Montreal woman loses in final round of Jeopardy! after her 'boneheaded wager'

A Montreal translator almost won her Jeopardy! game, until a last-minute wager landed her in third place. (IMDb)

Alicia Buffa, a translator for the McGill University Health Centre, almost got ahead in Thursday's Jeoplardy! game, taking home $24,000 – but a last wager landed her in third place.

She was up against returning champion Joseph Carlstein from North Carolina and Greg Jolin from New Hampshire.

Buffa trailed behind her competitors until the Double Jeopardy! round, which brought her and Carlstein up to $12,000, as Jolin led with $16,400.

A question in the “Animals” category was the make-or-break. The clue read “The Aztecs called this animal ayotochtli, meaning a turtle rabbit for its rabbitlike ears & its turtle-like shell.”

Carlstein got it wrong, and Buffa – who correctly answered “Armadillo” – waged all but $1 to have $23,999. In the end, it was Jolin who won by a mere $2 with $24,001.

On a Reddit thread, Buffa wrote that she “panicked” at the last moment, leading her to make a “boneheaded wager.”

“Although I’m a pretty anxious person, I was completely fine most of the game, until it came time to calculate our FJ wagers. That’s when everything hit me all at once and my hands started shaking,” Buffa wrote.

“I figured if I was going to come in third place because I’m too shy and my own worst enemy, at least it would be on-brand for me.”

She went on to call her time on Jeopardy! a “fantastic experience” that allowed her to meet “such wonderful, smart, funny, kind people.”