A brand new episode of Jeopardy! Season 39 premiered on Friday, June 23, 2023, featuring one returning champion and two new contestants. With five straight wins, Ben Goldstein returned to defend his victory for the sixth time. He played against Donna Matturi, a librarian from Columbus, Ohio, and Ron Nuriswah, an editor originally from Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
The official description of the game show reads:
“A quiz competition in which contestants are presented with general knowledge clues in the form of answers and must phrase their responses in the form of questions.”
Each game consists of three rounds. The player who ends up with the maximum score wins the game and returns to the next episode. In the latest episode, all the players played well.
Today’s Jeopardy! winner is Donna Matturi
Returning champion Ben Goldstein, a content marketing specialist from Dexter, Michigan, first appeared on the show in the June 16 episode. Since then, he has won five games and banked a total amount of $49,298. In today’s episode, he played his sixth game but was unable to maintain his winning streak.
The categories for the first round included Remember Baseball?, Books & Authors, Animal Change A Letter, Who Reigned In England When…, I Learned It On Schoolhouse Rock, and Kids Of The ’70s, Rejoice!.
5-day winner Ben started off really well as he gave 10 correct answers and took the lead in round 1. New players Donna Matturi and Ron Nuriswah ended the first segment with scores closer to each other. Ron could have scored higher as he had a good start by giving nine correct answers. His score went down after losing a Daily Double.
The scores of the players in the first round were Ben at $5,000, Donna at $2,600, and Ron at $2,400.
In the second round of the June 23 episode, the categories were African-American Firsts, Qui“zz”ical, On Broadway, A Chemistry Test, Musical Act Etymology, and Same First & Last Letter Geography.
All three players played wonderfully in the Double Jeopardy round as their scores crossed the $10,000 mark. Ron and Ben bagged Daily Doubles, while Donna landed in third place.
The contestants' scores in the second round were Ben at $16,200, Ron at $13,800, and Donna at $11,400.
The Final Jeopardy round was intense as it changed the face of today’s game. Ben, who was leading since the first round, landed in second place after giving the wrong answer to the final question. Ron, too, gave an incorrect response while Donna became the only player with the correct answer in the final round.
Hence, Donna Matturi won Jeopardy! today.
Final Jeopardy! results today
The final round of Jeopardy! Season 39’s June 23 episode, hosted by Mayim Bialik, was under the category of “Female Authors.”
The final question, aka clue, read:
“At age 9 in 1883 she moved west, where she met Annie Pavelka, a young pioneer on whom she would later model a title character.”
The correct answer was “Willa Cather.”
Only Donna gave the correct answer to the final clue while Ron wrote “L M Montgomery” and Ben guessed “Alcott.”
Take a look at the final results of the June 23 episode:
Donna Matturi: $11,400 + $6,000 = $17,400 (Who is Willa Cather?) (1-day total: $17,400)
Ben Goldstein: $16,200 – $11,500 = $4,700 (Who is Alcott?)
Ron Nuriswah: $13,800 – $13,800 = $0 (Who L M Montgomery?)
With today’s win, Donna became the one-day champion and will return next week to play her second game. She ended the winning streak of five-day winner Ben. Fans, however, will see him again on the show as he has qualified for the Tournament of Champions alongside Ben Chan, Ray Lalonde, and Cris Pannullo.
The syndicated game show will air its next episode on Monday, June 26, 2023.