Background
Season 40 kicks off with the Second Chance Tournament, where previous non-champions compete for a spot in the upcoming Champion Wildcards Tournament. The contestants are no entirely from Season 39, and there are going to be 3 weeks of play crowning 3 second-chance winners, who will be moving on to face the former non-5-day winners in the Champions Wildcars Tournament. Today Jill Tucker, Gabriel Ostler, and Derek Allen face off against one another.
Round 1
Derek started getting little bit separation from the competition a third of the way throught the round, when Jill missed on a true Daily Double. However, it was still early in the first round, and all three players finished with respectable scores.
Round 2
This was a highly competitive round, as the score was $10600 (Jill) to $6200 (Gabriel) to $9000 (Derek) nearly midway through the round. However, from that point on, only Jill increased her score for this round, and she did it in a big way. With the help of the second daily double in the round, Jill finished with $16200 to Derek’s $8600 and Gabriel’s $4800. Which means, the game was still not a runaway at that point.
Final Jeopardy
Category: British Monarchs
Clue: The most recent British monarch not to succeed a parent or sibling was this ruler who succeeded an uncle.
Correct Response: Who was Victoria (I)?
While all three players made big wagers, Gabriel unfortunately answered “Victoria II” when the correct response refers to “Victoria (I)”. Jill doubled up during Final Jeopardy, but her wager was indeed risky. Had she answered incorrectly, there could have been undesirable scenarios, since had Derek also gotten the response wrong, he would have finished with a $999, enough to surpass Jill. IMO, Gabriel also made an unideal wager, as he could have stayed put and hoped for his fellow contestants to miss. Had they missed, Gabriel would be the champ. However, I have to commend all the players for having made gutsy wagers. This marked an exciting conclusion for the first game of the tournament.