Banking on a Weekend Trivia Road Trip!

October 24, 2022

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We had another weekend of Pour House Trivia for nine local venues, one of which (Dragon Distillery) took a trip to Hogwarts with 17 teams for a Harry Potter-themed game. Our regular games welcomed a total of 73 teams.

FIRST ROUND:

Friday’s opening round played pretty easily for its teams, with the only real hiccup coming on a Three Clues question about the TV show America’s Funniest Home Videos in which 44% of the field named it early for bonus points. Saturday’s trickiest first-round query came early on:

  • Launched in 2008, the politically themed website FiveThirtyEight takes its name from the number of members in which organization that is not an educational institution, but gets a lot of attention every four years?

About 73% of teams named the Electoral College correctly. Other topics in the first round over the weekend included Scotland‘s highest peak (Ben Nevis), Greece‘s Archaeological Site of Olympia, and the record 12 World Series MVP awards won by members of the New York Yankees. Nine teams, all on Friday, ended the first round with a perfect score.

SECOND ROUND:

The hardest way to get wagering points in the first half on Friday came on the audio question, where we played clips of Tommy Lee Jones films. Roughly 53% knew at least two of the films, while 18% named all three: The Fugitive, No Country for Old Men, and Lincoln. Over the weekend, we also discussed the band Chicago removing the words Transit Authority from its original name, Three Clues about the name Mary Jane, reality star Dog the Bounty Hunter, and author Stephen King‘s recent release, Fairy Tale. Blue Banner Bombers (Doc Waters) and Nerd Birds (Pretzel and Pizza) were perfect in this round.

HALFTIME:

Authors with initialed pen names and fictional vehicles by driver were Friday’s halftime topics, while a rare 22-point halftime sheet on Saturday asked teams to identify actors in heavy makeup and the film they were all made up for. On average, teams earned 15.6 points at halftime but there were eight perfectos. A couple of 90-pointers topped the intermission leaderboard:

THIRD ROUND:

On Friday, the end of the third round brought with it the hardest bonus chance of the night, on this question:

  • Since 2015, the Grammy Award for Album of the Year has twice been given to which albums whose titles were simply a number?

Just over half the field named at least one of those albums, but only 6.1% had both Taylor Swift’ 1989 and Adele’s 25 for extra points. Saturday’s third round featured that game’s scariest wagering query:

  • This author is certainly no pinhead. In fact, Stephen King once said this man was the future of the horror genre! Name this English writer of the Books of Blood series, who also wrote and produced the film Candyman.

Clive Barker was named by 46% of teams. Otherwise, this round had topics such as the insect known as an aphid, 1980s film Labyrinth, rapper Wiz Khalifa, and Three Clues about Cuban capital city Havana. Perfect scores were kept out of reach of our teams in this round.

FOURTH ROUND:

George H.W. Bush, Portugal, and Neil Patrick Harris were the 6-4-2 answers over the weekend, but no team was able to get six points for any of those subjects. The toughest question in Friday’s game showed up halfway through the fourth round:

  • Catalan, a language originating from northeastern Spain and parts of France, is the national (and only official) language of which country?

About 46% of the field had the correct answer, Andorra, while only three teams could name its similarly-named capital city of Andorra la Vella. A rare 0-fer on a bonus question started Saturday’s game; we asked about Bill Belichick, the current playoff win-percentage king amongst NFL head coaches with at least 20 career postseason games. However, nobody was able to get former Washington coach Joe Gibbs as the all-time leader in that coaching stat. Other topics in this round included classic TV show All in the Family, the former buffalo nickel, and three people surnamed Fitzgerald. We completed the entire second half with no perfect team scores in either round. However, we made it to the final question with these teams in the lead:

FRIDAY’S FINAL QUESTION (63.3% success rate):

  • The Bank of New York is the 22nd oldest continuously operating bank in the world and the oldest in the United States. Which historic American Founding Father created this institution in 1784?

SATURDAY’S FINAL QUESTION (73.3% success rate):

  • This independent nation is most commonly known by a three-word name. Among all world countries, it has the longest name that is spelled completely with alternating vowels and consonants. Name the country.

SUNDAY’S FINAL QUESTION (55.5% success rate):

  • Scary fact: this U.S. state currently has more ghost towns than actually-populated ones! Maybe that’s no coincidence, considering it was admitted to the union on Halloween in 1864. Name the state.

The Bank of New York was founded by Alexander Hamilton, that country with the lengthy name is the United Arab Emirates, and that ghosty state is Nevada. We had one Perfect 21 squad over the weekend: Five Heads, One Brain (Springfield Manor) had the right answer for all 21 wagering questions. The weekend scoreboard was led by these teams:

WEEKEND WINNERS:

Springfield Manor Winery in Thurmont, MD: Five Heads, One Brain  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Number Theory)

P. B. Dye Golf Course in Ijamsville, MD: ON HIATUS  (FIRST CATEGORY AFTER HIATUS: Cryptozoology)

Dragon Distillery in Frederick, MD: Wednesday  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Succession)

Doc Waters Cidery in Germantown. MD: Beer Pressure  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: A Wrinkle in Time)

Flying Ace Farm in Lovettsville, VA: Shark Fin Pizza  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Wilkie Collins)

South Mountain Creamery in Frederick, MD: Villa People  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: 1960s TV Sitcoms)

Belles’ Sports Bar in Frederick, MD: PB and J  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Lord of the Rings)

Pretzel and Pizza Creations in Hagerstown, MD: Barking Bad  (NO GAME NEXT WEEK — FIRST CATEGORY ON NOV.5: Clue (film))

Mason Social in Alexandria, VA: Lone Strangers  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Rent (film))

Coast Tacobar in Hagerstown, MD: Hendrix  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Motown (audio))

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