Jeopardy! execs admit one Masters finalist was ‘inconsistent’ and often goes from ‘in the weeds’ to ‘soaring’

JEOPARDY! producers have admitted that Matt Amodio’s gameplay style is a bit of an enigma.

The 38-time champion “soared” during some moments of Jeopardy! Masters, yet there were entire games “where he doesn’t really play.”

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On the podcast Inside Jeopardy!, executive producer Michael Davies reflected on how Matt’s gameplay is hard to pin down.

Davies stated: “Matt Amodio is the most inconsistent of the Jeopardy! Masters.”

“He can soar so high, [but] he can have games where sort of he doesn’t really play.

“He’s a really mercurial, interesting player in that respect.”

Former champion Buzzy Cohen defended: “Matt is more of an inconsistent player, but Matt wins when it’s really crucial.

When he needed to turn it on he turned it on.”

“He went on such a long [initial] run that there was no pressure to keep going.

The added pressure brings focus whereas you can also often see him in the weeds.”

MASTERS WILDCARD

James won the Masters crown and $500,000 by the thinnest of margins on last Thursday’s fierce finale of the three-week special.

Mattea Roach– who is non-binary and prefers to go by the pronouns they/them – lost by a mere 2100 combined points after James made a slightly savvier Final Jeopardy wager.

They pushed the 32-time pro gambler to the brink while reeling from the sudden loss of their father at 57 in their family home while filming.

Mattea went home with $250,000 for second place, and Matt Amodio $150,000 for placing third.

Ken Jennings announced that all three finalists will be guaranteed slots in next year’s Masters.

James won an additional $100,000 for Project 150 (which helps Las Vegas-area high school students with insecure housing).

Matt was in such a far third place between the two that he simply wrote as his final response of the tournament: “And the winner is…?”

MYSTERIOUS MASTER

Yet out of the six Masters contenders, Matt’s statistics were perhaps the most worth eyeballing.

He won four matches in the special, but lost six – he never placed second once in the entire event. He also buzzed in the fewest number of times.

During the quarterfinals of the special, Matt, however, prevailed with in a stunning moment off the back of a $11K Daily Double wager.

Yet, in another, he finished with -2000 having missed a $9.6K Daily Double and did not compete in Final Jeopardy.

After that game, which James won, the self-described game show villain created a meme of Matt morphing into Brad Rutter who famously didn’t fare well in the 2020 GOAT Tournament.

That said, Matt was also the one player to notch a win against James during Masters.

He forced the poker pro to bet big on a Final Jeopardy clue that he wound up being incorrect on, shocking fans.

MORE TO AMODI-KNOW

Matt is a postdoctoral researcher at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, according to his LinkedIn.

He earned his Ph.D. with a focus on machine learning and artificial intelligence from Yale in June 2022.

“I was only reluctantly trying out because I didn’t think I would make it, and even if I did make it, I wouldn’t be very good,” Amodio told Entertainment Weekly in 2021.

“I only tried out at the behest of my dad, who insisted, as any parent would, ‘My son is awesome. He would do so well.’ And so I said ‘Fine, I’ll do it for you.'”

Amodio became one of the top Jeopardy! earners back in 2021 during Season 38, winning 38 games.

According to the show’s Contestant Zone, he sits in third place when it comes to the highest winnings during a regular-season play.

Matt has racked up a total of $1,518,601 in his initial run and an added $100K from Masters gives him $1.6M total.

Although fellow Master Amy Schneider won 40 games, Matt came away with $300,000 more earnings during his run.

Matt, who often held the buzzer like a tennis racket pre-backswing during Masters has been called out for “holding back” before.

His second stint was the 2022 Tournament of Champions and he lost to Masters’ beloved Sam Buttrey in a shocking twist with a round $0 Final Jeopardy bet.

One wondered on Twitter: “I love you but why didn’t you bet it all?”

And another wrote: “My question too – why did you not bet anything?”

A third claimed: “It wouldn’t have mattered. Even if he did [bet it all], Sam would have beat him by a dollar [if correct]. 

Another agreed: “Matt knows how to wager.”

However, another person argued this wasn’t the time to assume your rivals would be incorrect.

“I like Matt Amodio a lot, but if you can’t bet on yourself in the Tournament of Champions, I’m not sure when you can.”

Quite the opposite happened during Matt’s third stint as he eliminated Sam in Masters they sweetly hugged.

Matt said he was the “dearest friend [he’s] made in all of Jeopardy!“

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