James Holzhauer sympathizes with Amy Schneider after her ‘Jeopardy!’ loss

James Holzhauer can relate to Amy Schneider, whose 40-game winning streak on “Jeopardy!” was ended Wednesday by a Chicago librarian.

Holzhauer, a Las Vegas-based professional sports bettor, saw his 32-game winning streak on the popular quiz show halted in 2019 by University of Chicago librarian Emma Boettcher.

He noted the coincidence by posting a meme on his Twitter account (@james_holzhauer) that showed an image of actor Wesley Snipes with the phrase “Always bet on a librarian from Chicago, IL.”

Schneider lost to Chicago librarian Rhone Talsma, who correctly answered Final Jeopardy! to seal his win. The category 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.”

The correct response was “What is Bangladesh?” Talsma, who entered Final Jeopardy! trailing Schneider by $10,000, responded correctly and finished in first place with $29,600. Schneider didn’t provide a response and finished with $19,600, and a new champion was crowned.

Schneider, an engineering manager from Oakland, California, compiled the second-longest win streak in show history behind Ken Jennings, who had a 74-game run in 2004.

The first woman in the show’s history to earn more than $1 million in nontournament play, she finished with $1,382,800 in cash winnings. That puts her fourth on the show’s all-time regular-season winnings list behind Jennings ($2,520,700), Holzhauer ($2,462,216) and Matt Amodio ($1,518,601).

Holzhauer praised Schneider on Twitter while taking playful jabs at Jennings, the interim show host, and former “Jeopardy!” champion Brad Rutter:

“What a run by @Jeopardamy!

— 40 games won (35 more than @bradrutter)

— Fifth-ever Jeopardy millionaire

— Made @KenJennings watchable.”

Schneider will return for the “Tournament of Champions” this fall.

“It’s really been an honor,” she said. “To know that I’m one of the most successful people at a game I’ve loved since I was a kid and to know that I’m a part of its history now, I just don’t know how to process it.”

A native of Naperville, Illinois, Holzhauer has the top 10 spots on the “Jeopardy!” single-game winnings list, including six wins of at least $100,000 and the record of $131,127.

Holzhauer is known as “The High Roller” on the game show “The Chase,” which airs Wednesdays on ABC.

Contact reporter Todd Dewey at tdewey@reviewjournal.com. Follow @tdewey33 on Twitter.