Searching for Wednesday Trivia!

Paced by Idiom Brewing in Frederick, MD which brought in 24 teams, Pour House Trivia once again set a Wednesday record! A total of 203 teams played across eighteen venues.

FIRST ROUND:

Topics in Wednesday’s first round included the beginnings of the Planet Hollywood restaurant chain, hyphenated film titles, and the Ports of Colón and Balboa that bookend the Panama Canal. The most difficult bonus chance in the first half came at the end of this round:

• Now that Tom Brady has officially retired, who are the top two active NFL quarterbacks in career passing yards?

Roughly 30% of the field named both Matt Ryan and Aaron Rodgers to receive two extra points. Eleven teams put together a perfect first round.

SECOND ROUND:

Sound effects in songs by Steve Miller Band, Billy Joel, and M.I.A. were given for the audio question. After that, we covered subjects such as seismology, the Monopoly properties Boardwalk and Park Place, and the autobiography My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass. Once again, the toughest bonus question came attached to the round’s final query:

• As a reference to a late 1930s film character, which character from Gilligan’s Island was said to be a farm girl from Kansas?

While the majority of teams were able to name Mary Ann, just a third of our teams earned bonus points for knowing Dawn Wells was the actress who portrayed the character. We were up to 19 perfect team scores in this round.

HALFTIME:

At the start of the halftime page, teams had to name cereal brands from very zoomed-in portions of the cereal box. After that, they had to identify musical groups based on a list of their musicians, then figure out the mystery theme — each band had a misspelled name (such as Linkin Park, Motley Crue, and Salt-n-Pepa). The average team score on this was 15.3 points, but 17 teams went 20-for-20 on the page. After halftime, these teams were in the lead:

• Cutthroat (Thick-N-Thin): 92
• Black Zexcellence (Sully’s): 90
• Underdogs (Quinn’s): 90
• SEVEN TEAMS TIED WITH 89 POINTS

THIRD ROUND:

Keeping with the format of the first half, the third round also waited until the end to bring a tough bonus question to our teams. Before that, though, we discussed the Seine River that runs through Paris, painter Thomas Kinkade, and the respiratory system that featured the bronchi. The last question of the round dealt with the TV adaptation of a certain book series:

• Based on a series of historic time travel novels, which Starz series with a one-word title follows Claire Randall, a married combat nurse from 1945 who is mysteriously swept back in time to 1743?

Outlander is that TV series, but 31% of teams added bonus points by naming Diana Gabaldon as the author behind the novel franchise. A game-high 28 perfect team scores took place in the third round.

FOURTH ROUND:

The city of Boston was named by 17 teams after a single clue about Seiji Ozawa directing its Symphony Orchestra; those teams each earned the maximum six points in Wednesday’s 6-4-2. Easily the trickiest bonus question showed up at the start of the final round, on this bit about stage names:

• What is the one-word stage name of the Jamaican-born reggae musician responsible for the number-one singles It Wasn’t Me and Angel?

Most of our teams were able to name Shaggy, but only three gave his real first name of Orville! The night’s Three Clues question asked teams to name the jersey number worn by these three pro athletes:

• U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team’s Megan Rapinoe 
• New York Yankee Thurman Munson
• Current NFL quarterback Patrick Mahomes

This was the least-successful wagering try of the night, with 38% of teams providing the #15 for points. Questions about the Doberman dog breed and current thriller film Knock at the Cabin, with Dave Bautista in the lead role. Unlike the other rounds, no perfect scores took place here. We got through four rounds to find a three-way tie for first overall:

• What the Fork (Fridays): 161
• Sexual Chocolate (Memories): 161
• Carpet Stretchers (T.J. Stone’s): 161
• FIVE TEAMS TIED WITH 160 POINTS

FINAL QUESTION (50.74% success rate):

• Founded in the late 20th century, which company used a variation on the spelling of a term coined by nine-year-old Milton Sirotta, a boy whose uncle published the 1940 work “Mathematics and the Imagination”?

Just over half of the Wednesday field earned final question points by naming Google as the company in question. Eleven teams gave right answers to each wagering question in this game to record a Perfect 21! One team eked out the smallest of margins to take the night’s overall point trophy:

• Sexual Chocolate (Memories): 173
• Stink Floyd (Belles’): 172
• Power Vacuum (Belles’): 172
• In Last Place (Memories): 172
• H.R. Puff ‘n’ Stuff (Hops N Shine): 171
• Donner Party People (Quinn’s): 171
• Kicking Puss and Boots (Hops N Shine): 170
• Underdogs (Quinn’s): 170
• Tokyo Sex Whale (Idiom): 170
• Three Sheets to the Wind (Idiom): 169

WEDNESDAY’S WINNERS:

Belles’ Sports Bar in Frederick, MD: Power Vacuum  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Deadliest Catch)

Memories Charcoal House in Mount Airy, MD: Sexual Chocolate  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Phyrexia, All Will Be One (Magic: the Gathering expansion pack))

Quinn’s on the Corner in Arlington, VA: Donner Party People  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Super Bowl Beer Commercials)

GearHouse Brewing in Chambersburg, PA: We Thought This Was Speed Dating  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban)

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

Idiom Brewing in Frederick, MD: Tokyo Sex Whale  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Super Bowl 57)

Axes and O’s in Sterling, VA: Quiz Knows Subs  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Bionicle)

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

Sully’s Pour House in Herndon, VA: Barn Gurlz  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Disney Animals)

T.J. Stone’s in Alexandria, VA: Carpet Stretchers  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Condiments)

Craftworx Taproom in Gainesville, VA: Three Fifes and a Drum  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Chinese Provincial Capitals)

Barstool Sportsbook in Charles Town, WV: Five Horsemen of the Apocalypse  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: 1980s MLB World Series)

Grape Escape in Gaithersburg, MD: Black October  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: 1979 Pittsburgh Steelers)

Shipgarten in McLean, VA: And They Were Roommates  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Original 151 Pokemon)

Thick-N-Thin Brewing in Hagerstown, MD: Cutthroat  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Swimming)

Kitzie’s Restaurant in Martinsburg, WV: 

Celtic House in Arlington, VA: Boldly Mediocre  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Harry Potter Films)

Mark’s Pub in Falls Church, VA: Fresh Off the U-Haul  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: 1990s Contemporary Christian Music)

Augie’s Mussel House in Alexandria, VA: Punchline  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: ABBA Songs)