Amy Schneider’s historic Jeopardy! run has shaken up the game show’s all-time records

polygon.com:

There’s nothing quite like a game-show winning streak. It feels like a victory for the regular folks, getting to go out on TV and dominate with a secret power they can reveal to the whole world. That’s certainly the case for Jeopardy! contestant Amy Schneider, the Oakland, California-based engineering manager whose 39-game winning streak is the second-highest in the show’s 56-year history.

And funnily enough, the contestant in first place, Ken Jennings — whose 2004 run wrapped after 74 straight wins — was the one hosting as Amy made new history.

Schneider’s run started with a come-from-behind victory back on Nov. 17, 2021, when she went into Final Jeopardy behind five-day champ Andrew He. But Schneider was the only contestant who correctly identified Manhattan as the burial place of Alexander Hamilton and other early U.S. Treasury secretaries, kicking off a run which has lasted well into the new year.

It’s hard not to be charmed by Amy, who apparently hypes herself up before every game the same way I did before high school basketball games: thinking about the lyrics to “Lose Yourself” by Eminem. She’s described the game show as her “Olympics,” explaining to Jennings that “I’m not going to be this good at anything else, probably.”

Until Schneider’s run, the pantheon of Jeopardy! domination has been limited to four masters: Jennings, James Holzhauer, Matt Amodio, and Brad Rutter. Between the four of them, they owned the top three spots in Jeopardy!’s four categories of success: consecutive games won, highest winnings in regular season play, single-game winnings, and all-time winnings including tournaments, the show’s equivalent of a postseason.

Jennings, whose 2004 run has become the stuff of legend, still owns the “most