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Ryan Holznagel
FritzHolznagelBotD
Name: Ryan "Fritz" Holznagel
Birth Hometown: Somerville, Massachusetts
Occupation: Writer
Years active: 1994-2014
Known for: Appearances on Jeopardy!

Ryan "Fritz" Holznagel is a writer from Somerville, Massachusetts.

Preparations[]

His first appearance on the show was in October of 1994. His five shows were sandwiched around that year's Tournament of Champions and, as he recall, the Celebrity Tournament as well. So it was nearly a full year before he returned for the 1995 Tournament of Champions.

In the tournament, thanks to timely help from Robert James Waller, Hippocrates and Gerald Ford, he somehow managed to win the championship against some marvelous competition.

The next year he was invited back to represent the US in the first Jeopardy! International Tournament. There he was trampled by Ulf Jensen, a law professor from the University of Uppsala in Sweden who was very fast on the buzzer. He went on to win the tournament, and he'll never forget his amazement watching a group of players from Europe sweep through a US STATE CAPITALS category without missing a beat.

His favorite moment right after the show was being contacted by Mrs. Satchwell, his first-grade teacher from Harvey Clarke Elementary in Forest Grove. She saw me on the show one night and called me from Arizona, where she had retired. That Christmas she came to Oregon and they had a wonderful chance to catch up.

Then something even better happened: they met family they didn't know they had. His distant cousin Edith Kapfer emigrated from Germany in the 1950s and settled near Toronto with her husband Franz. When she heard the name Holznagel on television--her maiden name--she figured it had to be a relative. So she wrote to the Portland Chamber of Commerce, and they sent her a copy of the appropriate "H" page of the local telephone book. She wrote to his cousin Herman Holznagel, who then put us all together.

Through Edith they met other relatives in Germany, some of whom had been separated by the Iron Curtain until a few years before. This all culminated in a family reunion in Oregon two summers ago that included some of their German relatives. All that has been a wonderful bonus of having appeared on the show.

Ryan's first appearance on the show came on November 3, 1994. He would end up winning four games and $49,413 ($98,826 pre-doubled) in regular play. His second and third appearances on the show were split up by the year's Celebrity Jeopardy and Tournament of Champions.

Ryan's Final Jeopardy betting style was unique to most other betting styles; rather than betting the standard cover bet, a Shoretegic wager, a wager to protect a runaway, or betting everything, he would wager palindromic numbers in the majority of his games in Final Jeopardy, and in the finals of his Tournament of Champions (which he won) he would extend that practice to Daily Double wagering as well.

Jeopardy! Run[]

Regular Games[]

Game No. Air Date Final score Cumulative Winnings Notes
1 November 3, 1994 $12,173 $12,173
2 November 4, 1994 $12,900 $25,073 After his win, he had to wait twenty-four days due to Celebrity Jeopardy! and the Tournament of Champions.
3 November 28, 1994 $18,228 $43,301
4 November 29, 1994 $6,112 $49,413
5 November 30, 1994 $4,800 For coming in 2nd place, he receive a Coleman Spas model 60 jacuzzi for 4 & a Hatteras hammock.

Tournament of Champions[]

Ryan's four wins were enough to give him a spot in the 1995 Tournament of Champions, where he faced David Siegel and John McKeon in his quarterfinal round. He entered Final Jeopardy trailing David by $4,600, and while David won that quarterfinal, Ryan's second-place score of $8,621 was sufficient for a wildcard slot. John finished with no money and was eliminated from the tournament.

In his semifinal, he once again trailed going into Final Jeopardy (trailing Bruce Borchardt $7,300 to $10,000, with Paul Thompson in third with $5,100). However, because Bruce was the only player that game to miss Final Jeopardy, Ryan successfully wagered to cover Paul and advanced to the Finals.

In the finals, he once again faced off against David Siegel, with 4-day champion Isaac Segal taking the third slot. Ryan once again trailed David going into Day 1's Final Jeopardy (albeit by $800, as opposed to the $4,600 in the quarterfinals) but David was the only player to miss Final Jeopardy, which resulted in Ryan having a $4,603 lead over David going into Day 2. In the pair's final matchup, in Day 2, David once again led Ryan going into Final (with $10,100 to Ryan's $7,911), but Final Jeopardy was a triple-get, and Ryan's lead from Day 1 allowed him to cover David’s maximum possible score; thus, Ryan won the Tournament and claimed the $100,000 top prize, while David took home $24,600 for second place.

Olympic Games Tournament[]

Ryan was invited to the 1996 Olympic Games Tournament but entered Final Jeopardy in second place in a lock to Ulf Jensen of Sweden; thus, Ryan was eliminated in his first matchup, while Ulf went on to win the tournament.

Ultimate Tournament of Champions[]

He was one of three four-time winners to be invited to Jeopardy's biggest ever tournament, and faced John Kelly and Barbara-Anne Eddy in his Round 1 match. Ryan barely held onto a lead going into Final after Barbara-Anne missed a $5,600 Daily Double. While Final was a Triple Stumper, Barbara-Anne's overwager and John's failure to have enough money to stay ahead of a standard cover wager by Ryan meant Ryan would advance to Round 2. In that game, he entered Final Jeopardy just $588 behind Chris Miller, and Chris being the only player to correctly answer Final Jeopardy meant Ryan was knocked out of the Tournament in Round 2. Chris would also win his Round 3 match, but lose his Round 4 match to eventual champion Brad Rutter.

Battle of the Decades[]

Playing as Fritz for this tournament, Ryan was one of 15 champions selected to represent the 1990's in Jeopardy’s 30 year anniversary tournament. He faced Pam Mueller and Dan Melia in his preliminary round, and entered Final with $12,934 to Pam's $17,000, with Dan in third place at $5,700. Final Jeopardy was a Triple Stumper, and Ryan wagered $1,331, which would ordinarily mean a victory for him; however, Pam deciding to wager $0 ended up winning her the match. Pam would go on to reach the semifinals before losing to eventual 2nd runner-up Roger Craig.

Secrets of the Buzzer[]

While training for the Battle of the Decades, Ryan realized he would need to find some other edge "besides knowing world capitals" if he wanted any hope of beating out champions such as Brad Rutter and Ken Jennings to claim the million dollar top prize. He eventually realized that Jeopardy success largely comes down to how well a player is able to use the signaling device to ring in. Using this knowledge, he created a reaction time website and employed various methods, such as coffee and light exercise, to take his reaction time from an average 228 milliseconds to a superhuman 126 milliseconds. He published all his findings in a manifesto named Secrets of the Buzzer in 2015.

However, the manifesto would go almost completely unused before April of 2019. That month, 32-game champion and 2019 ToC winner James Holzhauer first appeared on the show, and often credited Ryan's book with being one of the keys to his success, as he used it to improve his buzzer skills. This caused the book to explode in popularity, to the point where the second edition of the novel, released that year, included a foreword from James himself; Ryan has since updated the book again in 2021 to include advice from top champions, including 5-time champ and 2021 ToC winner Sam Kavanaugh.

Trivia[]

  • Playing as Ryan, he won $30,000 on Who Wants to be a Millionaire on April 17~18, 2018.
  • He was a writer living in Oregon when he won the 1995 Tournament of Champions.
  • The buzzer position he recommended was later used by 32-win champion James Holzhauer and 21-win champion Cris Pannullo.

References[]

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