The 2021 Tournament of Champions Is Happening Next Month

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threearruda
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Re: The 2021 Tournament of Champions Is Happening This Month

Post by threearruda »

MarkBarrett wrote: Sat May 08, 2021 7:17 pm
QF2: Karen with 8 wins looks like she is in a good position against the college champ and a 3xer who only got in due to unfortunate circumstances. I see it differently as Karen is the most likely of the three 8xers to get bounced early. Nibir got better as he went along his tournament and Steve can play without the pressure that others might feel.

I recently got bored and ranked the players as you do - came out almost identical. Seems pretty cut and dry in terms of pre-tourney, on-paper data this year. I'll predict Jennifer to win the whole thing.

As a counterpoint to your QF2 prediction, TJF has Karen's first-in buzzer stat as 43% (Nibir also around 43%). MacKenzie's is 33% (Ben at 40%). Who knows if buzzer advantages of the past will be the same in this particular environment, but those numbers are hard to ignore, IMO. Now the counterpoint to that counterpoint is that MacKenzie came through repeatedly in pressure situations - just as the guy who will be reading the clues did...

In any event best of retro-luck to everyone, can't wait!
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Re: The 2021 Tournament of Champions Is Happening Next Month

Post by seaborgium »

MinnesotaMyron wrote: Sun May 09, 2021 2:12 am I was poking around my LearnedLeague stats, and I discovered I had a tied-up record against one ZuffranieriJ, courtesy of a much smaller LL back in those days.

Image

I thought that was pretty cool.
I played against him eight times from LL54 to LL67, and have a 4-2-2 record against him.
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Re: The 2021 Tournament of Champions Is Happening Next Month

Post by cubeexpert42 »

Here's a preview video uploaded by the official YouTube account:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkqsFUAMpcU
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Re: The 2021 Tournament of Champions Is Happening Next Month

Post by Philliesfan02 »

I decided to calculate the first in on buzzer without including triple stumpers where nobody rang in:

Jason: 50.29%
Jennifer: 49.17%
Nibir: 45.97%
Karen: 45.22%
Kevin: 44.63%
Ben: 42.59%
Ryan B: 41.26%
Steve: 40.20%
MacKenzie: 38.60%
Sam: 35.95%
Andy: 35.88%
Veronica: 35.74%
Ryan H: 35.32%
Paul: 34.68%
Sarah: 30.16%
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Re: The 2021 Tournament of Champions Is Happening Next Month

Post by JyV92 »

jeopardyfan939 wrote: Thu Apr 15, 2021 2:38 pm

Potentially unpopular opinion, but I think that's probably for the best. We've pretty much seen the best of the Trebek era already, and we've seen them compete in these kinds of tournaments several times at this point. I think the GOAT tournament and this last Trebek-era tournament should close the deal on that. There's a reason we didn't see Fleming era contestants compete in these best-of tournaments (with the exception of Burns Cameron).
I'd say the other reason we didn't see any former Champions from the Art Fleming era is because the original series lasted until 1975, and its revival was short-lived as it only ran from 1978-79. The current syndicated version began in 1984 and will still be going for a considerable amount of time, even though there will be a new host next season. In other words, it has been continuous even after Alex died. So I wouldn't see a problem with TBTP airing a special tournament featuring James, Brad, and 13 other former champions from the later Trebek era, all of whom made their initial appearances on the program between Ken's original run and the 2019 ToC. And the most recent special tournament from the Trebek era (the All-Star Games), TPTB didn't bring back former champions from the 80s and 90s (e.g. Chuck Forrest, Frank Spangenberg, Jerome Vered, Eddie Timanus) as they were well past their prime.
I think it wasn’t so much that as they were going for a younger demographic. Many of us still play and compete in various fora and we do just fine. I don’t know that we weren’t brought back because we were past our prime. I think the producers wanted to highlight more recent winners. And except for Ken Brad and Pam, no one had been on Ultimate tournament. And several had not been on battle of the decades.

But there was very little on those boards that Chuck or Frank or Eddie or I could not have gotten. And I can’t speak for the others or Bob Verini or Bob Harris or fruits or many others, but they do keep up quite a bit.
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Re: The 2021 Tournament of Champions Is Happening Next Month

Post by squarekara »

JyV92 wrote: Thu May 20, 2021 6:26 pm
jeopardyfan939 wrote: Thu Apr 15, 2021 2:38 pm

Potentially unpopular opinion, but I think that's probably for the best. We've pretty much seen the best of the Trebek era already, and we've seen them compete in these kinds of tournaments several times at this point.
And the most recent special tournament from the Trebek era (the All-Star Games), TPTB didn't bring back former champions from the 80s and 90s (e.g. Chuck Forrest, Frank Spangenberg, Jerome Vered, Eddie Timanus) as they were well past their prime.
Many of us still play and compete in various fora and we do just fine. I don’t know that we weren’t brought back because we were past our prime.

But there was very little on those boards that Chuck or Frank or Eddie or I could not have gotten. And I can’t speak for the others or Bob Verini or Bob Harris or fruits or many others, but they do keep up quite a bit.
Last time I was in Santa Monica, Jerome's team beat the snot out of us.
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Re: The 2021 Tournament of Champions Is Happening Next Month

Post by hansenkd »

I noticed they finally added John Focht to the tracker on the official site. Unbelievable that nobody has hit four wins since then. The way regular play has been going lately, it will be a LONG time before the next ToC.
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Re: The 2021 Tournament of Champions Is Happening Next Month

Post by finishemzoe »

hansenkd wrote: Fri May 21, 2021 9:13 am I noticed they finally added John Focht to the tracker on the official site. Unbelievable that nobody has hit four wins since then. The way regular play has been going lately, it will be a LONG time before the next ToC.
They might also just include some 3x winners if they can't fill up the field in a certain amount of time, like Kelly Donohue and Lucy Ricketts. Though with the controversy surrounding Kelly, idk how willing they'd actually be to include him. Lucy technically beats his amount if you include consolation prizes too.
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Re: The 2021 Tournament of Champions Is Happening Next Month

Post by brucejoel199 »

finishemzoe wrote: Fri May 21, 2021 12:50 pm
hansenkd wrote: Fri May 21, 2021 9:13 am I noticed they finally added John Focht to the tracker on the official site. Unbelievable that nobody has hit four wins since then. The way regular play has been going lately, it will be a LONG time before the next ToC.
They might also just include some 3x winners if they can't fill up the field in a certain amount of time, like Kelly Donohue and Lucy Ricketts. Though with the controversy surrounding Kelly, idk how willing they'd actually be to include him. Lucy technically beats his amount if you include consolation prizes too.
Somebody can correct me if I'm wrong here, but I don't believe that TPTB do that when calculating who the highest-earning winners - &, thus, the seeds - among equal-win champs are. That is, champs with an equal number of wins are ranked only by the amount of money which they won in the games which they won, & the consolation prizes which they were awarded in their final game don't come into play insofar as ranks are concerned.

In any event, though, I just can't imagine that TPTB would actually be willing to exclude Kelly in the event that they felt very ready to lock the next ToC & he happened to be final seed. Yes, they have a morality clause for contestants' potential future ToC appearances in that they could not invite someone back for any reason or for no reason at all, but IIRC from a ToC'ers (I wanna say it was Sam K.) comment in an r/Jeopardy thread on this matter a while back, they only apply it in the case of an actual crime (e.g., Slowik obviously not being invited to the 2014 ToC). Moreover, even the ADL said after reviewing the tape that Kelly's action was no more than what he claimed that it'd been - waving 1 finger when Johnny said he was a 1-day champ, 2 fingers when Johnny said he was a 2-day champ, & 3 fingers when Johnny said he was a 3-day champ; yes, awkwardly so, what with the folding of his index & forefingers as opposed to the presumably easier raising of the index, middle, & ring fingers while holding the thumb to the little finger, but it still wasn't even identical to the actual "OK" sign which white supremacists have appropriated (& he presumably would've just waved 4 fingers had he came back the next day too) - & not interpretable as "indicative of any ideology," so given the obvious absence of an actual crime here, I'd be very surprised to see the same TPTB that stuck with Ken through "bean dad" & Dr. Oz through, well, being Dr. Oz opt to not invite Kelly back were he to have otherwise earned himself a spot in the next ToC for what basically amounted to an overblown internet "controversy."
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Re: The 2021 Tournament of Champions Is Happening Next Month

Post by finishemzoe »

brucejoel199 wrote: Fri May 21, 2021 3:36 pm
finishemzoe wrote: Fri May 21, 2021 12:50 pm
hansenkd wrote: Fri May 21, 2021 9:13 am I noticed they finally added John Focht to the tracker on the official site. Unbelievable that nobody has hit four wins since then. The way regular play has been going lately, it will be a LONG time before the next ToC.
They might also just include some 3x winners if they can't fill up the field in a certain amount of time, like Kelly Donohue and Lucy Ricketts. Though with the controversy surrounding Kelly, idk how willing they'd actually be to include him. Lucy technically beats his amount if you include consolation prizes too.
Somebody can correct me if I'm wrong here, but I don't believe that TPTB do that when calculating who the highest-earning winners - &, thus, the seeds - among equal-win champs are. That is, champs with an equal number of wins are ranked only by the amount of money which they won in the games which they won, & the consolation prizes which they were awarded in their final game don't come into play insofar as ranks are concerned.

In any event, though, I just can't imagine that TPTB would actually be willing to exclude Kelly in the event that they felt very ready to lock the next ToC & he happened to be final seed. Yes, they have a morality clause for contestants' potential future ToC appearances in that they could not invite someone back for any reason or for no reason at all, but IIRC from a ToC'ers (I wanna say it was Sam K.) comment in an r/Jeopardy thread on this matter a while back, they only apply it in the case of an actual crime (e.g., Slowik obviously not being invited to the 2014 ToC). Moreover, even the ADL said after reviewing the tape that Kelly's action was no more than what he claimed that it'd been - waving 1 finger when Johnny said he was a 1-day champ, 2 fingers when Johnny said he was a 2-day champ, & 3 fingers when Johnny said he was a 3-day champ; yes, awkwardly so, what with the folding of his index & forefingers as opposed to the presumably easier raising of the index, middle, & ring fingers while holding the thumb to the little finger, but it still wasn't even identical to the actual "OK" sign which white supremacists have appropriated (& he presumably would've just waved 4 fingers had he came back the next day too) - & not interpretable as "indicative of any ideology," so given the obvious absence of an actual crime here, I'd be very surprised to see the same TPTB that stuck with Ken through "bean dad" & Dr. Oz through, well, being Dr. Oz opt to not invite Kelly back were he to have otherwise earned himself a spot in the next ToC for what basically amounted to an overblown internet "controversy."
I don't believe they'd do it either. I currently keep track of the Jeopardy all-time leaderboard, and I've never included consolation or any kind of second-place finisher in a regular game or tournament, unless they qualified for the annual TOC in any capacity, of course. I just wasn't sure how they'd do it.

Nah don't get me wrong, I don't personally believe Kelly deserves to be excluded based on a Twitter theory. I also don't think those supremacists who have appropriated the OK symbol deserve any sort of legitimacy. It was more of a point such that I don't know how far the writers are willing to move the goal post to include or exclude certain people from the tournament, mainly just because of their choices in the past decade or so (Emma instead of Ryan B./Dave L., Mark Japinga instead of Jerry Slowik, Steve Moulds to replace Brayden, etc.). I also don't know how long this champion drought will be, which leads to the question of how many 4x+ winners and tournament winners will actually qualify before they end the cycle, in which they may need to fill the last slot or two with a 3x winner.
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Re: The 2021 Tournament of Champions Is Happening Next Month

Post by gameshowfandanny »

Semifinal matchups:
May 24: Sam/Karen/Ryan H
May 25: Ryan B/Veronica/Kevin
May 26: Jennifer/Jason/Nibir
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Re: The 2021 Tournament of Champions Is Happening Next Month

Post by yclept »

finishemzoe wrote: Fri May 21, 2021 8:22 pm
brucejoel199 wrote: Fri May 21, 2021 3:36 pm
finishemzoe wrote: Fri May 21, 2021 12:50 pm
hansenkd wrote: Fri May 21, 2021 9:13 am I noticed they finally added John Focht to the tracker on the official site. Unbelievable that nobody has hit four wins since then. The way regular play has been going lately, it will be a LONG time before the next ToC.
They might also just include some 3x winners if they can't fill up the field in a certain amount of time, like Kelly Donohue and Lucy Ricketts. Though with the controversy surrounding Kelly, idk how willing they'd actually be to include him. Lucy technically beats his amount if you include consolation prizes too.
Somebody can correct me if I'm wrong here, but I don't believe that TPTB do that when calculating who the highest-earning winners - &, thus, the seeds - among equal-win champs are. That is, champs with an equal number of wins are ranked only by the amount of money which they won in the games which they won, & the consolation prizes which they were awarded in their final game don't come into play insofar as ranks are concerned.

In any event, though, I just can't imagine that TPTB would actually be willing to exclude Kelly in the event that they felt very ready to lock the next ToC & he happened to be final seed. Yes, they have a morality clause for contestants' potential future ToC appearances in that they could not invite someone back for any reason or for no reason at all, but IIRC from a ToC'ers (I wanna say it was Sam K.) comment in an r/Jeopardy thread on this matter a while back, they only apply it in the case of an actual crime (e.g., Slowik obviously not being invited to the 2014 ToC). Moreover, even the ADL said after reviewing the tape that Kelly's action was no more than what he claimed that it'd been - waving 1 finger when Johnny said he was a 1-day champ, 2 fingers when Johnny said he was a 2-day champ, & 3 fingers when Johnny said he was a 3-day champ; yes, awkwardly so, what with the folding of his index & forefingers as opposed to the presumably easier raising of the index, middle, & ring fingers while holding the thumb to the little finger, but it still wasn't even identical to the actual "OK" sign which white supremacists have appropriated (& he presumably would've just waved 4 fingers had he came back the next day too) - & not interpretable as "indicative of any ideology," so given the obvious absence of an actual crime here, I'd be very surprised to see the same TPTB that stuck with Ken through "bean dad" & Dr. Oz through, well, being Dr. Oz opt to not invite Kelly back were he to have otherwise earned himself a spot in the next ToC for what basically amounted to an overblown internet "controversy."
I don't believe they'd do it either. I currently keep track of the Jeopardy all-time leaderboard, and I've never included consolation or any kind of second-place finisher in a regular game or tournament, unless they qualified for the annual TOC in any capacity, of course. I just wasn't sure how they'd do it.

Nah don't get me wrong, I don't personally believe Kelly deserves to be excluded based on a Twitter theory. I also don't think those supremacists who have appropriated the OK symbol deserve any sort of legitimacy. It was more of a point such that I don't know how far the writers are willing to move the goal post to include or exclude certain people from the tournament, mainly just because of their choices in the past decade or so (Emma instead of Ryan B./Dave L., Mark Japinga instead of Jerry Slowik, Steve Moulds to replace Brayden, etc.). I also don't know how long this champion drought will be, which leads to the question of how many 4x+ winners and tournament winners will actually qualify before they end the cycle, in which they may need to fill the last slot or two with a 3x winner.
Hmmmm...any explanations ever given about Dave L, a 4-timer with over $100K, was indeed never brought in for a TOC? Seems he would have easily qualified if not for Emma. As long as there isn’t a legal reason why, I think he has a legitimate gripe...regardless of the fine print.

Of course, Emma was entered for ratings and Jeopardy got what they wanted with the rematch. Given that TPTB can indeed invite whoever the heck they please, I always wondered about Roger Craig. He set the record in Game 2, going over $100,000 for two days. Do they make an exception for him if he loses Game 3 or Game 4? Seems like they likely don’t take him as a two day champ, regardless of his record performance...but they could have.
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Re: The 2021 Tournament of Champions Is Happening Next Month

Post by finishemzoe »

yclept wrote: Mon May 24, 2021 10:34 am
finishemzoe wrote: Fri May 21, 2021 8:22 pm
brucejoel199 wrote: Fri May 21, 2021 3:36 pm
finishemzoe wrote: Fri May 21, 2021 12:50 pm
hansenkd wrote: Fri May 21, 2021 9:13 am I noticed they finally added John Focht to the tracker on the official site. Unbelievable that nobody has hit four wins since then. The way regular play has been going lately, it will be a LONG time before the next ToC.
They might also just include some 3x winners if they can't fill up the field in a certain amount of time, like Kelly Donohue and Lucy Ricketts. Though with the controversy surrounding Kelly, idk how willing they'd actually be to include him. Lucy technically beats his amount if you include consolation prizes too.
Somebody can correct me if I'm wrong here, but I don't believe that TPTB do that when calculating who the highest-earning winners - &, thus, the seeds - among equal-win champs are. That is, champs with an equal number of wins are ranked only by the amount of money which they won in the games which they won, & the consolation prizes which they were awarded in their final game don't come into play insofar as ranks are concerned.

In any event, though, I just can't imagine that TPTB would actually be willing to exclude Kelly in the event that they felt very ready to lock the next ToC & he happened to be final seed. Yes, they have a morality clause for contestants' potential future ToC appearances in that they could not invite someone back for any reason or for no reason at all, but IIRC from a ToC'ers (I wanna say it was Sam K.) comment in an r/Jeopardy thread on this matter a while back, they only apply it in the case of an actual crime (e.g., Slowik obviously not being invited to the 2014 ToC). Moreover, even the ADL said after reviewing the tape that Kelly's action was no more than what he claimed that it'd been - waving 1 finger when Johnny said he was a 1-day champ, 2 fingers when Johnny said he was a 2-day champ, & 3 fingers when Johnny said he was a 3-day champ; yes, awkwardly so, what with the folding of his index & forefingers as opposed to the presumably easier raising of the index, middle, & ring fingers while holding the thumb to the little finger, but it still wasn't even identical to the actual "OK" sign which white supremacists have appropriated (& he presumably would've just waved 4 fingers had he came back the next day too) - & not interpretable as "indicative of any ideology," so given the obvious absence of an actual crime here, I'd be very surprised to see the same TPTB that stuck with Ken through "bean dad" & Dr. Oz through, well, being Dr. Oz opt to not invite Kelly back were he to have otherwise earned himself a spot in the next ToC for what basically amounted to an overblown internet "controversy."
I don't believe they'd do it either. I currently keep track of the Jeopardy all-time leaderboard, and I've never included consolation or any kind of second-place finisher in a regular game or tournament, unless they qualified for the annual TOC in any capacity, of course. I just wasn't sure how they'd do it.

Nah don't get me wrong, I don't personally believe Kelly deserves to be excluded based on a Twitter theory. I also don't think those supremacists who have appropriated the OK symbol deserve any sort of legitimacy. It was more of a point such that I don't know how far the writers are willing to move the goal post to include or exclude certain people from the tournament, mainly just because of their choices in the past decade or so (Emma instead of Ryan B./Dave L., Mark Japinga instead of Jerry Slowik, Steve Moulds to replace Brayden, etc.). I also don't know how long this champion drought will be, which leads to the question of how many 4x+ winners and tournament winners will actually qualify before they end the cycle, in which they may need to fill the last slot or two with a 3x winner.
Hmmmm...any explanations ever given about Dave L, a 4-timer with over $100K, was indeed never brought in for a TOC? Seems he would have easily qualified if not for Emma. As long as there isn’t a legal reason why, I think he has a legitimate gripe...regardless of the fine print.

Of course, Emma was entered for ratings and Jeopardy got what they wanted with the rematch. Given that TPTB can indeed invite whoever the heck they please, I always wondered about Roger Craig. He set the record in Game 2, going over $100,000 for two days. Do they make an exception for him if he loses Game 3 or Game 4? Seems like they likely don’t take him as a two day champ, regardless of his record performance...but they could have.
Ryan Bilger was the alternate for 2019, so he technically would have gotten the last spot (Larry Martin's vacant spot) if they hadn't made a grand exception for Emma. With that being said, I still don't really buy that decision either, because why would they have Sam and Ryan compete in separate tournaments, especially with how adamant they are about a potential rematch between Brian Chang and Zach Newkirk? A lot of people, myself included, speculated that Zach could get the vacant spot held for Brayden, but they gave it to Steve.

I really think they should have just used Ryan and Sam as holdovers for the 2021 TOC, which they did anyway, and made Dave Leffler the alternate, thus giving him a chance to compete in 2021. That's just my opinion though, I simply think that whole thing could have been handled better. But it is what it is.
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Re: The 2021 Tournament of Champions Is Happening Next Month

Post by brucejoel199 »

finishemzoe wrote: Mon May 24, 2021 11:25 am
yclept wrote: Mon May 24, 2021 10:34 am
finishemzoe wrote: Fri May 21, 2021 8:22 pm
brucejoel199 wrote: Fri May 21, 2021 3:36 pm
finishemzoe wrote: Fri May 21, 2021 12:50 pm

They might also just include some 3x winners if they can't fill up the field in a certain amount of time, like Kelly Donohue and Lucy Ricketts. Though with the controversy surrounding Kelly, idk how willing they'd actually be to include him. Lucy technically beats his amount if you include consolation prizes too.
Somebody can correct me if I'm wrong here, but I don't believe that TPTB do that when calculating who the highest-earning winners - &, thus, the seeds - among equal-win champs are. That is, champs with an equal number of wins are ranked only by the amount of money which they won in the games which they won, & the consolation prizes which they were awarded in their final game don't come into play insofar as ranks are concerned.

In any event, though, I just can't imagine that TPTB would actually be willing to exclude Kelly in the event that they felt very ready to lock the next ToC & he happened to be final seed. Yes, they have a morality clause for contestants' potential future ToC appearances in that they could not invite someone back for any reason or for no reason at all, but IIRC from a ToC'ers (I wanna say it was Sam K.) comment in an r/Jeopardy thread on this matter a while back, they only apply it in the case of an actual crime (e.g., Slowik obviously not being invited to the 2014 ToC). Moreover, even the ADL said after reviewing the tape that Kelly's action was no more than what he claimed that it'd been - waving 1 finger when Johnny said he was a 1-day champ, 2 fingers when Johnny said he was a 2-day champ, & 3 fingers when Johnny said he was a 3-day champ; yes, awkwardly so, what with the folding of his index & forefingers as opposed to the presumably easier raising of the index, middle, & ring fingers while holding the thumb to the little finger, but it still wasn't even identical to the actual "OK" sign which white supremacists have appropriated (& he presumably would've just waved 4 fingers had he came back the next day too) - & not interpretable as "indicative of any ideology," so given the obvious absence of an actual crime here, I'd be very surprised to see the same TPTB that stuck with Ken through "bean dad" & Dr. Oz through, well, being Dr. Oz opt to not invite Kelly back were he to have otherwise earned himself a spot in the next ToC for what basically amounted to an overblown internet "controversy."
I don't believe they'd do it either. I currently keep track of the Jeopardy all-time leaderboard, and I've never included consolation or any kind of second-place finisher in a regular game or tournament, unless they qualified for the annual TOC in any capacity, of course. I just wasn't sure how they'd do it.

Nah don't get me wrong, I don't personally believe Kelly deserves to be excluded based on a Twitter theory. I also don't think those supremacists who have appropriated the OK symbol deserve any sort of legitimacy. It was more of a point such that I don't know how far the writers are willing to move the goal post to include or exclude certain people from the tournament, mainly just because of their choices in the past decade or so (Emma instead of Ryan B./Dave L., Mark Japinga instead of Jerry Slowik, Steve Moulds to replace Brayden, etc.). I also don't know how long this champion drought will be, which leads to the question of how many 4x+ winners and tournament winners will actually qualify before they end the cycle, in which they may need to fill the last slot or two with a 3x winner.
Hmmmm...any explanations ever given about Dave L, a 4-timer with over $100K, was indeed never brought in for a TOC? Seems he would have easily qualified if not for Emma. As long as there isn’t a legal reason why, I think he has a legitimate gripe...regardless of the fine print.

Of course, Emma was entered for ratings and Jeopardy got what they wanted with the rematch. Given that TPTB can indeed invite whoever the heck they please, I always wondered about Roger Craig. He set the record in Game 2, going over $100,000 for two days. Do they make an exception for him if he loses Game 3 or Game 4? Seems like they likely don’t take him as a two day champ, regardless of his record performance...but they could have.
Ryan Bilger was the alternate for 2019, so he technically would have gotten the last spot (Larry Martin's vacant spot) if they hadn't made a grand exception for Emma. With that being said, I still don't really buy that decision either, because why would they have Sam and Ryan compete in separate tournaments, especially with how adamant they are about a potential rematch between Brian Chang and Zach Newkirk? A lot of people, myself included, speculated that Zach could get the vacant spot held for Brayden, but they gave it to Steve.

I really think they should have just used Ryan and Sam as holdovers for the 2021 TOC, which they did anyway, and made Dave Leffler the alternate, thus giving him a chance to compete in 2021. That's just my opinion though, I simply think that whole thing could have been handled better. But it is what it is.
I mean, to be fair to Ryan & TPTB, Ryan's final game not only aired on the same day - Jul. 10th, 2019 - that TPTB put out the 2019 ToC announcement, but had already aired in at least market or 2 before TPTB even put out said announcement, so given that Ryan's final game appears to have served as the 2019 ToC's cut-off, there's not really a standard-based argument to be made as to why he - as the highest-winning 4-day champ who, but for Emma's inclusion in the 2019 ToC, would've participated therein - shouldn't have been the 2019 alternate & then the Emma-instigated holdover for 2021, as at the end of the day, him being such was/is completely in-line with the show's criteria on this matter.
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Re: The 2021 Tournament of Champions Is Happening Next Month

Post by hansenkd »

The fact that the last 4x+ winner happened during Ken's run (which seems distant at this point) has to be somewhat concerning to TPTB. It may speak to the value of consistency in hosting. And increase the urgency of naming a permanent host.
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