QUIZ RECAP

What better way to celebrate National Blonde Brownie Day than with an evening of trivia festivity at Petoskey's? Your intrepid host may be working some overtime as of late in his day job, but that couldn't stop me from bringing you a nice enjoyable evening full of facts. Tonight we had six teams competing for glory, LGBTBBQ, Cunning Stunts, Snowbirdz, Life Designers, The Wedge, and Dr. Chungus.

Things got started off a bit slow in our warm-up General Knowledge Round 1 where the teams combined for only an average of 50% accuracy. Much to my surprise, Football beat Broadway as more teams knew the professional soccer player Mohamed Salah than the infamous vice president Aaron Burr. Our Visual Round 2 asked teams to identify famous characters based on their hats, but only LGBTBBQ was able to recognize "Cappey", the talking hat accompanying Nintendo's famous plumber Mario in his latest game.

Our Theme Round 3 was "Thirsty Thorsday", asking players to work through a cornucopia of Thor related factoids, from thoraxes to NY Mets pitchers (Noah Syndergaard). The scores at this point in the evening had shaken out to narrow margins. In first place with 19 points was LGBTBBQ, followed by Life Designers with 14 points in second. Tied for third was Cunning Stunts and The Wedge at 13 points, followed by Snowbirdz at 11 points, and finally Dr. Chungus at 8 points.

Our Guess Who? Round 4 took the teams a few clues worth of information, but everyone immediately guessed Jennifer Aniston after our 6-point revealed her role in cult classic horror film Leprechaun and her Golden Globe nomination for the film Cake. Our fan favorite Find the Connection Round 5 had questions ranging from the supremely easy (What did God show Noah as a promise not to flood the Earth? Rainbow) to the supremely hard (What nickname did Stevie Wonder give to NBA star-dunker Darryl Dawkins? Chocolate Thunder). Perhaps that's why teams had a hard time deciphering the fact that it was types of cookies connecting all our answers together (unfortunately food was too general of an answer to qualify).

Heading into our final two rounds, LGBTBBQ managed to keep hold off their five point lead, remaining in First Place with 32 points. But the rest of the standings had shifted, for it was Cunning Stunts and Life Designers tied for second with 27 points. Third place was taken by The Wedge at 25 points, fourth was held Snowbirdz at 23, and Dr. Chungus decided to tap out from the night's competition having totaled only 13 points.

Handout Round 6 saw teams matching African countries with their most populated cities, and our teams put up a strongly respectable 80% accuracy. Unfortunately for Cunning Stunts though, their risky Double or Nothing attempt failed to pay off as it was only The Wedge that got all ten answers correct instead. This brought us to our Final Round question:

What are the 10 most popular pizza toppings? (As determined by Grubhub surveys)

We had two teams decide to take the Double or Nothing risk; Cunning Stunts wanted another crack and they were joined by Snowbirdz as well. Unfortunately for them, they failed in their gambit as they both missed our 10th most popular topping, spinach. There was some protestations about the purported accuracy of Grubhub's rankings, but those are the breaks.

In the end, LGBTBBQ finished the night where they started in 1st place and a final score of 47 points. The Wedge took second place at 44 points, followed by Life Designers in third place at 40 points. Fourth was taken by Snowbirdz at 32 points, fifth was taken by Cunning Stunts at 27. Had Cunning Stunts opted not to Double or Nothing in the last two rounds though, they would have had another 18 points which would have been enough for a Second Place finish at 45 points.

Is the glory of first place worth the risk of not finishing in the top three? Come by next Tuesday and maybe we can all help each other figure out the answer for yourselves. But for right now, your host is going to have some much needed sleep.

QUIZ RECAP

Petoskey's second night of trivia for 2019 wasn't quite as rambunctious as our first, but sometimes a calmer and more intimate affair is exactly what the doctor ordered. We had only three teams competing tonight: Space Whole Foods, Team Dental, and the Bingo Wing Superstarz. We also had a late entrant who joined up for our final few rounds in Mother's Day with 2 Dads who put up an impressive 70% accuracy for the rounds they were able to join in for.

But what of our other competitors? How did they fare throughout the night's affair? Things started off with a bang or a whimper depending on your point of view; every team destroyed our General Knowledge Round 1 with 100% accuracy. With layup questions like "What eating utensil made of bamboo was invented in China?" or "What is the capital of Washington", this may have been my fastest round of trivia ever. But in the end only Space Whole Foods was gutsy enough to Double or Nothing and get 12 points as opposed to 6. That's a good reminder that game strategy can sometimes matter just as much as your actual knowledge.

Our Visual Round 2 had our contestants matching pictures of famous TV hosts with their names, and this ended up being another easy round with an average accuracy of 80% among all our teams. But it was Round 3 where things really got interesting, with two teams opting to Double or Nothing. This was a fun Theme Round titled "Second is the best", where every answer had "to, too, two, 2, or tu" in it. From Toucans to Desmond Tutu, our players had no problem dispatching answers left and right. But it came down to our question about an Alabama college basketball playing rapper to determine the arc of this episode's plot. The answer we were looking for was not Tupac but 2 Chainz. While Dental suffered the sting of a 1-wrong answer Double or Nothing and zero points, Space Whole Foods capitalized on their early lead with yet another Double or Nothing.

This put our standings at the following: Space Whole Foods was way out in first with 32 points, Bingo Win Superstars in second at 17, and Dental back in third with 11. Was the night's contest looking to be all wrapped up before it even got started? Well, maybe not, for it was in our Guess Who? Round 4 that we had a sudden reversal of fortunes. Dental successfully guessed Sarah Silverman almost immediately after the 10-point clue, but Space Whole Foods mistakenly guessed Janeane Garofalo which cost them a point. This cut Space Whole Foods to only a 10 point lead, as the remaining teams were both tied at 21.

Things continued with a Shoe-Brand focused "Find the Connection" Round where the teams all managed to score an average accuracy of 70%. Unfortunately we then had a bit of a uninteresting Handout Round 6 in comparison to last week's fan favorite ("TV shows within TV shows"). Here teams were tasked with were merely guessing the missing initial from Celebrity Names, which was both straightforward and somewhat easy, as our teams posted 70% accuracy yet again, and they finished answering in just a few minutes.

Closing out the night was a much more entertaining Final Round titled "Ferrell Creatures". Our final question was:

What are 10 of the 12 highest grossing (US) Will Ferrell films, not adjusted for inflation?

We some surprisingly well-versed fans in the audience pulling up deep cuts like Everything Must Go and Stranger Than Fiction but alas, those admittedly much better films were beaten out by the likes of the Daddy's Home franchise. Of course we had some classics like Elf, Step Brothers, and Talladega Nights, but we also had some lesser known flicks like Megamind or The Other Guys. There were even some cameo only films like Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me.

In the end, Space Whole Foods held onto their lead and ended up in First Place with a strong 54 point finish. Bingo Wing Superstarz stayed on their tail all the way from Round 4 onwards, ending up just 10 points away in Second Place with 44 points. And Team Dental closed things out in Third Place at 36 points.

Thanks to all our competitors for helping to make our intimate little dinner together a fun contest of wits. I'll be here next week with a fresh batch of questions!

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.