Wednesday Trivia Gives Peace a Chance!

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June started off with a bang, as 112 local teams spent an evening putting their knowledge to the test at 12 Pour House Trivia venues.

FIRST ROUND:

Teams spent the opening round answering questions about the end of the Ellen talk show, letter- and legal-size paper lengths, and the Huy Fong Food Company’s variety of sriracha. A three-parter on the June sports calendar was the trickiest to score points on; 80% of the field correctly answered two of the three parts for wagering points, while one-third of teams got all three answers right for a two-point bonus. Included in that latter group were the sixteen teams that put up perfect scores in this round.

SECOND ROUND:

As usual, our audio question kicked off second-round play; a trio of songs that share names with MLB teams was a very successful point-scoring effort all around. The hardest bonus question in the round came on a query about the Coen brothers famous in the film world, with about a quarter of the field knowing that Frances McDormand (coincidentally, Joel Coen’s wife) has appeared in nine of the sibling duo’s films. The end of the round brought with it the most difficult wagering question of the first half:

  • Located on the Yucatan Peninsula, El Castillo is a 79-foot pyramid built by a civilization that flourished near the end of the first millennium A.D.  For your wager, either name this civilization or name the specific site at which El Castillo is located.

Wagering points were earned by 74% of teams that answered either Mayans or the Chichen Itza site on the Yucatan. A total of nine perfect scores were recorded by teams in the second round.

HALFTIME:

Halftime was pretty dang close to overall perfection with a page full of TV cast caricatures and fill-in-the-blank literary titles. The average score was a whopping 19.1 points out of 20, and a full 70 percent of the field had perfect pages. Maybe unsurprisingly, there were plenty of points on the halftime leaderboard:

THIRD ROUND:

Wednesday’s third round provided a 1-2-3 bonus combo, with three of the four toughest bonus questions found here. First off, a Three Clues question on the word vault saw only 10% of teams get the word right before the final clue. Later, a query on actress Jane Seymour‘s role as Bond girl Solitaire in the film Live and Let Die bring a two-point bonus to a game-low eight teams. Finally, the round ended on a trip to Europe’s Gulf of Bothnia, where 19 percent of teams knew it borders both Sweden and Finland. Tucked in between those bonus follies was the night’s hardest wagering question:

  • Also the official state hero of Connecticut, which American spy said I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country shortly before his execution by the British Army?

Exactly half of Wednesday’s teams identified Nathan Hale for their points. You might not be completely shocked to read that no perfect scores were attained in the third round.

FOURTH ROUND:

A lucky thirteen squads knew The Little Prince well enough to get the night’s 6-4-2 question about the fox right after just one clue for six points. The final regulation round began with a Triple 50/50 about birthday babes Marilyn Monroe and Heidi Klum, followed by a question on the amino acid (and apparent Thanksgiving sleep aid) tryptophan. Most of the bonus chances were more palatable here, but a question on Emily Brontë‘s sole published novel Wuthering Heights had both parts answered correctly by just 16% of the field. We trekked to the Billboard charts for the round’s hardest wagering question:

  • Duckworth is the real last name of which American rapper who recently topped the Billboard 200 album chart with the release of Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers?

That artist, Kendrick Lamar, was named by 51 percent of teams. Unlike the third round, we did have a single perfect score here: shoutout to Glad to Be Here (Memories) for being here for all 36 points. With only one final question separating teams from Wednesday trivia glory, these were the highest scores:

FINAL QUESTION (7.1% success rate):

  • Bearing the motto of United in Diversity, which organization was awarded the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize?

For its work over that year, the European Union earned Nobel Peace Prize honors in 2012. Only eight teams aced that question, but none of them was able to also snag the vaunted Perfect 21 for answering every wagering question correctly on Wednesday. These teams found themselves in the trivia Good Place:

WEDNESDAY’S WINNERS:

Moe’s Peyton Place in Springfield, VA: NO GAME  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Medical Terminology)

Valley Sports Grill in Middletown, MD: Smuttynose  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Lana Del Rey)

Belles’ Sports Bar in Frederick, MD: Flight Level Awesome  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Monty Python and the Holy Grail)

Memories Charcoal House in Mount Airy, MD: Sexual Chocolate  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: The Bad News Bears Roster)

GearHouse Brewing in Chambersburg, PA: Archived!  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: NCAA Softball)

TGI Fridays in Hagerstown, MD: Irish Beer Mafia  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Styx)

Idiom Brewing in Frederick, MD: Marco Polo and the Peanuts  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Sony PlayStation 2)

Axes and O’s in Sterling, VA: Dumb, Dumber, Dumbest  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Schitt’s Creek Season 3)

Hops N Shine in Alexandria, VA: Tar Heels  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: University of North Carolina)

Sully’s Pour House in Herndon, VA: Beer Necessities  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Pokemon)

Falling Branch Brewery in Street, MD: I’m Useless  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Famous Bills and Williams)

T. J. Stone’s in Alexandria, VA: I Don’t Know  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Nintendo 64 Games)

Craftworx Taproom in Gainesville, VA: Open For Quizness  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: 1990s Romantic Comedy Films)

Barstool Sportsbook in Charles Town, WV: Twizzlers  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: The Beach Boys)

Grape Escape in Gaithersburg, MD: D. C. Swampers  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: California Wines)

Mark’s Pub in Falls Church, VA: Fresh Off the U-Haul  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: The Dukes of Hazzard)