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The last semi-final game of Jeopardy!‘s Champions Wildcard tournament proved controversial on Tuesday night (February 20), as one contestant was trumped by a ‘very confusing’ presidential clue.
Alex Gordon, a surgical resident originally from Somers, New York, faced off against Jesse Matheny, a customer success specialist originally from Huntington, Indiana, and Kat Jepson, an artist from Roanoke, Virginia, on Tuesday’s tense episode.
Gordon was a favorite going into the episode, having amassed an impressive $41,500 (plus $2,000) during his two-day winning streak back in Season 39. With a spot in the finals on the line, the pressure was on for Gordon and his two opponents.
Despite answering more questions correctly, Gordon trailed behind Jepson after the first round. He managed to overtake Jepson in Double Jeopardy, but a surge by Matheny changed things completely.
Matheny landed a pair of true Daily Doubles, putting himself in a near runaway position. However, Gordon wasn’t deterred and went on a late-game comeback to keep himself in contention heading into Final Jeopardy.
Going into the last round, Matheny led the way with $18,800, while Gordon had $10,200, and Jepson trailed with $8,400.
But this is where things got a little sticky. Host Ken Jennings read the final clue, “He’s the most recent presidential candidate to have officially declared his opponent in that campaign the victor.”
Jepson plummeted to $0 after incorrectly answering “Who is McCain?,” and Gordon dropped to $1,599 after guessing, “Who is Mitt Romney?”
Only Matheny answered correctly, writing, “Who is Gore?” and added $1,601 to his total to give him a winning score of $20,401.
However, some fans felt like the clue’s wording was confusing and that Gordon, in particular, was wrongly penalized.
“This is a horrendous question. It’s entirely about parsing the wording and not about knowing any information at all,” wrote one fan on the Jeopardy! Reddit forum.
“Tricky wording on that FJ. Watched this one from the audience, and (silently) guessed Romney just like Alex. Kudos to Jesse for noticing the term “officially” and otherwise killing it this game,” said another commenter.
“I didn’t understand exactly what that FJ was asking for. Since Trump never “officially” declared Biden the winner, I went with Romney,” added another.
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“Wouldn’t that make it Hillary Clinton?” replied one fan, to which another responded, “Yes except they specified “he,” which made it even more confusing rather than less.”
Another explained, “I think the issue is that “officially” has multiple meanings and the first definition is simply “in a formal and public way.” They instead used the second definition of “with the authority of the government or some other organization.”
“And “declare” is an ambiguous word as well,” added another. “The better choice would have been “certify,” as Ken said in his post-clue banter, but maybe they thought that would have made it too easy? Was parsing the clue meant to be part of the difficulty?”
Another wrote, “The “official” nominee of a party can “officially” concede. Poor word choice, Jeopardy writers.”
“Yup, I was very confused by this clue. They couldn’t use “presided over the counting of EVs” or something more specific?” suggested one commenter.
One viewer went as far as to say, “It was the single worst FJ I’ve ever seen.”
They continued, “What the hell does “officially declared” mean in the context of this clue? I had assumed it meant declared on behalf of their campaign, which they all obviously have the official capacity to speak for. Nothing in the clue narrowed it down mean officially declared on behalf of the United States. It wasn’t a tricky question, it was a trick question.”
Regardless, Matheny is now moving onto the Wildcards finals where he’ll be competing for the $100,000 grand prize and a coveted spot in the Tournament of Champions, which premieres on Friday, February 23.
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