James Holzhauer In Jeopardy

Sometimes during the course of the college basketball season, as she watches her beloved UNC-Chapel Hill Tarheels, my wife Andrea may experience some frustration.

If the Tarheels lead over their opponent begins to narrow or, worst yet, disappears, she will berate her beloved UNC-Chapel Hill Tarheels for not trying hard enough or not caring enough or some other damn thing that puts the burden of a diminished victory or an outright loss completely on the shoulders of her beloved UNC-Chapel Hill Tarheels.

I have to remind Andrea there is another team on the floor.

There is a certain amount of pleasure to watch a person or team at the pinnacle of their skills and abilities engaged in a good old fashioned romp ‘n’ stomp over their competition.

But the fact of the matter is that there is another team on the floor. Sometimes that team is really good or really lucky or parts of both.

The best of the best of the best will sooner or later find themselves outgunned, outmatched, outplayed.

For 32 consecutive games of Jeopardy, James Holzhauer has been in romp ‘n’ stomp mode. There was one game where it was kind of close but for the most part, there was not another team on the floor. Most of these games ended with James holding such an insurmountable lead, that if the other two players pooled their money and bet it all, they would still come up short. Heading into Final Jeopardy, the other players were not a factor. 

For game 33, there was, at last, another team on the floor.

By the time this posts on my blog on Tuesday, this development will be old news. It was, in fact, old news when the episode actually air Monday evening.  Early Monday afternoon, the news begin to spread.

James Holzhauer was going down. 

There was some considerable consternation over this. On one hand, James could be a cocky sonuvabitch, fast on the buzzer, always knowing the damn answers. But on the other hand, there was something about the guy that made that cockiness endearing. And there was the sheer audacity of what he was doing, winning more money more quickly that anyone in Jeopardy history. How far could he go? I wanted to find out.

James had set a lot of records during his time on Jeopardy but there were two he was gunning for, both held by the same man, Ken Jennings.

Ken held the record for most games won in a row (74) and the most dollars won during a consectutive run in regular game play ($2.52 million). As of Friday, James was only a few thousand away from the latter record, getting set to cross this most amazing threshold in half the time Ken did.

I liked Ken during his epic run on Jeopardy and I still find him to be a clever and witty person; I follow him on Twitter.  Still, I was kind of hoping to see James at least score the record for total dollars won.

The records of Ken Jennings still stand.

The improbable run of James Holzhauer has held our attention. When we can't be home at 7:30, I've set Jeopardy to record.

For crying out loud, I was DVRing Jeopardy??!?  

Which I did on Monday. We went out for dinner to celebrate Andrea's birthday.  When we got back home, we watched our recorded episode to see a remarkable end to James' historic run on the show.  

There was a sweet moment after the first commercial break where Alex Trebek talks to the contestants. James' daughter had made Alex a get well card in is battle against cancer.  

Emma Boecher mirrored James' strategies. She was fast on the buzzer, knew her stuff and won big on both of the Daily Doubles in the 2nd round. Going into Final Jeopardy, Emma was in the lead and James was in an unusual position. Even if he went big and went all in, she could still out bid him by a $1 to still win the game. So James shifted tactics to stay out of 3rd place, betting enough to stay in 2nd, even if he got the answer wrong. And still win the game IF Emma got her answer  wrong. 

The odds of her being wrong were not good. She hadn't missed a clue all night.  

Emma went big and bet $20,201 which was $1 more than if James had gone all in.  

And for the first time in months, we have a new Jeopardy champion: Emma Boettcher.

It was an achievement celebrated by none other James Holzhauer who walked over to give Emma a high five.  

It has been a most remarkable journey for James Holzhauer, a journey watched with rapt fascination by my family, a rare consensus of my wife, daughter and myself on what to watch on TV.  Maybe we will keep watching, just to keep rooting for Alex Trebek in his battle with cancer.  

But without a doubt, we will miss James Holzhauer.