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Wednesday, January 15, 2020

‘Jeopardy!’ GOAT Winner Ken Jennings The Greatest


Ken Jennings defeated legendary champs James Holzhauer and Brad Rutter in the storied game show’s first-ever Greatest of All Time — or GOAT — tournament on Tuesday night.

“It has taken 15 years for Ken Jennings to finally answer the question, ‘Is he as good as he appeared to be in his great run on ‘Jeopardy!’?’ ” crowed beloved host Alex Trebek as he handed Jennings the trophy.

A 45-year-old software engineer turned author from Seattle, Jennings also walked away with the grand prize of $1 million. That brings his total earnings to a whopping $4,370,700 over 15 years.


Each contestant in the GOAT showdown was picked for his record-setting performance on the popular quiz program. Jennings won the most regular-season games in a row (74, in 2004), Holzhauer won the most money in a single game ($131,127, in 2019) and Rutter won the most money ($4,688,436, from a first regular-season appearance in 2000 followed by multiple special tournament appearances).

The epic GOAT matchups followed a format “Jeopardy!” has never used before. Each night of play was, as Trebek called it, “a two-game total point affair.” The three players duked it out in two back-to-back traditional half-hour games. The points (or dollars) earned in each one were added together. The contestant with the highest score at the end of the hour earned one point. Going into Tuesday night’s competition, Jennings had two points to Holzhauer’s one. The first player to three points — Jennings — won it all.

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