Those of you who read my columns
on Jeopardy – and based on the stats I have that is a significant number of my
readers – might remember that in the summer of 2022 I did a long ongoing series
for a potential 40th Anniversary Tournament of the show. In it, I
gave a list of 45 players I wanted to be invited back to a potential
anniversary tournament that I assumed would air a little more than 2 years’
time.
If you’ve watched the show during
the two years that followed you are aware of both the Jeopardy Masters and the
Jeopardy Invitational Tournament which have since become annual events and the
highlight of the season for many fans (myself included). I recently looked at
my listing of those 45 players and more than half of them were either invited
for the 2023 Masters and the first two JIT’s.
Looking back I am of two minds of
the selections I made. On the one hand, many of the choices I made were the
Jeopardy equivalent trying to pick the All-Star teams for the National League
over that same period and saying that Shohel Ohtani was going to make the team:
you didn’t need to me more than a short-term fan to know that James Holzhauer
and Amy Schneider were going to be on the first Jeopardy Masters lineup no
matter what. On the other, as a fan of the show, I am gratified to know that
the producers have both a connection to the show’s past and have gone out of
their way to invite some players who deserve to be mentioned in the same breath
as the super-champions we’ve recently seen as well as some that long-term fans
like myself would be appreciative of.
With the return of Brad Rutter to
the Alex Trebek stage for the 2025 Masters, which will start at the end of the
month the show has officially brought back the greatest Jeopardy player in
history, something Ken Jennings himself is more than aware of. And since both
the Masters and the JIT are going to be part of the show for the foreseeable
future, it’s worth considering who the show should invited down the road for
the latter. I’ve considered how to look at it and I now think the best way to
do is to go through the era of Super-Tournaments all of which Brad Rutter won
en route to become the biggest money winner in Jeopardy history and until the
Jeopardy Greatest Of All Time tournament, the only player who had never lost a
game.
The simplest way to do this, I
believe, is to work backwards. The last tournament Brad was a part of was the
Jeopardy All-Star Games in 2019. As of this writing only three players who are
still eligible from that Tournament have yet to return in some form: Julia
Collins, Buzzy Cohen and Jennifer Giles. Julia declined this year (for marital
reasons). Buzzy appears to be part of the Jeopardy family and for reasons I
won’t go into here I don’t think Jennifer deserves to be consider an all-time great.
In reverse chronology the next
tournament was the Battle of the Decades in 2014. This is a greater opportunity for recruitment. To be
sure many of the participants from the first decade such as India Cooper and
Tom Nosek have sadly passed away in recent years and some from even the second
decade may be too old to feel they can compete on a serious level. And to be
fair many of the participants have already been invited back in the past two
JITs among them Chuck Forest, Rachel Schwartz and Robin Carroll, three of the
greatest players in the pre-Ken Jennings era. But that still leaves a fairly deep
field to mine for the future. So with that in mind, let’s go through the Battle
of the Decades and we’ll start with the participants from the 2000s.
Note: To be clear the math never
worked properly so the period in question was 2004-2013.
As of this writing five of the
participants from that period have been extended invitations: Dan Pawson,
Larissa Kelly, Colby Burnett, Celeste DiNucci and Roger Craig. Ken Jennings
obviously is ineligible. That leaves us with nine strong contenders, though for
reasons I will explain one may very well not be invited back to return for the
foreseeable future. I’ll deal with her at the end, but for now I’ll deal with
the eight that remain in alphabetical order:
Vijay Balse
Vijay is a player of great significance
in Jeopardy history. While his initial run may not seem impressive – he won
just 4 games and $82,400 – it was a significant accomplishment for a man who was
originally from Mumbai. He had only recently emigrated to Chatham, New Jersey
to work as a chemical engineer. Being a predominantly American show, it is
difficult even for players who live as relatively close as Canada to do well on
Jeopardy much less someone from a foreign country.
He managed to win a tough 2 game Tournament against Jason Zollinger and
Stefan Goodreau. Jason had won six games that year and for a long time it was
very difficult just to win that many games. Furthermore Vijay was trailing at
the end of Double Jeopardy going into Game 2 so his come-from-behind victory
was all the more impressive. His sole return to the show came in the Battle of
the Decades and he drew Roger Craig as one of his challengers. He managed to
make him work for his first round win and left with $5000. He’s now the most
recent winner of a Tournament of Champions who has not been invited back in a
Tournament in any form to this point. So he’s more than due.
Michael Falk
Until last year Michael Falk was
almost an outlier in Jeopardy history: the three games he had won in March of
2006 were the fewest any player in the show’s history had ever won before
winning the Tournament of Champions. Now of course the last two winners of the
TOC: Yogesh Rout in 2024 and Nilesh Vinjamuri this year also managed to win
three games.
And indeed it might have been
odder that season if a three game winner hadn’t won the Tournament of Champions
as I’ve mentioned in other articles the 2006 Tournament lineup was an odd one
with no less than five winners of three games qualifying. Michael had
managed to win $59,403 but had to get to the finals the really hard way.
He drew David Madden in his quarterfinal match and was very lucky to make it on
a wild card spot. Then in the semi-finals while he managed to lead the entire
game it was never by much and it was only by luck he got to the finals.
Then at the end of Game 1 he was
in a distant second behind Vik Vaz – who like him had also won 3 games that
year. He managed to runaway with the second game but that meant very little
given the margin of Vik’s lead. Fortunately at the end of Final Jeopardy he was
the only player to respond correctly and that was enough to guarantee him a
well-earned victory.
Unfortunately the player he drew
in the Battle of the Decades was none other than Ken Jennings and he was just
as much of a machine then as he was against anyone not named Brad Rutter. Frankly
I would have preferred him being invited back instead of Victoria Groce or some
of the participants this year so I think it’s past time.
Vinita Kailasanath
I wrote about Vinita in previous
articles about successful College Champions and she does have an impressive
track record. Winner of the 2001 College Championship she made it to the
semi-finals of the 2004 Tournament of Champions in first place. Final Jeopardy,
unfortunately, undid her.
The category was PULITZER PRIZE
WINNERS: “One of the 2 novels, both Southern, that won the Pulitzer for fiction
& became Best Picture Oscar Winners.” Russ Schumacher and Seth Alcorn both
knew one was Gone With The Wind. Vinita wrote down: “What is The Yearling?”
which did not win Best Picture in 1946. (The other novel was All
The King’s Men.)
Vinita returned to the Jeopardy
stage less six months later to compete in the UTC and managed to get to round 2
before being absolutely crushed by Brian Moore, whose exploits will rate a
notion in a later entry. She last appeared on Jeopardy in the Battle of the
Decades and along with Michael Falk ran into Ken Jennings in her game. I think
it’s time she came back.
Tom Kavanaugh
Tom Kavanaugh’s eight wins in the
2005-2006 would be the third highest total in Jeopardy history until Dan Pawson
caught and passed him two seasons later.
Compared to other eight game winners his total earnings were relatively small -
$142,602. And he got routed in the 2006 Tournament of Champions quarterfinal by
Bill MacDonald. (Bill is probably worthy of returning just based on who he beat
getting to the Tournament of Champions finals; in his semifinal he routed David
Madden in a match that was the 19 game winners biggest humiliation in his long
tenure on Jeopardy.)
One suspects that Tom was invited
to the Battle of the Decades because David declined the invitation. Still it
was fun watching Tom go up against Larissa Kelly and Russ in the match. Tom had
a combative personality that had the kind of mantle of James Holzhauer; he took
a combative pose and asked an embarrassing question of Alex in the interview
segment. It would be fun to have him back if nothing else.
Tom Nissley
I’ve written about Tom Nissley a
couple of times before in previous articles (I did so in my most recent article
on People I’d wanted to see in the next Masters, so a brief refresher course.
Tom Nissley managed to win eight
games in December of 2010. His $235,405 during the course of that period ranked
as the third most won by any player in a regular season player behind only
David Madden and Ken Jennings and would remain the third most until Arthur Chu
surpassed in 2014. He finished second in the 2010 Tournament of Champions to
Roger Craig, winning $100,000. Despite that considerable achievement he was not
automatically extended an invitation to the Battle of the Decades and was voted
in as a fan favorite.
He would face off against Colby Burnett
and Celeste DiNucci and though he was the only player to get Final Jeopardy
correct, was still defeated by Colby. He has not been invited back since. He’s
more than due.
Russ Schumacher
By a certain logic Russ should
have been invited back before some of the other players who’ve been brought
back already; among other things he has more postseason experience than quite a
few of the previous invitees.
Russ Schumacher was the winner of
the 2004 Tournament of Champions, which took place between Ken Jennings endless
streak during Season 21. Russ had won four games and $64,800 but the field he
faced was fairly even.
In his quarterfinal match he was
flattened by Tom Baker and only got in to the semi-finals via wildcard. In his
semi-final match he was in a back and forth game with Vinita (as I described
above) and only a correct Final Jeopardy got him there. Then in the finals he
had to go against Tom Walsh who at the time was in second in most games won and
money won: seven games and $184,900. (Hey Ken Jennings made a lot of players
look week. As it was going into Game 2 Tom had a nearly $10,000 lead over Russ.
Russ managed to finish Double
Jeopardy of Game 2 with twice as much money as Tom. He still needed to get
Final Jeopardy correct – which he did – to win $250,000 and the TOC. Less than
six months later he was in the Ultimate Tournament of Champions. You would
think he would have had the least rust on him after just six months as opposed
to players who had been out of action for more than a decade as Robert Slaven
had been. But such was not to be the case.
That said he played superbly in
the Double Jeopardy round and was trailing only slightly during Final Jeopardy.
He was the only player to get Final Jeopardy incorrect and went home with
$5000.
Redemption came for him in a big
way in the Battle of the Decades. He was facing off against Tom and Larissa
Kelly and as I mentioned in Tom’s entry Larissa was dominant from beginning to
end. It was only because Russ found the last Daily Double in Double Jeopardy on
the penultimate clue of the round that he stopped Larissa from running away
with the game. Even then luck was a huge factor.
The Final Jeopardy category was
MONARCHS and like so many of them it was incredibly tough: “In 2005 the Kul
Sharif Mosque of Tatarstan was reopened 453 years after it was destroyed by
this man.” Russ wrote down his response very quickly – but Constantine was
incorrect. However he wagered nothing. Then came Larissa who had written down
Suleiman. That was also incorrect. It was in fact Ivan the Terrible. Larissa’s
bet to beat Russ by $1 and as a result she lost enough to give Russ the win.
In the quarter-final he faced off
against Tom Nosek and Pam Mueller. Tom led throughout the Jeopardy round and
Pam was ahead most of Double Jeopardy. But all three players were ‘impressive’
throughout. Pam finished with $17,200, Russ was next with $15,400, Tom was
third with $11,200
The Final Jeopardy category was a
deceptively easy sounding one: U.S. STATES. The clue was anything but: “Between
2006 and 2013 it went from 39th to 6th in per capita
income & its unemployment rate dropped to the nation’s lowest.” Russ was
the only one with the correct response: “What is North Dakota? (As Alex said:
“And it was all because of an oil and gas
boom.” )Russ made it to the semi-finals.
His luck ended there as he faced
off against Ken Jennings on one side and Chuck Forest on the other. All things
considered he was lucky to be on the side of positive at the end of the Double
Jeopardy round. He was the only player to get Final Jeopardy incorrect but went
home with $25,000 and the consolation prize of having defeated a Tournament of
Champions winner and two of the best female champions in history getting there.
I think its well past time Russ came back; he’ll probably do better when Ken’s
on the other side of the podium. (By the way, there’s an interesting story he
could tell about something Alex asked Ken that day in their interview segment
that I’d love to hear him remark on.)
Maria Wenglinsky
Though rarely remembered today
Maria was, in her own way, a Jeopardy groundbreaker. In 2005 she became the
first female contestant to win more than $100,000 in regular season play,
winning $122,300 over 5 games in impressive fashion. It was the third most
money won by a contestant going into the 2006 Tournament of Champions –
including six game winner Kevin Marshall.
Maria romped to victory in her
quarterfinal game in the Tournament of Champions before she faced off against
Michael Falk in the semi-final. A close game it came down to Final Jeopardy.
The category was BRITISH
MONARCHS: “The last British monarch who was not the child of a monarch.” Maria
managed to work backwards to: “Who is Victoria?” (the niece of William IV). Unfortunately
Michael knew it as well and Maria went home with $10,000.
She was invited back to the
Battle of the Decades in what was the last match of the first round. She faced
off against Keith Whitener, who we’ll discuss below and Dan Pawson. It was a
tough match but in Double Jeopardy Maria got hot at the right time and managed
to first tie, then pass Dan in the final clues of the round. She was ahead with
$18,100 to Dan’s $15,700.
The Final Jeopardy category was
20th CENTURY NOVEL QUOTES: “It was one of those pictures…so
contrived that the eyes follow you…beneath’ the picture was this 5-word quote.”
No one could even come close to the correct response. The book was 1984 and
the quote: “Big Brother is watching you.” Asked how much Maria had wagered she
told Alex: “Too much.” And she had. Because Dan bet the least he ended up as a
quarterfinalist and Maria went home with $5000.
Maria’s marks have long been
surpassed as a Jeopardy champions even well before Julia Collins showed up. But
she was always fun to watch both playing and in interview segments. She also
had a great deadpan delivery which would be fun to see in her interactions with
Ken.
Keith Whitener
Keith was a solid player in
Season 29, a year which was a harbinger of the super-champions to come. He won
seven games and $147,597, the second highest amount of money won of the eligible
players. He trounced nine game winner Jason Keller in his semi-final appearance
and finished second to Colby Burnett in the that year’s TOC. He was invited
back to the Battle of the Decades on the merits. He was planning to go on his
honeymoon to Bora Bora on the day after his first appearance and unfortunately
going against Dan Pawson and Maria Wenglinsky he was easily routed and went
home with $5000. Like Maria he hasn’t been back since so I think he’s due a return.
The one player who I’ve omitted
to this point is Stephanie Jass. She was the first female contestant to win
seven games in October of 2012. She was a semi-finalist in that year’s
Tournament of Champions, losing to Colby Burnett and competed against Roger
Craig and Vijay Balse before losing.
There have been events in her job
that I will not recount here (I’m not sure of my standing) that may have made Jeopardy
reluctant to bring her back since. That’s a shame because she was a good player
and a pioneer in a sense that Maria was.
That concludes the 2000s. The
next article in this series will deal with some potential invitees from the
1990s that I believe should be extended invitations.
No comments:
Post a Comment