Jeopardy! Seeking Former Tournament of Champions Players

[BrandonFG]

Remember last fall, when you went on your little political rant and got checked on it, but skirted responsibility for your actions? Well, you\'re getting really close to that point right now.

 

Your comment was ill-conceived at best, offensive at worst. Even if you didn\'t mean it to be tasteless (and hey, maybe it was an honest mistake), there\'s a little thing called \"tact\" that goes a long way. \"Unfortunately, the first TOC champion, Jerry Frankel, passed away. It would\'ve been cool to have him there.\" Or you could just not say anything at all, seeing as how he died in 1987, so it\'s really a moot point, given how many invitationals they\'ve had since then. There\'s times where showing off your knowledge come in handy...this prolly wasn\'t one of them.

 

BTW, getting defensive about being called tasteless is not the right way to address the issue.

 

That being said, I\'d personally like to see the issue dropped and get back to the topic at hand...speculation on the big news.

[Bryce L.]

How I\'d do a 30-person tournament... have the 10 winners from the first 2 weeks, plus 5 wild cards to make 15 for the third week... weeks 3 and 4 play out same as the traditional 2-week tournament.

[Matt Ottinger]

Anyone who claims I\'m being tasteless is full of shite, nothing more.

 

This may very well be my favorite line ever.  You see, it\'s not tasteless because he put an \'e\' at the end!

[clemon79]

Anyone who claims I\'m being tasteless is full of shite, nothing more.

 

I never claimed you were being tasteless.

 

I claimed you were a jackass.

 

I\'ll be happy to amend that to \"jackasse\" if it helps it absorb through your thick skull.

[TLEberle]

Something that would be a happy medium between an Ultimate Tournament and a two-week affair would be something similar to History IQ\'s tournament: 81 contestants whittled down to a champion over the course of eight weeks. This has the added bonus of allowing Bob Blake to return as opposed to being snubbed because Officer Frank was from that same year, which means Jay Temple won\'t pop a vein. (Note that the page said participated in, not necessarily won.)

So there\'s that upside too.

[jjman920]

Anyone who claims I\'m being tasteless is full of shite, nothing more.

 

This may very well be my favorite line ever.  You see, it\'s not tasteless because he put an \'e\' at the end!

It\'s French! They\'re never tasteless. He just forgot the accent on the \'e\'.

 

Seems like an interesting prospect, if they\'re trying to mount another UTOC or something similar. I wonder when they would hold this during the season. I\'m not guessing at the start of the season, but that\'s just me. I\'d suppose somewhere in the middle, like January or February (or both). I\'d like it to be at the end of the season, myself.

[Jay Temple]

I like Travis\' idea, not least because every show is win-or-go-home. No wild cards, no total-point events. The UTOC had one other unique feature that I really, really liked. (And by really, really liked, I mean I really, really hated its absence from other ToC\'s.) If you won a game with, say, $17,800, you actually won—get ready for it—$17,800!

 

If it\'s no longer than a month, I imagine they\'ll do it during sweeps. If they did it Travis\' way, I\'d expect to start in either October or April and finish during sweeps.

[TLEberle]

No wild cards, no total-point events.

I don\'t know if this was made clear, I had it set as two stretches of a two-week tournament; wild card and two-game final included. The two winners and Least Sucky Loser Finalist would play in a Grand Final of indeterminate length.

(To your credit, I do like the idea of winning what you score, as opposed to playing for Jeopardy Bucks.)

[clemon79]

(To your credit, I do like the idea of winning what you score, as opposed to playing for Jeopardy Bucks.)

 

I\'m gonna guess that King World\'s pocketbook (which, I will point out, is handing out at least $400K in prize money to the finalists alone in a regular ToC) isn\'t as big of a fan.

[TLEberle]

I\'ll point out the precedent of the Ultimate Tournament, but the Teen, College and Seniors Tournaments were played for real money in those same finals, and the runner-up Finalists in the Tournament of Champions could end up winning more than the minimum prizes.

[clemon79]

I\'ll point out the precedent of the Ultimate Tournament, but the Teen, College and Seniors Tournaments were played for real money in those same finals, and the runner-up Finalists in the Tournament of Champions could end up winning more than the minimum prizes.

 

Which is why I said \"at least\" and wasn\'t referring to the finals at all, where you *do* get at least the cash in front of you in a normal ToC. (Though really that would only apply to third place in a 250K/100K/50K format, and if third place is still finishing over 50K over two days, well, damn.) It sounded to me like you wanted to replace the $10K you get for losing a semifinal with whatever they earned in their QF match, which in most cases is going to be more than that.

[Jay Temple]

No wild cards, no total-point events.

I don\'t know if this was made clear, I had it set as two stretches of a two-week tournament; wild card and two-game final included. The two winners and Least Sucky Loser Finalist would play in a Grand Final of indeterminate length.


(To your credit, I do like the idea of winning what you score, as opposed to playing for Jeopardy Bucks.)

Gotcha. You made two posts, but one ended with the joke about a 43-day final and a mad-up number for a prize, while the second sounded serious. If you start with 81 players and send home two players every day, you end up with one winner after 40 days. I thought you made one joke suggestion and one serious.

[Jeremy Nelson]

Honestly, I don\'t think this tournament needs to last more than a month- the UTOC was cool until I realized just how long a half season of Jeopardy really is.

In my opinion, you need 24 players, if that. Looking at the UTOC Wikipedia page and scrolling down the names of the participants, I\'m sure if I asked you to name 24 memorable contestants, you could give me 24 and not leave off any fairly glaring omissions.

[TLEberle]

Do we know for a fact that this is a tournament and not just exhibition games?

[PYLdude]

But Jeremy, they\'re looking for former TOC winners. They\'re obviously not going to find all of them with two having since left us and I don\'t know off the top of my head how many others there have been (doubt there\'s been 30 tournaments, especially with how infrequently they\'re held since the winning limit was scuttled).


I just tossed it out there as a hypothetical.


Now as far as the tournament setup...eight games, eight winners. Assuming you have to have a wild card so you could get to a full semi field. So I\'ve started on one taping day, gotten a first round and two of thee semifinal matches done, and now I have to stop because I\'ve run out of studio time. So I\'m going to waste the time and effort to fly my other three players out, plus the two winners, and then do a two day final which leaves me with a throwaway episode for Friday?


I\'m quite certain that\'s the reason Jeopardy! tournaments are structured in the manner that they are- so you can stop play on one day then simply pick up where you left off on that day two weeks later. Logistics.