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Jeopardy!: James Holzhauer's winning streak ends short of money record | Jeopardy!: James Holzhauer's winning streak ends short of money record |
(about 4 hours later) | |
A professional gambler's 32-game winning streak on US quiz show Jeopardy! has come to an end after he was beaten by a university librarian. | A professional gambler's 32-game winning streak on US quiz show Jeopardy! has come to an end after he was beaten by a university librarian. |
James Holzhauer had won $2.46m (£1.9m) before losing to Emma Boettcher. | James Holzhauer had won $2.46m (£1.9m) before losing to Emma Boettcher. |
He is only the second contestant in the show's history to earn more than $1m in one run. | He is only the second contestant in the show's history to earn more than $1m in one run. |
Jeopardy! contestants must answer clues in the form of a question. It is one of the longest-running quiz shows on US televisions. | Jeopardy! contestants must answer clues in the form of a question. It is one of the longest-running quiz shows on US televisions. |
Mr Holzhauer's winnings were just short of Ken Jenning's record $2.52m earned in 74 consecutive games. | Mr Holzhauer's winnings were just short of Ken Jenning's record $2.52m earned in 74 consecutive games. |
The 34-year-old gained celebrity status for his playing tactics. | The 34-year-old gained celebrity status for his playing tactics. |
His style differed from previous contestants as he opted to target the "expensive" difficult clues first instead of solving easy clues. | His style differed from previous contestants as he opted to target the "expensive" difficult clues first instead of solving easy clues. |
He also made large bets on "Daily Double" questions where players can risk as much as their entire score in one answer. | He also made large bets on "Daily Double" questions where players can risk as much as their entire score in one answer. |
He said he prepared for the game by reading children's books. | He said he prepared for the game by reading children's books. |
After being beaten he told the New York Times: "Nobody likes to lose. But I'm very proud of how I did, and I really exceeded my own expectations for the show. So I don't feel bad about it." | After being beaten he told the New York Times: "Nobody likes to lose. But I'm very proud of how I did, and I really exceeded my own expectations for the show. So I don't feel bad about it." |
An average of 10.3 million viewers tuned in during the first 12 days of Mr Holzhauer's run, audience data indicated. | An average of 10.3 million viewers tuned in during the first 12 days of Mr Holzhauer's run, audience data indicated. |
Who is Emma Boettcher? | |
Ms Boettcher, a librarian at the University of Chicago, wrote her master's thesis at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill on predicting the difficulty of trivia questions using text features. | |
The 27-year-old used Jeopardy! as her basis for the study, analysing thousands of clues. | |
She also holds a degree in English from Princeton University - and told New York Magazine's Vulture that the final question topic of Shakespeare was her "dream category". | |
Ms Boettcher described her winning strategy to Vulture as "a little bit whimsical", but based on data gathered from years watching the show. | |
"I was a little more guided by intuition and feeling as opposed to having sussed out the exact, optimal strategy beforehand and using that every single time," she said. | |
"'Whimsical' and 'data driven' probably don't belong in the same sentence, but as a librarian, it makes me happy." | |
Ms Boettcher told the Chicago Tribune she plans on using her $46,801 winnings to pay off student loans and give back to the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill School of Information and Library Science. |
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