{"id":591652,"date":"2026-04-18T11:46:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-18T11:46:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/591652\/"},"modified":"2026-04-18T11:46:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T11:46:14","slug":"jamie-ding-faces-heavyweight-battle-with-the-chase-competitor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/591652\/","title":{"rendered":"Jamie Ding Faces ‘Heavyweight Battle’ With ‘The Chase’ Competitor"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chasing the win! Jamie Ding<\/a> faced off against a former The Chase<\/a> competitor for his 26th Jeopardy!<\/a> game. Fans said that the two men, along with a comic book writer, had a \u201cheavyweight battle.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ding, from Lawrenceville, New Jersey, entered into the April 17 game with a total of $702,000<\/a>. Although he has broken numerous records and made a spot for himself on the Leaderboard of Legends<\/a>, he has yet to face off against another prominent game show<\/a> contestant.<\/p>\n

On Friday, the law student and bureaucrat<\/a> played against Tini Howard, from Van Nuys, California, and Taotao Zhang, from South River, New Jersey. Zhang, now listed as a statistician, competed on the seventh season of The Chase in 2022. He won $225,000. Can he win more on Jeopardy! and take down the champion?<\/p>\n

\u201cThis should be a heavyweight battle between Jamie and Taotao; this is likely Jamie\u2019s toughest challenge yet. And Tini could be really good too!\u201d a Reddit<\/a> user wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m predicting this to be a fun 2-way battle between Jamie and TaoTao,\u201d another said.<\/p>\n

Howard has written numerous comic books, including ones for Excalibur, X-Men, Power Rangers, DC Comics, and more.\u00a0Warning: Spoilers for the April 17 episode of Jeopardy!\u00a0ahead.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Zhang, a new dad, gave Ding a run for his money in the first half of the round. However, Ding was in first place by the end of 15 clues with $4,600.<\/p>\n

With $3,200 in his bank, Zhang found the Daily Double on clue 22. He wagered all of his money in \u201cSibling Rivalry.\u201d The clue read, \u201cIn mythology this sister of Castor & Pollux was first carried off by Theseus; the brothers rescued her.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWho is Helen?\u201d he answered, talking about Helen of Troy. This gave him the lead with $6,400. Ding had $6,000.<\/p>\n

However, Ding ended in the lead at the end of the round with $6,400. Zhang had $6,000. Howard ended with $1,600.<\/p>\n

In Double Jeopardy, Zhang found the first DD on clue two. He had $7,600 and made it a true Daily Double. In \u201cGeography,\u201d the clue was \u201cMainland France has 12 metropolitan regions that are further divided into 94 of these, like Hautes-Alpes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is arrondissement?\u201d Zhang answered incorrectly. The correct response was the departments, so Zhang dropped down to $0.<\/p>\n

Ding had a wide lead of $8,400 when he found the last DD on clue six. He wagered $2,600 in \u201cHealth & Medicine.\u201d The clue was \u201cFast, slow or fluttering, it\u2019s the 10-letter term for an irregular heartbeat.\u201d<\/p>\n

After a few seconds, Ding answered \u201cWhat is an arrhythmia?\u201d This gave him $11,000.<\/p>\n

Ding ended the round with $23,800. Zhang had $8,400. Howard was in third place with $2,800.<\/p>\n

The category for Final Jeopardy was \u201cOpera.\u201d The clue read, \u201cThe name of this opera means \u2018Faithful\u2019; it\u2019s used as an alias by a character who implores a prisoner not to lose faith.\u201d<\/p>\n

All three game show contestants had the correct response of \u201cWhat is Fidelio?\u201d Howard wagered $2,699, ending her with $5,499.<\/p>\n

Zhang made a safe wager of $2,699, giving him a final total of $11,022. Ding\u2019s wager of $6,200 gave him a final total of $30,000.<\/p>\n

This gave Ding a 26-day total of $732,000. He is only $16,286 away from tying Cris Pannullo<\/a>, who won $748,286 during his reign. Pannullo is number five for all-time highest winnings (regular season play) and number 10 on the all-time list, including tournaments.<\/p>\n

Can Ding reach that level? Find out on Monday.<\/p>\n

\u201cFun game, I really liked TaoTao, kind of feel bad that he ended up against Jamie, but maybe we\u2019ll see him in second chance,\u201d a Reddit user said.<\/p>\n

Jeopardy!,\u00a0weekdays, check local listings, stream next day on Hulu and Peacock<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chasing the win! Jamie Ding faced off against a former The Chase competitor for his 26th Jeopardy! game.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":591653,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[88,92],"class_list":{"0":"post-591652","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=591652"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591652\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/591653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=591652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=591652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=591652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}