Plus, everything to know about the ongoing big winner
JEOPARDY! champ Adriana Harmeyer pulled off a nail-biting 11th win on Wednesday, while an opponent stole the show by publicly apologizing to Eminem.
The West Lafayette, Indiana archivist survived her closest scare yet, earning $258,700 total, but some fans are worried about her Daily Double grit.
Connor revealed he met Eminem in 8th grade and ‘ruined his day’Credit: Jeopardy!
Ken Jennings lost it over the ridiculous story as Adriana kept the wins comingCredit: Jeopardy!
Fans reacted, ‘Slay!’ and others, ‘She wagers too conservatively on Daily Doubles, that will bite her eventually’Credit: Jeopardy!
Ken Jennings kicked off tonight’s match by noting that Adriana was in “rarefied air” as one of only 17 super-champions in history.
The biggest winner of Season 40 faced off against Connor Townsend and Enzo Cunanan.
While Adriana got off to another strong start, Connor delivered the best interview of the night, if not the year.
He recounted, “In eighth grade, we took a trip to a historical village outside of Detroit. When my group got there, we split off into small groups.
‘IT WAS EMINEM’
“We went over to the farmhouse exhibit and saw a guy in a lime green tracksuit. We thought, ‘This is a wild museum outfit.’
“We got closer and realized it was Eminem, Slim Shady himself.”
“It’s Eminem!” Ken replied, jumping back with a huge grin.
“We asked him for pictures and autographs, and he very politely declined. He said, ‘No, I’m just here as a dad today on a field trip with my daughter.’
“So naturally, being 12-year-olds, we ran and told everyone at school that he was there, how he was hounded by 200 twelve-year-olds, and we ruined his day,” Connor bluntly concluded.
“You ruined Eminem’s field trip!” Ken exclaimed.
Connor declared, “I only wanted to get on Jeopardy! to apologize to Eminem,” as the audience erupted in laughter.
‘COULD HAVE BET MORE!’
By the end of the Jeopardy! round, Adriana led with $7,600, Connor had $2,000, and Enzo $4,000.
In Double Jeopardy!, Enzo took the lead by adding $4,000 on the second Daily Double, while Adriana only added $1,000 on the last one.
Ken didn’t mince words about her small wager after she got it correct, “Could have bet more!” he said.
She fought tooth and nail to regain the lead going into Final Jeopardy with $20,600, while Enzo had $16,400 and Connor $9,600.
The FAMOUS NAMES clue read, “Vying with Eiffel, this engineer wanted to create big; an admiring account said the Obelisk of Luxor is too short to be a spoke.”
Enzo was correct with “Ferris,” and it looked like he may have outplayed the champ with $31,400.
Ken admitted, “The champion is on the ropes and needs to get this right.”
Adriana was also correct, adding $12,400 to win with $33,000 for an astounding 11-day total.
“Her highest one-day total yet!” Ken rejoiced. “You dodged a bullet again; congratulations!”
‘ONLY WEAKNESS’
Fans flooded a Reddit game thread, congratulating Adriana for reaching 11 wins, but pointed out that her small Daily Double wagers may end her run.
“Great match and another great win for Adriana. I hope they bring Enzo back for another try,” one fan posted.
“Slayyy queen!” wrote another.
“Boy, she definitely earned that one as that was a close game,” wrote a third.
“She wagers too conservatively on Daily Doubles, and I have a feeling that will come back and bite her eventually,” posted a fourth.
A fifth defended, “Eventually something fells every champ. DD wagering strategy is less important for someone regularly controlling the board.”
Though a sixth agreed, “I honestly think that Adriana’s only weakness is the Daily Doubles. If she is able to wager a lot more money, she will basically be a true jack of all trades and a formidable opponent.”
One more wrote, “I felt she was pretty strong in the European rivers category and could have wagered more.”
An eighth posted, “Connor Townsend has my favorite anecdote of the season. It’s never too late for a belated public apology… I hope Slim was watching.”
Adriana had a narrow lead and Ken said she was ‘on the ropes’Credit: Jeopardy!
Her $1000 Daily Double wager made it so she needed to get Final correct – which she didCredit: Jeopardy!
HARMEYER ON FIRE
Adriana has been on a roll since arriving two weeks ago and is now Season 40’s first super-champion.
Fans are going wild, as it’s been over a year since there’s been a 10-plus-day winner on the game show, the previous being Ray LaLonde last January.
“She’s very good. Obviously smart, low-key, consistent, not a prima donna. Well deserving of the ‘superchamp’ moniker,” one Facebook user recently gushed.
“Lovely woman…. Bright and not obnoxious,” wrote another.
“Adriana is killing it and I love her retro vibe, like she stepped off the set of the Mary Tyler Moore show,” wrote a third.
“Adriana is so cool I bet she doesn’t even sweat,” wrote a fourth.
So far, Adriana is the frontrunner for the next Tournament of Champions, which will be held in 2025.
The other qualifiers for the next ToC (all female) are five-day winners Alison Betts and Dr. Amy Hummel and Celebrity Jeopardy!’s Lisa Ann Walter.
That said, with four wins, Grant DeYoung and Amar Kakirde will likely join in as well.
TRADITIONAL STRATEGY
Adriana has chosen a traditional strategy that no other long-running winner has used in the show’s post-Holzhauer era.
She is a rare, top-down player who refuses to hunt for Daily Doubles.
Instead, she has only found 11 of the 30 hidden clues in her streak and doesn’t bounce across the board to find them.
This lets the other contestants find the Daily Doubles and fall on their swords by missing them with big bets—at least so far.
“Adriana is a sneaky ice-cold player. She’s not DD-hunting that much and not very aggressive with her wagering, but by the end of DJ, she has a runaway game!” one fan wrote on Reddit.
“Just pure buzzer skill and huge knowledge base. I hope she continues her streak, I would love to see how far she can take this!”
On the Inside Jeopardy! podcast, staffers also talked about Adriana’s traditional style, which is so rare to see these days.
“Yeah, we haven’t really had someone who’s played as straight-ahead as Adriana,” Buzzy Cohen pointed out.
“I know Alex [Trebek] would have loved a player like Adriana,” producer Sarah Whitcomb Foss said.
HER INSPIRING STORY
Adriana is a clinical assistant professor and archivist of University History in Purdue University’s Archives and Special Collections.
She’s married to her husband Neal – they bonded in 2013 over a love of learning – he’s been in the audience for her astounding run, and they share a son.
Her Q&A stories have shed light on her Jeopardy! journey, including her “disappointing” failure to make the cut as a Teen contestant.
She honed her chops on a ’90s CD-ROM version of Jeopardy! starting when she was 7. She only stopped playing the game after the disc broke in half.
She studied with a “gently used” encyclopedia collection and credits her late grandmother, whose necklace she’s been wearing, with getting her into Jeopardy!
She also said in a recent interview that she took the show’s online test for fun and was blindsided to be contacted a few weeks later.
“I had taken the online test a couple of times before, but this time I’d went online one evening and took the test for fun.”
“I didn’t expect anything to come out of it – I just thought of it as another fun internet quiz.”
Adriana will go for her 12th win on Thursday’s episode as she continues to wow fans with a lengthier streak than anyone expected.
Jeopardy! airs at 7 pm Eastern on ABC – check your local listings.
The Purdue professor and archivist is now in the top 17 longest-running contestants everCredit: Jeopardy!
