When it comes to “Jeopardy!” titans, game recognize game.
James Holzhauer, a professional gambler from Las Vegas, Nev., won his 16th consecutive “Jeopardy!” match on Thursday night.
While the streak on its own is significant – it’s the fourth-longest since the iconic game show removed its five-game limit in 2003 – it’s the amount of money Holzhauer has won that is mind-blowing. He’s pocketed $1,225,987, an average of more than $76,000 for each 30-minute episode.
Thanks to aggressive wagering, precise timing and encyclopedic knowledge, Holzhauer now holds the eight highest individual-game totals in the 35-year Alex Trebek era. Four of his single-night totals are in the six figures – including the current record, $131,127, which he amassed on April 17.
“It’s the way that all of us said we wanted to play and never did,” says Austin Rogers, a bartender from New York, NY, whose tousled hair and goofy demeanor won him millions of fans during a 12-game streak in 2017. “Get a nice chunk, then get the Daily Double, wager it all, and crush everyone into submission.”
Other “Jeopardy!” champions are similarly enthusiastic about the newcomer to their ranks.
“There’s not much to say other than he’s really good,” says Brad Rutter, an actor and producer from Los Angeles, Calif., whose $4.6 million in winnings propelled him to No. 1 on the show’s all-time leaderboard. (Ken Jennings, a computer scientist turned writer from Seattle, Wash., holds the record for the longest streak with 74 victories.) Holzhauer is “elite across the board in knowledge base and the signaling device, and he’s taking betting to a whole new level.”
Rogers adds that friends text him after every game, marveling at Holzhauer’s prowess. “I’ll just write back, ‘GOAT,’ ” he says, using the shorthand for “greatest of all time.”
“I think it’s great,” says Roger Craig, a machine learning consultant from Arlington, Va., whose measly $77,000 was the single-day record in the pre-Holzhauer era. “The show gets better ratings, it raises awareness, it gets people excited.”
Not everyone is quite so excited about Holzhauer’s run. Some feel particularly sorry for his opponents, many of whom could have put up streaks of their own had they not faced a juggernaut in their debuts.
Others, including Rogers, believe Holzhauer’s domination has taken the fun out of the show itself. “He’s perpetually fascinating, but the games are boring,” Rogers says. “It’s like watching a Steph Curry 3-point onslaught and it’s a 131-98 game. What’s the point in that?”
Hallmarks of Holzhauer’s play are his large wagers on Daily Doubles, which let contestants risk any or all of their totals. These have (so far) enabled him to gain insurmountable leads heading into Final Jeopardy, where he routinely places another sizable bet, in one case plunking down more than $60,000 on a single clue about 20th-century literary characters.
For his part, Holzhauer seems to have overcome a psychological barrier that has haunted even some of the greats. “You can go in with a plan to bet like that, but pulling the trigger, it’s like, ‘Do I really want to do this?’ ” says Craig, whose back-to-back “true” Daily Doubles – which allowed him to quadruple his score in just two clues – helped him to cruise to victory in the 2011 Tournament of Champions.
A successful contestant myself – I won the 2003 College Championship, and was later invited back for a couple of tournaments – I can attest to this phenomenon. In my last match, I briefly thought about risking all of my $12,800 on a Daily Double concerning chemistry, which I considered one of my strongest categories. As Trebek awaited my decision, I realized that such a large bet would be unheard of, so I chickened out and went for $4,000 – and ended up losing as a result.
It might be counterintuitive, but these large wagers probably increase Holzhauer’s likelihood of winning. “He’s looking at it from a sports betting mentality,” says Rutter, who adds that he personally hasn’t gambled on sports. “He’s coming at it from a win percentage perspective.”
Since my last appearance, the game has evolved a bit, with some previously rare strategies gaining currency – methods Holzhauer has used to his benefit. Like several successful players, including the infamous 11-game champion Arthur Chu, Holzhauer has eschewed the viewer-friendly approach of following a single category from top to bottom; instead, he moves around the bottom of the board in an attempt to rack up quick cash and find the all-important Daily Doubles.
He also follows in the footsteps of players like poker pro Alex Jacob, who similarly made it a habit to wager everything in an attempt to increase his winning potential. When Holzhauer goes “all in” on a Daily Double, he even pushes an imaginary stack of poker chips toward the camera.
In short, Holzhauer isn’t doing anything new; he’s just tying existing strategies together in a way that has yielded unprecedented results.
“He’s playing near-perfect, or as close to perfect as anybody has,” says Craig.
Not all future “Jeopardy!” contestants can or should follow his example, Rutter warns, citing Holzhauer’s unusually deep knowledge base as critical to his overall strategy.
“He’s gotten a lot of attention for his big wagers,” the all-time champ says. “But if you don’t have the goods, it’s not going to do much for you.”
Source: Read Full Article