Amy Schneider wins Jopardy! Tournament of Champions

NEW YORK — 40-game winner Amy Schneider capped her big year by winning a hard-fought Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions in an episode that aired Monday.

Schneider, a writer from Oakland, California, won three games in the tournament finals, beating Andrew He, a software developer from neighboring San Francisco, who won two games. The third contestant, Sam Buttrey, was another Californian who won a game.

Schneider was on a 40-game winning streak earlier this year, the second-longest in the game show’s history, which began when she defeated He.

She said they both wanted to compete again with He, known for his cold-blooded big bets on the show’s daily doubles, and feared him.

“He was definitely someone I knew could hit me because he almost did before and he did it a couple of times here too,” said Schneider. “All three of us could have really won if a few things had gone differently.”

Schneider led He with $1,400 to Final Jeopardy, where the prompt read: “The Washington Evening Star of January 12, 1864 reported a performance of this ‘dashing comedy’ to ‘a full and delighted house.'”

The correct answer: “What is ‘Our American Cousin’?”

Schneider and He both answered correctly, but Schneider made the bigger bet. She won the top prize of $250,000, he won $100,000 for second place, and Buttrey won $50,000.

On April 14, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln was shot and mortally wounded by John Wilkes Booth during a performance of Our American Cousin at Ford’s Theater in Washington.

Schneider said on Twitter Monday night that she celebrated her win with more trivia – but it didn’t go quite so well.

“Tonight I went to a pub for the first time since my first Jeopardy gig! My team finished third.” She wrote.