Hey, Mr. Thursday Trivia Man!

We went bigger than we’ve ever been on Thursday night, as a record 234 teams across 21 locations showed up to play Pour House Trivia! Part of that record crowd was brought in by our newest location, Ten Eyck Brewing in Queenstown, MD!

FIRST ROUND:

While wagering questions were by and large successfully answered well in the first round, teams had a little trouble with some bonus opportunities toward the end. After questions on the Olympic shot put and hammer throw and the definition of hemorrhoids, we reached the game’s Three Clues query, where one-third of our teams knew the word magnum before all the clues were read. The last question, about recently-released Netflix film The Grey Man, saw 39% of the field name both Chris Evans and Ryan Gosling as its leads. However, 21 teams survived the opening round with perfect scores.

SECOND ROUND:

A three-part audio clue about vacation songs kicked off the second round, followed by a question about President Lincoln signing duplicates of the Emancipation Proclamation to raise funds for wounded soldiers. For the toughest wagering question in the first half, teams had to turn on their TV sets:

• Before starring on The Big Bang Theory, Kaley Cuoco portrayed teenager Bridget Hennessy on which sitcom?

Cuoco starred on 8 Simple Rules (For Dating My Teenage Daughter), which 45% of the field knew for their wager. A first-half-low 21% added bonus points for naming the animated series Harley Quinn as Cuoco’s latest TV foray. We discussed the Juilliard School and Munich, Germany to wrap things up here. Perfect scores were attained by 22 teams, the most of any round on Thursday.

HALFTIME:

In the first part of halftime, teams had to name brand names from TV ads featuring celebrities. They then had to name board games by specific parts. On average, teams scored 16.7 points out of 20, while 16 teams had perfect halftime pages. Speaking of perfection, one team was chasing it at the halftime break:

• Let’s Get Quizzical (Belly Love): 92
• Hillbilly Geniuses (Belly Love): 91
• Painful Burning Sensation (Smoketown): 91
• Comfortably Dumb (Loudoun Kitchen): 90
• Samurai Trivia Players (Bear Brick Oven): 90
• Street Sharks (Fourscore): 90

THIRD ROUND:

We started the second half right away with the hardest bonus question of the third round. A question about The Gong Show ended up giving bonus points to 10% of teams who knew Mike Myers hosted its latest revival, though under heavy makeup as the fictitious Tommy Maitland. The very next question was Thursday’s toughest:

• Mount Elbert, the second-tallest mountain within the contiguous United States, is the highest point in which state?

You had at least a 1-in-48 chance if you picked randomly, but two-fifths of the field got Colorado right. Other topics in this round included a three-parter on fictional animals by species, Jane Seymour (Henry VIII’s only wife that didn’t share a first name with any of the other five), and the similarities between the Ghostbusters theme song and I Want a New Drug by Huey Lewis and the News. We pared down the number of perfect teams tremendously here, as only Scotty Doesn’t Know (Solace Brewing) and Donner Party Platter (Quinn’s) scored all 36 points in the round.

FOURTH ROUND:

Exactly one-sixth of Thursday’s field named Mexico from the game’s 6-4-2 to get all six points. The final regulation round in the game started with its most difficult wagering question:

• Which retired MLB pitcher who has a record seven Cy Young Awards — and turned 60 years old today — has four sons whose names all begin with the letter K as a way to honor his strikeouts?

About 41% of our teams correctly named Roger Clemens, while a game-low 8.5% knew that his son Kody debuted this season for the MLB’s Detroit Tigers. The end of the round brought a bonus question that was almost as hard to correctly answer. We discussed the fragrance lines of actor Antonio Banderas, and just 8.9% of the field recalled that he starred earlier this year as a villain in the film Uncharted. This round whittled the perfect-score field down to just one single team: Unemployed Hand Models (Bear Brick Oven). The leaderboard was led by ties for first and third:

• Comfortably Dumb (Loudoun Kitchen): 165
• Unemployed Hand Models (Bear Brick Oven): 165
• Scotty Doesn’t Know (Solace Brewing): 161
• Great Heathen Army (Brewery Fire): 161
• Painful Burning Sensation (Smoketown): 161

FINAL QUESTION (33.8% success rate):

• When spelled correctly in English, which musical instrument has a one-word name that contains all five vowels?

We crept over the one-third mark for correct answers by one team on this one, where the tambourine was the right way to go. The only team to manage a Perfect 21 in Thursday’s game was Deck Chairs on the Titanic (Olde Mother), which got all 21 wagering questions right. Our record-setting crowd was led by these teams on the final scoreboard:

• Unemployed Hand Models (Bear Brick Oven): 177
• Street Sharks (Fourscore): 171
• Educated Friends (Fourscore): 169
• Let’s Get Quizzical (Belly Love): 169
• Teachers Have Class (Solace Brewing): 168
• Stockholm Syndrome (Mark’s): 166
• Deck Chairs on the Titanic (Olde Mother): 165
• Mad Facts: Query Road (Solace Brewing): 165
• Thoroughly Screwed (Loudoun Kitchen): 165
• Cat in the Chat (Loudoun Kitchen): 165
• Aristocrats (Loudoun Kitchen): 165

THURSDAY’S WINNERS:

Smoketown Brewing Station in Brunswick, MD: We Drink and We Know Things  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Triple 50/50: Ted Lasso or The Andy Griffith Show?)

Pour Dog House in Millersville, MD: Solomon’s Choice  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Fish)

Champion Billiards in Frederick, MD: Crab Cakes  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Breakfast in America (album))

Loudoun Kitchen and Bar in Leesburg, VA: Cat in the Chat  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: ABBA)

Olde Mother Brewing in Frederick, MD: Deck Chairs on the Titanic  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Kenny Chesney (audio))

Belly Love Brewing in Purcellville, VA: Let’s Get Quizzical  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: 2016 Chicago Cubs)

Solace Brewing in Sterling, VA: Teachers Have Class  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Slasher Films)

Bad Habits Bar & Grill in Martinsburg, WV: What Would Steve Rogers Do?  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Ted Lasso)

• This game is temporarily being played at O’Connell’s Irish Pub in Martinsburg.

Brewery Fire in Taneytown, MD: Five Heads, One Brain  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Triple 50/50: The Munsters or The Addams Family?)

Fourscore Beer Co. in Gettysburg, PA: Street Sharks  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Tiki Drinks)

Crooked Run in Sterling, VA: YOLO Swaggins  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Ronald Reagan)

Solace Outpost in Falls Church, VA: The Knights  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Lakes and Rivers)

Interchange Tiki Bar in Williamsport, MD: Here for the Beer  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Skillet (audio))

Bear Brick Oven Pizza in Silver Spring, MD: Unemployed Hand Models  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Film Monsters)

Preston’s Pub in Manassas Park, VA: Sherlock Homies  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Shania Twain)

Quinn’s in Arlington, VA: Donner Party Platter  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Players Traded by the Washington Nationals)

Aslin Beer Co in Alexandria, VA: A-Team  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: London)

Kalypso’s Sports Tavern in Reston, VA: Pain and Agony  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Elfquest)

Two Story Chimney Ciderworks in Gaithersburg, MD: E=MC Hammer  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Doctor Who)

Ten Eyck Brewing in Queenstown, MD: No Objections  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: 1980s Rock (audio))

Mark’s Pub in Falls Church, VA: Stockholm Syndrome  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: John Wayne Films)