Holzhauer's in the lead heading into Friday's 'Jeopardy!' tournament finale
A “Jeopardy!” watch party set for Friday in downtown Naperville among supporters of contestant James Holzhauer can start on an upbeat note with the Naperville North High School alum in the lead of the show's Tournament of Champions.
Holzhauer, now a sports gambler in Las Vegas, finished Thursday's first part of the finale with a large lead, tallying $49,326, compared with $26,400 for Emma Boettcher and $1,800 for Francois Barcomb. Two Daily Double questions he answered accurately, as well as a correct bet on the Final Jeopardy! question, helped Holzhauer build his advantage.
“These totals will be added to tomorrow's to determine the champion,” host Alex Trebek said at the end of the show. “So you want to tune in, don't you?”
Many of Holzhauer's relatives and friends in Naperville are saying an enthusiastic “yes,” planning to gather at 3:15 p.m. Friday at Quigley's Irish Pub to watch the broadcast beginning at 3:30 p.m. on WLS-TV Channel 7.
The championship round of the Tournament of Champions pits Holzhauer against Barcomb, a physics teacher from New Paltz, New York, as well as Boettcher, the Chicago librarian who beat him in June to end his run of 32 games won and nearly $2.5 million earned.
All three contestants on Thursday donned purple ribbons on their shirts during Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month, and “Jeopardy!” fans online are raising money for the condition after Trebek revealed in March he is fighting the disease.
Holzhauer donated $1,109.14 to a walk this July in Naperville that benefited the Lustgarten Foundation, which devotes all funds it receives to pancreatic cancer research because a private donor covers administrative costs.
Following a Holzhauer tradition of using specific or meaningful numbers in his “Jeopardy!” bets, his donation to the Naperville Pancreatic Cancer Research Walk matched the digits of his daughter's birth date.