We come into the homestretch and much of the last three seasons, and as we do, we enter the post Trebek-era.
Josh Hill
Josh is here not so because he wasn’t a great player (although his track record is impressive) but because he is a representative of what happens when a very good champion is overshadowed by one of the greatest of all time
In May of 2018, Josh managed to win 7 games and $163,721. Those are totals that were the second highest of the competitors in the 2019 Tournament of Champions. If you don’t remember the calendar, James Holzhauer won the most that year.
Josh ended up competing in the fourth quarterfinal match. One of his fellow competitors was Emma Boettcher, the player who’d defeated James Holzhauer just six months earlier. Josh would fight hard in that match but Emma was tougher and she would win the game. Josh’s score wouldn’t be nearly good enough for a wild-card.
Jeopardy has announced this fall that they will be doing their first ever ‘Second Chance Tournament’. If ever there was a champion in Jeopardy history who deserved one, Josh Hill certainly qualifies.
Jason Zuffranieri
Sometimes there are long gaps between the greatest of Jeopardy champions. Sometimes those periods last less than a month. Less than six weeks after James Holzhauer completed his historic run, Jason Zuffranieri began his. (There were actually a couple of important ones in between, but we’ll start with Jason.
Jason was the last legendary player of the Alex Trebek era, winning 19 games tying David Madden for fourth place in games won (at the time) Perhaps more impressive, his winnings of $532,496 was in third place in total of money won to that time (trailing James Holzhauer and Ken Jennings). Later winners have knocked him somewhat lower on the rankings, but it was a remarkable run.
For reasons that were never made clear at the time, Jason was not eligible for the 2019 Tournament of Champions. As a result, he did not appear until the 2021 TOC and like several huge money winners previously listed, he didn’t do particularly well. Ryan Bilger, the five day champion who had preceded him that year with five games was utterly dominant in the quarterfinal match. Jason was fortunate to qualify as a wild card. And while he played far better in his semi-final match, a blunder on a Daily Double late in the game cost him the lead, and would end up costing him his place in the Finals as a result. (We will deal with the contestant who defeated him below.) Jason left with $10,000.
Like all of the double-digit winners in recent years, it is impossible to imagine a future tournament where Jason is not present. It will be interested to see how he does against so many of the players who have recently surpassed his accomplishments.
Mackenzie Jones
In the last season of Jeopardy prior to the pandemic as well as Alex Trebek’s passing, three female contestants managed to win eight games and very close to the same amount of money. I think two of them are more qualified to appear in any future tournament, though the third Karen Farrell is not without her qualifications. Mackenzie Jones is more qualified because of her initial run.
Mackenzie managed the impressive total of $204,808 in her eight victories including four runaways. She played well in the her quarterfinal match in the Tournament of Champions but had the grave misfortune of being involved in the one Final Jeopardy in the entire tournament that no one could get correct. It may not have made much of a difference because she wagered nothing, but in her next game, she would be nudged out for a wild-card. Still, I think she has earned it.
Jennifer Quail
The first chronologically of the three eight game female champions (she appeared in December of 2019) Jennifer Quail’s record was by far the most impressive. In her eight wins she managed to total $228,800, which at the time was the second highest total a female player had won in her original run (she had passed Larissa Kelly) who we mentioned above. Indeed, of all the competitors who participated in that year’s tournament, she was second in money won only to Jason Zuffranieri himself. And unlike Jason, she made it much further in the tournament than he did – mainly because she was able to defeat him en route.
She managed a relatively easy win in her quarterfinal match, and in that semi-final match she managed to defeat Jason and get into the finals. As we will see in the next entry, however, she would not be able to win the Final. Part of the problem was due to her botching a Daily Double in the middle of Game 1, but a larger part was simply due to the masterful play of Sam Kavanaugh, who had locked the Tournament up despite exceptional play and the only correct response in Final Jeopardy for Game 2.
The category for the record was EUROPEAN BORDERS: “It’s still there, but none of the countries that bordered this country in the beginning of 1990 exist anymore.” Jennifer knew it was Poland (Czechoslovakia, The USSR and East Germany). She finished in second with $100,000.
Because of her masterful play all the way up to the end, I think Jennifer more than deserves to play with champions with more wins and money.
Sam Kavanaugh
As we have learned by now, the player who wins the most games or the most money in his original run, rarely goes on to win the Tournament of Champions. There’s actually an interesting precedent when it comes to Sam Kavanaugh, though. In his original run, he defeated Ryan Bilger, who would win four games, and the day after Sam left with $156,202 Jason Zuffranieri began his run. It was an interesting position with a certain amount of foreshadowing.
Sam would end up playing in the last quarterfinal match and just manage to eke past Veronica Vichit-Vadakan, who he would end up seeing again in the finals. He would manage the only runaway of the semi-finals and in the first game of the final manage to build up a minor runaway that his Final Jeopardy response and wage would help build into an insurmountable lead. Despite the best efforts of Jennifer Quail in the second game, Sam had it locked up going into the Finals.
Given all that, it’s hard to argue that Sam Kavanaugh doesn’t deserve to come back in the Finals even if he hadn’t already earned it.
To Be Concluded Later This Week.
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