'Jeopardy!' Champ Amy Schneider Breaks Yet ANOTHER Record!
By Kristin Myers on December 29, 2021 at 2:17 PM EST
Current "Jeopardy!" champ Amy Schneider is breaking records left and right.
Earlier this month, Schneider made history as the first openly trans contestant to make it to the Tournament of Champions. Although she's not the first trans champion on the show, she is the first to make it that far in the competition.
With her impressive winning streak, Schneider now holds fourth place for the most cumulative winnings won in the show's history, behind "Jeopardy!" G.O.A.T. and current host Ken Jennings, "The Chase" trivia master James Holzhauer, and Matt Amodio, who kicked off season 38 earlier this year with an impressive 38-day win streak.
Matt Amodio won $1,518,601 through regular gameplay. Holzhauer accumulated $2,462,216, and Ken Jennings leads the pack with $2,520,700, according to the "Jeopardy!" Hall of Fame.
Schneider has also now claimed the title as the highest-earning woman on the show... and the previous holder of the title doesn't mind one bit!
Larissa Kelly Congratulates Schneider For Beating Her Record
Previous contestant Larissa Kelly previously won $655,930 on the show through regular gameplay and tournaments. On Christmas Eve, Schneider claimed a staggering total of earnings to $706,800 through regular gameplay alone, beating Kelly's old record.
"Well, it was fun to hold a Jeopardy record for a few years... but it's been even more fun to watch @Jeopardamy set new standards for excellence, on the show and off," Kelly tweeted. "Congratulations to Amy on becoming the woman with the highest overall earnings in the show's history!"
"Thanks so much," Schneider replied. "I'm honored to be in your company, and I look forward to some day watching the woman who beats us both!"
Fans absolutely loved the "classy" response, with one fan tweeting, "I hope there will be a long line of such women, but you are certainly setting the bar extremely high for them! (And holy h---, that's *before* any tournaments...can't wait to see the fireworks to come!)"
Amy Schneider Answers The Question 'How Are You So Smart?'
In a recent article, Schneider recently tried to answer the question that she gets asked so frequently: "How Are You So Smart?"
“It’s a question I’ve been asked all my life, along with its many variations, and having a successful run on Jeopardy! has, unsurprisingly, prompted it to be asked of me more often, by friends, strangers, and Safeway cashiers,” she joked.
“One is to attribute my intelligence to factors outside of my control,” she explained. “With this approach, I’ll generally observe that I was born with a brain that, for whatever reason, retains knowledge well.”
She added, “I don’t have a ‘photographic’ memory or anything like that; God knows I’ve spent enough time hunting my apartment for my phone to disprove that idea. But while many people, upon learning that, for example, ‘oviparous’ is an adjective meaning ‘egg-laying,’ will quite sensibly forget it almost immediately, I will probably remember it, and without any particular effort.”
However she does it, fans are excited to see Amy Schneider continuing her win streak throughout 2022! As of December 29, 2021, Schneider has won 21 consecutive games and has won a cumulative gameplay total of $806,000 dollars.
