James Holzhauer - Amazing or Annoying?

Emma was obviously very smart and had a few thousand more going into FJ than James, due to better Daily Double luck (he got the first-round DD on the first clue, so he could only net $1,000 and she caught both Double Jeopardy DDs). 

Of course, Emma would make the smart FJ bet, which would put her just over double James's existing total if she got it right. The other contestant also had a pretty good score.

If both Emma and James got the question right, Emma would win no matter what. If one got it right and the other missed, obviously the player getting the correct answer would win. However, if both got it wrong, James made such a small bet that he'd finish well ahead of Emma and still stay above the third contestant's total, even if the third contested doubled his money (which I believe he did).

Seeing how smart Emma was and how she had done her thesis on the game, James likely realized that he wasn't going to answer something that she couldn't, so his only chance was that the FJ question would be incomprehensibly hard or obscure and they'd both miss.

But it wasn't. All three players got it and finished an outstanding game where there was only one wrong answer between them.

Just like Ken Jennings it appears to me that both of them were bored or tired or just finished and decided to quit. He made his mark in Jeopardy! history and it just wasn’t fun for him anymore. My 2 cents

conandrob240 said:
why did he bet so little in final round when she had more money?

 Because if he and second highest winner bet all and went to zero, but third place player bet all and won the third place player would have won.

dave said:

conandrob240 said:
why did he bet so little in final round when she had more money?

 Because if he and second highest winner bet all and went to zero, but third place player bet all and won the third place player would have won.

Good article explaining the logic: https://www.actionnetwork.com/entertainment/james-holzhauer-loses-jeopardy-record-run-2019

Looks like the game is changed forever.  Emma has adopted James's play style, choosing the bottom clue first and betting big on the DD.

One thing I have learned is that the bottom clue is not nearly as difficult as I used to think. When contestants started at the top, the bottom clue appeared hard.  Now that they start at the bottom, I am able to correctly answer many more of the bottom clues.

30 years ago when I was on Jeopardy! They told us to start at the top as each clue gave additional insight to the clue following. Sometimes the higher value clue would be dependent on knowing one of the ones above. I bet you they go back to that now to discourage people from starting at the bottom

Am I the only one who was glad to see Emma lose so quickly?  She was so smug and arrogant, she made James seem humble.

mayhewdrive said:
Am I the only one who was glad to see Emma lose so quickly?  She was so smug and arrogant, she made James seem humble.

 I liked her way more than James.  All the big time winners on Jeopardy seemed to lose to a woman who usually only lasted one game, occasionally three but never more

mayhewdrive said:
Am I the only one who was glad to see Emma lose so quickly?  She was so smug and arrogant, she made James seem humble.

 Yeah,  will admit, I was secretly happy she lost. James added more spark with his strange waging and the meaning behind each one. He did add some sense of offbeat humor.

The moment James lost I thought I saw Alex Trebek choke back a tear...

I can't quote anyone here, but my friend is the senior contestant coordinator for Jeopardy, and I remember hearing about upcoming players being ranked by the staff.  In the James situation, they farmed the superior contestants and held Emma back.  They then let James do his run, and inserted her when it was close to James breaking the Jennings total.  It's all fair-and-square, they can choose who plays who at any time.

Another school buddy was the CC for 10,000 Pyramid and they followed the same practice.  Contestant placement is always at the discretion of the producers.