‘Jeopardy!’ Fans Predict Who Will Come Back for 2025 Invitational Tournament

Dan Clarendon February 2, 2025, 10:45 am

'Jeopardy!' contestants Mehal Shah, Sharath Narayan, and Sam Buttrey — Jeopardy!/YouTube

The 2025 Jeopardy! Invitational Tournament is set to tape from Tuesday, February 4, to Thursday, February 6, according to The Jeopardy! Fan, and on Reddit, fans are submitting their contestant wishlists.

“Who do you think will be in this year’s JIT?” one Reddit user wrote on Saturday, February 1, kicking off the conversation.

That user had a long list of predictions, proposing Matt Amodio, Amy Schneider, Mattea Roach, Ben Chan, Troy Meyer, Brad Rutter, Julia Collins, Emma Boettcher, Roger Craig, Hannah Wilson, Cris Pannullo, Ray Lalonde, Juveria Zaheer, Rowan Ward, Jonathan Fisher, Margaret Shelton, Veronica Vichit-Vadakan, Ryan Bilger, Karen Farrell, and Tim Kutz.

In a popular comment on the thread, a Jeopardy! fan hoped Mehal Shah would be invited back after his controversial “horriblis” exit from the Tournament of Champions last week. “He’s an exciting player who bets big and [is] clearly very talented,” that commenter wrote.

Another fan, however, recalled a rule in which players from the most recent Jeopardy! postseason can’t participate in that year’s Invitational, since they already had a chance to get to Masters. “Mehal can and should return, but it’ll probably be next year or the year after that,” that commenter wrote.

One commenter said Sharath Narayan “definitely deserves a spot” in the next Invitational. “Not only did he dominate the 2016 Teen Tournament, but he’s proven he can hang with the best by defeating Brad Rutter on The Chase,” that user explained. “That win over Brad, one of Jeopardy’s most successful players ever, shows Sharath has only gotten stronger since his teen days. I’d love to see how he matches up against other Jeopardy! champions now that he’s had years to build on his already impressive knowledge base. It would be really interesting to see if his quick buzzer skills from his Teen Tournament days have stayed sharp, too.”

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Someone else nominated “a handful of the [Tournament of Champions] winners pre-21st century, as they are getting up there in age, such as Leszek Pawlowicz, Rachael Schwartz, Mark Lowenthal, Fritz Holznagel, etc.”

And one person wrote, “I know it won’t happen, given he retired, but I’d love to see Sam Buttrey create his villain alter ego and go on a tear — Bam Suttrey (while wearing an eye patch and fake mustache) has nice ring to it.”

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