[Warning: This post contains spoilers for the February 14 Jeopardy! Exhibition Game episode]
Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions ended on Thursday, February 13, after crowning Neilesh Vinjamuri the winner. The Invitational Tournament is supposed to start right after ToC, so fans were left confused when a special old episode aired. They also thought that the questions were way too easy for the contestants.
Adriana Harmeyer, an archivist from West Lafayette, Indiana, Isaac Hirsch, a customer support team lead from Burbank, California, and Drew Basile, a graduate student from Birmingham, Michigan, faced off in an Exhibition Game. This game aired on TuneIn Radio on January 24, 2025. Jeopardy! decided to air the episode on TV for all to see as they prepare for JIT on Monday, February 17.
Harmeyer and Hirsch went on to compete in the final rounds of ToC with Vinjamuri, not Basile. Host Ken Jennings described this game as a rehearsal for ToC. The three contestants in the Exhibition Game sealed a spot in the semi-finals, but didn’t get to play in the quarterfinals.
“This is a chance for these three contestants to play 61 clues, so everyone has a level playing field going into the finals,” Jennings said.
However, some fans thought that these questions were way too easy for this level of champions. The first category that Harmeyer picked was “Sounds like an Actor’s Name,” where they had to follow clues such as “Sounds like a Batman: 3-letter term meaning to prohibit + a company with a duck symbol.” Harmeyer got it wrong, but the answer was “Ban Aflack,” like the actor Ben Affleck.
Other categories in the first round included “Newspapers Terms,” “Give Me Some Backups,” which was naming the lead singer of a band who had backup singers, “Vice Presidents,” and “They Drive on the Left Side of the Road.”
At the end of the first round, Hirsch has a wide lead with $8,200, Harmeyer was in second with $3,200, and Basile wasn’t far behind with $3,000.
Some of the easier categories in Double Jeopardy included “Authors and Their Characters,” “Anagrammed Bible People,” and “Sports Movies.”
Basile quickly moved into second place when he correctly guessed his Daily Double and wagered all of his $3,000 for the author category. Then in the category “Birds Es,” Basile went all in again, wagering $8,400. He got the questions correct and was quickly in the lead with $16,800.
By the end of the round, he was still in the lead with $19,200. Hirsch was in second with $15,000 and Harmeyer wasn’t too far behind with $10,800.
In Final Jeopardy, the category was revealed to be “Mythology.” Jennings let the contestants make their wagers before he read off the clue. “On an early book of flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator’s maps, an image of this titan holding the world was used.”
Harmeyer answered with “Who is Atlas?” Jennings explained that is why a book of maps is called an Atlas because that was the correct answer. She wagered $10,000, bringing her total to $20,800. Hirsch also answered Atlas and wagered $6,600, making his final total $21,600. Basile also had the correct answer, wagering all of his money, making his total $38,400, and that night’s winner.
However, as this was an exhibition game, the results did not count.
Fans of Jeopardy! thought that the categories and questions were too easy for that level of competition. Many of them on Reddit said that they got all of the answers right.
“Oh hey I got every single clue right today,” a fan said.
“You know, as someone who never listened to the TuneIn version of this game (or read anything about it), I’m sure I’m treading water when I say that’s a rather “easy” board for a TOC exhibition. I get that it’s mainly for buzzer practice, rhythm, and feel, but they could’ve thrown in something a little tougher, just to act as a more proper warmup,” wrote another.
Another fan claimed that the contestants were “having too much fun.”
The 2025 Jeopardy! Invitational Tournament begins on Monday, February 17.
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