2022 Jeopardy Tournament of Champions Quarterfinals Recap

 

When I was preparing the Tournament of Champions Cheat Sheet for my loyal readers before it began, I went out of my way not to try and predict who would end up in the semi-finals this week, even going so far as to go out of the way not even to see the lineups for each quarterfinal game. Having spent nearly thirty years watching Jeopardy tournaments, I have learned that the one thing you can’t do is predict what’s going to happen.

And this year’s quarterfinals, just like so many others over the decades, have demonstrated that what one does in the past is no predictor of what will happen in the future.  In so many of the six matches that unfolded over the past week, the players one almost certainly expect to go the farthest couldn’t get out of the opening round. In the cases of more than a few, they could even get out of the gate.

Rather than go into great detail of every single quarterfinal game, I will do a brief summary of all six, pointing out the competitors, some of the high points (and low points) of each game.

Quarterfinal #1

Ryan Long vs Megan Wachspress vs Maureen O’Neill

Exhibit A: Ryan had won sixteen games and just under $300,000 in his original appearance, so one might very well expect him to romp to a win.  He spent much of the Jeopardy round in the negative. This was not exceptional; all three players did not do particularly well in the Jeopardy round, struggling in categories such as BEST OF ALL and HISTORIC JOB INTERVIEWS. By the end of the Jeopardy round, Megan was ahead with $3600, Maureen was next with $2800 and Ryan was dead last with $1400.

Things only marginally improved for everybody in Double Jeopardy. Nobody could get a clue right in the category A PARLIAMENT OF VOWELS, they all had trouble figure out what FIVE CHANCES was about and neither Megan nor Ryan could make the Daily Doubles they each found pay out. So the scores at the end of Double Jeopardy were rather low: Megan led with $9600, Maureen was next with $8400 and Ryan was in third with $4200.

The Final Jeopardy category was PLACES IN AMERICAN HISTORY: “A Native American story says this creek got its name from an injury suffered by a Sioux warrior. Ryan and Maureen each knew the correct response: “What is Wounded Knee?” But Megan thought it was Dakota. So Maureen, who had won the fewest games of the group and the least money (four and $58,200) got the first spot in the semi-finals.

Quarterfinal Match # 2

Jonathan Fisher vs. Andrew He vs. Christine Whelchel

This match was a little close to as you might have expected. Jonathan who ‘only’ won eleven games and just under a quarter of a million dollars spent much of the Jeopardy round going back and forth with Andrew He for the lead. Christine struggled early and was unable to get out of the negative in the Jeopardy round. It ended with Jonathan at $8200, Andrew at $7600 and Christine at -$1000.

In Double Jeopardy Jonathan started strong, but Andrew overtook him with the first Daily Double in the round. Then when Andrew found the second Daily Double, he went even bigger this time wagering $10,000 in I BID. Unfortunately, he couldn’t come up with a response and dropped into a distant second. He managed to regain a fair amount of ground the rest of the way but was still trailing with $13,800 to Jonathan’s $19,800. Christine had gotten out of the hole but had but $2200.

Final Jeopardy dealt with POETS, and the clue was a tough one. “Inspired by stories from his grandfather, his ‘Battle of Lovell’s Pond’ appeared in the Portland Gazette in 1820 when he was 13.” No one could come up with a correct answer, which was Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (a great New England Poet). So it came down to wagers. Andrew only bet $1799 which left him with $12,001. Jonathan bet $7801 which left him with $11,999. By a margin of $2, Andrew He – whose five game run was less than a month after Jonathan’s – had become the next semi-finalist.

 

Quarterfinal Match #3

Brian Chang vs. Tyler Rhode vs Margaret Shelton

Brian had won the most games and money of the three players, but he hadn’t played Jeopardy in nearly two years. That may have given a significant advantage to his two opponents who both played comparatively recently.

It certainly seemed that way in the Jeopardy round where Tyler and Margaret were constantly dominating and Bryan was unable to get out of the red. (Particularly humiliating in his case: there was a category called THE LAW and the attorney Brian was only able to get the $200 question correct.).  By the end of the Jeopardy round he was at -$1000 while his opponents were tied at $5400 apiece.

For the briefest of moments in Double Jeopardy, the tides seemed to be turning in Brian’s favor. He found the Daily Double on the first clue of the round in ANAGRAMS OF EACH OTHER got out of the red was at $2600 on the second clue. Sadly for him, that was the high point of Double Jeopardy. From that point on Margaret and Tyler kept going back and forth for the lead; Margaret would sweep the category NOVEL NURSE to build a huge lead; Tyler ended up tying her with the second Daily Double. That would be the case at the end of the round. Margaret and Tyler would be tied at $17,400 apiece, with Brian still a potential spoiler with $4200.

The Final Jeopardy category was PHRASES IN AMERICAN HISTORY. “Andrew Johnson vetoed a bill that gave reparations to formerly enslaved people, hence this phrase for an unfulfilled promise.” Tyler and Margaret both knew the correct response: “What is 40 acres and a Mule?” It came down to wagers. Tyler bet everything and Margaret only bet $7000. And with that decision Tyler – whose five game run had come between Jonathan Fisher and Andrew He – became the third semi-finalist.

Quarterfinal Match # 4

Courtney Shah vs. Rowan Ward vs. John Focht

The majority of the Jeopardy round of this game played pretty close to that of Game 1: a lot of clues left unanswered, a fair amount of incorrect responses and some fairly low scores.  The Jeopardy round ended with just $1200 separating first place (Rowan with $3600) from third place (Courtney with $2400.) Given John was dead in the middle with $3000, one might assume that this too would be a close game.

Except relatively early in Double Jeopardy John found the first Daily Double in NAME THAT BALKAN NATION and bet $8000. When he was right, he had jumped all the way up to $21,000. He found the other Daily Double on the very next clue in GET DOWN TO BUSINESS and gained another $3000. The game wasn’t quite over sans the shouting but after he got two more $2000 clues correct it was. He would finish with $32,000, the first runaway of the Tournament. Rowan with $10,800 and Courtney with $5200 didn’t have a prayer.

Final Jeopardy was an exercise, which was good because nobody could come up with a correct response. The category was NOVEL LOCALES. “This place from a 1933 novel lies in the Valley of Blue Moon, below a peak called Karakai.” None of them knew the correct response (none of them could even come up with a response from a novel; John wrote down: “What is Xanadu?) The clue referred to Shangri-La (from Lost Horizon). It cost John nothing, and the four-day champions from 2021, who last week I considered the most likely player to be overlooked, ended up becoming a semi-finalist.

Quarterfinal Match #5

Eric Ahasic vs. Jaskaran Singh vs. Jackie Kelly

By far the most competitive and exciting match in the tournament to date. All three players got off to a quick start in the Jeopardy round. Jackie jumped ahead when she bet everything on the Daily Double, but then spent much of the period afterward playing defense and going backwards. She had $6000 at the first break and was still ahead with $6000 at the second. By that point, Jaskaran had managed to narrow the gap at $5800 while Eric was still at $2600.

Things would change very rapidly in Double Jeopardy as Eric would find the Daily Doubles back to back and on each occasion bet everything. In the space of two clues, he went from third place with $5800 to a whopping $23,200. In a similar situation the day before, John Focht had rolled to victory. The same did not happen here. Jackie began a major move forward not long after, slowly but surely picking away at Eric’s margin. She never was able to erase it but she slowed Eric’s chances considerable. When it came to correct responses, all three players were fairly even: Eric got fifteen right and four wrong; Jaskaran seventeen right and three wrong and Jackie nineteen right and only two wrong. As a result when the Double Jeopardy round was over all three players had impressive totals: Eric still led with $26,000, Jackie had $19,600 and Jaskaran had the impressive third place total of $11,000.

It came down to Final Jeopardy and the category WORLD CITIES. “The name of this city may come from ‘dur’, meaning water, a reference to the Helvetian people’s settlement on a lake.” All three players knew the clue referred to a Swiss city, but only Jaskaran and Eric had the correct one: “What is Zurich?” Jackie wrote down Geneva.” Eric’s correct response assured that this winner of six games and over $160,000 would accomplishment another notch over Ryan Long, the player whose original run he ended – unlike Ryan, he had become a semi-finalist.

 

Zack Newkirk vs. Jessica Stephens vs. Sam Buttrey

This game was known for two very different kind of impressive performances Sam Buttrey’s more or less domination of the game and Jessica Stephens’ setting what may very well be a dubious record when it comes to Jeopardy Tournaments. I don’t know if a score of -$5800 is the worst in the history of the Tournament of Champions, but its one of the worst finishes for any Jeopardy player in history. This isn’t entirely fair to Jessica who kept struggling to ring in ahead of Sam (and in Double Jeopardy Zack) but given how well she played just last week; it doesn’t seem like Jessica deserved her second  chance. This isn’t fair to her or Rowan, both of whom ended up playing against buzzsaws in their matches and it didn’t help the case for two seven game winners in either case (Zack in this one; Courtney Shah lost against Jon Focht last Thursday.) Sam, the winner of the Professors Tournament, demonstrated again why teachers are among the most successful Jeopardy players. (And just think how much more impressive his score could have been had he not missed the first Daily Double in the Jeopardy round.

Final Jeopardy was an exercise but both players went through. The category was an interesting one: PHRASES FROM THE ANCIENT WORLD. “Cicero wrote that a tyrant ordered this to be hung from the ceiling ‘by a horse-hair’ , his guest begged to leave.” Both men knew the correct response: “What is the Sword of Damocles?” (I’m not sure I remembered it was an actual sword instead of a metaphor.) Sam wagered nothing, but it didn’t matter he became the last semi-finalist.

 

Final Assessment

Once again, we see that how you do in Jeopardy on your original run is no guarantee of how you’ll do in a Tournament of Champions. Two of the semi-finalists were four game winners, two won five games and one was the winner of a special tournament. Only in Friday’s match did Eric, the man who had won the most games, end up winning his quarterfinal match and we all saw just how close a call it was.

Of course, the Jeopardy purist could argue that this might be due more to the setup of this year’s Tournament than anything else.  With all the quarterfinal matches being winner-take-all, wagering strategies on Daily Doubles and in Final Jeopardy no doubt came into play far more than they have in previous tournaments. Considering there was no getting into the semi-final via high-scores among non-winners, there was less room to maneuver and higher scores might have helped players in Final Jeopardy.

These pundits would have a point. In previous tournaments, there have been many players who have gotten into double digits in wins – Julia Collins, Austin Rogers, and last year’s Jason Zuffranieri – who played poorly in the quarterfinals but managed to get in to do wild cards spots. And though it’s not a universal truth in these kinds of tournaments – Roger Craig and the legendary James Holzhauer continuing their patterns of betting everything on Daily Doubles in their Tournaments and beyond – it has been a kind of pattern one notices more prominently in quarterfinal matches.

On the other hand, it’s not like there isn’t precedent for this kind of play in previous tournaments. The Ultimate Tournament of Champions in 2005 basically operated on this kind of procedure all the way through and the Battle of the Decades did the exact same thing in the first round of its play (though when it got to the quarterfinals, it did take on the pattern of all prior Tournaments to that point.) And it’s not like winning many games on Jeopardy is a guarantee you will make it to a final in the regular format: David Madden, Seth Wilson and the aforementioned Jason were not able to get to the finals with any more luck than Ryan Long or Jonathan Fisher had.

So yes, these players may have been slightly disadvantaged in the change in format. But as history has shown us, there’s no guarantee that will work out for you in a Jeopardy Tournament anyway.

Realizing this perhaps, the producers have decided to give Matt Amodio, Mattea Roach and Amy Schneider what amounts to a warm-up game tomorrow prior to the semi-finals each has earned a bye to this week. Will it be the only time we see them compete against each other or is it a foreshadowing of next week’s final? Either way, I can’t wait to see it. Stay tuned to this blog for more updates.