Week 16 of the 2010 Elbo Room Trivia Tournament

Last night, only six teams showed up for the final round of the Elbo Room Trivia Tournament.  The last variable in terms of the standings, Big Red Machine, arrived and qualified, via the attendance rule (12 out of 16 games) for the final round next Thursday.  There.  Mystery over.

Now let’s play the game.

Actually, the first half of the game was akin to “Turn Back the Clock” night in a baseball game.

Let me explain.

In 1990, the day after they hosted the All-Star Game, the Chicago White Sox played a “Turn Back the Clock Night” contest against the Milwaukee Brewers.  The Sox decorated Comiskey Park to resemble how the stadium looked in 1917; the Sox wore replica uniforms from that era; and they actually used megaphones to provide announcements.

Now nobody retrofitted the Elbo Room to look like a Prohibition-era speakeasy; and I didn’t see trivia host General James sporting a zoot suit; but we did go without a microphone for the first half of trivia.  Not by choice, mind you – the microphone was malfunctioning, forcing General James to walk to each table and give the questions and answers and scoring updates.  The microphone was fixed by halftime, at which point Street Academy had a nice lead.

In fact, with the exception of burning the double-play option – and failing – on the question of which expansion-era baseball team reached the playoffs in the shortest amount of time from its maiden season, I went with the Rockies and the Marlins – and completely forgot that the Diamondbacks reached the playoffs in their second season of existence.  Oops.

Still I was able to rattle off the protagonists in the book Of Mice and Men (Lenny and George), the decade of the formation of the monument for the USS Arizona (1960’s), and the nationality of the first person to get “whacked” on the Sopranos (Czech).

At halftime, Jeremy and Alexis arrived at Elbo Room, having completed their game of Ultimate at the UAlbany campus (for the record, Jeremy’s team dominated their contest, while Alexis’ team went into overtime – and won their game).  Good stuff.  We then continued to pour on the pressure, nailing the quadruple-bonus question about the four NASCAR drivers with the most Cup championships (Richard Petty, Dale Earnhardt Sr., Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson), the actress who accepted an Oscar and a Golden Raspberry award in the same year (Sandra Bullock), and the final question of the night – the three-letter name of the hurricane that clobbered the Gulf Coast in 2008 (Hurricane Ike).

So after 16 weeks and a lot of heckling and teasing from my fellow trivia teams, Street Academy nailed the final question and took home the $25 Elbo Room gift certificate – and the 5 bonus points for the finals.

Oh, and I passed a suggestion to General James regarding the finals the next time the Elbo Room hosts the tournament.  Currently, the playoff points simply denote the top eight (well, in this case seven) teams for the final money game.  I pitched to the General that not only should those points rank the top eight players, but also that the points should actually count as a team’s starting points when the money tournament begins.  For example, if a team finishes the preliminary rounds with a total of 30 playoff points, then when the money round starts, that team should start the game with a score of 30.

General said he would think about that.

Personally, I think it would be a great idea – it would give meaning to the preliminary rounds, in that teams would be playing to earn points for the money round, rather than just play to earn points to qualify and then stop showing up.

And here’s the final seven teams, along with the playoff points they earned – for the money round this coming Thursday.

Elbo Room Trivia Standings – End Regular Season

	Trivia Team	Points	Totals
1	Con-Fear-Acy		27
2	Da Bears		23
3	Skidmarks	1	21
4	Woo Hoo a Go Go	3	20
5	Stern Fans		16
6	Big Red Machine		14
7	Street Academy	5	13

Next week – the money round.  Good luck to all.