Answer:Two years ago, one “Jeopardy!” contestant, James Holzhauer, captured the imaginations of game-show fans who watched nightly to see his lightning-fast buzzer reflexes and risky bets.
Holzhauer’s 32-game run put his face (with his trademark strained smile) all over the “Jeopardy!” hall of fame. But on Friday, another contestant, Matt Amodio, a Ph.D. student at Yale, won his 33rd game, smashing through Holzhauer’s streak and taking his place as No. 2 in the record book for most games won in a row. The first spot is held by Ken Jennings, who won 74 games and ultimately became a consulting producer on the show.
Amodio’s victory brought him to $1.27 million in total winnings, and he has a long way to go to beat Holzhauer’s $2.46 million. With such an extraordinary total, Holzhauer was poised during his 33rd episode to possibly surpass Jennings’s record of $2.52 million won during the regular season, but he was bested by Emma Boettcher, a librarian who wrote her master’s paper on “Jeopardy!”
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