Jeopardy!’s Adriana Harmeyer breaks show curse with 6th win as fans accuse rival of ‘throwing game’ in key moment

JEOPARDY! star Adriana Harmeyer ended this season’s dry spell on Wednesday with its first six-day winning streak, $136,100 total, and tons of fan buzz.

Viewers were thrilled by Adriana’s achievement but baffled by opponent Allee Mead’s blunder that may have cost her the game.

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Adriana Harmeyer broke Jeopardy!’s Season 40 curse as its first 6-day champCredit: ABC

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Fans are all-in but were left scratching their heads over what Allee was doingCredit: ABC

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She didn’t buzz in on the last 3 clues when just $400 would have prevented a runawayCredit: ABC
The Purdue, Indiana professor and archivist faced off against Allee and Kyle Sorlie Titlow.

Host Ken Jennings, 49, opened by lauding Adriana’s “practically perfect” win in the previous episode.

He warned that no player had hit six wins this season, hinting that Adriana could be the chosen one.

Indeed, Adriana, who followed five-day champs Alison Betts and Dr. Amy Hummel, pulled off what her peers couldn’t – though the sixth win wasn’t without its drama.

After the Jeopardy! round, Adriana led with $5,800, trailed by Kyle with $1,600, and Allee, who snagged the first Daily Double, was close behind with $5,400.

Ken remarked to her challenger, who was putting pressure on her, “You made quite a run there!”

In Double Jeopardy!, Adriana found both Daily Doubles, gaining $2,000 on one and losing the same amount on the other.

With 22 correct responses and just 2 incorrect, she maintained a runaway lead at $19,400, Allee had $9,400, and Kyle had $2,400.

The Final Jeopardy! clue under “BRITISH PLACES” read, “This city owes much of its early history to a temple dedicated to Sulis Minerva and a ‘sacred spring’ found there.”

Everyone correctly responded with “Bath,” and Adriana added a mere $500 – Ken noted her limited wiggle room – finishing with $19,900 for a towering six-day total.

“You broke the six-game curse!” Ken rejoiced as Adriana beamed with pride.

‘SURPRISED…’

Fans swarmed social media, also rejoicing Adriana’s milestone but questioning Allee’s strategy.

Allee chose not to buzz in on the final three questions, resulting in Triple Stumpers.

Had she answered just one, she could have challenged Adriana in Final Jeopardy! and possibly won.

“Second place could’ve broken the lock with a correct answer on Clue 60 and didn’t realize that they needed to take a guess?” one Redditor speculated in a game thread.

“I’m surprised Allee didn’t prioritize remembering the scores and recognizing how close she was to making Final Jeopardy! matter,” another agreed.

“I was yelling at the TV on the last two clues,” a third viewer vented.

“It’s possible that Allee was fully aware of the situation but didn’t even have a guess on either clue. But even then, just ring in and hope you come up with something (and on the last one–just guess a President!).”

Despite the criticism, others celebrated Adriana’s victory as the ice-cold archivist now has the longest hot streak of the year.

“Adriana is a sneaky ice-cold player,” one more wrote. “She’s not DD-hunting that much and not very aggressive with her wagering but by the end of DJ, she has a runaway game!

“Just pure buzzer skill and huge knowledge base. I hope she continues her streak, I would love to see how far she can take this!”

A critic argued, “It leaves her open to others capturing the DDs though… at least find them and bet low if you don’t like the category!

One more defended, “I think she is playing intelligently. By Double Jeopardy, it has been mostly clear that she can beat the other contestants on knowledge or the buzzer, or both. So she can hedge her bets on DDs somewhat so it gives her a better chance to come back from a miss.”

Alison Betts kindly wrote in the thread, “I would like to nominate Adriana to be captain of the ToC A Team.”

So far, the other qualifiers for the next ToC (all female) are five-day winners Alison and Dr. Amy Hummel and Celebrity Jeopardy!’s Lisa Ann Walter.

That said, with four wins, Grant DeYoung and Amar Kakirde will likely join the fray as well.

HARMEYER ON FIRE

Adriana, an art archivist from West Lafayette, Indiana, has been going strong since arriving last week.

Her last victory cemented her ticket to the next Tournament of Champions.

She’s gone 141 correct and 13 incorrect, relying on sheer knowledge to win big.

Adriana has opted for a risk-averse strategy, which is especially rare in the modern era.

She is a traditional player who competes top-down (what a relief!) and has not gone Daily Double-hunting a la James Holzhauer.

Instead, she has only found eight of the 18 hidden clues in her streak, refusing to bounce across the board.

This lets the other contestants find the Daily Doubles (like Carol on Monday) and fall on their swords by missing them with big bets.

“And she plays the columns from top to bottom!” one fan posted on Instagram.

“There goes the argument that finding the DDs and luck takes all the fun out of it!” wrote another, liking the traditional style.

During her Q&A stories she’s shed light on how her life has led up to Jeopardy!.

She honed her chops on a ’90s CD ROM version of Jeopardy! starting when she was seven, she only stopped playing the game after the disc broke in half.

She’s also shared that she has good handwriting, which is evidenced on her podium (and is always handy for Final Jeopardy).

“Adriana is so cool I bet she doesn’t even sweat,” another fan earlier praised.

“Adriana is killing it and I love her retro vibe, like she stepped off the set of the Mary Tyler Moore show,” wrote one more.

Jeopardy! Host Timeline

Jeopardy! has had a tumultuous history regarding hosts after the death of the iconic Alex Trebek in 2020. Here are all of the hosts since the game show’s inception in 1964.

Art Fleming – 1964 to 1975, he was the original host of the daytime version of Jeopardy! on NBC.

Alex Trebek – 1984 to 2020, the late, great Alex hosted Jeopardy!’s modern iteration for 36 years until his death from pancreatic cancer.

Guest hosts – 2020 to 2021, Jeopardy! tested out a series of guest hosts for week or two-week stints, including Anderson Cooper, LaVar Burton, and Aaron Rodgers.

Mike Richards – 2021, he was named host for one week before resigning amid controversy. He was the show’s executive producer at the time.

Mayim Bialik – 2021 to 2023, when Mike was announced as the show’s new host, Mayim was chosen to host tournaments and primetime specials.

Mayim and Ken Jennings – 2022 to 2023, 74-time champion Ken (the longest-winning contestant ever) joined Mayim as a guest host and they split hosting duties.

Ken Jennings – 2023 to present. Last December, Mayim announced on Instagram that she would “no longer” host Jeopardy! after a lengthy hiatus, having stood with the writer’s strike, and Ken was named sole host.

Ken now helms all editions of Jeopardy! including Celebrity Jeopardy!, the nightly show, and other primetime specials like Masters.

‘FUN INTERNET QUIZ’

Adriana is a clinical assistant professor and archivist of University History in Purdue University’s Archives and Special Collections.

She lives with her husband and said in a recent interview that she took the show’s online test for fun and was blindsided to be contacted a few weeks later.

“I had taken the online test a couple of times before, but this time I’d went online one evening and took the test for fun.”

“I didn’t expect anything to come out of it – I just thought of it as another fun internet quiz.”

Adriana will face two new challengers to try to go for win seven tomorrow night- to wit, no contestant has ever lost on their seventh game.

Jeopardy! airs at 7 pm ET on ABC – check your local listings.

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One fan wrote, ‘I’m surprised Allee didn’t prioritize the scores and how close she was to making Final Jeopardy! matter’Credit: Jeopardy!

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That said, everyone is loving Adriana who plays top-down, could care less about Daily Doubles and rocks winning outfitsCredit: Jeopardy!