The clue for “Animals” was: “The Aztecs called this animal ayotochtli, which means turtle rabbit because of its rabbit ears and turtle shell.”

While Carlstein was wrong, Buffa correctly answered “Armadillo,” betting all but $1 to have $23,999. With the pressure on Jolin, he also got it right, making the standard $7,601 hedge bet to win by just $2 for $24,001. “Great game, you three!” Ken Jennings closed.

Fans flooded the Reddit thread for the episode, applauding the new champion’s impressive play against two worthy adversaries, but others pointed out that Buffa had nothing to gain by withholding $1 of her bet, even if it didn’t impact the results.

“Alicia withheld $1 on her bet on FJ, which is not the optimal play in this situation of being tied for second and relatively close to the lead,” one Redditor wrote. “The chances of winning with $1 are extremely small, so go all-in or bet $0 to force your opponents to guess that FJ will beat you.”

Buffa chimed in on the thread to share his thinking at the time and get ahead of any bad rumors: “Now, to address the elephant in the room: What happened to my wild bet on FJ?” she wrote, in part.

“Well, the tl;dr version can be summed up in two words: I panicked. Although I’m a pretty anxious person, I was completely fine for most of the game, until it came time to calculate our bets on FJ. That’s when everything hit me suddenly and my hands started shaking. I swear I studied betting strategies the week before Tape Day, but all that was thrown out the window and my imposter syndrome kicked in.

“I lost all the confidence I had had until then and chickened out before an all-in bet. Although I hadn’t closed my bet before thinking better of it, I also didn’t want to bother the team to delete it. I figured if I was going to come in third place because I’m too shy and my own worst enemy, at least it would be on brand for me. “This is probably my biggest regret, although in the end it wouldn’t have affected the outcome.”

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byu/jaysjep2 of the discussion
inDanger

Other fans responded by urging the contestant not to be so hard on herself, as going all-in still wouldn’t have won her the game or forced a draw (if she had lost by $1 instead of $2, a different story).

“Oh my god, you didn’t make a fool of yourself at all!! You played an amazing game and I cheered you on from the beginning. Don’t let any armchair betting expert take away your exciting Double Jeopardy comeback. Congratulations on a great performance! wrote one fan.

“I haven’t seen the episode yet, but a 11k Coryat with 11 correct answers and a final score of almost 24k is pretty good, so I’d say you achieved your goals!” wrote another.

“Happy Halloween everyone! This was a great game. “I am pleasantly surprised to have topped the Rap Genres category,” wrote a third.

“It was a great game and it was fun to see 3 for 3 in true Daily Doubles!” wrote a fourth.

“Really great game played by all three contestants today, it 100% felt like anyone could have won until the end!” wrote one more.

What did you think of the game? Can Greg Jolin put an end to the week-long, one-day horror fest? And was “Happy Hour” really an alliteration? It seems like a bit of a suspicious stretch! Let us know in the comments section below and Happy Halloween!