Record-Breaking Jeopardy! Champ’s Historic Run Ends With A Tricky Final Clue
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All good things must come to an end, even crazy-long Jeopardy! runs. That’s now the case with Amy Schneider who finally was defeated in a recent episode of the popular game show. Schneider had racked up numbers over her extended run, with eye-popping winnings. But that’s over now with a tough clue tripping her up in the Final Jeopardy round. In the end, it will go down as one of the historic performances on Jeopardy! with Schneider’s name now very much alongside some of the best contestants who’ve ever taken up a buzzer and reframed an answer as a question.
On Wednesday, Amy Schneider faced off against Rhone Talsma in Final Jeopardy with the former holding a $10K lead going into the final clue. That was, “The only nation in the world whose name in English ends in an H, it’s also one of the 10 most populous.” Schneider wasn’t able to come up with an answer while Talsma wrote, “What is Bangladesh”. It ended up being correct and thanks to the wagering amounts, Schneider lost $29,600 to $19,600. The latter took to Twitter following the loss to give some thoughts about her run on the show and the historic numbers she put up during that time.
Reading through the post from Amy Schneider, it’s clear just how much this run on Jeopardy! has meant to her, fulfilling a life-long dream to be on the show. She says there are other plans for her in the future, possibly writing a book about the experience. And we are sure to see her in the Tournament of Champions and other Jeopardy-related events for years to come. Once you reach the mountaintop of this game show, you tend to come back for more, early and often. We’ve seen the same from many of the other greats over the years.
And Amy Schneider has put up some of the best numbers Jeopardy! has ever seen on the show since it first hit televisions all the way back in 1964. Of course, the Alex Trebek era is when the popularity really ramped up, and over those decades we’ve seen some great competitors. Amy Schneider now sits second overall in consecutive wins (40) behind only Ken Jennings (74) back in 2004. She’s also fourth all-time in winnings, piling up $1,382,000 over that span. Her all-time winnings number which includes tournaments is currently at fifth (Brad Rutter’s $4.9 million are the leader there) though admittedly she hasn’t had a chance to compete in those yet.
In all, this is one of the great runs we’ve ever seen on Jeopardy! These kinds of performances don’t happen often though are getting a bit more frequent since Jennings seemed to shatter the glass ceiling on what was possible a couple of decades ago. But even so, putting up a million dollars worth of winnings is just so impressive, a testament to mental fortitude, impeccable strategy, and, of course, a crazy amount of knowledge. Schneider now goes down as one of the Jeopardy! greats.
