Here’s today’s Final Jeopardy (in the category Jazz Classics) for Thursday, May 23, 2019 (Season 35, Episode 184):
In one account, this song began as directions written out for composer Billy Strayhorn to Duke Ellington’s home in Harlem
(correct response beneath the contestants)
Today’s contestants:
Nate Scheffey, a technology consultant from New York, New York
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Laura Schulman, a public defender from Seattle, Washington
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James Holzhauer, a professional sports gambler from Las Vegas, Nevada (25-day total: $1,939,027)
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If you’re curious to see how James’ stats so far shape up to those of Ken Jennings, you can find them at A James Holzhauer vs. Ken Jennings Statistical Comparison.
James has reached 900 correct responses on the show and has moved to #2 all-time on that list! See who else has at least 300 on our 300 Club page!
Did you attempt any of the online tests last month? You can find last week’s questions and answers here!
The Jeopardy! Book of Answers is out now! Here’s my review.
Are you going on the show and looking for information about how to bet in Final Jeopardy? Check out my new Betting Strategy 101 page!
(Content continues below)
Correct response: What is “Take The A-Train”?
More information about Final Jeopardy:
According to the lyrics, “you mst take the ‘A’ train to go to to Sugar Hill ‘way up in Harlem.” Written in 1939 by Billy Strayhorn, it became Duke Ellington’s signature tune.
Since Alex Trebek’s diagnosis of stage 4 pancreatic cancer, many community members have been raising money. The Jeopardy! Fan Online Store is as well! All proceeds from any “Keep The Faith And We’ll Win” shirt sold will be donated to the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network. To date, over $370 has been raised.)
Looking to find out who won Jeopardy! today? Tonight’s results are below!
Scores going into Final:
James $31,200
Nate $25,800
Laura $1,200
Tonight’s results:
Laura $1,200 – $0 = $1,200 (What is Take 5?)
Nate $25,800 + $10,000 = $35,800
James $31,200 + $20,908 = $52,108 (26-day total: $1,991,135)
Scores after the Jeopardy! Round:
Nate $10,200
James $6,600
Laura $1,200
Opening break taken after: 15 clues
Daily Double locations:
1) NUMERIC PHRASES $800 (14th pick)
Nate 3400 +3400 (James 5400 Laura 600)
2) SCIENCE $2000 (4th pick)
Nate 13400 +6000 (James 6600 Laura 1200)
3) MOUNTAINS $1600 (6th pick)
James 8200 +8200 (Nate 19400 Laura 1200)
Overall Daily Double Efficiency for this game: 245
Unplayed clues:
J! round: THE 2018 IG NOBEL PRIZES $200
DJ! Round: None!
Total $ Left On Board: $200
Game Stats:
James $24,600 Coryat, 26 correct, 1 incorrect, 42.86% in first on buzzer, 2/2 on rebound attempts
Nate $19,200 Coryat, 24 correct, 1 incorrect, 37.50% in first on buzzer, 2/2 on rebound attempts
Laura $1,200 Coryat, 6 correct, 2 incorrect, 14.29% in first on buzzer
Combined Coryat Score: $45,000
Lach Trash: $3,800 (on 3 Triple Stumpers)
Coryat lost to incorrect responses (less double-correct responses): $5,000
James Holzhauer, stats to date:
939 correct, 29 incorrect
28/30 on rebound attempts (on 58 rebound opportunities)
57.98% in first on buzzer (850/1466)
58/62 on Daily Doubles (Net Earned: $534,054)
25/26 in Final Jeopardy
Average Coryat: $30,646
James Holzhauer, to win:
27 games: 98.069%
28: 96.176%
29: 94.319%
30: 92.498%
31: 90.713%
75: 38.471%
Avg. streak: 76.797 games.
(This is using the updated model.)
Tournament of Champions projections:
With a projected 76 regular-play games to go prior to the Tournament of Champions cutoff, after 500,000 simulations, our model shows:
James Holzhauer qualified 100.000% of the time.
Eric R. Backes qualified 93.911% of the time.
Anneke Garcia qualified 78.852% of the time.
Lindsey Shultz qualified 52.694% of the time.
Dave Leffler qualified 30.391% of the time.
Jonathan Dinerstein qualified 22.720% of the time.
Andy’s Thoughts:
- This was the 4th time that James was not leading after the Jeopardy! round, but the first occurrence since his 8th game on April 15.
- Between the 5th and 9th clues of the Double Jeopardy! round, James picked up $15,400, moving from $12,800 behind to $2,600 in front.
- James has been correct on his last 20 Final Jeopardy! clues.
- Nate’s $25,800 is the second-highest trailing score of all time going into Final Jeopardy, second only to Adam Levin’s $27,000 on April 29.
- $52,108 is the 28th-highest winning score of all-time. Prior to the start of James’ run in April, it would have placed 9th.
- If you took the 25 games James has already won out of the prediction model, it would still predict a streak of 50 games for James.
- The prediction model gives James a 87.241% chance of surpassing Ken Jennings’ winnings total of $2,520,700, and a 50.537% chance of James surpassing Brad Rutter’s all-time winnings total of $4,688,436. (At his current average, James would pass Ken on June 3 and Brad on July 26.)
- James’ average winning total on Thursdays is $61,423.
- In a similar situation to today’s game, Ken Jennings survived a challenger not betting enough on a Daily Double in his 23rd win on July 2, 2004.
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Think Nate DD bet was strategic . As Nate would have cleaned up by doing an All In DD. But if James doesn’t get the second DD, 2 picks later. Nate is leading 20,000 to James 8,000. And if Nate went all in on the first DD. Then it could have been James 8,000 and Nate 0. So the bad thing was James getting the second DD, Only 2 spots later, and then of course, getting it right.
If a smart, quick player doesn’t eventually play with the same aggressive nature that James has, James may never lose. James has picked an incredibly high percentage of the available DD’s, Nate needed to assume that James was going to pick the second DD at some point and build a lead when he could. Against a normal champion, you may be right, but not against this one.
People keep saying he should have gone all in. Yes, in retrospect, that would have been great. But he had a big lead. And did make a larger bet than most have would’ve “pre James”. He was more than holding his own and at that point had no reason to think that he couldn’t continue. If he had bet it all and lost it, hit the third daily double and had nothing to wager, and lost because of that, people would’ve been shaking their heads. He was beating James….he was good at the buzzer. He made the (what I believe) the right decision…but it just didn’t work.
Valid point. I guess it’s easy for us couch surfers to criticize the playing watching at home. But one thing is for certain, this game is hard to win over and over and for those who say they stopped watching because of it, only need this game to remind them that these streaks are hard to come by and are historic in nature. Why would you not want to watch it as a true fan of Jeopardy?
Anyway, I found it fascinating that even when Nate was 12k ahead deep in the game, James’ composure didn’t seemed rattled at all.
Well, I think James knows he can lose any Jeopardy game any time… and having a $2,000,000 bank to leave with, is a great consolation. Plus that gives him a lot to either vacation with, or use on his sports betting in Vegas…
Part of winning games is keeping your composure and not panicking. James knows that he is a good player and questions could come up in his favour. He also knows that he was facing a dynamite opponent who was quick on the buzzer and quite knowledgeable. He acknowledged that at the end of double jeopardy.
Yah, Nate must have been thinking, holy crap, I got him. The 6000 sure seemed enough. And then, boom, an amazing comeback.
I wonder where this stands in J! Comeback history, especially not including final. I guess a start would be to look at KJs best comebacks. I would think coming back from 12.8k to lead going into Final is up there in J!s history. Including Final would move it down the list obviously.
Anyways, that was amazing and exciting. I’m definitely going to keep watching!
Love your list, but no weird “Canada” categories?
Believe it or not, Jeopardy! did have a Canada Final Jeopardy! category on
one of their episodes.
Prithvi:
Please link to this site when making reference to past episodes where possible.
https://thejeopardyfan.com/2017/12/final-jeopardy-12-26-2017.html
James’ daily total equals May 21, 2008. I’m sure it was a purposeful total and most of these daily totals will have some meaning to his life. Wonder what this date is in reference?
Unless he’s looking forward to something which will happen 89 years from now… 😀
Here’s a question. How much has the traffic to your site spiked since James being on the show? Lol. I, myself, never heard of this site until him. I live in an area where the show comes on at 7pm but find myself unable to wait till then do I spoil it for myself and come here to find the winner out early, lmao.
I spoil it for myself, too, but, on the upside, my husband is amazed at how often I get the Final Jeopardy question correct.
James would have bet something similar to Nate. He rarely goes all-in in DJ unless it’s very early. This might have been James’ first all-in on DD3?
Correct. But that is also because James smartly bets on the 3rd DD, Whatever gives him a cushion where he is pretty sure to stay on top, till FJ, and guarantee himself a win before the FJ question.
Just noticed Nate is using James stance and his buzzer push. And it’s working as shown above, James had a 42% first in while Nate was 37% or I think James had 26 while Nate had 24. Poor Nate is going to be pissed watching James in the future as he could and should have beaten James.
Woooo, exciting game today! I wasn’t home the night he played Levin and I’m almost glad I missed it. My heart can’t take this kind of stress.
How long has James been gambling? Because he sure is good, as demonstrated in his appearances so far!
I feel like any other champion who faces off against him should consider his gaming strategy so they can get a feel for what the game is like, now that there is this sort of “all-new” champion” who plays the game unlike any other.
I feel like his life motto is “Keep calm and gamble 24/7”.
Would love to see a rematch with James and Adam Levin, who only lost by less than $5.00. Nate could play too but only if he promised to bet more on DD.
Fredda:
Adam lost by $18.
Yes $18 on his 18th win in a row, no doubt that was NOT by accident!!! With James, it is ALL about numbers, whatever he is thinking, but it comes down to THE NUMBERS!!!
Don’t look at the final total or the final difference – with all due respect to Adam – it was Nate who made the better FJ wager – because on a double miss, Adam loses but Nate wins. Nate left himself with two paths to victory, but Adam only one (James misses, Adam gets it right).
The dog sat on the remote just as we were about to see the answers & scoring!!! Thank you for this – whoo hoo!!!
It looked to me like if Nate had bet his whole pile at FJ, then James’s $20,000 bet would have let Nate win? What did I miss?
$25,800 x 2 = $51,600 which is less than $52,108 (what James finished with).