The time has come. Is the 2022 Tournament
of Champions the most anticipated in the history of Jeopardy? I can’t say. But
it almost certainly is the one most by people who have only started watching
the show in the last few years.
And given that three of the greatest
Jeopardy champions in the show’s history will be at the center of it – Matt Amodio,
Amy Schneider, and Mattea Roach, who combined have won 101 games and over $3.5
million – it’s hard to argue why. (Although given how much money all three have
won already, is the grand prize of $250,000 that they are playing for simply
chump change at this point? Well, James Holzhauer didn’t treat it as such.)
It's also hard to argue that this isn’t
one of the most significant Tournaments for other reasons. To state the one
that millions have already focused on, this is by far the most LGTBQ+ friendly Jeopardy
tournament in history. Amy Schneider is transgender, Mattea Roach is a lesbian
and Rowan Ward, one of the winners – and the viral sensation of the just
completed Second Chance Tournament – is the first non-binary competitor in
history. There have been gay, lesbian and trans players on the show in the past
but given the way the world and sadly Jeopardy works that same way, most have
been in the closet until well after their appearances. (The very first winner
of a Tournament of Champions, Jerry Frankel, was gay and actually suffering
from AIDS during his Tournament win in November of 1985. He passed away just
two weeks after his shows aired.) I don’t deny this is significant. It also helps
matters that Amy and Schneider are two of the greatest players in history and
Rowan more than demonstrated that they could be one..
Equally significant is that this
particular tournament has the most female participants of any tournament in the
history of Jeopardy. Setting aside Rowan, there are eight female champions
competing in this tournament. Granted the ratio of male to female champions is
still three to two but considering that for almost all of the Jeopardy
Tournaments of Champions as well as special tournaments over the years, the
ratio of male to female champions is usually two to one at best, this is
a huge deal for the show, particularly one that recently had to fire its
executive producer for sexist behavior behind the scenes. And make no mistake, all
of these female champions are excellent players. (Sure I advocated for four of
them not making it due to normal rules, but I’m not going to take a bow for
that. They earned it.)
Now I could expend a lot of energy
trying to predict whose going to win this tournament. But as I’ve send in
countless Jeopardy related blogs in the past several years, that is absolutely
the one thing you can never do on this show and not risk looking like an
idiot. I’m not even willing to say with certainty that those same three great
champions will necessarily be playing in the finals in two weeks. I get it:
they have a bye to the semi-finals while the other eighteen players are going
to be battling it out. That doesn’t necessarily give them at advantage. Just
because you have an edge going into one of these tournaments promises nothing.
Ken Jennings himself knows this better than anybody.
Hell, Matt Amodio may be in more
trouble than he thinks. Jonathan Fisher, an eleven game champion I’ll be going
into detail below on, is playing against him. And both Rowan and the other Second
Chance finalist Jessica Stephens are in this tournament because of their
performance against Matt. Rowan forced him to a near draw. Jessica defeated him
in Final Jeopardy but ended up losing to Jonathan Fisher. So if any of those
three make it to a semi-final against him, Matt might be in for more than he
bargained for.
Now at this point, if you go to the
Jeopardy website or look online, you know the makeup of all six quarterfinal
matches. I could just as easily write it down and try to make predictions, but
like I said, I don’t want to look like an idiot. So instead, I’m going to focus
on the accomplishments of the ‘Elite Eighteen’ (to coin a phrase the show used
in the Ultimate Tournament of Champions, so you can tell the champions without
a scorecard. For the sake of time, I will proceed chronologically, starting
with the earliest winner:
Brian Chang: 7 Games Won, $163,904
Analysis: Some players on this list will
be remembered for trivial reasons. Brian’s place is more morbid. He is the
first player to win five games after Alex Trebek died. He also was the third
player in Jeopardy history to win a tie-breaker round (as Jack Weller would
eventually benefit from) And his run came to end when he was beaten by…
Zach Newkirk: 6 Wins, $124,871
Analysis: Zach has an
even more dubious place in Jeopardy history; he is the first champion whose run
was interrupted due to Covid travel restrictions. That may have cost him his
chance to participate in the 2021 Tournament of Champions. It has been nearly
two years since his last appearance on the show. Hopefully, there won’t be too
much rust.
John Focht: 4 Wins, $103,800
Analysis: Full Disclosure;
I completely missed John prior to this tournament. That’s particularly unfair,
considering he managed $25,000 per win, a better record than quite a few
players on this list who won far more games. It doesn’t per se give him a better
chance than many of the players on this list; but don’t underestimate him.
Courtney Shah, 7 Wins, $118,558
Analysis: Seven wins is a
good number for any Jeopardy champion. Of course, given the way the world works,
Courtney will probably be remembered for being the only Jeopardy Tournament of
Champions player to have her run under a single guest host: (Sanjay Gupta). And
if this helps you remember who she is, well, whatever works.
Jonathan Fisher, 11 Wins, $246,100
Analysis: It says a lot about how
Jeopardy is that Jonathan’s place in history will be first ‘the player who defeated
Matt Amodio’ rather than managed to win eleven games and nearly a quarter of a
million dollars. That he won six games in blowouts and had become what was only
the tenth player to win eleven games in that points makes him little more than
small potatoes this season. Don’t underestimate him. Matt Amodio did.
Tyler Rhode, 5 Wins - $105,901
Analysis: This is more personal. I
remember thinking after Tyler’s fifth game that Season 38 of Jeopardy might be
special. We were two months in the season and we had just one player who left
after one game. I didn’t know just how close to the truth I was.
Andrew He, 5 Wins - $157,365
Analysis: Similar to Jonathan, Andrew
will most likely be remembered as the player who was defeated by Amy Schneider
for her first victory. Of course, winning five games this season (even if four
of them were blowouts) and ‘only’ $157,365 (even thought that’s more than one
seven-game winner and one six-game winner) doesn’t count for much either this
year. He was, for the record, ahead of Amy at the start of Final Jeopardy
before he lost. I think she’ll remember that.
Sam Buttrey, Professors Tournament
Winner - $100,000
Analysis: If this is the
official replacement to the Teachers Tournament, Sam is more than up to the
challenge. He won his quarterfinal in a runaway, had the only correct answer to
win his semi-final and won the final in a runaway.
Jaskaran Singh, National College
Champion - $250,000
Analysis: An
exceptionally good champion, he won his first game in a rout, had a come from
behind victory in his semi-final and was in complete command in the two game
final pretty much from the start of Game 1 to the end of Game 2.
Christine Whelchel, 4 Wins- $73,602
Analysis: Christine is known as much
for being a cancer survivor as a Jeopardy champion (she appeared in her fifth
appearance without her wig). She also managed to begin her run on the show by
winning a tie-breaker. Her streak was ended by.,.
Margaret Shelton 4 Wins, $79,700
Analysis: Slightly
luckier than Christine she managed one major come from behind win and one rout.
She was leading in Final Jeopardy for Game 5, and had she just wagered sensibly
in Final Jeopardy (her opponent also got the response wrong) her run would have
kept going. Instead, she lost everything leading to the run of…
Maureen O’Neill, 4 Wins, $58,200
Analysis: Maureen decided
to follow Margaret’s example and bet everything in Final Jeopardy whether she
was leading at the end of Double Jeopardy or not. This worked for her for four
games but in Game 5, her luck ran out and she finished in the red.
Jackie Kelly, 4 Wins, $115,100
Analysis: Jackie won just $7500 in her
first appearance, which meant she basically won $104,000 in three games. That’s
pretty impressive no matter how you many games you win.
Ryan Long – 16 WINS, $299,400
Analysis: No mistake that Ryan was one
of the luckiest of the multi-game winners this season. He had four absolute
runaways and two were basically lock ties, he had three wins where he had to
come from behind in Final Jeopardy to prevail and he didn’t have a lot of huge
payouts, particularly compared to the other three super champions and even some
of the smaller winners on this list. But all that means is that he had to work
a lot harder then most of them to get where he needed to. Don’t pretend that
doesn’t count for something.
Eric Ahasic - 6 Wins, $160,601
Analysis: Eric Ahasic, of course, will
go down in Jeopardy lore as the player who beat Ryan Long. Of course, he then
went on to win his next five games in utter routs, averaging $27,000 a win from
that point forward. Throughout the sixth game it looked very much like he was
going to keep on winning his seventh straight, which is why we give credit to…
Megan Wachspress 6 Wins, $60,603
Analysis: Okay, I can’t
exactly pretend Megan is one of the all time greats, especially when I spent so
many articles arguing that at least three of the players I mentioned above
should be included despite Megan’s accomplishment. And it becomes a lot
trickier when you know that really, one player she beat really should
have ended her streak at three games. (Sadie Goldberger learned that you write
only the last name of the correct answer if nothing else.) But six games
and $60,603 is not nothing. A six game winner on Jeopardy is as qualified as
anyone else.
Jessica Stephens – Second Chance Finalist,
$35,000
Rowan Ward – Second Chance Finalist,
$35,000
Analysis: I have nothing
further to say about either of these players that it didn’t say in my analysis
of the Second Chance Tournament save to repeat, Matt Amodio had better hope
neither of them ends up in his semi-final match.
One last thing to take away from this
list: how few players in this Tournament won five games or less. That may not
count for much in the era of super-champion, but as someone who remembers very
clearly how rare it was in so many tournaments to have more than one
player who won more than five games (for the record, the 2021 Tournament of
Champions had four players who’d won more than five games and five players who’d
won four games or less) this shows that multi-game winners are starting to
become more common than ever. Considering the higher ratings for Jeopardy in
the past year, it’s hard to argue this is a bad development.
All right. You have the list. I’ll be
back after the first quarterfinal matches to make more assessments.
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