The giant slayer is back! Jonathan Hugendubler will return to the Jeopardy! stage on Thursday, January 8, for the Champions Wildcard Tournament. Hugendubler took down 16-time champion Scott Riccardi on the Season 41 finale, shocking fans. He then went on to win his second game on the Season 42 finale, giving him a total of $63,601. Hugendubler lost his third game.
Now, the adjunct professor is back to try and win again and is more confident than ever. “I had a lot of faith in myself, but in that initial game, I got off to a really bad start,” he told PennLive. “It was really shocking to be able to unseat someone who was probably one of the top 10 players of all time, and that gave me some confidence going forward.”
Hugendubler, from Baltimore, Maryland, will compete against Pete Johnston, who won one of the three spots in the Second Chance Tournament, and Vickie Talvola on Thursday. He shared that he is “excited to compete against some close friends he had made over the past year.”
“The episode will be a lot of fun to watch,” Hugendubler told the outlet. “I had a great time there, and it was really nice getting to connect with a lot of people who are really good players.”
The trivia host started watching Jeopardy! in 2014 and formed his own trivia league in 2020. He felt by 2025 that he was “decent enough at trivia” to try out for the game show.
Despite growing up in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, Hugendubler moved to Maryland and is an adjunct professor at three colleges there.
Find out if Hugendubler will earn his third win and advance to the semifinals of the Champions Wildcard on Thursday. If Hugendubler wins the whole thing, he will advance to the Tournament of Champions, where he could face off against Riccardi.
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