NORTHAMPTON — Joseph Bartolomeo’s two-day winning streak on the TV game show “Jeopardy!” came to an end Monday evening when the University of Massachusetts professor lost to a Virginia social worker.
The two-time champion had won a total of $36,500.
Bartolomeo started Monday’s game strong, getting every question right in the category “Women and the American Revolution” and remaining in the lead throughout the first round.
However, his lead was quickly whittled away in the second round as Blair Moorhead, from Arlington, Va., and law student Jack Paleczny of Chicago, Ill., surpassed his earnings.
Going into Final Jeopardy, Bartolomeo trailed by $8,800.
In that final round, contestants must come up with the right question to the one clue in the category. When the final category is announced, they each strategically wager a sum of money, based on how well they think they know the category. Monday’s category was “19th Century Notables.”
The statement put to contestants: “Calling him a red-headed madman, in 1889 a group of his neighbors signed a petition to ban him from his home in Arles, France.”
While Bartolomeo came up with the right answer — Vincent Van Gogh — his wager of $8,000, which bumped him up to $16,800 was not enough to beat Moorhead’s final score which was $17,402.