Introducing today’s contestants:

• Samantha, a graduate student, interns at a domestic violence shelter;
• Thomas, a Ph.D. student, is middle-named after Knoxville, Tennessee; and
• Matt, a Ph.D. student, has a stranger help him make a flight. Matt is a 32-day champ with winnings of $1,212,401.

Matt found all three DDs, missed DD3 but he was much too far ahead for it to make a difference, as he breezed into FJ at $35,400 vs. $5,200 for Samantha and $2,200 for Thomas.

DD1 – $1,000 – 1871 — 150 YEARS AGO – This performance space that seats more than 5,000 was opened by Queen Victoria (On the first clue of the game, Matt won the table limit of $1,000.)

DD2 – $800 – THAT’S A BIG BOOK – “Of man’s first disobedience and the fruit” is the first of this poem’s more than 10,000 lines (Matt won $6,000 from his score of $23,600 vs. $4,200 for Thomas.)

DD3 – $1,600 – NAME CALLING – Around 1860 this man blazed a trail from Kansas & established a trading post in Oklahoma territory (Matt lost $5,000 from his total of $30,800 vs. $4,200 for Andrew.)

FJ – AMERICAN HISTORY – The April 26, 1906 edition of The Call, a newspaper in this city, reported on the heroic death of hoseman James O’Neil

Only Matt was correct on FJ, adding $20,000 to win with $55,400 for a 33-day total of $1,267,801. His winning streak now exceeds that of James Holzhauer and he now trails only Ken Jennings (74 wins).

Clue selection strategy: Matt displayed excellent instincts when he found DD2, locating it in an $800 clue, which was the only one remaining in a literature category, while bypassing several other categories that were still untouched.

That’s before our time: No one knew that Ricky Martin’s group was Menudo. Also, Señor Wences is best remembered as a ventriloquist, but as pointed out in a clue, he also did a juggling act in which he used handsticks to spin plates.

Correct Qs: DD1 – What is the Royal Albert Hall? DD2 – What is “Paradise Lost”? DD3 – Who was Chisholm? FJ – What is San Francisco?