Although I’ve been promoting the results of the Elbo Room Trivia Tournament for a long time, the Elbo Room game is not the only trivia locale where big money can be won or lost. Legends on Lark is currently hosting a Wednesday night tournament where there’s some big bucks on tap. And over at Graney’s last Monday night, Jim Cooper of the Tres Hombres trivia team won a random draw after a trivia match and snagged two luxury box seats, airfare and accomodations at next weekend’s Cowboys – Bills game in Dallas. Okay, most other times the trivia winner can get free pizza or beer or a gift card. But there are nights when there are some seriously swank grand prizes out there.
Meanwhile, it’s another night of competitive team trivia at the Elbo Room. And last night, a lot of teams took the night off. Neither Team Schooled nor Get That Poison Out were in the building, and Woo Hoo A Go Go was down to one member – the rest of the teams, being made up of lawyers, were participating in a mock trial competition and were unavailable for the evening. I was actually down to one member as well, Jeremy and Alexis were not able to attend.
That didn’t mean, however, that there wasn’t plenty of competition. Team Fist brought their normal contingent of players, and another squad – affectionately calling themselves “The Haterzz” – were ready to play.
Let’s start off by what I missed. I thought that the Seattle grunge rock band whose lead singer killed himself via drug overdose in 2002 was Blind Melon; it was Alice in Chains (apparently Blind Melon’s lead singer died in 1995 – oops). I also did not know that Mexico won a war in 1862 over France, I originally wrote down that they defeated the Republic of Texas, thinking the 1862 battle involved the Alamo.
But those were road bumps against the rest of the night. I knew the year that the TV show Sons of Anarchy debuted (2008), the last three baseball teams to win exactly two World Series in a row (Toronto, the Yankees and Cincinnati), and the decade of birth for Bob Barker. Old Bob came from the 1920’s, where even back then he was making sure to let everyone know to spay and neuter their pets.
After 19 questions, Street Academy had 96 points, while the Haterzz had 80 and Team Fist had 48. The final question was “U.S. Postage.”
I looked at the scores. This is a marathon trivia tournament. Playoff points are important, ’tis true, but I need to get the playoff points and not bet a stupid amount. I figured that if the Haterzz got this answer right, and if Team Fist got this answer right, and they each bet the entire point total, I could bet zero and still finish the night with a second-place tie.
Yep. I put a bet of zero on the slip and handed it up.
I will now wait for the obligatory shouts of “Noballz, Noballz!” from the other trivia teams.
The final question was – “Although postage goes up nearly every year, at one time it was three cents to mail a letter. That lasted for about 20 years, until what decade, when the postage went up to four cents a letter?”
Well, I remember four-cent stamps appearing in the 1960’s, and since I’m just betting conservatively, I didn’t care if the postage changed over in the year 50,000,000 B.C. So I wrote down 1960’s and handed in my answer.
Apparently Team Fist decided that maybe it was the year 50,000,000 B.C. – they handed their slip in with that answer, as well as with doodles of dinosaurs and pterodactyls on the slip. Har har.
Well, the answer was actually the 1950s, and one team actually got it right.
It was the Haterzz.
The who?
No, really, the who?
Other than that, the conservative bets by Team Fist and Street Academy earned us playoff points as well, so it’s still a good night all around.
So here’s the standings after ten weeks. 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.
| Trivia Team | Points | Totals | FINALS | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Team Schooled | 33 | ★ | |
| 2 | Street Academy | 3 | 19 | |
| 3 | Woo Hoo a Go Go | 1 | 15 | |
| 4 | Team Fist | 10 | ||
| 5 | Get That Poison Out | 7 | ||
| 6 | The Haterzz | 5 | 5 | |
| 7 | The Polanskis | 3 | ||
| 8 | Skidmarks | 1 |
And only the top eight teams will make it into the final tournament round. 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.
Ten weeks down. Ten weeks left to go.
Chuck The Writer 
you should have given us your beer!
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