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A brand new episode of Jeopardy! Season 39 aired on Friday, February 3, 2023. It welcomed one returning champion and two new contenders.
The longest-running game show consists of three players, where one is a returnee who comes back to the stage to defend his previous wins. While the highest scorer wins, the remaining players can take home the money they earned on the show despite losing the game.
In the latest episode, the returning player was one-day champion Matthew Marcus, a software developer from Portland, Oregon.
With a total score of 42,200, he returned to the competition for the second time to play against two new players — Andrew Bembenek, a construction project manager from Los Angeles, California, and Ricky A. Rivera II, an employee stock ownership plans analyst from Chicago, Illinois.
Today's Jeopardy! winner is Matthew Marcus
After winning the February 2 episode, Matthew Marcus returned to the show to play his second game. On Friday’s, all three players gave each other some tough competition.
The categories for the first round included “19th Century Names, Second Cities, Juice Bar, That’s A Crime!, Roman Numeral Spelling, Michael, Boltin’.”
Matthew played wonderfully in the first round as he gave 12 correct answers with no incorrect responses. He also found today’s first Daily Double and ended up in first place with a score of $8,600.
Andrew Bembenek had a good start with eight correct and two incorrect answers. He banked $4,600, while Ricky A. Rivera II was just behind him with a score of $3,400. Ricky initially faced issues with the signaling device but got the hang of it after the first commercial break. He landed in third place by giving eight correct and three incorrect responses.
In the second round of the Ken Jennings-hosted episode, the categories were “The Plays & Playwrights Are The Thing, A Little Astronomy, The National Park System, Water Music, First Off How Dare You, Now We Duel.”
The Double Jeopardy round includes two Daily Doubles. The first lucky contestant to grab one was Ricky and the second was Matthew. Despite winning the Daily Double, the Chicago-native ranked third on the scoreboard as he gave more wrong answers than his fellow players.
The second place went to Andrew, who was just $600 ahead of Ricky on the scoreboard. Matthew, on the other hand, won the Daily Double as well as delivered the highest number of correct answers with zero incorrect responses. He took the lead in the first round with a score of $28,800.
The Final Jeopardy round was a close match. Ricky and Andrew gave the correct answer to the final question and reached near Matthew’s total score. Despite winning the final round, the new players couldn’t surpass the returning champion’s total amount in the latest episode.
Hence, Matthew Marcus won Jeopardy! today.
Final Jeopardy! results today
In the February 3 episode, the Final Jeopardy round was played under the category, “World War II.” The final clue or question read:
“Mimi Reinhard, who never learned to type using more than 2 fingers, produced this with 1,100 names, including hers.”
The correct answer was “Schindler’s list.”
Only Andrew and Ricky gave the correct response, while Matthew wrote, “Holocaust Memorial.”
Take a look at the final results of the February 3 episode:
Matthew Marcus: $28,800 – $5,000 = $23,800 (What is the Holocaust Memorial) (2-day total: $66,000)
Andrew Bembenek: $11,800 + $11,798 = $23,598 (What is Schindler’s List?)
Ricky A. Rivera II: $11,200 + $11,200 = $22,400 (What is Schindler’s List?)
The three players didn’t have much difference in their scores. With today’s win, Matthew became the two-day champion, scoring $66,000.
The software developer will return to the show in the next episode, which will air on Monday, February 6, 2023.
