Stephanie Stein

I’m not sure what my face is doing, because I’m still not sure I believe this is happening. I give my answer: “What is the glass ceiling?” Now I have $5,800 and the lead.

After all those years shouting answers at the TV screen, half a dozen attempts at the online tryout, and one very tense morning in the studio waiting for my turn, this is it. I’m going to be the one who takes down Goliath.

Goliath, in this case, is James Holzhauer, the 22-time winner (through Friday) whose record-smashing run on “Jeopardy!” has turned him into a household name. He’s a speed demon on the buzzer who regularly nails all three Daily Doubles with sky-high wagers. He’s catching up to Ken Jennings, and he’s doing it fast.

As a kid, I used to watch Jeopardy! with my grandfather. Well, I’d watch — he would be “resting his eyes.” I started trying to get on the show in college, and over the years, I would twice make it as far as the in-person auditions before, this January, the stars aligned and I got The Call.

You get one chance to make your mark on “Jeopardy!” and I wasn’t going to waste it. Before flying to Los Angeles, I relearned everything I’d forgotten about U.S. presidents and world capitals, read up on Final Jeopardy betting strategy, and watched the full catalog of the Tournament of Champions. I wasn’t going to be one of those players who was just happy to be nominated. Especially not when I knew I’d be the show’s typical lone woman, facing off against two men. No, I was going to win.

In any game of “Jeopardy!” there’s a returning champion. So when I arrive at the studio at 7 on a Monday morning, filled half with adrenaline and half iced coffee, to hear that our guy has already won twice, I just think: He seems ... normal?

Then we actually get to watch him play.

The show tapes five episodes every day that it’s on set, and you don’t know which game you’ll be playing until they call your name, minutes before your turn. The rest of the time, all you and your comrades/opponents have to do is watch. It’s supposed to be fun: You’re playing a game. But that morning, it felt like we’d stumbled into a war zone.

Three games went by. In the second one, his final total was $110,914, beating the previous one-game record by more than $30,000. (He has since broken his own record, with $131,127, and has won $1.7 million so far.)

I remember someone joking, “Who’s next into the meat grinder?” I couldn’t decide if I wanted it to be me. At least then the wait would be over. My mother was in the audience, and you’re not allowed to talk to your guests during the taping, but her face said it all.

Lewis Black, a lawyer from Salt Lake City, and I are the first ones out of the trenches after production breaks for lunch. It’ll be a Thursday episode, April 11. We step onto marked-off squares that have built-in elevators that rise up to make it look like we’re all the same height. Lewis and I give each other a look. I try to remember that we’re playing against each other, too, but it doesn’t feel that way. It feels like we’re in this together. And someone, somehow, has got to take this guy down.

It’s not like I didn’t realize that was unlikely. In a strange way, though, the long odds felt liberating. The numbers on the game board stopped being real money and became nothing more than points in a game. A game I was still going to try to win, because Goliath or not, this was my one shot.

Most of James’ strategies aren’t new to the show — starting from the high-value clues at the bottom of the board, jumping from category to category, hunting for Daily Doubles. What makes him a “Jeopardy!” machine is all of that and his impeccable timing on the buzzer. It’s unreal.

I had thought that mastering the buzzer would be the easy part. I’m a millennial! I grew up playing video games! In reality? It felt impossible. You can’t buzz in until Alex is finished reading a clue; if you’re too early, you get locked out for a fraction of a second. You can try to time it by listening to him or you can watch for the white lights on either side of the game board, which turn on the moment the system is armed. I tried it all in our rehearsal rounds, but I never got the hang of it. And James had already had five games’ worth of practice.

There’s only one way to succeed against a player who uses James’ strategies, and that’s to make sure you use the same aggressive style. I manage to rack up some early momentum. I get the first Daily Double, and wrestling one away from James — a rare occurrence — already feels like an achievement. The category is “Idioms” and Alex reads the clue: “Management consultant Marilyn Loden says she coined this phrase for a barrier to female success in 1978.”

My editor’s brain starts crafting a narrative in the background: If I beat a five-time champ by shattering the glass ceiling, how incredible would that story be?

As it turns out, the James machine is inexorable. He gets the next Daily Double, and the next one, and our game starts taking a trajectory that, to Lewis and me, has gotten a little too familiar. One that goes straight downhill.

In the end, I’m happy with the fight Lewis and I put up against one of the show’s winningest players. I’m thrilled to have been a small part of a show that’s been part of my life since I was too short to see over one of its podiums. And I’m grateful to have had the chance to meet Alex Trebek.

If you have to lose at a game you love on national television, I will say it’s nice to have an ironclad excuse. Sure, I lost. But I lost to the guy who keeps finding new places to add his name to the record book.

And now, at least my friends still believe me when I say that on any other day, I could have won.

This article originally appeared in <a id="0c259547-0132-3e3c-ac6e-b64ad8b91491" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/04/arts/television/jeopardy-holzhauer-stephanie-stein.html">The New York Times</a>.

I Finally Made it to 'Jeopardy!' and Was Beating James Holzhauer. Then He Got Rolling.

I’m standing on a set that’s as familiar to me as my own living room — because of all the times I’ve seen it from my own living room. I’ve just landed on the first Daily Double. And I have a chance to take the lead.

I finally made it to 'Jeopardy!' and was beating James Holzhauer, then he got rolling

In any game of “Jeopardy!” there’s a returning champion. So when I arrive at the studio at 7 on a Monday morning, filled half with adrenaline and half iced coffee, to hear that our guy has already won twice, I just think: he seems ... normal?

The show tapes five episodes every day that it’s on set, and you don’t know which game you’ll be playing until they call your name, minutes before your turn. The rest of the time, all you and your comrades/opponents have to do is watch. It’s supposed to be fun: you’re playing a game. But that morning, it felt like we’d stumbled into a war zone.

My editor’s brain starts crafting a narrative in the background: If I beat a five-time champ by shattering the glass ceiling, how incredible would that story be?

I finally made it to 'Jeopardy!' and was beating James Holzhauer Then he got rolling

I finally made it to 'Jeopardy!' and was beating James Holzhauer. Then he got rolling

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Stephanie Stein

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I finally made it to 'Jeopardy!' and was beating James Holzhauer, then he got rolling

I finally made it to 'Jeopardy!' and was beating James Holzhauer. Then he got rolling