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The third time wasn’t the charm. Claire Sattler competed on Jeopardy!‘s Invitational Tournament on Wednesday, February 26, against Ben Chan and Shane Whitlock. She didn’t advance to the semi-finals, and Sattler blames her “small hands “for it. It also didn’t help that Chan and Whitlock are very fast on the buzzer.
“Shane and Ben have some of the fastest fingers!” she told News Press. “They really are two of the best buzzers in quizzing.”
Sattler, a comedian and research scientist, told the outlet that she knew a lot of the answers during her time in the tournament but couldn’t buzz in fast enough. She even practiced for the competition by using a similarly-sized toilet paper holder. The game show contestant learned that trick from 2017 Jeopardy! College Championship winner Lilly Chin.
“Those buzzers are really big,” she said. “And I have little, tiny baby hands. And I always have a hard time getting my thumb up on the button itself.”
When she wasn’t close to winning, only having $800 after the first round, she knew she had to change up her method in Double Jeopardy!. Sattler went from buzzing with her thumb to buzzing with her index finger.
“I was like, ‘I just have to get back up there,’” she said.
She didn’t get back up there though. By the end of the game, she wound up with $0. Final Jeopardy! wound up being won by Whitlock, advancing him to the semi-finals.
“It was so overwhelming because it was a really tough game,” Sattler told the outlet. She and Chan walked away with $5,000 each, even though they didn’t win. This was the third time that she played. The first was in 2018 for the Teen Tournament, which she won. Sattler came back in 2023 for the High School Reunion Tournament. She won $18,411 but didn’t advance to the semi-finals.
Despite it being stressful, the Jeopardy! player said that she had so much fun coming back to play.
“It was so much fun. It’s just been an honor and a privilege,” she said.
One of her favorite parts of coming on the game show is making new friends. She is friends with many former contestants, many of whom have slept on her couch in New York City, where she currently lives. Former champion Matt Amodio even attended her Jeopardy! watch party when her episode aired.
“I made this group of friends as a teenager, and I’m still very close to a lot of them,” Sattler said. “It was really great to kind of get to expand my Jeopardy! social circle and make friends with all these other phenomenal players.”
