{"id":2221047,"date":"2026-01-03T18:12:46","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T18:12:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2221047"},"modified":"2026-01-03T18:12:46","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T18:12:46","slug":"jeopardy-contestant-explains-controversial-responses-greetings-from-a-second-chance-loser-entertainment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/jeopardy-contestant-explains-controversial-responses-greetings-from-a-second-chance-loser-entertainment\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Jeopardy!\u2019 Contestant Explains Controversial Responses: \u2018Greetings From a Second Chance Loser\u2019 | Entertainment"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div id=\"article-body\" itemprop=\"articleBody\" false=\"\">\n                                <meta itemprop=\"isAccessibleForFree\" content=\"true\"\/><\/p>\n<p>After losing the latest <em><a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.tvinsider.com\/show\/jeopardy\/\">Jeopardy!<\/a><\/em> tourney with a score of just $1, player Dondi DeMarco is explaining himself on Reddit.<\/p>\n<p>DeMarco narrowly lost a <em>Jeopardy!<\/em> game in April but got another shot on the Alex Trebek Stage in the third group this year\u2019s Second Chance Tournament. He did well in the semifinals, winning his game with a score of $27,201. But he ended New Year\u2019s Day\u2019s finals match with $0 and <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.tvinsider.com\/1236818\/jeopardy-second-chance-champion-ryan-sharpe-win-royal-question\/\">ended his second finals match with $1<\/a> the following day.<\/p>\n<div class=\"piano-in-article\">\n<p>And this operations executive from New York City reflected on his performance in <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/Jeopardy\/comments\/1q2pd8o\/greetings_from_a_second_chance_loser\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">a Reddit post titled \u201cGreetings from a Second Chance Loser\u201d<\/a> on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs for how things fell apart, it was pretty much everything that can go sideways when you\u2019re up there: bad categories for me, misunderstanding of clues, old man brain, and a couple of killer opponents who knew their stuff and were quick on the buzzer,\u201d he wrote. \u201cI was lucky to finish with a dollar. But I\u2019m at peace with it. I won a game of <em>Jeopardy!<\/em>, and that\u2019s pretty cool.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>DeMarco also used his Reddit platform to give his thoughts on \u201ca few of the little controversies\u201d from his Second Chance Tournament run, starting with his misspelling of \u201cKomodo dragon\u201d in the Final Jeopardy! round of his semifinals game.<\/p>\n<div class=\"jeg_video_container jeg_video_content\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Animal Names | Final Jeopardy! | JEOPARDY!\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/kFspsIGiNeQ?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>\u201cI would\u2019ve understood if the judges didn\u2019t give me credit for it, but at the same time, I\u2019m pretty sure that a lot of people, myself included, casually pronounce \u2018kimono\u2019 with a schwa in the first syllable, just like \u2018Komodo,\u2019\u201d DeMarco wrote in his Reddit post. \u201cSo I don\u2019t think \u2018Kimodo\u2019 is an implausible spelling, just an incorrect one. I should have known better, and with a few more moments to reflect, I probably would\u2019ve spelled it correctly.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As for saying \u201cWhat is <em>An Indecent Proposal<\/em>?\u201d earlier in that game, instead of using the correct title of the 1993 film \u2014 <em><a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.tvinsider.com\/show\/indecent-proposal\/\">Indecent Proposal<\/a><\/em> with no article \u2014 DeMarco said, \u201cI benefited from the longstanding policy of not penalizing for an incorrect leading article unless it creates confusion or ambiguity. Maybe that\u2019s a good policy or maybe not, but it\u2019s well established, and it impacts how you study for and play the game: don\u2019t sweat over learning leading articles, and don\u2019t let uncertainty about one keep you from buzzing in.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And regarding a response in that same category, DeMarco promised he \u201cdefinitely said \u2018<a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.tvinsider.com\/people\/albert-brooks\/\">Albert Brooks<\/a>\u2019\u201d and not \u201cAlbert Brook.\u201d As a fan of Brooks for 40 years, DeMarco said he would no more say \u201cAlbert Brook\u201d than he would say \u201cWoody Allens.\u201d and he conjectured that the \u201cs\u201d sound in his correct response \u201cmight have gotten buried in the sound mix.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>DeMarco, who previously <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.tvinsider.com\/1236505\/jeopardy-reddit-shout-out-dondi-demarco-interview-ken-jennings\/\">gave the <em>Jeopardy!<\/em> subreddit an on-air shout-out<\/a>, ended his post by thanking his fellow Reddit users for the \u201cthoughtful attention\u201d they give to players and the game. \u201cAs with any community, there are squabbles and quibbles and philosophical differences, but you guys <em>care<\/em>. For us players, that means everything. Even those of us who don\u2019t know a Coryat from <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.tvinsider.com\/people\/corey-haim\/\">Corey Haim<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Jeopardy!<\/em>, Weekdays, Check Local Listings<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>More Headlines:<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p><em> \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.gjsentinel.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After losing the latest Jeopardy! tourney with a score of just $1, player Dondi DeMarco is explaining himself on Reddit. DeMarco narrowly lost a Jeopardy! game in April but got another shot on the Alex Trebek Stage in the third group this year\u2019s Second Chance Tournament. He did well in the semifinals, winning his game [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2086256,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[354659,21738,21902,137882,137883],"class_list":["post-2221047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-jeopardy","tag-news","tag-ntvb_media","tag-syndicate","tag-syndicate-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Big-Ticket-gjsentinelcom.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2221047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2221047"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2221047\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2221048,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2221047\/revisions\/2221048"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2086256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2221047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2221047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2221047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}