Jeopardy! contestant Nikhil Joshi may be making the game show look easy, but he didn’t have the easiest road to get here. The one-day champion took home only $5,400 during his first game after his opponent said that his mental health got the best of him.
Joshi, from Montville, New Jersey, played against Elizabeth Hawkins, from Oakland, California, and Brian O’Heron, from St. Louis, Missouri, on Friday, June 6.
“My brother and I would watch Jeopardy! pretty much every night growing up. We’d always talk about getting on the show, but I never thought it would happen,” Joshi, a veterinarian, told his alma mater, University of Maryland, where he earned his Bachelor’s Degree in Biology. “It was always one of these dreams I never thought would come true.” But his dream did come true and Joshi won his second game.
His Jeopardy! journey began several months ago and he called the whole experience a “whirlwind.” Joshi passed the Jeopardy! Anytime Test two years ago after multiple failed attempts.
“Anybody can take the test online. They show you the category and then they’ll flash the answer on the screen and then you have to type in the question, and I think they give you eight seconds to type it in,” Joshi told the outlet. “After I took the test, I got an email that said that I had qualified for the next round.” In February, he passed a second round of questions and a Zoom interview and was picked to be on the show after years of hearing nothing back.
“The producer called me, and he said, ‘Would you like to be on the show?’ I said, ‘Sure,’ but, honestly, I was extremely nervous when I got the call and even considered dropping out. I was that stressed, maybe it was impostor syndrome,” he said. “I thought maybe they made a mistake, or they flipped my test scores with somebody else. I went through all those emotions.”
The beginning of the game was anything but a dream for Joshi. He had $0 by the time the first Daily Double was found on clue eight. Hawkins, a software engineer, found it instead. She had $800 and wagered up to the allotted $1,000. In “London Literary Landmarks,” the clue read, “In this Twain tale Tom Canty is welcomed to the splendor of the Guildhall while the real royal is mocked trying to get in.” “What is A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court?” Hawkins answered incorrectly. She lost $1,000, bringing her down to -$200. The correct response was The Prince and the Pauper. This put Joshi in the lead despite his total of $0.
By the end of the round, Joshi was still in the lead with $4,200. Hawkins had $1,200. O’Heron, a graduate student, was in last place with $800.
In Double Jeopardy, O’Heron moved up to second place. He found the first DD of the round and tried to catch up to Joshi. With $5,600 in his bank, he wagered $4,000. In “We’d Like a Short Word With ‘U’,” the clue was “3 letters: It follows ‘grand’ to designate the ritziest bottles in a wine appellation.” “What is mum?” O’Heron answered. The correct response was cru, so he dropped down to $1,600, but he still remained in second place as Hawkins had $0.
He found the second DD two clues later. Now with $3,600, O’Heron wagered $3,200. In “Weights & Measures,” the clue read, “A French scientist is honored in the name of this unit of pressure that’s equal to one Newton per square meter.” He correctly answered with “a pascal,” doubling up to $6,800.
At the end of the round, Joshi had a wide lead with $16,200. O’Heron pulled into second with $8,800. Hawkins trailed with $1,200.
The category for Final Jeopardy was “Name That -Ism.” “This word first appears in English in a letter explaining that Candide is meant to ridicule the philosopher Leibniz,” the clue read. Only one contestant knew that it was optimism.
Hawkins got it right and wagered $0, so she went home with $1,200. O’Heron’s answer was absurdism. He dropped down to $1,399 after wagering $7,401. Joshi’s response was extensionism. He wagered $1,401, giving him a final total of $14,799. His two-day total is $20,199 and will be back on Monday, June 9.
Joshi shared with the University of Michigan that right after he got the call, he started to study, and it paid off. He crammed his brain with as much information as he could in as many different subjects as he could retain. Joshi watched and played the game show over and over again to prepare.
“I knew that with my background in science, I would have an advantage there, knowing the basics of chemistry and biology and physics, and I was pretty sure those things would come up during the game,” Joshi said. “I was hoping I would be strong in some non-science categories like sports and geography, too.”
“I trained by watching the show nightly, standing up, pretending to buzz in, and making wagers—and in that sense, the show didn’t actually seem that fast to me. As far as the categories, I tried not to overreact to each category; rather, I just responded to each individual clue.”
The Jeopardy! champion traveled to Los Angeles for the taping in April and he felt ready and calm. “That morning in the Uber ride, I realized, that whatever happens, happens. Doesn’t matter. I’m lucky to be here, I’m happy to be here,” he said.
To be “in the zone,” Joshi didn’t look at host Ken Jennings or his fellow competitors. He also ignored the audience. “It was great,” he ended.
Jeopardy!, Weeknights, check local listings