Jeopardy! releases soul-crushing moment Isaac Hirsch realizes his 9-game winning streak ends over ‘bad math’

JEOPARDY! has released audio from the shocking moment when Isaac Hirsch realized his nine-game win streak was over.

The former champ, who’s now headed to the Tournament of Champions, lost in a July 16 episode of the game show due to a math error on his part.

Jeopardy! champ Isaac Hirsch was crushed to learn he’d made a math mistake that cost him his win streak and fans have now heard audio from the shocking momentCredit: Jeopardy!

Isaac Hirsch appeared on the Inside Jeopardy! podcast to discuss his time on the show and, of course, his unexpected loss after game nineCredit: Jeopardy!
Isaac appeared on the Inside Jeopardy! podcast, which started in 2022 and is hosted by the show’s producers.

During the episode, Isaac talked about his devastating loss after audio from the moment played.

As noted during the podcast, the audio was pulled straight from the show and viewers saw the moment but could not hear it as music was playing at the time.

Host Ken Jennings could be heard speaking to Isaac in the closing moments of the episode.

“Isaac, you’re looking at your math right now,” he pointed out.

“I did it wrong,” Isaac replied, sounding quite sad.

“I did my math incorrectly.”

Ken, 50, then responded, “So you were aware of the situation where everybody gets it wrong and you were trying to wager for the win in that situation?”

Isaac Hirsch was dethroned by Jay Fisher, who enjoyed a brief run as Jeopardy! champ
“That is correct, yes. Ouch,” Isaac said back.

He then made light of the situation, joking, “This was, I mean, certainly one of the worst ways to lose but also one of the most fitting for me because I am bad at math so this pretty much fits with who I am.”

Ken attempted to console him a little, assuring him, “If it’s any comfort, it has happened many times out here before.”

IMPRESSIVE RUN

He amassed an impressive $215,390 as the reigning champ from July 3 until his shocking loss.

During Isaac’s final Jeopardy! episode, he struggled throughout the whole game.

Early on, he landed in third place for the first time in his long run as he faced off against Erika Stromerson and Jay Fisher.

Jeopardy! Universe

Jeopardy! first aired in 1964 until 1975. Then the nighttime version began in 1974. Since then, spinoffs of the game show have emerged. Here are all of those

Jeopardy! – (primetime) 1974 to present, weekdays on ABC at 7pm

Tournament of Champions – 1984 to present, features the top champions who have appeared on the show since the last tournament

Celebrity Jeopardy! – 1992 to present, has celebrities comepete against each other to raise money for chairty

Jeopardy! Masters – 2023 to present, features six notable recent Jeopardy! champions competing against each other

Jeopardy! National College Championship – 2022 to present, undergraduates from 36 colleges and universities across America compete to win $100,000

Other versions of Jeopardy! have fizzled out throughout the years

Isaac struggled with a $3,000 fish Daily Double while Jay stormed ahead with $7,000 and Erika hung out in second with $600.

At the time, Isaac had just $400.

During Double Jeopardy, he uncovered two Daily Doubles back to back, missing one for $5,000 and getting another but making a cautious bet under the allotted amount.

For a while, Isaac and Jay were neck-in-neck, with Jay in first and Isaac in a close second place.

Going into Final Jeopardy, Isaac had $15,300, while Jay had $16,200.

The Final Jeopardy category was “1960s People,” and the clue Ken read was as follows, “He said that California prison psych tests he took were ones he had designed, so he made himself look docile and unlikely to escape; then he did.”

None of the three contestants were able to correctly guess Timothy Leary and, as the results were revealed, Isaac realized an even bigger issue.

He accidentally over-wagered with $14,000, which dropped his total score to $1,300.

Jay wagered $14,001, which left him the new champion with a total of $1,799.

Isaac stood stunned at the podium for a moment before doing a 360, holding his pink wagering scrap to the camera.

He appeared stunned as he realized the amount he bet was too much to win if he incorrectly guessed, which he did.

MAJOR MATH MISTAKE

After the game, Jeopardy! fans popped over to Reddit to chat about the episode’s events, including Isaac’s stunning loss.

“Ah man, I’m disappointed that Isaac lost, but at least he’ll be back on the TOC,” one fan posted on the platform.

“Rough day for Isaac, but the fatal blow came when he made a fatal wagering error in the Final Jeopardy,” wrote another.

“Had Isaac wagered any amount less than $13,500. He would have won,” someone else pointed out.

Isaac himself appeared in the Reddit thread, sharing his reaction to the unexpected moment.

“Okay, so why did I wager $14,000? The short answer is I did the math wrong (Although I guess it’s kind of obvious based on how I spent the first minute after the game looking at my scratch paper in horror),” he explained.

“I was trying to subtract $14,001 from 16,200 and somehow came up with 1,300 instead of 1,800 as the number I needed to arrive at if I got it wrong, hence the 14,000 wager.”

He added that the on-air mistake was brutal for him, telling Jeopardy! fans that it was all he could think about for some time afterward.

“I spent the weeks after the taping seeing the bad math in my sleep. I remembered basically nothing about most of the games last week, but EVERYTHING about this game,” Isaac added.

“All credit to Jay, who absolutely murdered me on the buzzer, especially in the first round. This was bound to happen – I barely survived yesterday and I was just really, really tired.”