The Jeopardy 2026 Postseason Schedule Has Been Announced

 

 

We are almost there Jeopardy fans. Earlier this week Jeopardy producers Sarah Whitcomb Foss and Michael Davies have officially announced the format for the 2026 Jeopardy postseason. There have been some changes to it.

The Second Chance Tournament will take up three weeks and invite 27 players to participate, nine each week. The format will take the form of three semi-final games with each of the games having a two-game total point affair.

Three of the winners will be invited back to compete in the Champions Wildcard in the two weeks that follow. It will involve a fifteen players in the traditional tournament format, consisting of two and one game winners. This is an invitational tournament of the players choice. The winner will go on to compete in the 2026 Tournament of Champions, which will have the same format as last year's: 18 players will compete in six quarterfinal matches, leaving us with six semi-finalists. The top three players with the longest runs of the season will automatically have byes into the semis as well. We all know the rest.

And as of this writing we pretty much know the lineup of who it will be. Admittedly there are still three weeks to go before the official eligibility period comes to an end on November 14^th and a lot can happen in three weeks. But as of this writing we have a pretty good idea of who will be in the lineup for the Tournament of Champions in a few months' time.

On November 10^th the official field for both the Second Chance and Jeopardy Wild Card Tournament will be revealed. I will save my commentary on the both until they are announced though in the case of the latter I have a pretty solid idea of who that group will be. It may be different what the producers say, of course, but I'll wait before making the announcement for reasons I'll make clear below.

For starters let's look at the three players who for the moment have a lock on byes into the semi-finals:

Scott Riccardi: 16 Wins, $455,000

Paolo Pasco: 7 wins, $195,717

Laura Faddah, 8 wins, $92,599

I should be upfront that while I'm certain Scott and Paolo will be given byes to the semi-final, Laura's position is somewhat more precarious given her relatively low amount of money won in these eight games. Based on the format in 2022 and 2025, the three players who've won the most games and the most money are given byes into the semi-final. Considering how low Laura ranks on the money won list, she could be knocked down or out by the time the eligibility period ends.

Now official confirmation on two more participants. Both Lisa Ann Walter, winner of the 2024 Celebrity Jeopardy Tournament and W. Kamau Bell, who won the 2025 Celebrity Jeopardy Tournament have announced they will be participating in this year's Tournament of Champions. Walter was unable to appear last year due to a scheduling conflict, leading to an opening for Drew Goins, the second place finisher in Champions Wild Card this year. It worked out pretty well for Drew and he thanked her multiple times. I'll be curious to see if Lisa does the same.

Now here are the other official qualifiers in chronological order:

Ashley Chan: 4 wins, $67,400

Alex DeFrank, 4 wins, $102,400

Josh Weikert, 6 wins, $100,202

Bryce Wargin, 4 wins,  $70,199

Andrew Hayes, 6 wins, $137,804

Liam Starnes, 6 wins, $123,584

Ben Ganger, 5 wins, $105, 915

Steven Olson, 4 wins, $74,382

TJ Fisher, 5 wins, $100,723

As I mentioned this is a more balanced field than last year's and arguably a stronger one. We have six players who won 6 games or more as opposed to last year when we only had three. We have eight players who won $100,000 or more in their original runs. Last year we only had seven who won that much.

In addition to this we have the winner of Champions Wild Card giving us a total of fifteen of the 21 slots locked down. Who are the remaining six? Well as of this writing (and to be clear there are still three weeks to go) we can start making some pretty educated guesses among those who managed to win three games.

Lock: Matt Massie: $79,800

As you can see he's won more money in three games than Steven Olson, Bryce Wargin and Ashley Chan, all of whom have already qualified.

Lock: Tom Devlin, $73,199

I was surprised he was defeated this afternoon but most of the same rules that apply to Matt apply just as much to Tom: he's won more money than Ashley and Bryce in three days and nearly as much as Steven did. Throw in the fact he managed a season-high 33 correct responses yesterday (which is super-champion territory) I think they'll give him an invite.

 

Lock: Brendan Liaw, $59,398

Lock: Mike Dawson, $57,000

Lock: Bill McKinney, $46,800

Geoff Barnes, $44,801 (?)

It is only Geoff I have the least confidence that he will automatically get an invite. It's not just that his score is the lowest by far of the 3 game winners; it's that there are several 2 game winners who earned considerably more money than him in their original appearances. (I will get to them when the lineup for Champions Wild Card is announced.) Even if no one manages to win three games in the last three weeks of eligibility for the 2026 Tournament (a big if in itself) he may very well have to come in via Champions Wild Card rather than get an automatic invite. I wouldn't blame the producers for doing so.

If anyone manages to qualify for the Tournament of Champions the old-fashioned way in the next two weeks I will of course report on it. Otherwise expect my next official post on Jeopardy to come on November 10^th when I review the selections for Second Chance. It may be a larger field than last year but given how so many games played out during the 2025 season I can't exactly blame the producers for widening it.