Yesterday, Sports Illustrated’s Jack Dickey made his Jeopardy! debut, and did so in impressive fashion:

That’s a hell of a one-day total! As with every champion, Dickey got to return to defend, and once you’ve won one game, the strategy changes a bit. With second and third place locked into $2,000 and $1,000 prizes respectively, making sure you win once is the key to the bigger payday, and after you’ve cashed you can be a bit more aggressive, and as Jeopardy! tends to reward aggressive play (not to mention a familiarity with the buzzer) Dickey had a slight advantage.

And that’s how it played out, with Dickey taking a lead heading into both Double Jeopardy that he’d maintain heading into Final. With a $6,000 cushion and a slightly opaque category (19th Century Classical Musicians), Dickey bet the minimum required to cover the gap, and he pulled it off:

That’s a very impressive $46,802 in two games for Dickey, and he’ll continue defending. The win wasn’t without a misstep, though:

These shows were all taped a while ago, so it’s not quite accurate to hope he keeps the run going tomorrow. But however you want to say it, hopefully he wins the next game, too.

About Jay Rigdon

Jay is a columnist at Awful Announcing. He is not a strong swimmer. He is probably talking to a dog in a silly voice at this very moment.