And it all came down to one night. Eight trivia teams battled for twenty-two consecutive weeks. Every team had their ups and their downs. And now, it’s all about the money. I’m all right jack, keep your hands off of my stack. Don’t give me any of that do goody-good 
.
Eight teams in the bar. General James has the questions. And at a table for five is the Street Academy Trivia Team, starring my pals in the brain trust Jeremy, Alexis, Erin and Dennis. We’re ready to rock.
And we started off strong. Since the Elbo Room finals require each team to bet against their score after every five questions – rather than just the final question – we had jumped out to a big lead, thanks in part to us nailing the first “final” question: “Two years before the NBA was formed, a professional basketball league held its first championship in 1947, with what city winning the title?”
We thought. And then I remembered that it involved my Eastern League basketball research, and that the champion Philadelphia Warriors played against an all-star Eastern League team. I put down Philadelphia as an answer, and we were right.
As we approached the halfway mark, however, things started to come unglued. We did not know the director of the 1980’s movie Colors (we thought it was Sean Penn, it was in fact Dennis Hopper), and we did not know the band whose second album was Bridging the Gap (damn Black Eyed Peas). We burned a double on the year that Meredith Veiera took over for Katie Couric on the Today Show (we said 2007 and 2008, it was 2006, so we lost 20 points).
As we approached the third “final” question, we had 48 points and were in fourth place.
Go big or go home. There’s $2,000 on the line for first place. We bet it all.
“What South American country is third – ”
A ha. I figured Baker would have a question for this, so prior to the game, I printed out a map of South America and used it as the back page of my score sheet.
“- is third in population?”
Oh no. This map didn’t have population totals. We looked at the areas, and wrote down Peru.
Which was FOURTH in terms of population. The answer was Argentina.
And yes, all you Street Academy haters, we had zero points after three quarters of the game.
Let’s just say the wheels came off in four different directions.
And in the end, a team that had been around for ten years – a team that never won anything major in their trivia careers – a team that had at least 25 members at the table that night – a team known as the Skidmarks – finished the night with the high point total, and yes indeed the Skidmarks took the big prize. Team Schooled finished in second place and took the $500 cash.
So congratulations to the Skidmarks and to Team Schooled.
And thus ends the longest Elbo Room tournament in a long long while.
But rest assured, Street Academy will be back for the next tournament.
You can count on it.
Chuck The Writer 
The skidmards, though dominant had only 14 members at the table.
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you know, this is a time for celebration so i wont get too into this right now but i cant get past one thing you said here.
you printed out a map of south america to use it as the back of your score sheet? dude…that is CHEATING. you admit you did it because you had a feeling something about south america would be asked, which is not out of the realm of possibility, as we all know. there is often questions asking what country is biggest or next to certain other countries, etc. and you had A MAP OF SOUTH AMERICA WITH YOU. seriously chuck…between that and answer trading…not cool. thats all im gunna say about it.
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Yes, but you see Ryan…. even when I tried to think ahead… it didn’t work. So there. 🙂
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I. Am. Shocked.
Chuck, bringing a map to use is the same as bringing a World Almanac to use is the same as using your Blackberry. Your new name is Cheat Academy and the Trivia Bowl should have asterisks added to your “wins”. And your weight loss is probably because you’re off the juice.
Congratulations to the Skidmarks…it’s good to see an honest team that ALWAYS plays fair win one.
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Still Chuck, Gotta Call Bulls**it
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The Skidmarks are right, they should be celebrating this wonderful accomplishment. Each member should be thinking about how to spend their share of the winnings, which is about $20 each.
As for Chuck’s South America map, if there was no question about South America asked, you’d all be calling him an idiot. Other teams use scoresheets as well. Mama Skidmark has a note pad–who knows what is written down/hidden inside?? Could be nothing, but who knows.
Let’s also hope that Team Schooled gave the bartenders a cut of their winnings, being that they always asked them for help throughout the tournament. They could probably send Google some money too–who knows what they’re up to sitting in the back corner out of sight from the host.
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INTENT! Bringing a map with the intent of using it to find an answer is cheating.
I use a scoresheet, too…but trying to deflect attention by accusing other teams of cheating is poor form.
And I would only call Chuck an idiot if he cheated and then wrote about it on his blog.
What a scandal…
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Thank you hombre. This was the signature win we’ve been waiting to get under our belts. It took a while, but it feels good. Especially for the originals that have been around since day 1.
And yes its all about intent. The fact that the plan backfired means nothing. Bringing a sheet of paper to keep scores is fine. I welcome you to check our table out for cheaters because you wont find any. Unless wendy is that nutjob from da bears, who changed their team name out of embarassment, whereas ill bring a straight jacket with me instead.
As far as the number of people on our team, which seems to be a big topic of discussion, we can’t help it if we have more friends than you. We go to trivia for the competition as well as the company. We all have a good time and that’s all that matters. Trivia bowl had a limit of 8 and we went there with 8. And For the record, we didn’t even have the most people the other night.
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@6…Although your math is faulty it’s not about the money for every team…the Skidmarks table is crowded EVERY week. They don’t just stack up for money games. Only Chuck McNally, who blew the infamous Cheyenne, WY geography question at a previous tournament does that.
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Anyone know when the next tournament at the Elbo Room starts?
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I think it starts some time in late spring.
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I really wish they instituted limits on team sizes, it is less fun when a team has 14 people. They also need monitors for the finals. When Mem-o-rama had their last championship at the Sports Grille they had four monitors walking around checking to see if anyone was cheating. Had someone been looking at a map of South America they absolutely would have been caught. And the prizes we won (a bike, buffet for 25, a few gift cards) were nothing compared to $2,500. With that much money on the line Albany Team Trivia should be sending extra people to make sure there is no cheating.
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