The category is: game show legends.
If she takes another win on Monday’s episode, the current “Jeopardy!” Phenomenon Amy Schneider will top Matt Amodio’s 38-game run, making her the contestant with the second-highest number of consecutive wins in the show’s history.
Schneider, an engineering manager from Oakland, California, often seems unbeatable with the buzzer in hand. According to statistics published by the show, of the clues she answered, she got the correct answer 95 percent of the time and the daily double clues correct 86 percent of the time. She became the first woman to win more than $1 million on the show, and in the 38 contests she has won to date, Schneider has collected $1.3 million.
But if “Jeopardy!” fans saw at the end of Amodio’s streak a few months ago, a seemingly unstoppable contestant could falter or meet their match at any time.
If Schneider beats Amodio’s run, her next goal post is still a long way off: beating Ken Jennings’ 74-game streak from 2004, the longest in history. Her new target would be particularly distressing if she encounters it when Jennings is the host. (The former champion is currently trading duties with sitcom actress Mayim Bialik.)
Schneider’s success has sparked debate among fans and internally among the show’s producers and writers about the recent pattern of stripes. Since 2003, when “Jeopardy!” has abolished a rule limiting contestants to no more than five wins in a row, only a dozen contestants have managed to win 10 or more consecutive games. Schneider is the third contestant this season to do so.
Possible explanations for the unusual number of stripes abound. They include a wealth of online resources that participants like Schneider have used to study with, and a new admission test that hopeful participants can take at any time. Due to pandemic delays in recording the show, some contestants, including Schneider and Amodio, also had an unusual amount of time to study in between when they were initially told they would be on the show and when they walked into the studio.
A sudden game show celebrity who is also a transgender woman, Schneider has had a month-long whirlwind, firing off a barrage of questions about her life and her preparation for this moment, while also counter anti trans attacks online. In an interview with the LGBT advocacy organization Glaad last year, Schneider said she wasn’t sure how to discuss her identity on the show at first because she wanted her proficiency in the game to take center stage, but then decided to take it up on her. to grab. by wearing a trans flag pin.
“I didn’t want it to look like it was something secret or embarrassing or something, or that I wasn’t aware of its meaning,” Schneider said in the interview, “because I knew that transgender people — trans’Jeopardy!” fans – watched my episodes extra closely, just like I did with the previous trans contestants.