Week 1 of the 2011 Elbo Room Spring Trivia Tournament

Birds flying high
You know how I feel
Sun in the sky
You know how I feel
Breeze driftin’ on by
You know how I feel
It’s a new dawn
It’s a new day
It’s a new life
For me
And I’m feeling good

(CUE HORNS AND ORCHESTRA!!)

That’s right. I’m treating this tournament as a new day. A new chance to win $1000 for my Street Academy trivia team.

This is the start of a new 13-week tournament. Top eight teams get in. The finals will take place some time in late May.

So it’s the start of a new tournament, but my Street Academy trivia crew Jeremy and Alexis were back in gear and ready to go.  And right off the bat, we started hitting the questions left and rihgt.  Thanks to Alexis being a chem major, we knew the chemical symbol for tungsten (W); Jeremy knew the Japanese car manufacturer who produces the Infiniti (Nissan), and I knew the last NFL team for which Thurman Thomas suited up (the Dolphins).  So we had the lead at halftime, and won the free pitcher of beer.

But in the second half, we started getting a bit of clowning.  And yes, although the other teams have pretty much let “the map incident” go by the wayside, trivia host General James felt like throwing in a few last-minute good-natured jibes.  See, question 12 started out with – “What country borders the following two South American countries – Chuck, you have a map over there?”

Okay, General, that was funny.  Sort of.

We got the answer right.  Then, the next question involved the country of birth for Dave Matthews.  Which, of course, is South Africa.  Or, as General James called it, “The other ‘South’ country.”

Yeah yeah, laugh it up.

Now comes the quadruple bonus.  “Chuck, you got a map of Australia there?” he asked.

Someone’s about to have a map of Converse in about five seconds.

Anyways, we were able to name the four states in Australia that did not have “Australia” in their name (Queensland, Victoria, New South Wales and Tasmania), and we were off to the races.

After nineteen questions, we had a two-point lead over Get That Poison Out and a four-point lead over Woo Hoo a Go Go.

The category was “Corporate sponsorship.”

We bet enough to try to lock out the second-place team.

“What telecommunications company has been the corporate sponsor of an arena in Kansas City since 2007?”

Oh great.  We didn’t know.  For some reason, I thought it was a Time Warner arena.

Other people wrote down Verizon, T-Mobile, Qualcomm… but the answer was Sprint.

A couple of teams had Sprint, others scored on safe bets.  And Get That Poison Out earned the first win of the tournament, while Woo Hoo a Go Go took second place and the Skidmarks – by way of a one-point safe bet – claimed third place and one playoff point.

So here’s the standings after one week. The top eight teams are listed above the “CUT LINE”; if the tournament ended today, those would be the eight teams that can play in the championship round. Any team with a star in the box marked “Finals” has mathematically qualified for the money round, no matter how they do for the rest of the tournament.

Elbo Room Trivia Standings – Week 1

	Trivia Team	Points	Totals	FINALS
1	Get That Poison Out	5	5
2	Woo Hoo a Go Go	3	3
3	Skidmarks	1	1

And only the top eight teams will make it into the final tournament round on May 26, 2011. Any team in ninth place or below will not make the cut. So teams now have to keep playing and avoid the dreaded cut line.

One week down. Twelve weeks to go.