Thoughts on the ToC Quarterfinals
Thrilling competition. History made. Time to raise the stakes again.
We’ve whittled the twenty-seven qualifiers in the 2024 Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions down to nine semifinalists. As a quick refresher, here are the matchups for the next round:
Thursday, March 7: Jared Watson vs. Ben Chan vs. Ike Barinholtz
Friday, March 8: David Sibley vs. Yogesh Raut vs. Emily Sands
Monday, March 11: Luigi de Guzman vs. Troy Meyer vs. Brian Henegar
At first glance, it might seem that the middle lectern will have the Midas touch here. Chan and Meyer restored some semblance of order after a turbulent first seven quarterfinals, and Raut racked up $26,800 in his own without finding a Daily Double. But Sands and Watson both posted runaways in theirs — the latter over 21-time champion Cris Pannullo. De Guzman and Barinholtz took advantage of Final misses by the end-of-Double leaders in their games; Sibley cemented his win by converting a layup of a Final Jeopardy! from the lead; and Henegar survived a Double Stumper in his Final by virtue of just barely having a crush position over Josh Saak.1 Any one of these nine players is capable of advancing to the final series — especially if the Daily Doubles happen to fall their way, whether they convert them or their opponents miss them.
In contrast to any previous Tournament of Champions, all nine semifinalists had to win their way into this round. They’re all extensively battle tested. None will be a pushover at this stage.
Unprecedented, and barely precedented
Unprecedented in a Tournament of Champions is three players not making it to Final Jeopardy — Suresh Krishnan in QF1, Stephen Webb in QF6, and Emmett Stanton in QF8. In the entire previous history of the syndicated show, it had happened eleven times in 305 total ToC games.2
I think this is mainly down to players feeling they need to play more aggressively, especially from behind. You see this especially in the cases of Krishnan and Stanton, both of whom zeroed out on a Daily Double in the mid-stage of Double Jeopardy!, and couldn’t mount a charge back. Webb, on the other hand, actually got a Daily Double correct early in his Double Jeopardy! round — but it was right after dropping $3,600 by missing consecutive clues. He was only above $0 for one of the sixty clues in the two main rounds; as Henegar and Saak pulled away from him, Webb surely felt he had to take some swings.
This is the way that game play has shifted in the last five years, exemplified particularly by The Greatest of All Time in 2020 (where all but one of the Daily Double wagers was for the maximum amount) and last year’s Masters. In pursuit of those high rewards, high risks have to be chanced — including perhaps the highest one for anyone stepping onto the Alex Trebek Stage, not being able to stick around to play the last clue.
Barely precedented is four of the top five seeds playing in the quarterfinals being eliminated. It has happened once before — in 2022, when Ryan Long, Jonathan Fisher, Brian Chang, and Courtney Shah all exited at the first hurdle; only Eric Ahasic successfully surmounted it.3 This time around, Ben Chan was the only survivor among the top five. Previously, three of the top five seeds had gone out in the quarters on five occasions — 1985, 1991, 1992, 2007, and 2019.
Aggressive play factors in here too, but I think more important is the elimination of the traditional wildcards (aka advancing the four highest scoring non-winners). I didn’t go back through all of the first twenty-nine ToCs to determine how many of the top five seeds in each advanced to the semifinals by wildcard — but without that safety net there, it certainly stands to reason that more high seeds would fall early, given that the quarterfinal round now eliminates two-thirds of all participants, as opposed to only two-fifths traditionally. Throw in the additional factor of players going hard on preparation and perhaps even scouting each other – heck, Emily Sands admitted to trying to game the official statistics provided by the show – and a “Tournament of Chaos,” as some have labeled this edition, becomes more understandable and likely. Indeed, the previously unexpected should be quite anticipated in future editions, not to mention in the rest of this one.
My thoughts on “tournament fatigue” at this point
I understand the dissatisfaction full well. I even sympathize with it, as someone who isn’t the hottest on the Davies Plan. But I want to recapitulate some things I said last week on Twitter.
At this point, the complaint is like crying over spilled milk. All of the tournaments, including the Invitational, have been taped. They’re going to air. Your registration of displeasure won’t somehow will time travel into existence and allow you to stop those tapings.
Nor can you warp back to last summer and change the call Davo made on how to wait out the WGA strike. Everything since December 19, all the shows with players returning from last season, is game play we would have gotten anyway at the start of the season, with the “JIT” following in February. Since that date, the complaint in a sense has been moot. I maintain that regular play was feasible in that interim, I would have preferred that route, and Davies bears full and sole responsibility for the negative feedback the show has incurred (and even acknowledged on this week’s episode of “Inside Jeopardy!,” as did Ken in a recent interview with USA Today). But the call was his to make, and we have to live with the aftermath.
If you’re really so burnt out on tournaments, you might be better served by taking a month off from Jeopardy! and returning when regular play resumes. You’ll miss out on some extremely high-level and exciting play, but maybe that’s what you need.
That being said, the objections raised constitute a significant chunk of opinion in the community, and I think it’s unbecoming of its prominent members to contemptuously dismiss them out of hand — to say nothing of attempting to suppress them. Stick your fingers in your ears and wall yourself off from them if you like. Scream “you don’t care about Jeopardy!’s future!” or anything else. But the disapproval still exists, and will despite the countermeasures. As Sara Bareilles sings in the refrain of “Eden”: “no way to make the pain play fair, it doesn’t disappear just because you say it isn’t there.”
A new podcast enters the space!
Tuesday marked the release of the debut episode of “What Is… a Jeopardy! Podcast?,” hosted by comedians Emily Heller and John Cullen. It came to my attention because it was granted an Official Seal of Approval by Claire McNear. A line from the trailer piqued my attention and interest.4 And the first episode, covering the first six ToC quarterfinals, is outstanding. Syntactic Reversal is also most pleased to grant “What Is… a Jeopardy! Podcast?” its blessing. Find it on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and follow on Twitter [at]jeopardypodcast.
Until next time, whenever that is…
The ToC is passing through Carolina Reaper territory, headed toward Pepper X; by the final, it may reach levels that Ed Currie can only dream of. Make no assumptions, and prepare for anything. Game on!
Questions? Concerns? Assertions of purported authority? The comments below are open. Follow me on Twitter [at]mfc248 for live Jeopardy! Tweets in the 7:00 pm Eastern half-hour most nights. For those on Bluesky, mfc248.bsky.social. I’m also [at]mattcarberry on Instagram and Threads, though I don’t use the latter much.
As it happens, I missed Final in QF3 (“B-2,” while a fighter plane, is close but no cigar), but got “Suriname” in QF7.
Twice in 1987 (both semifinals) and in 2003 (both quarterfinals); once each in 1985 (quarterfinal), 1986 (semifinal), 1996 (semifinal), 2006 (quarterfinal), 2007 (quarterfinal), 2014 (quarterfinal), and 2022 (quarterfinal).
Recall that the top three seeds in the 2022 ToC – Amy Schneider, Matt Amodio, and Mattea Roach – had byes into the semifinals. Thus, the 4 through 8 seeds were the five highest playing.
“Do you think ‘Inside Jeopardy!’ is gonna touch that with a ten foot d**k?”