I knew there was something wrong with this scoring.
Follow along with me.
Last week, my Nemesis team had an off night. No argument there, and as the team captain, I’ll take the lumps. We actually got knocked down from 10th place among all “Catch the Mania” teams around the Capital District to 16th place, with an average four-week score of 66.5. It also pushed us into fifth place among all Ruck-based teams, following Unwed Fathers (1st place Ruck, 3rd place overall), More Cowbell (2nd place Ruck, 9th place overall), and the Troyale Family (4th place Ruck, 15th place overall).
The other Ruck team to pass us? A first-time squad calling themselves Harry and the Hanukkahs. In their first week, they pointed a 68 score, gaining them 3rd place among all other Ruck teams and 13th place overall (scores averaged out). I don’t have a problem with this. It’s not like Harry and the Hanukkahs will show up in future weeks.
What I do have a problem with is that some bars didn’t play trivia this week. Yeah, I know it was because of Thanksgiving and whatnot, but here’s the rule regarding this.
Cancelled trivia: In the case that your location’s trivia night has been cancelled, it is acceptable for your team to go to another running location that week to play. If your team does not play that week due to the cancellation, your team will receive, for the cancelled week, an average score of all your past scores up to that point, including any zeros you may have earned. Again, you may attend a different location’s game that week to earn a better score. This is to try to avoid any penalties out of your control.
So here’s the rub. Eight of the top ten teams in the standings play at the Bayou Cafe. The Bayou Cafe did not have trivia last Wednesday because of Thanksgiving. So for the fourth week of their tournament play, each team received an average score based on their three previous weeks of play. This meant that the team known as Short Bus received a “75” for last Wednesday’s score, based on their 75.333 average score from the past three weeks.
How is this beneficial? Heck, if you’ve got a top 5 score, and you’re going to get an average scoring because there’s no trivia at that location… it’s like a built-in bonus. And guess what – there’s probably not going to be any trivia games played on a couple of upcoming Wednesdays – December 25 or January 1. Hmm… wonder why…
Of course, if you know that the trivia game will be cancelled at that bar, and you’re low on points, you could go to another “Catch the Mania” trivia location and improve your score.
But I can’t worry about what happens in other bars. We need to get our speed back up at the Ruck. Fifth place will not guarantee a spot in the finals. We need third place or better.
And with that, Donna, Dylan and I hunkered down and battled every question.
And we did well. Some educated guesses helped us snag 9 out of 10 in the opening “Miscellaneous” round, and when it came to the visual round – identifying TV shows by seeing pictures of the living rooms – Donna turned on her TV-watching charm.
Now, because of the “Catch the Mania” trivia rule that would disqualify us from competition if we revealed the exact questions or answers… I’m making up two of the answers just to explain how Donna came up with the right shows.
“I’m not sure that’s the living room from The Golden Girls,” she said.
“It looks like it, though…” I replied.
“Hold on. That doorway doesn’t match up with what I remember.”
“Okay…”
A few questions later in the round…
“Wait, wait, that’s the living room for The Golden Girls, right there.”
“Okay, then what’s the first one?”
“I don’t know, but I think if we wrote Designing Women that might fit. I mean, that’s nice furniture, and that show was about interior decorators…”
Okay. And sure enough, our “answers” were correct.
We also had to deal with someone at the bar who apparently thought he was playing the game – if by “playing” one means that they were so drunk that they could blow in a Breathalyzer and it would register TILT – and that person was shouting out the answers after every question. Sometimes he got it right… other times, the answer could have been “Benjamin Franklin” and he would have said “Minneapolis.” Ah, such is the hazard of competitive team trivia.
Then, once I turned on my inner literary geek and sniffed a can of UBIK, we were able to “grok” through the category of Literary Science Fiction (9 for 10). We followed that up with a 20-for-20 in the final double-point movie round… meaning…
The Nemesis team rebounded from a dismal Week 4 to snag 78 points and third place for the night, totally zooming past the Troyale Family and keeping the Unwed Fathers and More Cowbell in our sights. Harry and the Hanukkahs? They’re probably still home, playing competitive dreidel spinning.
Back in the fight for the night. And that pitiful round from last week? That’s now officially one of our “mulligan” rounds. We play for sixteen weeks, and our two worst rounds – our “mulligan” rounds – land in the trash.
And that’s all right for the Nemesis team. Time to take these other trivia teams to school. And I know what street – and what academy – they can go to.
Five weeks down… Eleven weeks to go.
Chuck The Writer 