Holzhauer’s Brilliant Run Appears To Be In Jeopardy!

If you're anything like most Americans, the last few months have been spent paying way too much attention to the winning ways of James Holzhauer. You know James; the high IQ'd, high ego'd, professional sports gambler with the lightning fast buzzer, who has been absolutely smashing it on 'Jeopardy!'.   Some, like my colleagues Chrissy and Jess,  claim that as nightly watchers of the show, his spirit - and his face - have ruined the game.  I personally love to watch his excellence and was hoping his run would last forever. It appears as though his winning ways could be in jeopardy, as a video for Monday's episode was leaked on Sunday night showing him falling short in Final Jeopardy on his way to a second place finish.

If we're to believe what we saw regarding tonight's episode, it's somewhat fishy.  Here's a guy with a 98% success rate on Final Jeopardy questions that averaged approximately 28k per wager. And while Holzhauer did answer the final question correctly, he didn't really give himself much a chance to win.  Did he have enough and simply offer the keys to his worthy opponent or did he just play it safe and have it backfire?

“His wager, a modest one for the first time,” said a surprised Alex Trebek, as it was revealed that Holzhauer had bet a relatively low number of $1,399, bumping his score from $23,400 to $24,799.

Meanwhile, Emma Boettcher, who led with $26,600, took control of the game with a correct answer and large wager of $20,201 to net a total of $46,801.

And just like that, the great run was over. Holzhauer fell a few thousand dollars short of breaking Ken Jennings' all-time mark for money won, but will go down in game-show lore as one of the most interesting - and brightest - Jeopardy! contestants of all time.