James Holzhauer, the current reigning champ of "Jeopardy!," returned to the quiz show Monday night – and won his 23rd consecutive game.

Holzhauer, 34, a professional Las Vegas sports gambler, was back to defend his title after the popular game show took a break in its regular competition for a two-week Teachers Tournament.

He won $89,229, pushing his total winnings to $1,780,237.

Before Monday's win, Holzhauer had accumulated winnings of $1,691,008 in 22 victories going back to his first appearance on April 4.

So far, he's the second-most successful contestant in the game show's history, holding the number two spots on the lists for regular-season cash winnings and consecutive wins.

He trails only Ken Jennings, who remains in the top spot for both lists: 74 victories and $2,520,700 in prize money.

How is Holzhauer racking up such big winnings? He explained his strategy in a Q&A with The New York Times. Unlike most players, he picks the highest-value clues first.

"You can see as soon as I get control of the board in the first game, I’m going for the $1,000 clues whenever I have the opportunity," he said, likening his approach to a poker strategy. "There are big advantages to having a lot of chips early on in a poker tournament. You can make plays that other people can’t."

Also, he seems to have highly tuned hand-eye coordination when it comes to reaching for the buzzer.

Eddie Timanus, a five-time "Jeopardy!" winner who compiles the college coaches polls for USA TODAY Sports, describes Holzhauer as "a game-changer," both for his aggressive bidding and his mastery of the signalling buzzer.

"Thanks to his ability to ring in first consistently and rarely miss, he usually has a considerable total built up by the time he uncovers a Daily Double," Timanus says. "He finds most of them since he’s able to maintain control of the board for long stretches, and, as we've seen, he's not afraid to bet big."

Meanwhile, USA TODAY's For the Win has done the math: How quickly can Holzhauer reach Jennings on the money list?

He’s averaged $76,864 per win so if he keeps up that pace, it’ll take him between 10 or 11 victories to reach Jennings, or about two weeks’ worth of games, says For the Win.

Easy-peasy.

"Jeopardy!" and host Alex Trebek are celebrating their 35th anniversary season. With a weekly audience of 23 million viewers, it's the top-rated quiz show on television.