You’re going to get another chance to see many of your recent favourites again on Jeopardy!.
Executive Producer Michael Davies announced today in a post on Jeopardy.com that a second chance tournament will be preceding the 2022 Tournament of Champions, and that tournament will feed at least one more player into the 2022 Tournament.
In this post, Davies also speaks of a few other items. Firstly, the champion of the currently-running Jeopardy! National College Championship will be in the 2022 Tournament. Secondly, the 4th placed player from the Jeopardy! National College Championship will be invited to this tournament, so that their career does not end without a loss. Thirdly, this Second Chance Tournament will be restricted to only those who have played since the cutoff for the most recent Tournament of Champions.
Davies is also planning on a Jeopardy! Book Club.
Editorially: I think that this is an absolutely stellar idea. Davies has not ruled out bringing other popular contestants from the past that the show thinks should get a second chance, and I look forward to seeing that as well. Davies’ specifically addressing the JNCC format issue was also welcome (Davies said specifically, “It’s an imperfect solution that resulted from necessary changes to the original tournament format and the fixed number of hours we were committed to deliver.”)
Which recent contestants would you like to see again? Leave a comment!
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I’d like to see Molly Karol, Do Park, Rowan Ward, and Pam Schoenberg return!
I think Jack Weller should come back as well after losing to Brian Chang on a tiebreaker.
Great idea and Jessica Stephens is a clear choice.
I have a few questions about who might qualify. Is it only for players who never won a game or could it also include some who won a game (or two) but then lost a close one? And does “close” mean close final total or could it also include some who played well but missed Final Jeopardy so ended up with hardly any money?
Also, during Amy’s run of 40 wins she was so dominant there were only a 1 or 2 close games so they may have to dig deep to fill out the field.
And just think, Amy herself almost didn’t win her first game. It was only because Andrew missed FJ – the island Alexander Hamilton was buried on (Manhattan) – that we got to see her phenomenal run.
I always wondered what Josh Saak might’ve been able to do if Matt hadn’t narrowly defeated him in Matt’s first win. I’d love to see Josh get a second chance.
I see that some others believe this will be limited to people who’ve have a single appearance on Jeopardy and lost. I don’t see that in Michael Davies’s post, but I guess it could make sense. Wait and see, I suppose.
Well, “2nd chance” is also used to mean “another chance”, but I feel it should only apply to someone who had only had one chance. For example Amy had 41 chances and “came through” on 40 of them.
I’m guessing there will be plenty of (losing) contestants to chose from who had a high percentage of correct answers and even a high number of correct answers or lost by only a few dollars. However, the people who I wish could get another chance were those who were up against champions with extremely high “first to buzz” skills. I feel their number of correct responses were thus artificially low and even their % of incorrect responses artificially high (because each one they got incorrect must have been an extremely difficult answer — or extra tricky — otherwise the superchamp would’ve probably won the buzz-off on that one, too). But between Matt Amodio and Amy Schneider that would be over 150 possible contestants!
I seem to recall reading here lately that Jeopardy! had begun recording (or began publishing) the buzzer speed(?) of the contestants who did buzz in but just didn’t manage to be first. If true, that could be a good indicator that certain losing contestants at least thought they actually knew a lot of answers — used in combination with their % correct, that might indicate worthy “2nd Chance” contestants.
I’d love to see Josh Saak get a second chance as well. I’ve been saying that for months anyway.
My thinking is that the Second Chance Tournament on Jeopardy! will consist of the eight or nine highest winners among 3-time champions and any 4-time champions who fell short or are in danger of being cut from the TofC field of 15.
If you read the article from the show that this linked to, you’d already know this isn’t going to be the case. Neither of the two instances specifically mentioned by the show—Jessica Stephens and whomever finishes 4th in JNCC—falls under this criteria.
I think this is a flaming brilliant idea! I’m eager to see the selection criteria!
I have to assume that the next ToC will be set when there are enough contestants for that tournament.
This means that the Second-Chance tournament, which will evidently supply the 15th contestant for the aforementioned ToC, must be filled up in whatever way is possible at that point. Thus there has to be some built-in subjectivity by the producers in choosing the contestants.
The next ToC has already been confirmed to air in November 2022.
What happens if there are more than 15 eligible contestants at that point?
My thought too AG. Maybe we can infer from this there won’t be another 5 time winner in the next three months, or however far out they are with the tapings. Eight people currently have 5 or more wins. The Professor’s Tournament winner is #9, the College winner is #10. I guess the show is very comfortable that there will be at least one slot in the TOC available for the Second Chance Tournament.
Or maybe there is another Amy on the horizon who is going to take up 40 shows. That would be awesome.
Once the show gets to 15 eligible contestants, anyone else who reaches 5 wins before this November’s TOC will just be entered into the following one in November 2023. Good to hear Davies mention that he prefers seeing TOCs every November like the show originally used to do, instead of the odd 15-18 month gaps that have happened between them recently.
This is a brilliant idea and definitely worth seeing. I would love to see whoever can fill up the spot for the next toc which airs november 2022 and hopefully anyone who had 3 games or so won would take that spot. Maybe a college student could defihnitely be in this tourney as well. Dave leffler could also be on here since he missed the cutoff and maybe Tim Kutz or Justin Bender
Here are some others I’d like to see:
Tracy Pitzel (20 right, 2 wrong, $18.0K Coryat) from game 24
From the Professor Tournament, semifinalist J.P.Allen (20 right, 1 wrong, $15.8k Coryat) who lost to eventual champion Sam Buttrey.
(Admin Note: This suggestion was truncated to avoid deadnaming a contestant who was already suggested in this comment section.)