Though Hester Blum’s first stab at a “Jeopardy!” victory didn’t go quite as planned, she may have another shot at glory.
Blum, an English professor at Penn State University, came up short during her appearance in the first round of Monday’s “Jeopardy!” Professors Tournament running through Dec. 17. But as host Mayim Bialik reminded her at the episode’s end. this particular “Jeopardy!” competition includes four wild-card spots. That means Blum, who took second place, is still alive among the pool of 15 contestants.
She finished Monday’s show with a total of $12,000, second behind Gary Hollis, a chemistry professor at Roanoke College in Salem, Va. If Blum ends up having earned one of the four highest totals of any non-winner from the first round, she will reach the semifinals next week.
One of the categories in the first round of Monday’s game immediately made Blum nervous.
“I’ve never seen ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ and will never see it,” she said in a text to the Post-Gazette after the show aired, referring to the 1946 Jimmy Stewart classic. “I felt a sinking feeling when I saw that category. I have zero interest in old movies.”
Hollis jumped out to an early lead in Monday’s episode over Blum and Gautam Hans, an associate clinical professor at Vanderbilt Law School. Blum didn’t have a great initial round, ending that set of questions in third place with just $1,400 in earnings.
She displayed a quick trigger finger while buzzing in her answers and fearlessness in answering questions despite the consequences of getting them wrong.
“I had forgotten in the first round that guessing is a really bad strategy for ‘Jeopardy!,’” she said. “It’s so exciting to buzz in that I neglected to remember only to do so only when I was confident about the answer.”
She was under the impression she was in the negative going into the double-jeopardy round but was “surprised and pleased to see that I had performed better than I had remembered.” After professing her love of Herman Melville in the prepared interview with Bialk, Blum stormed back into the game early in the second round.
With the help of a $2,000 boost from a correct double-jeopardy answer, she found herself in second place with $8,600. She was still far behind Hollis, who racked up $21,000 through two rounds of gameplay. Her final jeopardy answer turned out to be “phonetically correct” and earned her an extra $3,400, giving her a grand total of $12,000 that was still well behind Hollis’ final tally of $20,000.
More than a month after the tournament’s late-October taping, Blum is still kicking herself about some mistakes she made.
“It’s interesting how one remembers the missed answers and not the exciting, successful ones,” she said.
Still, those errors didn’t necessarily end her “Jeopardy!” journey prematurely. Understandably, Blum can’t say whether she ended up with a wild-card spot or not. You’ll just have to keep watching to find out how she ultimately did.
“Watch and see this week how the second and third-place betting goes in the subsequent games,” she teased. “The games are really exciting! All week.”
Joshua Axelrod: jaxelrod@post-gazette.com and Twitter @jaxelburgh.
First Published: December 7, 2021, 1:41 a.m.
