‘Jeopardy!’: Ken Jennings Reacts to Matt Amodio Breaking James Holzhauer’s Record

Jeopardy! contestant Matt Amodio‘s historic rise has even caught Ken Jennings‘ attention. Amodio pulled off his 33rd consecutive win during Monday’s episode (up to 35 after Tuesday’s episode), officially unseating James Holzaeur as the player with the second-most consecutive wins in the game show’s history. He also set a new single day money title after a risky “Final Jeopardy!” move and took home $83,000.

Among the viewers who took to Twitter to react to Amodio’s latest win? Jennings himself, who was crowned “The Greatest Champion of All Time” in 2020 and still holds the record for most consecutive wins at 74.

Jennings quote-tweeted a clip of Amodio’s $83,000 win on Twitter, writing, “Whoa.” In response, Amodio tweeted, “Now if only I could get that Ken Jennings smell out of the #Jeopardy winner’s podium!”

Recently, Amodio broke the $1 million threshold during the series’ September 24 episode. The only other contestants to set this record are Jennings, who earned $2,520,700 from 74 games, and Holzhauer, who earned $2,462,216 from 32 games.

Amodio also stands out from the pack simply because of the way he answers Jeopardy! questions: Instead of answering with “Who’s” when the response is about a person, he says “What’s.”

In a recent interview with Yale School of Engineering, Amodio explained that he keeps his answers consistent in style so he can really zero in on the clue itself.

“I have a strategy where I form all my questions with a ‘what’s’ at the beginning — then, I can focus on the rest of the clue,” he said. “Other people have been very upset at me being robotic instead of forming a question differently each time. I was glad that Jeopardy! said this was perfectly within the rules. I’ve watched Jeopardy! every day of my life, so I knew it was OK.”

Jeopardy! airs weeknights on ABC at 7/6c.

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