Please welcome today’s contestants:

• Hillary, a historian, works on World War II cold cases;
• Greg, a principal, went to three World Series featuring the Phillies; and
• Dane, an editor, appeared in costume on “Yo Gabba Gabba!”. Dane is a one-day champ with winnings of $28,000.

Hillary took a $200 lead over Dane on DD3 with several low-value clues remaining, but amazingly their scores didn’t change late, so it remained Hillary in front into FJ with $16,800 vs. $16,600 for Dane and $4,800 for Greg.

DD1 – $1,000 – THE BEGINNING – Around 650 B.C. Greek colonists founded a city on the Bosporus that they called this; it would later be the capital of empires (Hillary lost $1,200 from her score of $1,800.)

DD2 – $1,200 – ART CRITICS – Lawrence Alloway is credited with this 2-word term for work that uses comic strips, soup cans & the like as subject matter (Dane won $3,000 to break a tie for first with Hillary at $9,200.)

DD3 – $1,200 – LET’S TALK BUSINESS – It’s the horticultural term for a largely unregulated private partnership group using speculative investment strategy (Hillary won $4,000 from her total of $12,800 vs. $16,600 for Dane.)

FJ – 1970s SONGS – In 1976 “Bohemian Rhapsody” was replaced at No. 1 on the U.K. charts by this Europop song whose title is heard in Queen’s lyrics

Surprisingly, everyone was incorrect on FJ. Dane dropped $9,801 to win with $6,799 for a two-day total of $34,799.

Wagering strategy: With his wager size, Dane left himself open to possibly passed by Greg, while with a bet of less than $7,000, Dane would have shut Greg out and Dane would have taken the win simply by having Hillary miss FJ.

Triple Stumper of the day: No one knew the first year of the modern Olympic games was 1896.

Correct Qs: DD1 – What is Byzantium? DD2 – What is pop art? DD3 – Who was hedge fund? FJ – What is “Mamma Mia”? (Perhaps the players were thrown off by the clue referring to the U.K. charts. The song wasn’t nearly as big a hit in the U.S., peaking at no. 32.)