Ken Jennings clinches ‘Jeopardy!’ title over James Holzhauer

Ken Jennings vanquished Las Vegan James Holzhauer on Tuesday, clinching the “Jeopardy! The Greatest of All Time” tournament by winning his third match.

Holzhauer, a professional sports bettor, won one match over four nights of competition. Brad Rutter was shut out.

Jennings earned $1 million, and the runners-up got $250,000 apiece.

The game show’s three all-time leading money winners were competing in a special format for the prime-time event. Each match consisted of two full games of “Jeopardy!” with the scores combined to determine the winner. The first player to win three matches would win the tournament.

Holzhauer had a chance to force a deciding match, but he missed on Final Jeopardy in the second game Tuesday. Holzhauer wagered his entire 44,000 but missed on the clue, “He has 272 speeches, the most of any nontitle character in a Shakespeare tragedy.” Holzhauer said Horatio; the answer was Iago.

Jennings bet everything in Final Jeopardy during the first game and doubled up to take the lead with 65,600 points to Holzhauer’s 34,181. Jennings added 23,000 in the second game for a total of 88,600.

Holzhauer finished with the 34,181 from the first game. Rutter had 1,400 in the second game after losing his entire 2,000 on Final Jeopardy in the first game.

Contact Jim Barnes at jbarnes@reviewjournal.com. Follow @JimBarnesLV on Twitter.