joltman

The quick answer is it's primarily seeded based on number of wins followed by money won. Here's a Reddit post that goes into more detail

Red Dog

Same here. Though I find it funny that I can roll the sports categories and Jeopardy contestants tend to struggle with them.

Laertes

Exhibition game tonight: Amy Schneider, Matt Amodio, Mattea Roach

OldBoy

What does that even mean? Why were they playing for absolutely nothing? Was it just for ratings or something? I mean it was looser and more funny than normal, but I didn’t get it if there were no stakes and doesn’t matter what they bet.

movieguru

They said they were doing it to give them some practice before the real tournament since they automatically got a pass on the first part of the tournament. I think Matt and Amy were intentionally not really trying and Mattea was taking it a little more seriously. That may give her false confidence when the game is for real.

Josh-da-man

Today represented a sort of hole in the schedule.

First, they way they're doing this tournament with eighteen people playing in the quarterfinals MTWTFM, then those six winners playing against Amy, Matt, and Mattea, for three consecutive days in the semifinals WTF, Tuesday was an odd day out.

Second, it's Election Day, so there's a good chance today's episode was pre-empted or shown at two in the morning in some markets. So it was probably smart to do a burner episode that didn't count.

Red Dog

I didn't even think about the election day thing. Yeah - that makes sense.

It was lighthearted fun and gives the 3 a chance to refresh themselves on buzzer timing.

Nick Danger

We didn't see the exhibition game. Did we miss anything?

The Cow

Eh, it was lighthearted fun. You missed Ken giving away one of the proper responses and him cussing about it (it was bleeped).

Red Dog

Also, I didn't see Mattea in her regular Jeopardy run. Even though it was an exhibition, she was impressive.

I was looking ahead at the episode descriptions in my DVR. I know the 3 semis are today through Friday (3 byes + 6 QF winners). How do the finals work - since I see 'if necessaries" later next week? I guess this means that it's individual games for the finals (no cummulative scoring) and the first to win 3 games is the winner? Is that right?

whotony

That was a fun show.
And Ken screwing up was great stuff.

I wonder if they did this also because it was the anniversary of Alex’s passing.

Laertes

Does anyone know if players are contractually obligated to show for the Tournament of Champions? What if someone doesn't feel like sullying their record with a possibly bad showing at the Tournament? Do you think Amy, Matt, or Mattea were paid for showing last night? Maybe they could have made more money on giving a talk for one night, or something. I don't know...

whotony

I doubt they get paid to appear on a game show.

Jericho

There was the one lady who died, so I guess there is one way out.

I doubt there's an obligation to come back, but everyone who participates gets a decent chunk of money even if they lose (is the minimum $5k?) and I suspect for most players its about the game itself. Plus it's what, 30 minutes of "work", you can schedule other things around it.

movieguru

It's quite a bit more than 30 minutes since they all have to travel to California to play the game.

mwbmis

Speaking as someone who generally doesn't care for long running "super champions", Mattea's run didn't really bother me that much. First, while she had some runaway games, there were enough competitive games sprinkled in to largely avoid the SSDD feel of other "super champions". For instance, I found the Amy games particularly interminable.

Second, while I recognize that she was a polarizing figure, I found a lot of her personal quirks endearing. I thought she was kind of cute in a "weird girl" way. In fact, I distinctly remember wanting her to win in her first game, because I found her a little odd but endearing.

Jericho

Okay, that is true unless you live in SoCal.So there is more time involved overall. But the main point is that it's pretty good money for the amount of time you put in. I don't think most contestants exactly have a lot of stuff they are "forfeiting" by going to a taping. And, as I stated, I doubt it's really about the money for most people that make the Tournament of Champions anyway. But it's nice to make a month's salary or more for 1-2 days of actual shows (I guess possibly more days as they made this year's tournament bigger and longer than normal)

movieguru

Yes, the money makes it worth it and it is probably more than they would make on their day jobs during that time. But if you have jobs, families, and other responsibilities, it could be difficult to juggle that and have to schedule the time to go to the tournament especially if the tournament extends over the one taping day and you have to be there for two weeks taping. If you're single with little responsibilities, it's much easier.

Josh-da-man

From what I understand, Jeopardy! doesn't cover the contestants' travel expenses, so if you are invited to appear on the program you're responsible for your own transportation and lodging expenses.

I suppose they could cover these expenses, or otherwise provide incentives, for those invited to the tournaments to insure their participation.

jjcool

Yes. that's correct. Minimum of three games, possibly 7 games needed to crown a champion.

movieguru

Is that the way they've always done it for the TOC. I've never really paid much attention to the tournaments before, but I always thought they just did the cummulative score for two games.

Red Dog

I don't think they've ever done it like this before. When they did the GOAT showdown between Jennings, Rutter, and Holzhauer, they did something similar. Jennings won 3 games in 4 matches and was the winner (Holzauer won the other match).

The ToC format I'm used to is 5 QFs (5 winners, 4 highest scoring wild cards advance), 3 semifinals (with those 9), 2-day cummulative final.

movieguru

Great game tonight!! I knew Steve Martin would have a good chance in beating Matt Amodio. They were all so close going into Final Jeopardy that any of them could have one this match.

The Cow

That was a good game, one of the better ones I've seen in a while.

movieguru

Matt's FJ wager was odd. He was betting that he wouldn't get FJ correct and that the others wouldn't either. It will be interesting to see if Mattea can win her match. If not, it will be just Amy left out of the super champions.