Jeopardy! recap for Fri., May 21

The opening round of the 2021 Tournament of Champions wraps up with:

- Veronica Vichit-Vadakan, a four-time champ, has made a charitable endeavor of her love of pies;

- Andy Wood, a four-time champ, lost on Jeopardy! following a Weird Al reference;

- Sam Kavanaugh, a five-time champ, won on Jeopardy! but slipped up in bar trivia.

Sam made great use of having first board control in DJ, quickly finding both DDs to take the lead and extend it. Then Veronica had the strongest finish, entering FJ at $22,800 vs. Sam with $20,400. The only suspense was if Andy, with $7,400, would be able to earn the remaining wild card spot.

DD1 - $800 - PREFIXES - Originally attached to a word that ended "-netic", this 5-letter prefix now fronts words dealing with futuristic concepts (Veronica won the table limit of $1,000.)

DD2 - $2,000 - 2-NAMED COUNTRIES - Population 52 million, it has twice the people but 20 times the per capita GDP of its neighbor to the north (On the second clue of the round, Sam moved from third to first by winning $3,600 on a true DD.)

DD3 - $1,200 - MYTHOLOGY - Bellerophon tamed this creature & rode it in his fight with the Chimera (Two clues after the previous DD, Sam won $4,000 from his score of $8,800 vs. $7,000 for Veronica.)

FJ - AMERICAN AUTHORS - The year before his 1809 birth, his parents acted in “King Lear”, leading scholars to believe he was named for a “Lear” character

Only Sam was correct on FJ, adding $2,401 to advance with $22,801, while Veronica dropped $340 to easily take a wild card at $22,460. Andy bet nearly everything and finished at $100.

Triple Stumpers of the day: No one knew the kind of painting Earl Scheib built his L.A. business with was for cars, and in STEPHEN KING TITLE REFERENCES, no one knew "A small area of Johnny Smith's brain that has been damaged" refers to "The Dead Zone".

After the first round, the show paid tribute to Brayden Smith, who qualified for the tournament but passed away earlier this year. Jeopardy! will make a contribution to a fund in his name started by Brayden's family.

Correct Qs: DD1 - What is cyber? DD2 - What is South Korea? DD3 - What is Pegasus? FJ - Who was Poe?