‘Jeopardy!’ Player Gambles Big in Bid to Beat Champ Ben Ganger

Spoiler Alert

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[The following post contains MAJOR spoilers for the Monday, May 5, episode of Jeopardy!]

A Jeopardy! player made two huge wagers that cost her the game. She and her fellow opponent tried to take down four-day champion Ben Ganger, but two wrong answers and an all-in bet didn’t accomplish that for her. Ganger, a data analyst, has a four-day total of $96,415.

Ganger, from Goshen, Indiana, faced off against two new opponents on Monday (May 5) night after having a dominant week. The other two players were Ellen Goldlust, from Charlottesville, Virginia, and Rhyne Modlin, from Hickory, North Carolina.

However, Ganger had bad luck at the beginning of the game. He answered the first question correctly but dropped down to -$200 when he answered the second one wrong. For $1,000, in “Eighth Notes,” the clue was “According to Dante, the 8th of these realms was fort he eternal punishment of fraudsters like seducers & flatterers.”

“What is hell?” Ganger answered.

“Can you be more specific?” host Ken Jennings asked.

“What is inferno?” the game show contestant answered.

That was still wrong, so Ganger dropped down to -$200. Goldlust, a historian, buzzed in. “What are the circles of hell?” she answered correctly. This gave her the lead with $1,000. The round was then a stiff competition between Ganger and Goldlust.

Goldlust found the first Daily Double of the game. With $3,600 in her bank, she made it a true Daily Double, wagering all of her money. In “Lake and Rivers,” the clue read, “The Desna River flows into the Dnieper River near this world capital.” She hesitated before answering “What is Warsaw?” The correct answer was Ukraine. Goldlust gave up her lead and dropped down to $0.

Despite losing all of her money partway through the round, Goldlust managed to be in second place by the end. She had $3,000 compared to Modlin, a scientist and entrepreneur, who had $2,200. Ganger ended the round with $6,000.

In Double Jeopardy, Ganger had a huge lead compared to his opponents. Goldlust tried to make his lead a bit smaller by going all in on her second Daily Double but fell flat.

With $3,400, she risked it all. If he got it correctly, she would have only been $400 behind Ganger. The clue was in “From Thyme to Time,” in which the answers were between thyme and time in the dictionary. The clue read, “Marinated meat cooked on a skewer, Indian style.” Goldlust didn’t give an answer, which dropped her back down to $0. Tikka was the correct answer.

She had a good chance of surpassing Modlin as he only had $600. Two questions later, Ganger found the final DD of the game. With $7,200 in his bank, he wagered $2,500. In “Literary Dressup,” the clue was “Later immortalized by Audrey Hepburn, she ‘wore a slim cool black dress, black sandals, a pearl choker.’” “Who is Eliza Doolittle?” he answered, which was wrong. Doolittle was a fictional character in the plays Pygmalion and My Fair Lady. The correct answer was Holly Golightly from Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

Ganger dropped down to $6,700 but maintained the lead. “Okay,” he said after getting it wrong, shaking off the loss.

At the end of the round, he had the lead with $11,500. Goldlust had $4,000 and second place, despite losing everything. Modlin ended with $2,600.

The category for Final Jeopardy was “Official Languages.” The clue was, “Of the four independent nations of the Americas without English or Spanish as an official language, it’s the smallest in area.” All three contestants answered with “What is Suriname?” but were all wrong. The correct answer was Haiti.

Modlin wagered $1,000, giving him a final total of $1,600. Goldlust wagered $1,201, giving her $2,799. Ganger ended with $9,500, after wagering $2,000. This was one of his smaller end totals, but he still walked away with the win.

Ganger got a ticket to the Tournament of Champions and had a five-day total of $105,915. The opera singer will sing his way back on stage on Tuesday, May 6 to face two new opponents.

Jeopardy! fans praised Goldlust, despite her losing to the champion.

“Big fan of Ellen. She risked big twice and it cost her, but she was a good player and kept clawing back. She should be really proud of her performance,” a Reddit user said.

“Agreed. I thought she might have him early on, and even after her two bold, but unfortunate TDDs…she kept it neck and neck, undeterred,” replied another. “Up until the end it looked like he might NOT have a runaway. Bold moves, correct responses, beating Ben to the buzzer again and again, AND teaching yoga? I curtsy to you, Ellen, wherever you are.”

“Good game! Ellen was a great competitor and kept the game exciting. Happy for Ben though, he definitely deserves his spot in the TOC,” wrote another.

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