Ken Jennings honors the incredible streak of fallen Jeopardy! champ James Holzhauer
In the end, the Jeopardy!’s long-reigning king stayed the king. As you very likely had spoiled for you—unless you were able to catch the 9:30 a.m. CT screening in Montgomery, Alabama—James Holzhauer’s freight-train winning-streak came to an end yesterday at 32 wins and $2,462,216. That meant Holzhauer fell just shy of breaking Ken Jennings’ winnings total of $2,520,700, and never came even close to his truly titanic total of 74 wins. But, while Jennings retained his records, he expressed nothing but admiration for the efforts of the first person to legitimately challenge his place as Jeopardy!’s greatest player, posting a fitting tribute to Holzhauer on Twitter.
The comparison to Thanos is not inapt, at least in syndicated game show terms. While Holzhauer was ultimately unable to capture either of Jennings records, the fact that he won nearly as much money in fewer than half as many games tells you just how dominant he was. Holzhauer now holds the top 16 highest individual game win totals, and his strategy may well change the way the game is played moving forward.
Holzhauer was not the first player to try to focus on high-value clues to build a surplus of cash before seeking out the Daily Doubles on the board and betting big, but he was the first player of his rare caliber to do so, and it paid off for him massively. There’s no doubt future players will try to replicate his strategy, and, in fact, current champ Emma Boettcher used a similar strategy to knock Holzhauer off, though it’s unlikely many will find the same sort of success. (Jeopardy! producers, on the other hand, have stated in the past that they would prefer players go in a more viewer-friendly top-to-bottom order.)