Maine Jeopardy Contestant Becomes New Champion

Another Jeopardy! contestant from Maine has gone on to become the new champion after a come from behind win on Friday.

Dennis Coffey from Old Orchard Beach, who is a bartender at Duffy's Tavern in Old Orchard Beach, made his first appearance on Jeopardy! on Friday playing against Lindsay Goldstein, a youth librarian from Chicago, Illinois and returning champion Veronica Vichit-Vadakan, a librarian from Portland, Oregon who had amassed $89,001 over four days.

Dennis got off to a rough start in the Jeopardy! round ending it with only two correct responses and $800, but he poured it on in the Double Jeopardy! round with 13 correct answers, four of them for $2000 a piece.

Going into Final Jeopardy! Dennis had $19,600 while Lindsay was in second with $10,800 and champion Veronica was pretty much out of contention with $7000. Dennis was the only one who gave the correct response to the Final Jeopardy! answer "The great-nephew of Tsarina Alexandra of Russia." Dennis knew the correct response was "Who is Prince Philip?" and cashed in $21,601 with a smart wager of only $2001.

A nice haul for day one and he'll be back on Jeopardy! Monday night at 7:30 on WMTW 8.