Green Bay ‘Jeopardy!’ champ gets a date for Tournament of Champions
Get ready to cheer on Ben Chan again.
The 2023 “Jeopardy!” champ from Green Bay will be returning to TV for the show’s long-awaited Tournament of Champions, which begins on Friday. He’s one of 27 top-performing contestants from the 2022-’23 season to make the cut.
Here’s when you can catch him with buzzer in hand.
Who is Ben Chan?
Chan is an assistant philosophy professor at St. Norbert College in De Pere. He has been with the college since 2013 and lives in Green Bay. He grew up in New York watching “Jeopardy!” as a kid and said getting to compete on the show has been a bucket list item.
He quickly became a fan favorite on the show and shared a story of once beating former Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers at pub trivia. Among his signature moves: He always puts an exclamation point behind his name on the podium screen and always gives the cameras a well-mannered raise the roof gesture during player introductions.
How many games has Chan won?
He cruised to a nine-game winning streak of $252,600 last spring, giving him the third-highest total of any “Jeopardy!” champion during the 2022’23 season.
He first appeared on April 12 and won three games, before he tested positive for COVID-19 and was unable to travel for tapings. The show temporarily paused his run and brought him back in May.
He set a record by winning all of his victories as runaways, which happens when a contestant is so far out ahead there’s no way for the next closest contestant to catch up.
His run came to an end May 23 when he missed the correct answer for Final Jeopardy! by a single letter. For the clue seeking the names of two lovers in a Shakespeare play from the Latin words for “blessed,” he wrote “Who are Beatrice & Benedict?” The correct answer was Beatrice and Benedick.
When will he compete?
Chan’s quarterfinal round is scheduled for March 5. There are nine quarterfinals with three contestants each beginning Friday and running through March 6, so Chan fans will have to be patient. The full schedule is posted at jeopardy.com.
In the Milwaukee area, “Jeopardy!” airs weeknights at 6 p.m. on WDJT-TV (Channel 58), Channel 5 on Spectrum cable.
The tournament usually tapes in late August and September, according to The Hollywood Reporter. but it was pushed back until after the Writers Guild of America strike ended in September.
Chan’s ‘Jeopardy!’ competitors
For his quarterfinal, Chan will face off against Justin Bolsen, a public policy economics student at Brown University from Canton, Georgia, who won the first-time High School School Reunion Tournament in 2023 at age 18.
His other competitor is Emmett Stanton, a freelance writer from Baltimore
who won three games in September 2022.
Where is Chan ranked?
Chan is ranked No. 3 among fellow Tournament of Champions contestants, according to the official “Jeopardy!” stats. Only Cris Pannullo, No. 1 with 21 games won, and Ray Lalonde, No. 2 with 13 games, are ranked higher.
His quarterfinal competitors, Bolsen and Stanton, are ranked No. 17 and No. 23, respectively.
Chan also is ranked eighth for average correct answer percentage with 92.1% and fourth for Final Jeopardy! correct answers with 80%.
What’s next if he wins?
The nine quarterfinal winners move on to one of three semifinal rounds March 7, 8 and 11. Those three winners then advance to the finals, which begin March 12. The first champion to win three games in the best of seven finals series takes home the $250,000 grand prize and gets to compete in the upcoming “Jeopardy! Masters” primetime event on ABC.