When competing on Jeopardy!, contestants are limited as to how much of their personality they’re able to show. However, plenty of competitors still manage to entertain the audience with the smallest of jokes, expressions, and acts of sincerity. During a recent game, one competitor’s nervous energy made for a delightful end to the episode.
Lloyd Sy Claims He ‘Totally Lost Consciousness’ On Air
Most competitors on Jeopardy! have to learn how to keep their composure even when they’re losing. However, we don’t often talk about how disorienting it is to win. On the January 3 episode of the popular game show, contestant Lloyd Sy reminded us that when he went up against 13-game champion Ray LaLonde and contestant Claire Theoret.
Each competitor played an impressive game, and all three scores were close going into Final Jeopardy. The final clue read, “Early in her career she translated romance novels into Spanish, often changing the dialogue to make the heroines smarter.”
Both Theoret answered correctly (who is Isabel Allende?) and chose to double their scores. When it came around to Sy, he was more than $11,000 behind LaLonde. Things didn’t look good as Sy was bowing his head in what seemed like disappointment. However, he surprised the audience by looking up with a confident smile as Jennings revealed his correct answer. Sy wagered $12,000, putting him in the lead with a final score of $24,490.
Fans Notice Sy’s ‘Fake-Out’
During his short time on the show, it’s clear that Sy made an impression on fans. In a response to the game summary on the Jeopardy! subreddit, one fan gently critiqued Sy’s behavior. “The fakeout crestfall from lloyd (if that’s what he was going for) was goofy. well played but you may as well smile and fist pump into the camera before ken reads the response, a poker face is more tense,” the user wrote.
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However, Sy actually saw the comment and chose to clear things up. According to the contestant, he was so disoriented by the whole situation that he wasn’t actually trying to put on a bit. “Honestly I was trying to do a poker face from the beginning but completely lost consciousness when the camera panned to me and I guess that came out in this gloriously dramatic way?!” Sy wrote.
It just goes to show that no amount of preparation can make up for the real thing. It’s hard to know how you’ll react in the face of winning $24,000 on national television. Whether people enjoyed his reaction or not, there’s no disputing that he had a classy response to winning. Almost immediately, Sy turned his attention to 13-game champ LaLonde, making sure to show his respect for the formidable player.