It’s time for some Masters to go! The last two Quarterfinals games of the 2026 Jeopardy! Masters saw two contestants eliminated from the competition. Find out who made it through.
After games nine and 10, Victoria Groce was in the lead with 12. Yogesh Raut was very close with 11 points. Paolo Pasco had seven. Long Nguyen was next with five points. Juveria Zaheer had three. Andrew He was in last place with two points.
In the first game on September 2, Pasco, from San Diego, California, Zaheer, from Whitby. Ontario, Canada, and He, from San Francisco, California, played against each other.
Pasco found the Daily Double on clue 15. He had 3,800 in second place. The puzzle writer wagered 2,500 points.
In “Jaws,” the clue read, “Cremona, Italy, has a long history with this job of making stringed instruments & not just the one the word is derived from.” “What is a lutherie?” he answered correctly. This gave him the lead with 6,300 points.
By the end of the round, Pasco had 7,100. He, a stay-at-home dad, was in second place with 6,600. Zaheer, a psychiatrist, had 3,600 points.
In Double Jeopardy, Zaheer found the first DD on clue one. She wagered all of her points in “I Need Some Air.”
The clue was “To thwart rival claims against the Ottoman throne, potential heirs were imprisoned, often for decades, inside this imperial palace.” “What is Topkapi Palace?” she answered. This gave her the lead with 7,200 points.
Then, on clue two, she found the next DD. Zaheer wagered 2,200. The clue in “From the Latin” was “An air of haughtiness is part of the demeanor called this, from Latin for ‘eyebrow.’”
“What is supercilious?” she answered correctly. This gave her 9,400 points. However, throughout the round, Zaheer fell to third place.
By the end, she found her footing again. She was still in third place, but had 12,200 points. He had 13,800. Pasco was in first with 15,100.
The Final Jeopardy category was “World Transportation.” The clue was “China’s big 3 airlines are Air China, based in Beijing, China Eastern, HQed in Shanghai; & China Southern, based here.”
“What is Guangzhou?” Zaheer answered correctly. She wagered 301, giving her 12,501 points.
He also had the correct response. He wagered 5,800, making his total 15,300. Pasco did not know the answer. He wagered 1,299, giving him 13,801.
Zaheer did not advance, since she was at the bottom of the leaderboard with three points. She took home $50,000.
Zaheer spoke out about her time on the show on Reddit. “And that’s a wrap! So lucky to get to play in this tournament – went big when I should have gone small, and small when I should have gone big – but I have had so much good fortune over the last few years, and fate breaks both ways,” she said.
“Jeopardy! is the show I watched with my dad when I was four years old, and that Indian man who taught me all the world capitals with the moustached swag of Alex Trebek would have loved every second of this too. There is a part of me that wants to play forever; but preparing to play at this high level for another year is unsustainable with the demands of my career and the amount of time I want to spend with my family. So goodbye for now – but who knows what the future holds; maybe in a few years Mike and the children will be so sick of me being around all the time that they’ll reload the cards back onto my phone ;).”
“Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes you have to sit in a little chair off stage because you don’t have enough money for Final Jeopardy. But all I hope is that when people saw me out there, they saw themselves too. It’s never too late, and it’s ok to fail, so be brave and take that anytime test – you never know what can happen,” she ended.
Disney/Christopher Willard
The next game had Nguyen, from Las Vegas, Nevada, Raut, from Vancouver, Washington, and Groce, from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, facing off. Groce, a writer and speaker, found the first DD on clue 12.
She had 5,400 points and wagered 400 in “Words That Should Rhyme.” The clue read, “Another name for the Wisent & Azkaban, for one.” “What is bison and prison?” she answered correctly, giving her 5,800 points.
By the end of the round, Groce had the lead with 11,00 points. Raut, a specialist in applied cognition, ended with 4,000 points. Nguyen, a retired engineer, was in third place with 2,000 points.
In Double Jeopardy, Nguyen found the first DD on clue one. He wagered all of his points in “Cities With the Same First & Last Letter.”
The clue was “South of Moscow, this city has its name on the largest tank battle of World War II.” “What is Kursk?” he answered correctly. This tied him with Raut at 4,000.
On clue 21, Groce found the last DD. She had a runaway total with 25,000 points. She wagered 5,000 in “Bathroom Culture.”
The clue read, “A bathroom mural in a NYC LGBT community center was designated by this graffiti artist from Penn., who died og Aids complications.” “Who is Herring?” Groce answered correctly, giving her 30,000 points.
By the end of the round, Groce led with 29,600 points. Raut had 3,600 points. Nguyen had 4,000.
The category for Final Jeopardy was “Words in the U.S. Constitution.” The clue was “Coming immediately after ‘nor,’ it’s the first adjective in section 1 of the 13th Amendment.”
Raut’s response was, “What is involuntary?” That was correct. He wagered all of his points, giving him 7,200. Nguyen wrote, “What is free?” He dropped to 3,602 after wagering 398 points.
Groce’s response was “What is free?” She wagered 4,967, giving her 24,633.
Disney/Christopher Willard
Groce moved on with 15 points. Raut has 12. Then came Pasco with eight. Both Nguyen and He were tied at five. Zaheer had three points.
He moved into the fourth spot after having more correct answers. He joined Groce, Raut, and Pasco in the semi-finals.
Jeopardy! Masters, Tuesdays through Fridays, until September 8, 8/7c, ABC
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