NEED TO KNOW
Scott Riccardi is setting the record straight.
The recent Jeopardy! super champion addressed fan theories that he intentionally brought his 16-game winning streak to an end on Friday, July 25. Riccardi incorrectly answered the Final Jeopardy clue about newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst, but after fans witnessed weeks of intellectual, creative and historical knowledge, some found Riccardi’s misstep a bit suspicious.
The clue fell under the category of “20th century names”: “According to one obituary, in 1935 he owned 13 magazines, eight radio stations, two movie companies and $56 million in real estate.”
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Instead of naming Hearst, Riccardi’s mind went to another major media figure: Howard Hughes, the famed businessman, movie producer and aviator who died in 1976. The incorrect answer cost him the day’s win, which went to Jonathan Hugendubler.
“My mind unfortunately went straight to Howard Hughes mostly due to overestimating the importance of the movie companies part of the clue,” Riccardi confessed on Reddit. “Any previous [Final Jeopardys] that had come to mind immediately had worked out, so I trusted my initial response on this.”
“Hearst wasn’t on my mind at all until the moment Charlotte [Cooper]’s answer was revealed, and even then it didn’t immediately strike me as correct until Ken [Jennings] confirmed it,” he added. “Truthfully, I was just especially unprepared to respond correctly to a clue about Hearst.”
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In the end, his incorrect answer was the result of “several information near-misses and a poor understanding of the timeline in the clue,” Riccardi wrote.
On Friday, Riccardi’s winnings totaled $455,000. Though his winning streak came to an end, Riccardi — the top winner thus far in the show’s 41st season — is set to return Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions, which sees each season’s top contestants face off for the ultimate crown.
