His brother said he was giving part of his winnings to children’s charities and food banks in the Vegas area. I also think it’s sweet how he sometimes bets to pay tribute to his child and nieces and nephews birthdays, his anniversary, his late grandmother who apparently spoke little English but with whom he watched Jeporady every day.
I believe James has also donated some of his winnings to libraries in the Las Vegas area.
The episodes we are watching were taped in February. Jeopardy tapes on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, 5 shows each day. In between shows, Alex changes his clothes. Contestants are asked to arrive with 3 changes of clothing, in case they continue. I’d guess by now that James is smart enough to show up with 5 changes each day (or recycle the outfits).
from an interview with him online -
“My big secret for studying subjects I find uninteresting is to check out the children’s section of the library, Holzhauer said Tuesday in an email to the Naperville Sun. “The books there are filled with pictures and fun facts, and they’re a great way to learn the nuts and bolts of any subject.”
This is good advice for adults and even hs and college students who want to start research on a topic - start in the children’s section. Librarians will tell you this also.
A Naperville-ite ( James’ hometown ) who is around the same age James told me he was a C student who got perfect scores on his math tests but never did his homework. I wasn’t sure I believed her story but that interview with his brother confirmed it. And in a bit of trivia sure to be of interest to CC peeps, his ACT score was a 35.
I haven’t watched Jeopardy in a long time but have enjoyed watching James. I kind of wonder if one day he’ll just get tired of it and lose intentionally. It’s a stressful environment but he’s handling it well!
So annoyed. I have my TV set to record the show automatically, but it didn’t work last night! Must have been a conflict. I have to change the priority settings so Jeopardy comes first!
At first, he annoyed me. I forget to turn on Jeopardy at night - Hardball is on at the same time, and I have a long history with Chris Matthews. But one night a week, S19 and I go out for pizza before his guitar lesson and we watch Jeopardy! at the pizza place. But I always have to watch it turned around in the booth. This whole strategy of starting at the bottom and skipping around disorients me. I usually need to hear a few questions in the category before I get the hang of what’s going on. Lol! My brain just can’t keep up with skipping around the board. But he’s a good guy, so I’m in his corner.
You can be pretty sure that even as we speak the Jeopardy producers are busy dreaming up some sort of tournament or special match that will result in James playing against Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter.
Ken Jennings is more famous thanks to his long winning streak, but among Jeopardy players and hard-core fans Brad Rutter is usually regarded as the strongest player of all time. Brad handily beat Ken when they later faced each other in a tournament (and they both lost to IBM’s Watson), but like me Brad came up when 5 wins was the limit. After you won five in a row you had to retire as an undefeated 5-time champion. If Brad had played a few years later after the rule change he may well have won as many or more games than Ken later did.
I’ve never played either one of them, but I have spoken to other champions who have played against Brad Rutter in tournaments, and they coined the verb to get “ruttered” - which means to go into a match as a strong and confident champion and get totally crushed. And you are standing there helpless to do anything about it.
Now with James we have a candidate for being a player who is even stronger than Brad Rutter. That’s why I’m sure they’ll figure out a way to make that match-up happen.
I’ve been watching Jeopardy for 50 some odd years when my cousin was on. She lost. But her grandchild was on a few years ago (the kids tourney) and he won.
I hate the way James plays because it throws off my rhythm as I play along. And often I’m doing something else so don’t don’t “get” the category immediately.
I haven’t watched every show since James started winning, but I’ve watched most. One thing I noticed is that it’s obvious he doesn’t buzz in if he does not know the answer so he doesn’t lose money - though yesterday he did answer one wrong - the first time I’ve seen that happen to him.
He also got the DD on his first pick the other day so only earned $1000. He still beat his competition by $70k or so.
My H and I have also noticed that James doesn’t guess on answers. That is the downfall of too many contestants guessing when they don’t know what the answer is.
@emilybee, he missed one or two previously. He actually went negative at the beginning of one game!
Another long-time Jeopardy fan here. James is amazing! Our family is really enjoying his run. I can see this turning into the James Holzhauer show, though, because he seems unbeatable. Just wonder if he will ever have an “off” day, or run into a group of categories that he doesn’t know well. Or maybe get bored/tired and quit after he has broken all the records and earned enough to retire? He has the perfect combination of speed, buzzer skills, broad knowledge, strategic risk-taking. He has analyzed this and trained for it his whole life. I do feel sorry for the other contestants because they don’t have a chance. It’s like watching an Olympic athlete competing against middle-schoolers.
He missed the first Daily Double in a game last week and went from $8k to $0 in the middle of the first round. He quickly built it up again.
Yesterday the two challengers actually earned quite a bit - over $15k between them. They got a lot of the $2k questions at the beginning of the round.
Rutter has never lost an official Jeopardy game/match. He finished third in the Watson event (Jennings was second – first time Rutter lost to a human opponent) but that was listed as an exhibition. Brad was behind after the first day of a two day final but won the match on the second day. Believe his team won the All-Star tournament was well.
I don’t think James or Jennings would make a good host. I think Brad would be a good host.
And I agree that the shows producers are trying to find a way to match Rutter versus James (and likely Jennings who still is the Jeopardy champ more people know).
“Yesterday the two challengers actually earned quite a bit - over $15k between them. They got a lot of the $2k questions at the beginning of the round.”
I noticed that and thought for a minute or two they might actually give him a run for his money. Obviously, I was wrong.
“he missed one or two previously. He actually went negative at the beginning of one game!”
That we can pinpoint the number of times he has answered incorrectly during his run is amazing!
He is 13 of 14 on final jeopardy questions.
I am a Brad Rutter fan - I think he is really smart. I would absolutely love to see him square off against James.
I heard this morning that James has blown the Jeopardy budget - wonder how they’ll adjust to make things a bit more difficult for him. I confess that if I was a player and found out my time in the limelight would be against him, I would be bummed.
@Scipio, did you ever play in a tournament? I am in awe of you … I am very good at Jeopardy at home on my couch, but I know it would be so much harder to actually be on the show, playing against really smart people with quick buzzer-fingers.
Oh, and thank you for this thread … no one at work watches Jeopardy, so I appreciate having someone other than H to talk with about this! 
Does anyone know how many games did it take Jennings to reach his first $1M? Google wasn’t much help for me.