New Paltz man advances in ‘Jeopardy!’ tournament
Six months after capturing the “Jeopardy!” Teachers Tournament crown, New Paltz resident Francois Barcomb is on a roll again — this time winning his way into the semifinals of the show’s annual Tournament of Champions.
Barcomb, who teaches physics at Hendrick Hudson High School in Westchester County, scored a runaway win in his quarterfinal game, which aired Friday. He now will be in the semifinals, which air next week, along with this week’s four other quarterfinal winners and the four highest scorers among the week’s non-winners.
The semifinal games will air next Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, though there was no immediate word Friday night about which one will feature Barcomb. The three semifinal winners will play in a twoday championship round that airs next Thursday and Friday.
In the quarterfinal round that aired Friday, Barcomb, 50, faced off against Steven Grade, a five-game champion who earned $115,501 during his original appearance on the show, and Ryan Fenster, a seven-time “Jeopardy!” winner who earned $156,497 last year after making a rare return appearance after the show realized a response he gave was correct despite being ruled incorrect.
Barcomb got off to a slow start in Friday’s first round, and even though he nearly doubled his score with a correct response to a “Daily Double” clue, he wasn’t the leader going into the “Double Jeopardy” round.
The first round ended with Grade at $8,400, Barcomb at $7,100 and Fenster, who struggled, at just $1,800.
In the “Double Jeopardy” round, Barcomb buzzed in on 14 of the 30 clues and, like in the first round, got all of his responses correct. One of them was a “Daily Double” in the category “Bodies of Water,” and he added $8,000 to his $24,300 total by knowing that “What is the Adriatic
Sea?” was the correct response to “This sea is fairly straight on Italy’s shores, but dented by coves and islands on the Balkan side.”
Barcomb finished the “Double Jeopardy” round with $34,300, making it impossible for Grande, with $9,200, or Fenster, with $4,000, to catch him in “Final Jeopardy,” in which contestants can’t bet more than they have.
The “Final Jeopardy” category was “Literary Characters,” and the clue was “From an 1894 work, his name literally translates to ‘Tiger King.’” All three players correctly responded “Who is Shere Khan?” (from Rudyard Kipling’s “The Jungle Book”), and Barcomb’s victory was sealed.
Barcomb bet nothing on the final clue, while the other two players bet everything they had. Grade’s final score of $18,400 was enough to earn him a spot in next week’s semifinals. Among the other semifinalists are James Holzhauer, who amassed $2.46 million by winning 32 consecutive games last season, and Emma Boettcher, who unseated Holzhauer in his 33rd appearance.
The Tournament of Champions grand prize is $250,000.
Barcomb earned his spot in the “Jeopardy!” Tournament of Champions by winning the show’s $100,000 Teachers Tournament in May. He told host Alex Trebek in Friday’s airing that he used a portion of those winnings to take his family to the United Kingdom in August.
Locally, “Jeopardy!” airs at 7 p.m. on WABC-TV 7 out of New York City and at 7:30 p.m. on WTEN-TV 10 out of Albany.
“Jeopardy!” episodes are recorded in advance, but players are forbidden from sharing the results before they air.