Watch All Three ‘Jeopardy’ Contestants Finish With $0

Half of the fun of watching Jeopardy is the question-and-answer stuff, where you prove your superiority to your friends and fill them with the requisite levels of shame and inadequacy that will allow you to continue the unspoken agreement that you are the superior friend while they are inferiors who don’t know their ass from a potent potable. The other half of the fun of watching Jeopardy, though, is the hope to see something record-breaking. The hope of watching someone catch lightning in a bottle like Ken Jennings did and win dozens of games and accumulate hundreds of thousands of dollars in prize money. Every game sees the potential for a streak to begin (or continue) and an old record to be broken.

On last night’s episode, however, the three contestants combined to accomplish something that hadn’t happened on Jeopardy in three years. And not in a good way.

Yes, all three contestants biffed on Final Jeopardy. All three contestants bet all they had. They all finished with $0, and as Alex Trebek explained, when that happens, no one advances, and we get three brand new contestants on the next show. The cold lack of forgiveness on the part of Jeopardy is another reason to love it.

The question, granted, was a bit tricky: “A 1957 event led to the creation of a national historic site in this city, signed into law by a president whose library is now there too.” The question incorporates three separate events (the 1957 event; the creation of a national historic site; the establishment of a presidential library) on three separate dates, which could easily cause confusion. (If you’re wondering, my guess would have been “Houston,” on the assumption that the 1957 date had a NASA connection.) The correct answer was Little Rock, Arkansas, with the event being the desegregation of public schools and the historic site being created by President Bill Clinton. No one got it. Three $0 scores. No one advances.

This could — and should — have been avoided, of course. Since Claudia and Mike both entered Final Jeopardy tied with $13,800, their options were pretty limited. They were basically engaged in a high-stakes game of chicken. Either bet everything and hope the other person bet nothing, or vice versa. Almost certainly you’d have to just bet everything and hope the other player misses. But there was Randi, in third place with her $6,000. Not enough to overtake either of the leaders even if she doubled up. Her only hope was that the other two would bet big and lose. The good news was that half that scenario — Claudia and Mike betting big — was nearly assured. So all Randi needed to do was sit back, wager nothing, and hope the other two missed. There was virtually zero upside for Randi to wager any money at all. It was an outcome that deflated even The Final Wager, Keith Williams’ daily tracker of Final Jeopardy wagering (an invaluable Jeopardy resource).

According to Buzzfeed, a triple-zero hasn’t occurred since the Teen Tournament in February of 2013. In the words of Alex himself: sorry, folks!