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- Amy Schneider received 40 video games and practically $1.4 million on Jeopardy!
- She’s competing in Jeopardy! Match of Champions and has reached the finals.
- Amy is transgender.
- She bought married in Could 2022.
Amy Schneider kicked butt on Jeopardy!, and now she’s dominating on the Match of Champions. The 43-year-old was routinely seeded into the semi-finals due to her unimaginable efficiency on Jeopardy!. Amy defeated Tyler Rhode and Maureen O’Neil within the Match of Champions semi-finals on Nov. 9, ending the match with $19,664. Amy formally secured her spot within the finals that start Nov. 14, the place the primary contestant to win three video games earns the $250,000 grand prize. Earlier than the semi-finals match, Amy performed in a no-stakes exhibition sport towards Matt Amodio and Mattea Roach. Amy got here in third place behind Mattea, the runner-up, and Matt, the winner.
Amy advised USA Right now how she ready for Match of Champions. “Principally, it was the identical stuff that I’ve been doing previous to my first run, simply going via previous video games and on the lookout for issues I didn’t know,” she stated. “I did follow writing down Closing Jeopardy! solutions, as a result of the act of writing it down had thrown me off. I used to be simply visualizing all the situations that may occur.”
Amy made historical past on Jeopardy! with a 40-game profitable streak that earned her practically $1.4 million. She turned the fourth contestant ever to go the $1 million mark on the quiz present. Amy received her first sport on November 17, 2021, and dominated proper via to January 26, 2022 when she misplaced to Chicago librarian Rhone Talsmam. Preserve readying to seek out out every part you must learn about Amy Schneider.
1. Amy is from Ohio.
Amy is initially from Ohio, although she now resides in Oakland, California, in keeping with her Jeopardy! profile. She lives in Oakland together with her girlfriend, Genevieve, and their cat, Meep.
Amy and Genevieve bought married on Could 9, 2022, however Amy waited to announce the large information till September. She shared Instagram photographs of the couple on their special occasion, writing, :Genevieve and I are delighted to announce that on Monday, Could 9, we have been married in a small personal ceremony on the Alameda County Recorder. We’ll nonetheless be having a standard marriage ceremony & reception subsequent summer time, however our lives have been a lot too busy this yr to get very far in planning it, and we couldn’t wait that lengthy to proclaim our love and dedication to one another. Thanks, everybody in your assist!”
2. She’s an engineering supervisor.
Amy’s present occupation is an engineering supervisor. She’s been working at Fieldwire within the San Francisco Bay Space since Could 2021, in keeping with her LinkedIn web page. Earlier than that, Amy was employed as an engineering supervisor at SoftBank Robotics America from December 2019 to Could 2021. She additionally beforehand labored as an engineering lead and a software program developer. She attended College of Dayton for faculty and studied pc science, in keeping with her LinkedIn.
3. She’s a trans girl.
Amy has been open about being a trans girl all through her appearances on Jeopardy!. Nonetheless, in a Twitter thread on the finish of November 2021, Amy defined how she didn’t need her stint on the present to be “an excessive amount of about being trans.” She added, “The actual fact is, I don’t really take into consideration being trans all that usually, and so when showing on nationwide tv, I wished to symbolize that a part of my identification precisely: as essential, but in addition comparatively minor. However I additionally didn’t need it to look as if it was some type of shameful secret. Whereas it’s gratifying to know that individuals didn’t essentially know I used to be trans till they examine it, I do need folks to know that facet of me. I feel being trans is admittedly cool!”
4. She was robbed.
Forward of her twenty fifth sport on January 4, Amy revealed on Twitter that she was robbed. “Hello all! So, first off: I’m superb,” she tweeted, earlier than including, “However I bought robbed yesterday, misplaced my ID, bank cards, and cellphone. I then couldn’t actually sleep final evening, and have been dragging myself round all day making an attempt to switch every part.” Amy then stated that due to the theft, she seemingly wouldn’t be writing her sport thread for the Jan. 4 episode. “And if I maintain profitable, it could take a bit for me to get caught up,” Amy stated. “Thanks in your persistence!”
5. She’s made ‘Jeopardy’ historical past.
There’s just a few ways in which Amy has made Jeopardy! historical past For starters, she’s the primary transgender contestant to achieve the subsequent Match of Champions, which earlier champs like Matt Amodio, Jonathan Fisher, and Brian Chang are additionally eligible for. She’s additionally the primary girl to interrupt the highest earnings spots and is the present’s top-earning trans contestant. Plus, Amy broke former contestant Julia Collins‘ document of most consecutive wins for a lady, after profitable her twenty first match on December 28. (Julia had beforehand set the document with 20 wins in 2014.) “In my highest of excessive hopes, I by no means dreamed of matching Julia’s streak,” Amy wrote on Twitter, after her historic victory. “It’s exhausting to say how I felt: proud, dazed, joyful, numb, all these issues,” she added.
Mayim Bialik, who shares Jeopardy! internet hosting duties with former champion Ken Jennings, spoke about Amy’s dominance in an EXCLUSIVE interview with HollywoodLife in February 2022. “Her run was historic in so some ways,” the Name Me Kat star stated. “You understand, she’s a very, actually highly effective determine. And I feel it’s additionally so essential to level out that, I contemplate Jeopardy a nonpartisan, non-political place. It’s a spot the place folks wish to tune in to be entertained by folks in great mind. And Amy did that. Illustration issues within the tradition that we dwell in,” she added.
Following Amy’s historic second of crossing the $1 milllion mark in January, Nick Adams, GLAAD’s Director of Transgender Illustration advised HollywoodLife, “Amy Schneider’s unimaginable run on Jeopardy! permits households all around the nation to get to know her as somebody who’s nice at phrase puzzles, has in-depth information on a variety of matters, and who additionally occurs to be a transgender girl. Amy is utilizing her history-making appearances and new platform to lift consciousness of transgender points and share a little bit of her private story too.”