risk! The contestant made a “fatal glitch” that ended her winning streak as fans “can't believe” the returning champion's “bad strategy”.
The trend of losing the winner of Season 44 continued after just a match or two on Friday when a new victor was crowned in the shaky ring.
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Stephanie Assalone, a former 401(k) handler from St. Marys, Pennsylvania, was looking to extend her steak by a day and her $14,100 winnings.
She faced off against Christine Moreland, a school administrator from Brooklyn, New York, and Paul Clawson, a tax analyst from Madison Heights, Michigan.
Returning champion Stephanie is off to a great start and heading into her first Jeopardy! Break, and got $3,200 for the top spot.
However, throughout the game, Stephanie decides to choose top row clues that have a much lower monetary value than those at the bottom of the board.
Despite getting many answers correct, Stephanie's score was not high because of the clues she chose – which also avoided daily doubles.
As she continued to call $200 and $400 clues, Paul flew past her to take the lead — with the added bonus of doubling his score on the first Daily Double.
Heading into Final Jeopardy!, Paul had the game in his bag for about $15,600.
Stephanie came in second place with $7,600 while Kristen was right behind with $6,400.
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Host Ken Jennings, 50, revealed that the final category is '20th Century Transport'.
After giving the contestants time to place their bets, the trio of trivia aficionados had 30 seconds to write their answer to: “Her wings have not been clipped by Senate hunters and ghost hunters after all,” said a 1947 article.
In this week's other trilogy, the three players didn't write “What's a Spruce Goose?”
Paul was down just $399 to finish the game with $15,201.
Stephanie nearly bet it all to finish with just $11 while Kristen came in second place with $2,000.
Viewers were quick to notice how, despite Stephanie's quick bell-playing and extensive knowledge of the clues, her strategy ended up being her downfall.
“The fatal flaw that Stephanie had, as today she almost exclusively chose top-row clues, was that she was obviously avoiding DD keys, but she also avoided the high-value bottom-row clues completely.
“By contrast, Paul looked for DDs and picked the bottom row clues. He still had to know enough of the answers to be able to escape, but this shows that even if you know most of the answers, you can still lose due to poor strategy alone.
“It would be fun for Paul to emulate Holzhauer's 'all in' gesture next time he goes for a real DD,” one fan chimed in.
Stephanie won Thursday's match against two-day champion Evan Dury.
risk! universe
risk! It was first broadcast in 1964 until 1975. Then the nightly edition began in 1974. Since then, there have been spin-offs of the game show. Here are all of them
risk! – (Primetime) 1974-present, weekdays on ABC at 7 p.m
Tournament of Champions – From 1984 to the present, featuring the best champions who have appeared on the show since the last tournament
Celebrity Jeopardy! – From 1992 to the present, celebrities compete against each other to raise money for the chair
risk! Masters – from 2023 to the present, featuring six notable modern Jeopardy! Champions compete against each other
risk! College National Championship – From 2022 to present, college students from 36 colleges and universities across America compete to win $100,000
Other versions of Jeopardy! It has faded over the years
Despite Evan's stellar performance, Stephanie was the only one to make the Final Jeopardy! Correct – give her the win.
In the final round, she achieved a renewed win of $14,100.
Returning champion Evan finished the match in second place with $8,800.
After crafting the final Jeopardy! Fans were left confused, so they took to the internet to express their frustration.
“That was the rough final Jeopardy game, which is the total definition of whether you know whether you know whether you know it or not, and there was no way to know it any other way,” one viewer commented.
“I discovered FJ, but I still can't remotely understand the wording of the manual,” another complained.
“Most unexpected ending ever. Looks like Stephanie would dominate if she had more confidence,” a third said.
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