Alex Jacob (born October 27, 1984) is a former professional

poker Poker is a family of comparing card games in which players wager over which hand is best according to that specific game's rules. It is played worldwide, however in some places the rules may vary. While the earliest known form of the game w ...

player and game show contestant. Jacob is perhaps best known in poker for winning the 2006 main event at the

United States Poker Championship The United States Poker Championship (USPC) was a major annual stop on the poker tournament tour. This event was held at the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The series started in 1996, took one year off in 1997, and ran every year fr ...

, a no-limit

Texas hold 'em Texas hold 'em (also known as Texas holdem, hold 'em, and holdem) is one of the most popular variants of the card game of poker. Two cards, known as hole cards, are dealt face down to each player, and then five Community card poker, communit ...

event televised by

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...

. He has also appeared at televised final tables at the

World Series of Poker The World Series of Poker (WSOP) is a series of poker tournaments held annually in Paradise, Nevada and, since 2004, sponsored by Caesars Entertainment. It dates its origins to 1970, when Benny Binion invited seven of the best-known poker pla ...

and the

World Poker Tour The World Poker Tour (WPT) is an internationally televised gaming and entertainment brand. Since 2002, the World Poker Tour has operated a series of international poker tournaments and associated television series broadcasting playdown and the fi ...

. In 2015, after leaving professional poker, Jacob became a contestant on ''

Jeopardy! ''Jeopardy!'' is an American game show created by Merv Griffin. The show is a quiz competition that reverses the traditional question-and-answer format of many quiz shows. Rather than being given questions, contestants are instead given genera ...

'', where he won six games and the show's Tournament of Champions.

Education

In 2002, Jacob was the valedictorian of Deerfield Beach High School, where he was in the International Baccalaureate (IB) program. In May 2006, he graduated from Yale University with a degree in

economics Economics () is the social science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and intera ...

and

mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

Poker career

Among Jacob's biggest poker accomplishments are winning the Peter A. Fabrizio Memorial Poker Classic in 2003 and finishing runner-up at the 2006

(WPT) tournament in

Foxwoods Resort Casino Foxwoods Resort Casino is a hotel and casino complex owned and operated by the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation on their reservation located in Ledyard, Connecticut. Including six casinos, the resort covers an area of . The casinos have more t ...

on April 9, 2006, winning $655,507. Jacob secured his biggest paycheck to date by winning the 2006 U.S. Poker Championship with a first-place prize of $878,500. Jacob has 4

WSOP The World Series of Poker (WSOP) is a series of poker tournaments held annually in Paradise, Nevada and, since 2004, sponsored by Caesars Entertainment. It dates its origins to 1970, when Benny Binion invited seven of the best-known poker pla ...

Final Tables, including a 3rd in Event 3 in No-Limit

hold'em Texas hold 'em (also known as Texas holdem, hold 'em, and holdem) is one of the most popular variants of the card game of poker. Two cards, known as hole cards, are dealt face down to each player, and then five community cards are dealt fac ...

at the

2007 World Series of Poker The 2007 World Series of Poker (WSOP) began on June 1st, 2007. The $10,000 ( US) no-limit Texas hold 'em Main Event began on July 6th and was completed on the morning of July 18th. All events were held at the Rio All Suite Hotel and Casino in L ...

. At Yale, Jacob's poker talent was spotted by

James McManus } James "Jim" McManus (born March 22, 1951) is an American teacher, writer and poker player living in Kenilworth, Illinois. He is a professor in the Master of Fine Arts program for writers at the Art Institute of Chicago. Poker and ''Positi ...

as early as 2004, when McManus sat down one night to play with Jacob. Months later, McManus mentioned Jacob in an article about the experience. As of 2012, Jacob's total live tournament winnings exceed $2,600,000. His 25 cashes at the WSOP account for $832,559 of those winnings. He is known for his graciousness and sportsmanship in tournament play.

''Jeopardy!''

Jacob has also appeared on the game show ''

'' He won in his first appearance on the show on April 10, 2015, and went on to win five more games before losing on April 20, 2015. Jacob won a grand total of $151,802 in seven appearances. His victories qualified him for the 2015 Tournament of Champions, which he won, collecting the grand prize of $250,000. In addition to using the "Forrest Bounce" originated by

Chuck Forrest Charles Forrest (born June 3, 1961) is an American attorney and game show contestant who at one time held the record for the largest non-tournament cash winnings total on the syndicated game show ''Jeopardy!'' The ''Los Angeles Times'' called him ...

, Jacob also pioneered the strategy of aggressive Daily Double wagers that was used with even greater success by

James Holzhauer James Holzhauer (born August 6, 1984) is an American game show contestant and professional sports gambler. He is the third-highest-earning American game show contestant of all time and is best known for his 32-game winning streak as champion ...

in 2019. Jacob later appeared in the All-Star Games with team captain Buzzy Cohen and 2015 Teachers' Tournament champion Jennifer Giles. His team went home with $75,000 after losing the wild card match.

Endorsements

Jacob is a frequent player on the trivia app FleetWit, especially in the high-stakes races where top prizes are in the hundreds of dollars. He has won over $24,000 to date. He was also noted for winning a $20,000 prize on the

HQ Trivia HQ was a mobile trivia game developed by Intermedia Labs for iOS, Android, iPadOS, and tvOS. First released in 2017, the HQ app allowed users to play in daily live trivia games, through which they could win or split prize money. HQ was devel ...

app in June 2019, which HQ Trivia had failed to pay a month after his win. (Jacob received his payout in August.)

References

External links

Alex Jacob in the CardPlayer.com Player Database
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jacob, Alex 1984 births American poker players Living people People from Houston Deerfield Beach High School alumni Jeopardy! contestants