The ‘Jeopardy!’ Masters tournament ends with a nail-biter 2-game finale

The inaugural “Jeopardy!” Masters tournament had a lot going on over the course of 20 games: an impressive breadth of knowledge showcased by all six contestants, equally impressive wagers, an abundance of jokes at Ken Jennings’ expense, unexpected zingers from Jennings, and moving moments of love and support among the players and “Jeopardy!” crew.

On Wednesday night, it all came to an end.

The final showdown featured James Holzhauer, Matt Amodio and Mattea Roach, who uses they/them pronouns, in a two-game finale. Although all three contestants have proven formidable, the player to beat was Holzhauer, who won all three of his games in the semifinals.

Here’s an overview of the tournament finale — and who claimed the $500,000 grand prize, Trebek Trophy and title of “Jeopardy!” Master.

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‘Jeopardy!’ Masters tournament finals recap

Game 1 recap

All three players hit the ground running. It was a fairly even game at the end of the first round — Holzhauer had a 200-point lead over Amodio with 4,600 points, and Roach was close behind with 3,600.

In a game that everything from furniture to British authors, Holzhauer landed on one of the two Daily Doubles in the second round and, as usual, wagered all of his 8,600 points on the following clue: “First and last name of the lesser-known sibling who wrote the semi-autobiographical ‘Agnes Grey.’”

Holzhauer doubled his score to 17,200 points with the correct response: Anne Bronte.

He was up to 18,800 points when Roach landed on the other Daily Double of the round. At this point, Roach had 7,200 points and knew they needed to wager it all if they wanted to stay in the running. So Roach opted to wager all of their points on the following clue in the category “three-syllable words”: “A lack of blood flow to the brain and a drop in blood pressure cause this, the medical term for fainting.”

Roach got it right — syncope — and brought their score to 14,400.

Going into the Final Jeopardy round, Holzhauer still had the lead with 22,400 points — but it wasn’t a runaway. Roach kept Holzhauer in check with 16,800 points, and Amodio had 6,000.

The Final Jeopardy clue: “A major seaport and formerly a world capital, this city has a name from Arabic for ‘house of peace.’”

All three players came up with the correct response: “Dar-es-Salaam.” Amodio wagered it all and doubled his Game 1 total to 12,000 points. Roach’s wager of 8,000 gave them a temporary lead over Holzhauer, who then revealed his wager of 11,914 points.

With 34,314 points, the victory was Holzahuer’s.

But there was still another game to play.

Game 2 recap

Although he was in the hole fairly on in Game 2, Holzhauer wasted no time getting back on the board. At the end of the first round, he had a 1,000-point lead over Roach with 5,600 and Amodio had 1,200.

A large part of Holzhauer’s strategy involves finding the Daily Doubles and betting all of his points on the clue in order to build an insurmountable lead. But during the second round, Holzhauer didn’t land on either of the two Daily Doubles.

The first one went to Roach, who again chose to wager all of their points — 7,400 — on the following clue: “Malay gives us the name of this marine mammal that’s similar to a manatee.”

Roach got it right — dugong — and gained a solid lead with 14,800 points.

Amodio landed on the second Daily Double, but things didn’t go as well for him. He dropped down to zero and later was in the hole with -2,000 points. Going into the Final Jeopardy round, he managed to get back on the board with 3,200 points. But the game belonged to Roach — they had 22,800 points and could not be caught (Holzhauer was in second with 9,600).

It marked only the second time in the tournament that Holzhauer lost a game — his other loss was to Amodio.

But the overall winner of the tournament depended on the two-game point total. For Holzhauer and Roach, at least, the victory would come down to wagering on the last Final Jeopardy clue of the tournament.

The category was “Latin in Literature”: “A work by this 15th-century English writer quotes the phrase “rex quondam rexque futurus.”

Amodio, who knew he had clinched third place in the tournament at this point, opted to write down a response that would build anticipation: “Who ... will ... win?”

The clue stumped both Roach and Holzahuer (the answer was Thomas Malory).

Holzhauer, who wagered 119 points, dropped down to 9,481. Roach wagered 5,915 and dropped down to 16,885 points. Her two-game total: 41,685.

Holzhauer’s two-game total: 43,795.

“They tested you to the limit, but you are our first-ever “Jeopardy!” Masters champion,” Jennings told Holzhauer.

In a move that shouldn’t come as a surprise to any viewer, Holzhauer took the Trebek Trophy, named for late host Alex Trebek, and pretended to hit Jennings with it.

He claimed the $500,000 prize and won a $100,000 donation to his charity of choice: Project 150, which helps disadvantaged high school students in the Las Vegas area “stay in school and thrive,” according to the organization’s website.

Roach took $250,000 for their second-place win.

“You played amazingly, your dad is so proud of you,” Holzhauer told Roach, whose father died during the filming of the tournament. “Your mom, too.”

Amodio walked away with $150,000.

But this isn’t the last fans will see of the “Jeopardy!” Masters tournament.

“I don’t want to just like do Masters and do it once like GOAT (the ‘Jeopardy! Greatest of All Time’ tournament),” Michael Davies, the executive producer of “Jeopardy!” said earlier this year, per the Deseret News. “I want Masters to be an annual event. I want that to be the pinnacle event of the top of the pyramid of all of ‘Jeopardy!’”