Jeopardy! icon Amy Schneider sends gracious message to former champ after breaking another record
Amy Schneider has broken yet another Jeopardy! record as she is now in second place for most consecutive games won. (YouTube/Jeopardy!)
Amy Schneider has continued her dominance on Jeopardy!, breaking yet another record in the process.
Schneider, an engineering manager from California, won her 39th consecutive game on Monday (24 January).
It means she now holds the record for second-longest streak on Jeopardy!, knocking former contestant Matt Amodio down the rankings to third.
Only current host Ken Jennings has won more consecutive games than Schneider. He lasted for 74 games and won £2.5m during his six-month run in 2004.
Schneider and Amodio will face off in the next Tournament of Champions, and she shared a message to the Yale University PhD student in an interview with Variety.
“It’s going to be an honour playing against you, and it’s going to be a tight competition,” Schneider said.
James Holzhauer's 32-game record: ☑️
Matt Amodio's 38-game record: ☑️
Ken Jennings' 74-game record: ❓ pic.twitter.com/G1seRRxIZM
— Jeopardy! (@Jeopardy) January 25, 2022
Schneider said that it still “feels unreal” to have come so far on the game show.
“Knowing that I had this chance, I was definitely thinking about it,” Schneider said. “Then Ken [Jennings] said it, and I thought, ‘Alright, I just accomplished this huge thing’ and it was pretty great.”
Amy Schneider is the first woman and the fourth person to win more than $1m on the show – her current prize total is $1,319,800 (£980,809).
She is also the first trans person to qualify for the Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions, which sees the game’s top 15 players fight it out for the ultimate prize.
Schneider recently revealed on Good Morning America that curiosity and a love of learning have been the secrets to her dominance on Jeopardy!
“I’m not really sure about a lot of it; I never expected to do this well, but I think the main secret is just being curious and spending my life learning a lot of stuff,” Schneider said.
She added that a highlight of her experience has been being able to be her “true self” as well as representing the trans community on TV.
“I think that the best part for me has been being on TV as my true self, expressing myself and representing the entire community of trans people,” Amy Schneider said.
She continued: “And just kind of showing a different thing than maybe some people have seen, of just being a smart, confident woman and just doing something super normal like being on Jeopardy!“
