“Jeopardy!” may be crowning a new superchampion on Monday night (July 22), as Neels Vinjamuri returned to the Alex Trebek Stage and dominated the stage to win his second consecutive title.
Monday’s broadcast pitted Vinjamuri, a software engineer from Lionville, Pennsylvania, against Monica Anderson, a master control operator from Sterling, Virginia, and Sean Duffy, a Spanish and civics teacher from Kentwood, Michigan.
After defeating three-day champion Jay Fisher on Friday, Binjamuri returned to the podium and picked up where he left off: in the first round, he answered 15 clues correctly to take the lead with $9,000. Duffy came in second with $3,600, and Anderson came in second with $2,000.
Things only got better for Vinjamuri from there, as he won the Double Jeopardy round and took home both Daily Doubles. Heading into the Final Jeopardy, Vinjamuri answered 28 clues correctly (with only one incorrect answer) and won $26,100 to Anderson’s $7,600 and Duffy’s $5,200.
Vinjamuri was also the only person to correctly answer the Final Jeopardy clue, which was, “‘Love’ is in the titles of three of his most famous books. In the fourth, ‘Rainbow,’ he calls love ‘the flower of life.'”
The Pennsylvania native correctly answered, “Lawrence who?” and added an additional $3,000 to his winnings, bringing his total to $29,100 and his two-day total to $41,100.
Fans were extremely impressed with Vinjamuri’s performance and shared their thoughts on the Jeopardy! Reddit forum.
“The depth and breadth of Neersch’s knowledge is truly impressive. Congratulations!” one commenter wrote.
“I thought it was really awesome that I won the Daily Double without even searching the message boards, I just answered the most questions and chose the most categories,” said another.
“He certainly gave a great answer,” one user added.
Another wrote, “Neelesh is so strong that his competitors would be better off taking advantage of some areas where he may be weak, like pop culture.”
“Love watching Neersh so hopefully he’ll gain some confidence in himself in the upcoming DD bets,” another added.
“On Friday’s episode, Neersch seemed nervous for a while before taking over the match. That nervousness seems to have dissipated, which could make things tough for the remaining contestants this week,” one fan said.
Vinjamuri’s opponent, Duffy, also commented on the thread, writing, “Neil was fantastic. In fact, I didn’t know he was going to be champion again until closer to filming the first episode that day. He was so kind and a great competitor.”
What did you think of last night’s episode? Do you think Vinjamuri will become the next Super Champion? Let us know in the comments below.
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