After starting off the competition with a measly $30,000 win (measly for him, not measly for human existence), James Holzhauer has risen to greatness for the second time this calendar year and won the 2019 Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions. He took home the $250,000 grand prize, bringing his overall Jeopardy! winnings to $2,712,216. Second and third place winners Emma Boettcher and Francois Barcomb walk away with $100,000 and $50,000 prizes, respectively.
If you were one of the millions of viewers glued to James Holzhauer’s Jeopardy! winning streak back in June, you’ll remember it was Boettcher who bested Holzhauer in the end, beating him after he won 32 games in a row.
“I’ve said all along that Emma is an all-time great player, and I’m proud it took that level of competitor to defeat me,†Holzhauer said in the show’s announcement of his first-place Tournament finish. “Now the world sees that I wasn’t just making excuses. Francois certainly looked as dominant as either of us in his first two games, so I knew the finals would be a fight to the finish. But the whole point of the TOC is to play the best of the best, and Emma and Francois certainly proved that they belonged in the final three.â€
Holzhauer is now the third highest earning Jeopardy! contestant of all time, behind Ken Jennings’s $3,370,700 and Brad Rutter’s record-breaking $4,688,436, incredible sums that the pair both increased at this year’s All-Star Games back in March.