The best of the best
When it comes to the game Jeopardy!, contestant Ken Jennings is the greatest
When it comes to Jeopardy!, Ken Jennings has been crowned the best of the best.
The 45-year-old software engineer turned author from Seattle won his third match on the Jeopardy! The Greatest of All Time broadcast Tuesday night. Jennings collected his Us$1-million prize, easily besting James Holzhauer, who won one round, and Brad Rutter, who went winless.
“It has taken 15 years for Ken Jennings to finally answer the question, ‘Is he as good as he appeared to be in his great run on Jeopardy!?’” host Alex Trebek said as he handed Jennings the trophy.
Jeopardy! The Greatest of All Time was billed as a prime-time event assembling the game show’s most winningest contestants in a bid to decide just who was the best ever. Jennings holds the regular-episode earnings record, which he set during his 74-game winning streak in 2004, taking home $2.52 million 15 years ago. Holzhauer finished just $58,484 shy of Jennings’ cash haul during his 32-game winning streak last year.
During his run, Holzhauer set the record for the most money won during one game, with $131,127, crediting his success to his love of children’s literature.
“They are chock-full of infographics, pictures and all kinds of stuff to keep the reader engaged,” he told The Washington Post. “I couldn’t make it through a chapter of an actual Dickens novel without falling asleep.”
He also showed no fear of making big money bets during the Daily Double and Final Jeopardy rounds.
“I think it was a huge advantage that I don’t blink at gambling large amounts of money when I think I have a big edge,” he told The Post.
Going into the contest, Rutter was the top winner in any game show with $4.7 million in both regular and tournament Jeopardy! competitions. He had beat Jennings in an all-stars match in March and he had never lost to a human opponent.
Shortly after the tournament was announced in November, the trio began trash-talking one another on social media.
“See, normally if you go one on one with another @Jeopardy contestant, you got a 50/50 chance of winning. But I’m a genetic freak and I’m not normal! So you got a 25%, AT BEST, at beat me. Then you add @bradrutter to the mix, your chances of winning drastic (sic) go down,” Holzhauer wrote in a tweet aimed at Jennings.
Trebek said the tournament “was a natural because of the appearance of James Holzhauer.”
Throughout Tuesday’s match, Jennings employed Holzhauer’s strategy of making big bets, twice betting all of his points on a Daily Double and winning.
During the first round, Jennings bet all 32,800 of his points on the clue: “This area of Greece, home to Pan, is synonymous with a rural paradise; it’s a setting for Vergil’s shepherd poems the Eclogues.” He correctly answered, “What is Arcadia?”
In the second half, Holzhauer was leading, but he fumbled his answer to the Final Jeopardy question that asked the contestants to identify the non-title character in a Shakespearean tragedy with the most speeches. Jennings didn’t bet any points, but answered correctly: “Who is Iago?”
Holzhauer put everything on the line, but guessed Horatio incorrectly.
At the end, Holzhauer and Rutter hoisted Jennings in the air on their shoulders. The losers each pocketed $250,000.
Holzhauer shared a meme of Bret (The Hitman) Hart emblazoned with Jennings’ face and the words, “The best there is, the best there was, and the best there ever will be.”
Jennings was humble following his win, taking to Twitter to deem Holzhauer “a player so dominant that, when he took on the strongest players ever in his sport, they both had to adopt his exact style of play just to contain him. THAT’S a once-in-a-generation talent.”