2019 TOC Updates

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This Is Kirk!
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Re: 2019 TOC Updates

Post by This Is Kirk! »

Seems like a great idea to finally give Ken the chance to compete in a ToC! ;)
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Re: 2019 TOC Updates

Post by morbeedo »

So they hated Emma for defeating James, and now they hate her for accepting an invite to the TOC. Got it!
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Re: 2019 TOC Updates

Post by Bartleby »

Golf wrote: Wed Jul 10, 2019 11:41 pm This is disappointing, hasn't the ToC always been a pure meritocracy? I don't remember Nancy Zerg appearing.

I am reminded of Michelle Wie continually getting sponsor's exemptions into PGA Tour and Korn Ferry Tour events as a teenager. Taking a spot from a much more deserving player who actually could have used that exemption to springboard their career.
These are completely specious comparisons. Nancy Zerg won exactly one game and $15,401 on the show. And whatever one might think of Michelle Wie's sponsor's exemptions, she was a very different competitor competing in a very different type of competition.

Not only did she defeat one of the top players in J! history, Emma averaged $32,334 per game in her wins, significantly more than anyone not named James in the ToC field. She has more than demonstrated she is a top level player.

Golf wrote: Wed Jul 10, 2019 11:41 pm Did I count 11 men and 4 women? Had James' ouster been a man who won 3 games, would he have been invited leaving only 3 women in the ToC?
:roll:
I would prefer not to.
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Re: 2019 TOC Updates

Post by LucarioSnooperVixey »

Look at it this way. Emma won more money in her three wins than most of the 4Xers who aren't competing in the Tournament of Champions. Her three day total was also higher than Michael Bilow's three day total. And the reason why Ryan Bilger was not put in this Tournament of Champions is probably because there already is a Ryan competing and they thought it was easier to not have a complication.
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Re: 2019 TOC Updates

Post by MinnesotaMyron »

LucarioSnooperVixey wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2019 2:54 pmAnd the reason why Ryan Bilger was not put in this Tournament of Champions is probably because there already is a Ryan competing and they thought it was easier to not have a complication.
This is nonsense.
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Re: 2019 TOC Updates

Post by teapot37 »

MinnesotaMyron wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2019 4:04 pm
LucarioSnooperVixey wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2019 2:54 pmAnd the reason why Ryan Bilger was not put in this Tournament of Champions is probably because there already is a Ryan competing and they thought it was easier to not have a complication.
This is nonsense.
I mean, who can forget the 2008 Teen Tourney with the two Rachels (Horn and Cooke)? They kept them apart in the quarters and semis, but both of them made the finals, so Cooke went by "Steve" in the finals.

And the Teen Tourney is completely invitational.
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Re: 2019 TOC Updates

Post by This Is Kirk! »

LucarioSnooperVixey wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2019 2:54 pm Look at it this way. Emma won more money in her three wins than most of the 4Xers who aren't competing in the Tournament of Champions.
Which is great and shows Emma is a great player, but the standard has always been that number of wins are the #1 criterion for ToC selection.
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Re: 2019 TOC Updates

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This Is Kirk! wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2019 5:18 pm
LucarioSnooperVixey wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2019 2:54 pm Look at it this way. Emma won more money in her three wins than most of the 4Xers who aren't competing in the Tournament of Champions.
Which is great and shows Emma is a great player, but the standard has always been that number of wins are the #1 criterion for ToC selection.
And as I noted upthread, while Emma proved she's an outstanding and highly skilled contestant, her dollar total is misleading due to her game against James in which she had to wager $20,201 in FJ to cover his doubled score. In her other 2 wins, she averaged $25,550, which I feel is more reflective of her true level of ability. That's still really, really good, and along with her average Coryat of $18,900 compares favorably with numerous players in the TOC field. But suppose she had finished with a 3-day total of $77,400? Then she'd be Dave Mattingly, whose average Coryat was $21,050 (and who defeated Ryan Fenster with a runaway in his first game) - and whom no one is arguing was unfairly excluded from the TOC.

Again, Emma is in the TOC for only 2 reasons: who her first win was against, and the potential for a rematch against him. (Does anyone think she would have gotten the TOC bid if she had the same 3-day total of $97,002 but her J! CV didn't include the victory against James?) Her selection is understandable from a business perspective - but like Kirk, I'm disappointed by this deviation from the manner in which TOC players have historically been chosen.
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Re: 2019 TOC Updates

Post by AndyTheQuizzer »

There were comments in this thread which I considered to be beyond the pale and have been removed.
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Re: 2019 TOC Updates

Post by VoluptuousLoser »

morbeedo wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2019 1:11 pm So they hated Emma for defeating James, and now they hate her for accepting an invite to the TOC. Got it!
So you believe that if you criticize an action someone takes, that means that you hate the person? I don't think Emma earned her position in the tournament on the merits, and I think she should have declined the invitation. I haven't expressed any animosity towards her.

And who are the straw men you're referencing here who purportedly "hate" Emma for both of these things?

The deletion of my prior posts on this subject makes no sense. What a joke.
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Re: 2019 TOC Updates

Post by AndyTheQuizzer »

VoluptuousLoser wrote: Sat Jul 13, 2019 2:07 am
morbeedo wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2019 1:11 pm So they hated Emma for defeating James, and now they hate her for accepting an invite to the TOC. Got it!
I haven't expressed any animosity towards her.

The deletion of my prior posts on this subject makes no sense. What a joke.
The posts were deleted precisely because you expressed animosity towards Emma.
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Re: 2019 TOC Updates

Post by hbomb1947 »

VoluptuousLoser wrote: Sat Jul 13, 2019 2:07 am
morbeedo wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2019 1:11 pm So they hated Emma for defeating James, and now they hate her for accepting an invite to the TOC. Got it!
So you believe that if you criticize an action someone takes, that means that you hate the person? I don't think Emma earned her position in the tournament on the merits, and I think she should have declined the invitation. I haven't expressed any animosity towards her.

And who are the straw men you're referencing here who purportedly "hate" Emma for both of these things?

The deletion of my prior posts on this subject makes no sense. What a joke.
While I obviously can't see the posts anymore, I seem to recall that you stated or at least implied that Emma's acceptance of the TOC bid implied that she lacked a conscience. I still don't think your posts should have been deleted, as you were expressing an ethical opinion. Besides, your posts didn't express as much animosity towards a contestant as some of the anti-James posts a few months ago that the moderators left untouched.
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Re: 2019 TOC Updates

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The seven 4-time winners who didn't make the cut this time are going to be in the next TOC, right? I assume they were notified of this. So I don't understand why Emma would be taking a spot away from a deserving person if that person (and six others) will get the opportunity to play again next year. I don't agree with having her leapfrog them just so she might possibly have a rematch with James, even though the chances of that happening are quite good. No disrespect to next year's qualifiers, but it just isn't right to have so many 4-game winners in a TOC.
Yes, Emma averaged "only" $25,000 in her other two wins, but it's amazing she had any energy left after defeating the greatest player since Ken. I'd put her in the Gold tier for sure.
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Re: 2019 TOC Updates

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sarisson wrote: Sat Jul 13, 2019 11:56 am The seven 4-time winners who didn't make the cut this time are going to be in the next TOC, right? I assume they were notified of this. So I don't understand why Emma would be taking a spot away from a deserving person if that person (and six others) will get the opportunity to play again next year. I don't agree with having her leapfrog them just so she might possibly have a rematch with James, even though the chances of that happening are quite good. No disrespect to next year's qualifiers, but it just isn't right to have so many 4-game winners in a TOC.
Yes, Emma averaged "only" $25,000 in her other two wins, but it's amazing she had any energy left after defeating the greatest player since Ken. I'd put her in the Gold tier for sure.
Because those contestants who get held over from this cycle will be taking spots away from contestants from the next cycle who would have qualified for the 2020 or 2021 ToC but now will not. Unless of course the math works out so that TPTB have the ToC after next so that everyone from the next cycle who wins at least 3 games and qualifies via a tournament gets in, but that's extremely unlikely to happen. And even then I think that at least a few contestants would be shafted in an unofficial capacity, since TPTB almost certainly would have made the cutoff for the 2019 ToC be a later date if not for the Emma vs. Holzhauer thing.
Last edited by StevenH on Sat Jul 13, 2019 5:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: 2019 TOC Updates

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sarisson wrote: Sat Jul 13, 2019 11:56 am The seven 4-time winners who didn't make the cut this time are going to be in the next TOC, right? I assume they were notified of this. So I don't understand why Emma would be taking a spot away from a deserving person if that person (and six others) will get the opportunity to play again next year. I don't agree with having her leapfrog them just so she might possibly have a rematch with James, even though the chances of that happening are quite good. No disrespect to next year's qualifiers, but it just isn't right to have so many 4-game winners in a TOC.
No they're not. Most of them were out of the running for this TOC, and suggesting they'll all be in the next one - which would also leave very few spots for new qualifiers - isn't a plausible interpretation of Jimmy's statement on the video. I would think Leffler is the only one who might be considered - and only if he isn't surpassed by too many players on the tracker for the next TOC.
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Re: 2019 TOC Updates

Post by LucarioSnooperVixey »

It looks like Emma has been on this board in the past.

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Re: 2019 TOC Updates

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StevenH wrote: Sat Jul 13, 2019 12:14 pm
sarisson wrote: Sat Jul 13, 2019 11:56 am The seven 4-time winners who didn't make the cut this time are going to be in the next TOC, right? I assume they were notified of this. So I don't understand why Emma would be taking a spot away from a deserving person if that person (and six others) will get the opportunity to play again next year. I don't agree with having her leapfrog them just so she might possibly have a rematch with James, even though the chances of that happening are quite good. No disrespect to next year's qualifiers, but it just isn't right to have so many 4-game winners in a TOC.
Yes, Emma averaged "only" $25,000 in her other two wins, but it's amazing she had any energy left after defeating the greatest player since Ken. I'd put her in the Gold tier for sure.
Because those contestants who get held over from this cycle will be taking spots away from contestants from the next cycle who would have qualified for the 2020 or 2021 ToC but now will not. Unless of course the math works out so that TPTB have the ToC after next so that everyone from the next cycle who wins at least 3 games and qualifies via a tournament gets in, but that's extremely unlikely to happen. And even then I think that at least a few contestants would be shafted in an unofficial capacity, since TPTB almost certainly would have made the cutoff for the 2019 ToC be a later date if not for the Emma vs. Holzhauer thing.

I don't agree with Emma's choice to accept the invitation, but she should not be criticized for it.

And I don't think that the previous posts on this topic should have been deleted.
She literally did her master’s thesis on Jeopardy! so I’m sure she’s aware of the uniqueness of this situation. And I don’t think she hesitated for one second to accept that invite knowing it full well, same as any of us wouldn’t hesitate.
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Re: 2019 TOC Updates

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hanzz wrote: She literally did her master’s thesis on Jeopardy! so I’m sure she’s aware of the uniqueness of this situation. And I don’t think she hesitated for one second to accept that invite knowing it full well, same as any of us wouldn’t hesitate.
Good point. I totally forgot about her thesis.
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Re: 2019 TOC Updates

Post by CasualJeopardyFan19 »

At the end of the day, I think it's important to remember that this particular season of Jeopardy was quite unusual in many ways, with it having the "4-day curse" throughout much of it as well as James Holzhauer, arguably the best player in Jeopardy history, dominating the airwaves for 33 games. And so while I myself may not necessarily be fully happy that Emma made it over several 4-time champs, I can definitely understand why the producers felt her accomplishments of both outsing king James and having an impressive 3-day total should've been honored. They needed to fill someone in for the late Larry Martin, and with how unusual the past year of Jeopardy has been it does kinda make sense (at least IMO) that they chose a 3-day champ who demonstrated tremendous skills in those 3 days. Frankly, I wish she wouldn't have made it either since I was upset that she took down my favorite all time Jeopardy player, but at the end of it, things are the way they are.
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Re: 2019 TOC Updates

Post by This Is Kirk! »

hanzz wrote: Sat Jul 13, 2019 2:14 pm And I don’t think she hesitated for one second to accept that invite knowing it full well, same as any of us wouldn’t hesitate.
I agree. No one is going to reject a ToC spot that is offered. Emma has no culpability here.
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