We knew one of the games tonight
was going to be a rematch of the finals of the 2025 Tournament of Champions.
What I didn’t know and perhaps most of us didn’t was who was going to be in the
second game last night. That, as we saw, depended on who won the first match. It
only sounds confusing when you try to explain it, and I’ll do that after I
review the first game.
Match 1: Adriana Harmeyer vs
Isaac Hirsch vs Neilesh Vinjamuri
In the Jeopardy round Neilesh as
has been his want in the Tournament of Champions got off to a very rapid start
and quickly built up to 6600 points. Then Isaac got hot in the category that
involved Kamau Bell’s Bells and was at 3000 points when he found the Daily
Double in TALKING IN COLORS. He knew how the game was going, so he bet everything
he had:
“A minion of Robespierre, Citizen
Chauvelin is on the hunt for this elusive hero in a 1905 novel.” Isaac figured
it out: “Who is the Scarlet Pimpernel?” He doubled his score and the battle was
joined. By the end of the round Isaac finished with the barest of leads over Neilesh,
9200 points to 8800. Adriana was in a distant third with 1000 points.
In Double Jeopardy Isaac took an
early lead and Adriana was up and down. When she found the first Daily Double
in THE STARS OF OUR SHOW, she was at a mere 600 points. She wagered the 2000
she was allowed to:
“You’ll find Alcyone, Electra and
Maia in this group which is actually more than a thousand stars.”
It took her a moment to guess: “What
is the Seven Sisters?” That was an acceptable alternative for The Pleaides and
she moved up to 2600. She moved up a little but Isaac managed to get two of the
2000 points clue correct. He had 15,200 points and was wagering from the lead
when he found the other Daily Double in A 20TH CENTURY FACTS
PRODUCTION. He wagered 4000 points this time:
The last Allied summit conference
of World War II ended on August 2nd 1945 in this German suburb.”
Isaac knew it was Potsdam and went to 19,200 points. The question for the rest
of the round was whether either Adriana or Neilesh could stop Isaac from
running away with the game. Neither could: Isaac finished with 20,000 points to
Neilesh’s 9200 and 7400. But second place mattered more than ever before.
The Final Jeopardy category was
SAINTS. “This saint who helped convert Scotland to Christianity shares his name
with the Latin word for an animal sent out 3 times for Noah.”
Adriana wrote down: “Who is St.
Mungo?” That was incorrect. She lost 3000 points, dropping her to 4400 points.
Neilesh wrote down: “Who is St.
Columba?” crossed that out and then wrote Columbus. It was a last minute
decision he would regret as it cost him 5601, dropping him to 3599.
Isaac took it seriously: Who is
Paul?” Neilesh was right the first time with St. Columba. Columba is the Latin
word for ‘dove’ which Noah sent out three times looking for proof of land after
the flood. He risked nothing and got the win with 3 match points. Because of
Neilesh’s correct he finished in third with zero and Adriana got that critical
match point. That decision might well be significant for both players in the final
two knockout rounds when it comes to which advances.
Interviews: Adriana told us how
in order to prep for the Masters she had been practicing with video games and
wasn’t sure she has been using the correct hand for it. Isaac talked about the camaraderie
between the three of them saying perhaps maybe all of them were underdogs now –
the right amount of humbleness that he would express in his follow-up
interview. Neilesh was determined to show that his victory in the Tournament of
Champions just a few months earlier was not a fluke.
After Isaac’s victory in the
first half of the match, the knockout rounds would then proceed as follows in the following three
games:
All the players who’d won a game
would play in the other match tonight. (Yogesh, Isaac, and Roger.)
Then next week, the three players
who came in second (Victoria, Matt and Adriana) would face off in the first
game and the three third place finishers (Brad, Neilesh and Juveria) would face
off in the second.
The six players with the highest
match point total at the end of next week would then proceed to the
quarterfinals.
Match 2: Yogesh Raut vs. Isaac
Hirsch vs. Roger Craig
Note: With all three players each
having won one game according to Ken all three had automatically qualified for
the next round. However, match points would be critical for placing in the next
round for all three.
The Jeopardy round was a dominant
performance by Yogesh, an embarrassment for Isaac and an utter humiliation for
Roger. Yogesh was the only player who had any money all the way through: Isaac kept
going up and then into the hole and Roger at one point was at -4200 points. By
the time Yogesh found the Daily Double he had 6600 points. He wagered 6500
points on his Daily Double in PRESENTING MYTH GREECE:
Pallas’ daughter, this goddess totes
Hermes’ staff to present a message of victory.” Yogesh figure out what victory
meant when he said: “What is Nike?”
When the humiliation was over
Yogesh had 14,900 points, Isaac was happy to be at zero and Roger had worked
his way ‘up’ to -3600 points.
In Double Jeopardy Roger did make
an impressive recovery if you see it a certain way. He found the first Daily
Double in 20th CENTURY SCIENCE and was at -2000 points. He wagered
the 2000 he was allowed to:
“rhyming with a term for a
pro-athlete on the market, it’s a chemical trigger; Ehrlich’s one is use to
test for the presence of LSD.” Roger knew it was a reagent and finally was at
zero.
It was a triumph for both Isaac
and Roger to have any points at all for much of the game. Yogesh wasn’t quite as
dominant as in Double Jeopardy but neither could put anywhere close to a run to
get near him. By the time Roger found the other Daily Double in HYMNS &
SPIRITUALS he knew he was fighting for second and wagered 1600 points of his
2800.
“With music by Sir Arthur
Sullivan & a favorite of the Salvation Army, this title precedes ‘marching
off to war.” Roger had no idea it was ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’. This
category I should mention basically stumped all three players: Yogesh was the
only one who could get a correct response in it and it was the 400 point clue.
(Even then, it was only because he’d given Amazing Grace as a response on the
800 point clue and it had been incorrect then.)
Yogesh completed his second consecutive
runaway with 25,700 points to Isaac’s 4400 and Roger’s 2800. Because second
place did matter even for the three who had clinched spots in the finals all of
them took it seriously.
The category was ART HISTORY: “’Hide
and Seek’” & ‘The Cradle’ by this French Artist were among the 200 or so
works shown at a gallery on Blvd. Des Capucines in 1874.”
Roger knew the correct artist: “Who
is Morisot?” That was correct. (As Ken pointed out, this was the first French
impressionist exhibition and these were all works of mothers and children.” He
nearly doubled his score to 5799. Both Isaac and Yogesh thought it was one of
the few other female artists of that period: Mary Cassatt. It cost Isaac 1201
points and dropped in to third. It cost Yogesh 10,000 points but changed
nothing. Yogesh took his second straight victory.
INTERVIEWS: Roger reminded us
that he had broken Ken Jennings one-day record of $77,000. Ken joked about it
and then added: “You do have a chance at another record. Isaac admitted that he
came into this tournament with low expectations. He compared it to being a really
good Division III NCAA team getting drafted to play in the NBA. Ken told him
that he had the longest winning streak of any of the three players on the
stage. (Isaac had won nine games; Roger 6, Yogesh, 3) Isaac joked: “Can I trade
that in for some points? Yogesh shared his links to Isaac and Roger. He’d
played with Isaac on a quiz bowl team and he had lived in New York the same
time Roger had, where they’d played in various quizzing tournaments together.
Note: Yogesh has won both his
games in runaways but has yet to respond correctly in Final Jeopardy. At this
point Roger is the only player with two correct Final Jeopardys in this year’s
Masters.
LEADERBOARD AT THE END OF MAY 7TH
Yogesh Raut – 6 Match Points - IN
Roger Craig – 4 Match Points - IN
Isaac Hirsch – 3 Match Points -
IN
Matt Amodio – 1 Match Point
Victoria Groce – 1 Match Point
Adriana Harmeyer – 1 Match Point
Nilesh Vinjamuri – 0
Juveria Zaheer – 0
Brad Rutter – 0
The winners of each game on May
14th will automatically advance to the next round. Whoever ends up
in third in both matches will almost certainly be eliminated though there is
still some hope for whoever finishes third in the first match next week. Second
place is going to matter immensely in both matches.
My personal preference for the
final three spots. I definitely want Brad to keep going and I would love to see
Adriana continue. As for the last one, well, we’ll have to wait and see.
But the fact that Roger Craig
will be going on to the quarterfinals continues to fill me with joy. We’ve
already got a decent mix of the old and the new for the next round even before
the quarterfinals begin.
I’ll be back next week with the
results of the final two knockout rounds as we look at the complete list of
quarterfinalists. There will be six quarterfinals before we move on to the next
round: we’ll no doubt no more about that by the week following.
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