Jeopardy! Champ Says His Style Is 'Cold-Blooded'

James Holzhauer scores 9th win in a row
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Apr 17, 2019 7:52 AM CDT
Jeopardy! Champ Says His Style Is 'Cold-Blooded'
This image made from video aired on "Jeopardy!" on Tuesday, April 9. 2019, and provided by Jeopardy Productions, shows James Holzhauer.   (Jeopardy Productions, Inc. via AP)

Jeopardy! champ James Holzhauer is now the second-biggest winner in the show's history—and while he has a long way to go to catch Ken Jennings, he may not have to match Jennings' 74-game winning streak to get there. The 34-year-old professional sports gambler won for the ninth time in a row Tuesday and almost matched the record he set last week for highest one-day total, the Chicago Tribune reports. A $40,000 Final Jeopardy win brought his total for the day to $106,181, just behind the record-breaking $110,914 he won on April 9. He has now won a total of $566,660, USA Today reports. Jennings won $2,520,700 in 2004.

Holzhauer tells Vulture that his gambling background helped him develop his "cold-blooded" and "strategically aggressive" playing style. He says he decided to audition for the show in honor of his grandmothers, who used to watch it with him when he was a kid. "Her first language wasn’t English, so she couldn’t follow along well, but she wanted to share this experience with me since she saw it was something I really liked. I promised her I’d one day be up on that stage for her," he says. "To me, it’s fulfilling the promise I made to her 25 years ago. Once I really decided to take this seriously, I wasn’t going to half-ass it." He says he has already achieved his goal: Winning $110,914 to honor his daughter's Nov. 9, 2014 birthday. (More Jeopardy stories.)

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