Matt Amodio’s 38-game winning streak came to an end Monday on “Jeopardy!”
He finished his streak in the No. 2 spot on the all-time consecutive wins list behind only Ken Jennings, who holds the top spot with 74 wins. James Holzhauer’s 32 straight wins stands as third.
“Everybody’s so smart and so competent that this could happen any game,” Amodio said. “And this time it did.”
Jonathan Fisher, an actor originally from Coral Gables, Florida, claimed victory after a competitive match. He won by only a small margin, finishing with a score of $29,200 over Jessica Stephens, a statistical research specialist from Nashville, Tennessee who had the lead at various points in the game but landed in second place with $28,799. Amodio came in third with $5,600.
Fisher landed on the two Daily Doubles in the Double Jeopardy! round, which put him at an advantage, and both Fisher and Stephens answered the Final Jeopardy! clue correctly while Amodio did not. The category was “Countries of the World” and the clue read: “Nazi Germany Annexed this nation & divided it into regions of The Alps & The Danube; The Allies later divided it into 4 sectors.” The correct response was “What is Austria?”
“I always wanted to be a “Jeopardy!” champion, and I accomplished that,” Amodio said. “l know going into every bar trivia game that I play that I’m going to come in with a little intimidation factor. But also, I just like the badge that it represents. As somebody who prioritizes knowledge and knowing things, this is really a good one to have following me everywhere.”
Amodio hails from New Haven, Connecticut, where he attends Yale University as a graduate student in the computer science department. He currently studies neural networks. He will return for the next Tournament of Champions.