A new “Jeopardy!” contestant is rising through the ranks of the show’s top players — and steadily inching his way toward Ken Jennings’ all-time record of 74 wins.
Did Jamie Ding win on ‘Jeopardy!’ again?
Contestant Jamie Ding, who is described on “Jeopardy!” as a “bureaucrat and law student from Lawrenceville, New Jersey,” is making a splash on the quiz show.
With his 10th win, he officially became a “Jeopardy!” super-champion.
Now, Ding, who currently studies law at Seton Hall University, has 20 wins under his belt. He won his 20th game on April 9, bringing his winnings to $572,600 per “Jeopardy!” archives.
Those stats now place him No. 6 on the “Jeopardy!” Leaderboard of Legends for highest winnings in regular season play, ahead of 23-game champ Mattea Roach; and in a two-way tie for the No. 7 spot for most consecutive wins, alongside Julia Collins (2014).
Of the 20 games Ding has played (so far), 14 of them have been runaways, meaning he had such a large lead going into the Final Jeopardy round that he couldn’t be caught.
But one of Ding’s most recent wins, on April 8, had him in a rare second place going into the Final Jeopardy round.
For a brief moment, it looked like Ding’s “Jeopardy!” run would come to an end.
Going into the final round, he had $14,400; Dominex Kovacs, a software engineer from Sacramento, California, was in first with $17,600.
It all came down to the Final Jeopardy clue in the category “Pop Culture People”: “Adopted in 1979, this name reflected size and strength as well as a promoter’s wish to appeal to Irish-American fans.”
No one came up with the correct response: “Who is Hulk Hogan?”
Kovacs’ $11,201 wager brought him down to $6,399. Ding’s $5,199 wager lowered his total to $9,201 but gave him enough to secure the come-from-behind victory and keep his winning streak going.
Throughout his dynamic run, Ding has correctly answered 618 clues and only missed 42, per The Jeopardy Fan website.
Here are 15 clues he’s missed. Can you answer them? (All answers are at the bottom of the article. Feel free to share how many you got right in the comments section.)
- The great wealth transfer: “The corporation of this immigrant who died in 1919 says his fortune has supported insulin’s discovery and ‘Sesame Street.’”
- 2 “B”: “The first issue of this magazine in 1894 was focused on advertising; music came later.”
- Don’t cost much: “Amid inflation in 2024, burger chains promoted this five-letter type of ‘meal’ or ‘menu’; at Wendy’s, it was the Biggie Bag.”
- Writers on writers: “Jane Austen called this English poet ‘infallible.’”
- Celebrity memoirs: “In the title of a 2023 memoir, Dame Judi Dench calls him ‘the man who pays the rent.’”
- A tunnel of fun: “Travel through the continental divide at over 11,000 feet in elevation via the Eisenhower-Johnson Memorial Tunnel in this state.”
- A little literature: “Appropriately, this 1953 Raymond Chandler novel runs 53 chapters and ends with Philip Marlowe saying a farewell.”
- The Kennedys’ Nobel Prize dinner: “JFK called the 49 Nobel winners the greatest gathering of talent and knowledge at the White House since this man dined alone.”
- Artist of the portrait: “Norman Rockwell’s painting of Norman Rockwell painting himself graced the cover of this magazine on Feb. 13, 1960.”
- Sister cities: “In 2001, Lublin, Wisconsin, population 118, got sisterly with Lublin in this country, population 330,000.”
- Historic settlement: “Near an English settlement called a hillfort is the Uffington White this, carved into a chalk hillside 3,000 years ago.”
- Fabulous furniture: “Sofas go by many names, like Chesterfield and this name of a maker from Massachusetts, not Iowa.”
- Geographic missing links: “At least since 1890 plans have existed to link these two islands across the North Channel; a 2021 estimate ranged around $450 billion.”
- International geographic: “Situated among mountain peaks, this small country has the highest average elevation of any in Europe at about 6,600 feet.”
- The calendar: “Mark Twain wrote the quip that on this day of the year, ‘We are reminded of what we are on the other 364.’”
Answers: (1. Andrew Carnegie; 2. Billboard; 3. value; 4. Alexander Pope; 5. William Shakespeare; 6. Colorado; 7. “The Long Goodbye”; 8. Thomas Jefferson; 9. The Saturday Evening Post; 10; Poland; 11. horse; 12; Davenport; 13. Britain and Ireland; 14: Andorra; 15. April Fools’ Day)