Jeopardy! boss dismisses the notion that recent winning streaks are the result of easier clues

The New York Times

“Behind the scenes we’ve spent a lot of time discussing whether this is some kind of ‘new normal’ or whether we’ve just had an unusual windfall of brilliant Jeopardy! players,” Michael Davies, Jeopardy!'s interim executive producer, told The New York Times via email, responding to the recent win streaks by Matt Amodio, Jonathan Fisher and, currently, Amy Schneider. Noting that the subject matter covers an ever-wider range of material, Davies added: “I actually think the show may be getting harder. Let’s face it, so few people read the same books anymore or watch the same TV shows. And we have massively diversified the history, cultural and pop cultural material we expect our players to compete over.” Davies says the writers have discussed the streaks, thinking that contestants having access to a wealth of online resources, including J! Archive, may help. Others attribute the rise in winning streaks to more people playing at home because of the pandemic and to James Holzhauer winning 32 games in 2019 -- though Schneider's strategy is the opposite of Holzhauer's. Meanwhile, Holzhauer thinks the winning streaks trend is a matter of chance. “People always assume everything is a paradigm shift,” Holzhauer wrote The Times in an email, “when it’s actually fairly normal for results to occasionally cluster.” ALSO: Mayim Bialik jokes she feels "stupidest" in the Jeopardy! writers' room.