NEW YORK – Greek-American Peter Karamitsos, a software salesman from Elmhurst, IL was a two-day champion after winning on the March 15 episode of the long-running game show Jeopardy! He tried to make it three in a row on the March 16th episode, but it was not to be.
In his second appearance as the returning champion, Karamitsos faced Rahul Gupta- a data engineer from Midlothian, VA, and Dan Lee- a math professor from New York, NY. Gupta proved too tough as a challenger, leading throughout the game, and winning in spite of an incorrect response on the Final Jeopardy clue. Karamitsos lagged behind during the game, starting off the second round of the game, Double Jeopardy, with no money. He managed to find one of the Daily Doubles and answer correctly, however, with only 7 correct answers and 3 incorrect, according to the statistics on jeopardyfan.com, it was not his day.
Going into the final, Gupta led with $12,400, Lee was in second place with $6,200, and Karamitsos in third with $4,000. The category was Mythological Beasts, the clue- “Hesiod said it fawns on all who enter ‘with actions of…tail & both ears,’ but when people try to exit it ‘eats them up,’ and the answer- Cerberus, the three-headed dog of Hades from Greek mythology. None of the contestants responded correctly, with both Karamitsos and Lee answering the Minotaur, so at least they were in the right geographical area. Karamitsos only wagered a dollar and ended with $3,999 for a third place finish. Lee wagered nothing and ended in second place with $6,200. Gupta answered incorrectly- the Sphinx, and like Karamitsos only wagered a dollar, winning the game with $12,399. With his third place finish on March 16 plus his two-day winnings, Karamitsos’ final total was $52,000.
In his first appearance as the returning champion, Karamitsos faced two tough challengers Tracey Hollabaugh, a teacher from Cumming, GA, and Amy Yacorzynski, an attorney from New Orleans, LA. After the first round, he was tied for the lead with $3,800. Throughout the show, he managed to answer correctly every time he buzzed in.
Going into the final, Karmitsos was in second place with $12,600, while Yacorzynski led with $17,000, and Hollabaugh was in third place with $11,400. The final clue category was European Rivers, “Of the 10 countries the Danube touches, this one is alphabetically last and is the only one that doesn’t end in ‘Y’ or ‘A’,” said host Alex Trebek. Only Karamitsos gave the correct response, Ukraine, and wagered $11,000 which brought his total up to $23,600 for the win. His two-day total was $51,000.
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