Tournament of Champions

The Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions is an annual tournament featuring the longest-reigning champions from the past season(s). The tournament began in the show's first season in 1964 during Art Fleming's tenure as host, and continued into the current version of the show. Since 1984, there have been four years in which the Tournament was skipped altogether, 1984 (at which point it would have been too early), 1997, 2008, and 2012.

In the current version of the show, the Tournament of Champions field consists of the fourteen champions who have won the most games (with a minimum of three games to qualify) since the previous Tournament of Champions, as well as the winner(s) of any College Championships that occurred in the period since the last Tournaments of Champions. The Tournament of Champions lasts two weeks over ten episodes in a format devised by Trebek himself in 1985. The first week consists of five quarterfinal matches featuring three different champions each day. The winners of those five games, plus the four highest-scoring non-winners in the tournament, advance to the semifinals. In the semifinals, the three winners of the three semifinal games advance to the finals and compete for the championship in a two-game final.

Prizes

Period	Finalists (minimum guarantees)			Semifinalists	Quarterfinalists
	Winner	1st runner-up	2nd runner-up
1964–1974	All players kept their scores in cash at the end of each game				none, except in 1969
1985	$100,000	Kept two day total winnings		$5,000	$1,000
1986		$5,000
1987–1997		$10,000	$7,500
1998–2002		$15,000	$10,000		$2,500
2003–2004	$250,000	$50,000	$25,000	$10,000	$5,000
2006–present		$100,000	$50,000

During the Art Fleming hosted tournaments, in addition to their game winnings, Grand Champions won a tropical vacation and were presented with a trophy called the Griffin Award, named for show creator Merv Griffin. In many years they also received a $1,000 bonus. In 2006, schools selected by each contestant received the Classroom Jeopardy! electronic game in honor of Teacher Appreciation Week.

Teen Tournament

The Jeopardy! Teen Tournament is an annual tournament featuring high school students between the ages of thirteen and seventeen. Fifteen contestants compete in a single-elimination tournament similar in structure to the Tournament of Champions and the College Championship. Teenage contestants appeared sporadically on the Art Fleming-hosted version beginning in 1967, dubbed the "Jeopardy! National College Scholarship Contest". The current syndicated version's Teen Tournament began in 1987.

Prior to the availability of online testing, contestants were drawn at random from those who had sent in postcards and were invited to qualify at regional testing centers (traveling at their own expense). Since 2000, contestants complete registration and, since 2006, a 50-question test online, from which qualifying contestants are selected and invited to again take part in auditions at regional locations. Hopeful contestants complete an additional 50-question test and participate in an interview and mock games at the regional locations.

Prizes

Period	Finalists (minimum guarantees)			Semifinalists	Quarterfinalists
	Winner	1st runner-up	2nd runner-up
1987–1997 (Feb.)	$25,000	$10,000	$7,500	$5,000	$1,000
1997 (Nov.)–2000		$15,000	$10,000		$2,500
2001	$50,000
2002–2003		$20,000	$15,000
2004–2005	$75,000	$25,000
2006–present				$10,000	$5,000

From 1987–2000, the winner of the Teen Tournament also received a bye into the annual Tournament of Champions.

In addition to the cash awards, winners have also received merchandise at various points. The winners of the tournament in November 1997, 2001, 2002 and 2003 also received a new car. The winner of the 2005 tournament received a computer package.

College Championship

The Jeopardy! College Championship has been held annually since 1989 and uses a ten game format similar to that used for the Tournament of Champions and the Teen Tournament. Fifteen contestants, all of whom are full-time undergraduate college students with no prior degrees, compete in a single elimination tournament over the course of ten episodes. The five quarterfinal champions, plus the four highest-scoring non-winners in the tournament, advance to the semifinals. In the semifinals, the three winners of the three semifinal games advance to the finals and compete for the championship in a two game final. The winner of the tournament also earns an automatic position in the next Tournament of Champions.

Prizes

Period	Finalists (minimum guarantees)			Semifinalists	Quarterfinalists
	Winner	1st runner-up	2nd runner-up
1989–1997	$25,000	$10,000	$7,500	$5,000	$1,000
1998–2000 (Feb.)		$15,000	$10,000		$2,500
2000 (Nov.)–2002	$50,000
2003		$25,000	$15,000
2004–present	$100,000	$50,000	$25,000	$10,000	$5,000

From 1993–2004, the winner of the tournament also received a new car (Dodge from 1993–1994, Volvo from 1995–2003, and Volkswagen in 2004), and the company who manufactured the car matched each finalists' totals and set up scholarships in those amounts for the finalists' schools.

Celebrity Jeopardy!

Special editions of Jeopardy! featuring celebrities as contestants playing for charitable organizations of their choosing (or, in the cases of public officials, relevant charities chosen by Jeopardy!). Celebrity games have traditionally been broadcast annually as a weeklong event, and on occasion have been called Power Players Week, featuring personalities in politics and journalism.

The tradition of celebrity matches dates back to the Art Fleming days of Jeopardy! in the 1960s, with appearances by such notable names as Rod Serling. Other notables known to have played the game during the NBC era included game show hosts Bill Cullen, Art James, and Peter Marshall (sometime in the early 1970s).

Unlike during regular play, in which a player finishing the Double Jeopardy! Round with a zero or negative score is disqualified from playing Final Jeopardy!, any such player in a celebrity match is granted a nominal score with which to wager for Final Jeopardy!

Over 200 celebrities have appeared over the course of many tournaments. Celebrities who have made multiple appearances include Anderson Cooper, Cheech Marin, Carol Burnett, Regis Philbin, Sam Waterston, Rosie O'Donnell, Dave Mustaine, Pat Sajak, Jason Alexander, Andy Richter, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, David Duchovny, Bill Maher, Charles Shaughnessy, Layne Staley, Stephen King, Tony Danza, and Tim Russert.

Parodies

Celebrity Jeopardy! has been spoofed numerous times in Saturday Night Live sketches, with Will Ferrell appearing as Trebek, and SNL cast members and guest hosts impersonating various celebrities. Sean Connery, as portrayed by Darrell Hammond, appeared recurringly, functioning as Trebek's nemesis. In 2001, Jeopardy! acknowledged the spoof by selecting a set of references to the skit, including "Therapists" (which Connery interpreted as "the rapists") and "Things You Shouldn't Put in Your Mouth" as Double Jeopardy! categories. Ferrell's final episode as an SNL cast member featured a Celebrity Jeopardy! sketch in which Trebek himself appeared. When Ferrell hosted SNL in 2005 and 2009, he reprised his portrayal of Trebek.

A Celebrity Jeopardy! parody with impersonated celebrities has also been a recurring skit on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. These skits usually include an impersonator playing President George W. Bush as a contestant. In a twist on the SNL parody, even when celebrity contestants supply accurate responses, they are judged incorrect, with the given correct response being the punchline of a joke, in the fashion of the answer-and-question format of Johnny Carson's Carnac the Magnificent character.

Kids Week

A week of five special non-tournament games featuring children aged 10 to 12 has aired at least once per year since 1999. The special week has been called "Kids Week", "Back to School Week" and "Holiday Kids Week" depending on the time frame during the year in which it airs.

Three new contestants compete each day. As in the regular games, the winners of each game keep whatever they win, with minimum guarantees of $15,000 ($10,000 from 2000 to 2009, and $5,000 for the first two events in 1999 and 2000). Unlike in regular games, winners do not return to play another game. However, tiebreakers are held if there is a tie for first place after Final Jeopardy!. The second- and third-place contestants receive consolation prizes, which, as of the third event held in 2001, have been $2,000 and $1,000, respectively. The first four times the event was held, the player who had the highest winning score during the week was also awarded a bonus of $5,000.

Kids Week Reunion

The Jeopardy! Kids Week Reunion brought back 15 Kids Week alumni from the 1999 and 2000 Kids Week games to compete for a minimum $25,000 each game. The special week of programming was taped on August 12, 2008 and was broadcast from September 15, 2008 to September 19, 2008.

Teachers Tournament

The inaugural Jeopardy! Teachers Tournament was held May 2–13, 2011 and featured fifteen full-time teachers of students in grades kindergarten through twelve.

The tournament is similar in format to other tournaments, with the winner receiving a guaranteed minimum of $100,000 and a berth in the Tournament of Champions. The first runner-up collects $50,000 and the second runner-up wins $25,000 (or their combined scores from the two-game final, whichever are higher). Semifinalists who are eliminated collect $10,000 while those eliminated in the quarterfinals pocket $5,000.

Charles Temple, a high school English teacher from Ocracoke, North Carolina, was the winner of the first tournament and received $100,000. The tournament is featured annually during each season of Jeopardy!

Super Jeopardy!

Super Jeopardy! was a special single-elimination tournament that aired weekly on Saturday nights on ABC from June 16 to September 8, 1990 and featured past champions of the show competing for a prize of $250,000. Thirty-six contestants were invited to participate in the tournament. Some Teen, Senior, College, and Tournament of Champions winners competed in the tournament, as well as other former contestants who participated in a Tournament of Champions. Also included in the mix was Burns Cameron, the highest money winner from the 1960s/Art Fleming era of Jeopardy!.

Unlike Jeopardy!, Super Jeopardy! had four contestants per episode in the quarterfinal games, while the semifinal games and the final game had the usual three contestants. The clue values were also modified for the tournament, with values of 200–1000 points (rather than dollars) in the Jeopardy! Round and 500–2500 points in Double Jeopardy!; this was the only time in the show's history that the second round values were not double those of the first round. As in Jeopardy!, one Daily Double was hidden on the board during the Jeopardy! round and two were hidden in Double Jeopardy!, and each match ended with Final Jeopardy! to determine who moved on. Unlike the other tournaments there were no wild card spots for the non-winners.

Bruce Seymour won the final game and claimed the $250,000 top prize. Bob Verini placed second and claimed $50,000, and Dave Traini, whose score was in the negatives at the end of Double Jeopardy!, won $25,000. Semifinalists received $10,000, and contestants who did not advance to the semifinals received $5,000.

GameTek produced a Talking Super Jeopardy! video game for the NES, released in 1990.

Super Jeopardy! was paired with Monopoly, which was hosted by former Jeopardy! contestant Mike Reilly.

Tenth Anniversary Tournament

The Jeopardy! Tenth Anniversary Tournament was a special one-week tournament held in 1993 in honor of the tenth anniversary of the Alex Trebek-hosted version of the show. Semifinalists and finalists of past Tournaments of Champions competed for a winner's prize of a combined two-day final score total plus a $25,000 bonus.

Starting with the regular play game aired November 1, 1993, the game's winner drew one name from each of two bowls on stage. Each bowl was filled with the names of Tournament of Champions semifinalists and finalists from a single past season. The winner of the 1993 Tournament of Champions, which ended the week before the Tenth Anniversary Tournament, was given a bye into the Tenth Anniversary Tournament.

The tournament lasted one week, with three qualifying round matches to determine three finalists who would then go up against each other in a two-game total point match. Eliminated semifinalists received consolation prizes of $5,000, while the second runner-up received a guaranteed minimum of $7,500, the first runner-up received a guaranteed minimum of $10,000, and the winner would earn his or her two-game total plus a $25,000 bonus.

Roy Holliday, Steve Rogitz, Mark McDermott, Doug Molitor, Robert Slaven, and Lionel Goldbart each received $5,000.

Spangenberg won the tournament with a two-game score of $16,800 plus a $25,000 bonus for a total of $41,800. Tom Nosek, the 1993 Tournament of Champions winner, finished second with $13,600; and Leslie Frates won the $7,500 guaranteed third place prize, which exceeded her score of $4,499.

Teen Reunion Tournament

A special one-week tournament held in November 1998 invited back twelve former Teen Tournament contestants to compete in a single-elimination tournament. The three highest-scoring winners of the four semifinal matches competed in a one-game final where the champion received $50,000; the second and third-place players received $15,000 and $10,000, respectively. The semifinal winner who did not participate in the finals received $7,500, and the other contestants each received $5,000.

Million Dollar Masters

The Jeopardy! Million Dollar Masters tournament was a two-week Jeopardy! tournament televised in May 2002. Fifteen former champions participated in the event, which was taped at Radio City Music Hall. The tournament, which commemorated the 4,000th episode of the Alex Trebek-hosted version of the show, was won by Brad Rutter (who would go on to win the Ultimate Tournament of Champions in 2005). As the title suggests, contestants competed for a top prize of $1,000,000. At the time, this was the largest prize ever offered on Jeopardy!.

The fifteen contestants invited were: Tournament of Champions winners Chuck Forrest (1986), Bob Verini (1987), Rachael Schwartz (1994), Robin Carroll (2000), and Brad Rutter (2001), Tournament of Champions finalist Bob Harris (1997), Tournament of Champions semifinalists Kate Waits (1988), Eric Newhouse (1989), Frank Spangenberg (1990), Leslie Frates (1991), India Cooper (1992), Leslie Shannon (1993), Claudia Perry (1998), Eddie Timanus (2000), and Babu Srinivasan (2001). Jeremy Bate, the first runner-up in the 2000 Tournament of Champions, was the alternate for this tournament, but he did not enter the competition.

This tournament had the same two-week, three-round format as the traditional tournaments on Jeopardy!: the Tournament of Champions, the Teen Tournament, the College Championship, and the Teachers Tournament, as well as the now-defunct Seniors Tournament.

The event's first round ran from May 1 to May 7. After the first round, the champions of all five games, as well as four "wild card" non-winners with the highest scores, moved on to the semi-finals. Bob Harris, Brad Rutter, Chuck Forrest, Bob Verini, and India Cooper won their games, while Claudia Perry, Leslie Frates, Eric Newhouse, and Leslie Shannon were the wild card semifinalists.

In three semifinal matches, televised on May 8–10, Eric Newhouse, Brad Rutter, and Bob Verini won, advancing to face each other in the two-day final of May 13 and 14. Rutter took a strong lead in the first final game, answering as many questions as both opponents combined, while Newhouse's aggressive all-in wager in Final Jeopardy! on day one reduced him to zero, putting him in a distant trailing position for the rest of the match. In the second game, Verini tried to make up ground with aggressive wagers on both Daily Doubles in Double Jeopardy!, only to lose money and fall further behind, and allowing Rutter to expand his overall lead despite a relatively unexceptional second game. Indeed, Rutter was only $201 away from a lock match which would have rendered the last Final Jeopardy! meaningless.

In the end, all three contestants questioned the Final Jeopardy! answer correctly, and Rutter won the million-dollar grand prize—with a $201 wager. Newhouse came in second, and Verini third.

Other prizes included $10,000 for each contestant eliminated during the first week, $25,000 for each defeated semifinalist, $50,000 for third place in the finals with second place receiving $100,000.

Ultimate Tournament of Champions

The Jeopardy! Ultimate Tournament of Champions was a special fifteen-week single-elimination tournament that aired during the twenty-first season of the syndicated game show Jeopardy! that began airing on February 9, 2005 and concluded on May 25, 2005, covering 76 shows in all. The tournament involved 145 contestants, all of whom were winners of past tournaments or past five-time champions, and was designed to produce two contestants who would face off in a three-game, cumulative-score final against Ken Jennings, who had won the most money in Jeopardy! regular play history and who (entering the tournament) had set a new all-time game show winnings record with US $2,522,700. Those three contestants would then play in a three-game final for a grand prize of US $2,000,000, which was and still is the largest prize the show has ever offered.

After four rounds, the tournament's field of 144 past champions was winnowed to two: Brad Rutter and Jerome Vered. Rutter had set the previous all-time Jeopardy! prize money record in the 2002 Million Dollar Masters tournament, while Vered had set a single-day winnings record in 1992 that (if adjusted for the doubling of clue values) stood for twelve years until Jennings (in his 38th game) broke it.

Rutter decisively won the three-game final, claiming the tournament title and the $2,000,000 prize. Contestants in the tournament won a grand total of $5,604,413 (US).

Million Dollar Celebrity Invitational

The Jeopardy! Million Dollar Celebrity Invitational began on September 17, 2009, and subsequent games aired on the third Thursday of every month from September 2009 to April 2010, with an additional quarter-final on the third Friday of April 2010. The semi-final and final rounds aired during the first full week of May 2010. A total of 27 celebrities—three per game for the nine semifinal episodes—competed for a grand prize of $1,000,000 for their charity. The nine winners of each qualifying game returned in May 2010 for three semi-final games, and the semi-final winners competed in a two-day "total point" final to determine the grand champion in a format similar to other annual Jeopardy! tournaments.

Standard Jeopardy! scoring and rules applied, with one exception related to negative scores. As is the tradition on Celebrity Jeopardy! tournaments, any player who had a score at or below $0 after the Double Jeopardy! round had their score adjusted to $1,000, to allow all three celebrities to participate in Final Jeopardy!

The winner of each qualifying game won a minimum of $50,000 for their charity (more if their post-Final Jeopardy! score exceeded $50,000), and the two runners-up each received $25,000 for their charities.

Jane Curtin, Michael McKean and Cheech Marin advanced to the two-game final. McKean won the tournament, earning $1 million for his charity, the International Myeloma Foundation.

Celebrities

IBM Challenge

From February 14–16, 2011, the IBM Challenge featured IBM's Watson software facing off against the two most successful former Jeopardy! champions, Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter, in two matches played over three days. Watson won the competition and received $1 million for IBM, while $300,000 was awarded to second-place finisher Jennings, and Rutter was awarded $200,000. Jennings and Rutter pledged to donate half their winnings to charity, and IBM donated 100% of Watson's winnings to charity. This was the first ever man-vs.-machine competition in Jeopardy!'s history.

Seniors Tournament

From 1987 through 1995, the Jeopardy! Seniors Tournament featured fifteen contestants all over the age of 50. Since the last tournament in December 1995, contestants over the age of 50 regularly appear on the program in non-tournament games.

The format of the tournament was structured similarly to the Tournament of Champions, the Teen Tournament, and the College Championship. Fifteen contestants competed in groups of three over the first five days of competition. The five one-game champions, plus the four highest-scoring non-winners, advanced to the semifinals again in groups of three. The three semifinal winners advanced to the two-game final match for a top prize of at least $25,000.

Contestants defeated in the quarterfinal matches received $1,000. Each semifinalist who did not move to the finals received $5,000. The third-place contestant received $7,500, the second-place contestant received $10,000 and the champion received $25,000. The prizes in the final match were guaranteed minimums; if a contestant achieving first, second or third place finished with a combined two-game score that exceeded the minimum award, the contestant won the higher amount.

International Tournaments

One-week tournaments featuring champions from each of the international versions of Jeopardy! were held in 1996, 1997, and 2001. Each of the countries that aired their own version of the show in those years could nominate a contestant. The format was identical to the semifinals and finals of the Tournament of Champions.

Prizes

The prize amounts for all contestants are as follows:

Period	Finalists (minimum guarantees)			Semifinalists
	Winner	1st runner-up	2nd runner-up
1996	$25,000	$10,000	$7,500	$5,000
1997
2001	$50,000	$15,000	$10,000

List of contestants

Winners who earned more than the minimum guarantee are as indicated.

Finalists	Semifinalists
Alex Trebek Era (1984–present)
Olympic Games Tournament: Season 12 (July 15–18, 1996), in Culver City, California
Winner: Ulf Jensen ( Sweden, $25,000) 1st runner-up: Mandi Hale ( United Kingdom, $10,000) 2nd runner-up: Jan Mertens ( Belgium, $7,500)	Steinar Madsen ( Norway) Elena Kislenkova ( Russia) Søren Wedderkopp ( Denmark) Thomas (Tom) Kinne ( Germany) Hasib Yildirim ( Turkey) Ryan Holznagel ( United States)
International Tournament: Season 13 (May 5–9, 1997), in Stockholm, Sweden
Winner: Michael Daunt ( Canada, $35,000) 1st runner-up: Per Gunnar Hillesoy ( Norway, $22,000) 2nd runner-up: Boris Levit ( Israel, $7,500)	Anatoly Belkine ( Russia) Dana Pernille Hansen ( Denmark) Tobias Herzig ( Germany) Eva Holmberg ( Sweden) Gay Mollette ( United States) Murat Sen ( Turkey)
International Championship: Season 17 (February 12, 2001–16, 2001), in Las Vegas, Nevada, United States
Winner: Robin Carroll ( United States, $50,000) 1st runner-up: Frederik Gildea ( Sweden, $15,000) 2nd runner-up: Carsten Weidermann ( Denmark, $10,000)	Yuri Bershidski ( Russia) Gosia Czepek ( Poland) Sharon Eshel ( Israel) Firat Isbecer ( Turkey) Laszlo Mero ( Hungary) Ott Sandrak ( Estonia)

In the 1997 International Tournament held in Stockholm, Mälte, the Swedish version's announcer at that time, from the Magnus Harenstam era, was the announcer during the tournament for a few episodes instead of Johnny Gilbert.

The Olympic Games Tournament in 1996 commemorated the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia. The tournament was held in four days, with the final round lasting one day instead of two.

Only five countries took part in all three tournaments: the United States, Denmark, Sweden, Russia, and Turkey. The 1997 contest also featured a contestant from Canada. Since Canada does not have its own version of Jeopardy! (instead simulcasting the American version, on which the Canadian contestant had originally appeared), the 1997 tournament was the only to feature two contestants from the American show.

Other international tournaments

The Russian version held an international tournament between February and July 2012 that featured contestants playing from all oblasts in Russia, as well as many other countries in northern Asia and eastern Europe.