I will confess: until this week I
was unsure if either the Jeopardy Invitational Tournament or the Jeopardy
Masters was going to take place this year as scheduled. The former has quickly
become a highlight of the Jeopardy season for me so I was struck that when the
official listing of the postseason schedule was given last November the JIT was
not mentioned, even though in the previous two years immediately followed the
Tournament of Champions.
Turns out it’s a good news-
slightly less good news situation depending on how fans look at it. Let's start
with the good news part: the Jeopardy Invitational Tournament will take place
immediately following the conclusion of the Tournament of Champions which means
at the absolute latest it will begin the second week in February.
Now the slightly less good news: this
year the producers have altered the format slightly. 'Only' eighteen players
will return to compete this year as opposed to the 27 of the previous two. The
tournament is shifting to a hybrid of the current and previous tournament
forms. There will be six quarterfinal games which will produce six
semi-finalists. However there will also be three wild-card spots for the three highest
scores among non-winners.
This will add a structure to the
Invitational that those of us who missed the 'old-school' format of previous
tournaments (myself among them) will respect. Now there will be a competitive
element to every game even if one person is running away with it in the final.
There will also have to be extra care to wagers in Final Jeopardy that have
been absent from these kinds of tournaments and indeed the majority of tournaments
in the post-Trebek era. There's a possibility this may affect the players who
are not from that era – and as you'll see that's a bigger list than usual.
The other formats remain the same:
the three finalists will compete until one player receives two match points,
winning $150,000 and a trip to the Jeopardy Masters when it happens later this
year – though the when is still unclear.
The lineup is basically following
the rules of the 2025 Jeopardy Invitational: the two runners-up in last year's
Tournament of Champions Adriana Harmeyer and Isaac Hirsch are both participating.
Also present are the fifth and sixth place finishers in last year's Masters
Roger Craig and Matt Amodio. (Isaac of course finished fourth in the Masters
last year.)
Absent from play are Brad Rutter,
which is not surprising and Nilesh Vinjamuri. Nilesh, it's worth remembering,
won last year's Tournament of Champions and wouldn't be competing in the Invitational
either way. However a presence from both the inaugural Masters and Invitational
Tournament will be returning perhaps because Brad is not. Andrew He.
This makes a certain amount of
sense as well, considering the controversy surrounding the fact that Amy
Schneider lost the 2024 Invitational and was nevertheless made a producer's
choice despite that fact. There was a considerable amount of backlash that tainted
a lot of the 2024 Masters as a result and considering that Andrew was also a
finalist perhaps they are making it up to him.
As for the remaining thirteen
invitees the majority are faces that have come from the last few Tournaments of
Champions. This in itself isn't much of a shock considering that in the first
two they invited back quite a few players from the 2023 and 2024 Tournament of Champions.
But there are still quite a few people who have deserved invitations among them
and that are worthy choices. So let's look at them in alphabetical order:
Eric Ahasic
Eric was something of a giant
killer having defeated Ryan Long in his sixteen game run in June of 2022. He
then went on to win six games and $160,601 before Megan Wachspress came from behind
to beat him – and start a six game run of her own.
Eric then managed to narrowly
defeat Jaskaran Singh and Jackie Kelly in arguably the most thrilling
quarterfinal match of the 2022 Tournament of Champions. Despite playing
brilliantly he was trounced by Andrew He in the semifinals and left with
$10,000.
Considering that Ryan along with
everyone he has played against in his original Tournament of Champions
appearance has been invited back in the first two JITs and that he managed to
finish ahead of Mattea Roach in that semi-final loss I think it's well past
time Eric be invited back.
Drew Basile
This is what is known as fair play.
In Season 40 Drew was one of the three biggest winners going into the 2025
Tournament of Champions along with Isaac and Adriana. All three got byes into
the semi-finals. Adriana and Isaac won their games but Drew didn't losing to Neilesh
Vinjamuri, who of course went on to win the Tournament of Champions.
Missed in all of that was that
there was an exhibition game between Adriana Isaac and Drew which oddly enough
Drew managed to win. But Neilesh managed to outwit, outlast…wait that's Drew's previous
appearance. Either way I hope to see if he survives to make it to the end of
the road this time. (I'm sorry.)
Allison Betts
I wrote quite a bit about Alison
during her original run calling her the model of the traditional Jeopardy
Champion. She was the first official five game winner of Season 40 after the
endless postseason winning $121,500 in her original run. However she ended up
losing on a tough final Jeopardy in her quarterfinal appearance to Will
Wallace. Glad to have her back.
Tom Cubbage
If you've been reading my articles
on Jeopardy for a long time you know I've been advocating for Tom to come back
to Jeopardy since 2022. He is clearly
the veteran invited to compete against much of the field with an impressive
postseason record. He is the winner of the first ever College Championship and
still the only one to go on to win the Tournament of Champions. He competed in
Super Jeopardy, the Ultimate Tournament of Champions and the Battle of The
Decades. In the latter he managed to make it to the semi-finals on a wild-card
when he was trounced by – Ken Jennings. He then lost in the semi-finals to –
Brad Rutter.
His original appearance was in
1989 but he is relatively young by the standards of most players from that era:
not even 60 yet. Perhaps we will see another Sam Buttrey in the making?
Karen Farrell
Karen is a significant player for symbolic
reasons to the calendar. She was the last winner of a Jeopardy game during the
2010s and the first winner of a game in the 2020s. That also means she was one
of the last players to have her run under Alex Trebek.
And it was a good one. She was one
of three female contestants to win eight games during the truncated Season 36. (The
two other female winners – Mackenzie Jones and Jennifer Quail – both played in
the 2024 JIT.) Karen won $159,603.
When she appeared in the 2021
Tournament of Champions – the last to be played under the old rules – she won
her quarterfinal match but ended up getting flattened by Steve Kavanaugh en
route to his victory in that year's Tournament. Considering that he was also
extended an invitation to the first JIT it more than fair Karen has come back.
Liz Feltner
When the first and to date only
Jeopardy National College Championship took place in February of 2022, Liz Feltner
was a senior at Northeastern. By luck more than anything (she has a spot on
ZergCam) she made it to the semifinals and then the semifinals. In both cases
she was tied for the lead going into Final Jeopardy; in the latter she had to
advance on a tie-breaker round.
Liz eventually finished third to
Jaskaran Singh. Jaskaran and Raymond Goslow, who finished second, both
participated in last year's Invitational, both making it to the semifinals.
Fair is fair, after all.
Jennifer Giles
I was wondering when she was going
to show up.
If you read my recent series of
articles on winners of the Teachers Tournament you are aware that Jennifer won
the 2015 Teachers Tournament and narrowly missed a spot in the semifinals of the
2015 Tournament of Champions. Considering one of those players she played
against was Matt Jackson, one of the greatest Jeopardy players of all time that
was no small accomplishment.
Jennifer was also a participant in
the Jeopardy All-Star Games in 2019. In the first two Jeopardy Invitationals nearly
every player who participated in them who was eligible has come back. And
considering that there are still personal reasons Julia Collins can't
participate it makes perfect sense to welcome Jennifer back. Actually it makes
more sense because her team got further in the All-Star Games than Julia's did.
It will be interesting to see if she faces off against Roger: the two of them
were on Wild Card Teams in the semi-finals but they never competing against
each other in any round.
Drew Goins
I mean, we did all fall in love
with him last year.
Next to Juveria Zaheer Drew Goins
is the most successful Second Chance Tournament player in history. He won his spot in Champions Wild Card, then
he got all the way to the finals and finished second to Mehal Shah. And then
because of Lisa Ann Walter he got yet another second chance and managed to use
it to run away with a spot in the semi-finals where his luck ran out against
the other Drew and Neilesh Vinjamuri.
No doubt he is hoping to follow in
Juveria's footsteps and get a spot in the Masters this year. But he has big
shoes to fill and a long road. We'll see if it works.
Josh Hill
In February of 2019 Josh Hill was
looking like a force in the upcoming Tournament of Champions. He'd won 7 games
and over $160, 000 in them, and in those days it made you a front runner. Then
one month later James Holzhauer came along and made all Jeopardy players who
came in the year before him look pathetic by comparison
By the 2019 Tournament of Champions
Jeopardy fans were understandably distracted by a lot of other things. Josh had
to face off against Emma Boettcher in her quarterfinal appearance and while he
played brilliantly Emma played better and she made it to the semifinals. Josh
didn't even have a high enough score for a wild card spot and he went home with
$5000.
I might have preferred to see Emma
ahead of Josh but I'm glad Josh is back.
Long
Nyugen
Long is this year's tribute from
Season 40's endless postseason. He managed to win the fourth and last Second
Chance Competition for 2023-2024. He won in what was arguably the biggest
demolitions of any of those tournaments playing excellently. But his luck ran
out in Champions Wild Card. Perhaps he deserves a bonus for having survived
that endless postseason that did so much damage to all of us.
Mehal
Shah
Mehal
won last year's Champions Wild Card which means there's a fair amount of logic
in invited him back: as you'll see below everyone who made it to the finals of
Champions Wild Card in 2025 was granted an Invitation this year. Mehal already has
$146,042 from his original appearance along with another $5000 from last year
and when you consider he managed to run away with the Wild Card I look forward
to seeing him play.
Veronica
Vicht-Vadakan
From the perspective of the
calendar Veronica has a significant place in Jeopardy history: she was the first
Jeopardy champion to have her entire run take place during the 2020s. She won
$89,001 in four games in January of 2020 not long after Karen Farrell's run
ended. Her run in the TOC was actually better than that.
Veronica appeared in the last of
the quarterfinals against Sam Kavanaugh. She was actually ahead of him going into
Final Jeopardy but he was the only one to respond correct. Her final score was
high enough for a wild card spot. She managed to defeat Ryan Bilger and Kevin
Walsh in her semi-final and went on to face Sam and Jennifer Quail in the
finals. It did not go well as she finished a distant third in both final games
and responded incorrectly on both Final Jeopardy's. She left with $50,000.
Considering that Sam and Jennifer
have been invited back its now past time Veronica did.
Will
Yancey
Will wasn't quite as good a Second
Chance Tournament winner as Drew Goins was. That didn't mean he still wasn't
very good. He won his quarterfinal and finished his semi-final victory with
$52,000 one of the highest one game totals in all of Season 41 play.
Unfortunately in the finals against Drew and Mehal, his luck ran out. He
responded incorrectly to Final Jeopardy in Game 1 and he finished in a distant
third in Game 2.
Given the presence of alumni from
the most recent and the inaugural College Championships I still would like to
believe that tournament will be established in some form in the near future.
That said, given recent remarks by the producers of refraining from age
appropriate tournaments as well as the fact college students were often allowed
to compete in regular play throughout Jeopardy's run that remains unlikely. And
given the recent success of players such as Liam Starnes, who was of college
age when he had his original run last year, possibly unnecessary.
I look forward to the Invitational
Tournament but my next official mandate on Jeopardy will be on the 2026
Tournament of Champions. Next Monday my official recap of the quarterfinals
will hit the internet.
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