Ken Jennings honors the incredible streak of fallen Jeopardy! champ James Holzhauer
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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.)
In defeat, Holzhauer was highly complimentary of both the man he was chasing and the woman who caused him to fall short. He also changed his Twitter avatar to a highly appropriate photo of Weird Al.
As for who would win in some kind of Jeopardy! head-to-head showdown, Jennings addressed that topic this morning in his weekly “Tuesday Trivia” newsletter.
… the amazing run of Mr. James Holzhauer on Jeopardy! in recent weeks has given me plenty of chances to consider the fact that I no longer have every trivia answer on the tip of my tongue the way I used to. The answer to “How would you do against James?”, which I am getting asked a lot, depends on which version of my brain gets to play.
BRIGHT-EYED 2004 KEN: I like my odds.
BROKEN-DOWN 2019 KEN: I might need some breaks.
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24 Comments
As you very likely had spoiled for you—unless you were able to catch the 9:30 a.m. CT screening in Montgomery, AlabamaTalk about being a winner, and a loser.
I’m just surprised they have electricity in Montgomery, Alabama.
“legitimately challenge his place as Jeopardy!’s greatest player” so they talked to brad rutter?
Put Brad, Ken and James against each other in a match and James wins easily. His button pressing speed and timing alone gives him the edge.
In any given game, I think any one of the three of them could win, but over a stretch of games, say a best-of-seven series, I’m putting all my money on Holzhauer.
Same here. Any of them could win a single game, but I think James would win that best of seven. He was dominant in a way that neither Brad or Ken displayed.
Counterpoint: Brad has never lost to a human.Jennings maybe had more difficult final jep questions than Holzhauer. He also used a similar strategy as Holzhauer, but where Holzhauer was averaging $11k per Daily Double bet, Jennings took a safer $10k.
Yeah, I typed the wrong name. I meant to say that Brad wins easily.
I’m not sure where you got those numbers, but they are extremely wrong. Holzhauer’s average daily double bet was $8,984, and Jennings’ was $3,265.
https://thejeopardyfan.com/2019/04/james-holzhauer-ken-jennings-comparison.html
Oops was just typing quickly without thinking. The numbers I used, even if right, wouldn’t make sense to make a difference anyway.
i honestly have no idea who would win, from what i remember brad has soundly defeated ken multiple times so to me itd be btw brad and james.
Ken and James both consider Brad one of the best (the three are clearly amongst the top three). Casual viewers and bloggers don’t remember (or even know about) Brad since he didn’t have these famous streaks (by design), and picked up the rest of his winnings in all the other games.
That whole, Broken down 2019 Ken part really struck a sad chord for me. I religiously watched Jeopardy in my house every weekday at 7pm EST (Like a normal human and not some Montgomery savage) for 20+ years. If Ken is broken then I’m so screwed I’m surprised I typed this out coherently.
The Twitter avatar switch to Weird Al is great. I like the cut of this guy’s jib.
“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.”Then put it in the rules. That’s how all but the most ruthless min-maxers play the game anyway, so drop the gentleman’s agreement crap and prevent clue skipping.
Ken Jennings should stick to his day job: being an absolute delight on twitter and as a podcast host.
“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.”That’s what they have said, but this is more then anyone has talked about Jeopardy in years. I’m sure they are fine with this approach as long as it means ratings
For sure they’ll take the ratings, but not everyone who employs the Holzhauer/Arthur Chu approach is going to go on the same kind of headline- and ratings-grabbing winning streak as them.The at-home viewing experience (where you can’t see the board at all times) is definitely more satisfying when you’re more often than not getting five consecutive clues of ascending difficulty in the same category.
I’m not sure that the Jeopardy! production company will actually see much of the benefit of the ratings boost. From my limited understanding of the syndication industry, I would guess that they sell seasons of the show in advance, for a fixed price, with no ability to receive a kick back on ad revenue. Usually, a syndicated show would leverage a spike in ratings to demand more money for the next season. But in this case, the spike in interest caused by a once-in-a-decade talent isn’t sustainable. Now that he’s off the show, the interest he generated is gone with him. Plus, Trebeck is on death’s doorstep last time I checked.
Actually isn’t the latest news that Trebek is responding really well to treatment?
ken is a class act. i hope he takes over for alex in 50 years.
Jesus, how long is Alex living for?
a long, long, long time!
129 years.