Oakland’s Amy Schneider passes $1 million on ‘Jeopardy!’

“Jeopardy!” champ Amy Schneider was robbed at gunpoint, then fell ill, but her week on TV is going a lot better, as viewers watched her reach another milestone in her blaze of game show glory.

The Oakland engineering manager won her 28th consecutive game Friday, pushing her earnings to above $1 million. By correctly answering the Final Jeopardy question, Schneider amassed $1,019,600, giving her the fourth-highest earnings total during the show’s regular-season play.

Schneider, 42, also is only four games away from tying James Holzhauer for third place for most consecutive games won. Still ahead of her for most consecutive games won are Ken Jennings and Matt Amodio.

Given that “Jeopardy!” is taped weeks in advance, Schneider knows she’s been on a winning streak. Still, the week started out pretty miserably. Schneider revealed to fans that she had been robbed on Sunday of personal items, including her phone and her ID.

“Hi all! So, first off: I’m fine,” Schneider, 42, tweeted Monday. “But I got robbed yesterday, lost my ID, credit cards, and phone. I then couldn’t really sleep last night, and have been dragging myself around all day trying to replace everything.”

Schneider didn’t reveal more details about the robbery. Oakland police confirmed that they are investigating an armed robbery that occurred Sunday afternoon but have made no arrests.

In a follow-up Tweet Monday, Schneider also explained that she didn’t feel up to writing her popular thread about that night’s game. “If I keep winning, it may take a bit for me to get caught up,” she added.

Two days later, she returned to Twitter to apologize again for not posting her threads, saying: “So, to make this week even more fun, I also got sick! I’m feeling mostly better now, but I’m going to extend my posting break through tomorrow.” Schneider didn’t say what ailed her, but fans told her to take care of herself.

“Sleep. And feel better,” wrote one fan. “I want you freshly energized and sharp. You’re $50,000 away from $1 million. I want to see you make enough to have a million after taxes. Go, Amy!”

“You are such an inspiration, feel better,” wrote another. “Although getting robbed is a horrible event, we are glad you are ok.”

Schneider has been especially inspiring for the LGBTQ community since opening up on Twitter and in interviews about being a transgender woman. She is the first transgender contestant to qualify for the Tournament of Champions, where the top players from each season compete.

Schneider has been winning fans for other reasons, including her active, engaging Twitter feed where she writes about her cat, Meep, and her girlfriend, Genevieve, and reveals her techniques for absorbing a seemingly infinite number facts about history, science or pop culture.

Speaking of which, Schneider showed off her knowledge of famous explorers on Friday night.

The Final Jeopardy question was: “‘Norwegian Independence Day’ and ‘A Vast Blue Sea’ are mentioned in Chapter 1 of a 1948 book by this man.” Schneider correctly answered, “Who is Heyerdahl?”

As Schneider clearly knew, Thor Heyerdahl was a Norwegian adventurer and ethnographer who is best known for his Kon-Tiki expedition in 1947, sailing 5,000 miles across the Pacific Ocean in a hand-built raft, traveling from South America to the Tuamotu Islands in French Polynesia. His 1948 book, “The Kon-Tiki Expedition: By Raft Across the South” described how ancient people could have made long voyages across the open ocean.

Such knowledge escaped Schneider’s Friday night rivals, speech-language pathologist Sean Sweeney and social studies teacher Patsy Lester. They incorrectly replied, respectively, “Who is Hemingway?” and “Who is Winston Churchill?”