Top 45 James Holzhauer Quotes

If I can really work in any sport, I wonder if the Golden Knights have an opening in their analytics department?

I am in awe of Ken Jennings’s accomplishments, as all ‘Jeopardy!’ fans are. Simply being compared to him is an honor.

I think the best way to quickly describe my personality is that I’m a maximizer rather than a satisficer, i.e. I want to squeeze every drop out of an opportunity rather than settle for ‘good enough.’

Ryne Sandberg was my favorite player growing up.

Like Dave Mustaine, I ain’t superstitious.

Lots of people recognize me now.

I think most people who bother to study ‘Jeopardy!’ game theory are going to arrive at similar conclusions about how to best play the game. Not everyone is going to take that step, of course.

All good professional gamblers are selectively aggressive.

I’m from Naperville.

I’m used to gambling.

I did want to lock each game up before Final Jeopardy, to avoid losing to a bad bounce in that round.

I think there’s a mental block for betting big amounts that doesn’t exist for me but it does for other people.

Baseball was my goal from a young age, but gambling had significantly fewer barriers to entry.

I kind of didn’t look at anyone else’s strategy for ‘Jeopardy!’ I thought, I’m going to build this from the ground up… If I had never seen a ‘Jeopardy!’ game played before, what would I have to do to play it to maximize my winnings, maximize my chances of winning?

Nobody likes to lose.

Fame came at me a lot quicker and stronger than I imagined.

There were times in school where I would say, ‘I should go to class.’ But I could make $100 playing online poker if I didn’t go.

There’s a lot of attention on me which can be good, it can be bad. Sometimes my daughter’s acting up in public and I really wish I could become anonymous for a few minutes.

I think if you’re talking about ‘Jeopardy’ style, I’m not afraid to throw the deep ball, even if it might get picked off, so Deshaun Watson I think would be the best comparison.

I really like not having to justify my decisions to anyone else, as well as the freedom to vacation whenever I want.

I figured, maybe one in five, one in 10 people would recognize me. But no, it’s everywhere, especially in Las Vegas. I think the city’s kind of embraced me which is good.

I sketched out what I believed to be my optimal strategy for ‘Jeopardy:’ Play fast, build a stack, bet big, and hope for the best. In my mind, playing a seemingly risky game actually minimizes my chances of losing.

The last real job I had I was 16-years-old slinging fried chicken in my hometown of Naperville, Ill.

I spent almost no time studying categories like geography and sports, even though they came up frequently on ‘Jeopardy,’ because I’m already strong in those subjects.

It is exciting for me to see the stats guys winning the battle and getting into MLB front offices.

When I watched ‘Jeopardy!’ as a kid, I would primarily watch with my grandmother. She was the most beautiful person the world has ever seen. Her first language wasn’t English, so she couldn’t follow along well, but she wanted to share this experience with me since she saw it was something I really liked.

I was always good at video games like ‘Guitar Hero,’ which require the player to press buttons at precise times.

I bet sports all the time and very rarely get in a spot where someone offered me even money on something I’m going to get right five out of six times.

There’s nothing better for my interests and talents than combining math and sports for profit.

The fact that I win and lose money all the time helps desensitize me, so I can write down $60,000 as the Final Jeopardy wager and not be trembling at the thought of losing that money.

I first got into gambling because it was a way for me to leverage my love of baseball statistics. For the first few years, that’s all I would focus on.

I’ve found that in an adult reference book, if it’s not a subject I’m interested in, I just can’t get into it. I was thinking, what is the place in the library I can go to to get books tailored to make things interesting for uninterested readers? Boom. The children’s section.

I’m a pro sports gambler. You have winning days and you have losing days. But you know if you’ve got the right strategy, you’re going to get it in the end.

I wouldn’t recommend sports betting as a career. It requires a ton of effort and mastery of many different skills, and successful bettors are unwilling to teach you because you would be their competition.

The aggressive betting on the daily doubles is one of my trademarks.

The first bet I remember was on the Chargers in Super Bowl 29 with my classmates. I lost a lot of weeks’ allowance.

There are times when you’ll only have one or two seconds to decide if you’re going to bet on something and you need to be decisive. You need to do math quickly in your head.

I’ve learned more about animals just by reading to my kid than I ever did studying.

You need to pick your spots and bet big when you identify them. That’s basically my ‘Jeopardy!’ strategy in a nutshell.

My daughter learned to say, ‘They’re not even trying to cover!’ before her second birthday.

If you believe in yourself, you don’t have to do things the same way everyone else is doing it.

As a sports fan, I like the one-and-done playoff setups of the NFL and NCAA, but a best-of-seven gives the favorite a much better chance of prevailing in the end.

It’s one thing to skip class to play poker, but if I’m learning how to think in the real world playing poker, then maybe that’s more valuable than a college education could’ve been.

I don’t involve personal biases in my handicapping or wagering. I bet against the Cubs in the 2016 World Series, which tainted the victory a little. It was still incredible to watch.

I want to not lose what makes me be me.