What Is This?
Welcome to a new segment here that I’m titling Masters Breakdown, where I give my thoughts on the Jeopardy! Masters tournament the morning after an episode.
Last Night’s Results Were Foreseen
Yes, the prediction model had James at 46% to win last night’s opener. However, that does not make Yogesh’s win completely unexpected. Both Yogesh and Victoria are entering Masters at the top of their respective games, and the Daily Doubles add a lot of variance. James will rebound, but he’s definitely going to have a much harder time this year if he’s going to win. And Victoria has done nothing but play like one of the top Jeopardy! players ever since returning to the stage in JIT.
Both Of These Things Can Be True — And The Fandom May Find It Tough To Comprehend This
Both of the following can be true: 1) The sixth-best current player should be in Masters; 2) The sixth-best current player will not have an easy time. Certainly, a case can be made that Amy Schneider is in the six best current Jeopardy! players. Moreover, anyone not in the “top 3″—and after night 1, it seems to be clear that the “top 3” are Victoria, Yogesh, and James—is going to have a hard time making a deep run in this tournament.
Why am I bringing this up? I suspect that a lot of people are going to point to this performance as some sort of “proof” that Amy doesn’t belong in Masters. And I would like to reiterate that I completely do not believe this to be the case. Amy had the best resume of anyone not in the field, with 40 regular-season wins and a second-place finish in the JIT. And yes, that does mean that the lower-tier Masters players may yo-yo between playing the JIT, Masters, and being a “Producer’s Pick”. To me, this is acceptable, and an inherent part of the format and the pyramid.
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The Scheduler Has Done Amy No Favors, Though
There is a definite possibility that Amy Schneider is going to finish Monday’s episode on 0 points, as, for the second year running, Amy seems to been put on the wrong end of the random draw. While she’s managed to avoid James this time out, she’s been drawn in with Victoria and Yogesh—two winners who are both playing extremely well right now. I don’t know if we’re going to see a Mattea–Matt–Amy matchup in these quarterfinals, but I’m sure that Amy would like to see either of them at the podiums beside her at this point.
Matt’s Sticking To His Strategy
Matt Amodio’s Masters strategy has very much been “high risk, high reward”—and it worked to get him into last year’s finals. That seemed to continue last night, with the missed Daily Double hurting his chances significantly. (In the alternate universe where Matt gets DD2 correct, Victoria’s betting situation on DD3 would have been very interesting.) I know it can be frustrating for Matt’s fans, because it seems like he’s out of contention so much of the time. But I think he’s doing what he needs to in order to make a deep run in the event—biding his time, picking his spots, and he’ll be in position to make the finals at the end.
Will Mattea Catch Lightning In A Bottle Again?
Mattea got off to a slow start, missing the first Daily Double and finishing in second place in the opening match. The prediction model also isn’t hot on their chances—Mattea is currently being given less than a 10% chance of winning the tournament. They may need to make some adjustments in order to find the magic that brought them so close to victory last year.
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Match Day 2 on Monday
The pairings for Match Day 2 on Monday—as I hinted to above—are:
Game 1: James – Mattea – Matt
Game 2: Victoria – Yogesh – Amy
Here’s how the prediction model breaks it down:
Game 1:
| Player | Win % | Second % | Third % |
| James Holzhauer | 47.501% | 26.736% | 25.763% |
| Mattea Roach | 20.477% | 38.597% | 40.926% |
| Matt Amodio | 32.022% | 34.667% | 33.311% |
Game 2:
| Player | Win % | Second % | Third % |
| Victoria Groce | 38.461% | 29.289% | 32.250% |
| Yogesh Raut | 31.705% | 36.162% | 32.133% |
| Amy Schneider | 29.834% | 34.549% | 35.617% |
I would definitely say that James and Victoria, the way they’ve been playing, are probably the most likely to win. I’m not going to go as far as to call this a “must-win” game for Mattea, Matt, or Amy at this point, but they’re definitely going to be entering into “must-win” territory soon.
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This makes me feel a little better about how last night went, thank you!
For the most part, I agree with everything that has been said here. The only thing that gives me pause is the following sentence in the Matt Amodio section – “But I think he’s doing what he needs to in order to make a deep run in the event—biding his time, picking his spots, and he’ll be in position to make the finals at the end.” I’m not entirely sure what you mean by this; would you mind elaborating a little bit?
For how both of these games ended I was surprised to come away feeling the tournament is wide open and no one cemented themselves as the favorite. Had Matt correctly answered that DD there is a good chance he would have won the game (given his sole correct FJ answer). The second game felt closer than the score indicated as well but I can’t quite put my finger on why that is.
I wanted to add another thought I had. The results of the second game make me think James followed what he said he would do and took a long break from trivia and practicing for Jeopardy. I would imagine we see a large improvement in his gameplay through the running of this event and can guarantee we will see him in Masters (I was not at any tapings this is just my opinion).
That is a very good point; I did not think about that!
1) Well… maybe. Matt would’ve been at 16,800 if he got that right, but that still would’ve left him barely in contention against 31,600. And that’s assuming Victoria still leaves 13,200 points on the table on DD3, which I don’t think she would have. She would have likely just adjusted her bet there and had a runaway anyway, although Matt would have still gotten second place. (For the first time in his entire Jeopardy career!)
2) James’ -2,800 and Yogesh’s +9,395 on Daily Doubles made it seem far apart, but in reality, James and Yogesh were more or less even on the buzzer the entire game (Yogesh got in first 23 times, while James got in first 20), whereas Victoria’s buzzer dominance was very apparent throughout all of Double Jeopardy.
I thought Mattea seemed like they didn’t have their buzzer skills “down”. [I mean based on watching them, not based on stats.]
I wasn’t expecting 2 runaways in these opening games. Monday should be very interesting, especially Game 2 with the Victoria/Yogesh matchup of JIT and ToC winners.
I noticed that this year they’re not revealing where the DD’s are. Any opinions on them not doing that this season. I kind of liked it last year, in getting to see how close a player was to a DD and then veering off of that category.
I had forgotten about the “DD advance reveal” so did not miss it. However, now that you mention it, I recall enjoying it as you did.
Hi Lisa,
Kind of interesting that they didn’t keep it. Perhaps got a bad response or simply chose not to do it again? Who really knows, but it’s definitely not something I’d want to see in a “normal” Jeopardy game.