Warning: This page contains spoilers for the April 19, 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 Lives of the Poets) for Wednesday, April 19, 2023 (Season 39, Game 158):
At a seminary that classified students’ degree of faith, Emily Dickinson was “without” this, which she compares to a bird in a poem
(correct response beneath the contestants)
Today’s Jeopardy! contestants:
Ben Spilsbury, a sales engineer from Long Island City, New York |
Devin Lohman, an architectural designer & Masters student from Peachtree City, Georgia |
Deb Bilodeau, a winemaker from Oakland, California (1-day total: $16,601) |
Andy’s Pregame Thoughts:
Oakland winemaker Deb Bilodeau is today’s reigning Jeopardy! champion after their victory in yesterday’s game. Today’s challengers are Devin Lohman & Ben Spilsbury. Interestingly, there is a chance of having two champions named Ben simultaneously! (In case you missed it, Ben Chan’s run is on hiatus itself until May 15.)
Today’s game—as always, with the caveat that this is based on the categories provided in J!6—shows a category titled “We Predict 5 Anagrams of Nostradamus”. This appears to be another wordplay category. I am very much in favor of these wordplay categories, and I expect that the show will use these more often. (After all, wordplay categories are much more difficult to actually study for.)
PSA: The best way to keep COVID-19 at bay (and keep Jeopardy! producing new episodes) is for everybody to get their vaccinations as soon as they can, including any boosters as recommended. When wearing a mask, please ensure that your mask covers both your nose and your mouth.
Are you going on the show and looking for information about how to bet in Final Jeopardy? Check out my new Betting Strategy 101 page!
(Content continues below)
Correct response: What is hope?
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.)
Famed poet Emily Dickinson attended Mount Holyoke Female Seminary for one year in the late 1840s. While Dickinson excelled academically, as with many educational institutions of the time, Mount Holyoke believed in the religious and moral enrichment of its students; to that end, students were encouraged to profess their faith and categorized into one of three groups: students who professed, students who hoped to profess, and students who were without hope. Dickinson was classified as “without hope” and left Mount Holyoke after just one year of a three-year program.
Later, Dickinson wrote the famous poem, “‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers / That perches in the soul, ” comparing hope to a bird.
We have many new offerings at The Jeopardy! Fan Online Store! Proceeds from the sale of the “Doctor Oz’s Fast-Acting Snake Oil Elixir” T-shirt are being donated to The Trevor Project:
Game Recap & Tonight’s Game Stats:
Looking to find out who won Jeopardy! today? Here’s the Wednesday, April 19, 2023 Jeopardy! by the numbers, along with a recap:
Jeopardy! Round:
(Categories: People In Books; Where Is It, Doc?; Olive You; TV; I’m So Proud; My Kid Got Into An Ivy League Museum)
Deb easily had the best time in the opening round; they found the Daily Double early (though they only bet $600 on it) and got 14 correct to jump into a big lead. Ben had the best time at the top of the board, while Devin sat second on the strength of some higher-valued responses.
Statistics at the first break (15 clues):
Deb 7 correct 1 incorrect
Ben 5 correct 0 incorrect
Devin 2 correct 0 incorrect
Today’s interviews:
Ben is a reluctant party planner, tricking his friends to coming to his birthday.
Devin ran a marathon—just once—with no training.
Deb once received $1 from Spider-Man.
Statistics after the Jeopardy round:
Deb 14 correct 3 incorrect
Devin 3 correct 1 incorrect
Ben 8 correct 1 incorrect
Scores after the Jeopardy! Round:
Deb $7,600
Devin $1,800
Ben $1,600
Double Jeopardy! Round:
(Categories: Justinian Time; A European Vacation; Music-“O”-Logy; A Box Of Matches; Movie Comedies; We Predict 5 Anagrams Of Nostradamus)
Double Jeopardy! saw Devin jump into a very large lead after he found both Daily Doubles in a 3-clue span! In the span of 5 clues his score went from $4,600 to $20,600! However, Deb battled back strongly to take the lead for a brief moment before Devin found his game again, holding a slim lead going into the game’s final clue.
Statistics after Double Jeopardy:
Devin 12 correct 2 incorrect
Deb 24 correct 4 incorrect
Ben 13 correct 2 incorrect
Total number of unplayed clues this season: 26 (1 today).
Scores going into Final:
Devin $20,600
Deb $18,800
Ben $4,400
Final Jeopardy! today was a Triple Stumper; in one of the wildest finishes of the season, Devin ended up as champion, with just $1,200! He’ll be back tomorrow to defend.
Tonight’s results:
Ben $4,400 – $4,399 = $1 (What is Faith)
Deb $18,800 – $18,800 = $0 (What is Doubt?)
Devin $20,600 – $19,400 = $1,200 (What is God) (1-day total: $1,200)
Other Miscellaneous Game Statistics:
Daily Double locations:
1) PEOPLE IN BOOKS $400 (clue #5)
Deb 600 +600 (Devin 0 Ben 600)
2) MUSIC-“O”-LOGY $1600 (clue #10)
Devin 5800 +5800 (Deb 12400 Ben 2800)
3) JUSTINIAN TIME $1600 (clue #12, $17200 left on board)
Devin 11600 +7000 (Deb 12400 Ben 2800)
Overall Daily Double Efficiency for this game: 220
Clue Selection by Row, Before Daily Doubles Found:
J! Round:
Deb 1 2*
Devin
Ben 1 1 3
DJ! Round:
Deb 4 3 3
Devin 4 5 4 4* 5† 4*
Ben 3 3 5
† – selection in same category as Daily Double
Average Row of Clue Selection, Before Daily Doubles Found:
Devin 4.33
Ben 2.67
Deb 2.60
Unplayed clues:
J! Round: None!
DJ! Round: JUSTINIAN TIME $400
Total Left On Board: $400
Number of clues left unrevealed this season: 26 (0.16 per episode average), 0 Daily Doubles
Game Stats:
Devin $11,000 Coryat, 12 correct, 2 incorrect, 21.43% in first on buzzer (12/56), 0/0 on rebound attempts (on 6 rebound opportunities)
Ben $4,400 Coryat, 13 correct, 2 incorrect, 23.21% in first on buzzer (13/56), 2/2 on rebound attempts (on 6 rebound opportunities)
Deb $18,600 Coryat, 24 correct, 4 incorrect, 46.43% in first on buzzer (26/56), 1/1 on rebound attempts (on 4 rebound opportunities)
Combined Coryat Score: $34,000
Lach Trash: $12,400 (on 10 Triple Stumpers)
Coryat lost to incorrect responses (less double-correct responses): $7,200
Player Statistics:
Deb Bilodeau, career statistics:
49 correct, 9 incorrect
3/3 on rebound attempts (on 7 rebound opportunities)
44.25% in first on buzzer (50/113)
3/3 on Daily Doubles (Net Earned: $4,100)
1/2 in Final Jeopardy
Average Coryat: $16,900
Devin Lohman, career statistics:
12 correct, 3 incorrect
0/0 on rebound attempts (on 6 rebound opportunities)
21.43% in first on buzzer (12/56)
2/2 on Daily Doubles (Net Earned: $12,800)
0/1 in Final Jeopardy
Average Coryat: $11,000
Ben Spilsbury, career statistics:
13 correct, 3 incorrect
2/2 on rebound attempts (on 6 rebound opportunities)
23.21% in first on buzzer (13/56)
0/0 on Daily Doubles
0/1 in Final Jeopardy
Average Coryat: $4,400
Devin Lohman, to win:
2 games: 65.551%
3: 42.969%
4: 28.166%
5: 18.463%
6: 12.103%
Avg. streak: 2.903 games.
Andy’s Thoughts:
- This exists. Learn it. Use it. Please.
- $1,200 is the lowest winning score since Megan Wachspress won $401 on June 20, 2022.
- Today’s box score: April 19, 2023 Box Score.
Final Jeopardy! wagering suggestions:
(Scores: Devin $20,600 Deb $18,800 Ben $4,400)
Deb: Bet between $3,601 (thereby staying above Devin’s low range) and $9,999 (thereby keeping Ben locked out). (Actual bet: $18,800)
Devin: Standard cover bet over Deb is $17,001.(Actual bet: $19,400)
Ben: Limit your bet to $799; this way, you stay ahead of Devin if he gets Final incorrect. (Actual bet: $4,399)
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One of Dickinson’s most famous poems! I will be shocked if this isn’t a triple get.
Oh my god.
Given the circumstances of his run, if Ben (Chan) were to turn his first two games back into runaways, would you still count him as the first person in the Sky’s The Limit era to turn his first five games into runaways?
I absolutely would.
I apologize if I missed this here (or elsewhere), but what is the likely scenario to work Ben back into the “rotation”?
I believe he returns “on t.v.” on May 15th.
Thank you – what will happen to the then-current champ?
The reigning or current champ will occupy podium 1.
Ben will occupy one of the other podia.
There is recent precedent for this: when champ Zach Newkirk returned after Covid restrictions were relaxed – remember when all the contestants were from southern California? – he went up against the current chamnp. And won.
So Ben will go into the rotation May 15 against the then current champ? Has that happened before?
It’s happened three times before, at least when not counting returns due to a ruling misfire –
April 9, 2009 – Jeff Mangum (1 day, $20,000) vs. a returning Priscilla Ball (1 day, $12,799). Priscilla ended up winning that game, though she would lose her third.
January 18, 2016 – Mike Drummond (1 day, $20,801) vs. a returning Claudia Corriere (2 days, $29,000). All three players finished with $0.
And January 28, 2021 – Brian Chang (7 days, $163,904) vs. a returning Zach Newkirk (4 days, $85,669). Zach won that game and the next before being beat in his seventh game.
The nice thing about Brian Chang versus Zach Newkirk is that they became real-life friends per Twitter.
It has happened on each of the three occasions since “sky’s the limit” came into effect that a defending champion could not return for the following taping; there will be two returning champions and one challenger.
When this happened in 2009 and 2021, the champion whose run was interrupted defeated the champion who had won on the previous episode and a challenger. In the other instance in 2016… well, that was the most recent triple-zero game (that is, there was no winner).
I must go on record here to say that someone deceived me many years ago and told me that Emily Dickenson only wrote one poem, and I believed it!!! It’s the one that begins “Success is counted sweetest…”. Anyway, so of course she wrote many others. And I’m trying to wrap my head around that!!!
Weird—just yesterday I read “Hope is the thing with feathers”—one of my favorites too—to share with a friend who was feeling a little down. I’d like to think I would have gotten it anyway, it was so obvious to me. And I always find Andy’s write-ups so educational and inspirational when he provides this kind of background information that I had never known about what I thought was a familiar subject!
I was just thinking about that poem thus morning, thinking of a friend with pancreatic cancer. It’s a popular poem in the cancer support community
If Devin manages to go on an all-time great run (which I am skeptical of, because of his very low buzzer %), this game will definitely be the most obvious example of him catching a lucky break. He’s a smart player, has great clue selection strategy, and isn’t afraid to bet big, but in any other universe, he ends this game in third place. Not first.
I apologize if this comes off as too aggressive or too harsh. Believe it or not, this was my fifth re-write of this comment, solely because the first four drafts would have easily led to a restriction if I actually went through with posting them.
It’s not a shocker that this game ended not in a triple get!!!
I am not entirely sure what you were trying to say, but I guess I can say that I was not expecting a triple get, but I was shocked that not one of them got it. You don’t even have to right off remember the poem (especially since it doesn’t even literally say the words “hope is a bird”), but I thought about single words pertaining to religious belief and the first ones that came to me were Faith, Hope, and Charity and THEN I remembered about a poem comparing hope to a bird.
Huh… I couldn’t tell you the poem, but I just guessed “hope” because it sounded like it fit 🍀
Back in the nineties, my brother and I were watching Jeopardy and he made some remark about how a person should bet zero dollars, explaining that they were betting on the first place person to not know it. It had never occurred to me to do anything other than go big or go home. Now, though, with so much information out there about strategy, I do not understand how people don’t have the equivalent of the NFL QB’s arm cuff with how much to bet under various circumstances. It is painful to see someone lose in this situation. As a fan, I spend the commercial break after double jeopardy thinking about bets. It’s such an important part of the game.
This may be false, but I’ve heard that the show prefers not to have two contestants face off with the same first name, so this Ben might not have gotten the call yet if the other Ben was still playing. As a Ben myself, I wouldn’t know who to root for!
Please correct me if I am wrong, but I don’t think Ken Jennings faced anyone else named Ken during his initial record run. I have a recollection that one time during a tournament that two contestants had the same first name, so they announced prior to the game that one of the contestants was going to go by her nickname. I don’t remember the names or nickname, I just remember that it happened.
This was addressed in a recent episode of the Inside Jeopardy podcast. Sarah said that in regular play, they do not let two players play under the same name. If someone has the same first name as the returning champion, they would be given the option to either return at a later date or play under an alias like a middle name or nickname. It’s possible Ben from tonight’s game had been willing to play under a different name, though we don’t know the timing of when he was called and when Ben Chan knew he would be unable to travel.
Devin ran a marathon with no training. You all want him to prepare with betting strategies?
First of all, Devin’s Final Jeopardy bet was the only bet that made any kind of sense. Actually, it was the most reasonable bet… by a marathon. (Sorry not sorry.)
Second of all, if you asked people who ran a marathon and went on Jeopardy which one was harder, I’m fairly certain most of them would say marathon 🙂
Jeopardy is harder than running a marathon* whoops!
Thanks alot Art, just made me do a spit-take…
Wish there were a “like” button for your comment!
👍 or 👏(clapping) or ✋(a high five)?
Not a single person wagered correctly. Had anyone of them wagered correctly, they could have won. In a way, I find that kind of frustrating, especially with resources at hand that are very instructive. Hard to believe that not a single one knew proper wagering strategy.
As Emily Dickinson is one of my favorite poets from way back, this one was easy for me. I was disappointed that not even one of the three got it. It did make for an exciting finish though. A real cliff (Clavin) hanger.
Haha, “Who are three people who’ve never been in my kitchen?”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Is…_Cliff_Clavin%3F
I went with “grace” because I misremembered. Why would anyone expect a triple get for this one? This is something easy to get confused in your head.
The thing that gets me, like everyone else, is how baffling their wagers were. What was Ben thinking, wagering all but $1 from a distant third? I’d have bet $0 in his shoes. Deb betting it all forces Devin to cover, so I get what they was going for, but Devin has to lose for them to win. Devin could’ve gotten meta and bet $8200 under the presumption Deb would bet like so, but betting more than the cover bet risks losing to Ben.
If I was on Jeopardy, I’d prioritize reviewing your betting strategy guide the night prior. What wins or loses games is wagering on Daily Doubles (go all-in except if it’s the fourth quarter, in which case you enough to keep/take a lead, or a bad category for you) and Final.