Jeopardy Season 41 Update
As April Concludes We See That Jeopardy Champions Have Got Their Swagger Back — And Are Getting Their Share of Swag
As Jeopardy fan worth their salt knows one of the most famous lines in poetic history is T.S. Eliot’s ‘April is the Cruelest Month’. For Jeopardy fans and champions this April it has been anything but.
At the start of Season 41 Jeopardy players have been struggling with tough boards and Final Jeopardys that made the totals for even successful champions relatively low. Laura Faddah ended up earning the unfortunate title of the champion who has won the most games while still finishing under $100,000. However, over the last six weeks it seems that both Jeopardy players and champions alike have managed to finally find their grooves with the winning players averaging more than $20,000 a win ever since Laura was defeated on March 11th.
Furthermore the ‘cluster of champions’ that I described in my last article about Season 41 has continued unabated throughout the month of April. (Well, according to the Jeopardy archive there’s one official break that I think will later be rectified as I’ll explain. And ever since Laura’s defeat we have had no less than four qualifiers for the next Tournament of Champions cross the $100,000 threshold in little more than six weeks. By contrast in the nearly four month period leading up to the Season 41 postseason, only two players Greg Jolin and Mark Fitzpatrick, were able to cross the $100,000 threshold.
And we already have an interesting roster of Jeopardy champions for next year already. After Bryce Wargin was defeated on April 4th, leaving with four wins and $70,199, we have already had two more six game winners to the rosters. On April 9TH Andrew Hayes completed a runaway victory, winning $27,200. He then managed to win six consecutive games and $137,804. He won with two runaway victories and two come behind victories and the one that officially got him into the Tournament of Champions surprised even him.
In his fifth game he spent both Jeopardy and Double Jeopardy trailing Dondi DeMarco. At the end of the round he had $11,600 to his $18,400. The Final Jeopardy category was CITY NICKNAMES:
“The poet Albius Tibullus called a city this in the late 1st century B.C. some 700 years after its initial founding.” Andrew wrote down: “What is the Eternal City?” That was correct. As Ken told us: “Rome was only 700 years old when it became the Eternal City.” Andrew clearly thought his run was over because he added: “It’s been fun” to his answer.
However Dondi had no answer at all. When he lost $5001 he dropped to second and a stunned Andrew won his fifth game.
His luck ran out two days later when he ran into Steven Hoying, who took the lead early in the Jeopardy round and never relinquished. He finished with a runaway victory with $29,200, while Andrew was in a distant third with $8800.
There was redemption of a sort in Final Jeopardy. The category was FICTIONAL CHARACTERS. “This character’s efforts in Africa to end an epidemic killing monkeys inspired Jane Goodall to do something similar.” Andrew knew the clue referred to Doctor Doolittle. (I thought it was Tarzan) Steven also knew this and Andrew went home saying love to his wife Kaitlyn.
Steven’s reign as giant killer ended the next day. In one of the best games all season he faced off against Rachael Gray and Liam Starnes. All three played excellently, each finishing with more than $13,000. However Liam was in the lead.
The Final Jeopardy category was PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEES: “The year the Democratic nominee gave his ‘Cross of Gold’ speech, the GOP nominee was this man who backed the gold standard. Steven and Liam knew the correct answer: “Who was McKinley?” Liam won with $32,401 and he hasn’t lost since.
Liam is almost literally a new breed of Jeopardy champions. An undergraduate student from Illinois he made Ken feel old when he told him that he had been born during Ken’s original run. There is an excellent chance that Liam may be the youngest Jeopardy champion to win five games in history: at just over 20 years of age, he has already won six games and as of this writing $123,584. And he seems capable of winning everyway possible. He’s come from behind to win once, he’s managed two runaway victories, he’s been the last one standing when one of his competitors was in the red at the end of Double Jeopardy. In one case he managed to win when no one got Final Jeopardy right and that win stunned even him, in a moment I’m sure has already gone viral. He was getting blown out in the Jeopardy round of his fourth game when his opponent bet everything on a Daily Double and lost everything, creating a deficit she couldn’t overcome. And he has demonstrated both fearlessness and caution in Daily Doubles in some cases in the very same game. In his second appearance he bet $5 on a Daily Double in the Jeopardy round. When he found the first Daily Double in Double Jeopardy he immediately bet everything.
But he has a weakness that I’m pretty sure will end up being his downfall: pop culture. Liam knows everything about geography and sports. Even though he’s only 20 he knows a bit about alcohol, which bothers Ken a bit. He knows about poetry and literature. But he doesn’t seem to know about films or TV, even in his own era. And sometimes this has been tragically obvious.
On Tuesday he found the third Daily Double in BIOGRAPHIES & MEMOIRS: “This title of his 2024 memoir, refers to his mother’s childhood name for him, not his character in Dog Day Afternoon.” There was a long pause before he guessed: “Who is Kevin Hart?” Ken said it was Al Pacino — “kind of the Kevin Hart of his era some might say.” There was gentle laughter, and it didn’t stop Liam from running away with the game.
To this point this weakness has not proven fatal to Liam: when you average 20 correct responses a game, you have room for a cushion. But I suspect that when Liam is defeated it will most likely be because of a Final Jeopardy category dealing with classic movies. And sadly given Liam’s track record the correct response could just as easily be The Social Network as Citizen Kane for all the luck he might have with it. That, however, is for another day.
We’ve had an uninterrupted run of Tournament of Champions qualifiers ever since Alex DeFrank began his run six weeks ago. As of this writing seven players have officially punched their ticket for the 2026 Tournament of Champions and given how much so many of them overcame to get there, I suspect we’ve got at least that many already for the Second Chance Tournament. I also think there’s one more player, who while he’s not officially been invited back has a strong possibility of it.
After defeating Bryce Wargin on April 4th, Mike Dawson managed to win 3 games and an even $57,000 before Andrew Hayes defeated him. He hasn’t officially received an invite yet. However that total is higher than no less than five three game winners who qualified for the 2025 Tournament of Champions — including the eventual winner Neilesh Vinjamuri. It’s possible Bill McKinney, who won $47,000 is borderline; there is no world in which Mike isn’t extended an invitation by the time Season 41 is over. At the very least he has more than qualified for Champions Wild Card.
And speaking of Neilesh on Wednesday the long awaited 2025 Jeopardy Masters will begin in which Neilesh will be facing off against some of the greatest players in Jeopardy history. My extended coverage of the Masters will begin on May 1st. I look forward to it as much as all my readers are.