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Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions 2025 finals concluded on February 13. Neilesh Vinjamuri ended the five-day finale with three wins and was crowned the winner of the 2025 season. Meanwhile, Isaac Hirsch ended the season as the first runner-up and Adriana Harmeyer came third.
Isaac Hirsch chimed in on his performance in a comment under the Jeopardy! discussion Reddit thread for the Day 5 episode, published on February 13. He shared that he felt very “locked in” after securing a win on Day 4 and was confident that he could turn the game around and claim two more victories to win the season.
However, when he returned for the Day 5 taping, he didn't perform as well as he had hoped.
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"And thus ends the 2025 TOC. I remember being very “locked in” last game and thinking “okay, we can pull this off”… then we went to lunch and I came back with this clunker of a game," he wrote.
Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions 2025 runner-up Isaac Hirsch expresses gratitude and praises Neilesh for the win
Isaac Hirsch ended the Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions 2025 finals with just one win (Day 4) under his belt. He commented on his performance under Day 5's Reddit thread noting that he was confident that he could turn the game in his favor on the Day 5 episode, however, things did turn out according to him.
Isaac expressed that he was disappointed by the overall result and his performance. However, he was relieved that he won at least one game during the five-day finale or else he would have been "pretty despondent after."
The Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions 2025 runner-up further went on to praise Neilesh for winning the season noting that he was "ridiculous on the buzzer". He shared that Neilesh had "deep pockets of knowledge" and wasn't afraid to make big wagers. However, his greatest asset, Isaac noted, was his incredible buzzer speed.
While Isaac added that he and his fellow runner-up, Adriana, were good at the buzzer, he emphasized that Neilesh was way better and it made him completely rethink his strategy.
Isaac further mentioned that, according to the Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions 2025 host Ken Jennings, set the season record for the most buzzer attempts in a single game with over 50 attempts. However, he noted that it made no difference against Neilesh’s dominance.
"So that’s my praise for Neilesh as a player— he played a very complete finals and is an extremely deserving winner. I’d also like to shout out Adriana— while you witnessed me visibly losing my mind that I couldn’t ring in, she stayed cool the whole time. She’s unflappable, a great player, and also a very nice person," he added.
At the end of his comment, Isaac expressed that he was "satisfied" with his performance. He shared that he had a fun time, met a lot of great people on set, and won more money than he’ll ever make doing customer support.
"It has been one of the greatest experiences of my life, and I feel blessed to have gotten to do it. I’d be remiss if I didn’t thank my family and my girlfriend, who have made sure I know that I’m still a winner to them. So that’s it! Now I just go back to watching Jeopardy like a regular person. I’m sure that won’t be weird," he continued.
Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions 2025 episodes are available to watch on Hulu.
