I confess. I’m a regular Jeopardy viewer. Have been for at least 25 years. I seldom miss an episode. During a stretch about this time last year, I fell behind and ended up binging 74 episodes in a 6 days to catch up.
I used to even keep score. On one episode many years ago, Alex forgot to give the correct answer after all three contestants missed the Final Jeopardy question. I had to know the correct answer because it impacted MY final score. In a time before the Internet, reaching out to Jeopardy was not so easy. I had to use one of my connections at WFRV, who at that time aired the show, to procure the phone number of the Jeopardy office in Los Angeles. Sheepishly, I rang them up and blurted out, ” Yesterday, Alex forgot to…”. Before I could finish, the receptionist said “Frida Kahlo”. Happy that I got the correct answer (or question, I guess) I thanked her and hung-up happy in the knowledge that I apparently wasn’t the only one who called. There were other freaks out there like me!
I mention this to show that I’m not some occasional viewer who just started watching during this amazing run by professional sport gambler James Holzhauer who has won close to $1.3 million in just 17 games.
I keep hearing casual viewers speculating that he is cheating because “nobody could know that much about so many things”. As someone who has literally watched thousands of episodes I can tell you that his wide breadth of knowledge isn’t what’s unique about James. There have been others just as well versed in as many areas that haven’t rung up such massive winnings per game. No, James real strength is not so much in his head as it is in his thumb and his testicles.
First of all, you can have the Encyclopedia Britannica memorized backward and forward but if you’re not the first to ring in, you’re not going win anymore money than a brain damaged orangutan. James is amazingly fast on that buzzer. That combined with his annoying but effective strategy of starting with the highest value clues allows him to run up significant totala and, in the process, find the Daily Doubles. That’s where his testicles come in. It takes huge ones to make the equally huge wagers he’s made. James doesn’t have a bigger brain than other notable champs like Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter. He just has bigger balls.
What I’ve been most fascinated by during his run is his opponents. What must it be like to dream about appearing on Jeopardy and going through all the steps to be one of the chosen few to compete and then BAM, you find yourself competing against a seemingly unbeatable opponent? Well, according to Lewis Black (not the hyperactive comic) who competed against James on his sixth game, “Any other day, any other opponent, the results might have been different, but you just happen to get there and run headfirst into a buzzsaw”.
Black was only one of Holzhauer’s “victims” who spoke to the Washington Post about what it was like to lose to this force of nature in their article, “What it’s like to lose to unstoppable ‘Jeopardy!’ champion James Holzhauer“.
If you’ve been following him, it’s certainly worth a read. -Rick-
