Tuesday Night Trivia From the Top of Aconcagua!

Three of our 15 Tuesday venues sported crowds of more than a dozen teams, but a pair of wicked geography questions late in the game separated the leaders from the pack.  Overall, we welcomed 111 teams across 16 venues:

ROUND 1:

Tuesday’s game began with a question on the history of Chicago (and its current mayor Rahm Emanuel), as well as the origins of the Frisbee and this TV sitcom:

The toughest question of the first round was a Triple 50/50 question on American Literature, as we asked our teams to tell us whether or not the following stories were written by Nathaniel Hawthorne or Mark Twain: “The House of the Seven Gables”, “Pudd’nhead Wilson”, and “Young Goodman Brown”.  About half of our teams earned bonus points by knowing that “Pudd’nhead Wilson” was the only book of the three written by Mark Twain.  The first round was a cinch for most teams, as a whopping 21 perfect scores were recorded across the board.

ROUND 2:

The wave of confidence came crashing down rather quickly in Tuesday’s second round, as the audio question was one of the more difficult we had seen in recent memory.  Asked to name song titles which included the word “Time”, our teams performed fairly well by recognizing two 1980s hits: “The Longest Time” by Billy Joel and “Party All the Time” by Eddie Murphy.  Only a handful of teams could name “Better in Time” by Leona Lewis, leading to just five teams earning bonus points.  Later, we asked our teams to name the only country which borders both Nicaragua and Panama:

After a nice plate of Eggs Benedict Cumberbatch in our Last Word / First Word category, we closed with a question on this former MLB star who will be enshrined in Cooperstown later this year:

While most of our teams recognized the career exploits of former Braves star Chipper Jones, only 17% of the field earned two bonus points by knowing that his real name is Larry.  Thanks to the first question, we did not see any perfect scores in the second round.

HALFTIME:

The top half of Tuesday’s halftime round featured pictures of items with “LOVE” in their names, while the bottom half asked our teams to name the first nine countries to host the Winter Olympics.  After an easier halftime round last week, this version ZERO yielded perfect scores (though six teams notched 19 points), while the overall average score came in at just 13.9 points.  Here are Tuesday’s top scores at the halftime break:

• Capitol City Goofballs (Capitol City Brewing):  88
• How Did I Get Here? (Greene Growlers):  87
• Smarty Pants (P.I.G.S. BBQ):  87
• Wiseacres (Champion Billiards):  86
• Pax (Cugini’s):  85
• Stink Floyd (Monkey La La):  85

ROUND 3:

Tuesday’s third round began with a Mythology question on the ‘Queen of the Gods’: Hera (Greek) and Juno (Roman).  We continued with an Oscar-themed Three Clues question, looking for a particular foreign-born actor:

CLUE 1: Born in the Canadian province of New Brunswick, this 82-year old actor has appeared in over 130 feature films.

CLUE 2: Despite having never received an Oscar nomination for his acting, he will be given an Honorary Oscar later this year.

Very few teams ventured a guess at this point, but 12% of the field snagged two bonus points with an early correct answer.  More than half of our teams eventually earned points thanks to this third clue:

CLUE 3: His film credits include “Animal House”, “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”, and “The Hunger Games” franchise.

In addition, he also appeared in the films “The Dirty Dozen”, “M*A*S*H”, and “Ordinary People”.  The Canadian in question is Donald Sutherland.  Next up, we got our timing down with a question on circadian rhythms.  With several teams on the verge of a perfect third round, the final question proved to be quite a stumper.  Despite occupying the top spot on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart for the last three weeks, only 13% of our teams knew that the current #1 song in the country is from rapper Drake.  As a result, the third round also yielded zero perfect scores.

6-4-2 QUESTION:

After a slew of Winter Olympics questions over the last week, we asked a question regarding the Summer Olympics in our 6-4-2 question:

–> Since its introduction at the 1988 Summer Olympics, which sport has seen 28 out of a possible 32 gold medals won by China?

About one-third of our teams earned the full six points with the correct answer of China.

ROUND 4:

Tuesday’s final round featured the first of two extremely difficult geography questions, though this one seemed innocuous from the start:

–>  What country contains both South America’s highest and lowest points?

With the highest peaks of the Andes mountains running along the border of Chile and Argentina, you would think that (at worst) the correct answer percentage for this question would fall close to 50%.  That was not the case tonight, as only nine teams submitted the correct answer of Argentina, which is home to Mount Aconcagua.  We continued with a question on British History, namely former Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain:

Thanks to the geography question, we did not see any perfect scores in Tuesday’s final round.  Here are Tuesday’s top scores after four rounds of play:

• Fat, Drunk, and Stupid (Champion Billiards):  161
• How Did I Get Here? (Greene Growlers):  157
• Stink Floyd (Monkey La La):  155
• Capitol City Goofballs (Capitol City Brewing):  154
• Bluth Frozen Banana Hammocks (Greene Growlers):  152

FINAL QUESTION (24.4% success rate):

–> Among the U.S. state capitals which are also the most populous city in their respective home state, which one comes last alphabetically?

Less than one-quarter of our teams answered correctly with Salt Lake City.  Congratulations to How Did I Get Here? (Greene Growlers), as the only team to achieve a Perfect 21 tonight by correctly answering every wagering question.  Here are the highest overall scores from Tuesday night:

• How Did I Get Here? (Greene Growlers):  165
• Nasty Neutrons (Greene Growlers):  163
• Fat, Drunk, and Stupid (Champion Billiards):  163
• Mindbenders (Topgolf- Ashburn):  162
• Penn State (Quincy’s South):  162
• Last Week’s Winners (Cugini’s):  161
• Drink Apple Juice, the O.J. Will Kill You (Quincy’s South):  161
• Smarty Pants (P.I.G.S. BBQ):  161
• Pax (Cugini’s):  160
• Screaming Death Monkey (Quincy’s South):  160

TONIGHT’S WINNERS:

Capitol City Brewing in Arlington, VA:  Capitol City Goofballs  (Next week’s first category: Olympic Figure Skating)

Champion Billiards in Frederick, MD:  Fat, Drunk, and Stupid  (Next week’s first category: “Kelly’s Heroes”)

Cugini’s in Poolesville, MD:  Last Week’s Winners  (Next week’s first category: World Flags)

Senor Tequila’s in Germantown, MD:  The Fan Club  ** 20 WINS IN A ROW! **  (Next week’s first category: Nintendo Games)

Shuckin’ Shack in Frederick, MD:  Duchess  ** SHUCKIN’ SHACK WILL BE ON HIATUS FOR THE NEXT SEVERAL WEEKS – STAY TUNED FOR UPDATES **

Topgolf in Ashburn, VA:  Mindbenders  (Next week’s first category: Judi Dench)

The Block in Annandale, VA:  Five Dollar Massage  (Next week’s first category: Settlers of Catan)

Greene Growlers in Gaithersburg, MD:  How Did I Get Here?  (Next week’s first category: New York Yankees)

P.I.G.S. BBQ in Frederick, MD:  Smarty Pants  (Next week’s first category: 1990s One-Hit Wonders – AUDIO)

Upper Deck in Mount Airy, MD:  We Thought This Was Speed Dating  (Next week’s first category: “Friends”)

Olney Winery in Olney, MD:  Zin It to Win It  (NEXT GAME ON MARCH 6 – First category: “Hamilton”)

Blue Parrott in St. Petersburg, FL:  NO GAME THIS WEEK  (Next week’s first category: New York Yankees History)

Monkey La La in Frederick, MD:  Stink Floyd  (Next week’s first category: Juggalos)

Quincy’s South in Rockville, MD:  Penn State  (Next week’s first category: Heisman Trophy Winners)

Casa Tequila in Lovettsville, VA:  Virgine-ya is For Lovers  (Next week’s first category: “Resident Evil” video games)

Outta the Way Cafe in Derwood, MD:  LIH  (Next week’s first category: Baltimore Orioles)