see this and to watch her be so successful in doing it, and wanted to know what a category means before she gets to the heart of clues.”

The other qualifiers for the next Tournament of Champions (all female) are five-day winners Alison Betts and Dr. Amy Hummel and Celebrity Jeopardy!’s Lisa Ann Walter .

That said, with four wins, Grant DeYoung and Amar Kakirde will likely join in as well.

‘WRONG’ ABOUT STEREOTYPE

In a new interview on Monday, Adriana spoke on her newfound TV fame.

She blasted the stereotype surrounding her home state of West Virginia.

Adriana spoke to The Parthenon about the Appalachian stereotypes surrounding education.

“They’re wrong, like, they’re completely wrong. I personally don’t see any reason to let things stop me,” she said.

The unflappable Adriana will go for her 15th win on Tuesday’s episode, leaving more and more power players in her dust.

Jeopardy! airs at 7 pm Eastern on ABC – check your local listings.

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