JEOPARDY!’S Ike Barinholtz has revealed the story behind his major error that ultimately kept him from becoming a Tournament of Champions finalist.

Ike fumbled his wager and would have gone on to beat Jeopardy’s Ben Chan if he hadn’t gone with a massive Final Jeopardy wager.

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Jeopardy’s Ike Barinholtz explained the story behind his major error that kept him from being a ToC finalistCredit: NBC

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Ike, fresh from his victory from Celebrity Jeopardy! Season 1, could have bet $0 and won the semifinalsCredit: NBC
In fact, he could have bet $0 and would have emerged victorious had he done so.

Ike had faced off against the nine-day champion and three-day champion Jared Watson during the 2024 ToC semifinal match.

He had been included in the game show’s tournament after emerging victorious from Celebrity Jeopardy! Season 1.

In the ToC’s quarterfinal, 13-day champ Ray LaLonde lost to Ike in the upset of all upsets.

Fans called Ike’s win “the craziest thing to ever happy in the history of Jeopardy!” on social media.

Host Ken Jennings chatted with Ike to get an idea of why the celebrity flubbed his Final Jeopardy! wager in the semis.

“You were very close, Ike. You were the closest of the three responses,” Ken, 49, said.

“That’s cold comfort, but I’ll take it,” a sheepish Ike replied.

“It’s about to get a little colder. You were in second place by less than $5000. If you had bet nothing, everybody gets it wrong,” Ken explained.

“Oh, you think that’s not in my head right now?” Ike shot back as the crowd began to laugh.

“I’m just here to be the annoying little voice in your head,” the Jeopardy! host replied.

He then asked Ike to explain his thought process.

“I just watched Ben play a lot and I thought he’d go all in,” the Mad TV alum elaborated.

“There’s this phrase, ‘go hard or go home.’ And I went hard and now I’m going home. I don’t know if that’s a good phrase, but yeah, I had to take a shot,” the almost champ concluded.
Jeopardy! host Ken Jennings gets bombarded by the question on every fans’ mind in abrupt on-stage altercation

CLUE CHAOS

Recently, Ken was bombarded with questions about when the regular game show will return.

The official Jeopardy! Instagram account shared a clip of Ken, 49, addressing questions from the in-house audience.

He selected a few fans to answer during the live Q&A session.

One fan asked about when they would be returning to normal Jeopardy! games and inviting “new blood” back in to play.

“It seems like there’s a lot of tournaments going on,” they said. “When are you going to make room for some new blood?”

Ken couldn’t help but laugh as he replied.

“Not entirely by our choice,” he said.

“We love the fact that every year we ramp up to a Tournament of Champions and an invitational tournament now. But this was all delayed this year by the strikes, so we had to push the ToC back.”

“But after this and a couple weeks of Invitational to qualify one person for Masters, we are finally back to regular civilian, non-champion Jeopardy. The mystery that comes with not knowing what people’s chinchilla is named,” he laughed as he replied.

“I love the tournaments, but I know I’m looking forward to that as well,” Ken said as he summed up his thoughts.

The clip ended there, but the answer seemed to appease those in the comment section.

They also appreciated how Ken handled the response.

“Ken is all of us in this response,” one viewer wrote.

“Ken proving once again that he is the natural successor of the great Alex Trebek,” a second fan added.

“I love Jeopardy and I’ll take it in any form or format that I can get it,” a third gushed.

“I thought they’d run out of smart applicants,” another commented.

UH OH!

Recently, Jeopardy!’s new executive producer teased a new, jarring change to how clues are displayed on the show.

Michael Davies scored Jeopardy!’s top job in 2021 after disgraced EP Michael Richards was fired over resurfaced sexist comments.

Davies brought up the potential change on Monday’s podcast Inside Jeopardy!.

He is considering updating how viewers see clues get selected to a split-screen display which was soft-launched on Celebrity Jeopardy!.

Instead of just seeing a clue take up the screen, the contestants would also be shown on the right-hand side.

This would be a huge change and impact how

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Instead, Ike bet too much and ended up losing to Ben Chan during the competitionCredit: NBC

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Ike explained that he had watched champ Ben Chan play a lot and thought he’d ‘go big’Credit: NBC

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He continued that he thought he’d ‘go big or go home’ which ultimately ended up in his lossCredit: NBC