Who will win the 2022 Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions?

(Image credit: Illustrated | Getty Images, ABC)

published 31 October 2022

Since 2021, there have been an unusual number of all-time great Jeopardy! champions, and now several of them are about to go head-to-head for the first time in one of the quiz show's most highly-anticipated tournaments ever. Who will win the 2022 Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions? Here's what you need to know:

What is … a clash of the titans?

Even putting aside all that hosting chaos, it's been a dramatic year-and-a-half on Jeopardy!, during which time the show has had several "super champions" in fairly short succession. In fact, three of the top five Jeopardy! players of all time have emerged just since July 2021. Beginning Oct. 31, Jeopardy! will air its 2022 Tournament of Champions, with these all-time great players set to face off. The winner will receive $250,000.

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All eyes are on three champions, in particular: Matt Amodio, Amy Schneider, and Mattea Roach, who are so unbelievably good at Jeopardy! that the show has automatically advanced them to the semifinals. The tournament will begin with six quarterfinal games, the winners of which advance to a semifinal match with either Amodio, Schneider, or Roach. The three winners of those matches will then advance to the finals. The finals will follow the same format as the 2020 "Greatest of All Time" tournament: The first to win three games becomes the champion, meaning there will be at least three matches, and possibly as many as seven.

Fans are widely assuming the finals will consist of Amodio, Schneider, and Roach, though it's always possible one of them stumbles in their semifinal match. Just in case that happens, Jeopardy! has scheduled what the show is describing as a "friendly warm-up game" between Amodio, Schneider, and Roach on Nov. 8. This "special exhibition game" won't be part of the competition, but it will ensure we'll at least get to see the "big three" face off no matter what — though that's the night of the midterm elections, so the game may be preempted in your market.

Looking at his stats, though, He had an average score during his run of $28,627, the third-best of anyone in the tournament behind only Amy Schneider and Matt Amodio. It's also worth noting He really gave Schneider a run for her money during that first game. He was actually ahead of her going into Final Jeopardy! by more than $7,000, meaning if he got the question right, he would have beat Schneider and continued his streak.

The first of five "super champions" — generally defined as players who have won more than 10 consecutive games in regular-season play — is Jonathan Fisher, an actor from Florida. He's also what is known in the Jeopardy! world as a "giant killer," as he defeated another super champion, Matt Amodio, in October 2021 and ended his epic 38-game winning streak. So-called giant killers often don't go on to have long runs of their own, but Fisher did, winning 11 consecutive games.

Long also had an average correct response percentage of 87.8, which is impressive but was actually the fourth lowest among the tournament's competitors. His big weakness during his original run was Final Jeopardy!, where his correct response rate was only 47.1 percent; he got Final Jeopardy! right eight times during his games but wrong nine times, so this definitely has the potential to cost Long in the tournament. But Long is still the ninth-best Jeopardy! player of all time based on consecutive games won, so he's very much in this thing.

According to Jeopardy.com, Roach's average score was $24,024 during their run, the sixth highest of anyone in the tournament, while their average Coryat score was $20,275, also the sixth highest. They had an impressive average correct response percentage of 92, the seventh best among the TOC competitors, and got Final Jeopardy right 70.8 percent of the time, a better success rate than Amy Schneider.

Roach is also one of the youngest Jeopardy! super champions, as they were just 23 during their run, and they became well-known for their expressive mannerisms. "The notion that Jeopardy!, which is a game show, is an environment where you should be expected to behave in a professional manner is odd to me," Roach told Vulture. "I remember saying to a friend, "I'm not going to court. I'm not going to a job interview. I'm going to a game show.'"

Compared to Roach and Schneider, then, Amodio had the most consistent success on Final Jeopardy!, which should be a key asset in the tournament, where things often do come down to the final question. He was known during his run to utilize the strategy of jumping around the board to "hunt" for Daily Doubles and build up a large score early on, rather than simply selecting clues from top to bottom, and making large wagers. So anyone facing Amodio, including his fellow super champions, will likely have to utilize this strategy to keep up; if they don't, the tournament could be Amodio's to lose.

Schneider is the second highest-ranked Jeopardy! player of all time, behind only Ken Jennings in terms of consecutive games won, as she went on an epic 40-game streak between November 2021 and January 2022 — though that's just two more games than Amodio. She won $1.3 million, making her the fourth highest-ranked player in terms of earnings, as she won a bit less than Amodio despite playing more games.

According to TheJeopardyFan.com, Schneider also had significantly fewer of what the site dubs "unforced errors," e.g. moments when the player buzzes in to give an incorrect response and loses money; Schneider only had 54 of those throughout her run, while Amodio had 102. Also, about 85 percent of Schneider's games were runaways — meaning she was so far ahead that the other two players couldn't beat her in Final Jeopardy! — compared to 82 percent for Amodio, per TheJeopardyFan.

Chang, an attorney from Chicago, won a solid seven consecutive games in January 2021, including one memorable one that ended with a rare tiebreaker. Though he didn't have as long a run as the big three — he was defeated by Zach Newkirk, another Tournament of Champions contestant — he had an impressive 90.8 percent average correct response rate during his games. That's about on par with some of the tournament's super champions, so he's an underdog worth keeping an eye on.

Courtney Shah, a community college instructor from Portland, also won seven games in June and July 2021, during which she had an average correct response percentage of 90.5 percent. One of her biggest strengths, though, is Final Jeopardy!: Her correct Final Jeopardy! response rate was 75 percent, the third highest of anyone in the tournament. So if Shah ends up in a match where it all comes down to the last question, she's in a strong position to win.

But Ahasic's average score of $25,400 is the fourth highest of anyone in the tournament, higher than even Mattea Roach. He also had an average correct response percentage of 92.6 percent, which is slightly higher than both Roach and even Matt Amodio, so he's another possible dark horse winner. That being said, Ahasic ran into problems with Final Jeopardy! during his original run, as he only got the last question right two times in his seven games.

Newkirk, an attorney from Virginia, won six consecutive games beginning in June 2020 and continuing in January 2021. Notably, though, his streak was interrupted because of COVID-19 travel restrictions, so he had to return in January 2021 to face Brian Chang, who at the time was a seven-time champion. Newkirk ended up defeating Chang by a slim margin, and he went on to win two more games. Could a Newkirk vs. Chang rematch be in the cards?

Wachspress, an environmental attorney from California, won six consecutive games in June 2022 after beating six-time winner Eric Ahasic, who's also in the tournament. But she comes into the competition as an underdog considering she has the second lowest average Coryat score of this year's competitors, and her quarterfinal match will be a tough one, as she'll be pitted against 16-time champion Ryan Long.

Singh was the winner of the 2022 National College Championship, competing as a senior from the University of Texas at Austin and taking home a $250,000 prize. He had a strong average score during his four games of $24,000, and he also got every Final Jeopardy! question correct, making him the only person in the tournament to never miss this last question. Because Singh competed in a tournament, he only had the opportunity to play four games, so it's an open question how long of a streak he could have had in regular-season play.

Buttrey, an associate professor of operations research from the Naval Postgraduate School, was the winner of the 2021 Professors Tournament, meaning he didn't have the opportunity to win more than four games. But during the tournament, he had an impressive average correct response percentage of 96.1 percent, according to Jeopardy.com. That's actually the highest of anyone in the Tournament of Champions, even higher than Amy Schneider, though granted, he didn't have to play as many games as her. Still, don't sleep on Buttrey as a potential dark horse.

After returning for the Second Chance tournament, Ward turned in an impressive performance, as their semifinal game and the first of two final games were both runaways. In the first final game, in fact, Ward racked up a whopping $32,000 Coryat score. That's higher than Amodio's Coryat in many of his games, and Ward's average Coryat score of $20,400 is the fifth best of anyone in the tournament, about on par with Mattea Roach. They're average score was $18,650, though in two of their four games, they ended up with $30,000 or more. But Ward also missed the Final Jeopardy! question in half their games, which threw off their average score, as they also made large wagers in both cases.

Whelchel, a piano teacher and church organist from Spring Hill, won four games beginning in February 2022. She's a breast cancer survivor, and she made headlines during her games when she decided to stop wearing her wig. "I decided that I didn't need to hide behind a wig anymore, and I wanted to normalize what cancer recovery looks like," she said during the interview segment of the show. Whelchel has been placed into a tough quarterfinal match, though; she's going up against two of the best players in the tournament, Jonathan Fisher and Andrew He.

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Brendan worked as a culture writer at The Week from 2018 to 2023, covering the entertainment industry, including film reviews, television recaps, awards season, the box office, major movie franchises and Hollywood gossip. He has written about film and television for outlets including Bloody Disgusting, Showbiz Cheat Sheet, Heavy and The Celebrity Cafe.