Chris D’Angelo, a content manager from Washington, D.C., has secured his spot in the 2026 Tournament of Champions after an eight-game run on “Jeopardy!” that ended on Monday, June 1, with total earnings of $194,201.
D’Angelo’s streak concluded when a Final Jeopardy clue in the category “Idioms & Expressions” — asking about Mississippi cardsharp bans in the 1830s — stumped all three contestants. Entering the final round with $11,200, he wagered everything and finished with $0. Peter McFerrin, an energy industry professional from Corona, California, survived by wagering a surgical $1,701 from his $20,700 lead — just enough to cover a correct D’Angelo response — and won with $18,999.
Commanding Performance on May 28
The champion’s most dominant outing came on Thursday, May 28, 2026, when he located all three Daily Doubles, answered each one correctly and walked away with a $50,000 single-game payday. That victory pushed his six-day total of $124,201 to $174,201 through seven games.
D’Angelo entered his seventh game with a clear strategy: control the board. He did exactly that in a contest that looked competitive — until suddenly it wasn’t.
Facing Ken Bloom, a physics professor from Lincoln, Nebraska, and Ariel Epstein, an executive research director from Belle Mead, New Jersey, D’Angelo traded the lead with Epstein for the first 15 clues. Each missed one clue along the way, but D’Angelo edged ahead with $4,200 to Epstein’s $3,200.
The first inflection point arrived on clue 17, when D’Angelo uncovered the round’s lone Daily Double. Sitting on $5,000, he went all-in. The category was “Erring,” and the clue read: “Oh boy, where to start? This ancient Egyptian placed the Earth at the center of the universe & said astrology was a legitimate science.”
“Who is Ptolemy?” he answered, doubling up to $10,000. Incorrect responses from Epstein and Bloom helped widen the gap. By the end of the Jeopardy! round, D’Angelo had $11,800, Epstein sat at $3,600 and Bloom held $1,600.
Sweeping the Daily Doubles
If the first round was a duet, Double Jeopardy was a one-man show. D’Angelo ran the board from the opening clue, climbing to $17,800 before locating the round’s first Daily Double on the fifth clue. He wagered $2,200 in the category “Alliterature.”
The clue: “Regarding this title location, Anne Shirley remarks, ‘Just as soon as I saw it I felt it was home.'” His response — “What is Green Gables?” — pushed him to $20,000.
From clue five through clue nine, D’Angelo answered every clue that wasn’t a Triple Stumper. Two of those tripped up all three players, but the champion kept stacking. On clue nine, he found the third and final Daily Double in the category “Jobs.” With $21,600 in the bank, he wagered $1,600.
The clue noted that the job didn’t require pilot training but did require passing the ATSA, an exam administered by the FAA. “What is an Air Traffic Controller?” D’Angelo offered, this time with a touch of uncertainty in his voice. He was right, lifting his total to $23,200 and locking up the sweep of all three Daily Doubles.
Epstein found a brief rhythm afterward, stringing together three correct responses before missing one. Bloom, who had been quiet for much of the round, then stepped up to ring in correctly on five clues. But the math had already tilted decisively. By the end of Double Jeopardy, D’Angelo had $34,000, Epstein had $7,200 and Bloom held $5,200 — a runaway, with D’Angelo’s total more than double Epstein’s.
Cruising Through Final Jeopardy
Final Jeopardy arrived under the category “Latin Phrases.” The clue: “An 1863 Congressional ‘Act relating to’ this was decried in the press as a ‘bill to appoint a dictator.'”
All three contestants nailed it with habeas corpus. Bloom wagered $5,000 to finish at $10,200. Epstein wagered $3,201 to land at $10,401. D’Angelo, playing the comfortable math of a runaway, wagered $16,000 and ended the night at $50,000.
The performance — locating every Daily Double, going all-in on the first one and never trailing after clue 17 — was the kind of run that turns a solid champion into a player viewers start circling on the calendar. With three opponents falling short and a Final Jeopardy clue everyone solved, the spotlight stayed firmly on D’Angelo’s strategy at the board.
D’Angelo returned on Friday, May 29, and kept the streak alive, winning his eighth consecutive game and earning $20,000 to push his cumulative total to $194,201. His opponents were Matt Patrick, an attorney from Bloomfield, New Jersey, and Lili Driggs, a writer from New York City. During the contestant interview segment, D’Angelo revealed that he and his wife never took their honeymoon — they married in 2020 — and pledged to splurge on a trip to Tokyo with his winnings.
“Jeopardy!” airs weekdays; check local listings. Episodes stream the next day on Hulu and Peacock.
