"Watson" on Jeopardy! this week, apparently...

[Darren Dirt]

IBM Watson needs a head-to-head battle on Jeopardy vs. this year's unbelievable superhuman:

https://www.vulture.com/2019/04/james-holzhauer-the-jeopardy-guy-is-truly-unstoppable.html
" The Chicago-born 34-year-old, who currently lives in Las Vegas, beat his own single-day earning record of $110,914 from last week to rake in $131,127 on Wednesday night?s episode. His total now stands at $697,787 won over ten days "

https://www.vulture.com/2019/04/jeopardy-james-holzhauer-winning-strategy.html = has a quite LOL story about off-camera Alex Trebek.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Jeopardy!_contestants#James_Holzhauer
"He also now holds the top four single-day winnings records: $131,127 (April 17); $110,914 (April 9 -- he explained *his daughter's birthday is 11/09/14* (!) ); $106,181 (April 16); and $89,158 (April 12)"

bye bye Ken Jennings... history books will miss you...
( no shade to Jennings, btw, he has a healthy, respectable/respectful attitude -- https://twitter.com/KenJennings/status/1118727290249068544 )


PS: lol @ this 404 gif https://www.jeopardy.com/minisites/watson/

[Darren Dirt]

Holzhauer is still crushing it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Holzhauer

"As of May 29, 2019, he has appeared on 30 episodes and has won a total of $2,323,971, averaging $77,756 per episode -- *a 30-day average that exceeds the previous all-time single-day record* -- a feat fellow Jeopardy! super-champion Ken Jennings has likened to "a basketball player notching 70-point games for an entire season"

After his run ends (which, tbh, might never happen LOL) it may have "broke Jeopardy!" forever.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z922g9R6xE

[Darren Dirt]

So many people tuned in to watch James Holzhauer's amazing Jeopardy! run -- 14.5 million viewers when he finally get defeated -- nearly as many as those who viewed the series finale of TBBT, a long-running mainstream network sitcom!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Holzhauer#Television_ratings

Holzhauer won a total of $2,464,216, averaging $74,673 per episode?a 33-day *average* that nearly equaled the *previous all-time single-day record*.

Fellow Jeopardy! champion Ken Jennings has likened this feat to "a basketball player notching 70-point games for an entire season or a baseball player hitting for the cycle in every game".

Holzhauer's average winnings were more than the estimated $43,000 per episode that host Alex Trebek earns.

Well done, James. You broke the game so obviously, that the only way you experienced defeat was *somebody playing the game the same way as you* -- that kind of brinkmanship game of Chicken was an inevitable adjustment which turned the competition into, essentially, a high-variance coin flip. (Which I recognize as what a Poker tournament often turns into when opponents are equally skilled.)