Jeopardy! champions keep getting defeated by Chicago librarians

If you're on a Jeopardy! winning streak when Johnny Gilbert announces one of your competitors is a "librarian from Chicago, Illinois," there's a good chance you're toast.

Amy Schneider's epic Jeopardy! run came to an end on Wednesday night after 40 straight wins. She had made history on the show as the first woman to win $1 million, and the giant killer to finally defeat her was Rhone Talsma, a librarian from Chicago. In a bizarre twist of fate, viewers may recall James Holzhauer's stunning 32-game winning streak in 2019 was ended by Emma Boettcher, who was ... a librarian from the University of Chicago.

Schneider now holds the record for second-longest Jeopardy! winning streak ever, meaning that in terms of consecutive games won, of the top four players of all time, Chicago librarians defeated 50 percent of them. Holzhauer acknowledged the strange coincidence on Twitter with a meme of Wesley Snipes declaring, "Always bet on a librarian from Chicago, Il."

Talsma also discussed the "crazy" parallels between him and Boettcher in an interview with Vulture, noting they're both also the same age.

"Librarians have a little bit of a reputation in the Jeopardy! fandom," Talsma told Vulture. "The reason we're so good on the show is that we're generalists by trade. I don't consider myself to have 'deep' expertise in a lot of subjects, but we're very interdisciplinary and know a little bit about everything. We're able to make connections and recognize patterns."

This wasn't even the only strange way history repeated itself during Schneider's final game. Fans noted that both she and Matt Amodio, who holds the record for third-longest winning streak ever, were defeated after getting a Final Jeopardy! question wrong in the exact same category: Countries of the World. We'll take "time is a flat circle" for $1,000.

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