The Final Jeopardy question (10/9/2012) in the category “Stores” was:

These stores first launched in 2001 take in more money per sq. ft. than any other U.S. retailer, almost doubling Tiffany’s.

Once again, we have a new champ, Stephanie Jass, who cleaned up yesterday to the tune of $17,000. Can she dominate the board and grab up all the Daily Doubles again today? Not if these two players brought their A game: Amanda Burton, from Chillicothe, OH and  Martha Warren, from Boxborough, MA.

Stephanie found the Jeopardy! round Daily Double in “Literary Crossword Clues ‘G’.” She was in the lead with $1,400, $1,000 more than Martha in second place. She bet $1,000 and She was RIGHT.

Beowulf’s monster (7).
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WHO IS GRENDEL?

Stephanie finished in the lead with $11,400. Amanda was second with $2,200 and Martha was last with $1,600.

Stephanie found the first Double Jeopardy Daily Double in “Over My Dead Body.” She was now in the lead with $14,600, $8,200 more than Martha in second place. She bet $2,000 and she was RIGHT.

Born Nov. 23, 1860. Killed July 14, 1881 / the boy bandit king / he died as he had lived.
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WHO IS BILLY THE KID?

Amanda found the last Daily Double in “State Gems.” She was in third place with $4,600 and didn’t seem to think the Daily Double offered her much hope because of Stephanie’s huge lead (over $20,000). She bet $2,000 all the same and took a guess with “petrified tree.” The judges ruled that she was RIGHT.

The state gemstone of Washington is this fossilized tree product.
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WHAT IS PETRIFIED WOOD?

Stephanie finished in the lead with another runaway of $28,200. Amanda was next with $6,600 and Martha was in third place with $6,000.

Only ONE of the contestants got Final Jeopardy! right.

WHAT ARE APPLE RETAIL STORES?

“One metric used to measure the financials of a retail store is sales per square foot, which is the average revenue generated for every square foot of sales space. This metric is used to gauge the efficiency of a retail operation; the higher the sales per square foot, the better. Jeweler Tiffany & Company’s $2700 per square foot used to be considered the gold standard, but Apple has surpassed Tiffany, generating more than $4000 in sales per square foot. By comparison, Best Buy’s sales per square foot is about $1000, and Walmart’s is about $400.” (Financial history of the retail Apple store)

Martha wrote down Home Depot, crossed that out and wrote down Best Buy. Both were wrong in any case and she lost her $6,000 bet, finishing with zip.

Amanda had no response. She lost $4,000 so she finished with $2,600.

Stephanie got it right and added $2,370 to finish with a whopping $30,570. Her 2-day total is $47,570. Awesome!