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CULVER CITY, Calif. — A "Wheel of Fortune" contestant wowed Pat Sajak and the world when he correctly solved the final three-word puzzle with only two letters to help and explains how he came up with the $45,000 answer.
Emil de Leon needed to solve the three word puzzle that after the standard “R-S-T-L-N-E” given, Vanna White only turned over two letters. De Leon added the letters H, D, M and O — and got nothing in return.
"This looks tough to me. It's a thing," Sajak said to de Leon. "You're a really good problem solver, but I don't know. You have 10 seconds. Keep talking, maybe the right thing will pop out. Good luck."
On his first guess, de Leon correctly answered “New Baby Buggy.” It apparently stunned the tech guys, because it took a few seconds before the answer showed up and de Leon realized he gave the correct answer. Sajak was at first shocked and then playfully patted down de Leon, (possibly trying to find a cheating device?).
"Tonight's 'Wheel of Fortune' features most amazing solve in my 30+ years on the show. No kidding," Sajak later tweeted.
Cultural blogger Caitlin Dewey at the Washington Post wrote an article that argues it wasn't that amazing when you break down the possible words by number.
Tonight's "Wheel of Fortune"
features most amazing solve in my 30+ years
on the show. No kidding.
— Pat Sajak
(@patsajak) March 19, 2014Minus all the used letters, de Leon was left with ABC FG IJK PQ UVWXYZ. Dewey wrote that Q, J, Z, X, V, K and W are useless because they show up in less than 1.5 percent of English words. So de Leon was actually left with A, B, C, F, G, I, P, U and Y. Since a word that starts with N-E is most likely new, he needed to come up with a four letter and five letter word using A, B, C, F, G, I, P, U and Y.
Still, out of the 53 possible words de Leon could have picked, he guessed the right ones the first time.
"None of this should detract from Emil’s victory, of course,” Dewey wrote on WashingtonPost.com. “Working through those permutations in a couple seconds — on national TV, moreover — is both savant-level brilliant and kind of insane. But let’s give Emil credit for savvy play with the Used-Letter Board, and not for making a wild guess.”
De Leon went on to The Ellen Show to explain his reasoning behind the guess.
"It's all in the first letters: R-S-T-L-N-E," he said, according to CBSNews.com. "They showed up, the N and the E. It's pretty obvious the first word was new. Then worked on baby. It just sounds right, right? 'New baby?' The hard part [was 'buggy']. I worked with that B again."
The video of the win on YouTube has already been viewed over 4.3 million times since Wednesday. De Leon walked away with an extra $45,000 thanks to his lucky guess, bringing his total winnings up to $63,099.
De Leon told Ellen in a segment that will be aired Friday that he's been a "Wheel of Fortune" viewer since he was 3 years old and when he plays at home, he gets the answer right "99 percent of the time."
"Words can't explain how I feel right now," de Leon tweeted the night of his win. "Thanks to everyone who watched @WheelofFortune tonight! It was a huge and unforgettable journey!"
