Instead of putting out 10 recaps for ESPN Jeopardy!, which I don’t think is what the overall viewership is looking for—the type of person who comes to the site looking for that sort of content for regular play isn’t going to be doing that for ESPN Jeopardy!—I’ve decided to put out an editorial highlighting what I think is important from the series and what I think can be taken forward from these games.
Warning: This does obviously contain spoilers for the full set of 10 episodes.
The “Final Standings”:
These are an unofficial ranking of the 18 players; players eliminated in the semifinals and quarterfinals are ranked by the number of correct responses, including Final Jeopardy, in that part of the competition only.
- Jeremy Schaap ($500,000 for the International Sports and Music Project)
- Kyle Brandt ($100,000 for the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network)
- Jon Hamm ($100,000 for the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital)
- Peter Schrager, 33 correct responses in semifinals ($50,000 to Baby Quest Foundation)
- Kevin Negandhi, 20 ($50,000 to Connecticut Children’s Foundation)
- Keegan-Michael Key, 15 ($50,000 to Motion Picture & Television Fund)
- Jay Harris, 14 ($50,000 to Boys and Girls Club of America)
- Domonique Foxworth, 14 ($50,000 to Baltimore Education Scholarship Trust Inc.)
- Madelyn Burke, 12 ($50,000 to Room to Grow)
- Kimberly A. Martin, 13 correct responses in quarterfinals ($30,000 to YAI)
- Hannah Storm, 13 ($30,000 to Hannah Storm Foundation)
- Omar Raja, 12 ($30,000 to Humanity First USA)
- Adam Pally, 12 ($30,000 to NAMI)
- MJ Acosta-Ruiz, 11 ($30,000 to Health in the Hood)
- Amina Smith, 11 ($30,000 to The Dinner Table Doc)
- Christine Williamson, 9 ($30,000 to Hillsborough Education Foundation)
- Jamie Erdahl, 9 ($30,000 to American Heart Association)
- Manti Te’o, 8 ($30,000 to Lāhui Foundation)
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Are you going on the show and looking for information about how to bet in Final Jeopardy? Check out my Betting Strategy 101 page. If you want to learn how to bet in two-day finals, check out Betting Strategy 102. In case the show uses a tournament with wild cards in the future, there is also a strategy page for betting in tournament quarterfinals.
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Yes, The Triple Stumper Count In Game 4 Is A Record
The 43 Triple Stumpers in Quarterfinal #4 (the equivalent of 28.67 Triple Stumpers in a 60-clue game) is certainly a record for any incarnation of the show. Moreover, I’m more than OK to make such a declaration because this is a “celebrity” game and not a “civilian” one. (And yes, this even takes into account that the “Becky Lynch is terrible at Jeopardy” narrative that happened because of my statkeeping a few seasons ago.)
In the same game, Hannah Storm’s overall 18 incorrect responses is a record, but it’s also over a 90-clue game. I would contend that Perry Zanett’s 16 incorrect responses from Season 1 would still be the mark. I would also contend that the wild card format (see below) may have been a factor here in Hannah’s strategy, and I can’t exactly fault her choice to keep guessing when taking that into account.
Not Much To Learn In Terms Of Wagering Strategy
9 of the 10 games were runaways entering Final Jeopardy; the only one that wasn’t was Game 3 (Jon Hamm vs. Keegan-Michael Key vs. Adam Pally).
Here’s what I would suggest in terms of wagering strategy:
(Scores: Keegan-Michael 13,000 Jon 10,600 Adam given 500)
Jon: Your best chance of winning comes with a bet between $4,801 and $5,799. Of course, if you don’t think Keegan-Michael is going to cover, your best bet immediately becomes an all-in shove. (Actual wager: 10,600)
Keegan-Michael: Standard cover bet is 8,201. If you don’t want to make the cover bet against Jon, at least force him to be correct to pass you, and bet no more than 2.399. (Actual wager: 3,000)
Adam: Do whatever you’d like. (Actual wager: 500)
Interestingly, Keegan-Michael didn’t even choose to cover all of Jon’s optimal range here. Certainly if one really thought Jon knew wagering strategy and wanted to be really cagey, you could just bet $3,402 here just to cover $5,801 from Jon—those sorts of potential mind games are what makes Final Jeopardy strategy the most interesting at the highest levels.
Obviously, I do want to briefly touch on Kyle Brandt’s “Clavin” in the quarterfinals; that was clearly a math error. That said, it was unnecessary—we’re playing for points here, if you have a lock game, just bet 0 and more forward.
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On The Wildcard System Used Here
Much like with Season 2 of Pop Culture Jeopardy!, our 3 wild cards were determined by the number of correct responses given in a losing effort.
Do I think that it should carry over to the main show? I don’t hate the idea. However, I do think that there might be a better metric, one that the show does use in some circumstances: Coryat score.
Hannah Storm’s 13 correct/16 incorrect performance highlights the biggest issue with the “correct responses as the wild card determinant”. Sure, it certainly keeps a player like Hannah in the game. But even if you flip 4 of her incorrect responses, there’s a very good chance she advances as a wild card with a very low—potentially even negative—score. And I think the fan reaction to such an eventuality would not be a positive one for the show.
The name of the game is Jeopardy!, and the best part of the format is that there’s always that jeopardy of losing money. So why not keep that “jeopardy” in there by using the Coryat score as your wild card metric instead? I reiterate that the show has been using it already for helping to determine who makes the field, and this also would bring back an emphasis on winning the game—one of the biggest complaints over that years that I’ve seen from viewers in a 5 quarterfinal/4 wildcard format is that people don’t bet to win, just to advance, and it makes viewers who don’t understand that part of the strategy more upset overall.
Additionally, an advantage to moving to an 18-player/6 quarterfinal/3 wildcard/3 semis/1 game final format for Champions Wildcard would be that you could bring back 3 more champions, and I don’t think anyone would object to the show being able to do that!
One Final Thing To Remember
If the article that came out this week in the Los Angeles Times is any indication, this was a series whose target audience is not the fan who watches the show every night, and it especially was not made for the diehard fan who posts in online spaces about it. This is intended to bring new eyeballs into the Jeopardy! franchise, and hopefully bringing sports fans into the fold will help.
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