‘Jeopardy!’ Second Chance Final Ends in a Squeaker: Who Won?

Coming into the second day of Jeopardy!‘s Second Chance final, Will Yancey had an advantage over fellow finalists Colleen Matthews and Kaitlin Tarr after finishing the first game with a major runaway. However, his lead was far from insurmountable, and it was still anyone’s game on Friday’s (January 3) episode. Night two of the tournament closer proved as much by bringing everything right down to the wire.

Coming into the night, Yancey led the pack with $20,000 from Thursday’s game, with Matthews boasting $8,400, and Tarr following far behind with $1. Whereas Yancey took a pretty commanding lead early on in the last game, and held onto it throughout, things got off to a much rockier start for the history lecturer on night two.

In the Jeopardy round, he did manage to find the Daily Double again and bet all of his $1,000 on “10, 11, and 12-Letter Words.” The clue was, “Containing a root from Latin for ‘scales,’ it’s a state of balance in physics,” and he correctly guessed that the word was “equilibrium.” However, he earned just $3,400 total in the round, trailing Matthews’ $6,400 and Tarr’s $6,000.

Double Jeopardy was even more precarious. Four incorrect answers left Yancey with a major score deficit, while Tarr and Matthews racked up points. Matthews nabbed the second Daily Double, wagering $3,000 of her $10,400 on “Are We There Yet?” with the clue reading, “This mountain’s major peaks are named Liberty Cap, Point Success & Columbia Crest, which is actually the summit.” She correctly guessed Mt. Rainier was the answer and took the lead.

By the time he found the third Daily Double of the day, in the category “Slang From Your Startup Job,” he was a full $10,000 behind Matthews and wagered just $1,000. It proved to be a mistake, as he knew that “bandwidth” was the answer to the clue, “‘Do you think you have the’ this word ‘to do more work?’ — The word has expanded to mean more than just ‘data capacity.’”

By the end of Double Jeopardy, Tarr had the lead with $16,000, with Matthews at $12,600, and Yancey at $7,600. Considering his day-one lead over Matthews was just $5,800, that meant the results of this Final Jeopardy were crucial for both.

The category for Final Jeopardy was “19th-Century Fiction,” and the clue was, “In Chapter 9 of an 1851 work, a preacher in a New England port city delivers a sermon about this Old Testament prophet.” Both Yancey and Matthews correctly guessed that it was Jonah — with the novel at hand being Herman Melville’s Moby Dick — and since Yancey smartly wagered all of his points, he earned $15,200 for the round. Meanwhile, Matthews nearly doubled her score, adding $12,000 to her $12,600 for a daily win of $24,600, but with just $8,400 from Thursday’s game, she came in second with $33,000 and won $15,000 for second. Tarr finished in last after getting the question wrong, losing $11,605 for a daily total of $4,395 to add to the prior day’s $1 — taking home $15,000 as a runner-up.

Not only does Yancey then get his cash winnings for first place in the Second Chance Tournament, but he also gets to move on to the Champions Wildcard event, which begins on January 13.

“That couldn’t have been cut any closer during Double Jeopardy. Today’s game is an example of why you shouldn’t count out the other two players distantly trailing the leader,” one fan wrote on Reddit in response to the results. “Nice to see another native Texan make a great showing, congrats Will! And congrats to Colleen and Kaitlin on a high-effort showing as well.”

The Second Chance tournament continues on Monday with a new group. More details about the lineup can be found right here.