Jeopardy! champion Amy Schneider is the talk of the town, and fellow Jeopardy! star James Holzhauer has taken notice.
On January 14, Jeopardy! host Ken Jennings kicked off the quiz show by declaring that Amy had responded correctly to over 1,000 clues. What’s more, the engineering manager originally from Dayton, Ohio was also tied with James’ record of 32 consecutive games won. But the pressure didn’t seem to get to her, and she snagged her 33rd win. With $1,111,800 in total earnings, Amy officially surpassed The Chase star’s run and became the third longest running contestant in Jeopardy! history.
Despite getting bumped down to fourth place — the second time in the current 39th season — James joined in on the celebration and squeezed in a joke about Ken. “Big congrats to @Jeopardamy on her 33rd win!” he wrote on Twitter. “This makes three eligible players in the 30+ game millionaires club 🤔.”
As it turns out, while there are now technically four Jeopardy! millionaire club members — Ken ($2,520,700), James ($2,462,216), Matt Amodio ($1,518,601) and Amy — one of them doesn’t count anymore. After Ken became a consulting producer on Jeopardy! in September 2020, he no longer qualified to compete on the quiz show. So, if the special event Jeopardy! The Greatest of All Time got a round two, Ken wouldn’t be able to participate. But that’s perfectly fine with Ken, because he took the consulting gig knowing he would have to retire from the game.
Technicalities aside, Amy is the second person to beat James’ record, which was originally set in June 2019. Earlier in the current 39th season, Jeopardy! champion Matt knocked him down from second place to third for the most consecutive games won on the show.
After claiming the historic victory, Amy admitted that she didn’t believe it was possible to accomplish it. “I’m just blown away,” she said in an exclusive interview with the show. “I have said I did start to think about this number a while ago, but it was really, I didn’t really think so. That only two other people have done this is just hard to wrap my mind around.”
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But Amy did it, and now she is only looking ahead to what’s next. “I do think a little bit about the bigger numbers down the road, but can’t get there without getting to 34 first,” she said.
ICYMI, on January 18, Amy won her 34th game and continued her jaw-dropping Jeopardy! winning streak. This achievement brings her even closer to surpassing Matt’s 38 games and we truly can’t wait to see if she does it. In the meantime, the California resident is putting all her energy in her playing strategy and also coming up with interesting personal stories to share during her daily introductions. “32 games in, I was really struggling to find anecdotes at this point lol,” she tweeted in a recent game recap thread. “I heard that Ken eventually started making stuff up during his run, I was starting to wonder if it was time to do the same!”
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