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Warning: This page contains spoilers for the May 17, 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 U.S. National Memorials) for Wednesday, May 17, 2023 (Season 39, Game 178):
Efforts recently began to reintroduce 2 species of oyster to help restore the contaminated waters of this, a national memorial
(correct response beneath the contestants)
Today’s Jeopardy! contestants:
David Lu, a mail processing clerk from Los Angeles, California |
Brittani Seagren, a nurse practitioner from Bourbonnais, Illinois |
Ben Chan, a philosophy professor from Green Bay, Wisconsin (5-day total: $157,000) |
Andy’s Pregame Thoughts:
Yesterday, Ben Chan became the first player since 2001 to win his first five games in runaway fashion. Today, he takes on L.A.’s David Lu and Illinois’s Brittani Seagren.
Jeopardy! Masters continues tonight with the final night of the quarterfinals. It will definitely be Sam Buttrey’s last game of the tournament in the opener, while Amy Schneider needs to both win the last game and hope that Matt Amodio doesn’t win the first one. Again, it airs on ABC in the US and CTV2 in Canada, at 8:00 PM Eastern. The semifinals stage of the competition will begin next Monday.
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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 Pearl Harbor?
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.)
Beginning in 2019, the University of Hawaii at Hilo began working with the U.S. Navy and Oahu Waterkeeper to improve the water quality at Pearl Harbor. Oysters—in this case the Hawaiian oyster and black-lip pearl oyster—are able to filter between 20–45 gallons of water per day, removing pollutants from the water in the area. Pearl Harbor itself, originally a part of the World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument, was made a separate national memorial in March 2019; the harbor was the site of the Japanese attack on Hawaii on December 7, 1941.
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Game Recap & Tonight’s Game Stats:
Looking to find out who won Jeopardy! today? Here’s the Wednesday, May 17, 2023 Jeopardy! by the numbers, along with a recap:
Jeopardy! Round:
(Categories: Great Brits; “X” In The City; Pantomime Horse; That’s Our Motto!; Y’Know, The Movie Where…; We’re Full Of Questions)
Even though Ben got an early Daily Double incorrect, he recovered to pick up 17 correct in the first round and led at both commercial breaks!
Statistics at the first break (15 clues):
Ben 8 correct 1 incorrect
Brittani 4 correct 0 incorrect
David 1 correct 2 incorrect
Today’s interviews:
David has been a fan of Jeopardy! since the Art Fleming cameo in “Airplane II”.
Brittani injured her wrist at a pain management conference.
Ben is looking forward to the Tournament of Champions.
Statistics after the Jeopardy round:
Ben 17 correct 1 incorrect
Brittani 5 correct 0 incorrect
David 5 correct 2 incorrect
Scores after the Jeopardy! Round:
Ben $8,400
Brittani $3,200
David $2,000
Double Jeopardy! Round:
(Categories: Podcasts; U.S. Presidential Elections; Scientific Devices & Instruments; Poe”M”s; Recent Pop Music; Jeopardy! After Dark)
Ben got to both Daily Doubles in this round, betting $5,000 on the first one and $5 on the second. He then romped to a runaway, while Brittani and David were forced to take chances to catch up. Unfortunately, it did not work, with both barely on the plus side.
Statistics after Double Jeopardy:
Ben 31 correct 3 incorrect
David 9 correct 8 incorrect
Brittani 7 correct 3 incorrect
Total number of unplayed clues this season: 26 (0 today).
Scores going into Final:
Ben $24,205
David $1,200
Brittani $400
Brittani and Ben got Final correct; Ben has 6 runaways in 6 wins—the first ever to do so—and goes for #7 tomorrow!
Tonight’s results:
Brittani $400 + $399 = $799 (What is Pearl Harbor?)
David $1,200 – $200 = $1,000 (What Three Mile Island?)
Ben $24,205 + $795 = $25,000 (What is Pearl Harbor??) (6-day total: $182,000)
Other Miscellaneous Game Statistics:
Daily Double locations:
1) THAT’S OUR MOTTO! $800 (clue #4)
Ben 1400 -1000 (Brittani 1000 David 0)
2) U.S. PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS $1200 (clue #5)
Ben 13200 +5000 (Brittani 3200 David 0)
3) PODCASTS $1600 (clue #19, $8800 left on board)
Ben 20600 +5 (Brittani 2000 David 800)
Overall Daily Double Efficiency for this game: -34
Clue Selection by Row, Before Daily Doubles Found:
J! Round:
Ben 4 5 4*
Brittani 3
David
DJ! Round:
Ben 4 5 3* 5 4 3 2 5 4 5 4 5 3 4*
Brittani
David 2 3 3 2 2†
† – selection in same category as Daily Double
Average Row of Clue Selection, Before Daily Doubles Found:
Ben 4.06
David 2.40
Brittani 3.00
Unplayed clues:
J! Round: None!
DJ! Round: None!
Total Left On Board: $0
Number of clues left unrevealed this season: 26 (0.15 per episode average), 0 Daily Doubles
Game Stats:
Ben $23,000 Coryat, 31 correct, 3 incorrect, 47.37% in first on buzzer (27/57), 3/4 on rebound attempts (on 9 rebound opportunities)
David $1,200 Coryat, 9 correct, 8 incorrect, 28.07% in first on buzzer (16/57), 0/1 on rebound attempts (on 3 rebound opportunities)
Brittani $400 Coryat, 7 correct, 3 incorrect, 15.79% in first on buzzer (9/57), 0/1 on rebound attempts (on 8 rebound opportunities)
Combined Coryat Score: $24,600
Lach Trash: $14,800 (on 12 Triple Stumpers)
Coryat lost to incorrect responses (less double-correct responses): $14,600
Player Statistics:
Ben Chan, career statistics:
170 correct, 14 incorrect
7/9 on rebound attempts (on 23 rebound opportunities)
45.03% in first on buzzer (154/342)
13/15 on Daily Doubles (Net Earned: $35,205)
5/6 in Final Jeopardy
Average Coryat: $23,067
Brittani Seagren, career statistics:
8 correct, 3 incorrect
0/1 on rebound attempts (on 8 rebound opportunities)
15.79% in first on buzzer (9/57)
0/0 on Daily Doubles
1/1 in Final Jeopardy
Average Coryat: $400
David Lu, career statistics:
9 correct, 9 incorrect
0/1 on rebound attempts (on 3 rebound opportunities)
28.07% in first on buzzer (16/57)
0/0 on Daily Doubles
0/1 in Final Jeopardy
Average Coryat: $1,200
Ben Chan, to win:
7 games: 80.136%
8: 64.218%
9: 51.462%
10: 41.239%
11: 33.048%
Avg. streak: 10.034 games.
Andy’s Thoughts:
- Today’s box score will be linked to when posted by the show.
Final Jeopardy! wagering suggestions:
(Scores: Ben $24,205 David $1,200 Brittani $400)
Ben: Limit your bet to $21,804. (Actual bet: $795)
Brittani: Bet whatever you like. (Actual bet: $399)
David: Limit your bet to $399. (Actual bet: $200)
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I said ‘The USS Arizona’. I wonder if they would take that.
Same here, I also had the USS Arizona. Who even knows nowadays how judges will rule.
Sure. I’d give it to you.
I said the USS Constitution, thinking that the oysters are tastier there.
Instead of the actual harbor seems unlikely but🤷
You got closer than me anyway. I had no idea what the clue was about. The only recent news I know about Pearl Harbor was a story about a fuel leak from a WW2 depot. That might be related, but I don’t recall anything to do with shellfish in that story. The one Andy linked to is from 2019 and this was the first I’ve heard of it.
Current FJ streak: 2L and I am awaiting tonight’s Masters episodes with trepidation😟
I don’t think they’d take that because the oysters were reintroduced to the harbor and not just the ship.
I was surprised Ben didn’t bet more in final jeopardy. I did understand his second daily double though I probably would have done 1000 if I were him. I thought he should bet 10 or 15k, but it is always a risk I suppose.
Always easier to wager someone else’s money.
Wow. I did not know that oysters provide a natural way of cleaning polluted waters.
Living on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay, we in Maryland are constantly reminded of the vital role oysters play in bay filtration. I humorously thought the answer should be “What is the Chesapeake Bay?” because (I think) it should be a national memorial.
Right there with you, Jim. A lifelong resident of Maryland and conservationist, I am well aware of oysters’ role in bay filtration. Using that knowledge, along with the fact that I associate oysters with pearls, it was easy to come up with the correct response of Pearl Harbor.
Jeez, not even James Holzhauer ran away with it with his first six games. This guy’s definitely going to be here for a very long time, probably even 15 or 20 games.
unless he goes against a strong opponent and makes a mistake
Maybe not in his first six games, but how many runaway games did James have in total? Did he ever have a streak of runaway games that was six or greater? Streaks that occur in your first games and streaks that occur during one’s entire run are two different things. Anyone have the statistics on that for James or anyone else with a long streak?
I found it in the archive, only game 2 of James’ first 6 was not a runaway. https://j-archive.com/showgame.php?game_id=6257
I knew that some 90+ years later, the Arizona is still leaking oil, and, that it is a National Memorial. I didn’t know that the entire harbor was considered a National Memorial. Still, taking the entire answer as a whole, I did say “what is Pearl Harbor?”
I got this one correct immediately by being wrong about something. I knew there are national seashores (like national forests, though I had not known that there are even some national rivers), but I didn’t think there are any National Monuments that are bodies of ocean water (where oysters can live) EXCEPT Pearl Harbor, regardless of whether its water is contaminated or not (though I did already know oysters do naturally decontaminate and are being deployed for that purpose). So I got FJ! correct, BUT I have found out that there are indeed [five] U.S. marine national monuments, though I still am not sure why they are called monuments instead of some other term [though they do seem to have been created (for protection purposes) by presidential proclamations that only have authorization to create “national monuments”].
Yay! I guessed Pearl Harbor, although I didn’t know that the water there in Hawai’i is polluted. I briefly thought it might be the Exxon Valdez oil spill area, but I don’t know if there was ever a national monument installed near the area of that oil spill. Also, congrats to Ben Chan! He’s fun to watch!