Jeopardy All-Stars Format

[curtking]

Jeopardy! just posted a video explaining the format of the All Stars tournament, adding some detail to what we already know:

https://www.jeopardy.com/jbuzz/special-tournament-stories/how-will-jeopardy-all-star-games-work

Six teams of three people, let's call them A-F.

Match 1 (two-day total points) - A v B v C
Match 2 (two-day total points) - D v E v F

Winners of Match 1 and 2 move to the finals.

The three high scoring teams that lost in Matches 1 and 2 move to another two-day total points "Wildcard" game.  The winner of the Wildcard game moves to the finals.

They're advertising this from February 20 to March 5.  Unless the finals is a four-day total points game, how do they make a ten-day tournament?  Or did I misunderstand the explanation?

Thanks,
Curt

[TLEberle]

You're not misunderstanding. It's a two-leg aggregate format in the qualifying periods, but each of Match 1 and Match 2 is contested over three days, as in the IBM challenge.

[curtking]

Ah, ok - that makes sense.  Thanks for the info!

Kind of concerned that we're stretching two days of normal play into three... but we'll see how it works.

[weaklink75]

Yeah, not sure about the two games in 3 days, but they do have to interview 9 people in those first two matches..

I was thinking more of a league format:

-8 qualifying games
-Each team plays 4 times
-the schedule would be set up where they would play against the other 5 teams at least once, but no one team more than twice
-the winning team in each game would get 10,000 added to whatever score they got, 2nd and 3rd just their score
-the 3 teams with the highest total scores over their 4 matches go to the 2 match total point final.

(Obviously the teams would be isolated for games 7 and 8 so while they would know the standings after everyone’s played 3 times, they would not know what happened in the last set)

[TLEberle]

Ah, ok - that makes sense.  Thanks for the info!

I can only take partial credit--Kevin Prather pointed the way for me when I was curious as well.

The thing about each team playing against each other is that with six teams there's no way to distribute that evenly. With five teams you could have two weeks of play in (or one), and a ladder elimination culminating in a consolation game and two-leg final.

[TLEberle]

Having actually seen a schedule break down what is when, something I didn't think of--day one is the Jeopardy Round between the teams of Colby Burnett, Buzzy Cohen and Brad Rutter, day two is Double and Final Jeopardy, then day three is the complete second leg--my guess is that they spaced it out because instead of three quick interview segments each day they are going to spend a more substantial amount of time talking to each of nine contestants over the course of each semi-final game. After the semi-finals it looks like the repechage and Grand Final rounds are played out in regular time.

[jage]

Hmm, the Watson story was compelling to watch. I'm not sure 9 contestant profiles will reach that level. Maybe they have something else in mind.