Why James Holzhauer Finally Lost on Jeopardy!

On Monday night, Jeopardy! aired one of the most amicable transfers of power in TV history. James Holzhauer, who had dominated the game show for weeks and came within swiping distance of Ken Jenningss record winnings—if not his record for total consecutive games won—finally met his match. Her name is Emma Boettcher, and she once wrote a masters thesis involving this very show.

Boettcher sealed her victory during Final Jeopardy, soaring over an unusually meager final bet from the typically aggressive bettor. Holzhauer, in turn, walked over to high five her the minute a stunned Alex Trebek announced her victory.

But theres a reason Holzhauer bet the amount that he did—and it wasnt sentimental. As for those wondering how it felt to unseat him, Boettcher says its about as surreal as one might think.

Speaking with The New York Times, Boettcher noted that when she showed up to record her episodes of Jeopardy!, Holzhauers streak had not even begun to air. (The show usually prerecords five games per day; Boettcher recorded in March, while Holzhauers first win aired April 4.) “It was weird to be a daily watcher of Jeopardy! and somehow theres this phenomenon that Id never heard of,” Boettcher told the Times. As it turns out, though, she was just the person to beat him.

Boettcher has been auditioning for Jeopardy! since high school, the Times reports. For her masters thesis, which ran 70 pages long, she analyzed nearly 22,000 clues from the show in an attempt to determine whether hard and easy clues are composed differently. Like Holzhauer, who prepared for his own appearance with a makeshift button, Boettcher clicked a pen while watching the show for practice. The key to her success, it turned out, would be the same thing thats helped Holzhauer dominate his competition for so long: like Holzhauer, Boettcher is pretty gifted when it comes to correctly answering Daily Doubles—and like him, shes willing to place big bets on them.

She snapped up both of the round two Daily Doubles on Mondays episode, and bet hard on both. That ultimately allowed her to go into Final Jeopardy with more money than Holzhauer to begin with—and enough to make an impressively big bet on that last clue.

“I dont think I felt like I won until Alex said so,” Boettcher told the Times. “As soon as the game was over, I turned to the guys and I said, Im so proud of us. This is so rare. Look at what we did.”

As for why Holzhauer himself bet only $1,399 on that final clue? As strange as it sounds, Time actually wagers that the small bet was Holzhauers best possible strategy, mathematically.

Going into Final Jeopardy, Time explains, Holzhauer had collected $23,400 compared to Boettchers $26,600. Boettcher bet enough that should she answer correctly, she would unseat Holzhauer by just $1— assuming he wagered everything. In other words, no matter what Holzhauer did, if Boettcher answered correctly, he stood no chance. So his best option was to aim for a victory in the case that she answered incorrectly—because winning in the case of her answering correctly would be impossible anyway.

Holzhauer, of course, did not know for sure ahead of time how much Boettcher would bet; Jeopardy! contestants only reveal their Final Jeopardy bets after they reveal their answers, right or wrong. But Holzhauer would have known Boettcher didnt have to bet it all to win. And, being a strategic player himself, he would have known that betting just enough to place herself out of his range would be her smartest—and, therefore, most likely—course of action.

Assuming Boettcher would bet enough to catapult herself to an unreachable total for the other two players, Holzhauer would have known that the actual total he would need to beat was $22,000—which would have been the total the episodes third competitor, Jay Sexton, could reach if he bet all of his winnings so far, $11,000, and answered correctly.

And so, Holzhauer bet $1,399—the number that, should he answer incorrectly, would still leaveRead More – Source