Amy Schneider
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Amy Schneider (born May 29, 1979) is an American writer and game show contestant. Winning 40 consecutive games on the quiz show ''
Jeopardy! ''Jeopardy!'' is an American television 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 g ...
'' from November 2021 to January 2022 and the November 2022 Tournament of Champions, she holds the second-longest win streak in the program's history, behind only
Ken Jennings Kenneth Wayne Jennings III (born May 23, 1974) is an American game show host, former contestant, and author. He is best known for his work on the syndicated quiz show ''Jeopardy!'' as a contestant and later its host. Jennings was born in Edm ...
(74 games), who hosted the show as she competed. Her streak is the longest win streak by a woman. She is the most successful woman and most successful
transgender A transgender (often shortened to trans) person has a gender identity different from that typically associated with the sex they were sex assignment, assigned at birth. The opposite of ''transgender'' is ''cisgender'', which describes perso ...
contestant ever to compete on the show, in terms of both the length of her streak and her in winnings. Schneider is known for her skill in the Final Jeopardy! round, having responded correctly 30 out of 41 times in her run. She lives in
Oakland, California Oakland is a city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area in the U.S. state of California. It is the county seat and most populous city in Alameda County, California, Alameda County, with a population of 440,646 in 2020. A major We ...
. Across all American game shows, she is the ninth-highest-earning contestant of all time.


Early and personal life

Schneider grew up in
Dayton, Ohio Dayton () is a city in Montgomery County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of cities in Ohio, sixth-most populous city in Ohio, with a population of 137,644 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. The Dayton metro ...
, and attended
Chaminade-Julienne High School Chaminade Julienne Catholic High School is a private, co-educational, center-city, Catholic high school. It is located in downtown Dayton, in the U.S. state of Ohio, and is owned and operated by the Society of Mary and the Sisters of Notre Dame ...
. In eighth grade, she was voted "Most likely to appear on ''Jeopardy!''" by her classmates. She graduated from the University of Dayton with a degree in
computer science Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...
. Throughout her run on ''Jeopardy!'', she expressed admiration for past champions
Ken Jennings Kenneth Wayne Jennings III (born May 23, 1974) is an American game show host, former contestant, and author. He is best known for his work on the syndicated quiz show ''Jeopardy!'' as a contestant and later its host. Jennings was born in Edm ...
,
James Holzhauer James Holzhauer (born August 6, 1984) is an American game show contestant and professional sports betting, sports gambler. He is the American game show winnings records#All-time top 25 winnings list, fourth-highest-earning American game show c ...
,
Matt Amodio Matthew Benjamin Amodio''Jeopardy!'', Sony, 2021 (born December 4, 1990) is an American mathematician and game show contestant who won 38 consecutive games on the game show ''Jeopardy!'' in 2021, the third-longest streak in the show's history, be ...
, and Julia Collins (the first woman to win 20 games in a row, at the time ''Jeopardy!''s second-longest streak). On a January 2022 episode of '' Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen'', Schneider said that she hoped Jennings would become the permanent host of the program, citing his comforting and empathetic presence. Schneider has a cat named Meep, a name given to her at the shelter before adoption, "because the only noise she would make was 'meep'. Me and my girlfriend said we would find another name for her, but she kept making that noise, and we realized it was the right name." Schneider is a
trans woman A trans woman or transgender woman is a woman who was assigned male at birth. Trans women have a female gender identity and may experience gender dysphoria (distress brought upon by the discrepancy between a person's gender identity and their ...
; she transitioned in 2017. On January 19, 2022, Schneider was awarded a GLAAD Special Recognition honor for her ''Jeopardy!'' performance. Schneider married her partner Genevieve Davis on May 9, 2022, after a three-month engagement.


''Jeopardy!'' streak

Schneider's first victory occurred on the November 17, 2021, episode, dethroning five-day champion Andrew He. In the following 14 games, she missed only one Final Jeopardy! question. She missed a second in her 16th win. In total, Schneider has won over on ''Jeopardy!'', the fifth-most winnings of any contestant on the show in all play. Schneider is the first openly
transgender A transgender (often shortened to trans) person has a gender identity different from that typically associated with the sex they were sex assignment, assigned at birth. The opposite of ''transgender'' is ''cisgender'', which describes perso ...
contestant to qualify for the Tournament of Champions. Her winning streak came one year after Kate Freeman became the first openly transgender contestant to win on the show. Schneider, who viewed Freeman's victory and several other trans contestants' losing appearances on the show as inspiration, has described the significance of having a trans identity: "The fact is, I don't actually think about being trans all that often, and so when appearing on national television, I wanted to represent that part of my identity accurately: as important, but also relatively minor." After surpassing Amodio's 38-game winning streak in the January 24, 2022, episode, Schneider took second place for the most consecutive wins in ''Jeopardy!'' history at 39, behind only Jennings's 74 consecutive wins.


End of streak

Schneider was defeated in her 41st episode, aired on January 26, 2022, finishing second behind Rhone Talsma, a librarian from Chicago, Illinois. The "Final Jeopardy!" clue was, "The only nation in the world whose name in English ends in an H, it's also one of the 10 most populous." Talsma responded, "What is
Bangladesh Bangladesh, officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, eighth-most populous country in the world and among the List of countries and dependencies by ...
?", which was correct, putting him ahead of Schneider who had no response. Her winnings totaled over $1,300,000, ranking her fourth in most money won in regular-season play behind Jennings, Holzhauer, and Amodio.


Tournament of Champions

Schneider appeared in the Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions that aired in November 2022. On November 21, she won the tournament, along with its $250,000 grand prize. She was the first openly transgender person to compete in, and to win, the Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions.


''Jeopardy! Masters''

In January 2023,
ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Broadcasting * Aliw Broadcasting Corporation, Philippine broadcast company * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial American ...
announced a new primetime ''Jeopardy!'' spinoff, ''
Jeopardy! Masters ''Jeopardy! Masters'' is an American game show hosted by Ken Jennings on ABC. Each season features recent notable ''Jeopardy!'' champions competing against each other in a " Champions League-style" format. It premiered on May 8, 2023. In Febr ...
'', which brought back Schneider along with Amodio, Holzhauer, Sam Buttrey, Andrew He, and Mattea Roach in a Champions League-style event. Schneider finished the quarter final round of ''Jeopardy! Masters'' in 5th place, and was eliminated from the competition.


Strategy

Schneider has explained that when she sees a category where she is weak, she gets it "out of the way first. That way, if there were any doubles in that category, they would come up when there wasn't as much money to be wagered." Later, she described her wagering strategy in a runaway game with little competition: "round up the second place score to the nearest thousand, double it, subtract it from my score, and then subtract another thousand in case I'd messed something up. Schneider said that doing crossword puzzles helps her think of words "as both a concept and a collection of letters at the same time".


Regular play winnings


Works

* ''In the Form of a Question'', Simon & Schuster, 2023.


See also

* List of ''Jeopardy!'' contestants * Strategies and skills of ''Jeopardy!'' champions


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Schneider, Amy 1979 births American transgender writers Contestants on American game shows LGBTQ people from California LGBTQ people from Ohio Living people People from Dayton, Ohio People from Oakland, California Transgender women writers University of Dayton alumni American transgender women Jeopardy! American women memoirists Memoirists from Ohio Memoirists from California