I am in awe of the ability I saw in champ Barbara Schnell from this past week on 25K. Consider that in her 5 days on the show, she not only broke the daytime record at the time with $58,950 (plus her other gifts), but her maingame play was unmatched.

10 matches played. 10 matches won. She went to the winner's circle after every single game.

Does anyone ever recall another contestant doing that? That's a heck of an accomplishment. Deserving of the all time title.

Paging Brendan ...

Also, semi off-topic question here, but related to Pyramid:

Who were the biggest NON-TOURNAMENT winners on both the Dick Clark AND John Davidson versions of The $100,000 Pyramid respectively?

I think somebody on 10K won 11 straight matches.

(Of course, in the 10K and 20K days, it was harder to get a long streak since you left the show once you won in the Winners Circle.)

-- Don

I believe there were at least two NY-era winners with 13 wins, one who finally won and one who was defeated.

There was one I remember from around '76 - a gentleman who won like 12 games in a row before finally nailing the $20,000 (and before anyone wonders, all of his opponenets were women).

I don't remember the other occasion where this occurred.

Within a day or so of the final cancellation of The $25,000 Pyramid, didn't someone retire undefeated with just a shade above $60K?

Bingo. And I wouldn't be surprised if Barbara's record held for those 2 1/2 years until that next to last day.

Still, in THIS version of the show, I'll be keeping a lookout to see if anyone else can pull off such a streak.

Sorry I missed the page. I was on the other line.

There were four contestants on "The $25,000 Pyramid" who won all 10 of their games. One was the aforementioned Barbara Schnell. The first was Travis Swords, whose reign was in August 1985. I'll hold off on the other two names, because depending on how long GSN keeps showing the $25K reruns, you guys might get to see them for yourselves, and I don't wanna spoil it. On the Clark $100K, only Ellen Gurstell won all 10 of her games, in January of 1986. There were no 10-game winners on Davidson's version, though there were a few 9-timers.

On Clark's $100K, the biggest non-tournament winner was Kathy Reksteiner, who won $66,450. She also must hold the record for most bonuses, winning five out of five 7-11s and four out of five Mystery 7s. On Davidson's $100K, the top money-winner who didn't win a tournament was Nancy Wold, who accumulated $39,900. Neither contestant participated in a tournament, by the way.


Brendan

Is THIS her?

It is, indeed. Contrary to one comment on the page, though, she wasn't the champ before and after the tournament. She finished her fifth appearance three days before the seventh tournament started.


Brendan

I'm sure it's been asked at some point, but I'll ask again. Has anyone ever qualified for the tournament, had their run interrupted by that tournament, then come back?

Wasn't the lovely Heather Davis just such a contestant?

She was and, I believe, the only.

Since I'm not clear on the rules; I'll ask a hypothetical:

Let's say that someone wins in the WC two days before a tournament is set to begin, and they qualify. They win the $100,000. Would they then be allowed to come back after the tournament to continue their run and perhaps qualify again?

This has been asked before. The answer then, as it is now, is "since it didn't happen, we'll never know."

You're forgetting Georgeanne Wright.

And both Heather and Georgeanne qualified in the next tournament that they were eligible for, as well (the 6th and 7th, respectively), though neither player's qualifying time remained intact until the next tournament started. Heather was still a contender for the 6th tournament right up until the very last qualifying day, when Georgeanne broke Heather's 38-second record twice, at 36 seconds and 34 seconds.

Also add to this list Debbie Steron and Jennifer Heftler, who both qualified for tournaments on Davidson's version just days before they started and then resumed their normal runs when their tournaments ended. Debbie had no more big wins, but Jennifer did win $10,000 the day after the tournament ended. I'll have to check my tape and see if they say anything about her being qualified for the new tournament.


Brendan

Not forgetting. I wasn't aware of her. I shall amend my posting: "She was".
I'm also not sure how fair it would've been for anyone to qualify for two tournaments.

That is a tough situation. I guess the only "fair" remedy would be to let them compete in the first tournament, finish their run as champion afterwards, and let that be it. Other than that situation and that they could have just scrapped the format and done a year end tournament, I can't think of another situation where you wouldn't have a complaint.

I guess they figure that if you can beat a tournament time under such pressure at the last minute, then come back and set a time that actually holds, then more power to you.

Introduce a gap between the end of qualifying and the start of the tournament. If the champion at the end of qualifying is in the next tournament, (s)he plays to improve the time/seeding for the rest of their run and challengers try to set times for the following tournament.

Or not have times count until a champion loses or is defeated. Although that would also have the awkward effect of qualifying a player who makes it to the top in 59 seconds on the Friday before a tournament and then gets shellacked in their next game a week and a half later.

It was good enough for Jeopardy's first seven ToC's. The players all qualified during the previous season, with a gap of about four months between the last regulation game of the qualifying period and the ToC in November. (For most of the time that they had a Senior Tournament, it was the last new show of the season and was not rerun.)

Well, the Seniors Tournament being the last new episode of the season were ranged from July 1989-July 1995 IIRC. And J!'s first 9 ToCs had all players from the previous season who had won at least 4 episodes of their run of regular games and won at least $25,000 in their at least 4 episodes they were on. Nowadays the ToCs include players from earlier in the same season and had won at least $50,000 in their run of regular games.