Week 7 of the 2010 Elbo Room Trivia Tournament

Some things that people don’t understand about competitive team trivia in the Albany bar scene.  There’s plenty of trash-talking.

And most of it comes from the Skidmarks.

A little background.

The Skidmarks are a “legacy” team, meaning they were regulars when there were 30-40 teams playing every Tuesday night at Hooters in Crossgates Mall.  Hooters moved out of the mall in 2007, but many of the legacy teams have found residence as the “home teams” in various bars and restaurants in the Capital District.

In the early days of competitive team trivia, the Skidmarks usually were at the bottom of the pack in terms of scoring, and whatever the final question was, they would inevitably write down “Bob Saget” and laugh at their own joke.

But around six months ago, something started happening to the Skidmarks.

They started winning.

And they started getting brave.

And they started getting lucky.

And they added more teammates.  I think last night they had 10 people at the table, and that was low for them.

But it’s paid off, and the Skidmarks are actually atop the leader board on the Elbo Room trivia tournament.

With that in mind, if you’ve ever played against the Skidmarks, you immediately discover that they can be real annoying.  Especially if your team is named Stern Fans or Street Academy.

See, whenever the host mentions our team names, the Skidmarks boo and hiss and jeer as if we were the villains in an old movie serial.  Eventually we figured out that we were getting booed because our teams had actually WON the Trivia Bowl championship, and the Skidmarks haven’t.  So as far as they were concerned, we were the Evil Empire, we were the Yankees and the Steelers and Manchester United all rolled up into two teams.

If you’ve never seen their antics at a bar, you would think that the Skidmarks were just a bunch of jealous jerks.

But in their defense (and I can’t believe I’m typing the words “in their defense” in reference to the Skidmarks), they’re not really that bad a team.  They’re hardworking men and women, and they come to a bar to play trivia and have a good time.  So what if they happen to lead the standings and decide to greet me with a John Cena “You Can’t See Me” hand-wave in front of their faces?  So what if they cheer themselves when they’re running dead last at the half?

Yeah, it can get annoying.  But when people hear Skidmarks jeering and catcalling at me, I don’t think they’re looking over and seeing me do the Hulk Hogan cupping of the ear, or they hear me shout “Louder, I can’t hear you,” or “Next time can we get that in the key of C♯, please?” or something along those lines.  So I get their joking around.  They may heckle me, but at least they keep it clean.

Anyways, back to the trivia.  I ended up winning the half by nailing the 10-point question, “In what state did the comedy team of Abbott and Costello form?”  I had to take an educated guess on this one.  I knew Lou Costello was from Paterson, New Jersey (and now I’ve got that Fred Armisen Saturday Night Live caricature of our “beloved” NewYork State Governor shouting “NEW JUR-ZEEE!” at the television).  Whether the team was formed in New Jersey was another question entirely.  But I had already used up my double-chance option (going with both John Steinbeck and Pearl S. Buck on the author of the book “The Pearl”), so I wrote down New Jersey and hoped for the best.

The best got me a free pitcher of diet cola for leading at the half.

By the final question, I was in third place and there were several teams with decent scores.  The final question was April Fool’s Day.

I wagered a sizeable amount and hoped for the best.

“In 2009, Expedia.com offered $99 flights for one day only to what destination?”

Okay.  Process of elimination.  It can’t be a real place you can get to by an airplane now.  Or else people would sue Expedia.com out of existence when they found out the $99 flights were bogus.  So I had to think of desired destinations that someone could go to.  I started to writ down “Hell,” but then realized that you can get there by flying any Continental flight to Newark Liberty Airport.  So I went with the opposite choice and said Heaven.

Several people said the Moon.

One team said the North Pole.

And the answer … was Mars.

NOBODY GOT IT!

NOBODY!

So the three teams that earned points this week were teams that bet conservatively or played “chicken” bets or safe bets.

So Skidmarks picked up three more points, Stern Fans (who actually won a Trivia Bowl with a safe bet) got five, and Woo Hoo picked up another point.

So after seven weeks, here are the standings. There’s a new column called “attendance,” in which teams that show up each week receive a black star. Twelve black stars earn you a green star, meaning you have fulfilled attendance requirements (to be in the finals, you must attend 75% of the qualifying weeks). If your team has a “red star” next to your name, you are in danger of being disqualified for not showing up for the requisite 12 out of 16 weeks to qualify for the tournament. Teams with names struck through means that they have missed too many weeks and are no longer eligible to play in the tournament.

Elbo Room Trivia Standings – Week 7

	Trivia Team	Points	Totals	Attendance
1	Skidmarks	3	17	★★★★★★★
2	Da Bears		11	★★★★★★★
3	Stern Fans	5	10	★★★★★
T-4	Woo Hoo a Go Go	1	9	★★★★★★★
T-4	Con-Fear-Acy		9	★★★★★★★
6	Touched by an Uncle		3	★★★★
7	Street Academy		2	★★★★★★★
8	Tres Hombres		1	X
T-9	The Super Winners			★★★★
T-9	The Nature of Play			X
T-9	Big Red Machine			★★★★
T-9	The Wrong Guy			X
T-9	The Elbow			X
T-9	The Know-Nothings			X
T-9	Team Liz			X
T-9	The Irish Rovers			X
T-9	The Soloist			X
T-9	TNT			X
T-9	The Tex-Cal Connection			X
T-9	Jesse James’ Rejects			X
T-9	The Bruisers			X
T-9	Glenmont			X
T-9	REO			X
T-9	Powder Blue Productions			X

Remember, you have to play at least 75% of the weeks in the tournament to qualify for the final money round. 9 weeks left to go.