Amy Schneider Talks Her New Strategy For 'Jeopardy! Masters'

Former "Jeopardy!" Amy Schneider is getting ready to bring a new strategy to "Jeopardy! Masters."

The new tournament, hosted by Ken Jennings, will pit Amy up against several of the contestants that she faced in the season 38 Tournament of Champions, as well as former Tournament of Champions winner James Holzhauer.

In an interview with the San Francisco Bay Times ahead of the show's premiere, Amy admitted that knowing each other's strengths and weaknesses is "exactly the point" of the new tournament.

"With almost every game of Jeopardy!, if you lose, you’re done. This is a different scenario, like a season of a sports league. You keep playing. If you lose you pick up and take it to the next game," she explained. "That’s going to be interesting. How do you adjust over the course of a season? How do you change your game play when you are up against James Holzhauer, versus Matt Amodio or Sam Buttrey? Does that change how you play the game? That is something Jeopardy! hasn’t had a chance to explore before."

Amy went on to admit that popular music is her weakest category, just because there is so much to study. However, she has been practicing. She is listening to the radio with her wife and trying to recognize songs by popular artists, like Harry Styles and The Weeknd.

Last January, Amy created a 40-game win streak, the second longest in the show's history. The only person in front of her is host Ken Jennings, who won 74 games back in 2004 when the late Alex Trebek was still hosting the show.

Although she made many headlines during her record-breaking run, Amy revealed that she lives a pretty normal life. She got married since winning the show and has adopted another cat named Rue. However, when she's at home, she just has a "regular night" with her family.

"I’ll get recognized in Oakland and I’ll get asked for a selfie, but people let me live my life and do karaoke or whatever I’m doing. But I do spend much more of my time flying around the country and doing things that are not like my own life," she explained. "But when that is not going on, we hang out and watch Netflix. We are four episodes away from finishing our Jane the Virgin rewatch."

Many fans are wondering what anecdotes Amy can possibly share about herself during the first commercial break that fans haven't heard before; however, the former software engineer assures fans that there are still stories that they haven't heard yet.

"I’ve had a more complex and interesting life than necessarily fits into all-audience 20-second anecdotes. Like many transpeople, when you realize your trans, you realize you’ve been following a bunch of arbitrary rules all your life, so you question all the rules of life, whether around sex and drugs but all norms of behavior," she explained. "I have had an interesting life with many killer anecdotes that I could not tell on Jeopardy! because they were not all-audience appropriate."

For those that are just starting to audition for the show, Amy said, "I was auditioning for 13 years before I finally got the call. That is just how it is. They have 400 slots a year. The fact that you are not getting called back isn’t that you aren’t good enough. Keep trying!"

As for contestants, Amy said, "The number one piece of advice I always give is to practice putting every distraction out of your mind and letting go of the outcome. The odds are 2-in-3 you will play one episode and lose and that will be it."

"Go there determined not to worry about that, how you look, or the cameras. Experience it; live in the moment. All that matters is the next question," she added. "There are not many opportunities you get in life where that amount of focus is called for."

“Jeopardy! Masters” premieres on ABC on May 8 and will be available to stream on Hulu the next day.