TUESDAY’S STATS AND FACTS (82 teams across 10 venues):

–> Highest Overall Score:  Sofa King Smart (Quincy’s South) with 171

** Two weeks in a row with the overall high score **

–> Highest Score after Round 4: Capitol City Goofballs (Capitol City Brewing) and Einhorn is Finkle (FireFlies) with 161

–> Highest First Half Score: Eight teams tied with 88

–> Perfect 21 (correct on all wagers and final): Sofa King Smart, Wiseacres (Champion Billiards), What Could Go Wrong? (Cugini’s), Poovey Farms (Tilted Kilt)

–> Our halftime page featured pictures of former Oscar hosts, which played slightly easier than normal.  The average score hit 17.9, with 16% of our teams scoring a perfect 20 points.

–> On the flip side, the 6-4-2 question featured an extremely difficult six-point clue, asking for which U.S. state is the namesake for a portion of a boat.  Only ONE TEAM (Einhorn is Finkle) knew that we were talking about Texas (or ‘a Texas’ in this case).

TONIGHT’S FINAL QUESTION (37.8% success rate):

–> At nearly 3,000 miles, which African country has the longest total coastline? (you’ll find the answer later in this blog)

Capitol City Brewing in Arlington, VA

When assembling a truly competitive trivia squad, one ought to consider not just diversity in subject strengths (every team needs a “sports guy/gal”, etc.) but also age groups!  This was especially apparent with our halftime picture round, which called on players to identify such back-in-the-day celebs as Jack Benny, Will Rogers, and Bob Hope.  Teams dominated by “90’s kids” were thrown a bit, but most correctly figured out the common bond: that they had all hosted the Oscars.  But my point is: it pays to have one or two older folks at your table!

Speaking of which, I was made to feel absolutely ancient (at the age of 31!) by a team that missed the “Hanson brewery” question – because they were all too young to remember the band Hanson!  Just… wow.  I need to start pricing dentures.

Your recap of the night’s events: Fourteen teams came out to play, including the Capitol City Goofballs, returning champs and recent top-five finishers in Sunday’s World Series!  After the halftime sheet, the Goofballs were locked in a three-way tie for first place with Show Me on the Doll and ALL CAPS, with the Valley Girls trailing by just one point.  The third round tested the teams’ knowledge of state flags, the NBA, and British literature, which caused ALL CAPS to stumble but otherwise left the scoreboard basically unchanged.  Going into the Final, the Goofballs had a lead of only three points above the second-place team; S.M.o.t.D., the Valley Girls, Three Million People, and Green Machine were all in strong positions.

The Final hinged on the African country with the longest coastline – many teams plausibly guessed South Africa, which is actually third on the list.  (Somalia is #2.)  The right answer is Madagascar!  The Goofballs and Valley Girls lost some ground, allowing Show Me on the Doll to lock down the first win of Season XV, and ALL CAPS made an improbable jump back into the winner’s circle!  Your top three:

First Place:  Show Me on the Doll

Second Place:  Three Million People

Third Place:  ALL CAPS

Next week’s first category:  The Rolling Stones

Champion Billiards in Frederick, MD

It was the first night of Pour House Trivia’s Season XV here at Champion Billiards in Frederick, and if tonight was any indication, it’s going to be a damn fine season!  We experienced lots of highs and lows, and even some late game shifts in the standings!  I love it when the winners are not a foregone conclusion!  It just goes to show you that you need to be on your toes for all 22 questions, there is no room to slack!  Before we get to tonight’s final standings, we need to shoe much love to And We’re All Out of Bubblegum for placing sixth at this weekend’s World Series, and to Keith who was manning Power Vacuum, who had their best finish ever with the third place prize!  Superstars!  I am humbled by your presence!

Most of our teams were able to come up with Madagascar as tonight’s final answer, and that left our evening’s standings as follows:

The Other Sarah took third place, moving up after hitting the final!

The solo team of Newton’s Minion finished in second!

First place went to a familiar name in deed: Wiseacres!  I fully support the name throwback – it’s nice to see it up there again!

Next week’s first category:  City Namesakes

~ Sam

Cugini’s Restaurant in Poolesville, MD

It was our first night of Pour House Trivia Season XV here at Cugini’s in Poolesville, and we had a packed dining room for the inaugural game.  Our first round featured a rare Middle-earth weapon, a reminder that there are no fouls in hockey, and this famous cartoon duo:

Our second round weaved its way through the National Anthem, some optical issues, and some elder members of People Magazine’s “Sexiest Man Alive”.  The third round proved to be a bit tougher, as some teams missed answers when asked about this state flag:

Yes, the only U.S. with a primarily yellow flag is New Mexico!  Props to the teams that nailed that one, as well as those that remembered which Bronte sister wrote “Wuthering Heights”.  The final round reminded us how fleeting fame came be as Jon Hamm’s career has been reduced to tax service commercials; it also reminded us to be wary around a certain former U.S. Vice President when a firearm is involved.

After our geographic-themed final, it took a tiebreaker to settle out top two spots!  Here are the final results of tonight’s action:

Orioles Nest in Frederick, MD

Tonight we started the new season of Pour House Trivia with a question about “Futurama”.  We had plenty of familiar faces under new names, which is always part of the fun of every new season.  The audio question for tonight was about Super Bowl National Anthem performers.  Teams did really well recognizing Billy Joel and Whitney Houston, but Cher was a bit more elusive.  The halftime page today asked about ten different celebrities who were all linked by a hidden theme, which was that they all hosted the Oscars.  We also asked teams to match military bases to the states in which they are located.

In the second half, things got a bit tougher.  One example was the State Flags question, which ended up being split almost 50/50 with high wagers on both sides.  The game ended up with a tough final question.  About half of the teams got it right, and scores shifted some from it.  Third place tonight went to Fill Stick, second went to the Book Club Babes (welcome back!!), and the win tonight went to Suck It Trebek!

Next week we start with a question about Super Bowl Halftime Shows, so study up!  I’ll see you all then!

Until next time,

~ Chad

Tilted Kilt in Frederick, MD

At the Tilted Kilt in Frederick, we kicked off Season XV of Pour House Trivia with a bunch of new teams squaring off against our defending House Champions.  Hopefully, some team can offer some competition to the champs, who steamrolled this game and came away with the win.

First Place:  Poovey Farms

Second Place: The Trivia Knight

Third Place: Chimmy Chonga

Poovey Farms selected The Life Cycle of the Butterfly as next week’s first category.  Study up – by asking a 6 year old, I suppose – and I’ll see you next week.

~ Nick

FireFlies in Alexandria, VA

It is nearly impossible to determine how many new teams we’ve brought to Pour House Trivia here at FireFlies — given that nearly everyone changed their name for Season XV (including last season’s House Champs!).  What’s up with that?  I personally think it’s bad luck. A pox upon their champion house.

A lovely, moderate evening preceded a lovely, mostly moderate game of trivia.  That is, until I was required to ask what happened to Harry Whittington, and why.  I’ll admit it: I broke into tears of laughter.  It was nearly impossible for me to get the question out.  All being said and done, nearly everyone answered correctly: namely, that he had been shot in the face by Dick Cheney.  Particularly astute teams pointed out the fact that Mr. Whittington actually apologized for being shot in the face by the then-Vice President.  I was laughing throughout.

The finalé question posed quite the quandary (notice the alliteration? LINGUISTS RULE): the African country with the most coastline is, in fact, Madagascar.  SOOOO many South Africa guesses.  This definitely moved the needle, and, sadly, put venue favorites BarFlies out of the money by ONE POINT.  Nonetheless, they were given a proper farewell by all in the venue, including myself.  We will miss them at Fireflies.

Our top finishers tonight:

First Place:  Einhorn is Finkle, and Finkle is Einhorn

Second Place:  Eric Who? (who tried, unsuccessfully, to change their name for Season XV)

Third Place:  Neighbor Trouble

Fair Winds to BarFlies, and Following Seas to everyone else,

~  Chief

Next week’s first category: Michael Bolton (The winning team is determined to torture us with terrible categories so long as they win this season. I preferred it when everything was baseball-related, natch.)

Blue Parrott in St. Petersburg, FL

Quincy’s South in Rockville, MD

At Quincy’s South in Rockville, a win streak by Wingardium Triviosa was broken last week and as we start the new season, and we would see if WT was ready to build it back up again.  Season XV began with almost all of our regular teams returning, and even some old teams that we haven’t seen in a bit.  Catching Planes made a triumphant return tonight after missing Season XIV; surely they were ready to compete here again against a tough field!

At the half we had a three-way tie for first place between weekly favorites Sofa King Smart, a sporadic competitor in Screaming Death Monkey, and an unexpected early game for Balls Out (formerly Team Brio).  These three teams were tied at #1 for the time being, but the second half might not be so kind.

Dropping a few points behind, it was Screaming Death Monkey who remained in the lead after the third and fourth rounds, looking to lock in a victory with a correct response on the final.  Lots of teams close near the top, the winners would certainly need to nail the final.  Well, unfortunately for SDM, they missed it, leaving room for some teams to leap frog them for the lead.  Sofa King Smart, who was in second place, got the help they needed, got the final right, and would win this game tonight!

In second place, a jump up for Balls Out after falling behind; they got the final correct and were able to finish in the money!  Third place went to Screaming Death Monkey, who dropped back but were able to win a tie breaker over Dr. Emo.  That’s a wrap, back next week for more action!