The night the streak ended
Jeopardy.com reported on 6 December 2022 that Cris Pannullo's super-champion run had ended after twenty-one wins. Six days later, on 12 December, the show published an interview with Andy Tirrell discussing how he had taken the champion down.
Twenty-one consecutive victories puts a player inside the programme's all-time top ten for streak length. By that stage a champion has beaten forty-two challengers and has the buzzer timing built into muscle memory. The challenger who breaks such a run is doing it on a first or second appearance against someone who has been doing it for a month.
Who he is
The research record behind this page identifies him as a political science and international relations professor in San Diego, and gives his winnings as $67,399 across six appearances. Those details come from an encyclopedic list of contestants rather than from the two Jeopardy.com dispatches cited here.
Six appearances after ending a twenty-one-game streak is a substantial run in its own right. It means Tirrell did not merely catch a champion on a bad night; he then held the podium himself against five further sets of challengers.
Why streak-breakers are remembered
Jeopardy! produces two kinds of lasting fame. The first belongs to the super-champions whose runs are measured in weeks. The second belongs to the small number of players who end them, and it is a stranger sort of celebrity: the achievement is defined by someone else's record.
The show leans into it. Both Pannullo's streak-end and Tirrell's interview were published as separate dispatches within a week, and the interview's framing is explicitly about taking down a super-champion. The search traffic that still finds Tirrell's name is largely people asking who beat Cris Pannullo.
What beating a super-champion takes
At that level the deciding factor is rarely knowledge. It is the signalling device: buzzing early locks a player out for a fraction of a second, and a twenty-one-game champion has calibrated the timing across hundreds of clues. A challenger has to solve that problem live, under lights, on a first attempt.
Wagering matters just as much. A challenger who plays cautiously against a champion in form loses slowly; one who bets into the lead at the right moment can be ahead before Final Jeopardy!. Tirrell's own account of the night is the subject of the 12 December interview.
What is documented and what is not
Documented by Jeopardy.com: that Cris Pannullo's winning streak ended after twenty-one games, reported on 6 December 2022, and that Andy Tirrell was the player who defeated him, interviewed by the show on 12 December 2022.
Not documented in those dispatches: his age or date of birth, his university, his family, his exact game scores, and anything about him after December 2022. His occupation, his city and his $67,399 across six appearances come from the research record. He also appears in some records as Andrew Tirrell. No IQ figure appears anywhere in this file.
| Person | Country | Milestone | Age / Stat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Emma Boettcher | United States | Ending James Holzhauer's 32-game Jeopardy! streak | Age 27 |
| Jason Zuffranieri | United States | A maths teacher from Albuquerque won nineteen games in a row and half a mi | Age 43 |
| Andy Tirrell | United States | Ending Cris Pannullo's 21-game Jeopardy! winning streak | — |
| Cris Pannullo | United States | Winning 21 consecutive games of Jeopardy! | — |
| Ray Lalonde | Canada | Winning 12 consecutive games of Jeopardy! in December 2022 | — |
What is documented — and what is not
✓ Documented
- Defeated Cris Pannullo on Jeopardy!, ending a 21-game winning streak
- The streak's end was reported by Jeopardy.com on 6 December 2022
- The show published his interview about the win on 12 December 2022
- Pannullo's 21 wins rank inside the programme's all-time top ten for streak length
? Unverified, disputed or wrong
- His occupation, city and total of $67,399 across six appearances come from the research record, not the cited dispatches
- No age, date of birth, university or family detail appears in these sources
- Nothing in this record documents anything about him after December 2022
Questions people ask about Andy Tirrell
Who beat Cris Pannullo on Jeopardy!?
Andy Tirrell, on the episode reported by the show on 6 December 2022, ending Pannullo's streak at 21 wins.
What does Andy Tirrell do for a living?
The research record identifies him as a professor of political science and international relations in San Diego. The two cited dispatches do not state his occupation.
How many games did Andy Tirrell win?
The research record gives six appearances and $67,399 in winnings, drawn from an encyclopedic list of contestants.
How long was Cris Pannullo's streak?
Twenty-one consecutive wins, which places it inside the programme's all-time top ten for streak length.
How old is Andy Tirrell?
No age or date of birth appears in any source used for this page.
Is he also called Andrew Tirrell?
Yes. He appears in some records under the fuller form of the name.
Where is Andy Tirrell now?
Nothing in the sources used here documents anything about him after December 2022.
Is Andy Tirrell on Wikipedia?
He appears in the encyclopedic list of Jeopardy! contestants. No standalone English Wikipedia article for him is recorded here.
Quick quiz: how well do you know Andy’s story?
Whose Jeopardy! streak did Andy Tirrell end?
How many games had that champion won?
What is Tirrell's profession, per the research record?
Sources
- Andy Tirrell Discusses Taking Down Super-Champion Cris Pannullo — Jeopardy.com (J!Buzz), 2022-12-12
- Jeopardy! Super-Champion Cris Pannullo's Streak Ends With 21 Wins — Jeopardy.com (J!Buzz), 2022-12-06
Checked by the Geniuses.club editorial team. Ages are given as of September 2026.
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