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ABC to Air Greatest of All Time ‘Jeopardy!’ Tournament in Early January 2020

Ken Jennings, Brad Rutter and James Holzhauer Face Off Nightly in Prime Time Starting Jan. 7

James Holzhauer, fresh off his 2019 Tournament of Champions victory on “Jeopardy!”, is soon about to enter another “Jeopardy!” tournament, but this time against two of the game show’s all-time greats: Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter.

“Jeopardy!” will make its return to ABC prime time for the first time in 30 years (a brief run of “Super Jeopardy!” aired in the summer of 1990). This Greatest-of-All-Time (GOAT) tournament — developed by ABC reality programming chief Rob Mills — consists of a series of two back-to-back games among the three past champions, airing weeknights (8 p.m. EST/PST) beginning Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2020. It’ll be hosted by Alex Trebek. The player with the most combined winnings from the two games wins the “match,” and the play continues on successive nights (except Mondays — can’t disrupt “The Bachelor”!) until either Jennings, Rutter or Holzhauer has won three matches; that player will earn $1 million. (The remaining two players each get $250,000). That means the tournament can last as short as three days and as long as seven days.

Holzhauer earned just shy of $2.5 million in 32 consecutive games on “Jeopardy!” this past spring, holding the top 16 single-game scores (and 18 of the top 20) in the show’s history with his Apr. 17 victory of $131,127 as his highest score.

Jennings remains the all-time record holder in consecutive “Jeopardy!” wins (74) and regular-game winnings ($2.52 million).

Rutter is the top “Jeopardy!” tournament earner, amassing over $4.6 million and besting Jennings on multiple occasions head-to-head.

Jennings and Rutter both famously competed in a battle versus the IBM Watson computer across two matches in 2011. In the 2018-19 season, Jennings and Rutter were two of six captains of three-person teams in the “Jeopardy! All-Star Games” with Rutter’s team emerging victorious and Jennings’ team as runners-up.

The Jennings vs. Rutter vs. Holzhauer tournament is scheduled to tape in early December.

Updated Dec. 7, 2019: Based on a poll on our website from Nov. 18-Dec. 7, a little over 68 percent of the almost 1,500 visitors who voted predicted James Holzhauer to win the tournament. 20 percent chose Ken Jennings, and 12 percent picked Brad Rutter.

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