JEOPARDAMY!
January 28, 2022 11:23 AM Subscribe
The New York Times goes long on Amy Schneider, who with 40 wins now has second-longest winning streak on Jeopardy! after Ken Jennings:
- A short interview by Julia Jacobs at the streak’s end: “Amy Schneider on the Final Game of Her Whirlwind ‘Jeopardy!’ Run”
- Shane O’Neil with a profile of Schneider and a dive into the whole experience: “‘Jeopardy!’ Hasn’t Had a Player Like Amy Schneider”
JEOPARDAMY!
Ah, yes, the sequel to JEFFPARDY!.
I wish I could remember where now, but I saw someone talking about tapings for this season and how someone in a taping cohort realized the kind of player they were up against in the course of the blam blam blam trivia violence of the taping—they wouldn't have known going in because it tapes ahead of time, and it was like showing up for a pickup game and two minutes in you realize you're going up against Lebron. Exciting and terrifying bad luck.
posted by cortex at 11:42 AM on January 28, 2022 [12 favorites]
Ah, yes, the sequel to JEFFPARDY!.
I wish I could remember where now, but I saw someone talking about tapings for this season and how someone in a taping cohort realized the kind of player they were up against in the course of the blam blam blam trivia violence of the taping—they wouldn't have known going in because it tapes ahead of time, and it was like showing up for a pickup game and two minutes in you realize you're going up against Lebron. Exciting and terrifying bad luck.
posted by cortex at 11:42 AM on January 28, 2022 [12 favorites]
She was amazing to watch. Just an overwhelming performance, game after game. Her final game though, seemed a bit off, to me. She seemed to either struggle just a bit or just didn’t have the same fire. I dunno. Regardless, I can’t wait to see her again in the ToC.
posted by Thorzdad at 11:44 AM on January 28, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by Thorzdad at 11:44 AM on January 28, 2022 [2 favorites]
I loved the way on Daily Doubles ("Let's make it $4,000, Ken.") you could tell by looking at her face the exact moment she knew she had the answer, a little smile and almost imperceptible nod before the question was even out of Jennings's mouth.
posted by How the runs scored at 11:53 AM on January 28, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by How the runs scored at 11:53 AM on January 28, 2022 [3 favorites]
She’s also a great writer: How I Got Smart
posted by rorgy at 11:59 AM on January 28, 2022 [11 favorites]
posted by rorgy at 11:59 AM on January 28, 2022 [11 favorites]
And here's another piece she wrote for the Jeopardy! website reflecting on her experience.
I loved her run and am looking forward to a fun tournament of champions this season.
I did also love Rhone's expression when he realized he beat her. I feel like that's as good a tribute to her run as any.
posted by the primroses were over at 12:07 PM on January 28, 2022 [3 favorites]
I loved her run and am looking forward to a fun tournament of champions this season.
I did also love Rhone's expression when he realized he beat her. I feel like that's as good a tribute to her run as any.
posted by the primroses were over at 12:07 PM on January 28, 2022 [3 favorites]
rorgy, that How I Got Smart piece is terrific:
Also, Wikipedia notes that
posted by kristi at 12:30 PM on January 28, 2022 [13 favorites]
How could I know such a random fact? Well, if that definition was really just a bare, unadorned fact, then it wouldn’t interest me, and thus I wouldn’t remember it. But in reality, there are no “bare” facts. Everything is a strand in the infinite tapestry of possible knowledge, and I want to explore as much of that tapestry as I can, in the pleasant knowledge that I will never, ever be done.What a delightful person.
Also, Wikipedia notes that
In eighth grade, she was voted "Most likely to appear on Jeopardy!" by her classmates.I would really enjoy watching Amy on Jeopardy (and fortunately it looks like there are a lot of clips on Youtube). But whether or not I get around to watching her, I am really glad to know about Amy. Thanks for sharing these with us, Going To Maine!
posted by kristi at 12:30 PM on January 28, 2022 [13 favorites]
She's also hilarious. Now that you're a famous winner, how are you gonna celebrate, go to Disneyland?
"One plan is to re-post some jokes I posted on my old Twitter that never got the recognition I thought they deserved."
Who among us has not had that fantasy?
posted by straight at 1:09 PM on January 28, 2022 [25 favorites]
"One plan is to re-post some jokes I posted on my old Twitter that never got the recognition I thought they deserved."
Who among us has not had that fantasy?
posted by straight at 1:09 PM on January 28, 2022 [25 favorites]
Amy Schneider and the Art of Keeping a ‘Jeopardy!’ Winning Streak Secret
posted by jenfullmoon at 1:31 PM on January 28, 2022
posted by jenfullmoon at 1:31 PM on January 28, 2022
After seeing countless very smart people go down in flames on Jeopardy it's hard to imagine what it's like to win one game, let alone forty of them.
posted by tommasz at 1:38 PM on January 28, 2022
posted by tommasz at 1:38 PM on January 28, 2022
I haven't been able to find it online, but at the start of last night's show Ken Jennings introduced a reaction shot of Rhone Talsma when he realized he had won. It was pretty good. First his eyes got huge, then a few seconds later his mouth dropped open and he just stood there, speechless. Then, of course, he lost in pretty standard fashion the next night. You win some, you lose some, I guess.
posted by TedW at 1:42 PM on January 28, 2022
posted by TedW at 1:42 PM on January 28, 2022
And of course, I will now remember for the rest of my life that Bangladesh is the only country whose English spelling ends with "h".
posted by TedW at 1:43 PM on January 28, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by TedW at 1:43 PM on January 28, 2022 [4 favorites]
I haven't been able to find it online, but at the start of last night's show Ken Jennings introduced a reaction shot of Rhone Talsma when he realized he had won.
The showrunners have been posting Final Jeopardy rounds on YouTube lately, and this includes Rhone's reaction.
posted by egregious theorem at 2:32 PM on January 28, 2022 [1 favorite]
The showrunners have been posting Final Jeopardy rounds on YouTube lately, and this includes Rhone's reaction.
posted by egregious theorem at 2:32 PM on January 28, 2022 [1 favorite]
This tweet from Ken has Rhone's complete reaction, including while the main camera was on Amy. It's quite the journey.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 2:59 PM on January 28, 2022 [7 favorites]
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 2:59 PM on January 28, 2022 [7 favorites]
Oh, wow. I met and worked with Amy briefly a couple years ago - she was a PM for a project that was adjacent to mine at my last consulting gig. She seemed like a smart cookie, and some co-workers who worked more closely with her mentioned it when she was first on Jeopardy, but I hadn't realized she'd done that well. Good for her!
posted by jferg at 3:09 PM on January 28, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by jferg at 3:09 PM on January 28, 2022 [4 favorites]
She was super fun to watch. We marveled every night at the breadth of her knowledge. Also I enjoyed reading her recaps on Twitter, where she was unfailingly gracious and kind in speaking about her opponents.
Maybe they'll offer her a chance to host. She'd be terrific at it.
posted by Kangaroo at 3:47 PM on January 28, 2022
Maybe they'll offer her a chance to host. She'd be terrific at it.
posted by Kangaroo at 3:47 PM on January 28, 2022
I'm disappointed that she hasn't shared a photo of Meep on the internet. That's the only thing missing from this story. (We all have pix of our childhood cats, right?)
posted by mykescipark at 4:51 PM on January 28, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by mykescipark at 4:51 PM on January 28, 2022 [3 favorites]
I wish I could remember where now, but I saw someone talking about tapings for this season and how someone in a taping cohort realized the kind of player they were up against in the course of the blam blam blam trivia violence of the taping—they wouldn't have known going in because it tapes ahead of time
I think Ken Jennings said that his streak was so long that the early games were broadcast while he was still playing. Someone watches Ken win his 9th game and thinks "Ha, ha, glad I don't have to play that dude tomorrow" and then they show up at the studio and he's there eating a doughnut.
posted by It's Never Lurgi at 8:36 PM on January 28, 2022 [15 favorites]
I think Ken Jennings said that his streak was so long that the early games were broadcast while he was still playing. Someone watches Ken win his 9th game and thinks "Ha, ha, glad I don't have to play that dude tomorrow" and then they show up at the studio and he's there eating a doughnut.
posted by It's Never Lurgi at 8:36 PM on January 28, 2022 [15 favorites]
Her final game though, seemed a bit off, to me.
100%. I thought it wasn't her strongest game but she still had a chance to pull it off in the final jeopardy and I was SHOCKED, absolutely shocked she didn't come up with Bangladesh, since I definitely remember her coming up with some rather obscure geography answers throughout the run. Matt Amodio was good, but I was definitely like "oh, he's still going huh?" and paid less attention, while I eagerly anticipated another Amy game.
posted by dis_integration at 8:57 PM on January 28, 2022
100%. I thought it wasn't her strongest game but she still had a chance to pull it off in the final jeopardy and I was SHOCKED, absolutely shocked she didn't come up with Bangladesh, since I definitely remember her coming up with some rather obscure geography answers throughout the run. Matt Amodio was good, but I was definitely like "oh, he's still going huh?" and paid less attention, while I eagerly anticipated another Amy game.
posted by dis_integration at 8:57 PM on January 28, 2022
Her final game though, seemed a bit off, to me.
But she had reached her goal of beating Amodio, and her next major target — surpassing Ken Jennings’s 74-game record — was far away.This article has some more details about the costs of being on the show for that long:
“The fatigue of this taping was really starting to add up,” she said in an interview on Wednesday. “I couldn’t explain it, even to myself, but I just could feel that something was slipping a little bit, however much I tried to fight it.”
By the time she filmed her last episode on Nov. 9, she had taken a demotion at work, used all her paid time off and taken several unpaid days in order to keep her job as a software engineer.posted by trig at 12:50 AM on January 29, 2022 [3 favorites]
Amy wrote about her choice of the pearl necklace for Elle, loving all of these articles!
posted by ellieBOA at 12:54 AM on January 29, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by ellieBOA at 12:54 AM on January 29, 2022 [2 favorites]
But she had reached her goal of beating Amodio, and her next major target — surpassing Ken Jennings’s 74-game record — was far away.
To beat Amodio's record, she had to win ~40 games. That's a tremendous feat of knowledge, skill, endurance and luck, and it required some real-life sacrifice on her part.
To beat Jennings's record, she would have had to do it all again.
All-time second place is an admirable accomplishment, and I'm proud of her.
posted by Faint of Butt at 5:51 AM on January 29, 2022 [1 favorite]
To beat Amodio's record, she had to win ~40 games. That's a tremendous feat of knowledge, skill, endurance and luck, and it required some real-life sacrifice on her part.
To beat Jennings's record, she would have had to do it all again.
All-time second place is an admirable accomplishment, and I'm proud of her.
posted by Faint of Butt at 5:51 AM on January 29, 2022 [1 favorite]
From the Times piece:
posted by hijinx at 12:04 PM on January 29, 2022 [11 favorites]
She also considered how she wanted to sound.The hero we needed.
“I’ve got a more feminine voice when I really want to, and I’d sort of been planning on using that voice on TV,” she said. But she ultimately decided that consciously altering her voice could affect her gameplay and chose to speak in her usual register. She’s proud of that decision.
“Trans women watching can see me with my voice as it is and see me being OK with it,” she said.
posted by hijinx at 12:04 PM on January 29, 2022 [11 favorites]
I'm glad she's gone because like any other champion it's sorta sad to watch someone going weeks and weeks and weeks trouncing the other people like pulling in a ringer on a little-league team. Don't want to watch for weeks someone trouncing all the other players.
posted by zengargoyle at 2:42 PM on January 29, 2022
posted by zengargoyle at 2:42 PM on January 29, 2022
I thought it wasn't her strongest game but she still had a chance to pull it off in the final jeopardy and I was SHOCKED, absolutely shocked she didn't come up with Bangladesh
I was surprised, too, because I got that one and I’m not great at geography. And she generally did well at that sort of thing. But they tape like five shows in a day, no? So I figure by the end one is pretty tired if one is actually playing in all of them.
posted by atoxyl at 4:32 PM on January 29, 2022 [1 favorite]
I was surprised, too, because I got that one and I’m not great at geography. And she generally did well at that sort of thing. But they tape like five shows in a day, no? So I figure by the end one is pretty tired if one is actually playing in all of them.
posted by atoxyl at 4:32 PM on January 29, 2022 [1 favorite]
I wish I could remember where now, but I saw someone talking about tapings for this season and how someone in a taping cohort realized the kind of player they were up against
An acquaintance was on during James Holzhauer’s streak and talked about this, all the other players who were thrilled to be there in the first place realizing what they were up against.
posted by atoxyl at 4:38 PM on January 29, 2022
An acquaintance was on during James Holzhauer’s streak and talked about this, all the other players who were thrilled to be there in the first place realizing what they were up against.
posted by atoxyl at 4:38 PM on January 29, 2022
After JEOPARDAMY comes JEOPAMYDÄMMERUNG.
posted by kirkaracha at 8:12 PM on January 29, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by kirkaracha at 8:12 PM on January 29, 2022 [3 favorites]
I was SHOCKED, absolutely shocked she didn't come up with Bangladesh
This is one of those interesting questions where you either get the right answer or don't get anything at all. You can't, assuming you have basic geography knowledge, come up with an incorrect answer (Franceh! Brazilh! Indonesiah!).
If you have a list of the 10 biggest countries by population committed to memory then you are fine. I don't, but I went as far as I could and when I hit India I jumped to Bangladesh.
If, however, you go down the "Countries that end in H" route and try to go continent by continent then you are probably screwed. James Holzhauer commented that sometimes on final Jeopardy your brain goes in the wrong direction and if that happens it's nearly impossible to reverse course and try a different approach.
It's possible she started enumerating countries by continent or thought "Oooooh, Balkans. Bunches of new countries there. Must be one of those" and got lost.
posted by It's Never Lurgi at 8:36 AM on January 30, 2022
This is one of those interesting questions where you either get the right answer or don't get anything at all. You can't, assuming you have basic geography knowledge, come up with an incorrect answer (Franceh! Brazilh! Indonesiah!).
If you have a list of the 10 biggest countries by population committed to memory then you are fine. I don't, but I went as far as I could and when I hit India I jumped to Bangladesh.
If, however, you go down the "Countries that end in H" route and try to go continent by continent then you are probably screwed. James Holzhauer commented that sometimes on final Jeopardy your brain goes in the wrong direction and if that happens it's nearly impossible to reverse course and try a different approach.
It's possible she started enumerating countries by continent or thought "Oooooh, Balkans. Bunches of new countries there. Must be one of those" and got lost.
posted by It's Never Lurgi at 8:36 AM on January 30, 2022
I didn't get it while watching, because my brain for some reason refuses to put "ends with -h" in the same category as "ends with -sh". I was running down countries in Africa hoping to come up with something ending in -oh or -ah. Then I saw the answer and was like oh, duh.
posted by Daily Alice at 8:47 AM on January 30, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by Daily Alice at 8:47 AM on January 30, 2022 [2 favorites]
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