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'The Chase' Episode 3: One-on-one Final Chase between Wes Hazard and Brad Rutter leaves fans anxious

Wes Hazard went on to the show thinking he had prepared well but he soon realized he was in over his head

When you're going up against the best, you need every advantage you can get. Unfortunately, contestant Wes Hazard didn't get as nearly as many as he would have liked. This week, Wes went up against Brad Rutter, who quickly eliminated Wes' teammates in the early rounds, leaving Wes alone to go head-to-head against Rutter in the Final Chase.

Wes didn't go into this match unprepared. During the show, he took to Twitter to explain the preparation he put into getting ready for 'The Chase.' "I only had about 5 weeks between being booked on #TheChase and taping so it was a crash course in trying to get any edge I could. I watched every ep of S1 & S2 of the GSN version on Netflix at least 3," he wrote.

"As with my prep for @jeopardy I developed my own rudimentary scoring table to get a sense of my metrics (when it comes to games with a wagering/ risk-level-selection angle you really need to know where you stand vs the avg. player," he added. But despite all his preparation, the difficulty of the show's questions still caught him off guard. "THEN we saw how hard the Qs were. Sarah did great but we were all bushwacked by the difficulty, deer in the headlights," he wrote.

The difficulty of the questions saw both of Wes' teammates knocked out pretty quick, leaving Wes alone to face Rutter with $75,000 in the bank — one of the lowest banks for the Final Chase in the season so far. "Well, this is interesting. A one-on-one battle for the final round of #TheChase," wrote a fan. Wes did his best to answer as many questions as he could, but his fumble over one of the easiest answers in that round seemed to be an omen for the viewers. When asked what month of the year had the shortest name, Wes said "April" instead of "May." "Wes knew he fucked up when he said April instead of May. I hope that doesn't come back to bite him," wrote a fan. 

In the end, Wes only had a lead of 13 questions over Rutter — less than what James Holzhauer had last week when he made answered 15 questions in a row, finishing the Final Chase with 40 seconds on the clock. Fans knew that the odds were stacked against Wes. "I would say Pushbacks, Pushbacks, Pushbacks, but look at what James did last week..." wrote one user.

Unfortunately, even with two pushbacks gained from Rutter's mistakes, Wes wasn't able to hold the lead until the end, going home empty-handed — the second loss for contestants in a row. "The last two final chases have been somewhat demoralizing," wrote a fan.

The next episode of 'The Chase' airs on January 28 at 9 pm ET on ABC.