JEOPARDY! champ Victoria Groce has beaten James Holzhauer in a shock Masters defeat as fans rave that the dominating reign of the self-proclaimed final boss of Jeopardy is over.
Victoria Groce,Yogesh Raut, and returning champJames Holzhauerwere the final three players in the second Masters tournament.
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On Wednesday, Victoria thwarted James' chance of a repeat Masters win with a final total score of $55,400 after two close-fought games.
The Jeopardy! champ was awarded $500,000, the coveted Trebek Trophy, and $100,000 for the charity Partners in Health for her tournament victory.
Fans celebrated Victoria's win on X, with one fan excitedly tweeting in all caps, "James Holzhauer reign of terror officially over bring in the crown for Victoria (I love James)."
Like the semifinals, the finale wiped the standings clean for a level playing field.
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Victoria, Yogesh, and James competed in a two-game total-point affair with the winner being determined by the highest combined score of both matches.
The first round of the first game featured the categories Way Back In '23, Second letter "Y", Farm Fun, A Dominating Performance, Utopian Literature, and The World Revolves Around Jason Kelce.
The last category featured popular retired Philadelphia Eagle Jason Kelce, brother of current Super Bowl champ Travis Kelce, reading off the clues.
Victoria got off to an early lead but James worked his way back into the game, eventually tying the score with $1,400 before betting big and losing it all in the Daily Double.
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Jame briefly regained the lead after a couple of incorrect responses by Victoria.
Yogesh gave the crowd a laugh after he responded "Salt and Pepa" to a Jason Kelce read clue about the 1987 hit single Push It by the 80s hip-hip group of the same name.
Ken Jennings reveals how tonight's Jeopardy! Masters finale's 'unlike average show' & says players 'are not intimidated'
Ken Jennings, 49, replied, "They might have pronounced it 'Salt-N-Pepa,'" emphasizing the "N" conjunction.
By the end of the round, Victoria had regained the lead with $4,600, narrowly edging out Yogesh who had $4,400.
James sat in last place, but not far behind, with $3,600.
FIRST DOUBLE JEOPARDY!
The second-round categories were Dry Places, Health & Medicine, Alliteration All Around, Wales and Whales-pourri, From Page To Stage, and Eponyms."
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Victoria again got off to an early and - this time - commanding lead, which led to her controlling the board and getting the Daily Double clue.
She earned a round of applause after she correctly answered "mesothelioma" to the prompt, "Bring Jennings & Gilbert LLP your claim of cancer from asbestos exposure, named for this layer of tissue over internal organs," taking her lead to $20,400.
Jame and Yogesh were left eating her figurative dust with $5,200 and $4,400 respectively.
Not one to accept a beating, James roared back with a mid-round run that saw him increase his score to $10,400 and collect a Daily Double.
He bet it all in the most exciting round of either game, correctly responding "Barclay Bay" to "Greenland forms this body of water’s eastern shore."
James' score rose to $20,800, just $2000 shy of Victoria's once commanding lead.
He then tied the game after responding, "What is Stanley Steamer?" to the clue, "In 1897 twin brothers Francis & Freelan built their first of these early cars."
After two unanswered clues, James finally took the lead when he correctly replied, "Garbo," to the clue, "9 days before JFK died, he gave a whale tooth to this reclusive actress at a white house dinner."
Before entering Final Jeopardy!, James had miraculously gained the lead with $27,200 over Victoria's $25,200 and Yogesh's $9,600.
He would go on to stead the round, and the game, when he correctly answered, "Houston," to the Final Jeopardy! prompt, "This man was the first to be governor of one state & then senator from another, 173 years later Mitt Romney became the second."
The first game ended with James at $28,309, Victoria at $21,400, and Yogesh at $19,200.
GAME NUMBER TWO
The second game began with the categories Numerical Geography, It’s All Greek Myth To Me, Tiny Bubbles, Names In Fashion, "I" Tunes, and This! Isn’t! Jeopardy!
Yogesh showed why he was one of the final three competitors remaining in game two.
He went on an early run that resulted in him picking the Daily Double clue.
Yogesh correctly, even if somewhat unsurely replied, "I Can See Clearly Now," to the clue, "In the 1980s, Windex competitor Glass Plus seized on the obvious & used a version of this 1972 song in its ads."
The first round was low-scoring but Yogesh held on to his lead to end the round with $5,799.
Victoria finished closely in second with $5,400 while James started to fall behind with only $2,600.
SECOND DOUBLE JEOPARDY!
The categories for the second and final round of Jeopardy Masters Season Two were African History, "K" "J" For The Win, New Material About Old Material, Women In Poems, TV, and Famous Hosts - read by Jimmy Kimmel.
Smelling blood in the water, Victoria asserted her dominance this round, going on an early lead and getting both Daily Doubles.
Jeopardy! Universe
Jeopardy! first aired in 1964 until 1975. Then the nighttime version began in 1974. Since then, spinoffs of the game show have emerged. Here are all of those
Jeopardy! - (primetime) 1974 to present, weekdays on ABC at 7pm
Tournament of Champions - 1984 to present, features the top champions who have appeared on the show since the last tournament
Celebrity Jeopardy! - 1992 to present, has celebrities comepete against each other to raise money for chairty
Jeopardy! Masters - 2023 to present, features six notable recent Jeopardy! champions competing against each other
Jeopardy! National College Championship - 2022 to present, undergraduates from 36 colleges and universities across America compete to win $100,000
Other versions of Jeopardy! have fizzled out throughout the years
In the first, she bet everything she had, increasing her lead from $13,600 to $27,200.
In the second, with the game nearly won, Victoria bet only $800 to bring her total to an even $30,00.
Kimmel managed to get in a dig at his long-time nemesis with the clue, "Jimmy Kimmel Live! has had guest hosts like my pals Anthony Anderson and John Mulaney but on January 24, 2013, my show was commandeered by this horrible disgrace of a human being."
That answer, which Yogesh correctly supplied was, of course, "Who is Matt Damon."
Before Final Jeopardy! the scores were Victoria with $34,00, Yogesh with $15,799, and James with $8,800.
All three correctly answered "Henrietta Lacks" to the clue "The New York Times wrote of this woman who had died in 1951, 'Though she was forgotten at the time, part of her remained alive.'"
Jame conceding defeat, added, "Final boss death music," and proceeded to mimic the Mario death tune upon being asked about it.
New champion Victoria wrote along with the correct response, "Great games y'all. See you next year!"
On X, one disappointed viewer wrote, "Rather anticlimactic FJ in the #JeopardyMasters final. Victoria Groce has a runaway win in the 2nd game, all but assuring her the championship.
"The #Jeopardy producers should think twice about doing this yearly. It gets boring pretty easily."
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The final scores were Victoria with a combined $55,400, Yogesh with a total of 45,910, and James with a two-game score of $38,017.
After hugs and handshakes were shared between contestants, Victoria joined Ken at the Jeopardy! lectern to receive the Trebek Trophy.
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