It took three tries, in writing that headline, to NOT type the words “Elbo Room.”
For years, I played in the Elbo Room big money tournament. My Street Academy trivia team won it twice, and came in second place twice. But the minute the tournament became a “raffle” tourney, in that teams received raffle tickets for a special draw for the big money prize at the end of the competition… well, that was it for me. Buh bye.
Now it’s time for a new strike. A new championship to earn. And in doing so, I’ve assembled a new trivia team – and a new trivia team name.
See, the teammates I’ve garnered are more than willing to play on my squad – so long as they’re not playing as the Street Academy. For years I’ve resisted changing the name – for me, changing that name would be like rooting for a football team NOT named the Pittsburgh Steelers. Although, after last Sunday, it’s getting tougher to root FOR them this year.
So after much conversation with my friends, we came up with a mutually agreeable name. Whether we’ve played against each other at Elbo Room or at Brown’s or anywhere else, we’ve always considered the other teams as a respected nemesis.
Thus came the new, “Ruck-Tournament-Only” name. “We Are Your Nemesis … Fear Us!”
I know, it’s like going from being the Road Warriors to being the Legion of Doom, but hey if I want quality teammates sometimes I have to compromise.
Besides, we’re going up against the Ruck’s hammer trivia teams – Unwed Fathers, What the Ruck, More Cowbell, Hammer Time, the Linguists…
Doesn’t matter. The Nemesis Team is primed and ready to strike. And we’ve got a hammer team as well – Dan from Tres Hombres, Matt from Woo Hoo a Go Go, Donna from A Few Cards Short of a Deck, and Dylan from … well … he’s new to trivia, but he’s pretty smart too.
The Ruck tournament works like this. Sixteen weeks of play. All points count toward the championship. A team’s worst three weeks of play are dropped from the scorecard. At the end of the tournament, the top teams go to a major Tournament of Champions in the Capital District. The game itself? 70 questions, 10 questions per category. Third round is the music round, fifth round is the video image round.
Ready? Set? You think you can beat us? Nyet!
So we started out strong, taking eight out of ten in the opening “Miscellaneous” round. The third round – the music round – was right in my wheelhouse, and we hit 19 out of 20 to stay on the pace with the teams More Cowbell and Unwed Fathers.
The fourth round, entitled “Four Letter Words,” actually caused us to shout out a few choice four letter words, including 
and and suggesting that the person who made these questions up was full of . Be that as it may…
Dan came through on the sixth round, involving questions about the Middle East; he nailed nine out of ten to put us above the More Cowbell team. We actually scored a solid run with that round by nailing the answer to the question –
“Um, excuse me, Chuck?”
Hold on a second. “Yes?”
“Hi, this is Scott, your trivia host at the Ruck. Are you planning on blogging about this game?”
Well, yeah, kinda. I’ve got people who are grumpy that I haven’t done a trivia recap in a while…
“Well, can you not list the answers to the trivia questions at this tournament?”
Why not?
“Well, there are other teams that perform at this Tournament of Champions at other bars, and they might read your blog and get the answers for the questions when their bar hosts trivia this week.”
Oh… so what you’re saying is that the other Catch the Mania trivia games this week will have the same questions that are at the Ruck this week?
“Yeah. And you probably shouldn’t post the questions, either, because someone could look the answers up in time for when our trivia game comes to their bar this week.”
Hmm… Now I should mention that when I played Trivia Nights Live games in the past, there was a situation where one team figured out that the same questions were used at two different bars on the same day, and that the bars played trivia at different times – so that team played one game at 5:30, then drove to the second game for an 8:30 start and ran the table. Yeah, that was kinda underhanded, and once the Trivia Nights Live people figured out what was going on, the hosts were provided with extra question sheets to countermand that kind of skullduggery.
But people who would read my blog and then crib-note the answers for their trivia game?
I gotta think about how I want to handle this. On the one hand, it would certainly be nice to share these recaps. On the other hand, I’m not interested in giving competing teams an opportunity to gain an unfair advantage. On the other hand, I might throw in some “dummy” questions that were similar to the questions used, just to prove a point about how difficult or easy the round was. On the other hand, I can’t stop other people who went to the Ruck last night from making comments about the questions in the comments section. On the other hand, even if those teams got the answers from my blog, it’s not like I’m competing against those guys – at least not until the final Tournament of Champions night. On the other hand, it’s not like this is a contract bridge tournament, where the exact same hands of bridge are passed from table to table to see which teams can score the best with the hands that are dealt.
Geez, any more “on the other hands” and I could star as Doc Ock in the next Spider-Man movie.
You know what? Nobody tells me how to write my blog. You want the questions and answers from Monday night’s game? Here they are at this link.
I can at least say this. The Nemesis team finished in a solid second place last night, with Unwed Fathers taking the win. And as long as the Nemesis team stays in the Top 3 each night, we are assured of reaching the final round this spring.
And every one of my teammates – Dan, Matt, Donna and Dylan – helped us take a solid first round showing. And that works for me.
I don’t have a chart yet of scores from the Ruck, but I understand that after all the “Catch the Mania” bars play the first round of trivia, the final scores will be posted on CTM’s Facebook page. And if I see that, I’ll try to post the same results here.
One week down. Fifteen weeks to go.
Chuck The Writer 
Team with most wins at Elbo Room wins $500.
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I’ve gone back and forth as to whether or not to post this comment. I enjoy your posts and enjoyed in the past reading the questions and trying to guess the answers in your trivia posts. However I don’t think that what Scott asked you to do was unreasonable. Way to be totally self indulgent and possibly negate all the hard work that the organizers of these contests put in.
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It wouldn’t be an issue if this trivia company didn’t use the SAME questions all week…even though different bars in the same town host on different nights. You don’t need to read this blog for some answers, you can have them all…go to the Ruck on Monday then drive right up the hill to Valente’s on Thursday and you, too, can be a trivia champion.
Another problem with the online games is they only accept the answer they see on their computer. I had an absolutely correct but different answer it one category and it wasn’t accepted. At a Trivia Nights Live game the host would have looked up the answer himself and seen it was right.
I don’t see that much hard work put into this game…it’s an online subscription. TNL comes up with their own questions every day. Real players should stick with Baker.
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Hi D357 Anonymous! It’s Scott, the host of the Ruck! I read your comment and figured I would have a say. To address your idea of easily cheating with this contest, understand that I run the majority of the trivia nights every week (five of them) and certainly I will see if a person/team tries to “slurp” and go to other locations to cheat. It has only happened once and they were disqualified, pretty simple. But I am sure you and your team would never think of doing something like this, as you are honest, and have integrity & honor… 🙂 Plus, 70 questions X 5 nights = 350 new questions a week = Unnecessary. We don’t have any issues, and if we do, they are taken care of swiftly.
In regards to it being an online subscription and having not “that much hard work put into this game”, I know the writers and they do put a lot of work into the game. 70 questions every week is a lot to create, as creating trivia questions is an art as I have found. To keep them challenging, not too difficult, and not too easy is an arduous task. I have changed and created many questions myself, and I am sure TNL does a great job with their questions as well. Simply put – If you haven’t created questions yourself and run a trivia night, how would you know?
Also, your claim that “they” only accept the answers on their computers, is false. I know because I do accept other answers if another answer falls within the wording of the question. Most hosts expect teams to challenge some answers. Sometimes we may disagree with you, it happens. I work to be reasonable and fair and I do my best to provide a great trivia game overall!
Sounds like you really like TNL, which is great, but if you would like to give us a shot, stop by The Ruck on Mondays, say Hi and have a perfect pint of beer. After all, real players drink craft beer.
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Woo Hoo El bo report:
Thursday morning, receive a wireless telegraph that I am to face a military styled tribunal for my traitorous move aiding Sworn Trivia enemy, Street Academy at Elbo Room Trivia tonight. George, captain had read the trivia blog and was floored I would join street for trivia. I had made a tactical error in not telling the rest of Woo Hoo a go go of the”All-star” game in Troy.
I get to the elbo and George is there. Quiet as usual before the game, reading the newspaper. As each team member arrives they each do their own rendition of saying “” to me. George had told everyone. For the next two hours, I was the team punching bag:
“Traitor”
“Go play with Chuck!”
“Hope you enjoyed spitting your pitchers of Soda with him”
In between questions, I try to explain, “There’s a whole different world that he and I occupy that has nothing to do with trivia.” I gotta dig deep on this one, my team mates want to be upset with me there’s a whole different tale that these folks need to understand. We’ve been battling for the better part of a decade, s gonna happen when you have any type of relationship that long, adversarial or otherwise. Tales of internets. They start to understand but are just in the mood to razz me. trying to reason linguistically with them, I gotta do what I do best, house it in trivia.
And bring it I did. Knowing the four solo host’s of SNL Weekend Update from ’85 to 2000. Where Michael Vick played College Football. We were in second place behind a The Fist for the first three quarters of play. We came back in the fourth and led going into the final question. The fait accompli, the kiss of death. The fist and Woo Hoo had traded wins coming back from second place the last three weeks.
Final Question. It was a how much did something cost. And the trivia announcer guy said “How much something “costed” someone? He said this not once, not twice but three times growing more confident of his pronunciation of the made up word each time. We had no clue. Neither did anyone else playing and thanks to a conservative bet, we won the evening. After our cheers, I asked if that was good enough to be welcomed back into the fold. George being the grumpy old man he is gave me “probation.”
So Chuck, or as I was calling you last night to piss off my teammates, Mr. Miller, I hope you realize the personal sacrifices I’ve made to be on this “All-star” team. And god dammit, I’m only doing this because I’m greedy. I’ve been winning consistently with Woo Hoo and the wins better start pilling up in Troy, because with a name like “We are your enemy- Fear us!” we just look silly coming in Not First week after week.
PS. George wants royalties for using our team name in future blog posts,
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The royalty payments were eaten up by me having to use the TU Sez No Curse Words blog filter a few times on your comment. 🙂
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Actually, Matt was placed on double secret probation but the grumpy old man comment will probable make it triple.
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Chuck – Nice job last week by the way! Also we will be posting the rules soon (sorry for the delay) and they are a little different from what you posted. And I enjoyed the RickRoll.
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Hi Scott Anonymous…or Scott X…or one-named trivia superstar Just Scott! I had no idea that playing song clips was such an art. It seems like that would be very easy to vary from game to game. As for the written questions 80% are ridiculously easy and 10% would make Stephen Hawking wish he could scratch his head.
I will say that I don’t know that anyone IS cheating…only that the way your game is designed and the way it’s repeated every day makes it very easy. I wonder how you are able to tell if someone lets a friend know the answers to the (few) tough questions before that friend plays later in the week. And cheating is cheating…calling it “slurping” is not going to catch on so you should probably just stop that nonsense now.
To put it simply, as a johnny-come-lately to the pub trivia game you are unaware of questions I’ve written. That’s how I know…and my questions were brilliant. You also don’t need to comment on my honesty and integrity…I’ve played trivia almost every week for close to 10 years and may be the only player who has NEVER brought a cell phone to the table.
In conclusion, I believe that HOSTING a trivia game is more of an art than playing a PowerPoint presentation but you do a fine job of the latter. And thank you for the invite to the Ruck even though I was sitting five feet away from you the first week, drinking a craft beer (but not acting snobby about it).
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Is this the same game where one of the questions was “What Disney movie revolves around a little mermaid?” and “Where did the Super Bowl take place when it was moved from Pheonix?” The answer of “The Rose Bowl” was not accepted and the host told me that if I had written down “Pasadena” that would have been acceptable, even though the Rose Bowl is IN Pasadena. Also, my answer of “The Outback” to the question “Where did the second season of Survivor take place” was not accepted. The host wanted “Australia.” Did he think that I meant the Outback Steakhouse? I knew right then and there that the game wasn’t legit. If it’s not the same game, then I apologize for the rant.
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Ed – that’s not the same company. That game a few years ago was with the Memorama company. This is Catch the Mania. Different organization.
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OK. Thanks Chuck. I apologize for the rant. A staring contest seems just as lazy though.
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Lazy?! No, no, no!!! Staring contests and Musical Chairs are part of the “arduous task” that is a Catch the Mania trivia game! Those games were big hits at our birthday parties…when we were 7 years old. I look forward to Pin the Tail on the Donkey at the championship level.
And you don’t even want to know about all the deadtime while you’re waiting for scoring…
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