‘Jeopardy!’: Neilesh Wins TOC After Adriana’s ‘How I Met Your Mother’ Blunder
In the fifth game of the 2025 Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions, Adriana Harmeyer from West Lafayette, Indiana, Isaac Hirsch from Burbank, California, and Neilesh Vinjamuri from Lionville, Pennsylvania, all competed for another win, and there was one mistake that cost Harmeyer, an archivist, the game. Vinjamuri had two wins while Hirsch and Harmeyer had both won one game.
At the end of the first round, Vinjamuri was in the lead with $6,600, Hirsch had $3,400, and Harmeyer was in last place with $2,000. However, Harmeyer quickly gained the lead as she correctly answered one of the Daily Doubles in Double Jeopardy!, bringing her total to $8,000. Vinjamuri quickly caught up to her throughout the round. He pulled ahead after she mispronounced a word, causing her to lose the game.
Vinjamuri picked the category “Pop Culture Jeopardy” for $1,600. The clue was a picture of an actress as host Ken Jennings read the question: “She was the mother on How I Met Your Mother and the daughter of Carmine Falcone on the HBO show, The Penguin.”
Harmeyer buzzed in with “Who is Miloti?”
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“Cristin Milioti is correct, yes,” Jennings told her, pronouncing it the same way that she did. This brought Harmeyer’s total up to $13,600.
The round went on, and in the middle of Hirsch, a customer support team lead, picking a clue, Jennings stopped the game and said he was made aware of a change in scoring.
“Adriana, in the clue about Cristin Milioti, you left out that ‘E’ syllable, so unfortunately, we have to take away $3,200 from your score,” Jennings said.
Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for Critics Choice Association
This brought her down to $10,400, giving Vinjamuri the lead with $11, 200. The change in scoring caused her to lose the entire game. Her total before Final Jeopardy! was $10,000. Hirsch was in third with $7,800, and Vinjamuri led with $13,600. If the game show had not taken $3,200 away from Harmeyer, they would have been tied going into the final round.
The category for Final Jeopardy! was “Greek Myth.” The clue read, “Panoptes, meaning all-seeing, was the byname of this legendary figure, slain by Hermes while standing guard over Io.”
Hirsch went first, answering correctly with “Who is Argus?” He wagered $7,700, bringing his total to $15,500, bringing him into the lead, but that didn’t last for long. Harmeyer also wrote down Argus, adding $6,000 to her total. She ended the game with $16,400. Vinjamuri, too, answered correctly and wagered $7,201. The software engineer won the game with $20,801.
Vinjamuri is the 2025 Tournament of Champions winner, with three games won. He took home $250,000 and will compete in Jeopardy! Masters. Harmeyer and Hirsch each received $75,000.
Reddit users reacted to Vinjamuri winning and the scoring change.
“That retroactive scoring change proved HUGE. That’s all I’ll post on that for now,” one fan said.
“Wasn’t expecting that ending. Congrats to Neilesh on the win,” said another.
“That’s the first time i can remember seeing them do a scoring change in the middle of the game instead of waiting for a stop; i’m glad they did, because it would’ve put a bit of a damper on the ending if they’d waited until coming back from the FJ break to announce it, especially with where the scores would’ve been,” a third wrote.
The Jeopardy! Invitational Tournament will begin on Monday, February 17.
