CNN –
Ben Chan’s nine-game streak as the Jeopardy! Champion ended this week with a misspelling during Final Jeopardy! round, a decision that angered the contestant’s fans.
Chan, an assistant professor of philosophy at St. Norbert College in Wisconsin, was a letter off in his spelling of “Benedick,” Beatrice’s lover, in Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. He swapped the “K” for a “T,” a mistake he later attributed to a misspelled index card.
Chan earned $252,600 on Jeopardy! Run before his loss to former museum educator Lynn Di Vito (who didn’t correctly guess the Final Jeopardy! clue but bet a smaller amount than Chan). He was the “first and only champion” in Jeopardy! history whose first nine wins were “runaway” wins, show producer Sarah Whitcomb Foss told him.
“It’s a memorable miss,” she told Foss after his tenth game, which aired on Tuesday. “If you make a mistake, you make an unforgettable mistake.”
“Danger!” However, viewers were upset that the show had accused Chan of misspelling “Benedick.” According to the rules of the show, The Final Jeopardy! Note does not have to be spelled correctly, but “be phonetically correct and not add or remove superfluous sounds of syllables”. Chan’s spelling – “Benedict” – was technically a different name than “Benedick” and ended with a different sound.
That wasn’t enough to please fans who wanted to continue Chan’s winning streak. Multiple spectators called “Danger!” Eliminating Chan over such a small detail was wrong, pointing out that sources such as the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust spelled the character’s name “Benedict.” Still, Chan’s outlook remained positive.
“I hope the way I played through all ten games showed gratitude and appreciation for what a unique opportunity this is,” he said.
Chan will return to the series’ Tournament of Champions, which once again pits the contestants with the longest winning streaks of the year against each other.