Canadian ‘Jeopardy!’ champ Mattea Roach loses in tournament of champions semifinals

By John Marchesan and The Canadian Press

Canadian ‘Jeopardy!’ champ Mattea Roach came up short in her bid Friday to reach the finals of the season-ending tournament of champions.

Roach, only one of three players to earn an automatic berth into the semifinals, finished third with $7,200 – well behind Andrew He, who won the game with $37,863 – more than double runner-up Eric Ahasic.

Roach won 23 consecutive games and a total of $560,983 during her appearance on the quiz show earlier this year.

Even though her run as the fifth-winningest contestant in the quiz show’s history is over, she said she would jump at the opportunity to do it again.

“I will continue going back for as long as they’re willing to have me because it is so much fun,” she said in a phone interview before her semifinal game on Friday.

“Playing ‘Jeopardy’ is some of the most fun that I have had – definitely in my adult life, probably in my whole life.”

Roach said nothing’s set in stone, but there have been murmurs in the halls of quiz show power about the possibility of more special tournaments that could see the return of past super-champions.

The now-24-year-old Haligonian-turned-Torontonian was a law school tutor when she first appeared on the show, but things have changed in the past seven months.

In addition to the cool half-mil she won, Roach has parlayed her “Jeopardy” fame into a gig hosting “The Backbench,” a politics podcast on the Canadaland network.

She also spoke about her new found fame, recalling a story about being noticed while driving on the highway.

“I was recognized on the highway when I was driving 110 kilometres an hour,” she said. “I ended up passing the car again and they all waved.”

When she returned to the Alex Trebek Stage (named after the top Canadian associated with “Jeopardy”) to film the tournament, her strategy changed, too.

“I knew the other players who were going to be there, whereas during your regular-season run, you don’t know what you’re going to be facing before you go down,” she said.

“With a tournament like this, everyone’s kind of a known quantity.”

She knew that some of the people she could face played a more aggressive game than her style of starting with the lowest-value clues and working her way down the board.

They tend to start by choosing high-value clues in an effort to build up money before hunting for the Daily Double.

“I knew that if I was going to be against a player like that, I would probably not be able to get away with playing the more traditional style, or it would be an uphill battle for me,” she said.

“So the thing that I tried to work on was working myself up to making those bigger wagers and getting comfortable with playing the board more aggressively.”

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