Saturday, October 12, 2024

Five Weeks Into The New Season of Jeopardy We Have Two Qualifers for The Next Tournament of Champions

 

As I mentioned quite a few times in my last article about Jeopardy while we haven’t had the super-champions that have existed in the post Alex Trebek era throughout the start of regular game play in 2024 we have had a steady stream of qualifiers for the Tournament of Champions. In the seventy-eight games of regular season play during Season 40 seven players qualified for the Tournament of Champions a remarkably consistent pattern unmatched during the last four years.

Now in only the first five weeks of Season 41, we have had back to back qualifiers for the next Tournament of Champions. In fact they’ve both qualified in just the last two weeks. To be fair only one has ‘officially’ qualified but the Jeopardy archive the online history of the game (and your humble scribes main source) says both players have qualified so for the purposes of this article I will take it as gospel.

Last Monday Ryan Manton, a systems administrator from Columbus Ohio had one of the most dominant games of the season so far: 29 correct responses and only two incorrect ones. His runaway score of $22,200 is all the more impressive because the two clues he got wrong were both Daily Doubles, each of which cost him $5000. Nevertheless he won his first game in a runaway and warmed the hearts of Jeopardy fans everywhere when he wrote down in his first Final Jeopardy: “What is I Love you Lauren?” This is heartwarming not just because he shows his love for his wife but because the then Lauren Menke appeared on Season 37 of Jeopardy in what was the last game Ken Jennings appeared on in his first stint as guest host. (Sam Stapleton who won the game went on to win two games and qualify for the finals in Champions Wildcard Spades.)

Ryan managed two more runaway victories (and each time told Lauren he loved her) and in the third game managed the narrowest of wins. (Scott Tcheng who just barely lost to him, will no doubt be invited back to the Second Chance Tournament) That  Friday he had a chance to officially punch his ticket to the Tournament of Champions. Then he ran into Mark Fitzpatrick and Anne Singleton.

In the Jeopardy round Anne seemed to have the advantage ending it with $7000 to Ryan’s $4000 and Mark’s $1800. The Double Jeopardy round that followed was the most exciting of the season. Mark shot to a big lead when he found both Daily Doubles back to back and got both of them right netting $8000 and taking a huge lead. But neither Mark nor Anne surrendered. Ryan got 20 correct responses and didn’t make a single mistake, finishing with $15,200. Anne managed an impressive third with 10,200. So even though Mark had the lead with $23,400, the game was far from out of reach for either of his opponents.

It came down to Final Jeopardy. The category was LITERARY CHARACTERS: “A fragment from a nautical tool found on a Chilean island in 2005 was likely left by the Scot who partly inspired this character.” Anne wrote down: “Who is Wallace?” and lost $5200. Ryan couldn’t come up with anything but assured us he still loved his wife. It cost him $5201 leaving him with $9999.

That left Mark. His response was revealed: “Who is Robinson Crusoe?” and that was the correct response. (For those of you who don’t know – and I suspect only true Jeopardy fans might – Robinson Crusoe was inspired by the real life exploits of a stranded Scottish sailor named Alexander Selkirk. Type in the line “I am the monarch of all I survey’ on Google and you’ll find the connection.) Mark had wagered $7001 to make him the new champion with an impressive $30,101.

Ryan put together an impressive run during his four games, winning $83, 179 during the course of them. This is at the level of Grant DeYoung, who qualified last year and considerably more than Amar Kakirde who ‘only’ won $55,899 in four games last May. And it is considerably more than Ben Goldstein won in five games back in Season 39 and at least four or five other players who qualified for the 2021 Tournament of Champions. Ryan will be more than up to the challenge. And given how well she played against two men who are now in the Tournament of Champions Anne Singleton will definitely be in the Second Chance Tournament and deserve to be.

Now on to Mark Fitzpatrick. Mark was a better player than Ryan in that he won more games and had two runaway victories but like Mark he struggled with Final Jeopardy, eventually getting four out of six Final Jeopardys wrong. This is not necessarily a flaw limited to Mark; Final Jeopardys have been particularly challenging for the contestants – and I must confess to me at home. Credit to the writers who have clearly upped their game as Season 41 progresses, though I shudder to think what we’ll get in the Tournament of Champions. (I may save that for a different article later on.)

A prime example would come in Tuesday’s game which he spent much of Double Jeopardy fighting off the challenge of Gino Montoya. At the end of the round he had a narrow lead with $21,200 to Gino’s $17,400. The third challenger Andrew Miller was alive with $4600.

The Final Jeopardy category was not one to inspire confidence WORLD FLAGS: “The 12 stars on its flag symbolize perfection, not geographic or political units.” Andrew guessed Australia, Mark Liberia and Gino couldn’t come up with anything. Ken admitted it was tough because “it’s not actually a nation of the world; we’re talking about the flag of the European Union, those 12 stars in a circle.” Gino lost everything. Mark lost $13,601 but that left him wit $7599, enough for his third victory.

On the game that he officially clinched his spot in the Tournament of Champions he spent a great deal of time going back and forth with Mike Obstgarten for the lead, finally pulling ahead for good when he responded correctly on the last Daily Double. He led with $18,600 to Mike’s $12,800. The Final Jeopardy category was MOVIES: “More than 25 cast members from this 1990 film drama would later appear on an HBO series with a similar theme.” Both Mike and Mark knew the correct film: “What is Goodfellas?” (For the record I knew there were a lot of actors who were in that film on The Sopranos; I didn’t know Michael Imperioli was one of them.” Mark won $25,601 to cross the $100,000 threshold.

However Friday Mark suffered from what had been his great strength to that point in his run: the Daily Double. In the previous five games he’d found thirteen of the fifteen Daily Doubles and had done extremely well on them getting eleven correct. However when he found the first one on the second clue of the Jeopardy round he was already at -$1000. The category was 18th CENTURY HISTORY: “This North American colonial empire seen on 16th century maps as Gallia Nova ended with the fall of Quebec and Montreal.” Like Mark I had never heard of New France. It is credit to Mark that at the end of the Jeopardy round he was on the positive side; at one point he actually had -$2600.

In Double Jeopardy it looked like he was turning things around quickly when he got the first three clues correct on the bottom of the board and jumped up to $5800. Then he found the first Daily Double and wagered everything: “You can breathe easier knowing that Terry McMillan wrote a sequel to this novel called Getting to Happy.” Mark didn’t know this referred to Waiting to Exhale and went back to zero. Around that time his challengers Eamonn Campbell and Dot White began to get hot and Mark was in a distant third with $2800 when he found the third and last Daily Double in TERRITORIAL GOVERNORS. This time he had no choice but to bet everything: “Frank Franz served as an Indian agent of the Osage Agency before becoming this territory’s last governor in 1906.” Mark knew it was Oklahoma and doubled his score.

But he couldn’t turn the tide on what had been a dreadful game: he managed fifteen correct responses but eight incorrect ones. Despite that he was still in contention at the end of Double Jeopardy with $4800 to Dot’s $10,400 and Eamonn’s $12,200.

It came down to Final Jeopardy. The category was a tough one: WORLD POLITICAL HISTORY. The clue even more challenging: William Whitelaw and John Peyton were also-rans in a 1975 leadership vote with this victor.” Mark had no clue and wrote down: “What is thanks for a fun day?” However he lost nothing, so he was still alive. Dot was next and couldn’t finish her response: “What is Washing?” But it cost her just $599. It was all on Eamonn. He wrote down: “Who is Thatcher?” That was the correct response. After Edward Heath lost the 1974 election for the Conservatives, there was a leadership vote that made Margaret Thatcher head of the Party and that set her up to become Prime Minister four years later. Eamonn was already going to win and he added $1500 to his total, making him the new champion with $13,700. Mark went home with $107,201.

That means that as of this writing nine players have officially qualified for the Tournament of Champions. (Ten if we include Lisa Ann Walter and we all know we will going in.) As of this writing Mark is exactly in the middle in terms of money won, right between Alison Betts with $121,500 and Amy Hummel with $100,994.

I think the term of the roster of the Tournament of Champions right now is solid. We’ve been spoiled the last two years by having so many super-champions that we’ve forgotten that the average Jeopardy champion is just very, very great. All six players who have won 5 games or more have won at least $100,000 which for those of us who’ve been watching Jeopardy in the last 20 years is well above the norm for most of our winners. The rosters already at the level of the 2021 Tournament of Champions (the last under the old rules) and that one only had seven contestants who’d won at least five games.

Then too there is the fact that in little more than a hundred games since the Season 40 ‘postseason’ ended we already have a very good roster of contenders and as I mentioned quite a few three game winners who will either be in the Tournament in some form, via natural or Wild Card. (We’ve actually had one more possibility join the roster but I’ll save him for later this season.)

We may not be in quite the era of Peak Jeopardy any more, in the sense that there has yet to be a contender the likes of Cris Panullo or Matt Amodio. But given the increased caliber of the writing so far this season and the listing of champions we already have, I doubt the show will start to lose fans or complain any time soon. I’ll be back when the next qualifier for the Tournament appears.

 

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