Olympic Fanfare at Wednesday Trivia!

Wednesday night with Pour House Trivia was comprised of 17 venues and a crowd of 152 total teams.

FIRST ROUND:

After an opening question about Michael J. Fox sitcoms Family Ties and Spin City, we had Three Clues about the River Thames where a round-low 9.8% of teams earned bonus points for being able to name it before the third clue was read. After that, we had a round of margaritas and a screening of Kristen Stewart’s first major feature film, Panic Room. However, this was the only round on Wednesday in which no perfect scores were recorded.

SECOND ROUND:

Three songs with reptilian titles comprised this game’s audio question, and we followed that with topics such as light energy produced by the luciferins of certain animals, the SEC‘s first-ever college football conference championship game, and Ramona Lofton’s pen name of Sapphire used for the novel Push, which was eventually adapted into the film Precious. Wednesday’s first half concluded with the night’s most difficult wagering and bonus chances:

• In which year was the winning U. S. Presidential ticket comprised of a former Republican and a former Democrat running together under the short-lived National Union Party?

The 1864 election was won by the Lincoln-Johnson ticket under the National Union Party, which was dissolved within a few years of existence. Only 17% of the field got that year right, while a game-low 5.9% added bonus points for naming George McClellan as the loser of that 1864 election. Even with that question, we had more perfect scores in this round than any other, earned by The Gang Plays Bar Trivia (Belles’), Two-Wheel Tricycle (Sully’s), Just For Fun (T.J. Stone’s), and Fresh Off the U-Haul (Mark’s).

HALFTIME:

The top half of Wednesday’s halftime page featured TV teachers and asked teams to name the series each was from, then match a list of cities to the respective nation. The average score on this one was 16.8 points, and there were nine perfect scores. These were the top-scoring squads at the halftime intermission:

• Just For Fun (T.J. Stone’s): 88
• What the Fork (TGI Fridays): 87
• Stinkfist (Idiom): 87
• The Gang Plays Bar Trivia (Belles’): 86
• Fresh Off the U-Haul (Mark’s): 86

THIRD ROUND:

Round three began with a three-part question about ESPN, which debuted on the air exactly 43 years prior; just 9.8% of teams got all three parts right for bonus credit. The two hardest second-half questions came back-to-back in this round, beginning with this (secret of) acronym:

• In the computer acronym CAPTCHA, the T represents the last name of which scientist?

Fun fact: CAPTCHA stands for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart! A little more than half of our teams named Alan Turing for wagering points. The very next question took a little island vacay:

• Located along the Equator, the island of Borneo includes the tiny country of Brunei and which two other independent nations?

About 48% of the field named either of Indonesia and Malaysia for their wager, while 7.2% got both answers right. In this round, Sexual Chocolate (Memories), Rumspringa ’94 (Sully’s), and Just For Fun (T.J. Stone’s) got all 36 points.

FOURTH ROUND:

The 6-4-2 on this night was all about Tuesday, and 10% of our teams earned all six points by knowing that is the only day in which the Louvre is closed to the public! We kicked off round four by asking which noble gases have the lowest and highest atomic numbers in the group, and bonus points were recorded by the 9.8% of teams that named both helium and radon. This next wagering question ended up being the hardest of the round, though:

• In addition to being the Russian word for openness, which eight-letter term referred to a policy of open political discussion instituted in the Soviet Union by Mikhail Gorbachev?

About 55% of the field had glasnost for credit. We moved on to questions about Bob Dylan‘s then-controversial electric guitar use at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965, the tall beer glass known as a yard, and a final Triple 50/50 about works of art. Perfect teams in this round were Pterodactyl (Belles’) and Just For Fun (T.J. Stone’s). We headed to the final question with these teams in the lead:

• Just For Fun (T.J. Stone’s): 166
• Fresh Off the U-Haul (Mark’s): 158
• The Gang Plays Bar Trivia (Belles’): 158
• What the Fork (TGI Fridays): 157
• Sexual Chocolate (Memories): 156

FINAL QUESTION (17.8% success rate):

• With about half as many residents as the U. S., what is the most populous country on Earth that has never won an Olympic medal?

Less than a fifth of the field had the correct answer of Bangladesh. A pair of teams, Just For Fun (T.J. Stone’s) and Fresh Off the U-Haul (Mark’s), earned the Perfect 21 achievement by answering every wagering question correctly. At the end of the game, the high scores were recorded by these teams:

• Just For Fun (T.J. Stone’s): 178
• Fresh Off the U-Haul (Mark’s): 170
• The Gang Plays Bar Trivia (Belles’): 159
• Sexual Chocolate (Memories): 156
• Comfortably Dumb (Axes and O’s): 152
• Tokyo Sex Whale (Belles’): 151
• Trending Towards Fourth (T.J. Stone’s): 150
• The Gang’s All Here (GearHouse): 149
• Dynamic Duo (Barstool): 146
• What the Fork (TGI Fridays): 145

WEDNESDAY’S WINNERS:

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

Valley Sports Grill in Middletown, MD: Dessert First  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Taylor Swift)

Belles’ Sports Bar in Frederick, MD: The Gang Plays Bar Trivia  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: King of the Hill)

Memories Charcoal House in Mount Airy, MD: Sexual Chocolate  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: The Angevins)

GearHouse Brewing in Chambersburg, PA: The Gang’s All Here  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Track and Field)

TGI Fridays in Hagerstown, MD: What the Fork  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Flamingos)

Idiom Brewing in Frederick, MD: Stinkfist  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Noble Gases)

Axes and O’s in Sterling, VA: Comfortably Dumb  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Wes Anderson Films)

Hops N Shine in Alexandria, VA: H.R. Puff ‘n’ Stuff  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: The Rehearsal)

Sully’s Pour House in Herndon, VA: Two-Wheel Tricycle  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: East Germany)

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

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

Craftworx Taproom in Gainesville, VA: Sherlock Homies  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: 1993 NYC Rappers)

Barstool Sportsbook in Charles Town, WV: Dynamic Duo  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Major League Baseball)

Grape Escape in Gaithersburg, MD: Toasty  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: New York Yankees)

Shipgarten in McLean, VA: Caseys  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Old Testament Minor Prophets)

Mark’s Pub in Falls Church, VA: Fresh Off the U-Haul  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Steakhouses)