The Glory That Is Trivia Night

Here is a fact for everyone: I have a very big obsession with all things trivia. Not only do I own both of Ken Jennings book, one of which has 8,888 trivia questions, but I also attend Stump Trivia on a weekly basis. Stump Trivia is a great chain trivia game that they have in a few different states around the New England area. The way Stump works is pretty simple: there are 4 quarters. Each quarter has 4 questions, with 4 point values (1,3,5,7 in the 1st and 2nd quarter; 2,4,6,8 in the 3rd and 4th). Each time you answer a question, you have to pick a point value you want to put on that question, and once you use a point value for that round you cannot use it again. There are also bonus rounds between the quarters that usually have a theme and allow you to get more points. At the end there are two final questions that you can wager anywhere from 2-10 points on, but if you get them wrong you lose half of what you wager.

Since last semester, I have made every Thursday night trivia at our normal place, Coogan's. However, this week I found out that I had a meeting Thursday night and I would not be able to make trivia. This news was pretty devastating, and I needed to find another place to do trivia on a night other than Thursday. Luckily, Boston is full of Stump Trivia locations, and there were two good options that I found on Wednesday night: Fire + Ice and The Tavern and Porter Square. My friend Spencer was visiting so we decided we were going to tackle both locations in one night. Here is the great story that follows that could be possibly be one of the greatest nights of my life.

Game 1: Fire + Ice
Team Name: The Gaza Strippers
We arrived at Fire + Ice at 6:15 to find my 4 friends squished around a small table in the bar area; the only open table available. We were also expecting two of our other friends to show up, and we planned on having two teams of 4 (Stump only allows a max of 6 people per team). However, we only had one small table to split between the 8 of us, which was not that ideal. I told the 4 girls that were there about our idea of going to two trivias in one night, and they decided they would go and eat during this trivia, and then head over to the other trivia with us to play. Now we had a team of 4 playing among 10 other teams that were all mid to late 20s working professionals. We were clearly the youngest people there, but that has never been discouraging. We got every question right in the first quarter, and the halftime bonus was a bunch of TV/Movie duos (Sanford and Son, Bill and Ted). We nailed every question in the second quarter too, and were well on our way to victory. We nearly sweeped the whole second half, and came in first with a score of 114. The amazing part about all of this was that while our prize was a $25 gift card to Fire + Ice, the 4th place team received 3 free lift tickets to Sunday River. Spencer and I were pretty pissed, but we gave our gift card to the two girls we were playing with who were about to go eat at Fire + Ice, and made our way to The Tavern, completely pumped up on trivia.

Game 2: The Tavern
Team Name: Dr. Funke's 100% All Natural Good Time Family Band Solution
We arrived at The Tavern at about 8:45, ready for trivia round 2. The 4 girls who had went to eat at Fire + Ice while we were playing teamed up with us, and we had a solid team of 6. The Tavern was the major leagues compared to Fire + Ice; not only the Tavern have about 25 teams, but the teams seemed a lot smarter and into trivia. We would have to bring our all out A game. The first round was a very easy start and we swept (What is a dried up plum called? How many degrees are in a circle?). We did alright on the first quarter bonus, and swept the second round as well. Going into the second half, we had 48 points, 2 away from first, but there were many other teams right with us. We kind of blew it in the 3rd quarter, missing our 2 and 4 point questions. The 3rd quarter bonus asked us to name the 7 countries in Central America below Mexico, and we managed to get 6. We did ok on the 4th quarter, and going into the final two questions we had 103, with the top team at 120. While first seemed a little out of reach and there were about 6 or 7 teams in between us and first, we knew if we could get these last two questions that we could possibly crack the top 3. The first question asked us the type of dog that commonly is used in hunting and is named after the French word for very low. We luckily had a few people who took French and went with Basset Hound, which was correct. We also were able to get the final question for 10 points, giving us 123 for the game. We also got third place; a huge accomplishment considering the number and calliber of the teams playing. Two Trivias in one night: two top 3 finishes. A truly great night.