Thursday night trivia taught us that for most trivia teams, science questions are the bane of their existence.  They don’t some up often, but they often have drastic effects on the game.  It once again shows the benefits of a well-rounded team.  We hosted a full slate of nine games on Thursday night, with one team putting up a rather impressive performance.

THURSDAY’S STATS AND FACTS (74 teams across nine venues):

–> Highest Overall Score: PC Principals (Fish Market) with 170

–> Highest Score after Round 4: PC Principals with 165

–> Highest First Half Score: PC Principals with 92

–> Perfect 21 (correct on all wagers and final): Because of tonight’s third round science question, no team scored the ‘Perfect 21’ tonight.

–> Our college themed halftime page played more difficult than normal, with an average score of 14.3 across the board.  About 10% of out teams managed to snag 20 points there.

–> The most difficult wagering question of the night was not our final, but a third round question which was answered correctly by only 18% of our teams:

– Earthquakes produce elastic waves known as ‘P-waves’.  While the ‘P’ is sometimes used to abbreviate the word ‘pressure’, its most common usage in seismology is an abbreviation for which word?

TONIGHT’S FINAL QUESTION (24.8% success rate):

–> which landmark has inscribed upon it the names of 72 scientists, engineers, and mathematicians, each of whom was born prior to 1838?  (you’ll find the answer in this blog)

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Quincy’s in Gaithersburg, MD

As the last remnants of the snow melted outside, tonight’s game of Pour House Trivia only got hotter inside Quincy’s in Gaithersburg.  One team took command of this game and never looked back!

Highlights of the Night:

In “Look-At-The-Big-Brain-On-Ian”: You know, I like to think I do an OK job with my trivia knowledge.  And I like to pepper in things I know when I have an opportunity to.  So when I flub that over the mic, I sound like an idiot.  I sounded like an idiot tonight.  Greaaaaaaat. E=mc dammit!

In “Speaking-of-Stupid-Anecdotes”: I never thought I would have to think about Tess of the d’Urbervilles. God I loathe that book with a passion. To those of you who didn’t get that one correct, don’t feel bad about, and don’t look it up. It’s garbage. Ugh.

In “Spelling-Bee-Champions-You-Are-Not”: Nebuchadnezzar is a hell of a word. I really should’ve offered a 2-point bonus for spelling it correctly. But Ebbe Kenesser. Now that’s a fine spelling you’ve got there. Goodness gracious xD

The final was a doozy tonight, and correct answers were key!

In third place tonight, Clever Team Name!

In second place tonight, the Fan Club!

In first place tonight, Breadsticks!

Until then,

~ Ian

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Champion Billiards in Frederick, MD

Champions!  We are back!  Man, only one game night lost to basketball, but it feels like it’s been months since I saw you last.  I was very happy to be with you all tonight, Thursday just isn’t Thursday without my crews.  All my regulars were out and about (Welcome back to the dark side a few of you) and we even had some new teams jump in the mix tonight!  Fresh meat 😉

Teams were busy proving they spent the last two weeks studying, and everyone was playing hard ball tonight.  Not much room for error, but the good set tonight forced a few hands and caught out some brain cells.  With the shared high score of 19 on the halftime page, both Power Vacuum and FNQ jumped to the top of the standings at the break, but there was a “shockwave” waiting for our teams in the third round.  By far, it was the seismology question that was the stumper tonight, I even had a geologist kicking himself on that one!  Only one team managed to pull ‘primary’ for points on that one.  Alternative Answers, and you are going to want to remember that name. You’ll be seeing it a good bit in the future.  Our teams recovered nicely in the final round though, thanks in large part to Raymond Burr.

Potent Potables played a helluva game, but managed to fall a place with each round (That’s right – you were tied for 1st after the first round) and they came up short after a solid final.  Playing it smart however was Power Vacuum. They didn’t know the landmark, but they know how to wager and held on to the podium, even if they fell from first place into third.  Second place went to Ya Shifty Bastards, while our winners tonight: (I hear they are no strangers to the top of the podium) Alternative Answers!  They came, they wagered, they took the night.

Next week we start out with the opening category of One-Letter Words.  Now that should be stimulating.

See you then!

~ Sam

Bunker Sports Cafe in Leesburg, VA

We had ourselves a quaint version of Pour House Trivia down here at Bunker Sports Cafe in Leesburg tonight, as apparently there was some traffic issues that kept a few teams away.  Many kudos to those of you who could make it through and join me for the game.  Our first category was Alabama Crimson Tide football, which you could have rather called “fits-ball” as that chosen category wiped out the bar.  We visited a Swedish hotel constructed each year entirely of ice, and despite the fact that this was the one night we actually had a Swede in attendance, I think my pronunciation of the location was much closer than you let on. We had three clues to point you to the color blue, and yet another “SNL” attempt to make Weekend Update more than just an eight-minute folly for the misinformed.  I blame Trevor Noah’s failing ratings for this.  Lastly, we went back earlier in our current century for this ad campaign that saw moderate success until it was morphed into a failed TV sitcom attempt:

Our second round is where the strife began, with a number of teams missing the Swiss patent clerk turned physics phenom Albert Einstein and his sole Nobel Prize win.  We followed that one up with a couple of misses for this weekend’s PGA Tour event, and a couple of more misses for the only Oscar win for a Rowling based film.  They all counterbalanced well however picking the right year for a trio of well known songs, African countries, Sanskrit pleasantries, and Namco, the creator of this well known machine:

Things got back to normal in the third, with teams scoring well on the Johnny Cash biopic “Walk the Line” and subsequent Oscar win for Reese Witherspoon, and just how entirely different a creation of starchy goodness you would get in the U.S. versus the U.K. with an order of “tea and biscuits”.  Great job for you all by scoring that two extra points on the multiple choice Thomas Hardy’s titular Tess, and knowing some Seattle B-Ball history along WITH the lesser known coach we asked for.  Kudos to Thundercats for being the only team to score points on our science question, for the others the results were “earth shaking”.

Our final round brought us back to the 1960’s and 1970’s for a little Raymond Burr TV drama, and ol’ king Neba…Nebukaness… Nebuchadnezzar, as well as grape jam and the Sons of Liberty just to name a few.  We rattled off some gaming numbers from Monopoly, Scattergories, and Settlers of Catan (BTW, both the first and second answer were divisible by the third, but that was just a coincidence), and topped it all off with this highly successful but short-lived “Girl Power” advocacy group:

Tonight’s final proved to be tougher than the norm with only one team scoring points, great job Indians!  Here are the results:

First Place:  Your Mom

Second Place:  Thundercats

Third Place:  Cranius Maximus

Next week’s first category:  Sport Shooting

~ Ronnie

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Smoketown Brewing in Brunswick, MD

Well, what a game that was.  After a bit of controversy to start our game at Smoketown Brewing, we settled into a fairly normal first half.  It was a tough second round – every team missed at least one question in the second round, but it was those that were able to wager strategically that were least affected.  The puzzle gave a lot of teams issues as well, and the lead changed hands several times.  While Beer Makes Smart took the lead at the break, our entire field was separated by just 15 points as we began the third round.

The second half featured an Earth science question that wiped out the bar, as well as a 6-4-2 which saw no team earn six points and half of our teams earn zero.  Raider Nation took the lead after the 6-4-2, with the tough as nails Scoundrels right behind.  As usual, it came down to the final question.  Only three teams came up with the correct response of The Eiffel Tower, including the Scoundrels who came from behind to take first place.  Multiple Scoregasms, a regular team since day one, took second place with that tough final, but it was still their first placement in the top three at Smoketown!  There was a tie for third place between Raider Nation and We Drink and We Know Things, with Raider Nation prevailing to squeeze onto the medal platform!  Here are your top teams once again:

First Place:  Scoundrels

Second Place:  Multiple Scoregasms

Third Place:  Raider Nation

Next week’s first category:  World War II Aviation

~ Zach

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Beef O’ Brady’s in Frederick, MD

Once again, we welcome FOUR new teams to the Pour House Trivia Fold.  Our attraction is too strong for the casual diner/drinker.  Notably, there was a two-person team, Team Lion, that included an answer-runner that was absolutely adorable.  She got a full half-time of Disney and Pixar soundtracks. 🙂  Master Haters, our previous-week champs, started strong with their impossibly difficult category: Lost (the TV show).  They were the only ones to answer correctly — an excellent winner’s strategy.  Flight Level Awesome, perennial favorites, was playing tonight’s game a little light in personnel, but still managed to put up a great first half, leading the field with an impressive 77 points after a rather difficult halftime page.

I won’t lie… the third round was tough.  Most of our teams only manged to secure wagers on two or three questions, and no team hit on all five.  Superkick Party took the lead by only missing our fourth question of the round on seismology.  A well-deserved three points went to Bed, Bath and Beyonce, as the only team to know what ‘P-waves’ stand for, who took over second place.

TWO teams having presently been shut-out of the top-three placed tonight, and I completely blame… well, no one and nothing. They played excellent trivia, with strategic wagers.  Nonetheless, that challenging second half and some seriously strategic final-question wagering (which I always encourage) led to the top three:

First Place:  Superkick Party

Second Place:  Bed, Bath & Beyoncé

Third Place:  Master Haters

Well done, everyone.

Next week’s first category: (Audio) Wrestling Themes … (don’t blame me, blame Superkick Party!)

Fair Winds, followers,

~ Chief

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Rocklands Farm Winery in Poolesville, MD

After a week off (damn you, snow!), Pour House Trivia was back at Rocklands Farm Winery in Poolesville, where we hosted a very close game, as teams really came out to battle for the top spot.  After a fairly uneventful first round, Maybe Babies took over the lead in second round, after being the ONLY team to answer correctly on not one, but TWO questions in that round.  On top of that, Maybe Babies managed to pull the top score of 16 on the halftime page, but three other teams were within ten points of the lead.  As we all know, the third round can make or break our teams.

Maybe Babies advanced themselves even further after the halftime page.  Bentley’s Buddies did not take their foot off the throttle either, as they were the only team to pick up points on our seismology question.  They stayed within ten points of Maybe Babies for most of the game.  The Winners also played extremely well keeping competition very close.  On the ancient historical figures question, the Maybe Babies were able to come through in the clutch to pick up the correct answer, which was really the solidifying moment of the game.  They were also able to answer correctly on our final question to secure the victory for tonight!  Due to the rest of the teams betting it all for our final question, the only team that was able to prevail from the rest of the pack was Six Pack, as they answered the question correctly and moved themselves into second place for tonight’s game.  Rounding off tonight’s top three was the unfortunately named team The Winners (maybe next time!).

Until next time…

~ Devan

Next week’s first category:  Barack Obama

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Morgan Ridge Railwalk in Salisbury, NC

Coming soon…

 

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Right Around the Corner in St. Petersburg, FL

Things trivia teams at Right Around the Corner like:
– Good beer
– Their wonderful bartender, Taylor
– Arcade games
– C.J.’s playlist (we’re guessing)
– Redheads
– Insurance companies, “Saturday Night Live” and doing yoga in Namibia before playing some old-school Pac-Man.

Things trivia teams at Right Around the Corner don’t like:
-People who spill their beers
-Anyone who doesn’t appreciate downtown St. Pete
-Golf
-Thomas Hardy novels
-Earthquakes (We’re in Florida, people. We don’t understand tectonic plates. But ask us about hurricanes any day of the week, please.)

We learned a lot about our trivia teams this week.  Mostly, that they’re badass people who know good beer.  They also happen to be pretty knowledgeable about other stuff, which they proved on Thursday night in the latest bout of Pour House Trivia.

We welcomed one new team last night, the Spazmatics.  They joined RATC regulars Over 140, Altar Boys, Panic Attacks and Better Red than Dead.  All of our teams were off to a good start in round one, successfully answering questions about Nintendo Games, the GEICO cavemen and hotels made out of ice.  Better Red Than Dead started to separate from the pack during round two. That’s what will happen when you answer every question and bonus correctly.

Things got a tad on the ugly side during halftime, as our teams struggled with this week’s quiz sheet.  Some teams surged ahead while others were stuck scratching their heads.  Rounds three and four threw some tough curveballs our way, including one question that none of our teams knew the answer to. (What the heck is a P-Wave, anyway??)

Ultimately, Better Red Than Dead was victorious, edging out regulars Altar Boys and Over 140. Thanks to all who came out and played! We’ll see you next week.

First Place: Better Red Than Dead

Second Place: Altar Boys

Third Place: Over 140

Next week’s first category: “Pirates of the Caribbean”

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Fish Market in Alexandria, VA

At Fish Market in Alexandria, we hosted an exciting game tonight as we saw a LOT of teams coming out to play! Mostly new teams, but we did have our most deadly veteran teams out here ready to show the rest of the crowd who the top dogs were!  One of the new teams we had was Team Redundancy Team Team, who actually WON last week in their first EVER game of Pour House Trivia!  They were looking to see if they could make it two in a row, to remain the only unbeaten PHT team ever!

PC Principals felt badly after losing a close one last week.  They led going into the final question but missed and let Team Redundancy Team sneak in and steal the victory.  PC Principals wanted to make sure that didn’t happen again, looking very strong, leading at the half, putting up an insane 92 points!  Lots of teams remained close behind though, as it was still anyone’s game for the taking.  Round 3 didn’t put much of a dent in PC Principals score but a tough 6-4-2 helped Ant Farm Keyboard close the gap a bit, being the only team to get six points on that one.

PC Principals left no points on the table in the final round, putting up a very respectable score, though not a runaway.  They led by eight points going into the final question, going with the obvious five-point bet, which would win the game for them if they answered correctly.  Team Redundancy Team was in second place, betting nine points in order to jump PCP if they put up a zero bet.  Ant Farm Keyboard was in third place and bet the full 12 points, a bet that would be enough for them to win with some help in misses from the top two teams.

It could’ve been anyone’s game, especially with only TWO TEAMS picking up points on the final question!  Ant Farm Keyboard missed it and dropped back 12 points.  HOWEVER, no one behind them that could catch them answered the final question correctly, so they stayed comfortably in third place.  The only teams to answer the final correctly were our teams in first and second going into the final, so no placement changes at all!  PC Principals take it down and Team Redundancy finishing in a CLOSE second.  A new threat has entered the Fish Market.  Team Redundancy is really good.  I’m excited for next week!  Thanks guys!

~ Bill

Next week’s first category: Crispin Glover Films (other than this one)

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Guido’s in Frederick, MD

At Guido’s Speakeasy on Thursday, we hosted a truly exciting game with an unexpected mix in the top three spots after the final question.  Some teams that we’ve been missing for a couple weeks were back in to play, and I even got a visit from someone that moved out of town over a year ago that came in to play while they were in town visiting! I couldn’t help feeling bad for one team though.  They were either tied for, or alone in first place when we started the final round.  The had a little trouble with that last round, so when we reached the final question, they were now in second place, but only one point off the new leader.

Unfortunately for them, they went the full 12 points on the final and answered WRONG! 🙁  So our top three teams after everything ended was Unathletico Madrid dropping to third place, my out of towner friends with the team name Sean Paul & the Bippitty Bum Bum moved up into second place, and taking the first place victory once again was Tuna Noodle Casserole!  Now I can’t remember exactly how this joke started during the night, but it came back to bite me in the ass when they picked their winners choice category for this Thursdays game with Jon Jeffries Slam Poetry! So if you could use a good laugh later this week, make sure you come out to Guido’s this Thursday!

~ Jon J