Three-day champion Troy Meyer returned to Jeopardy! Season 39 to play his fourth game against two new players.
The music executive from Tampa, Florida, was up against Joe Incollingo, a film & TV publicist from Los Angeles, California, and Linda Napikoski, an ESL instructor originally from Phoenix, Arizona.
Explaining the format, the official description of the game show reads:
“The answers are given first, and the contestants supply the questions. Three contestants, including the previous show's champion, compete in six categories and in three rounds (with each round's "answers" being worth more prize money).”
It continued further to say:
“In the third round, ‘Final Jeopardy,’ the contestants can name their own jackpot -- as long as it's within the amount of money they've already earned. If a player finishes the second round with zero dollars, they are eliminated [from the final round].”
Meanwhile, returning champion Troy won three games and scored $97,600. In the latest episode, he defended his win for the fourth time.
Today's Jeopardy! winner is Troy Meyer
Since Ray Lalonde’s exit, the game show has rarely witnessed a player winning four games. Fortunately, Troy Meyer reached the mark in the January 24 episode.
The categories for the first round in the latest episode included “Dante’s Circles Of Hell, Defined, What Season Is It?, Say It With Advertising, They’re Bad In Books, 3.7 Trillion Fish In The Ocean, and Finding Nimoy.”
Troy was leading the game from the first round itself. He gave the highest number of correct answers (17) and banked $10,400, which included a Daily Double as well.
While the returning champion scored five figures in the first round itself, the new players couldn’t surpass the $5,000 mark. Joe Incollingo banked $3,800 by giving seven correct responses, and Linda Napikoski scored $2,600 by correctly answering four questions.
In the second round, the categories were “A Look At Symbols, January In Recent History, Europe A-Go-Go, Pop Culture Goes To Mars, Opera, and Last But Not Least.”
Linda played wonderfully in the Double Jeopardy round as she found the Daily Double. However, she couldn’t come near Troy’s score as he too found a Daily Double and also gave over 17 correct answers. His score going into the final round was $32,800, while Linda banked $10,300. Joe ended up in third position with a score of $7,400.
The Final Jeopardy result was not a surprise to anyone as Troy was already leading the game by a huge margin. In the final round, all three players gave the correct answer to the final question. With their respective bets, Troy was at the top of the scoreboard, followed by Linda in second place, and Joe in third.
Hence, Troy Meyer won Jeopardy! today.
Final Jeopardy! results today
In the January 24 episode, the category for the final round was “Foreign-Born Authors,” and the final question, in the form of a clue, stated:
“In the 1950s the New York Times said this author ‘is writing about all lust’ & his lecherous narrator ‘is all of us’.”
The correct answer to the final clue was “Vladimir Nabokov.”
All three players delivered the correct response and won their respective wagering amounts. Take a look at the final results of the January 24 game, hosted by Ken Jennings:
Troy Meyer: $32,800 + $7,200 = $40,000 (Who is Nabokov?) (4-day total: $137,600)
Linda Napikoski: $10,300 + $4,501 = $14,801 (Who is Nabokov?)
Joe Incollingo: $7,400 + $5,000 = $12,400 (Who is Nabokov?)
Troy won his fourth game and scored over the 100 thousand mark. After today’s win, he became the candidate for the Tournament of Champions 2023.
Meanwhile, the four-day champion will return to defend his win in the next episode. The syndicated game show will air a new episode on Wednesday, January 25, 2023.