Season 41 Jeopardy Update March 2025

 

 

As I mentioned quite a few times in the leadup to the postseason for the 41^st Season of Jeopardy, the level of difficulty of Final Jeopardys from the start of the season until right up to the beginning of it have been among the most difficult in recent memory. As a result while several players qualified for the 2024 Tournament of Champions no one was able to win more than five games between September and the cutoff in December. Furthermore while Greg  Jolin and Mark Fitzpatrick were able to cross the $100,000 threshold, overall totals for champions were down across the board.

This trend continued up until the end of the year and while some players were able to win big paydays none of them could manage to win more than two games in a row. This trend didn’t show much sign of abating even with the two women who qualified for the next Tournament of Champions with Laura Faddah seeming to take it to an extreme, needing 6 wins to win more money than Ashley Chan had in four..

The post season that followed, oddly enough, seemed to break the streak. Quite a few players, such as Drew Goins and Neilesh Vinjamuri, had superb one-game totals during the Tournament of Champions but it was hard to wonder if that counted. And for every blow out by Roger Craig or Matt Amodio in the Jeopardy Invitational Tournament, there was a game where all three players were stumped after Final Jeopardy. When play resumed and on the first day back Laura Faddah won her eighth game in a runaway – but her challenger Omar Abu Reath had to climb out of a -$6000 hole in Double Jeopardy just to be around, it seemed to be more of the same.

Then Harvey Silkowitz defeated her the following day finishing with $36,800 at the end of Double Jeopardy. It was the highest score any player had managed at the end that round since the season began. Despite the fact he got Final jeopardy incorrect, it has been a harbinger of things to come. The following day James Corson won $42,000, the highest one day total a player has managed to win so far this season. We’ve been off an running ever since.

At the end of that week we witnessed the first consistently superb Jeopardy champion all season in Alex DeFrank, an inventory specialist from Brooklyn. He topped James’ total by winning $42,401 for his first victory. He couldn’t manage to do that well again but he managed to show that he was consistently good and lucky. He came from behind to win his second game on Monday  with ‘only’ $14,000. He averaged $23,000 in each of his next wins even though in both those games he failed to get Final Jeopardy correct.

However on his fifth appearance he ran into an obstacle he could not overcome Cameron Berry. He gave 16 correct response but made eight mistakes while Cameron got 27 but got only 2 wrong, including both Daily Doubles he found. At the end of Double Jeopardy Cameron had run away with it with $28,600 to Alex’s $4000.

Alex managed a moral victory in Final Jeopardy. The category was U.S CITIES. “Named for a 1775 battle, this city contains the graves of John Breckinridge and Henry Clay.” Alex knew the correct city: “What is Lexington, Kentucky?” Cameron thought it was Charleston.

In just four games Alex had won $102,400, more than Laura Faddah had won in eight. It is a certainty that he will return to play in the Tournament of Champions – and I suspect at least two players who went against him will be invited back for the Second Chance Tournament.

Cameron’s run ended the following day when he faced off against Josh Weikert, a politics professor from Collegeville, Pennsylvania. Josh led at the end of the Jeopardy round and was still ahead by Double Jeopardy’s end. But it was close and Final Jeopardy would decide it.

The category was BESTSELLERS. “It begins in the village of Juffure & ends in Arkansas more than 200 years & 7 generations later.” I had no idea which book this was but all three contestant did: “What is Roots?” For Josh it made him the new champion with $23,601.

Josh’s run has yet to come to an end as of today. He has managed to win six games and $102,002. So far he is playing like a very good Jeopardy champion, albeit not one of the super champions. It did take him six wins to cross the $100,000 threshold, which Alex managed to do in just four. But Josh has finished Double Jeopardy with $20,000 or more four times in his six victories, running away with two games and nearly running away with a third. So far in Final Jeopardy he has managed to get four out of his six responses correct and while that may not sound like much, it’s still more than any player who has qualified for either Tournament of Champions has done so far this season – and Josh’s run isn’t over yet.

Furthermore that amount in winnings is by far the most any of the four qualified players for the 2026 Tournament of Champions has managed and the most since Greg Jolin’s run ended in November. And while he doesn’t compare favorable to even the most recent super-champions he is basically running dead even with Drew Basile, who won $111,601 after six games.

I’ve considered any player who wins more than $100,000 during their run a very good Jeopardy champion, even in the era of the super-champion and as we saw during the lead-up to this year’s Tournament of Champion it was a hard number to reach. And just as in the immediate aftermath of the endless postseason of last year, within the first month of resumed play we have two Jeopardy champions who have reached that storied total.

Alex DeFrank may have ‘merely’ won four games but his $102,400 is still more than four other four game winners who went on to qualify for the 2025 Tournament of Champions and more than Amy Hummel did in five. Josh has won less money in his six victories than Greg Jolin and Allison Gross did in five but he’s also playing significantly better giving more than two correct responses in every game he’s played so far. That is a benchmark of a very good player and we can only wait to see how long it will take to end that streak.

As of today four players have earned their spots in the next Tournament of Champions: Ashley Chan, Laura Faddah, Alex DeFrank and Josh Weikert. A fifth Bill McKinney is a borderline case with 3 wins and $46,800. We won’t know if he qualifies until at least the end of this season and possibly later but two other three games winners – Weckiai Rannilla and Allison Gross – did manage to earn slots in the Tournament of Champions last year with less.

Still in little more than two months of regular season play we have five qualifiers for the next Tournament of Champions. That’s pretty good even considering this year’s postseason was not nearly as long. I’ll be back with more when Josh’s streak comes to an end.