To me, there’s something beautiful about Mr. Holzhauer’s style of play: It’s akin, in its way of flouting convention, to the pretty, flying arcs described by Dick Fosbury, who as a high schooler revolutionized the sport of high jumping by going back and shoulder first. Before Fosbury won gold at the 1968 Olympics, jumpers pretty much scissor-kicked their way over the bar; afterward, they were all doing the “Fosbury Flop.”

Like Fosbury’s innovation, Mr. Holzhauer’s approach to the game — unusual and aggressive, with an audacious risk-taking strategy informed by his background as a professional bettor and buttressed by his impeccable buzzer skills — is certain to inform the style of the players who come after him. “Jeopardy!” play now will be a race to the $1,000 clues, the high-dollar stacking and higher bets on the Daily Doubles.

There have been stabs at new “Jeopardy!” technique before — students of the game point to parallels between Mr. Holzhauer’s run and that of a 2014 contestant named Arthur Chu, who also leapfrogged around the board. But in interviews, Mr. Chu said he was trying to keep opponents off balance, not trying to stack up money to make high-dollar bets like Mr. Holzhauer, who is fond of pushing his hands forward in his daily doubles bets as if shoving in all his chips. Many contestants have likewise “fished” for Daily Doubles, which tend to be higher-dollar clues, and plenty of other champions have been known for betting big.

I checked in with my friend and four-time “Jeopardy!” champion Jonathan Dinerstein about what sets Mr. Holzhauer apart. Jon said that preternatural buzzer speed and vast stores of knowledge, coupled with “a relentless pursuit of a mathematically optimized money-maximizing betting strategy,” put Mr. Holzhauer in control. Without the first two, “he couldn’t accomplish the third, or you wouldn’t really notice his attempts to do so as markedly,” Jon told me.

The upending of standard technique is often rooted in something more basic than genius: Fosbury’s breakthrough was possible only because of the evolution of the landing material on the other side of the bar, with foam pads replacing piles of sawdust just as he got started in the early 1960s, making it at least conceivable that he could throw himself over the bar and land safely on his neck and shoulders.