Naperville Native Loses 'Jeopardy! Greatest Of All Time'

NAPERVILLE, IL—Ken Jennings, a software engineer from Seattle, is officially the greatest “Jeopardy!” player of all time. On Tuesday night, he beat Brad Rutter and Naperville native, James Holzhauer.

Holzhauer, a 35-year-old Naperville North High School alum, holds the record for all 15 of the top single-day winnings records on “Jeopardy!,” and won the 2019 Tournament of Champions last November. His winnings total $2,712,216. While he gave Jennings a run for his money during the game, it was the final question that got him.

As for the question? It was this: "He has 272 speeches, the most of any non-title character in a Shakespeare tragedy." Jennings correctly answered "Iago" while Rutter simply wrote: "You're the best, Alex!" Holzhauer's wrong answer of "Horatio" paved the way for Jennings to take home the $1 million prize.

"Thanks to Ken and Brad for a hell of a match," Holzhauer posted on Twitter. "Ken and Brad are great Jeopardy players but even better people and have been incredibly good sports about my kayfabe feuding and trash talk."

The epic television event was a first for the popular game show, bringing together the three highest money winners in the history of "Jeopardy!" The fan favorites competed in a series of matches from Jan. 7 through Jan. 14.

Despite losing to Jennings, neither Holzhauer or Rutter walked away empty handed. They each went home with $250,000.

"Thanks to ABC for taking a chance on us, to everyone on the "Jeopardy" team for everything they do, and especially to Alex Trebek for gutting through the fight of his life to deliver an absolute A+ performance in prime time," the Naperville native said.

SEE ALSO:

• Naperville Native Competes On 'Jeopardy! Greatest Of All Time'