Wagering $0 on the Final Jeopardy clue is not something that is done often. And if it is, it doesn’t usually pay off. Jeopardy! champion Katelynn Mueller-McLean wagered no money during her first game and wound up winning.
Mueller-McLean, from San Francisco, California, entered her second game with a total of $3,400 after defeating one-day champion Dan Laine. For the accessibility audio producer’s second game, Mueller-McLean played against Danya Granado, from Aurora, California, and Matt Wheeler, from Mount Joy, Pennsylvania. Warning: Spoilers for the June 11 episode of Jeopardy! ahead!
The beginning of the game was filled with a lot of Triple Stumpers and incorrect responses. By the first commercial break, all of the contestants were tied with $1,600.
When the game show returned, Mueller-McLean found the Daily Double on clue 17. She had $2,000 and wagered all of it.
In “West Side Stories,” the clue read, “A former Army man, James Jones set this novel in Hawaii just before & during the Pearl Harbor attack.” She didn’t know and dropped down to $0. The correct response was From Here to Eternity.
But by the end of the round, Wheeler, an associate registrar and songwriter, was in the lead with $2,200. Granado, a college administrator, had $600. Mueller-McLean was in third place with $400.
Mueller-McLean found the first DD in Double Jeopardy on clue one. She had $400 and wagered the allotted $2,000. The clue in “3 Little Words” read, “When you believe in something without evidence, you take this, a phrase associated with Kierkegaard.” “What is at face value?” she answered incorrectly. The correct response was a leap of faith, so she dropped down to -$1,600.
When Mueller-McLean found the DD on clue 20, she was in second place with $3,200. She wagered $1,000 in “Unpleasant People.” The clue read, “This word for a grumpy old man starts with a grumpy 3-letter word for his dog.”
Mueller-McLean didn’t know the answer again and dropped to $2,200. The correct response was curmudgeon.
Wheeler had the lead by the end of the round with $11,400. Mueller-McLean had $4,600. Granado was in third place with $2,200.
“Poets” was the category for Final Jeopardy. The clue read, “The concept of Westminster Abbey’s Poets’ Corner was born when Edmund Spenser expressly asked to be buried near him.” Only one of the contestants had the right answer.
Granado’s response was “Who is Shelley?” She was wrong and wagered $2,100, leaving her with $100. Mueller-McLean’s response was “Who is Eliot?” She was wrong again and wagered $0 once again and ended with $4,600.
Wheeler was correct with “Who is Chaucer?” He wagered $2,100, making his final total $13,500. That made him the winner. He will return on Friday for game two.
Mueller-McLean spoke out on Reddit about her Daily Doubles misses and her wager. “Being behind those podiums does weird things to the brain. Speaking of which, let’s talk about those Daily Doubles… Words cannot express how disappointing it was to go 0 for 3. While preparing for my appearance, I was hovering around a 60-70% DD get rate (and I knew most of the ones from this tape day thus far!), so I promised myself I’d bet aggressively if/when the opportunity arose. When I missed the true DD in the J round, I figured ‘oh well, it’s early in the game’. When I landed on the first DD in DJ, I bet the max in hopes of recouping some money. That didn’t work out, and now I was in the red. I wasn’t too stoked to land on that third DD after digging myself out of the hole, and decided to wager a little more conservatively. In hindsight, I obviously could have been even more conservative!” she said.
“Even though the Daily Doubles didn’t go my way, I don’t regret my wagers, and I feel good about my gameplay overall. Not perfect by any means, but I made the best of it. One of my biggest goals for this experience was to take it clue by clue and shake off any missteps. I did my best to stay locked in and work my way back up each time my score went down,” she continued.
“For FJ: If I’m being honest, knowing the outcome was unchangeable caused me to check out a little bit. It was a runaway game and I had a lock on second place, so there was no benefit to wagering anything,” Mueller-McLean ended.
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