Ken Jennings yells ‘woah!’ at Jeopardy! player’s scary story as Adriana Harmeyer nabs key 5th win with ‘secret strategy’

JEOPARDY! contestant Adriana Harmeyer joined the five-win club on Tuesday securing $116,200 total, a Tournament of Champions slot, and the hearts of fans.

Her risk-averse strategy helped her trounce Christina Paul, who gave Ken Jennings a fright in the Q&A segment, and Travis Kissire.

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Challenger Christina shared she narrowly avoided a volcano eruptionCredit: ABC

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Ken Jennings lept a step back and yelped, ‘Woah!’Credit: ABC

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Adriana won in a breeze as fans pointed out her unconventional gameplay styleCredit: ABC
Ken, 49, opened tonight’s game by noting Adriana could officially make the next Tournament of Champions.

Before the Purdue, Indiana history professor did just that, Christina jolted the host with a tale of a harrowing weather event.

“You could not travel on a very important day,” Ken prompted.

“That’s right,” Christina replied, “I wasn’t able to make it to my brother’s wedding because of a volcano eruption.”

“Woah!” Ken yelped with a wide-eyed stare, jumping a step backward.

“I was living in Barbados at the time, and there was a volcano that erupted next door in St. Vincent, and it turns out planes can’t fly in ash clouds,” she explained.

“Trapped on Barbados,” Ken remarked. “But I hope he forgave you.”

“Yes,” she said, implying everyone was safe, to which Ken replied, “That’s a relief!”

After the Jeopardy! round, Adriana surged ahead once more with $6,200, Christina (missing a $1000 Daily Double) $600, Travis $3,000.

In Double Jeopardy! Adriana let her opponents find the last Daily Doubles, with Travis missing his, dropping $3,800, and Christina gaining $1000 on hers.

Adriana climbed to a big total the old-fashioned way; she was the only one to get any correct responses on the last 15 clues, cruising to a runaway.

She entered Final Jeopardy with $17,400, Travis had $4,800 and Christina $2,400.

The “Fictional Characters” clue read, “This character in a series of popular books begun in 1934 promises, ‘I’ll stay till the wind changes.'”

Adriana and Travis were correct with “Mary Poppins,” with Adriana adding $7,000 to win $24,400 and a tremendous five-day total.

She was left beaming as Ken declared she would officially be in the next Tournament of Champions.

‘KILLING IT!’

Fans took to social media buzzing about Adriana who is the fourth qualifier for the next (currently all-female) ToC.

“Way to go, Adriana, you are a great contestant!!” one Redditor wrote.

“Adriana is impressive, likable, and fun to watch. I’m going to predict a 20-game run. Hoping for even more. Go, Adriana!” wrote another.

“The Triple-A Alliance of five-day champs Amy, Alison, and Adriana are here, and they are gonna play the game THEIR way!” a third quipped.

“Adriana is killing it and I love her retro vibe, like she stepped off the set of the Mary Tyler Moore show,” wrote a fourth.

“Adriana is so cool I bet she doesn’t even sweat,” wrote a fifth.

So far, the qualifiers for the next ToC (all female) are five-day winners Alison Betts and Dr. Amy Hummel and Celebrity Jeopardy!’s Lisa Ann Walter.

That said, with four wins, Grant DeYoung and Amar Kakirde will likely join the fray as well.

NOT ‘FINDING THE DAILY DOUBLES’

Other fans pointed out that Adriana has opted for a risk-averse strategy, especially rare in the modern era.

She has not gone Daily Double-hunting a la James Holzhauer.

Instead, she has only found six of the 15 hidden clues, playing top-down and refusing to bounce across the board.

This lets the other contestants find the Daily Doubles (like Carol on Monday) and fall on their swords by missing them with big bets.

“What’s with starting at the top all of a sudden? Lol,” one fan noted on Facebook.

“So many good contestants come up short because of unwise double jeopardy bets. But I like Adriana!” another wrote.

“There goes the argument that finding the DDs and luck takes all the fun out of it!” wrote a third tonight.

Adriana will go for his sixth win tomorrow night, and if she pulls it off, she’ll have the longest streak in all of Season 40.

Jeopardy! Next Tournament of Champions

After a truncated Season 40 with strikes and tournaments, the 2025 Tournament of Champions is taking shape and so far it’s all female

Alison Betts, five wins and $121,500 total
Dr. Amy Hummel, five wins and $100,994 total
Lisa Ann Walter, winner of 2023 Celebrity Jeopardy!
Grant DeYoung, four wins and $81,203 total
Amar Kakirde, four wins and $55,881 total
Since four-day (and three-day champs last ToC) have been added recently, fans will likely also see them.

HARMEYER ON FIRE

Adriana lives in West Lafayette, Indiana, with her husband and has been going strong since arriving last Thursday.

For her job she parses through old files and letters and archives them.

She also is a clinical assistant professor while an archivist at Purdue University’s Archives and Special Collections.

She’s been relying on sheer accuracy, with a staggering 118 correct and only 11 incorrect responses.

She shared that she honed her chops while growing up on a ’90s CD ROM version of Jeopardy! when she was seven, she only stopped playing the game after the disc broke in half.

She also shared tonight that she has good handwriting, which is evidenced on her podium.

“Adriana is so incredibly impressive. She might just be my favorite female multi-day champion whose name starts with an A this season,” five-day champ Alison wrote on Reddit

She said in a recent interview that she took the show’s online test for fun and was blindsided to be contacted a few weeks later.

“I had taken the online test a couple of times before, but this time I’d went online one evening and took the test for fun.”

“I didn’t expect anything to come out of it – I just thought of it as another fun internet quiz.”

She also recalled the moment she was contacted to be on the show.

“I was at home. I told my husband and I told some of my family that I was going to do an online audition.

“They weren’t even surprised since I took the test once before.”

Still, she wasn’t expecting to get on the show.

“I thought ‘Okay, I’m probably not going to make it to the next step because it’s really competitive.’ I just wanted to have fun with it.”

Adriana also didn’t tell a soul whether or not she was winning or made it to the ToC.

“Keeping the secret is getting harder,” she recently said in an interview.

“No one was expecting me to say I was on Jeopardy! in the first place, but now that it’s airing, people want me to tell them how the episode goes.”

Luckily for Adriana, she’ll be off the hook after tonight as far as making the ToC goes.

Jeopardy! airs at 7 pm ET on ABC – check your local listings.

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Adriana and the third contestant got ‘Mary Poppins,’ but Ken noted she was ‘way out in front’

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She’s opting for a risk-averse strategy not seeking out Daily Doubles- and it’s paid offCredit: ABC

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One more W would give Adriana the longest winning streak all season and fans are all-inCredit: ABC