Jeopardy! Power Rankings Post-Masters (Part 2)

Following every major Jeopardy! tournament, I'm going to be updating my power rankings. I'm ranking players by tier using the weight of regular games, tournament performances, and vibes.

Now that we’re down to the top 40, I’m going to be getting a lot more intimate with my explanations for certain placements. If you’re not feeling the desire to read through 30 minutes of material, just look at the number placements, the tiers they’re in, and the players that correspond to those placements. Without further ado, let’s go to work…

---

Tier 4 (The All-Stars)

Like the 5th tier, this one is a mix between classic contestants that have built a long career since their first appearance and more recent contestants who have gone beyond expectations for recent players. Not much else to explain here, so let’s continue on with the list.

40.) Tom Walsh - In his 6th win, he surpassed Brian Weikle’s 5-day record of $149,200 with a total of $152,900 before winning his 7th game in a tie with Dave Fuller for another $32,000. With $184,900, he became the first player to win at least 7 games. He then finished in second place during the 2004 Tournament of Champions for another $50,000 before his final appearance in the 2005 Ultimate Tournament of Champions, where he was eliminated in round 2. Despite his stellar stats, I still feel like Tom is a bit underrated, even though I may be underrating him here myself.

39.) Tom Nissley - Comfortably one of the best contestants of his era, he stormed through 8 games showcasing his impressive knowledge and averaging just under $30,000 per game. In the 2011 Tournament of Champions, Tom convincingly won his quarterfinal and semifinal games before losing to Roger Craig in the finals to finish in second place.

38.) Leszek Pawlowicz - If I were asked to make a power rankings list 25 years ago, before Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter, Leszek would make a very convincing case for first or second tier. He had one of the strongest runs of the first ten years of the show, picking up $75,000 and change, and then winning the 1992 Tournament of Champions. In his final appearance in the Battle of the Decades, he made it all the way to the semifinals before being defeated by Brad Rutter for a spot in the finals.

37.) Pam Mueller - Starting out as a college champion with $50,000 in 2000, she advanced to the semifinals in the 2001 Tournament of Champions before losing to Rick Knutsen. It wasn’t until the Ultimate TOC when she started to hit her stride as an all-time player, powering through her first three games before losing in the fourth round to Frank Spangenberg and finalist Jerome Vered.

She also made it to the semifinals in the Battle of the Decades, where she lost to Roger Craig and Colby Burnett, and also finished in third place with Team Colby (with Alan Lin) in the 2019 All-Star Games. Over the years, it’s evident that her gameplay ability has aged like fine wine compared to a lot of her contemporaries in the 2001 TOC.

36.) Brian Weikle - Brian might be one of the unluckiest contestants in the history of the show, and I mean that in the most flattering way possible. He held the record for most money won in 5 days after the dollar values were doubled, but his run was right before the 5-day limit was limited.

On top of that, he had enough money to win the 2003 Tournament of Champions but a crucial math mistake in Final Jeopardy! caused him to lose to Mark Dawson by $199, though his two-day total of $56,601 surpassed the $50,000 minimum at the time… though the top prize was upgraded to $250,000 from $100,000, thus he basically missed out on nearly $200,000.

In his final appearance, Brian was given a bye to the second round of the Ultimate TOC (along with eight others) and played phenomenally, gathering $24,400 compared to $24,000 for Grace Veach, his opponent. But he missed the final clue and wagered nearly all of his money, thus taking home a $25,000 minimum.

I really believe Brian had all the chops to be one of the best players of all time and the luck really didn’t fall in his favor. Hopefully he gets invited back one day.

35.) Russ Schumacher - A lot of people definitely underestimated Russ, for his 4-day total of $64,800 didn’t seem like much at the time, especially in the midst of Ken Jennings’s historic run. He kind of stumbled his way to the 2004 Tournament of Champions finals, but then came through strongly in the second game of the finals to thoroughly win over Tom Walsh and Arthur Gandolfi.

Following a $5,000 prize from finishing second in his Ultimate TOC game, he exceeded expectations once again in the Battle of the Decades when he defeated Larissa Kelly and Tom Kavanaugh in the preliminary game, and then further on when he won his quarterfinal game against Pam Mueller and Tom Nosek. He ultimately lost his semifinal match against Ken Jennings and Chuck Forrest, but his stature as a player was far above what it was at the end of his original run.

34.) Eric Ahasic - It might be a bit bold to put him this high, given he just participated in his Tournament of Champions season last November, but he has a lot of convincing cases as to why. Ending Ryan Long’s 16-day streak for one thing, but then winning five runaway games in a row before losing to 6-time champion Megan Wachspress in his 7th game.

In the 2022 TOC, he played with the right amount of aggression against Jaskaran Singh and Jackie Kelly, capitalizing on two True Daily Doubles in the second round and acing Final Jeopardy! to make the semifinals, where he lost to Andrew He. I think it’d be a missed opportunity not to invite him to another tournament in the future, for he has a lot of potential here.

33.) Troy Meyer - One of the world’s top quizzers, it’s not really a big shock that he went on the 6-day tear that he did. With $214,802 in 6 days, he ranks only behind Larissa Kelly and Roger Craig in 6-day totals, and will be competing again in the 2023 Tournament of Champions. While the field isn’t finalized, I have a hard time imagining him not making it to the finals.

32.) Alan Lin - Famous for being one of the three stooges (finalists) of the 2017 Tournament of Champions, along with Austin Rogers and Buzzy Cohen. The three engaged in a bunch of memorable antics together, but Alan was able to finish in second place, adding $100,000 to his 6-day total of $123,600. He also earned $33,333 for finishing third in the All-Star Games with Colby and Pam, as mentioned earlier.

31.) Emma Boettcher - Emma is honestly a bit of a wildcard, especially given that she was a literal wildcard choice for the 2019 Tournament of Champions line-up after Larry Martin’s unfortunate passing. She won three games in her original run, her first game famously being the game where she defeated James Holzhauer.

While her three wins were strong, it was the TOC where she really showed off her ability, defeating some tough competition in players like Josh Hill and Kyle Jones and earning that rematch with James Holzhauer. It was a horse race between them two, as Francois Barcomb wasn’t able to pick up much ground against them.

The final scores were $76,923 for James, $65,000 for Emma, and $5,000 for Francois. James and Emma hold the top two highest two-day final totals in tournaments, but it was Emma who outscored James on the second day. As of now, I believe Emma is still one of James’s biggest threats and would probably have one of the best chances of taking the Masters title from James. Hopefully she gets a JIT invitation.

30.) Ben Chan - The most recent big-time champion, he scored nine runaways in a row to win his first nine games before surprisingly losing his 10th game, joining only three others in sharing this fate. Like Zach Newkirk, his run was interrupted and he didn’t return until Hannah Wilson’s 9th game, where he won in a shocking blowout to earn $60,000 in his 4th game. It’s not known yet how well he’ll do in future games, but he already has a sterling resumé.

29.) Ben Ingram - A strong 8-time champion in his original run before losing to 4-time champion Mark Japinga, people had ranked him pretty highly before the 2014 Tournament of Champions already. The big talk, however, seemed to surround Julia Collins and Arthur Chu and how far they would go. People were sure one of them would win and surely enough, they both made the finals. Ben was the third finalist.

Ben Ingram went into Final Jeopardy! both days in third place, but continued his perfect Final Jeopardy! record on the first final day, being the only one correct and wagering everything, thus granting him the advantage of going into the second day in the lead. On the second day, everyone was wrong in Final Jeopardy! following a closely contested game, and at the end of the game, Ben was still in the lead and become the winner of the whole tournament.

Ben and Julia would re-unionize in the All-Star Games for Team Julia, along with Seth Wilson, but the team came up short at the end of the quarterfinals and were the first team eliminated. Still, Ben ranks as one of the top players following this string of results.

28.) Dan Pawson - Here’s some deep lore for people who were on the Sony Pictures message boards, before the forum became Jboard: The Kevin Marshall Curse. There was a gap in Jeopardy! history, where following Kevin’s 6th win, no one would be able to win their sixth game. The 2007 Tournament of Champions only had 5-time champions and less, as a result.

In early 2008, Dan Pawson won his 6th game following a very savvy Final Jeopardy! bet on a triple stumper, becoming the first to do so in two years. He won three more games and then returned over a year later to win the 2009 Tournament of Champions over Larissa Kelly and Aaron Schroeder. In his last appearance, he won his Battle of the Decades preliminary game before losing out in the quarterfinals to Brad Rutter.

27.) Frank Spangenberg - Probably one of the biggest heavyweights of the pre-doubled values era, he’s the only player of that era to surpass $100,000 in regular play, earning $102,597 after setting a one-day record (at the time) of $30,600 ($61,200 in current values). After getting ousted in the quarterfinals of Super Jeopardy! and in the semifinals of the 1990 Tournament of Champions, he went on to win the 1993 10th Anniversary Tournament against Tom Nosek and Leslie Frates.

He appeared in three more tournaments, getting ousted in the first round of the Million Dollar Masters and the Battle of the Decades, but making it all the way to round 4 in the Ultimate Tournament of Champions before losing to Jerome Vered. For someone who was a primed player in the ‘90s, he had a pretty sustained legacy through the 2000s as well.

26.) Austin Rogers - The last player of this tier is 12-time champion and 2017 Tournament of Champions 2nd runner-up Austin Rogers. One of the most flamboyant contestants in the show’s history, he’s primarily remembered for his on-stage antics and mannerisms, but also for his big wagers on Daily Doubles and in Final Jeopardy! He also has one of the most consistent Final Jeopardy! records of anyone in their original runs, only missing one clue where he guessed “what is a taco?” to a clue about American plays.

Despite his big winnings in his original streak, his tournament play hasn’t quite lived up to the strength of it. While he did make the TOC finals, it was a struggle to get there, as he was outplayed by Alan Lin in his quarterfinal game, relying on an all-in Final Jeopardy! bet to get him a wildcard spot for the semis, where he also underperformed but was able to skate by due to his opponents missing the Daily Doubles in the second round. He also competed in the All-Star Games as captain of his team, where they finished in second during the wildcard round.