A Washington, D.C., content manager secured his spot in the 2026 Tournament of Champions after an eight-game winning streak on “Jeopardy!” that ended on Monday, June 1, with Chris D’Angelo walking away with $194,201 in total earnings.

D’Angelo’s run concluded when a Final Jeopardy clue about Mississippi cardsharp bans in the 1830s under the category “Idioms & Expressions” stumped all three contestants. Entering the final round with $11,200, D’Angelo wagered everything and finished with $0. Peter McFerrin, an energy industry professional from Corona, California, survived by wagering a surgical $1,701 from his $20,700 lead — just enough to cover a correct D’Angelo response — and won with $18,999.

The streak’s most dominant performance came on Thursday, May 28, 2026, during D’Angelo’s seventh game, when he delivered one of the season’s most commanding victories. He located all three Daily Doubles, answered each one correctly and cruised to a runaway victory with a $50,000 single-game payday that pushed his seven-day winnings to $174,201.

A Tight Start Turns Decisive

D’Angelo entered his seventh game with a six-day total of $124,201 and a clear strategy: control the board. He faced Ken Bloom, a physics professor from Lincoln, Nebraska, and Ariel Epstein, an executive research director from Belle Mead, New Jersey. For the first 15 clues, D’Angelo and Epstein traded the lead in a back-and-forth duel, with each missing one clue along the way, but D’Angelo edged ahead with $4,200 to Epstein’s $3,200.

The game’s first inflection point arrived on clue 17, when D’Angelo uncovered the round’s lone Daily Double. Sitting on $5,000, he went all-in. The category was “Erring,” and the clue read: “Oh boy, where to start? This ancient Egyptian placed the Earth at the center of the universe & said astrology was a legitimate science.”

“Who is Ptolemy?” he answered, doubling up to $10,000. Incorrect responses from Epstein and Bloom helped widen the gap. D’Angelo finished the Jeopardy! round with $11,800, while Epstein sat at $3,600 and Bloom held $1,600.

Double Jeopardy Becomes a Solo Act

If the first round was a duet, Double Jeopardy was a one-man show. D’Angelo ran the board from the opening clue, climbing to $17,800 before locating the round’s first Daily Double on the fifth clue. He wagered $2,200 in the category “Alliterature.”

The clue: “Regarding this title location, Anne Shirley remarks, ‘Just as soon as I saw it I felt it was home.'” His response — “What is Green Gables?” — pushed him to $20,000.

From clue five through clue nine, D’Angelo answered every clue that wasn’t a Triple Stumper. Two of those tripped up all three players, but the champion kept stacking. On clue nine, he found the third and final Daily Double in the category “Jobs.” With $21,600 in the bank, he wagered $1,600.

The clue noted that the job didn’t require pilot training but did require passing the ATSA, an exam administered by the FAA. “What is an Air Traffic Controller?” D’Angelo offered, this time with a touch of uncertainty in his voice. He was right, lifting his total to $23,200 and locking up the sweep of all three Daily Doubles.

The Final Margin

Epstein found a brief rhythm afterward, stringing together three correct responses before missing one. Bloom, who had been quiet for much of the round, then stepped up to ring in correctly on five clues. But the math had already tilted decisively. By the end of Double Jeopardy, D’Angelo had $34,000, Epstein had $7,200 and Bloom held $5,200 — a runaway, with D’Angelo’s total more than double Epstein’s.

Final Jeopardy arrived under the category “Latin Phrases.” The clue: “An 1863 Congressional ‘Act relating to’ this was decried in the press as a ‘bill to appoint a dictator.'”

All three contestants answered correctly with habeas corpus. Bloom wagered $5,000 to finish at $10,200. Epstein wagered $3,201 to land at $10,401. D’Angelo, playing the comfortable math of a runaway, wagered $16,000 and ended the night at $50,000.

Eight in a Row on the Horizon

His Thursday performance — locating every Daily Double, going all-in on the first one and never trailing after clue 17 — was the kind of run that turns a solid champion into a player viewers start circling on the calendar. With three opponents falling short and a Final Jeopardy clue everyone solved, the spotlight stayed firmly on D’Angelo’s strategy at the board.

D’Angelo returned on Friday, May 29, and kept the streak alive, winning his eighth consecutive game and earning $20,000 to push his cumulative total to $194,201. His opponents were Matt Patrick, an attorney from Bloomfield, New Jersey, and Lili Driggs, a writer from New York City. During the contestant interview segment, D’Angelo revealed that he and his wife never took their honeymoon — they married in 2020 — and pledged to splurge on a trip to Tokyo with his winnings.

“Jeopardy!” airs weekdays; check local listings. Episodes stream the next day on Hulu and Peacock.