A Trivia Night of Brotherly Love!

December 13, 2017

Tuesday night’s games welcomed 96 teams at 14 venues, each of whom had to navigate through several wicked second half questions!  Let’s see which teams avoided those speed bumps:

ROUND 1:

Tuesday’s first round began with our nightly Three Clues question, with this edition focusing on three uses of the number 20.  It was a bit of an easy start, as nearly half of our teams picked up a two-point bonus thanks to their intricate knowledge of Starbucks drink sizes and polyhedrons such as this one:

Icosahedron Scattegories

In a departure from the norm, the most difficult bonus question of the night was asked in the first round.  After most of the field responded correctly on a question about the Fox TV series “Gotham”, we nearly stumped every team by asking which young actor portrayed the role of Bruce Wayne on this series.  Only ONE TEAM knew that actor’s name was David Mazouz.  Not surprisingly, that team was the only squad to begin the night with a perfect score of 36 points.  Congratulations to Title One Forever (FireFlies)!

ROUND 2:

Tuesday’s audio question quizzed our teams on musical acts that include unnecessary punctuation in their stylized names.  Sorry, Kesha fans, but she has officially dropped the $ from her stage name…  Instead, we played songs by NSYNC (or *NSYNC), Pink (or P!nk), and Fun (or fun.).  Later, we touched on the subject of Christmas Movies, specifically this film which is still the highest-grossing Christmas comedy film of all-time:

Home Alone

Exactly one-quarter of our teams tacked on two bonus points by remembering that “Home Alone” was directed by Chris Columbus.  We closed the round by asking about this former MLB owner who moved on to bigger and better jobs:

George W Bush Texas Rangers

This question offered up another difficult bonus query, as only 14% of our teams knew that the Texas Rangers entered the major leagues as an expansion team based in Washington, D.C., as the second incarnation of the Washington Senators.  The perfect scores hinged on this final question, as 11 teams rolled through the second round with 36 points.

HALFTIME:

Tuesday’s halftime round featured pictures of celebrities whose first or last name ends in “X”, while the bottom half featured the theme “Norway, Sweden, or Finland?”.  This sheet was a bit more difficult than normal, as we saw an average score of just 13.8 points, with only one team earning 20 points.  Congratulations to Sofa King Smart (Quincy’s South)!  Here are Tuesday’s top scores at the close of the first half:

ROUND 3:

Tuesday’s third round opened with a question on the recent health scare endured by Selena Gomez, before moving on to the billiards game snooker.  After confidence was riding high, we kicked it up a notch in the subject of Astronomy:

–> Partially derived from a Greek word meaning ‘light’, which visible part of the Sun forms its outer shell?

We enticed our teams with a potential crossword-style hint, but most of the field was confident enough to forgo the hint in an attempt to earn a two-point bonus.  Unfortunately, a number of teams were immediately regretting that decision…  A very popular wrong answer was corona, which is actually derived from the Latin word meaning ‘crown’ (just check out the label on a bottle of Corona beer).  In addition, the Sun’s corona is part of its atmosphere, not its surface.  Instead, the correct response was photosphere.  Nine teams earned a two-point bonus on this question, but with so few teams waiting for the crossword-style hint, only 22% of the entire field took home any points on this question.  The one-two punch continued as we asked our teams to name the only U.S. President to have been a member of the Federalist Party.  Once again, only 22% of our teams earned points with this correct answer:

George Washington did not declare any party affiliation for either of his terms (it helps that he ran unopposed), so our first and only Federalist President was John Adams.  After closing the round with a question on fictional characters named Claire, we did not see any teams earn a perfect third round score.

6-4-2 QUESTION:

We headed to the gridiron for Tuesday’s six-point clue:

–> After earning his college degree at California Polytechnic, this celebrity was drafted by the Philadelphia Eagles in 1958.  But an injury in training camp ended his pro career before he ever appeared in an NFL game.

Even our die-hard football fans were tested here, as only six teams were able to earn the full six points with this Hall of Fame coach:

John Madden

ROUND 4:

Tuesday’s final round included a question in the category of Change a Letter.  For some reason, this category always brings out an inordinate number of bonus chips from our teams.  Maybe it’s because teams figure that they only need to know one of two potential answers, and should have an easy time figuring out the second answer even without knowing it from the start.  On this Tuesday night, that logic worked against the field, as this question was the most difficult wagering question of the night, sweeping away five-point bonuses from nearly half of our teams.  Apparently, simply asking our teams to name the longest river in Europe was a daunting task, as incorrect answers of Danube and Rhine were abundant.  No, that river is the Volga (while the other answer in the question was Volta):

Volga River

With only 18% of the field answering correctly, this proved to be the sticking point for many perfect rounds, as only seven teams notched a final round score of 36 points.  Here are Tuesday’s top overall scores after the final round:

FINAL QUESTION (73.1% success rate):

–> The acronym S.E.P.T.A. is used to describe the various transports that serve what U.S. metropolis?

Nearly three-quarters of our teams answered correctly with Philadelphia.  Despite the relatively easy final question, none of our teams earned the Perfect 21 tonight by correctly answering every wagering question.  Here are the top overall scores from Tuesday night:

TONIGHT’S WINNERS:

Capitol City Brewing in Arlington, VA:  Capitol City Goofballs  (Next week’s first category: Early 1990s Alternative Music – AUDIO)

Champion Billiards in Frederick, MD:  Comfortably Dum  (Next week’s first category: Triple 50/50 – James Bond Villain or Russian Politician?)

Cugini’s in Poolesville, MD:  Drunk and Disorderly  (Next week’s first category: “Star Wars VIII: The Last Jedi”)

Senor Tequila’s in Germantown, MD:  The Fan Club  ** 12 WINS IN A ROW! **  (Next week’s first category: Rock and Roll Christmas Songs – AUDIO)

Fireflies in Alexandria, VA:  Title One Forever  (Next week’s first category: “Eight Crazy Nights”)

Shuckin’ Shack in Frederick, MD:  Donner Party  (Next week’s first category: Triple 50/50 (AUDIO) – Grateful Dead or Phish?)

Top Golf in Ashburn, VA:  Kellie’s Heroes  ** FOUR WINS IN A ROW! **  (Next week’s first category: The Appalachian Trail)

Primanti Brothers in Hagerstown, MD:  Give Us Your Beer Money

** THIS WAS OUR FINAL WEEK AT PRIMANTI BROTHERS IN HAGERSTOWN – THANKS FOR A GREAT RUN!! **

The Block in Annandale, VA:  Five Dollar Candy  (Next week’s first category: Grand Slam Tennis Singles Champions)

Greene Growlers in Gaithersburg, MD:  NO GAME THIS WEEK  (Next week’s first category: Ironman Triathlon)

Blue Parrott in St. Petersburg, FL:  Freebirds  (Next week’s first category: “Grey’s Anatomy”)

Monkey La La in Frederick, MD:  Stink Floyd  ** 11 WINS IN A ROW! **  (Next week’s first category: Cheese)

Quincy’s South in Rockville, MD:  Uncle Jack  (Next week’s first category: Triple 50/50 – “Home Alone” or “Home Alone 2”?)

Casa Tequila in Lovettsville, VA:  Virgine-ya is For Lovers  (Next week’s first category: The Rat Pack)

Outta the Way Cafe in Derwood, MD:    (Next week’s first category: )

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