DANGER! competitor Adriana Harmeyer reached double digits on Tuesday with a tenth win and a total of $225,700, the only downside being an extremely easy final track.
Adriana is now a super champion or a contestant to win ten or more games in a row – there have only been 17 others on Jeopardy! history.
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The archivist from West Lafayette, Indiana, was back for more after what Ken Jennings called her “narrowest win yet” in the last episode.
She faced mathematics professor Scott McCann and audiovisual archivist Sarah Hartzell.
Although she arrived with the longest streak in over a year, she left with iconic status.
After Danger! round, surprisingly, she lost with $3,400, while Scott led with $5,000 and Sarah had -$600 after a failed Daily Double.
“Tough game,” Ken commented as the icy champion faced stiff competition from Scott.
In Double Jeopardy!, Sarah lost the second Daily Double, while Adriana lost the third, losing $3,000 of her lead.
Still, she recovered and maintained a small lead in Final Jeopardy with $14,400, while Scott followed with $10,200 and Sarah $5,400.
The US GEOGRAPHY clue read: “Of the 10 US states with two-word names, this one extends farthest south.”
Everyone got it right with “New Mexico,” and Adriana added $6,600 to win $21,000, for a tremendous ten-day total.
‘VERY EASY!’
Fans flooded social media, celebrating Adriana’s sudden rise to super champion status (or “hang in there,” as Ken put it), although they wished she had achieved it on a tougher final track.
“Wow, I thought FJ was really easy! I was trying not to overthink it,” wrote one Redditor.
“I was sure New Mexico was a trick, I thought maybe South Carolina had some islands that went down the coast and they were trying to be sneaky,” wrote another.
“I was watching this episode with my mother, who doesn’t know much about geography. Even she found it easy,” wrote a third.
Others set aside their complaints about the shockingly easy track to rejoice in the milestone moment.
“Cool, first double-digit champion in almost 2 years! Go Adriana!” a fourth fan wrote.
“How long has it been since we saw double digits? I liked it,” wrote a fifth.
“Yaaaaaaas Adriana!! Super champion status!!” wrote a sixth when a seven agreed: “Adriana is killing it”
The champion now boasts the longest winning streak since 13-day winner Ray LaLonde last January.
Danger! Super champions
Adriana Harmeyer is now a super champion, here are the other 17 players she is hanging out with:
Now host Ken (74 wins, still the most in history)
Amy Schneider (40 wins, most by a female champion)
Matt Amodio (38 wins under seven different hosts in 2021)
James Holzhauer (32 wins and most money per game in history)
Mattea cockroach (23 wins, most by a Canadian)
Cris Pannullo (21 wins, the most last season, planted in the 2024 ToC)
Julia Collins (20 wins, record for oldest female champion in decades)
David Madden (19 wins, funny he was beaten by a one-day champion named Victoria Groce in 2005)
Jason Zuffranieri (19 wins)
Ryan Long (16 wins and a winning story as an Uber driver turned household name)
Matt Jackson (13 wins)
Ray Lalonde (13 wins, longest streak since Adriana)
Austin Rogers (12 wins)
Seth Wilson (12 wins)
Arthur Chu (11 wins)
Jonathan Fisher (11 wins)
‘AUTHENTIC’ ADRIANA
Adriana is a clinical assistant professor and archivist of University History at Purdue University Archives and Special Collections.
She has been going strong since arriving two weeks ago and now boasts by far the longest streak and gains of season 40.
Everyone is loving her run, as there hasn’t been a big run in a long time, and she is just crushing it.
“Adriana is impressive, friendly and fun to watch. I’m predicting a 20-game streak. I expect even more. Go, Adriana!” a fan recently wrote on X.
“Adriana is killing it and I love her retro vibe, like she stepped off the set of the Mary Tyler Moore Show,” wrote another.
“Adriana is so cool I bet she doesn’t even care,” wrote a third.
A fourth posted that she’s also a welcome change from the trivia titans of tournament season.
“I prefer contestants like Adrianna to Yogesh.
“We could assume that much, if not most, of Adriana’s knowledge comes from her studies and work.
“I’d rather see her do well than someone like Yogesh, who you know studies lists all day and has never really experienced life.
Adriana exudes a vibe of authenticity.”
‘ALEX WOULD HAVE LOVED IT’ STRATEGY
Adriana also opted for a rare strategy that fans rarely get from a major winner in the post-Holzhauer era.
She is a traditional player who competes from top to bottom (God forbid!) and does not practice daily double hunting.
She has found only ten of the 27 hidden clues, refusing to jump around the board, and when she finds them, she bets little.
“Adriana is a sneaky, ice-cold player. She doesn’t hunt DD much and isn’t very aggressive with her bets, but on DJ’s end, she has an out-of-control game!” one fan recently wrote on Reddit.
“Just pure buzzer skill and huge knowledge base. I hope she continues her trend, I’d love to see how far she can take it!”
Instead, she relied solely on pure knowledge, incorrectly getting 238 and 28 on the general clues and eight out of 10 on Final Jeopardy!.
The producers talked about the refreshing style of play on the Inside Jeopardy! on Monday.
“Yes, we haven’t had anyone who plays as straight as Adriana yet,” highlighted Buzzy Cohen.
“I know Alex [Trebek] I would have loved a player like Adriana,” said producer Sarah Foss.
“Because there was nothing he appreciated more than a player who ranked a category in order.”
His Q&A stories shed light on his Jeopardy! journey, including not being selected as a teen contestant.
She honed her skills on a 1990s CD-ROM version of Jeopardy! starting when she was seven. She only stopped playing after the disc broke in half.
She credited her late grandmother with getting her on Jeopardy! and wears her cameo necklace as a good luck charm.
‘FUN TEST ON THE INTERNET’
Adriana said in a recent interview that she struggled online for the program and was surprised to be contacted a few weeks later.
“I had taken the test online a few times before, but this time I went online one night and took the test for fun.”
“I didn’t expect anything to happen – I just thought of it as another fun Internet test.”
Her husband, Neal, was in the audience during her recording, she also revealed in another interview.
“Watching her like that was an absolute privilege,” he shared.
Adriana is the favorite for the next Tournament of Champions, which will be in 2025.
So far, the other qualifiers for the next ToC (all women) are five-day winners Alison Betts and Dr. Amy Hummel and Lisa Ann Walter from Celebrity Jeopardy!
That said, with four wins, Grant DeYoung and Amar Kakirde will likely enter the fray as well.
She will face two new challengers tomorrow night for victory 11; that is, no competitor has ever lost in game 11.
Danger! airs at 7pm ET on ABC – check your local listings.
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This story originally appeared on The-sun.com read the full story
