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
|
Laura Schulman, a public defender from Seattle, Washington
|
James Holzhauer, a professional sports gambler from Las Vegas, Nevada (25-day total: $1,939,027)
|
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.
Become a Supporter now! Make a monthly contribution to the site on Patreon!
Contestant photo credit: jeopardy.com
When commenting, please note that all comments on The Jeopardy! Fan must be in compliance with the Site Comment Policy.
If you are going to quote any statistics from this page or this website, attribution is required.
Also, today, I saw that he had his name arranged like
J
A
M
E
S
Let’s say he’s the kind of guy that “gives 110%”.
I saw that right away, he loves doing all kinds of things with his name!! I really like his personality, with his name, he gave a thumbs up to Nate at the end, that was really gracious of him to acknowledge a good competitor! James has a cool demeanor, and laid back “no tie” clothes, but he is also very professional & respectful in how he behaves, I’ve never seem him appear to rub in his losses against his opponents, that says a lot about him! He’s very focused on winning and really zoned in, but not in any bad way, just hyper focused on his self-driven mission.
My brother and I were having a discussion about a scenario that would likely never come up but I was curious if the rules would address it.
The situation is that two players are eliminated at the end of Double Jeopardy, leaving just one player in Final Jeopardy (which has happened a few times, last on March 12, 2015 near as I can tell).
Now, the question becomes, if that single remaining player bets everything in FJ and ends up with $0, are they also eliminated or are they automatically the champ by virtue of the tiebreaker rules that are based on who is in front at the end of the last completed round without a tie? (For example, in a game in which the players end with $0, $-200 and $-500, does the $0 player win and get to come back?) Or do the Jeopardy rules actually state someone needs at least $1 to return to the next game as champion?
My hunch is that the producers would make sure they didn’t bet everything, but we thought the underlying hypothetical was interesting enough to wonder if anyone outside of the show knew if there were an answer. After poking around Google for a while I haven’t been able to pinpoint an official Jeopardy rulebook or anything that goes into that much depth.
The potential scenario evolved from at first assuming a FJ player in such a situation would simply be eliminated like any other contestant with no money, making me wonder what their consolation prize would be. (Here at least some digging around leads me to conclude it would be $2000).
Vader, in your scenario, the contestant would have to be an absolute fool to bet it all. With that said, there’s been a handful of shows where all 3 contestants got to FJ, bet it all, and got them all wrong.
https://thejeopardyfan.com/statistics/games-with-no-winner
So to answer your question, if one player made it through to FJ, risked all of their stack, and was incorrect, there’d be 3 new contestants on the next show.
I know there have been games with all three contestants in FJ losing all their money. The hypothetical is about the degree to which the actual rules specify a requirement to advance beyond simply having more “points” than the other players (which, in a game in which both other players are in the negative, a player with $0 would). Of course it would be foolish to make such a wager and my own assumption has always been it would be cause for elimination, but I just was curious what the actual language of the rule was.
The show is very clear in this: $0 is not a winning score.
If he bet all 13,400 on that daily double Nate could have been in the lead. We don’t want that to happen!
You’re correct in that all-in on the Daily Double would have given Nate the lead, but there are some fans out there who would have wanted that.
Believe it or not, Jeopardy! has held a J! Insider on James’s winning streak!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UdXZ9eOF41U
Very, very few Jeopardy! Contestants can afford to use James DD strategy. It only works for him because he knows 97% of the answers. This would be disastrous for the average contestant. Go big only in the categories where you have a very good background and go easy on the others.