Rule[]
- On the Fleming era, there are 9 players (except the 1969 ToC with 18 players).
- A typical tournament, such as the ToC, runs for two weeks (10 games), with 15 players participating.
- In S39 and S41, a total of 21 players competed.
- In S40, a total of 27 players competed.
- In the case of seating arrangement, in the preliminary round, the person with the most prize money is seated from right to left, and in the semi-finals and finals, the seats are allocated from right to left in order of the best score in the preliminary round.
- Participants who competed in regular are not placed in the same group, and a rematch is only possible if they advance to the final. Of course, there are exceptions to the S29's Keith and Paul.
Quarterfinal[]
On the Fleming era, there are no quarterfinals (except the 1969 ToC). This era will start in the semifinals.
First day of recording: 3 participants in each game. The winner of each game unconditionally advances to the semifinals, and the four players with the highest final score among the other participants advance to the semifinals by wild card.
If there is a tie, selection will be made in the order of performance at the end of the DJ round[1].
If there is a game where all 3 players end at $0 or less, there is no automatic semifinalist in that game and a wild card is added[2]. For fairness between wildcards, players who have not yet played a game are isolated in a separate space so that they do not know the outcome of the previous game.
In S39, which has increased to 21 players, 3 players with the highest seeds to the semifinals by bye, and the remaining 18 players are divided into 6 groups and only the first place in each group advances to the semifinals.
In S40, which has increased to 27 players, and are divided into 9 groups and only the first place in each group advances to the semifinals.
In S41, the tournament brought back the 21-player format with three players with highest seeds to the semifinals by bye, and the remaining 18 players are divided into 6 groups and only the first place in each group advances to the semifinals.
When there was a WC system, the cast tended to bet on points little by little once they scored $15-20K. This seems to be a strategy for WC. To prevent this, from S39, it was changed to a match without WC.
Semifinal[]
In the semifinals, the winner of each entry advances to the final. In the past, wildcards were added as in the quarterfinals when all participants scored less than $0, but after the wildcard addition incident at the 2013 Teen Tournament, even if all participants were $0, a tiebreaker match was held to determine the finalists.
On the Fleming era, wildcards were added in the finals when a contestant loses the most money.
Final[]
In the case of the final, the match will be decided by the cumulative results of the two games. Scores from the first round are not carried over to the second round, and a participant with a negative score in each game will be treated as $0 on that day.
From S39 upwards, the winner will be decided on a best-of-seven system like Jeopardy!: The Greatest of All Time. If the winner is decided and the number of wins for 2nd and 3rd places are the same, the ranking will be decided in the order of the number of 2nd place and the total score.
For reference, out of 133 matchups held under the 2-day rule, 1st place won 91 times, 2nd place 32 times, and 3rd place 10 times. In particular, it seems that the rules have been changed because there are many cases where the possibility of a reversal decreases when the gap widens[3].
For that reason, some players boldly bet DD Wager in the first round or bet a lot of points on FJ!. Examples of such wins include Roger Craig, Alex Jacob, James Holzhauer, and Sam Kavanaugh. In order to prevent the game from ending unilaterally, as mentioned above, from S39, the format was changed to a 3-out-of-7 system rather than a cumulative score system.
Since 2019 (S36), a tradition has begun where the winner of the previous competition presents a separately produced championship belt to the next winner. Initially, the wife of 2017 (S34) winner Buzzy Cohen made a championship belt and gave it to Cohen as a gift to commemorate the victory, and Cohen imitated it and gifted the belt to the next winner of the competition, James Holzhauer. Since then, this tradition has been maintained, and Holzhauer even held up this belt in episode 5 of the 2023 Masters (aired on May 15, 2023) and showed off a belt shot to his opponent[4].
References[]
- ↑ Occasionally, in the 2016 College tournament, the finalists were not decided until the mid-point of the Jeopardy Round.
- ↑ Occasionally, even though they received $0, they advanced to the semifinals with Wildcard. In the S19 ToC, 6 players scored less than $0, and Eric Floyd and Max Levaren advanced to the semifinals based on the score before FJ.
- ↑ Of course, there are cases like Meryl Federman who won over $30,000 and Buzzy Cohen who won the ToC without scoring, but they are very few.
- ↑ This episode aired at the same time as WWE RAW.