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Heads up, Memphis “Jeopardy!” fans! Local champion Laura Faddah is back this week in the long-running game show’s annual Tournament of Champions.
Faddah’s eight-game run, the second best of Season 41, run earned her a bye into the semifinals of the competition. She earned $95,599 during that streak.
The episode will air at 3:30 p.m. CT Jan. 28 on CBS and can also be streamed on Peacock and Hulu.
Faddah admitted she was initially feeling nervous about a return to the Alex Trebek Stage, where the game show is filmed at Sony Pictures Studios in Culver City, California.
“When you actually get into the game you can’t really think about anything but playing the game,” she said. “You still feel a lot of pressure. … I know more about how the game works and the level of competition.”
The competition is tougher than last time, but the stakes don’t feel as high when you’re playing against friends. Faddah said for the TOC, champions have a few days to get to know each other because they’re all put in a hotel together.
“The best part of ‘Jeopardy!’ is the people, basically you’re playing with your friends. You always want to win [but] you’re never rooting against anybody,” she said. “I have yet to run into a jerk. No one’s there like, ‘I’m just in it for me, I don’t care about you guys.’ Everybody’s just super friendly and supportive.”
That’s not to say Faddah didn’t do the best she could to prepare to win. She’s one of just three non-celebrity contestants with kids, and was working higher than usual hours in the leadup to taping, but still found time to train her brain.
“I would try to go through the J! Archive, I would try to read and study, play online games, I went to a trivia convention in August for the first time,” she said.
Win or lose, Faddah said she plans keep her trivia skills alive and become consistent with visiting some local trivia nights, even though playing locally as a “Jeopardy!” champion is kind of a lose-lose situation.
“If you don’t win they’re like, how did you win ‘Jeopardy!'” she said laughing. “But if you do win, they’re like, it’s no fair, you were on ‘Jeopardy!’”
With a victory on Jan. 28, Faddah would move on to the finals, where she would need to win three games total against fellow finalists to claim the $250,000 prize.
Jacob Wilt is a reporter for The Commercial Appeal covering DeSoto County, as well as Dining in the Memphis area. You can reach him at [email protected].
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.commercialappeal.com ’
