JEOPARDY! host Ken Jennings has singled out Yogesh Raut over his intense on-stage demeanor in a ruthless off-camera exchange.

Ken took multiple jabs at Yogesh after his ToC semifinal win on Friday during the post-game chat, which aired the Inside Jeopardy! podcast.

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Ken Jennings congratulated Yogesh Raut for making the ToC finals in a very shady wayCredit: JEOPARDY!

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He told him, ‘You’re headed to the finals. Congratulations! It looked like you were almost having fun’Credit: JEOPARDY!
The divisive three-day champ and pro online trivia player beat Wildcard winner Emily Sands and 4-day champ David Sibley in a runaway.

After the big win, the Jeopardy! host came for him during the post-game chat.

Ken said, “Yogesh Raut, you’re headed to the finals. Congratulations!

“Did you enjoy that game? It looked like you were almost having fun.”

The audience gasped in shock, and Yogesh replied, “Almost!? Not quite.”

“On the brink of it,” Ken added.

“Little threshold, I don’t think I quite reached it,” Yogesh replied, being a good sport.

Sands could be heard laughing and defending, “You’ve got at least three more [games] to figure out how to have fun.”

Ken said, referring to the ToC finals, “You’re going to play at least three more times!”

Yogesh replied: “I have to get a sense of humor apparently,” as the host and audience laughed.

“You’ve got somewhere between three and seven games to do it we’ll see you in the finals,” Ken concluded.

Yogesh is now a finalist along with nine-day champ Ben Chan and the winner of Monday’s episode (likely six-day champ and fellow pro quizzer Troy Meyer).

RAUT OF LINE?

It’s no secret that the power player is also a bit controversial on and off-screen, and that showed during Friday’s game.

Emily had $7600, Yogesh led with $13,000, and David had $2200 in Double Jeopardy! when she landed on a crucial Daily Double.

Emily opted to go all-in on the video clue under the category: “Shades of Blue.”

It read: “In his ‘Great Waves’ print, Hokusai used this imported blue pigment first made in Germany.”

Emily incorrectly guessed “Cobalt,” and she looked crushed as host Ken Jennings told her the correct response was “Prussian Blue.”

But as Ken said the correct response, Yogesh could also be heard uttering “Prussian Blue” under his breath.

J-archive – which chronicles every episode – even included Yogesh’s mention of the correct response but has since removed it.

The unbecoming remark did not win fans over, especially since the huge miss may have cost Emily the game and being a finalist instead.

One fan wrote on Reddit, “Did I hear Yogesh quietly say ‘prussian blue’ as Ken was telling Emily the correct response?

“You just saw your opponent lose everything in a huge daily double, and your first thought is to tell them that you knew the correct answer?”

And another, “Blurting out the correct answer to Emily’s missed daily double was so uncalled for.”

Emily responded in the Reddit thread, “I didn’t hear it, wouldn’t care if I had.

“Yogesh was nothing but friendly throughout the ToC and you’d have seen all three of us in a post-game celebratory hug had they not cut to Ken for his closing remarks.

She added, “Yogesh knows everything I do plus another 40%+ so I knew I’d have to play well and get lucky to win. I almost kept it interesting to the end but I have zero regrets as to how things played out.”

Yogesh also made it a point to show they all made friendship bracelets during Final Jeopardy.

To which other fans reacted:  “I don’t care about the friendship bracelet. I’ll never forget him muttering “Prussian blue.”

And: “That’s kind of the duality of Yogesh in a nutshell. He definitely cares about those bracelets and the friendships they represent to this day. But he did also mutter the answer.”

CONTROVERSIAL CONTESTANT

Yogesh made a splash during his three-win stint in 2023 by blasting Jeopardy! as “unimportant” and a “glorified reality show” on Facebook upon losing.

The $98,000 winner (who scored a perfect game) also used three of his four on-stage stories to brag about being a big name in the trivia world.

He claimed that he beat James Holzhauer at high school trivia, (whom he called “Jamie”), boasted of being recognized by a now-deceased contestant India Cooper, and beat host Ken, 49, at a trivia convention.

This persona didn’t go over well, nor did his fiendish buzzer technique or failure to clap for his spirited victor Katie Palumbo.

Yogesh then proceeded to post online rants slamming fans, the culture of Jeopardy!, and his peers the next week.

He wrote in part: “Jeopardy has not nor will ever be the Olympics of quizzing. Jeopardy is not the problem, its centrality to American quizzing culture is.

“There will never be healthy quizzing culture in this country until we can learn to stop pretending Jeopardy! is important.”

He added that his three wins will “never top the list of my quizzing accomplishments — not even my quizzing accomplishments of 2022. It is entertaining to watch but it bears the same relationship to real quizzing that ‘Holey Moley’ does to golf.”

Some fans thought Yogesh would be banned for good – instead, he’s now a finalist in its most esteemed tournament.

TROY, YOGESH, BEN FINAL?

On Monday, March 11, Luigi de Guzman (3 wins) faces Brian Henegar (3 wins) and Troy Meyer (6 wins) for the last finals slot.

Many fans predict Troy will win after he blew through his initial ToC match, which would make the finale a battle between two pro quizzers and college professor Chan.

As one social media user put it: “If Troy Meyer wins the last semifinal match, I PRAY that either HIM or Ben Chan wins.

“That way, they can teach Yogesh Raut a lesson on humility he can learn the hard way and make him apologize to viewers for his poor sportsmanship.”

However, another recently defended: “Yogesh has an intense and competitive personality. It’s cool that Ben Chan and Troy Meyer come across as more pleasant but that’s not a requirement. Yogesh owes no apologies.”

The finals will begin on Tuesday, March 12, and conclude mid-March.

Like the previous ToC (won by Amy Schneider), the finals are in a first-to-three-wins format.

That means the top three contestants could duke it out over three games to get respective checkmarks on their podium or up to seven.

The champion earns $250,000, a championship belt custom-made by Schneider, and an invite to the next Jeopardy! Masters in May and ultimate bragging rights.

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Yogesh took the insult well: ‘I have to get a sense of humor apparently’Credit: JEOPARDY!

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The controversial finalist divided fans by insulting the show in 2023 and ‘blurting out’ a Daily Double his opponent missed on FridayCredit: Jeopardy!

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Fans are expecting fellow pro quizzer Troy Meyer to be the last finalist and they begin duking it out tomorrow nightCredit: Jeopardy!