Changes are coming to Jeopardy! Masters, whose third season premieres on ABC on April 30, 2025 at 9:00 PM Eastern, as announced today.
The biggest change is that nine players will be competing instead of six. Joining returnees Victoria Groce and Yogesh Raut are the three finalists from the 2025 Tournament of Champions (Adriana Harmeyer, Isaac Hirsch, and Neilesh Vinjamuri), the three finalists from the 2025 Jeopardy Invitational Tournament (Matt Amodio, Juveria Zaheer, and Roger Craig), and Brad Rutter, making his first appearance on the Alex Trebek Stage since the 2020 Greatest of All Time tournament.
It is currently presumed that James Holzhauer has elected to take a sabbatical, though no information on this front is public at this time.
My friends over at Geeks Who Drink have introduced a daily trivia game—Thrice! Existing to make daily clever trivia content accessible to a wide audience, it's a daily challenge that tries to get you to the answer via three separate clues. It has a shareable score functionality to challenge your friends and new questions every day will give you a new daily social ritual. You can find it at thricegame.com.
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The Format
This season of Jeopardy! Masters will be contested over nine hour-long episodes. Three players will be eliminated after a 3-episode “knockout round”, two more after a 3-episode “quarter-final” round, which will bring us to 4 players in a 2-episode semifinal round and a 3-player 2-game total-point final similar to Seasons 1 & 2. According to The Futon Critic, the series will be airing weekly on Wednesdays.
Editorially, I think I have to come out in favor of this updated format. It will force the overall winner of the event to be consistently strong over the nine weeks—a cold start could leave a player in danger of being eliminated early. Moreover, I think it will cause players to emphasize winning games again and betting aggressively in Final Jeopardy to win games, with there being fewer games to recover from a loss.
The Schedule
According to ABC’s press release, the opening episode on April 30 will feature Victoria Groce, Yogesh Raut, and Brad Rutter in Game 1 with Matt Amodio, Roger Craig, and Juveria Zaheer in Game 2. This presumably leaves Neilesh Vinjamuri, Isaac Hirsch, and Adriana Harmeyer to compete in Game 3 on May 7.
According to the Unified Prediction Model here on the site: Game 1 gives Victoria a 40% chance of winning, Yogesh 32%, and Brad 28%. Game 2 gives Matt a 36% chance of winning, Roger 35%, and Juveria 29%, while Game 3 has Neilesh with a 40% chance of winning, Isaac 32%, and Adriana 28%.
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Player Rankings
Here is how the Unified Prediction Model ranks the nine players in the field, by Adjusted Performance Mean:
- Victoria Groce, 21489
- Yogesh Raut, 19658
- Matt Amodio, 17153
- Brad Rutter, 16304
- Roger Craig, 15521
- Neilesh Vinjamuri, 14418
- Juveria Zaheer, 13892
- Isaac Hirsch, 13033
- Adriana Harmeyer, 12240
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Wow – just wow. Just reviewed the participant list. I think this is going to be an AMAZING tournament.
I eagerly await the details!!
MasterDoge! Hello!!
Any comments
Well… I’m not sure how well my brain is working at the moment, so I’m just going to set fingers to keys and hope the result is somewhat presentable. 🙂
More than anything, what I’m most ecstatic for is the inclusion of Juveria – going from a third-place finish in one’s first game of Jeopardy to competing in Masters (which also premiered the day of said third-place finish) less than two years later is absolutely remarkable. Juveria is also, as I’ve alluded to in the past, one of the kindest/most caring people I have ever met, and I could not be happier to see such an incredible postseason run happen to just as incredible a human.
For as much flak as Brad gets nowadays after the GOAT tournament, this tournament is probably the best opportunity for redemption that could exist! I know I’ll certainly be looking forward to it – I was either not watching the show or flat-out not alive during most of Brad’s prime, so the only times I actually got to see him play “live” (by which I mean, not on a rerun) were the All-Star Games (where he only played one round at a time) and GOAT (where… yeah).
While I like the idea of expanding the field from six players to nine, I do think it’s absolutely crucial that the show is transparent about the format, because right now, I’m trying to rack my brain to see how the current format could possibly work with nine players – and not succeeding. Hopefully that information is released sooner rather than later, but considering how long it took for ABC to release the format for both the first Masters (in 2023) and the National College Championship (in 2022), I’m not holding my breath.
Speaking of transparency, I have already seen comments spreading on Twitter and Instagram that all follow the common theme of “Where’s James????”, but some in a significantly more entitled (if that’s the right word?) way – and while I understand how disappointing it is that he’s not participating (I’m disappointed, too, to be honest), I agree with Andy that the fandom needs to chill out when it comes to bugging the show for information about contestant absences. Unless the show or James himself chooses to release a statement regarding his absence (even if it’s just a blanket statement from the show like “unfortunately, he declined this year, but we’d love to have him back in the future”), I’m choosing not to look for details, and I don’t think the rest of the fandom should look for details, either.
I think that is everything I have to say regarding the tournament right now – I can’t wait!!!!
MasterDoge!
Thanks for the detailed and thoughtful analysis.
I love this field. I’m thrilled that Juveria made it in, and as a huge Weird Al fan, I;ve liked Isaac since his first game. I can’t argue with Adriana being included, and when a friend of mine asked me after the Invitational Tournament who I thought the “Producer’s Pick” would be, I immediately said Roger’s name. And I’ve liked Brad since his initial run, especially considering he’d never lost a game (or multi-episode tournament final) to a human until the GOAT tournament, including multiple wins against the GOAT himself. I’m hoping he’s studied the modern game since that tournament, though, because I think that was his downfall.
As much as I love all of these “wildcards”, I’m hoping the expansion of the tournament doesn’t dilute the exclusivity of the Masters tournament. That said, despite my concerns, I’d struggle to name which three I’d choose to leave out of the field.
I’m definitely looking forward to this. “Bring it!”
“I’m hoping he’s studied the modern game since that tournament, though, because I think that was his downfall.”
I think he has studied it! He actually found the most Daily Doubles of the three players in the entire GOAT tournament (he found 10 of the 24 available, to Ken’s 8 and James’ 6). The big thing there, other than his being the only player to miss more than one Daily Double (he missed six, as a matter of fact) was not being able to find his buzzer mojo, which is more a product of Ken and James being absolutely fantastic and collectively dominating on the signaling device the entire tournament (throughout the tournament – per Andy’s stats – James buzzed in first about 40% of the time, Ken just a smidge less, but Brad only got in first about 17% of the time) than anything to do with Brad. In a world where Brad is successfully able to find his mojo again, I think he’s got a good enough grasp on modern strategy to be very competitive in the tournament!
I’d think a lot of the reason for 9 instead of 6 and maybe even for leaving out James (even if his choice) is to make sure they don’t have mostly the same people every year, which would presumably dampen ratings (which are made up of far more than the biggest fans). Then next year (or whenever, hopefully soon) they can announce JAMES IS BACK!
Also, [I think coincidentally, not the reason for his absence] some people [rrreeaally] don’t like James, so if it is well known that he is not playing, it might attract some people to watch who otherwise would have “boycotted” and they might develop a new favorite that they would watch for in subsequent years even if James is on again.
To all!
Any idea when more intel on the upcoming Masters Tournament will be forthcoming?
Thanks.
Format has been released:
https://www.jeopardy.com/jbuzz/news-events/how-2025-jeopardy-masters-works
Matt! Thanks so much!!
My guess is that from now on, they’re planning on three Masters finalists this year, three TOC finalists from next year, and three JIT finalists from next year. They had big shoes to fill with James missing, obviously, so I think replacing him with the best possible choice this year was crucial… and I think Brad matches that descriptor.
The other four possible picks I would have gone with are:
David Madden, Cris Pannullo, Larissa Kelly, and Emma Boettcher.
Hello.
The intel that I was referring to in my earlier comment was about the format for the Tournament.
The wiki you posted from is not a reputable source; I’ve removed the comment so that others are not misled.
Andy – thanks so much for the clarification. I wasn’t sure if it was reputable or trustworthy and was absolutely not promoting it.
I read this site regularly. Do you have any info on the Masters Tournament format?
I have absolutely no knowledge of the format, but here’s what I would do if it were up to me:
A twelve-game round robin in which each player plays four games and faces each other player exactly once. Like previous years, three points are awarded for first-place and one for second-place.
Two two-game total point semifinals: one featuring the first-, fifth- and sixth-place finishers of the round robin, and one featuring the second-, third- and fourth-place finishers.
A two-game total point final. That makes eighteen games for a total of nine episodes, just like season two.
Another option would be to give the first-place round robin finisher a bye into the final, let the seventh-place finisher into the semis and give the two semifinal winners the last two spots in the final.
I have absolutely no knowledge of the format, but here’s what I would do if it were up to me:
A twelve-game round robin in which each player plays four games and faces each other player exactly once. Like previous years, three points are awarded for first-place and one for second-place.
Two two-game total point semifinals: one featuring the first-, fifth- and sixth-place finishers of the round robin, and one featuring the second-, third- and fourth-place finishers.
A two-game total point final. That makes eighteen games for a total of nine episodes, just like season two.
Another option would be to give the first-place round robin finisher a bye into the final, let the seventh-place finisher into the semis and give the two semifinal winners the last two spots in the final.
Andy! Thanks so much for the format update.