I’ve never even entertained the idea of a contestant getting a perfect game in Jeopardy, but apparently it can be a thing. First though, what does a perfect game even look like on the popular trivia game show?
What is a Jeopardy Perfect Game?
A Perfect Game in the Jeopardy world can be defined in a couple of ways.
During Austin Rogers’ record-setting run, Five Thirty Eight put forth a riddle on their site by asking how much a Jeopardy Perfect Game would yield in money or:
What’s the maximum amount of money that can possibly be won by one contestant in a single game of “Jeopardy!”?
Several sites has put this question out into the world and Hollywood.com came up with $566,400 if you were to buzz in first for and respond correctly to every clue then you bid as much as possible whenever you have a choice across the first, Double and Final Jeopardy rounds. That’s nice, but that’s never going to happen.
The more realistic “I’m-a-human” CAPTCHA definition of a Perfect Jeopardy Game is when a contestant correctly answers all the questions they buzz. A la the perfect game.
Has there ever been a Perfect Game in Jeopardy?
We didn’t go over every game in the history of Jeopardy, but did find this Quora thread on the Internet. According to that answer from 2016, the closest an answer that someone found after doing some research on J-Archive, was Ken Jennings. Not a surprise.
The closest I can find is Ken Jennings’ 38th win (Show #4595, aired 2004-07-23), where he set a new single-day winnings record of $75,000 (since broken by Roger Craig), and managed to answer 44 of the 60 questions.
We all know that KenJen is the G.O.A.T. of Jeopardy, but man, that’s not even close to what a Jame Holzhauer accomplished in April 2019. Holzhauer hasn’t just won by large margins and dominate the list of players with the biggest single day winnings, but the professional sports gambler has changed the game.
As far as we know, Holzhauer is the only contestant to have a perfect game when he answered all 41 of his answers. Here’s where we even created a table for it.
| Contestant | Questions | Answers | Percent | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| James Holzhauer | 43 | 43 | 100% | 04/30/2019 |
| James Holzhauer | 41 | 41 | 100% | 04/17/2019 |
| Ken Jennings | 60 | 44 | 73.3% | 07/23/2004 |
Not a surprise to see two of the greatest Jeopardy winners of all time on this list. Are we missing any other contestants with Perfect Games (or near perfect games)? If so, send us a note or put it in the comments below.
