Jeopardy!contestant James Holzhauer broke the game show’s record for the highest single-day winnings, taking home $110,914 on Tuesday night’s episode.
“I said all along that I wanted to break Roger Craig’s one-game record and I did it,” Holzhauer said ina press releaseon Tuesday night.
Jeopardy!shared a highlight reel of Holzhauer’s game on Twitter that shows him answering multiple Daily Double rounds accurately and answering the Final Jeopardy question correctly, with “What is quantum leap?”
To make the win even more special, the press release noted that the $110,914 was extra significant to Holzhauer because his daughter’s birthday is November 9, 2014 — 11/09/14.
According toThe WashingtonPost,each large wager that Holzhauer made on the game show was in honor of an important date in his life — for example, “his wedding anniversary, the birthdays for his dad, nephew and daughter.”
“Family and friends will always mean more to me than any amount of money orJeopardy!wins,” he told thePost. “I wanted to show them my love in an unconventional way.”
Holzhauer has now won four games in a row, winning a total of $244,365, but he’s not done yet: on Wednesday, he’ll try to go for his fifth win.
In early March,Jeopardy!hostAlex Trebekrevealed that he had been diagnosed withstage 4 pancreatic cancer.
“Hi everyone, I have some news to share with all of you,” Trebek, 78, said in a video to his fans. “And it’s in keeping with my longtime policy of being open and transparent with ourJeopardyfanbase. I also wanted to prevent you from reading or hearing some overblown or inaccurate reports regarding my health.”
“So, therefore, I wanted to be the one to pass along this information. Now, just like 50,000 other people in the United States each year, this week I was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer,” he continued.
Trebek, who has now hostedJeopardy!for 35 years, vowed to courageously “fight” the disease and also continue working on the game show.
Reed Saxon/AP/REX/Shutterstock
“Now normally the prognosis for this is not very encouraging, but I’m going to fight this and I’m going to keep working,” he continued.
He also asked his fans to lift up prayers on his behalf.
“And with the love and support of my family and friends, and with the help of your prayers also, I plan to beat the low survival rate statistics for this disease,” continued Trebek.
Despite the grave diagnosis, Trebek quipped that he must continue working because of the terms of hiscontract through the 2021-22 season.
“Truth told, I have to because, under the terms of my contract, I have to hostJeopardy!for three more years!” he joked. “So help me!”
source: people.com
