Happy Trails, Wednesday Trivia!

Pour House Trivia’s Wednesday night game played host to 169 teams spread out across fifteen venues.

FIRST ROUND:

Topics such as Dutch cities Amsterdam and Rotterdam, a three-parter on terms with the word call within, and the medical condition hypothermia comprised the majority of Wednesday’s opening round. However, we saved the hardest for last:

• During the late 1970s, British tabloids bestowed the nickname of Superbrat to which American athlete?

Tennis star John McEnroe was successfully answered by 59% of the field, while two-fifths added bonus points for knowing he was married to actress Tatum O’Neal at one time. Sixteen teams kicked off their trivia night with a perfect first round.

SECOND ROUND:

Round two was quite the successful effort throughout our trivia teams on Wednesday. Starting off with the night’s audio clue featuring theme songs for three TV shows with the word Family in the title, we moved on to other topics like sausage maven Jimmy Dean, on-screen Lieutenants Dan Taylor and Columbo, Hannibal Lecter-approved wine Chianti, and some lyrics from the song Hey There Delilah by the band Plain White T’s. In all, a whopping 47 teams got all 36 points in this round!

HALFTIME:

Video game consoles and fictional characters by novel were Wednesday’s halftime topics; teams averaged a score of 14.6 points and 21 teams earned the full 20 points. A five-way perfecto stood tall at intermission:

• Tokyo Sex Whale (Belles’): 92
• AFC (Idiom): 92
• The Legend of Taylor Heinicke (Axes and O’s): 92
• Comfortably Dumb (Axes and O’s): 92
• Sexual Chocolate (Memories): 92

THIRD ROUND:

Things tipped in a more difficult direction for Wednesday’s third round, as it contained three of the night’s four most difficult wagering questions. The first toughie came in the rap world:

• Which rap artist with the last name of Carter has recorded songs respectively titled for George Bush, Kobe Bryant, and Bill Gates?

Around 30% of our teams knew Lil Wayne for their points. The next question, a three-parter about world leaders, saw 24% of the field get at least two of the three questions right for their wager, while 7.1% nailed the bonus for knowing all three answers. The final question of the round was in the crossword-clue format about the word disaster; apropos of that, less than a quarter of our teams named it successfully, but a night-low four teams did so before the additional crossword hint. A perfect score was out of reach of all of Wednesday’s teams in the third round.

FOURTH ROUND:

In the night’s 6-4-2, 11 teams had the correct answer of Brazil from the first clue about the number of stars on its flag, and received six points each for the guess. The most difficult wagering question of this game showed up fairly early in this round:

• What was the last name of the 19^th Century U.S. First Lady given the nickname Lemonade Lucy by historians? She was a staunch supporter of prohibition, which ultimately led her husband to ban alcohol from the White House.

That FLOTUS was Lucy Hayes, wife of Rutherford B. Hayes; just 16% of teams had that answer. Other topics in this round included fictional characters named Lily, children’s book series Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and three-time 60-home run slugger Sammy Sosa. In a round also full of tricky bonus opportunities, the only perfect score was achieved by Just For Fun (T. J. Stone’s). A first-place tie (with fewer teams involved) topped the pre-final question leaderboard:

• Bad Rhino (Sully’s): 162
• Sexual Chocolate (Memories): 162
• Just For Fun (T. J. Stone’s): 154
• Oh Wait (Hops N Shine): 152
• Titanic Was an Inside Job (Hops N Shine): 152

FINAL QUESTION (63.3% success rate):

• The northern and southern ends of the Appalachian Trail can be found in which two U.S. states?

You had to name both states to get your final wager’s worth of points, and almost two-thirds did just that by correctly naming Maine and Georgia. The night’s lone Perfect 21 went to Sexual Chocolate (Memories), our only Wednesday night team that correctly answered every wagering question. They also had the night’s top score, followed by these other teams:

• Sexual Chocolate (Memories): 174
• Just For Fun (T. J. Stone’s): 166
• Oh Wait (Hops N Shine): 164
• Titanic Was an Inside Job (Hops N Shine): 164
• John Denver (Sully’s): 162
• Tokyo Sex Whale (Belles’): 162
• Unsuccesful By Choice (Hops N Shine): 161
• Bad Rhino (Sully’s): 161
• Deep Fried Chuckles (Sully’s): 161
• Pterodactyl (Belles’): 161

WEDNESDAY’S WINNERS:

Moe’s Peyton Place in Springfield, VA: That’s What She Said  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Scrubs)

Valley Sports Grill in Middletown, MD: Yeats  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Digestive System)

Belles’ Sports Bar in Frederick, MD: Tokyo Sex Whale  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Sushi)

Memories Charcoal House in Mount Airy, MD: Sexual Chocolate  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Triple 50/50: Wes Anderson or Paul Thomas Anderson?)

GearHouse Brewing in Chambersburg, PA: Peeping Tom Cruises  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Harry Potter Novels)

TGI Fridays in Hagerstown, MD: Great Googly Moogly  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Waking Ned Devine)

Idiom Brewing in Frederick, MD: Shipwrecked  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: James Bond Villains)

Axes and O’s in Sterling, VA: The Legend of Taylor Heinicke  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Halo Games)

Hops N Shine in Alexandria, VA: Titanic Was an Inside Job  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Horror Films)

Sully’s Pour House in Herndon, VA: John Denver  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Seinfeld)

Falling Branch Brewery in Street, MD: Hops on Top  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Barbecue)

T. J. Stone’s in Alexandria, VA: Just for Fun  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Calculus)

Craftworx Taproom in Gainesville, VA: Smarty Pints  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: 1980s Music)

Barstool Sportsbook in Charles Town, WV: Artsy  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: New Kids on the Block)

Grape Escape in Gaithersburg, MD: All About That Bass  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Grey’s Anatomy)

Shipgarten in McLean, VA: Blue  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: 1990s The Simpsons Episodes)

Mark’s Pub in Falls Church, VA: Wizard Sleeves  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer)