He’s whip-smart.
“Jeopardy!” Master champ James Holzhauer playfully slapped fellow contestant Andrew He with his 2019 championship belt during Monday’s Masters competition.
Holzhauer, 38, jokingly lashed He, 26, with his winner’s strap after he mocked him for not having any money on the game board.
“I’ll bet $2,000 plus all of James’ points,” He quipped once he scored a Daily Double.
“Yeah, I think James’s score is still on there, actually,” host Ken Jennings chimed in, referencing the time when Holzhauer teased Brad Rutter for not having cash at a 2020 game.
Holzhauer had actually brought his belt into the Masters game as a lucky token.
Once he happily swung it in He’s direction, He went on to answer his Daily Double question correctly and won more money.
Jennings, 48, then jested about the championship belt, saying: “Only one of them has brought a foreign object to the ring: James’ championship belt. I don’t know what’s next. Folding chairs?”
“Anything can happen out here,” the emcee added.
Andrew then began to make jeers at Holzhauer, who was actually introduced at the beginning of the show as a “self-described game show villain.”
Holzhauer’s winnings came out to $24,805 as he went into the Final Jeopardy round while Andrew’s total tallied up to just $8,800.
Holzhauer then picked the category titled “19th Century First Ladies,” however, he didn’t know the final answer.
But he then joked to Jennings: “If a Ken falls in the forest and no one’s around, does it make a dad joke?”
Jennings replied back, “Don’t make me come over there. I know you’ve got the belt.”
“Oh yeah,” Holzhauer interjected. “Let’s go. Let’s go, buddy. Come on.”
“I [don’t] have any weapons at all at my lectern,” Jennings said.
On the May 8 episode of “Jeopardy! Masters,” Holzhauer and Jennings seemed to be at war when the two hilariously trolled each other during the tournament.
One of the clues from the game read: “Opened in 1909 & less famous than an older neighbor, it connects Brooklyn & Chinatown.”
While the other contestants wrote down their responses, Jennings said Holzhauer already started writing his answer while the former was still reading the hint.
“What bridge did he think of?” the Washington native wondered.
In actuality, Holzhauer didn’t reply to the question, he wrote the statement: “Stop ducking a rematch, Ken.”
The host couldn’t help but burst into laughter and fired back: “You know how much work I had to go to to get all the way over here at this lectern and avoid having to play you again, James?”
Holzhauer then referenced the “ducking” part of his remark, saying: “This is autocorrected, by the way.”
Holzauer is in the lead ahead of the final week of the tournament.