As Tristan Williams Reaches A Perfect 10 Season 42 of Jeopardy Shows That The Super-Champion Is Back In Business

 

This post-Trebek era of Jeopardy could just as easily be called the era of the super-champion. This became clear in the 2021-2022 season when no less than five Jeopardy players achieved super-champion status. Jonathan Fisher and Ryan Long, great players in any previous era, paled to the incredible achievements of Matt Amodio, Amy Schneider and Mattea Roach among the first class of Jeopardy Masters.

While each season that has followed has produced at least one super-champion and several other great ones for the next three years they didn't grow at the same rate they had in Season 38. There were mitigating factors, the endless postseason of Season 40 and the continuing postseasons of every year since.  I myself was inclined to believe that Season 38 was more of a fluke and we were unlikely to see it again.

However with Season 42 almost three quarters over, like many other Jeopardy watchers, I'm beginning to have second thoughts. Because ever since the eligibility period for the 2027 Tournament of Champions began we've witnessed no less than 3 super-champions dominate the Alex Trebek stage since we've only had 90 regular season games of eligibility in Season 42. And astonishingly nearly two thirds of them have been dominated by three players.

Much of last November was dominated by the play of Harrison Whitaker who won fourteen games and $373,999 before his run ended on December 1^st at the hands of Libby Jones. For six glorious weeks we watched the incredible play of Jamie Ding who spent a calendar month on the Alex Trebek stage finally finishing in fifth place in both games won and money won with 31 wins and $882,605.

And then less eight games after Jamie was defeated by Greg Shahade yet another super-champion has been impressing Jeopardy fans, Tristan Williams who yesterday officially reached double digits with his tenth consecutive win. This one was by far his hardest. He spent much of the Jeopardy round trailing Rose Sloan and for the first time couldn't find a single Daily Double. He didn't have a big lead going into Final Jeopardy but as his been the case when he needed to he responded correctly on the clue and managed his biggest win yet $33,401, officially putting him into super-champion status and over $200,000 with $221,902.

Unofficially super-champion status is 11. Jeopardy has had many incredible 9 game winners over its tenure, most recently TOC finalists Ben Chan and Isaac Hirsch but in a weird quirk no one has won exactly ten games. The unofficial number for a super-champion has always been 11 ever since Arthur Chu managed to set in 2014 and Jonathan Fisher tied back in 2021. So Tristan was going to make one kind of history or another on Wednesday's game: the question was what kind.

There were signs from the start of the Jeopardy round against Allegra Rosenberg and Chris D'Angelo that this was not going to be Tristan's day. Chris, who we learned in his interview was the inspiration for the Emmy winning movie Quiz Lady (he and Awkwafina don't run in the same circles, he assured Ken) took the lead early in the round. However Tristan moved into second place and found the Daily Double in BIBLE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN THE QURAN. With $2600 to risk he bet $1600:

A tafsir, or commentary, says this royal 'set forth from her country and reached Jerusalem. There was a pause. Tristan guessed: "Who is Esther?" I knew it was actually the Queen of Sheba (don't ask me how). He dropped to $1000. Tristan finished the Jeopardy round with $4400 to Chris's $8000 while Allegra trailed with $2000.

Chris and Tristan went back and forth in Double Jeopardy with correct response but Tristan could catch Chris. His best chance came when he got to the first Daily Double in WE'VE GOT YOUR BACK. He wagered $3500:

From Greek for narrowing, spinal this occurs when the space inside the backbone is to small for the nerves, and ouch.

Again a long pause. He finally guessed: "What is compression?" It was actually stenosis. He dropped to $8500. He never got close to Chris again in large part because Allegra got to the other Daily Double ahead of him even though she got it wrong.

Both Chris and Tristan managed 20 correct responses. However Tristan got 6 wrong to Chris's 3. And because two of them were Daily Doubles he finished with $9700 to Chris's $12,800 while Allegra had $1400.

It would turn out to be a moot point because of how Final Jeopardy went.  Tristan had gotten four of his first six Final Jeopardys incorrect but had gotten the last four correct. He'd always gotten it right when he needed to. Today would prove wrong.

The Final Jeopardy category was THE 20^TH CENTURY. 51 days after this event, Edward Teller said the United States had lost 'a battle more important & greater then Pearl Harbor."

Allegra's response was first. She wrote down Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That was incorrect and she dropped to $201.

Next came Tristan. He wrote down: "What is the fall of Saigon?" It was not. It cost him $3101, leaving him with $6599.

It came down to Chris. He wrote down the Tet Offense, then crossed it out and wrote down: "What is Sputnik Launch?" And that was the correct response. Chris added $6601 to his total giving him $19,401 and making him a new champion.

So Tristan has become the first ten game winner in Jeopardy history which no doubt means the super-champion mark from now own will start with Tristan rather than Arthur or Jonathan. His final total of $221,902 is impressive but it is lacking compared to some of players who won fewer games. I speak not just of Roger Craig but also Larissa Kelly, who also won more money in six games then Tristan did in 10. Indeed he won less money in ten games than Hannah Wilson did in eight $229,801 and Ben Chan did in 9 ($252,600)

However after 10 wins Tristan does compare well with  other Jeopardy players who won more games. It's actually worth a comparison with some of the more famous super-champion after 10 appearances:

 

Tristan Williams: $221,902

Ryan Long: $183,301

Adriana Harmeyer: $225,700

Mattea Roach: $227,601

Jonathan Fisher: $230,100

Seth Wilson: $231,801

Julia Collins: $220,610

 

I think that's pretty close to the kind of super-champion Tristan was during his run. He'd runaway with games but never by much; had a mixed track record with Daily Doubles and was never dominant in his appearances the way Harrison or Jamie were.  He was getting 20, maybe 22 correct responses a game and never got enormous payoffs the way that so many super-champions did (whereas many of the ones he compares favorably with did not)

I still don't know when the 2027 Tournament of Champions will occur. Tristan's defeat means that only five players have officially qualified and only two others (both 3 game winners) have unofficially done so. There are only a little more than two months left before the end of Season 42 and its hard to imagine the show getting even three or four players for the next TOC by the end of the season.

What does seem relatively certain is that the three players who are guaranteed byes into the semi-final have been locked down. With Harrison, Jamie and now Tristan each reaching super-champion status its very difficult to imagine a player managing to win eleven games in the next two months or the first three months of Season 42. But then again Adriana Harmeyer began her run in June of 2024 and Scott Riccardi dominated the last three weeks of Season 41, so again anything is possible. I didn't think we'd see a super-champion this soon after Jamie Ding lost and we just said goodbye to Tristan.

What we know is that Tristan can now lay claim to having done something no players has done in all the years since Ken Jennings set the bar. His streak was anything but a perfect 10 but its still ten impressive wins and over $22,000 a victory.

I'll be back when the next Jeopardy champion arises. Which may be next week. At this point, nothing would surprise me.