'Wheel of Fortune' fans let down as contestant loses $100,000 — blame tough puzzle for it
Fans already frustrated with "Wheel of Fortune" contestants failing to win big in bonus rounds were left reeling by a $100,000 loss. Like many before, they felt that the puzzle was tougher than usual. While contestant Tanequa Ward, who aced the initial rounds of the game to win more than $20,000, looked set to take on the Bonus Round puzzle, a three-word puzzle in the "What Are You Doing?" category left her stumped. What made the loss more painful was that Ward lost out on taking a total of over $120,000 and missed a chance to come back later in the week.
Ward got off to a flying start, racking up $5,000 after the first round to take the early lead. While she kept cracking puzzles left and right, her rival Banks hit back in Mystery Round by winning $5,000 and a Wild Card. This didn't bother Ward as she got the prize puzzle in the very next round to win a trip to the Royal Blue Hotels & Resort Dubrovnik in Croatia worth $7,905, as per Andy Nguyen's blog. She used her winning momentum in the Triple Toss Up round, where she got a clean sweep to emerge as the big winner of the night with prizes worth $20,105.
Advancing to the Bonus Round, Ward had to pick from the list of categories, "Phrase", "Thing", and "What Are You Doing?" for her final puzzle. She picked the last one and joined Seacrest at the wheel.
After picking out her Golden Envelope, Ward was faced with a three-word puzzle on the board. With the show's standard letters filled in, she chose "M, C, D," and "A" as her additional letters. However, her picks added only one more clue to the board with the puzzle reading, "_ A _ _ N _ T _ E _ A _." After Seacrest kicked off the ten-second timer, it was clear that Ward was struggling to guess the right answer. While she talked out "Baking", "Baking The Pan", "Banking The Phone", it didn't work out. "It's tough to get down that track without an extra letter there," Seacrest said before uncovering the answer, "Paving The Way". He further added to the heartbreak and even shocked himself after flipping the envelope that had $100,000.
"Oh, I’ll take it," Ward said after Seacrest consoled her. But the fans couldn't be consoled as they took to the comments of the show's YouTube clip. "Ouch! That's gonna sting," wrote @anthonyleon7590.
"Tough break," added @jamesmcafee8348. "Hard puzzle to solve. A '____ing the ___' but hard to hit since almost nobody is doing V W Y" explained, @tenningale.
You can watch the heartbreaking loss in the video here.
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