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James Holzhauer

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TV Game Show Contestant

The Resume

    (July 1984- )
    Born in Naperville, Illinois
    Professional sports gambler
    Jeopardy! champion (April 4-June 3, 2019)
    Won 32 overall games
    Won $2,464,216
    Nicknamed 'Jeopardy James'

Why he might be annoying:

    He admitted to skipping class and foregoing homework, as a kid, to play online poker.
    Despite having a promising professional future after graduating, he moved to Las Vegas to bet professionally on sports and play competitive bridge.
    He was a contestant on The Chase.
    His Jeopardy! strategy was to go after the higher value questions first to amass a sizable war chest before Daily Doubles, as opposed to what he called 'bouncing around from category to category.'
    When Jeopardy took a break from regular play for Teacher's Week, ratings took a dive and it was attributed to his absence (which Alex Trebek pointed out on his return).
    Many believe his threw his final game for unspecified reasons.
    He failed to match reigning champion Ken Jennings' earnings and wins - falling short by $56,484 and 42 wins.

Why he might not be annoying:

    He was an advanced student who skipped second-grade, and, at seven, moved up to the fifth grade.
    In high school, he led his classmates to first-place in the State Academic Challenge Finals.
    He credits upping his trivia game to reading children's books.
    He regularly sent messages to his family with his Jeopardy bets.
    At the peak of his winning streak, Tom Brady tweeted a promise to 'eat a strawberry' if he lost a game that night.
    He jokingly attributed his loss to 'the Drake curse.'
    His average winnings of $74,673 per episode were just short of the previous one-day record ($77,000, set by Roger Craig in 2010).
    He donated $10,000 of his wins to a Las Vegas organization for displaced teens.

Credit: BoyWiththeGreenHair


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    For 2024, as of last weekly ranking, Out of 1 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2023, Out of 6 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 3 Votes: 33.33% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 17 Votes: 35.29% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 47 Votes: 42.55% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 41 Votes: 63.41% Annoying