Trivia Bowl XIII

A few days ago, I received a DM out of the blue from Chuck Miller. "What are you doing this Saturday?"

Immediately I knew what it was. He was asking me to play on his Street Academy team at Trivia Bowl XIII, the biggest trivia event in the Capital District. Sure, I had to work that day, but when it comes to playing in a Trivia championship of this caliber, well I volunteered as Tribute.

I'm used to driving up to Albany on weekends, having worked in Schenectady most of last year. I made sure to get nourishment at the Golden Coral in Colonie before heading over to Wolf's 1-11.

The place was well suited to hold such an event and Chuck had gotten there early. Having been a past two time champ, his table and spot were set aside. I was the first team mate there.

It turns out Chuck is the only mainstay of his trivia team. He is sort of like Trent Reznor in that regard.

I had never played Trivia Nights Live but knew enough of the format from reading Chuck's blog. It's basically 20 trivia questions with differing point values. If you get them right, you get the points. If you get them wrong, you lose the points. You are allowed two skips which means you won't be deducted the points if you don't answer correctly. You also are allowed to use a double which allows you to offer two answers on one question. The last question is the hardest, one where you can wager all the points you have accumulated. The final question thing is something I've never favored, because in my opinion, it allows lesser teams to win simply by not betting anything and hoping everyone else bets it all and gets it wrong. But this is a chance to capture a major so to speak, so in for a penny, in for a pound.

First question was a layup. True or false, the Super Bowl was played in Houston before. Prior to the questions, I had told Chuck the Super Bowl had been in Houston for Super Bowl 38 and another time in 1974.

Second question was what state have the Xtreme Winter games been played the last 14 years?

I didn't know, never followed it. Kat, one of our teammates said Colorado.

The next question was what city does Jamie Foxx's show Sleepless take place in? And we used our first skip. I thought maybe Seattle or NYC but none of us knew.

The 8 point question was what now 87 year old actor last starred in a film in 2004 called Welcome to Mooseport? Both Jeff and Mike knew this one.

The 10 point question was what auto maker who died in 1951 had the first name of Ferdinand? Mike nailed this right away and this shows it is good to have a diverse lineup where people are strong in different things. I tend to suck in cars and alcoholic beverages. I'm glad everyone on the team contributed early except me. The only thing I did was turn in the answers to the trivia people.

So five teams got perfect first rounds which meant we were down 30 to 24. No big deal.

Now I can't remember each and every question as I did not write them down on scratch paper.

We got the first two question right in round two, who sang the National anthem in last year's Super Bowl? What body of water flooded in 1953 killing 1800 Dutch men and 300 Brits?

Who played the mother Linda in the 2011 movie, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close? Damned if I knew. Mike thought it may be Toni Collette and we went with that. Turned out to be Sandra Bullock.

Next came a double bonus. Name the South American country with Georgetown as its capital and the Caribbean country as well. The night before, I made a point to study both South America and the West Indies for potential questions. Finally Tim Rich gets to "show his quality". Confident, I told Chuck the Cayman Islands was the second one and then I named Guyana, Suriname, or Belize as the only choices for the first. I was stressed, but after no one else knew the answer, I told Chuck to go with Guyana.

My elation was short lived as we completely missed the 10 pointer. What decade did they start marketing Scotch tape? We skipped instead of using the double because it could have meant losing twenty points instead of zero.

We were in 6th place at half time and in striking distance.

The third round was bad. We got the first question right then the next two wrong. Which British rocker returned to touring this year after releasing a book called "Not Dead Yet." Kat thought Elton John since it sounded like his type of humor. I didn't agree, thinking John had been touring a lot. Phil Collins had been on hiatus but returned on the Tonight Show and was touring again. We went with Elton.

The 8 pointer was a four parter. Name four of the nine movies nominated for Oscars this year that begin with L or M. We got all those right but the 10 pointer was difficult.

What city was the setting for the 1995 show where Mary Tyler Moore starred as the editor of a newspaper? After she had died, I had browsed her wikipedia page for potential trivia questions but didn't learn her complete filmography. I wanted to go with Minneapolis, but that was just a guess. Chuck went with Chicago and it turned out to be New York.

Time for the moment of truth. The final question and the category was Reality TV. I don't watch TV at all and this is not a good topic for anyone. Still, we were in fourth place and everyone seemed to agree that we should bet it all. There is all or nothing. You don't care about second or third place.

Which reality series was Roberto Hernandez the winner of in 2016?

I knew it wasn't the Voice or American Idol. But other than that, this was a complete shot in the dark.

Mike threw out Amazing Race. Jeff and Kat didn't know. Chuck was puzzled too. I didn't want to go with the normal picks of Survivor or Amazing Race. I said what about The Biggest Loser? Kat asked me if it was still on and I seemed to think so. We opined on other shows, but finally settled on Project Runway.

I turned out to be the Biggest Loser. We were so close. I just wish I had pressed more my first guess instead of something else. Because none of the top teams ahead of us got it right either. A few teams didn't bet anything. Seemed smart but one team did get it right. And they won.

So after bidding everyone goodbye, I took the long drive home, disconsolate. We could have won. We had the right answer mentioned and if I had been a little more persuasive about going with the Biggest Loser I wouldn't feel like the Biggest Loser right now.

For me there are no moral victories. Losing sucks. Especially something of this magnitude. I wanted to win this thing. Not just for myself but for Chuck. He deserved this having just gone through a major surgery. I wanted to prove that I was a good trivia player and by winning one of the hardest things there is to win in the state, I could have done it.

This will stick in my craw for a while. But Geek Bowl 2017 is coming up and soon after I need redemption in Atlantic City.

Just the Tip winners