This Is The Official Lineup for the 2026 Jeopardy Tournament of Champions

 

 

Today the eligibility period for the 2026 Jeopardy Tournament of Champions came to an end. And indeed in the past two weeks the field has shifted quite a bit more since then.

On Monday the official lineup for the Jeopardy Second Chance Tournament and Champions Wild Card will be revealed to the masses. I won't speculate yet on the former but I have a pretty good idea who will be in the latter as I've predicted it. So let's go through who has qualified. First everyone who has officially qualified from the 2024-2025 Season. I'm going in chronological order:

Ashley Chan: 4 wins, $67,400

Laura Faddah, 8 wins, $92,599

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

Scott Riccardi, 16 Wins, $455,000

 

Now for the first 50 games of Season 42:

Paolo Pasco, 7 wins. $195,717

Steven Olson, 4 wins, $74,382

TJ Fisher, 5 wins, $100,723

 

And in the last month three new players have qualified:

Tom Devlin, 3 wins, $73,199

Aaron Levine, 3 wins, $48,999

Allegra Kuney, 4 wins, $92,600

Now the three other three game winners from Season 41 who have officially locked down their spots in the Tournament of Champions:

 

Mike Dawson, $57,000

Brendan Liaw, $59,398

Matt Massie, $79,800

 

Little refresher on the two who've qualified in the past month. Aaron is a sports anchor from Seattle (something that Ken pointed out with great delight) who happened have a certain amount of luck going in to his third win that happened to do with OLYMPIC HOST CITIES in Final Jeopardy and the fact that his closest challenger Eli Bondar managed to get a Daily Double wrong very late in the Double Jeopardy round. (Don't rule out the possibility Eli will get an invite in the Second Chance. However his luck ended the following day when after a poor game by all three players, he responded incorrectly on Final Jeopardy and lost to Christopher Tillman. Christopher did win two games but his total is so relatively low I'm not certain he'll earn an invite for Champions wildcard.

Last week we were greeted by a very dominant new champion Allegra Kuney. She played superbly in her first three games and came out the winner in a very tough match in her fourth. She'd already won four games and $92,600, more than Laura Faddah did in eight (sorry Laura) But in Game 5 she went head-to-head with Harrison Whitaker in a battle to the death and Harrison finished ahead by a hair with $19,000 to her $17,400. Jessica Marshall, who finished third, had an impressive $10,000 (and she might also get a Second Chance Invite)

It came down to Final Jeopardy. The category was ROMANS and I'm impressed she knew it:

"In a work likely written in the 170s, this leader wondered what were ancient generals 'compared to Diogenes and Socrates?" Allegra knew the correct Roman Emperor: "Who is Marcus Aurelius?" (Ken told us: The Roman Emperor who loved the Greek Philosophers) However Harrison knew it as well and dethroned her with $34,801.

We will be seeing Harrison in the 2027 Tournament of Champions because as of this writing he remains undefeated and it will impress me when it happens. (I'll write about him when his reign comes to an end.) But Allegra's run is arguably the best any female contestant has had since Adriana Harmeyer's reign came to an end during Season 40 when it comes to sheer dominance. She will be difficult to beat.

Two of the remaining three spots will be filled by the winners of both this year and last year's Celebrity Jeopardy Tournament: Lisa Ann Walter and W. Kamau Bell. I have great respect for both of them as performers and given their play in this tournament I won't make the mistake I did last time when I underestimated Ike Barinholtz.

The final spot will be held by the winner of Champions Wild Card. Three of the fifteen players in that tournament will be winners of the Second Chance Tournament that will begin December 29^th. We'll learn who the other dozen will be next week but by the standards of previous tournaments its clear who two of them must be: the 3 game winners who didn't earn enough to automatically qualify for the Tournament of Champions.

Bill McKinney, $46,800

Geoff Barnes, $44,801

 

It's likely the majority will be made up numerous two game winners over the past year and there are more than a few who stand out:

Dave Bond $51,400 (Bill McKinney defeated him)

James Corson, $70,800. (A given considering he's got more than quite a few of the three game winners who've already qualified as well as Ashley Chan)

Jason Singer, $48,801. (He's already known for becoming the first player to break the longest streak of 1 game Jeopardy winners in history as well as the player Scott Riccardi unseated to begin his epic run. Speaking of…)

Jonathan Hugendubler $63,601. (Defeated Scott Riccardi and to this point in Season 42, no one has won more than his one day total of $40,000)

Dargan Ware, $47,801 (In addition to two impressive wins, was actually ahead of Tom Devlin going into Final Jeopardy for his first win. Tom only won because all three players were incorrect and he risked less money than Dargan.)

 

There are exactly seven more two game winners which in theory would be enough to fill out the bracket. However with so many having relatively low totals I can't rule out the possibility the producers might choose to overlook a couple of them. They certainly have a plethora of one game winners to choose from during last June but there are some from this year who have more of a case:

Vickie Talvola: $26,407 (defeated Steven Olson)

Spencer Janes: $29,000 (defeated TJ Fisher)

Curtis Bogetti: $30,001 (higher one day total then several two-game winners)

Prasad Patil: $35,600 (one of the highest winning totals of Season 42 so far, was leading going into his first defense of the title)

For the record the last time out Adam Hersh was the only one game player admitted to Champions Wild Card with a one day total of $29,000. That could give an edge to any of the last three players I mentioned above.

We will see how accurate I am with my predictions for Champions Wild Card next week. For now it is clear that it is still a very strong field.

If this year's Tournament follows the format of last year, then Scott Riccardi, Laura Faddah and Paolo Pasco will receive byes into the semi-finals. As we saw last year that ended up working out for Adriana Harmeyer and Isaac Hirsch but not Drew Basile. In 2022 it  worked for Amy Schneider but not Matt Amodio or Mattea Roach. I'll deal with speculation when the actual tournament is on the horizon. For now keep enjoying Season 42.