Unfortunately for Ben Chan, closing doesn’t count when you’re playing Jeopardy!
The assistant professor of philosophy at St Norbert College in De Pere lost on Tuesday’s episode of the TV game show, ending his nine-game winning streak.
Chan came out on top on “Final Jeopardy!”, but for his answer he looked up the names of two lovers in a Shakespearean play from the Latin words for “blessed” and wrote “Who are Beatrice and Benedict?”
However, the correct answer was the characters Beatrice and Benedick.
One letter down cost Chan as he bet $12,201 out of his $17,400 total, putting him behind Lynn Di Vito who, despite also getting an incorrect answer, bet a smaller amount of money. Di Vito bet just $3,000 of her $14,800 and finished with $11,800.
Realizing he’d lost, Chan sighed deeply and leaned forward, lowering his head to the level of the podium.
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Chan wrote on Reddit that he was “sooo close!” He blamed the error on the flawed flashcards he created.
“The misspelling of ‘Benedict’ is common and has affected some of my flashcards. (Notable: the misspelling is included in “On the Tip of Your Tongue” by Irene Franck, which serious J! nerds will know as their favorite Karl Coryat),” he wrote under the alias JeopardyBenBen in the Jeopardy! game thread.
In his written reply, Benedict was crossed out and rewritten. Another Reddit user asked him why he deleted it.
“I was afraid my first Benedict was illegible – I should have made it less legible :0,” he replied.
Chan won $252,600 during his nine-game winning streak, all close wins. Runaway wins are when a competitor is so far ahead that the next closest competitor has no way of catching them, even if they put their entire winnings on Final Jeopardy!
Chan has qualified for the Tournament of Champions to be held later this season.
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In addition to the wrong answer in Final Jeopardy! it was two wrong answers to Daily Double questions that cost Chan dearly.
The first attempt cost him $4,200 in the first round as he tried to turn it into a true daily double. That brought him back to zero after building a $3,800 advantage.
The second miss cost him $3,000 in Double Jeopardy! as he tried to reclaim leadership from Di Vito, a retired museum educator from Colorado.
Otherwise, Chan had 27 correct answers, compared to 14 for Di Vito and nine for the third player, Danny Leserman, a political communications manager from Rancho Palos Verdes, California.
“Lynn played a perfect game!” Chan wrote on Reddit. “Particularly lucky for her as she’s an incredibly knowledgeable fan of the show.”
During his run, Chan won three games in episodes that aired in April, but subsequently tested positive for COVID-19 and was unable to travel to the records. He returned for the May 15 episode and continued his winning streak until his loss on Tuesday’s episode.
Contact Kevin Dittman at 920-431-8416 or [email protected].
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