Ready for a trivia question? Ok here it is: “A Cemetery on this island has the graves of Robert Fulton & two of the first four Treasury Secretaries?” Give up? So did everyone on the November 17th 2021 episode of the long-running game show Jeopardy EXCEPT Amy Schneider. (For the record, the question is, “What is Manhattan”). This narrowly gave her the victory at the end of the show, winning her over $42,000. This was the first of 28 victories in a row for her.
Ending her triumphant run at $1,019,600 Amy is only the fourth player to win more than 1 million but she’s the first woman to clear this hurdle. “It’s not a sum of money I ever anticipated would be associated with my name” said Schneider, who is a 42-year-old software engineering manager from Oakland, CA. Ken Jennings (who was the guest host during her record-breaking episode) was the first player to top the 1 million mark in 2004 (with 30 games under his belt) and the last person to do it before Amy was Matt Amodio three months ago getting up to 1.5 million before he lost in his 39th game.
All the way back in eighth grade Amy was voted most likely to appear on Jeopardy, so this has been a long time coming. “To be good at Jeopardy, you just have to live a life where you’re learning stuff all the time.”, she said. Unfortunately, it’s not been entirely positive now that she’s here. On her Twitter, where she has been exhaustively detailing her show appearances and responding to fans, she talked about some of the not so good days.
Also making things hard for her is the online abuse she has received for being a transgender woman, and you can imagine the type of response that engenders in some distasteful internet commenters. Amy was ready for them though, giving an interview to GLAAD about her time on the show, her hidden talents and the message she hopes to send out as a trans woman succeeding.
It’s always nice to see a childhood dream realised! Only time will tell what heights Schenider can reach as one of the greatest Jeopardy players of all time.
