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[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for the July 4 episode of Jeopardy!]
Current Jeopardy! champion Isaac Hirsch may be nowhere close to Buzzy Cohen’s nine-game streak (during his original run, prior to tournaments), but he does have one up on the other champ: He beat him on The Chase in 2023!
On The Chase, three competitors face off against a quiz genius (a Chaser) determined to stop them from winning cash prizes. Cohen is a Chaser known as “The Stunner” on there. In Season 3, in 2023, Hirsch played alongside John Lance and Allison Johnson and defeated Cohen. He won $46,667 of a $140,000 total. That’s not the only game show Hirsch has appeared on. He was also on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire in 2017. He answered seven questions correctly but walked away with $5,000 after being incorrect on the $20,000 question on which he used the Ask the Audience lifeline. (He went with the answer that received 48 percent of the vote, but the one with 35 percent had been the correct one.)
During his second Jeopardy! game, Hirsch even answered a clue in Words With Silent Consonants about Millionaire: “What’s given to you in a “Jeopardy!” clue, it could be final on “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,” for $200 to end the first round.
And now Hirsch has broken a short streak of one-game winners (on June 28, July 1, and July 2) by emerging victorious during the July 4 game, to become a two-game winner with a total of $47,986, which beats his own winnings on The Chase.
Hirsch returned for the July 4 game as a one-day champion, and the customer support team lead from Burbank, California, faced off with corporate pilot Josh Martin (from Springfield, Missouri) and digital marketing coordinator Christine Roberts (from Holland, Pennsylvania). Coming in, he’d already accomplished something his father, Steve Hirsch, did not back in Season 2 of Jeopardy!—win a game—which host Ken Jennings commented on at the beginning of the episode.
While Hirsch did trail the other two at the first break, then Martin at the second, he went into Final Jeopardy! in the lead, with $21,200 to Martin’s $14,400 and Roberts’ $6,400. (Martin got close thanks to a correct answer on the third Daily Double.) Both Hirsch and Martin got Final Jeopardy!—in Tech Talk, the clue read, “In 1992, Jean Polly told new web users to do this & later explained they ‘need some skill … never know if there are going to be sharks’”—correct, and Hirsch ended this game with $28,801 for the win.
“Strong showing by Isaac,” one fan wrote on Reddit after the episode. Another commented, “I won’t mind if Isaac sticks around for a while. He’s a very smart, fun guy.”
That person also noted Martin’s stats, “14/0, bet big with his DD, prevented the runaway, and got the FJ correct with a super savvy wager,” and suggested that while “his Coryat [a player’s score with wagering disregarded] wasn’t the largest of a non-winner … against a formidable champ in Isaac, he’ll likely at least be considered for Second Chance.”
What do you think of Hirsch’s gameplay so far? Let us know in the comments section, below.
Jeopardy!, Weekdays, check local listings