When he was on the popular television show earlier this year, he captured the attention of the poker community and the game show world with his talents. Now, after a two-week tournament, former poker professional Alex Jacob can lay claim to the Jeopardy Tournament of Champions title.
Jacob never seemed to be challenged during the run up to the Championship Match. In the quarterfinals and semifinals, he smoothly walked through the opposition. In fact, in his quarterfinal match last week, Jacob couldn’t be caught in winning that stage, holding $26,800 to his opponents’ $10,200 and $8400 to render Final Jeopardy a moot point.
On Friday, Jacob was able to easily outlast his two competitors, Matt Jackson (who would eventually finish in second place) and Kerry Greene (third). Over the two day competition that made up the Championship Match, Jacob would win both days to take down the $250,000 first place prize (to go along with his previous Jeopardy winnings of $151,802); Jackson earned $100,000 and Greene picked up $50,000.
In an interview with Variety following the completion of the tournament, Jacob gave credit to his poker background in preparing him for victory on Jeopardy. “The most challenging aspect was probably just dealing mentally with the high stakes and the knowledge that I could win the tournament if I played well. The one thing I had going for me is that I’ve played for a lot of money on national TV before,” Jacob, who won the 2006 United States Poker Championship in Atlantic City, said to Variety’s Whitney Friedlander. “The thing that makes Jeopardy different than poker, though, is that there’s always another poker tournament… you only get one Tournament of Champions.”
Jacob’s performance on Jeopardy is a rarity for people in the poker community – a player or former player who earned something for their appearance. Earlier this year, poker pro Vanessa Rousso was acknowledged by many to have played the “finest game in the history of” the television reality show Big Brother but, when it came down to the final three players in the contest, the manipulations saw her ejected in third place, short of the $50,000 that the runner-up would earn and agonizingly short of the $500,000 first place prize. It is arguable, however, that Rousso will be able to use the notoriety of that Big Brother run for publicity (and potential profit) in the future.
Previous to Rousso, such competitors/poker players as Tiffany Michelle and Maria Ho (The Amazing Race) and Garrett Adelstein and Jean-Robert Bellande (Survivor) have been on the “small screen” vying for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Unfortunately, they would all come up short in their efforts. In 2009, Annie Duke came within one slot of taking down Celebrity Apprentice, but was foiled by host Donald Trump and his personal friendship with Joan Rivers (any money won during that event was for charity, however). Even Daniel Negreanu and Beth Shak have taken part in The Millionaire Matchmaker, looking for romantic setups.
This list is going to grow as 2016 comes to the fore. In the next installment of the Survivor series set to begin in February, poker professional Anna Khait will be on one of the teams competing for a million dollar prize. The grueling episodes of that show are already in the can (recorded) and Khait has been very silent on the outcome of the competition, not surprising as contestants on these shows normally sign a confidentiality agreement before even stepping in front of the cameras. The show will take place in Cambodia.
Congratulations to Jacob for achieving such a difficult goal. While the $250,000 windfall might have some wanting to get back to the tables, it seems those days are gone for Jacob. He identified his profession as a “currency trader” for the entirety of his Jeopardy appearance and, when asked what he would do with the winnings, Jacob stated that he would use it to pay for his recent wedding and a big honeymoon with his new wife.
