Pub Quiz Results
Quiz #14- Monday 29th January, Kings Arms, Dalbeattie (Team: 3. Host: K)
Round 1: General knowledge, 18/20
Round 2: Sport, 15/15
Round 3: Themed questions/answers - colours, 13/46
Round 4: Crossword, 15/15
Round 5: First letter of each word spells something out, 13/15
Round 6: Hidden link connection, 10/10
Round 7: Played music, 9/15
Total Score: 93/105 (88.57%), 1st/10
Quiz #15 - Wednesday 31st January, Granary, Dumfries (Team: 5)
Round 1: Pictures - airline logos 10/20
Round 2: Riddles, 10/10
Round 3: General knowledge, 18/20
Total Score: 38/50 (76%), 1st/12 after tiebreak
Quiz #16 - Thursday 1st February, Anchor Hotel, Kippford (Team: 4)
Round 1: General knowledge, 8/8
Round 2: Fiction in fiction, 7/8
Round 3: Spelling, 7/8
Round 4: Palindromes, 7/8
Round 5: Dingbats, 12/16
Round 6: TV spinoffs, 7/8
Total Score: 48/56 (85.71%), 2nd/7
Quiz #17 - Friday 2nd February, Laurie Arms, Haugh of Urr (Team: 5)
Round 1: General knowledge, 14/20
Round 2: Natural world, 10/10
Round 3: Sport, 8/10
Round 4: TV, film & music, 9/10
Round 5: Abbreviations, 8/10
Total Score: 49/60 (81.67%), 2nd/15 after tiebreak
Overall Weekly Score: 228/271 (84.13%)
Total Monthly Score - January: 722/1057 (68.31%)
Month-to-Date - February: 97/116 (83.62%)
Year-To-Date: 819/1173 (69.82%)
General Update
Amazing to think that we're already a whole month into 2018! It's been another whirlwind week, and I'm posting this a day late as I decided to take yesterday "off". I needed a quick break, though I still went to a quiz in the evening and I did a little work when I got back. My focus in general last week was on two things: my Proxy Pub Quiz, and catching up on housework, as I had guests at the weekend. I do keep the place clean of course, but being so busy, I had a backlog in certain areas that I've now cleared. That being the case, I can now try and get back on track with the rest of my quizzing stuff. It's all a big balancing act!
Pub Quizzes
The Carlisle quiz wasn't on this week, so I started in Dalbeattie. My usual team, BTAS, were on holiday so I joined half of True Blue for K's quiz. I was riding high after Friday's solo win, so I'm sure you can imagine that I was delighted to win a 2nd in a row. It was a close quiz, which didn't surprise me was it was mostly pretty typical example of K's quizzes.
The exceptions being, of course, rounds 4 and 5. The former was a literal crossword, with intersecting answers, and our score came from some inspired working out and filling in gaps. The latter was a round in 2 halves with what I've called round 6. The first letter of each answers in the first half spelled out a port, and there were 5 points for getting that. The connections round also had a 5 point bonus for working it out. I actually did contribute on the music round, surprisingly, as well as on sport. We won by just 1 point over No Kan Do, the Dipsticks being 1.5 points further adrift in 3rd, but a win is a win is a win and I'm really happy with how it all went.
We had a guest with us for Wednesday's quiz. In addition to the usual team of myself, Jack, L and M, one of L's friends/work colleagues was with us, and may join us again in future. I hope she does! The more the merrier, and she fit into the team really well, contributing some great answers. The first round was brutal, being airline logos that includes the likes of Brunei of all places. Could have had a couple more, but can't really complain, especially after the other rounds.
I must admit, I've considered doing a riddles round in my own next quiz, and I still might. Needless to say, they suited me down to the ground, though our new friend and also M each gave an inspired answer within that full house. GK is suiting us more and more these days, especially with the balanced, strong team we're fielding, and it proved so again. A fine performance, though only equal in points to Universally Challenged, who have now retired that name so will be difficult to identify in future. That meant a tiebreak and it was fastest-finger-first, me against their own de facto captain. I don't think she even had the answer, I'm not sure where I got it from but to the victor, the spoils! Jack won his first quiz with us, now someone else has too!
I must admit that going into the Anchor quiz, I was concerned about a "Granary jinx". See, around this time last year I won the Granary one for the first time ever, after about 2.5 years of trying, and then I went 6 weeks and 40 quizzes before winning again, anywhere. Spoiler for this week, I've won my first 2 quizzes of the week, so there's definitely no jinx.
The team on Thursday was the usual 4 of us, L, his wife L, and our other friend T. This was a very strong performance, though one shared by almost every team in what must be the highest scoring night overall ever at this quiz. The lowest score was 32, and we were extremely unlucky to choose the wrong joker and thus come 2nd by a pair of points. Ultimately, I've no regrets as we did very well to get the ones we did, especially in the potential massacre was that was spelling. That percentage score is amazing, even if it was an easier night than normal.
Friday was business as usual at the Haugh of Urr, the first quiz there in 2018 since the January quiz was moved to the end of December seeing as the place closes for a week after the new year. It was the usual 5 of us, both other couples in attendance, and again we picked the wrong joker round. As did many other teams, according to the QM when I was speaking to her after the fact. An unusual occurrence here was that I caused a question to be replaced. "Which planet, other than Saturn, has rings?". Well, all 4 planets after Mars actually have them, though Uranus was the one she had. She looked it up eventually and swapped out the question. We got the replacement right, fortunately, in what I believe is a first full house for us on round 2.
It was to be another tiebreak to decide the quiz, and for my stats I consider that we came in 2nd, regardless of the points tie. That said, where there's no prizes or separation between the two, say if we'd been joint 2nd, for my stats that just counts as 2nd. It's the best way of accounting for it in my spreadsheet and fair overall, I think. Shame we missed it, but there would only have been another anyway as the other team were bang on. Full credit to them, and no shame in how we did whatsoever. Still a very strong end to an incredible week.
My Own Quiz
I'll cover the Proxy Pub Quiz here. First though, big news - I've got another live hosting gig! The Ship Inn quiz is being resurrected at a nearby pub, the Queen of the South, and has essentially been organised by me and one of the guys who used to work in the Ship. He's done most of the groundwork and the stuff from the pub, but it was in discussion with me, and I'm going to be hosting the last Tuesday of each month. It's a verbal quiz and a different, potentially younger, audience, with bigger teams - so a different challenge for me to tackle. I'm nervous but excited, and I can cannibalise my Dalbeattie quizzes for this one anyway, which makes the actual writing part a lot easier. It should be a lot of fun, and it's a bit of a confidence boost to me in that I've managed to get people interested in coming specifically for me.
Unfortunately, I've not heard back from my Ship Inn team yet, so I may not have a team for the first quiz tomorrow. I'll try and join another one, if I can. I'd rather not do it alone, though I'm not afraid to if that's what it comes to.
My next Dalbeattie quiz must be soon too, so I need to start writing it (beyond the first round, which is already done for some reason). P is next week but logically I'm the week after, so I want to get it sorted ASAP. I know what 4 of the rounds will be, so hopefully I can write at least half now and then finish it off next week. Or even just review it, if I get further than that.
As for my Proxy quiz, I'm ridiculously happy with how it's gone. 40 or so teams received the quiz, and I'll tabulate the results tomorrow.. I was concerned about it because I wasn't as happy with the quality of the quiz as I was the first time I did this, but such fears were clearly not shared by the audience. All the feedback I've received has been extremely positive, though it was noted that I made a mistake with one of the questions, putting an incorrect surname in. Somehow, this was not noticed by any of the teams during the live quiz, or by me during any of my copyedits, or by any of the Proxy teams who had already submitted by the time someone finally did see it. Teams even got it right without it being an issue, which is reassuring.
After the first Proxy quiz went well, I was hopeful. After this, I feel incredible. I'm going to have to make this an ongoing thing, and I have ideas for how I may be able to take it forward. I'm wary of saying too much right now, especially because it means finding yet more time from somewhere to do this, but it's potentially seriously exciting.
Podcasts
Good news (for me), I've found an app that has all four of my main podcasts, Complete The List, Triviality, Something Something Birds and Trivial Warfare. I'll keep listening to the latter on its own app, but I'm now starting to plow through CTL. I'm really enjoying it so far. Monday is TW day so I'm listening to that right now, as I type this. I like that I've gotten into a routine of this, and hopefully I can do so with the others as well. Oh yeah, "Stuff I Never Knew" is yet another I might get into, again, time permitting.
Spreadsheets
I've not touched my main data spreadsheet, again. This is now rapidly rising up the priority list for me, and I'm determined that by this weekend I'm going to have it updated, at least at a very basic level. My Proxy Quiz is controlled by spreadsheet though and that's up to date, except for the scores, which I meant to keep track of as they were coming in and kinda haven't. So I'll be doing it all at once tomorrow. Oops.
Areas of Study
None whatsoever. I can't dress this one up, I just didn't do anything significant last week. I've identified a key website used as a source by a couple of my quizzes, and I've taken to frequenting it. There's obvious specific advantages at those quizzes to that, but it's helpful generally. They are good questions and they come from a good site. But yeah, that's as much as I can say.
Week in Summation
In quiz-terms, this has been an incredible week, one for the ages. 2 wins and 2 second places, just 3 points preventing me from winning all 4 of them. I honestly feel fantastic about this, I've done so well to achieve those results, giving some great answers throughout the week. My mindset, to be honest, is as positive about it all as it has been for some time. Form is temporary, I know, and it won't take much for me to completely fall off a cliff in quizzes to come. I certainly can't rest on my laurels, especially as I'm aiming at a higher level than standard pub quizzes these days. That said, these results are increasing my confidence, and I'm demonstrating good skills here. The mental side of quiz is all important, it's utterly vital, and the better I feel, the better I'm likely to play.
Right now, I'm productive in a really good way, and I'm starting to get through things. If I can keep pushing on and get through more of the podcast backlog and get my spreadsheets up to date, I'll be doing alright. I've got time - I just need to be using it effectively.
Here's to this coming week, and you've already had a preview as to how it's started!
No comments:
Post a Comment