The 2019 edition of the Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions was its most anticipated TOC in years thanks to the return of James Holzhauer for the first time since his record-breaking run earlier this year.
Holzhauer has looked, well, the same as he ever has, building gigantic leads early by snatching up Daily Doubles en route to a pair of relatively comfortable wins to start his tournament. On the other side of the bracket, Emma Boettcher, the librarian that famously ended Holzhauer’s streak, has made her way to the Final with impressive victories of her own.
“James must have lost on purpose”
“Emma just got lucky”
“She didn’t deserve a spot in the ToC” pic.twitter.com/Eg8Pgix8hl— James Holzhauer (@James_Holzhauer) November 12, 2019
Subsequent games won by “giant killers” who beat a 10+ time #Jeopardy champ:
Emma: 4 and counting
8 others (combined): 0— James Holzhauer (@James_Holzhauer) November 12, 2019
That set up the rematch that Jeopardy! fans have been hoping for, with Day 1 of the Final beginning on Thursday night with Holzhauer setting himself up very nicely to exact revenge over the two-day event. Holzhauer found all three Daily Doubles, missing the first but hitting the final two for big money, to take a lead of over $24,000 over Boettcher into Final Jeopardy. The third contestant, Francois Barcomb, was $27,000 behind and missed Final Jeopardy to all but eliminate him from contention on the first day.
Boettcher and Holzhauer both correctly identified the Final Jeopardy clue — Jeremiah as the longest book by Hebrew word count in the Old Testament — with Boettcher ever-so-slightly gaining on Holzhauer. Still, James will be the heavy favorite to polish off the competition and exact his revenge in the second round of the Final, as he has $49,326 to Boettcher’s $26,400.
