On Tuesday we reached the
culmination, as Alex would eloquently put it, of this year's Masters. For
Yogesh Raut and Victoria Groce this was all too familiar territory as they had
each been in the finals for the last two years. For Andrew it was uncharted
territory as he entered them for the first time.
As viewers know this guarantees
all three players a return to the 2027 Jeopardy Masters, which for Andrew, who
just missed that opportunity in the very first one, is a big deal for him.
However it put him in territory that Yogesh and Victoria were all too familiar
with: a two game total point affair with the winner going home with $500,000
and the Trebek trophy. Alex himself had
once stated, the player in a distant third at the end of the first game often
came back to win the whole thing. Victoria came to learn that lesson all too
well last year as she went from having a lead at the end of Game 1 to ending up
losing to Yogesh and finishing in third behind Juveria.
In both the quarterfinals and the
semi-finals Victoria had been in first on the leaderboard but that had been
just as true the last year. More importantly in the last several games momentum
seemed to be heading in Andrew's direction. Indeed in the semifinals he'd come
from behind in the last two games he'd place to jump past Yogesh and finish
second on the leaderboard. And Andrew had a long history of beating Jeopardy
Masters in the past, something that this year alone last year's Masters Matt
Amodio and Roger Craig had already learned and that Juveria Zaheer had
witnessed in the last quarterfinal match.
How was it going to play out?
Game 1
In the Jeopardy round Yogesh got
off to a lead early and had 7200 points. So when Victoria found the Daily
Double late in the round in the category A TRIP TO THE VALLEY she really had
little choice but to bet the 2400 points she had. It didn't go well:
It's home to the Timbisha
Shoshone Valley at Furnace Creek.
She clearly guessed: "What
is Sun Valley?" It was actually Death Valley. (For the record I knew this
at home.) Victoria actually went into the red briefly before finished the
Jeopardy round at 400 points. Andrew was next with 3400. Yogesh was in the lead
with 7800.
In Double Jeopardy Victoria began
to turn things around quickly. She was helped when she found the first Daily
Double in the category that always appears in these tournaments and that
Masters all dread: BEFORE, DURING & AFTER. Victoria had prominently not
picked from that category first but when she got there with 5200 points she
wagered 1200. Trust me, she was about to earn them:
Innate response urging a choice
of melee or escape into a buzzy Rimsky-Korsakov piece with a can of albacore.
"What is fight of Flight of
the Bumblebee Tuna?" She really deserved to get up to 6400 points.
Yogesh continued to the build his
lead but Victoria got to the other Daily Double in THE PRE-MUSKETEERS. She had
8000 points to Yogesh's 15,400. This time she felt she had to bet everything:
With a name meaning 'new soldier'
these elite Ottoman troops were early adopters of gunpowder weapons.
Victoria took a long pause: Who
are the janissaries?" She went into
the lead with 16,000.
The rest of the round was a back
and forth between Yogesh and Victoria for the lead with Andrew making gains on
a few errors Victoria made in BEFORE, DURING AND AFTER. Yogesh finished with a
narrow lead over Victoria: 19,800 points to Victoria' 18,800 while Andrew was
in third with 7800.
The Final Jeopardy category for
Game 1 was THE INTERNET.
In the wake of a recent tech boom
this territory now gets nearly 50 percent of its revenue from domain names
sales.
All three knew the correct
territory: "What is Anguilla?" It's domain abbreviation is .ai and
those two letters have become very important in the last few years. (I wrote
down what was the Caymans.)
Andrew bet 7777, putting him at
15,577 points. Victoria bet nothing. Yogesh bet 10,000 points.
At the end of Game 1 Yogesh led
with 29,200 points to Victoria's 18,800 and Andrew's 15,577. It was within
reach for all three.
Game 2
In the Jeopardy round of Game 2
Victoria got to the Daily Double on the third clue and bet the 1000 points she
had in THE 20TH CENTURY:
The breakup of Czechoslovakia
into Slovakia and the Czech Republic is called this, playing on the name of a
1989 event.
She knew it was the Velvet
Divorce and doubled her score. It would be another back and forth between
Victoria and Yogesh for the lead and at the end of the round she had it with
6200 points to Yogesh's 5600 and Andrew's 1400.
In Double Jeopardy Victoria
maintained her lead throughout the round. Andrew got his best chance when he
found the first Daily Double in QUASI-RELATED PAIRS. This is another old
standard for Jeopardy tournaments but its clues were even tougher then usual.
Andrew had no choice but to bet the 4600 points he had but it was a killer:
'A Valediction: Forbidden
Mourning' Poet and wiped with a swifter."
Andrew was stumped (as was I).
The poet is John Donne. So what's the quasi-related pair: Donne and dusted.
Andrew was pretty much out of it
for the rest of the game. Yogesh managed to gain some ground and found the
last Daily Double in the entire
tournament in FOE-POURRI. He had 10,000 points so he decided to 'split it down
the middle' and bet 5000:
In 1959 his scathing review of
B.F. Skinner's 'Verbal Behavior' was a seminal moment in cognitive science.
He figured it out: "Who was
Chomsky?"
The lead kept going back and
forth and because an incorrect response by Yogesh was ruled correct at the end
of the Round he had the narrowest of leads going into Final Jeopardy 19,000
points to Victoria's 18,600. Andrew had just 2800.
The tournament came down to Final
Jeopardy. The category was SUPREME COURT DECISIONS:
This 1944 decision frequently
sites Hirabayashi v. United States decided 18 months earlier and upholding a
conviction for violating curfew.
Andrew chose not to take it
seriously. What is Ken vs. Us at Wrestle?' He was planning to right
WrestleMania. (I think we'd all like to see that.) It cost Andrew everything.
And since he was in third place at the end of Game 1 that was where he would
finish.
Victoria was next: She had the
right idea: "What is Takamatsu vs. U.S." She wagered 4400. That left
her with 14,200. Her two game total was now 33,000 points.
It all came down to Yogesh. He
had: "What is Korematsu?" And that was the right name associated with
the infamous decision to intern the Japanese during WWII. He wagered 7201. That
gave him 26,201. His two game total was now 55,401 and as a result he
deservedly won his second consecutive Jeopardy Masters earning another $500,000
and a charitable donation of $100,000 to Direct Relief. Victoria finished in
second and received another $250,000. Andrew received $150,000.
We will see all three of them in
next year's Masters and all deserved it.
SUMMARY
First let's look and see how
after this year's Masters where five of
the participants stand on the all-time winnings list. (Long Nguyen who has only
won a total of $165,000 in his tournaments
has a bit of ways to go.)
Juveria Zaheer - $541,000 (18th
place – her sixth place finish moved her ahead of Scott Riccardi)
Paolo Pasco – $648,717 – (14th Place – his fourth place
finished moved him ahead of Matt Jackson)
Andrew He - $684,365 – the $150,000 he earned officially put him in
thirteenth ahead of Larissa Kelley
Victoria Groce - $1,023,801 ($250,000
second prize moves her into the seventh place
Yogesh Raut - $1,598, 403 (still
in sixth place but closing in on Amy Schneider and Matt Amodio)
The 2026 Jeopardy Masters was the
most thrilling yet for many reasons.
First it was by far the most
balanced to this point. Every single Master scored at least one win in the
quarterfinals, the first time that has ever happened. As a result it wasn't
until the last set of quarterfinal games that the final four were set in stone.
We also saw remarkable comebacks
at every level. Andrew was at the bottom of the leaderboard after his first
four appearances and then managed in his last two games to make it to the
semi-finals. He then did the same in the semi-finals. And Yogesh, who himself
thought he was on the cusp of going home in his last appearance managed to eke
his way in and then have a superb performance to win his second consecutive win
in Jeopardy Masters.
At this point Yogesh Raut and
Victoria Groce are beginning a rivalry very close to the one Ken Jennings and
Brad Rutter had over fourteen years of postseason competition. And it's a far
more balanced one as the two of them have finished one-two in every quarterfinals
of the Masters they've been fighting in and they've managed a fairly even split
over three years.
This year's Masters was also
wonderful because of the personalities and the clear bonds between all six
players. There's clearly a huge amount of mutual respect and friendship between
all six going into this one, as well as part of the community as a whole. And
at this point there's a certain amount of lovability and charm with the six we
saw this year. It was particularly true of Juveria Zaheer and newcomer Long
Nguyen, who finished fifth on the leaderboards and first in the hearts of
millions. Either one has become nearly as endearing as original Master Sam
Buttrey both in terms of sheer skill and endearing to us. I hope we see the two
of them in next year's Invitational.
We had just as much joy watching
Paolo whose had arguably the most remarkable rise of any Jeopardy player in a
long time. In less than a calendar year he's gone from seven game champion to
TOC winner to one of the winningest players in Jeopardy history. And the way he
seemed to understand his own flaws throughout made us love him all the more.
I'm not sure if he'll come back to the Invitational next year (Nilesh Vinjamuri
who won the 2025 TOC and participated in the Masters didn't) but he'll be back
in some form and I look forward to it.
That joy even spread to how they
are signing in on their contest boards. Andrew was by far the most versatile
throughout the Masters (Ken pointed it out) but we saw it with all six with
Yogesh writing a question mark at one point and adopted an aegis formation
later on. Creativity with their signatures isn't itself a great thing but it
makes it clear that they are enjoying themselves as much as the fan is watching
them.
The Jeopardy Masters was a superb
way to remind us how much we loved Jeopardy just as the new season is about to
begin this Monday. I'll be back this weekend with a refresher course to remind
you about what's to come in Season 43.
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