Harrison Whitaker has become one of the best performers on Jeopardy! following his six-day winning streak – but some fans of the show took issue with the way he answered a question
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Harrison Whitaker will be back on the show tonight
Jeopardy! fans have been left furious after watching the latest episode of the show, with one saying a contestant “should have had $4000” less after making an error during an answer.
Indiana native Harrison Whitaker, a researcher originally from Terre Haute, appeared in his sixth game on the November 18 episode of the program. The returning champion extended his winning streak after playing against Raleigh linguist Lydia Boshart and Toronto teacher Tony Antionades.
Harrison correctly answered the Final Jeopardy clue, with a final score of $21,601, bringing his total winnings on the show to a huge $182,600, qualifying him for the 2027 Tournament of Champions after missing the cutoff for the 2026 tournament by just one day. It comes after Jeopardy! host Ken Jennings left fans divided with his latest appearance with his rarely-seen son.
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However, while discussing the episode on Reddit, fans of the show took issue with the fact that Harrison only partially answered a question – but host Ken Jennings accepted it and the ruling was not reverse. The clue asked, “R.I.T., short for this school, left downtown ‘R’ in 1968 for the suburban Henrietta.”
The entire answer would have been Rochester Institute of Technology, but Harrison only answered Rochester. Because of this, a viewer argued Harrison should have had $4000 less when heading into Final Jeopardy.
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A fan of the show posted on Reddit, “Ken accepted it and the ruling was never reversed. I understand some clues accept colloquial responses but this one pretty clearly asked for the entire ‘Rochester Institute of Technology’. And the school isn’t referred to as ‘Rochester’ anyway, especially because there’s also the nearby University of Rochester.
“I feel like they both got confused with the second “R” (in quotes in the clue) making it seem like it was the only part of the initialism required. Harrison should have had $4000 less going into FJ, which presumably wouldn’t have changed the outcome of the game since it wouldn’t have been a runaway and Tony didn’t get FJ correct.”
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A person agreed, “Great point. I’m surprised Ken or the judges did not notice this.” Another said, “Totally agree with this. Huge miss by Ken/the judges. And BMS doesn’t apply here either IMO.”
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He has entered a six-day winning streak
A third added, “It would have been a BMS (‘be more specific’) and he would have gotten it.” One more said, “I had the same reaction at the time. Several family members went to U of R. So I literally said out loud ‘nope, just ‘Rochester’ refers to the other school in that city!'”
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Someone else pointed out, “I don’t think that was correct, isn’t the ask ‘short for this school’ not just what ‘R’ is?” On Monday, Harrison played against teacher Rachel Bernstein and technical software trainer Lawrence Suba.
Harrison largely dominated the contest, heading into Final Jeopardy with $35,200, while Bernstein had $13,000 and Suba had $600. All the contestants answered the Final Jeopardy question.
On Tuesday, he became a six-day champion and will be back tonight to defend his title, with a chance to win his seventh title. His winning streak has made him one of the best performers in the show’s history.
