TJ Fisher Becomes The 12th Player to Qualify for the 2026 Tournament of Champions And There Was Just As Much Luck as Skill Getting There

 

In my more than three decades watching Jeopardy I'm aware that luck plays as much a part as skill in any successful Jeopardy player.  Somewhat less in those super-champions such as James Holzhauer and Amy Schneider during their runs but they needed it at a certain point. That being said TJ Fisher, who officially qualified for the Tournament of Champions on Thursday is the first Jeopardy champion in the post-Trebek era where I'd say luck was more important than skill.

Let's deal with the skill part first because it was considerable. In TJ's first four victories which began last Thursday, he managed to runaway with every single game by the end of the Double Jeopardy round. That is an impressive performance by any standard: no one has managed to get off to that good a start since Ben Chan back in Season 39.

And TJ was  good in his runaway wins: he managed 31 correct responses in his first win and 32 in his second. He also had the ability to come from behind more than a few times. In his third win he was trailing at the end of the Jeopardy round and ran away with that game. But as Ken Jennings pointed out before Wednesday's game began he had also done so with something that was dubious: in all of his runaway victories he had no managed to get a single Final Jeopardy correct.

This was not a flaw that only TJ was guilty of: during his first four Final Jeopardys only one player was able to respond correctly to Final Jeopardy at all. And to be clear this isn't a fault that can be blamed on the lack of intelligence of the contestants, during TJ's five wins I only knew the correct response to one of the Final Jeopardys myself. I have to give props to the writers because there was at least one of them I absolutely should have known.

On Tuesday's game the Final Jeopardy category was TV 2025. This should have been gravy for me. "The star of this new streaming drama said, 'Nobody could gain a pound, lose a pound…we had to look exactly the same for 7 months." Like all three players I had no idea what show they were talking about – and it's going to be on my top ten list this year. That show was The Pitt, which as we all know has an entire season on one day in an ER and Noah Wyle's description makes perfect sense when you think about it. But the closest I could come up with was Severance (one of the other contestants guessed this)

TJ was a good player but considering his lack of skill in Final Jeopardy he had an Achilles heel that you knew was going to get him. It should have gotten him on Wednesday's game when he had his first mediocre performance and one of his challengers, Chris Turner-Neal, had a better one from the start of the Jeopardy round. TJ managed to play well enough in Double Jeopardy to make up ground but Chris hurt himself near the end when he got two consecutive $2000 clues wrong. He still was in the lead with $12,700 to TJ's $12,400 (the third player was in the red)

The Final Jeopardy category was ANIMATION. "Phil Vischer, creator of this show, originally had a candy bar as the lead until his wife nudged him in a healthier direction." I had no idea what show they were talking about so props to TJ and Chris for knowing it. TJ wrote down: "What is Veggie Tales?" and went big wagering $11,799 putting him at $24,199. Chris' knew it but he only bet $1500. And as a result TJ went to $100,723 and officially punched his ticket to the Tournament of Champions.

But the writing was on the wall. From the start of last night's game against Spencer Janes and Grace Batiste, things were not going well for TJ. He got the Daily Double incorrect on the second clue of the round and was in the red for most of the Jeopardy round. The clues were not particularly easy for anyone, categories like ORIGINS OF THE IDIOM, IRISH HISTORY and THAT'S SOME RHYME provided a lot of blank stares (and I was just as clueless at home for most of them so I can't judge). So at the end of the Jeopardy round the scores were relatively low for all three players: TJ had $800, Grace $2600 and Spencer led with $4200.

TJ recovered immensely in Double Jeopardy and spent much of the round going back and forth with Spencer for the lead. But Spencer was just too good: he gave seventeen correct responses and didn't make a single mistake. There were also a lot of triple stumpers here though less than the Jeopardy round. Regardless TJ finished Double Jeopardy in second with $14,400 to Spencer's $17,000 and Grace's $5200. He needed to get Final Jeopardy right and he needed Spenser to be incorrect and unfortunately for him, neither was going to happen.

The category was WORLD ORGANIZATIONS. "Passing on in 2025, Aliza Mageb, who helped track down terrorist in the 1972 Munich attack, became this agency's top-ranking woman." Both Grace and Spencer knew the correct response: "What is Mossad?" TJ guessed: "What is Interpol?" and honestly that's a pretty reasonable guess as well. Spencer defeated him with $29,000 and we will see how long he carries on.

I'm not going to relist the participants in the 2026 Tournament of Champions yet again; I did that just a couple of weeks ago and I'm going to wait until the end of the month to see if the status quo changes. What I will say is that TJ's performance makes it clear that this will be a tougher field than last year. TJ is the eighth participant in this tournament to cross the $100,000 threshold in earnings in their original runs, one more than the entire field had in the 2025 TOC (excluding those who won the Wild Card and Second Chance Tournaments and the $100,000 prize) And it's safe to say Chris Turner-Neal will be invited back to the Second Chance Tournament in just a few months' time.

I will say that, if the 2026 TOC follows the pattern of 2025  and the three biggest winners are given byes into the semi-finals, two of those spots are pretty much locked up now. Scott Riccardi and Paolo Pasco are currently ranked first and second in money won. I have a theory as to who that third player will be but as there's still nearly two months before the eligibility deadline comes I'm going to hold by tongue because a lot can happen.

And a couple of notes on Season 42. Unlike last year the overall winner's totals have been sufficiently higher than they were at this point in 2024, even among those who only win one game. In the week between Steven Olson's being defeated and TJ's first victory, two different players won $30,000 or more. We also have seen three players officially qualify for the Tournament of Champions in the first five weeks; in contrast to the two that qualified in the first five weeks of Season 41: Ryan Manton and Mark Fitzpatrick.  The clues are still tough and so are the Final Jeopardys but the champions are doing better and winning more money. This is a promising sign for much of Season 41 overall.

I'll be back when the next qualifier for the Tournament of Champions comes…which may be next week for all I know.