QUIZ RECAP

Hark! 2019 has finally arrived and we had a smashing night of trivia festivities to welcome in the new year. So put your dreadful memories of 2018 aside and read on to see how this one might be shaping up to be the Year of Trivia.

Despite a two-week break in the action we had a huge turnout for my return performance: 7 Teams and a total of 23 players. We had Hair of the Dog, The NY Necks, Have you met Paprika?, Probably Last Place, Hamm's A Make Her Dance, The Curd-ashians, and Iodine Free. And it was a close battle the whole night as we had at least one tie score in every single round, including a shocking 4 rounds where 3-teams were all tied with the exact same point totals.

Things started off with a smattering of topics in our General Knowledge Round 1 where teams were asked questions ranging from Alexandre Dumas related Candy Bars (Three Musketeers) to the alcoholic ingredients in a sangria (Red wine and brandy). But no one was able to correctly answer our Facebook Question of the Day about the Potemkin Stairs, which was as an instructive reminder that following us on social media can help earn you some sweet points that you wouldn't otherwise get.

In our Visual Round 2 teams were tasked with matching sci-fi heroines with the films they came from. This ended up being a easy round for our teams as they racked up an average accuracy of 71%. It could have been even higher but unfortunately only one team was able to correctly identify the picture of Jenny Agutter as Jessica 6 from Logan's Run. That morsel of 70s pop-culture knowledge ended up being one of the night's most crucial moments, as it allowed the Curd-ashians to successfully Double or Nothing for an eye-popping 16 points and a strong early lead for 1st Place at 21 points.

2nd Place was held by Iodine Free at 10 points, but we had a 3-way tie for 3rd Place between The NY Necks, Have you met Paprika?, and Hamm's a Maker Her Dance at 8 points. 4th place was also tied at 7 points between Hair of the Dog and Probably Last Place.

Round 3 is always a themed round here at King Trivia and this week's theme was "Port of Call". But don't make the mistake of assuming this was a round only rewarding the sailors in our midst; while it's true we had traditional nautical questions, (The term port refers to what side of a ship? Left) we also had some pop culture questions to even the playing field (Who played Al Pacino's stepdaughter in Heat? Natalie Portman). But the best question of the round (Port Wine originates from what country?) tricked many of teams who mistakenly thought the Port reference was only in the question but it ended up being in the answer as well (Portugal).

Round 4 is traditionally our Guess Who? round but we've been experimenting with Guess Where? as of late. Although no one could decipher the 10-point clue mentioning George Washington's crossing of the site during the Revolutionary War, two teams took a calculated risk to attempt to guess the answer after the 8-point clue revealed the location to be a building with its own zip code and 1st place result in polls about Americans' favorite architecture. Unfortunately their guess of The White House was premature, as the 6-point clue revealed the building was privately owned and contained observation decks. Some teams were able to decipher the famous skyscraper, but most had to wait for the more blunt 4-point clue revealing it's cameos in movies like King Kong, at which point everyone submitted The Empire State Building.

Before heading into Round 5 let's get you an update on where the teams stood at this point in the evening's contest. The Curd-ashians remained in 1st Place with 30 points, and we also had another 3-way tie, this time for 2nd Place, between Hair of the Dog, The NY Necks, and Hamm's a Maker Her Dance at 17 points. 3rd Place was held by Have you met Paprika? at 16 points, 4th was Iodine Free at 15, and the surprisingly prescient Probably Last Place held true to their moniker with 9 points and last place.

This was, shall we say, a less than positively received Round 5, as our normally clever Find the Connection round ended up being conditioned around more obtuse leaps of logic. Although teams didn't struggle much with answering the pretty straightforward questions ("What film won the Golden Globe for best animated film? Spider-man: Into the Spider-verse". "What Ernest Hemingway Novel was based on his experiences in WWI? A Farewell to Arms"), finding the connection between them all was arguably an impossible task. I faced down a raucous eruption of groans and complaints as I revealed the connection was Types of Chairs. As I pleaded with teams to remember that I don't write the questions, I walked them through each annoying answer excerpt that *technically* satisfied this connection: A Farewell to Arm(chair)s, Spider-Man(chair), Beach(chair) Volleball, and even Brooklyn Deck(chair)er.

Luckily for you, the Round 6 Handout was a fun romp for everyone as teams got to match together real TV shows with the fake-TV shows contained within them (Pawnee Today: Parks and Recreation, or The Girlie Show: 30 Rock). But there were some binge-watchers among you who ended up overestimating their own expertise, as both Probably Last Place and Iodine Free narrowly failed to succeed in their Double or Nothing attempts (both missed identifying Due North with Insecure).

To close out this party I read off the week's Final Round prompt, a love-letter to all the geographers out there:

What are the 10 States with the longest ocean coastlines?

It shocked most of our teams to learn that Washington didn't crack the Top 10, having lost out to Massachusetts and Maine. But otherwise our teams all nailed this closing round with an average accuracy of 80%.

And although most of the teams ended up finally breaking free from the perennial ties that plagued the rest of the night, 3rd Place was still tied between Hair of the Dog and Hamm's a Make Her Dance at 36 points. Our Tie Breaking Question asked the two teams to guess the amount of money the Cowardly Lion suit from The Wizard of Oz sold for at auction ($3,070,000). Hamm's a Maker Her Dance was closest at $1.2 million, so they won the night's 3rd place prizes, while Hair of the Dog took 4th, and Iodine Free took 5th at 21 points.

Second Place was earned by The NY Necks at 38 points, and in a result that didn't surprise the rest of the room, the Curd-ashians continued their unchallenged march of dominance to 1st Place with a solid 50-points. I also decided to give out a consolation prize of a giant beer glass to our last place finishers for correctly guessing that they would indeed be Probably Last Place.

Thanks to everyone who came out to Petoskey's to ring in the new year and celebrate camaraderie with friends and family. Together we all helped to make the world just a little bit more fun to live in. I'll be back next Tuesday at 8PM, I hope to see some new and familiar faces.