Sam Kavanaugh is a substitute teacher from Carlton, Minnesota. He first appeared on Jeopardy! on July 10, 2019 and defeated 4-time Champion and fellow Tournament of Champions participant Ryan Bilger. He went on to win 5 games, accumulating $156,202. He later returned for the 2021 Tournament of Champions, which he won and took home the $250,000 grand prize.
This is the fourth case of being caught in the jinx of 'If you beat a champion who has won more than 4 wins in a row, you can't win more than 6 consecutive wins[1][2]'.
Instead, he broke the jinx that a champion who won a four-game winning streak could not win the ToC.
He and James Holzhauer made their original appearances in Season 35, and both went on to win their respective ToC's (James Holzhauer in Season 36 and Sam Kavanaugh in Season 37). This is the third instance of two ToC champions original runs occurring in the same season[3]. Also, like James, the prize money earned by Daily Doubles and FJ! The percentage of correct answers is high.
Among the ToC champions, he is the only participant who has experienced both lock game wins and losses in regular games.
Andrew He, later a 5-game winning streak champion and runner-up in the 2022 ToC, tweeted that he helped prepare for the ToC.
He and James are believed to be the only two people to have ever averaged more than $10,000 a game on Daily Doubles in regular play. (Sam’s average net gain on Daily Doubles in his original run was $11,040, while James’ average was $20,419.)
He is a person who is deeply related to the number 5. He was the 5th champion with more than 5 consecutive wins in season 35, and succeeded in winning 5 consecutive wins by defeating champions who challenged for 5 consecutive wins, and in addition, in ToC, he was ranked 5th in the prize money list in addition to group 5.
Following the reorganization of the S39 ToC format, he became the last ToC winner in the 15-people system, and first Toc Winner in the post-Trebek era of Jeopardy.
