I don’t know how high my initial expectations
truly were for Jeopardy’s High School Reunion Tournament, which ended
yesterday. It has been a while since I had watched a Teen Tournament from start
to finish (when you get to a certain age, it doesn’t seem quite fair trying to
answer questions against players much younger than you) and since the last time
Teen Winners were allowed to compete in a major Tournament was the Ultimate
Tournament of Champions in 2005 (to be fair, quite a few well outperformed expectations),
I didn’t think it mattered. However, since the winner of this tournament was
guaranteed a spot in the upcoming Tournament of Champions – something that has
not happened since 2000 – I felt there was a reason to, at the very least, vet
a potential participant.
So I watched this tournament which
comprised of 27 former competitors from the 2018 and 2019 Teen Tournaments (the
last Jeopardy had before the pandemic) all of whom were now in or had
recently graduated college. (These tournaments comprised a total of 30
competitors, but three were unavailable. Mayim Bialik acknowledged as much in
the final match, as well as assured the viewers that they would be invited back
in a future tournament.) I accepted the clues and competition to be at the level
of the College Championships which can be exciting, and have also produced
their share of the greatest Jeopardy players of all time. I did not expect to
have nearly as much fun as the contestants were, pretty much from the first
quarterfinal match to last night’s final.
Because to be clear in addition to all
their other virtues, these matches were almost all thrilling, exciting and entertaining.
To be clear, sometimes that entertainment could be misinterpreted as arrogance.
One such time came in the second quarterfinal match when the winner of the 2019
Teen Tournament Avi Gupta, who spent much of the Jeopardy round in the red,
came storming back in Double Jeopardy. After responding correctly on a Daily
Double where he wagered everything, he told us all: “Not going to get me rid of
that easily.” Some online viewers considered it cockiness; I considered it a
sign he was there to play. And it worked for him because he came back to win that
match.
Other times players were more than willing
to play with expectations. Rohan Kapileshwari, confronted with a Daily Double
in POETRY said: “I’m going to wager a whopping $5. “ Then we heard it, he
turned in disgust because he knew the correct answered and admitted he’d wagered
more. Others were willing to play with figures:
Caleb Richmond not only bet big in his Daily Doubles, but all of his
wagers also involved $18 in the last two digits. Jackson Jones, with a huge
lead in Double Jeopardy started his response on a Daily Double by going: “You
know, I’ve always wanted to say this.” And as the audience reacted, he then
wagered $200.” He got it right by the way. And it was also clear that their
love of the show had not dissipated over the last few years: finding a Daily
Double in his semi-final match, Caleb Richmond said: “To paraphrase the
infamous Sam Buttrey, ‘I would like to wager all of the dollars that I am
legally allowed to.”
There was laughter and cheering throughout
the game, and a lot of thrilling competition and by the time the semis were
over, the field had narrowed to three: Jackson (who’d been a semi-finalist in
the 2019 Teen Tournament) Maya Wright (who had finished third in the 2018 Teen
Tournament) and Justin Bolsen, who’d been a semi-finalist in 2019. (For the
record, Justin had been eliminated from his semi-final after losing everything
on a Daily Double near the end of Double Jeopardy, while Jackson had lost in a
tie-breaker to the eventual winner of the 2019 Teen Tournament Avi Gupta.
Interestingly, Jackson had already defeated his old rival Avi, in his semi-final
victory.)
Like all other tournaments before
them, this was a two day total point affair. In Game 1, Justin got off to a
fast start in the Jeopardy round and maintained a lead for all of it. By the
end of it Justin led with $900 to Jackson’s $4800 while Maya, who’d struggled
quite a bit had just $2000.
Maya rebounded quickly in the early
stages of Double Jeopardy when she found the Daily Double on the third clue of
the round and doubled her score. Unfortunately for her, that was as close as
she would get to her two opponents in Double Jeopardy that day. Jackson found the
other Daily Double three clues later and cemented his lead. Justin and Jackson
would get most of the clues correct and Maya would struggle throughout. Double
Jeopardy ended with Justin in the lead with $18,401, Jackson at $14,000 and
Maya at $4400.
Final Jeopardy was a very odd
category: GEOGRAPHIC NAME’S THE SAME. “The busiest passenger port in the U.K,
it shares it name with a capital of one of the original 13 states.” Jackson was
the only player who knew the correct response: “What is Dover?” (The capital of
Delaware was named for the closest U.K. port to the European Mainland.) Jackson
add $10,000 to his score. At the end of
Game 1, he had the advantage with $24,000 to Justin’s $13,570 and Maya’s $3370
(the wagers in Final Jeopardy throughout this tournament were odd when it came
to the last two digits.)
In the early stages of the Jeopardy
round of Game 2, it looked Jackson was about to shoot out to an early lead when
he found the Daily Double on the fourth clue of the round, but it went against
him and he lost everything. He rebuilt
and had $3400 by the first break to Justin’s $2400 and Maya’s $1400. But when
play resumed, both Justin and Jason responded incorrectly to a $1000 clue and a
$600 clue in LET’S GET DIRTY and Maya managed to catch up (though she also got
the $600 in that category wrong). When the round ended, it was much closer than
the day before with $1200 separating Jackson in first from Maya in third.
In the early stages of Double
Jeopardy, Justin and Jason continued to build their leads. Maya was not able to
ring in at all until the eleventh clue of the round. Fortunately for her, she
found the first Daily Double on the next clue in TAKE ME TO YOUR LEADER.
Knowing the odds were against, she bet $3000: “As her son Clotar II was an
infant when he became king in 584 A.D, his mom Fredgund se4rved as this type of
queen until he came of age.” Maya knew it was the queen regent, and added $3000
to her total. When she then got the $2000 and $1600 clues in YOU, ROBOT
correct, she had a lead for the first time in the finals.
Jackson, who had been going up and
down throughout Double Jeopardy, managed to find the second Daily Double in the
category INSIDE BALLET AND OPERA. This category historically causes a lot of
trouble for players on Jeopardy, younger ones in particular. But with $7200,
Jackson had little choice and bet only $3200:
“This 8-letter piece of music comes
before an opera and contains themes from the entire piece.”
Sadly, Jackson could not come up with ‘overture’
and dropped to $4000. Maya maintained her lead the rest of the round and when
Double Jeopardy ended, it was a whole new ballgame. Maya had $14,200, Justin
$11,000 and Jackson $5600.
The tournament came down to Game 2’s
Final Jeopardy. The category was LANDMARKS. “After its completion in the late
19th century, it was called a ‘truly tragic street lamp’ and a ‘high
and skinny pyramid of iron ladders.” All three players knew the correct response:
“What is the Eiffel Tower?” It came down to wagering. Justin bet everything but
$2 which gave him $11,198 for Game 2 and a two day total of $35,198. Justin bet
$10,991, that gave him $21,991 and a two day total of $35,561. Maya wagered
$7040, which gave her $21,240 and a two day total for $24,610. (Maya’s only
chance of victory was if both Jackson and Justin had been incorrect and wagered
too much; she had bet enough so that if they both bet everything she would have
still had a margin to defeat them.) By the barest of margins, Justin Bolsen had
won $100,000 and a spot in the next Tournament of Champions, both of which he
completely deserved.
The High School Reunion Tournament had
been everything a great Jeopardy Tournament should be thrilling, enjoyable with
categories that reflected the participants (there were quite a few reference to
REUNIONS on the show) as well as some that hadn’t been tried yet (there was a category
referring to PANGRAMS, which are phrases that include every letter of the alphabet
and the contestants had to name the word that had a ‘Q’ in it). It was as much
fun for the players as it was for the audience and it clearly seemed that
Bialik was enjoying this as much as everybody else. Some have degraded Bialik’s
exuberance during the Tournament; I personally thought it was fitting giving
the spirit de corps that everyone seemed to be having. I’m sorry Bialik is
departing the series for a hiatus started today; this tournament reminded me
how good she is at this.
I hope that there are future Reunion
tournaments like this, perhaps going back a bit further than just the last few
years. I also hope that the Teen Tournament itself is reinstituted after a
nearly four year absence, and that the winners are invited back to compete in a
Tournament of Champions. This tournament has reminded me just how much fun they
can be, and I’d gladly start watching them again to remind me of players this
good at any age.
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