Triple Digits at PHT World Series XVI!

A new Pour House Trivia record was set today, as we topped the century mark for the first time in World Series history.  For today’s Season XVI championship at Hager Hall, we welcomed an amazing 114 TEAMS!  Today’s winning team would certainly be a well-deserved champion with an extra $2,000 in spending cash.  The winners from each of the last 13 championships were in attendance, as each was looking to add another notch their belts:

• Slapsgiving (III, IV, V, VI, VIII)
• Stink Floyd (VII, XIV)
• High School Prom (IX, X, XI, XII)
• Dave Martinez School of Management (XIII, XV)

Before we get into the details of the game, w would like to thank every team for participating in this event.  Our success would not be possible without your constant support.  With that, let’s get to the recap:

ROUND 1:

The winter World Series usually includes a question on the Super Bowl, and this season was no exception, as we opened with a question on the big game.  We asked our teams to name either one of the two franchises that have lost to BOTH the Steelers and the Patriots in the Super Bowl.  Just under half of our teams earned bonus points with these two correct answers:

We continued with this question in the category of Coming to Netflix!:

–> Coming to Netflix later this year, a ten-episode fantasy adventure series from The Jim Henson Company will serve as a prequel to what groundbreaking 1982 film?

While a number of teams responded incorrectly with “Labyrtinth” (which was released a few years later), we were instead looking for this film:

About two-thirds of our teams earned their wager with the correct response of “The Dark Crystal”, but only THREE teams earned bonus points by also knowing that this upcoming series will be subtitled “Age of Resistance”.  We moved on to a vocabulary question, which saw many high wagers dashed:

–> Chosen by Dictionary.com as its 2017 Word of the Year, which adjective is defined as: “choosing to be involved in an illegal or questionable act; or having partnership or involvement in wrongdoing”?

The key word to this question was adjective.  Nearly half of the field answered incorrectly by guessing collusion, which unfortunately is a noun.  However, the word complicit is an adjective, and was indeed the 2017 Word of the Year.  We closed the opening stanza with a Three Clues question:

CLUE 1: This video game was launched by the Swedish company Mojang on Nov. 18, 2011.

CLUE 2: One of the names it took on during development was “Cave Game”.

These two clues were enough for about half of our teams to earn two bonus points by going in early and giving us this correct answer:

We saw more than a dozen teams notch 34 points in the first round, but thanks to the bonus question on “The Dark Crystal”, we did not see any perfect scores in the first round.

ROUND 2:

The second round audio question posed a rather difficult two-point bonus, as teams were asked to name a certain hip hop artist after hearing just three seconds of a song (in this case, “The Boomin’ Sound”, though we did not give the actual title).  Those three seconds were enough for just 12% of our teams to earn the bonus, while the majority of the field waited for the full two-minute clip to turn in this correct response:

After a look at some record-setting hot peppers, we continued to the subject of World Flags, by asking out teams to identify the British Crown Dependency that uses this flag:

Most of the field knew that this is the flag of the Isle of Man, while 28% of our teams tacked on two bonus points by also knowing that the natives of this territory speak the language of Manx.  Most of our teams were cruising along quite nicely through the second round, until the following question in the topic of Multiple Meanings:

–> In physics, this the more common name of a capillary wave. On the internet, it is the name of the third-most valuable cryptocurrency based on market capitalization.

Sure, you’ve heard of Bitcoin, and you may have heard of the second-most valuable cryptocurrency: Ethereum.  But only 22% of our teams earned their wagers with the correct answer of Ripple.  This question proved to be the most difficult wagering question of the first half, but the difficulty was compounded by the fact that it was by far the most popular bonus category of the second round, as nearly 70% of the field chose Mutliple Meanings as its bonus category.  Needless to say, this had a profound effect on the scores.  We closed the first half with a question concerning Oscar-winning films:

–> Only two films that won the Best Picture Oscar depict the death of the title character in the first 15 minutes of the film.  One of these characters is killed in a motorcycle accident, while the other is shot.  Name either one of these films.

Though it was not quite as difficult as the previous question, this one still packed some punch, as about 43% of our teams earned points with at least one correct answer.  The teams that could remember which biographical films had earned Hollywood’s highest honor started off on the right track, but only 14% of the field earned bonus points with these correct answers:

Once again, we did not see any perfect scores in the second round.

HALFTIME:

To close out Season XVI, the visual portion of the World Series halftime page featured items connected to the number 16.  The toughest answer on this section was this cryptic picture (perhaps a preview of things to come…)

Atomic number 16 belongs to Sulfur.  In addition to the pictures, we featured an audio-themed halftime section, as we played songs from ten musical acts that all shared a certain distinction.  Ranging from Lady Gaga to Tom Petty, these were the ten most recent artists to have headlined the Super Bowl Halftime Show!  We saw an overall average score of 16.1, with six teams recording perfect scores of 20 points.  As we entered the halftime break, these were our top teams:

• Dave Martinez School of Management:   87
• PC Principals:  86
• Flight Level Awesome:  86
• Brother of Menelaus:  86
• Gorillas With Machine Guns:  84
• Gin and Cupcakes:  84
• How Did I Get Here?:  81
• It’s Mueller Time:  81
• Killer Snails:  81
• You Just Got Shawshanked:  80

ROUND 3:

The second half began with a question on the Mediterranean Sea, as we asked our teams to name either one of the two most populous countries which border this body of water.  Teams who were debating the population figures of countries like France, Spain, and Italy may have been doomed from the start, as NONE of those countries were included in the correct answer.  Instead, our trivia players needed to travel east to get these correct answers:

(map courtesy of yourchildlearns.com)

Next up, a question on “The Simpsons”:

–> Normally shown from the neck down or from the back, what non-Springfield native is the only character to be seen on “The Simpsons” with five fingers?

If any of our teams had started praying for a correct answer, it would have helped them here, as the answer we were looking for was God:

After a little Periodic Table Word Play, we continued with an A + B = C question on the subject of Cell Phone Apps.

Part A = Late last year, Twitter began allowing its American followers to use this many characters per tweet.

Part B = Without using a Free Life, this is the number of questions one must answer correctly in order to win a standard game of HQ Trivia.

I can think of a certain politician that must have loved the recent Tweet expansion.  For years, Twitter’s limit was 140 characters, but that figure has now doubled to 280.  Just over one-third of our teams earned points by also knowing that a standard game of HQ Trivia features 12 questions, giving us a correct answer of 292.  After closing the third round with a question on Film Dedications, we saw our only perfect round of the day, as Gorillas With Machine Guns notched 36 points in the third stanza.

6-4-2- QUESTION:

Our 6-4-2 question for World Series XVI dealt with a certain first name:

–> After hinting at the subject in both a 2004 TV episode and a 2010 tweet, Cookie Monster recently confirmed that this is his actual first name.

Only FIVE teams earned the full six points by knowing (and being bold enough to guess) that Cookie Monster’s actual first name is Sid.  Much of the field waited to hear the four-point clue to turn in their responses, as a picture of the bully from “Toy Story” led most teams to earn four points.

ROUND 4:

The final round must have pleased our history buffs, as we began with a relatively difficult question concerning the Congress of Vienna.  In addition to exactly one third of our field earning their wager, only ten teams also earned bonus points by knowing that Klemens von Metternich served as the chairperson of this historic gathering.  Next up was an intriguing question on the subject of literature.  This was a three-part question which involved a ‘hidden connection’ among the three answers:

1)  In his will, Shakespeare left this possession to his wife Anne Hathaway.

2)  A fictional widow from this English city in the county of Somerset told one of the most memorable tales of the 14th century.

3)  This word precedes “Good and Evil” in the English translation of an 1886 work written by Friedrich Nietzsche.

Your answers?

We continued with a look at Olympic gold medalists, as we challenged our teams to name any two of the three Americans who won the gold medal in ladies’ singles figure skating from 1992 through 2002.  Despite the fact that they may be more famous, neither Nancy Kerrigan nor Michelle Kwan ever won a gold medal, with both landing a silver and a bronze in their respective Olympic appearances.  Instead, we were looking for these three answers:

From left to right, that’s Kristi Yamaguchi, Tara Lipinski, and Sarah Hughes.  Next up was a question in the category of Borrowed From Chinese:

–> In Mandarin, this word is literally translated as ‘gourd’, but it has also taken on the modern definition of ‘interactive recording’.  In the U.S., this word was adopted as a technological brand name.

It took nearly four whole rounds, but we landed on our most wagering difficult question of the day, as only FOUR TEAMS gave us this correct response:

Needless to say, we did not see any perfect scores in the final round.  Here are the top scores heading into the final question:

• Gorillas With Machine Guns:  161
• Dave Martinez School of Management:   160
• PC Principals:  159
• Brother of Menelaus:  159
• Gin and Cupcakes:  155
• It’s Mueller Time:  150
• Killer Snails:  148
• Flight Level Awesome:  146
• Stink Floyd:  145
• How Did I Get Here?:  142

FINAL QUESTION (30.7% success rate):

–> Despite a fairly small exterior, the inside of this fictional character’s abode includes (among many other things) a pool table, a pipe and deerstalker hat, enough room for seven siblings, a basketball hoop and net, a Jacuzzi, a birdhouse, a picture of Tiny Tim, an exercise room, and a science lab.  Name this character introduced on October 4, 1950.

Just under one-third of our teams finished their game on a high note with this correct answer:

CONGRATULATIONS TO THE POUR HOUSE TRIVIA WORLD SERIES XVI CHAMPIONS: GORILLAS WITH MACHINE GUNS!

It’s always nice to see a team win its first championship, as was the case today with the powerhouse team Gorillas With Machine Guns.  After taking a one point lead to begin the second half, this squad answered correctly on the final question to take home its first PHT World Series title. And congrats to the rest of our smiley TOP 10 Finishers.

HERE ARE SOME SMILEY FACES OF YOUR TOP 10.

 

Here is your complete list of scores:

1	Gorillas With Machine Guns	173
2	Dave Martinez School of Management	172
3*	PC Principals	171
4*	Brother of Menelaus	171
5	Killer Snails	160
6	Fllight Level Awesome	158
7	Stink Floyd	157
8	Breadsticks	149
9	Kitten Mittens	146
10	Hans Gruber Preservation Society	144
11	Gin and Cupcakes	143
11	You Just Got Shawshanked	143
13	Roaming Gnomes	139
14	Wiseacres	138
14	It’s Mueller Time	138
16	Stephen Hawking Karaoke Machine	136
17	Jerry Lewis Romperthon	132
18	How Did I Get Here?	130
19	That’s A Niner	129
19	Lone Pine Mall Rats	129
21	Master Blaster	128
21	Tokyo Sex Robot	128
21	Morgan Station	128
24	Uncle Jack	127
24	Five Dollar Candy	127
24	Fat Kids are Hard to Kidnap	127
27	Give Us Your Beer Money	126
27	Cher’s Zombie Army	126
27	No Talent Ass Clowns	126
30	Power Vacuum	125
30	Westward Ho!	125
32	Birds of War	123
32	Capitol City Goofballs	123
32	Heisenberg	123
35	Dilly Dilly	121
35	Vitrifiers	121
37	Blood Legion	119
37	Wyld Stallyns	119
37	Foreplay Above the Table	119
37	Just Good Enough	119
41	Witiots	118
42	Sexual Chocalate	116
42	Slapsgiving	116
44	Who R Those Guys	115
45	Arrondissements of Ouagadougou	114
46	Hookers and Blackjack	113
46	Fat, Drunk, and Stupid	113
48	Southpaw Fish	112
48	Might Have a Clue	112
50	Fan Club	111
51	Momentary Lapse of Reason	110
51	Charlie and the Vodka Factory	110
53	Captain Awesome and the Wonder Friends	109
53	Can’t Buy a Thrill	109
53	Aahhh!! Real Munsters	109
53	H.R. Puff ‘n’ Stuff	109
57	Quality Quesswork	108
57	Harsh Reality	108
59	Illuminati	105
60	North Country	104
61	Uncles with Benefits	103
61	High School Prom	103
63	Hoboken Squat Cobbler	102
63	Plugging the A-Gap	102
65	Breakfast for Dinner	101
65	En Fuego	101
67	Think Before You Drink	100
67	Comfortably Dum	100
67	Fourth Place	100
67	Dire Wolves	100
71	Bentley’s Buddies	99
72	Shakeweight	98
72	Teachers	98
74	Super NOVA	96
74	Smarty Pants	96
74	Syn Storm	96
74	Better Side of the River	96
78	Sad and Demented but Social	95
78	Pugalicious	95
78	Obscure References	95
81	Charging Our Fireballs	94
81	Show Us On the Doll	94
83	We Drink and We Know Things	93
84	No Bueno	92
84	B.A. Barracus	92
84	Singing Inferno	92
87	Your Mom	91
88	Faith Plus One	90
88	Indians	90
90	Half Nelsons	89
91	Tequila Mockingbird	88
91	The Gang Ruins Trivia	88
93	Steven Hawking School of Dance	86
94	Gryffindorks	85
95	Secret Garden, Hidden Cucumber	84
96	Probably Worth a Google	83
96	Gold Team	83
96	Sack of Marbles	83
99	My Favorite Team	78
100	Not Your Team	77
101	My Harry Potter Has Hogwarts	75
102	Cranius Maximum	74
103	Pi	72
104	Rural Jurors	69
105	Axl’s Doghouse	67
105	Simple Minds	67
107	Crystal Methodists	62
108	Dirty Mike and the Boys	59
109	TGLC	57
109	Les Quizzerables	57
111	Multiple Scoregasms	49
112	Trivia Newton John	43
113	Gap Band	34
114	FNQ	27