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Warning: This page contains spoilers for the January 26, 2023, game of Jeopardy! — please do not scroll down if you wish to avoid being spoiled. Please note that the game airs as early as noon Eastern in some U.S. television markets.
Here’s today’s Final Jeopardy (in the category History) for Thursday, January 26, 2023 (Season 39, Game 99):
Returning home in 1493, Columbus stopped in the Azores at an island with this name, also something he’d lost off the Haiti coast
(correct response beneath the contestants)
Today’s Jeopardy! contestants:
John Guszkowski, a planning consultant from Pomfret, Connecticut
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Emma Moore, a librarian from Princeton, New Jersey
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Troy Meyer, a music executive from Tampa, Florida (5-day total: $170,401)
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Andy’s Pregame Thoughts:
Troy Meyer is a 5-time champion on Jeopardy. In the nearly-40-year history of the show, only eight players have won more money over their first five games (obviously, with pre-2001 totals adjusted for the doubling in dollar values): James Holzhauer, Frank Spangenberg, Roger Craig, Jerome Vered, Austin Rogers, Larissa Kelly, David Siegel, and Doug Lach. How long will Troy’s run go? Will it end soon, like Roger Craig’s? Or, like James Holzhauer, will we see Troy on our screen for the next month? Only time—and the variance that is present in every game of Jeopardy!—will tell.
Unfortunately, outrage drives web traffic, and Troy’s incredible run is still being completely overshadowed by the “controversy” surrounding Yogesh Raut’s social media posts—and that’s an absolute shame because I think more people need to pay attention to what’s going on now.
Back to today’s game—today’s challengers are Princeton, NJ librarian Emma Moore and Connecticut’s John Guszkowski. If you remember Gus Guszkowski from last year’s Jeopardy! National College Championship, John is Gus’ father.
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(Content continues below)
Correct response: What is Santa Maria?
More information about Final Jeopardy:
(The following write-up is original content and is copyright 2023 The Jeopardy! Fan. It may not be copied without linked attribution back to this page.)
Of Columbus’ three ships from his first voyage—the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa María—only the Niña and the Pinta made it back to Spain; the Santa María running aground off the coast of the island of Hispaniola. On the trip back to Spain in 1493, the expedition stopped at Santa Maria Island; the southernmost island in the Azores.
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Game Recap:
Jeopardy! Round:
(Categories: 20th Century America; Let’s Talk About Sax, Baby; Working 9 2 5; What’s In The Bottle?; Alliteration Time; The “End”s Of The Earth)
Troy had a better time on the higher-valued clues, but John clawed back a little bit of the deficit after the first break. Things could get interesting in Double Jeopardy!
Statistics at the first break (15 clues):
Troy 9 correct 0 incorrect
John 3 correct 1 incorrect
Emma 1 correct 3 incorrect
Statistics after the Jeopardy round:
Troy 13 correct 1 incorrect
John 10 correct 2 incorrect
Emma 3 correct 4 incorrect
Double Jeopardy! Round:
(Categories: A Line In The Sand; Languages; Venomous Creatures; Finance & Investing; “B” Movies; 12 Letters Or More)
Emma got to the Daily Double on the opening pick of the round, but fell deeper into the hole with it. However, to her credit, she did keep playing and pulled herself out of the hole by the end. Today’s game was a slugfest between Troy and John, though, with John betting almost his entire stack on the third Daily Double. John’s correct response set things up for a grandstand finish! Scores going into Final were Troy at $24,400, John at $22,200, and Emma at $2,800.
Statistics after Double Jeopardy:
Troy 26 correct 1 incorrect
John 21 correct 2 incorrect
Emma 8 correct 5 incorrect
Total number of unplayed clues this season: 14 (0 today).
Troy and John were correct in Final—Troy has passed the $200,000 mark in just 6 games! He’ll go for win #7 tomorrow.
Tonight’s Game Stats:
Looking to find out who won Jeopardy! today? Here’s the Thursday, January 26, 2023 Jeopardy! by the numbers:
Scores going into Final:
Troy $24,400
John $22,200
Emma $2,800
Tonight’s results:
Emma $2,800 – $2,799 = $1 (What is Nina?)
John $22,200 + $11,100 = $33,300 (What is Santa Maria?)
Troy $24,400 + $20,001 = $44,401 (What is Santa Maria?) (6-day total: $214,802)
Scores after the Jeopardy! Round:
Troy $9,200
John $3,000
Emma -$1,600
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Opening break taken after: 15 clues
Daily Double locations:
1) 20th CENTURY AMERICA $800 (clue #2)
Troy 1000 +1000 (Emma 0 John 0)
2) LANGUAGES $1600 (clue #1)
Emma -1600 -2000 (Troy 9200 John 3000)
3) 12 LETTERS OR MORE $1600 (clue #19, $8400 left on board)
John 9000 +8000 (Troy 21600 Emma 2400)
Overall Daily Double Efficiency for this game: 89
Clue Selection by Row, Before Daily Doubles Found:
J! Round:
Troy 5 4*
Emma
John
DJ! Round:
Troy 5 4 4 4 3 2 2 3 2
Emma 4* 5† 3 5 5 2
John 5 4 3 4*
† – selection in same category as Daily Double
Average Row of Clue Selection, Before Daily Doubles Found:
Troy 3.45
John 4.00
Emma 4.00
Unplayed clues:
J! Round: None!
DJ! Round: None!
Total Left On Board: $0
Number of clues left unrevealed this season: 14 (0.14 per episode average), 0 Daily Doubles
Game Stats:
Troy $24,200 Coryat, 26 correct, 1 incorrect, 42.11% in first on buzzer (24/57), 2/2 on rebound attempts (on 5 rebound opportunities)
John $15,800 Coryat, 21 correct, 2 incorrect, 35.09% in first on buzzer (20/57), 2/2 on rebound attempts (on 4 rebound opportunities)
Emma $4,800 Coryat, 8 correct, 5 incorrect, 19.30% in first on buzzer (11/57), 0/1 on rebound attempts (on 3 rebound opportunities)
Combined Coryat Score: $44,800
Lach Trash: $3,000 (on 4 Triple Stumpers)
Coryat lost to incorrect responses (less double-correct responses): $6,200
Troy Meyer, career statistics:
180 correct, 12 incorrect
10/12 on rebound attempts (on 22 rebound opportunities)
48.54% in first on buzzer (166/342)
8/8 on Daily Doubles (Net Earned: $29,000)
5/6 in Final Jeopardy
Average Coryat: $24,967
Emma Moore, career statistics:
8 correct, 6 incorrect
0/1 on rebound attempts (on 3 rebound opportunities)
19.30% in first on buzzer (11/57)
0/1 on Daily Doubles (Net Earned: -$2,000)
0/1 in Final Jeopardy
Average Coryat: $4,800
John Guszkowski, career statistics:
22 correct, 2 incorrect
2/2 on rebound attempts (on 4 rebound opportunities)
35.09% in first on buzzer (20/57)
1/1 on Daily Doubles (Net Earned: $8,000)
1/1 in Final Jeopardy
Average Coryat: $15,800
Troy Meyer, to win:
7 games: 84.376%
8: 71.194%
9: 60.071%
10: 50.685%
11: 42.766%
Avg. streak: 11.401 games.
Today’s interviews:
John was in an all-accordion ensemble at the age of 10.
Emma works just down the hall from Einstein’s old office.
Troy is looking to spend his winnings on building a recording studio.
Andy’s Thoughts:
- I think it’s safe to say that this is the sort of Jeopardy! we’ll be seeing so much more of in the coming years—players knowing they have to be aggressive on the Daily Doubles—and it’s so exciting to watch.
- Today’s box score: January 26, 2023 Box Score.
Final Jeopardy! wagering suggestions:
(Scores: Troy $24,400 John $22,200 Emma $2,800)
Troy: Standard cover bet over John is $20,001. (Actual bet: $20,001)
Emma: Bet at least $1,601, thereby passing Troy if you’re correct and he is not. (Actual bet: $2,799)
John: Bet between $4,401 (thereby covering against any sort of small range Troy might bet) and $16,599 (thereby keeping Emma locked out). (Actual bet: $11,100)
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This was grade-school history when I was a kid, which made it a bit tougher to remember 😜
First thing that came to my mind was Virgin Islands and thought maybe he lost his, well yes, off the Haiti cost….but realized, no, that can’t be it.
Mark, I was thinking the same thing…
That is what immediately, laughingly, came to my mind, too, but I figured it was one of his ships and though I am not familiar with the Caribbean islands nor the Azores, I thought Santa Maria sounded the most like the name of an island.
With only three choices, I figured it could not be the Pinta or the Niña. LOL
Thanks so much for cracking me up!!
This was easy as pie. Grade school stuff I learned back in the days of learning about Christopher Columbus and the santa maria. Happy to see John and Troy getting this final right. John will be back in the second chance I can sense it.
Echo all the above. His virginity did occur to me before I swiftly recalled that the Santa Maria shipwrecked and the wood was repurposed. Glad it was close to a triple get – Emma had the right idea but wasn’t sure which ship.
Troy is a beast. It will take a challenger like John (I’m glad he went ballsy on the Daily Double) getting lucky to take him down. As the last two days have shown, it can happen. Just a matter of when it does.
I echo that statement about what sort of Jeopardy we’ll be watching in the coming years, and aggressive wagering is so much more fun to watch. (This is all my opinion; if anyone here prefers the conservative style, that’s fine! I just find it more fun when people go big.)
I’m sure that, soon, there’s gonna be a game where all three players successfully convert $10,000+ Daily Doubles. That’s gonna be amazing.
That will be pretty tough since each of the three would already have to be 10,000+ without having the benefit of a daily double – including the one who finds it in the first round.
Oh yeah… $10000 is a good score at the end of the first round. For a player to have that much BEFORE the DD was found would be very unusual!
In light of Andy’s comment regarding outrage on social media, I’d like to reiterate my comment from Troy’s very first appearance as a challenger as I think it is still relevant. At that time, I wrote:
“What a pleasure it was to watch a quizzer like Troy. He not only has a wealth of trivia knowledge but quickly mastered the buzzer with excellent technique. What really made it all the better was that everything about him and his mannerisms speaks to humility and not being arrogant about his trivia game prowess. I really enjoyed watching Troy on Jeopardy! and look forward to what I hope will be an extended run. Great job by Hillary and Erin as well but I think you were up against a tough out and potential super champion. Of course, as Andy pointed out, there are no guarantees on Jeopardy! but I think Troy has a good chance of an extended run. He really seems like such a nice guy without a touch of arrogance about him.”
Having watched Troy through six games now, I think that comment still holds. 🙂
This was another exciting close game! Congrats again,Troy.
wow he got $200k really fast in such few games !
Troy is a great champion. Really enjoying his run.
“Jellyfish” acceptable for “box jellyfish”? I would assume so based on the dollar value of the clue.
Again, I think Ken asked for more specificity when a response should have been ruled incorrect based on the category (Alliteration Time). I wish there would at least be some consistency on this.
Interesting that all four triple stumpers came in the Jeopardy round.
Watching again, I noticed Troy sitting in a chair as the credits rolled?
I should have known from the fact that he appeared much shorter while playing. I hope he’s alright.
IMO, I think all contestants should be given the option of sitting in a chair or stool if they would like to. (then again, I also think that store cashiers should also have that option)