Before I give the
official recap for the Finals of Champions Wildcard, tonight’s match marked the
end of the first 100 days of Season 41 of Jeopardy. And having had to go
through a short postseason that has been both thrilling and led to deserving
winners, it is also time to give the official lineup for the 2025 Tournament of
Champions which has been released which I will do at the end of the article.
Now let’s move on to
the two game final.
Game 1
From the start of the
Jeopardy round this was an almost evenly matched battle between all three
players. A blunder on the first Daily Double didn’t hamper Will Yancey that
much and he rebuilt a lead but Mehal got the last six clues of the round
correct and a $1000 swing on the final clue put him in the lead with $5200 to
Will’s $4800. Drew was not that far out with $2800.
Drew started Double
Jeopardy strong with a near run of THIS ONE TIME, AT ORCHESTRA CAMP but then
Will managed to get rolling and found the first Daily Double in ALLITERATIVE
LIT. He bet $3800, half his total:
“Feeling familiar,
Henry V says, “We few, we happy few, we” this group. It took Will a moment to
come up with: “What is band of brothers?” He jumped into the lead with $11,400.
Mehal then got the next three clues correct to retake the lead.
Will then got to the
other Daily Double in JANUARY BABIES. He had $13,400 and had a small lead over
Mehal. Cautiously he wagered $3000:
“In 1929 at age 21 she
finished second behind Jean-Paul Sartre in an advanced philosophy exam.” Will
admitted he was stumped. The clue referred to Simone de Beauvoir and he dropped
to $10,400. Double Jeopardy ended with Mehal still ahead with $15,200 to Will’s
$13,800 and Drew’s impressive $10,800. Mehal had responded correctly on 21
clues and only gotten one wrong. Will had given nineteen correct response but
had given a whopping six incorrect ones, including two of the three Daily
Doubles.
The Final Jeopardy
category was an old favorite: WORLD GEOGRAPHY. “In the Orenburg Oblast a bridge
over this 1500-mile river has monuments labeled ‘Asia’ and ‘Europe’
Drew’s response was
revealed first. He wrote down: “What is the Ural River?” That was correct. The
mountains that divide Asia and Europe are named for this river. (I didn’t know
it either.) Drew bet $6800, putting him at $17,600.
Will had the right
idea: “What is the Volga?” (This is, for the record, the first Final Jeopardy
in his six appearances in the postseason he got wrong.) It cost him $6000.
Mehal wrote down the
Ural River, crossed it out and wrote it down again. He went very big, wagering
$12,000.
At the end of Game 1,
Mehal had $27,200 to Drew’s $17,600 and Will’s $5600. Mehal’s lead was sizable
but as both Drew and Will have firsthand knowledge of from their experience in
the Second Chance Tournament, being in a distant second or third at the end of
the first game of a final can change very quickly in Game 2. Will was lucky to
hold on to win his Second Chance despite the superb play of his fellow
finalists; Drew had won his Tournament because he had done so. And all
three players had basically been evenly matched in Game 1 to start with.
Game 2
Mehal got off to a fast
start in the Jeopardy round – what appeared to be too fast a start. He found
the Daily Double on the second clue in PLACES TO VISIT. With a mere $600 to
wager he bet the $1000 he could:
“This river has been
called the ‘Lifeline of the Southwest’, you can see where it meets the Green
River in Canyonlands National Park.” Mehal knew it was the Colorado. Drew then took
off and at the end of the round had a sizable lead with $9200 to Mehal’s $5400
while Will Trailed with $1200.
Drew got to the first
Daily Double in Double Jeopardy on the second clue, finding it in HISTORIC
STATES AND TERRITORIES. He was in the lead with $10,400 but he knew he had to
make up ground and bet $3400:
“Until 1949 islands
including Sumatra and Java made up a territory known by this 3-word name.” He
struggled before he guessed: “What is Dutch East India?” He was a couple
letters off; it was Dutch East Indies, now Indonesia.
Mehal would get to the
other Daily Double in CHANGE THE MIDDLE LETTER: It required two responses. He bet
$4000:
“Heroic bravery in battle
becomes a visible exhalation of steam. He didn’t hesitate: “What are valor and
vapor?” This put him at $16,200. He would hold his lead until the end of Double
Jeopardy giving 19 correct responses without a single incorrect one. Drew also
gave 19 but the Daily Double he got wrong cost him. At the end of Double
Jeopardy Mehal had $19,000 to Drew’s $10,600 and Will was at $3600. With the
previous days scores Mehal had locked up the Tournament.
Final Jeopardy was an
exercise but all three players did take it seriously. (Good for them, by the
way.) The category was COMPOSERS: “Troll Hill is the name of his country home,
the grounds of which include a concert hall & a lakeside cabin where he
worked.” None of the three players were correct but I will give them credit for
their guesses.
Will wrote down: “Who
is Wagner?” (Wagner wrote more than his share of operas about mythology.) It
cost him everything. Drew wrote down: “Who is Humperdinck?” (It’s not a stretch
to think that the man who wrote Hansel & Gretel might have a cabin by
the lake.) That also cost him everything. Mehal wrote down: ‘Who is Sibelius?”
Geographically he was close. The clue (and I was right in my guess) referred to
Grieg, who wrote about trolls in his most famous work Peer Gynt. Mehal
didn’t risk anything and he didn’t have to as he earned $100,000 and clinched
his spot in the Tournament of Champions.
And though he very well
didn’t know it at the time, so did Drew. Because Lisa Ann Walter is unable to
appear in the Tournament of Champions the final spot will go to the player who
finished second in Champions Wild Card. How fitting that Drew will get a Second
Chance, one that he and Will both more than proved themselves worthy of in the
last month.
Now let’s deal with
what’s going to happen starting Monday.
The format of this year’s
tournament will be modeled on the 2022 Tournament of Champions. There will be
six quarterfinals matches that will produce six winners. The three biggest
winners of Season 40 – Adriana Harmeyer, Drew Basile and Isaac Hirsch – have
been granted byes to the semifinals and will have an exhibition match against
each other before the semi-finals properly begin. I should also mention aside
from those three players, none of the other eighteen participants have won more
than five games so it will be far more difficult than last year to try and predict
the outcome. That is true of every Tournament of Champions, to be sure, but
with no Ryan Longs or Ray Lalonde’s playing the quarterfinals, its safe to say
everyone involved is far more evenly matched than at any time in the post Alex
Trebek era and will no doubt be far more difficult for upsets to happen, at
least the same way they did last year.
Now I must add, due to
a conflict Celebrity Jeopardy winner Lisa Ann Walter will not be able to
participate in this Tournament of Champions. I have to say, as good as Ike
Barnholtz was last year I’m slightly relieved. I truly believe at some level
the Tournament of Champions should involve ‘regular people’ who have to earn
celebrity by playing Jeopardy, not be one in advance.
Monday January 27th
Allison Betts: 5 games,
$121,500
Will Wallace: 4 games, $79,998
Risabh Wuppalplati, 3
Games - $52,802
Tuesday January 28th
Amy Hummel – 5 Wins,
$100,994
Grant DeYoung – 4 wins,
$81,203
David Erb – 3 wins,
$90,754
Wednesday January 29th
Greg Jolin – 5 wins,
$135,002
Weckiai Rannila, 3
wins, $35,200
Neilesh Vinjamuri, 3
wins, $53,099
Thursday January 30th
Mehal Shah - 2 Wins, Champions Wild Card Winner - $146,062
Ryan Manton - 4 wins, $83,179
Will Stewart – 3 wins,
$70,501
Friday January 31st
Mark Fitzpatrick, 5
wins, $107,201
Allison Gross – 3 wins,
$44,598
Kevin Laskowski – 3
wins, $52,999
Monday February 3
Drew Goins, Second
Chance Winner, Wild Card Runner Up, $75,000
Amer Kakirde – 4 wins,
$55,899
Lucas Partridge – 3
days, $66,200
The lineup may not have
the array of super-champions of recent years but it is an fairly evenly matched
set of competitors going into the quarterfinals. We already know anything can
happen in the Tournament of Champions and we’re going to start finding out
Monday. I’ll be back with the results of the quarterfinals in a week and a half.
I’m already breathless with anticipation.
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