Amy Schneider’s 40-game winning streak on “Jeopardy!” drew to a close on Wednesday after the history-making contestant lost to Chicago librarian Rhone Talsma.
Schneider, the show’s second-highest all-time consecutive winner and the top female earner in “Jeopardy!” history, lost with earnings of $19,600 to Talsma’s $29,600.
Schneider, a software engineering manager from Oakland, Calif., is also the highest-performing trans player ever on “Jeopardy!” The 42-year-old became the first woman to win more than $1 million on the game show, with total earnings exceeding $1,319,800.
The last category on her streak-ending show was “Countries of the World,” and the clue was “The only nation in the world whose name in English ends in an H, it’s also one of the 10 most populous,” NPR reported.
Talsma answered “What is Bangladesh?” correctly, giving him the victory over Schneider, who answered with a question mark.
“I could tell that he was here to play and that he was going to be good,” Schneider told NPR. “I still came very close to winning, but I did feel like maybe I was slipping a little bit.”
The “Jeopardy!” champ told USA Today after her loss that she was proud of what she accomplished on the show.
“This has been a show that has been part of my life as long as I can remember, that I’ve loved my whole life,” Schneider said. “To know that I’m always going to be associated with it, always going to be part of ‘Jeopardy!’ history is just a really cool feeling.”
Schneider will compete in the annual Tournament of Champions, a two-week event for the season’s top 15 players to play against one another. There, she will go up against Matt Amodio, whom she knocked out of the No. 2 spot on Monday to become the second-highest consecutive winner.