On Monday, James Holzhauer’s Jeopardy! winning streak was put in, well, jeopardy by the first legitimate challenger to his throne on the show in weeks. However, he emerged with an $18 win and, like a great sports team, that performance seemed to wake him up because he’s back to his usual dominant self.
Tuesday, he picked up over $96,000 after entering Final Jeopardy with a near $50,000 advantage, running through all the Daily Doubles and Final Jeopardy. On Wednesday, it was more of the same from everyone’s favorite trivia cyborg, as Holzhauer wrecked his competition once again en route to his 20th win, tying Julia Collins for the second longest win streak in the show’s history (although Collins won $1.1 million less in her 20 games than Holzhauer has).
For the second straight day, he swept the three Daily Doubles for north of $26,000 combined and cruised to Final Jeopardy with $60,000 and an advantage of over $50,000 on second place. All three contestants correctly answered the clue correctly, as they were asked to identify the only one of the four riders mentioned in Revelation 6 to be named specifically (Death). Holzhauer added $40,000 to his total, bringing him to over $101,000 for the day and tipping past the $1.5 million in winnings for his run, bringing him to under a million away from Ken Jennings’ $2.4 million total from his 74-game win streak.
He also now has an average daily winning of $76,400 that’s almost equal Roger Craig’s old record for a single-game winning total of $77,000, offering another reminder of just how ridiculous his run is and how dominant he’s been. After Monday’s scare, he seems refocused and that’s scary for opponents, as it will seemingly require something almost supernatural to take him out.
