The quarterfinals are now done; here is Masters Breakdown #6! Here are some thoughts going into the semifinals:
1) Victoria
Victoria has dominated the run of play in all of her games in the first two rounds, picking up 54% of her buzzer attempts and average 25 correct per game. While she’s only 2-for-6 in Final, she still won 5 of her 6 games. While she was #1 in the quarters, the points reset to 0 in the semis; she might need to improve her record in Final Jeopardy in order to make sure she advances to the finals.
2) Yogesh
Yogesh finished the quarterfinals in the #2 position, picking up 10 points. Of the four semifinalists, he’s only 3-for-4 on Daily doubles, but he had the second-best overall Coryat of 94,200. Finding more Daily Doubles will absolutely help his chances of making it to May 22.
3) James
James finishing third in the quarterfinals is absolutely a surprise to a great number of fans at this point; that said, he was consistently outplayed by both Victoria and Yogesh. If things break the wrong way at the wrong time for James, he could be the player relegated after Monday.
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4) Amy
Amy and Victoria were the only two players not to miss a Daily Double in the opening games. While her buzzer timing left something to be desired—she finished the opening games at just 39%—it certainly means there’s room for improvement. I’d like to see her make the final.
5) Mattea
Unfortunately, Mattea’s Masters journey has ended; they were in last place in both buzzer timing, Daily Double %age, and Final Jeopardy %age, but they did get one victory in this competition to keep them out of sixth. With the quality of play waiting in the next Jeopardy! Invitational Tournament, I fear that this might be the last we see of Mattea on the Jeopardy Masters stage.
6) Matt
While Matt had a moral victory in the respect that he was the only player to go 6-for-6 in Final, he gave 16 incorrect responses in the tournament and was unable to win any games. I don’t want my next statement to be seen as a criticism—because there’s somewhere around a million and a half reasons why it’s not—but I get the sense that Matt reached his peak in regular play and hasn’t quite been able to replicate that in later tournaments. (Though, again, to be fair, Matt took better advantage of that peak better than anyone else in the history of the show.)
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Semifinals, Game #1 Preview:
Game 1:
| Player | Win % | Second % | Third % |
| Victoria Groce (10-3) | 34.752% | 33.208% | 32.040% |
| Yogesh Raut (11-7) | 22.959% | 38.733% | 38.308% |
| James Holzhauer (48-9) | 42.289% | 28.059% | 29.652% |
I’m not going to give predictions for Game 2, as the prediction model would like to have the game data for Game 1. That said, as has been the case for most of the event, it slightly favors James—but the variance at this level basically means that anyone can win any time out; this one will come down to the vagaries of the Daily Doubles and Final Jeopardy.
What do you think will happen in the second round?
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The semis will be very interesting!
I think as long as James is able to finish second in the majority of his games, he should be in very good position for the finals. Amy is also an incredible player, but James has been able to keep pace with Victoria, Yogesh, or both – whether that be in raw score or buzzer timing – much better than Amy has, and given how she has to face a combination of two of Victoria, Yogesh, and James in every single game, I think she’d be VERY LUCKY to emerge with any points going into the fourth semifinal, especially considering the struggles she’s had on the buzzer thus far.
To me? The most likely outcome is Victoria and Yogesh comfortably claiming their spots, while James does just enough to claim the third, be it through tiebreakers or something else. Realistically, though, at this point, all I care about at this point is James making the finals. Even if he finishes in the red both days of the finals, I’ll still be perfectly fine with it. I just want to see him continue to be able to play in Masters after this tournament. Fingers crossed!
I think the semifinals will play out similar to how the quarterfinals did for these four. I would not be surprised to see Amy make the final, though!
I think we see a stronger bout from James than we saw in the Quarterfinals. From what we saw in the QFs Yogesh and Victoria’s trivia knowledge set against each other helps to neutralize their largest advantage on the rest of the competition. I wouldn’t imagine we see much from Amy though I wouldn’t be surprised to see her grab a point or two from an overbet or a miss in FJ.
I think Amy will be eliminated, and will miss Matt’s comebacks in the semis
I do not understand what “the player relegated after Monday” means.
That means they finish fourth and will be eliminated and not qualify for the finals.
Can you please explain why the format of paring 6 down to 4 and then to 3? Why not pare the 6 down to the top 3 finishers and just let them do a regular 2-day tournament? I assume this is a mathematical function of having every combo of players in round 1, but it’s just too long. With regular Jeopardy it’s an hour-and-a-half of programming 3x/week. It feels like Jeopardy milking things before it implodes. Kind of like when Southpark went to every day instead of once a week. It just makes it… less of an event.
Going from 6 to 4 to 3, with scores resetting to 0, basically increases the number of games that “matter”. If you just went from 6 to 3, especially this season, you might see a number of dead rubbers at the end of the quarterfinals—especially if Victoria, Yogesh, and James ended up pulling far enough ahead. Instead, the semifinals make things more dramatic overall. I do recall, though, that this was basically ABC’s wishes here.