Jamie Ding Opens Up After His ‘Unusual’ Exit From Show

Jeopardy! super champ Jamie Ding is sad that his time on the show is over, but happy about how it went down, especially as he was able to write a departing message.

Ding’s impressive 31-game winning streak came to an end on Monday (April 27), when he was bested by Greg Shahade, a chess player from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Despite amassing $882,605 in prize money and beating out tough competition, Ding was bested by Shahade, who won Monday’s episode in a runaway.

Speaking to People, Ding said, “I think my last game is unusual, because I was a super champ, but I also lost in a runaway, which I feel like is the first time that ever happened. It almost makes me feel better about the thing because there wasn’t really one clue or whatever that everything hinged on.”

Because Shahade had the game sewn up before Final Jeopardy, Ding chose to write “TTFN” (ta-tat-for-now) as his final answer.

“It being a runaway means that I got to write a goodbye message instead of nothing at all,” he added. “I wouldn’t have done that if there had even been a chance of me coming out with the victory.”

Ding was just one win away from tying Jeopardy! icon James Holzhauer‘s 32-win streak from 2019. The law student from Lawrenceville, New Jersey, admitted that “it would’ve been nice to go for more games,” which could have put him in the record books.

“But on the other hand, it could have ended much earlier than it did,” he noted. “There were several people who were really strong and played well, and had a couple of things broken differently, I would have been done for weeks ago. So I’m both upset and pleased. Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened kind of thing.”

Ding also told the outlet how he’s appreciative of how his time on the show seemed to bring people together. “I kept hearing how it was bringing people together, and I love that very much. I’ve heard people say, ‘It’s nice to have something positive on TV!’” he stated.

He went on to say how proud he was to “become part of the history of an American institution” as an “immigrant and person of color.”

“Jeopardy! really is an institution and America’s turning 250 years old and the federal government is going after immigrants in a way unlike anything that we’ve seen in the recent past,” he said. “So I hope that immigrants can be seen in a positive light too.”