When I mention to people that I play bar trivia, they usually have two points in response. First, they say how they’ve always wanted to play but never got around to it -- bar trivia is ubiquitous throughout Chicago (and in many areas) as a great way for bars to entice business on otherwise slow weeknights. Second, they say how they feel like they wouldn’t be good at trivia because they’re not knowledgable enough.1
Let me offer my rebuttals.
On some level, a decent degree of trivial knowledge comes in handy. It helps to have a few areas of expertise as well as a decent broad base of knowledge, too. Personally, I bring expertise in religion/theology, sports, presidents, and a few other niches and tend to do fairly well with current events and politics as they come up. However, when it comes to music, movies, and popular awards (i.e. Tonys, Grammys, Oscars, etc.), I bring ignorance and cluelessness. But that doesn’t stop me from playing and contributing and enjoying myself.
The first lesson of trivia is that it’s not simply about what you as an individual bring to the table; it’s about the team’s diversity of expertise and general knowledge. I have a friend who is excellent at identifying award nominees and winners; I have a friend who is an absolute ace at geography; I have friend who is real sharp on history and legal matters, etc.2 Our team strength isn’t determined solely by individual strengths but by the sum of our strengths together. If I only consider something in light of myself and my own strengths and weaknesses, I might miss the boat. Lesson one sounds cheesy, but it’s effective.
Moreover, a team’s strength isn’t solely determined by the diversity and quantity of its trivial knowledge -- though that certainly is important. A major factor is what I like to call “trivia think.” There will be certain questions for which the team either knows the answer or doesn’t, and for those ones, you’re kind of stuck if you don’t know it. However, more often than not, questions are written with enough clues and pieces of information that you can make a strong guess.
The second lesson of trivia is that it’s largely about “trivia think” -- your team and its members’ ability to think out loud, listen to each other, and come to the best decision possible.
This means being able to give an honest measure of your confidence. On our team, we distinguish between feeling “100% sure,” a descriptor signifying certainty in one’s guess, and “trivia 100% sure,” a foolhardy gesture of bravado that comes from a place of flimsy, false trivia-prompted confidence.3 This means keeping your gut instinct guess to yourself for a minute or whispering it to select teammates to allow the others to think independently before being swayed by what’s been suggested. 4 This means making an argument for your answer while leaving space for others to argue for their guess. But these are all tactics for when your team thinks it might have a guess that’s the right answer.
This process alternatively can mean speaking the half-thoughts swirling in your mind out to your teammates to try to jog their memories. It means trying to think what grade you were in when that movie or song came out. It means playing word association to name actors or artists or presidents that come to mind freely. It means running through all 50 states or all 32 NFL teams or every common Mexican last name you can think of. And it means listening as your teammates do the same because the chances that someone can engineer a solidly strong guess off these scattered pieces of information is actually pretty good when everyone does this in earnest.
If you hear a question and shut down because you don’t know the answer or don’t have a guess, then trivia won’t be fun. If you take the time to listen, ask leading questions, and collate people’s input, you can definitely move the team toward its best possible guess. And if you have the patience and humility to toss out half-baked thoughts and ideas and receive them from teammates in kind, your chances of striking the right answer go way up. Some teams have stretches when their raw knowledge propels them; the teams that are consistently good excel not just at trivial knowledge but also at “trivia think.”5
It’s a fun endeavor not just for the intellectual engagement, good drinks, greasy food, and competition. Trivia is a community builder. It forces you to find confidence in your strengths, allow others to pick you up in your weaknesses, and to be a part of a wayward but earnest group effort toward achieving answers and success that are difficult to reach sometimes. Frankly, I think it’s a great fit for Church young adult groups, perhaps with content skewed toward catechesis but definitely for its social, team-building, and relationship-strengthening dynamics.
So get beyond yourself, realize that your strengths can help a team while the strengths of teammates compensate for your weaknesses, and be willing to jump into the fray of wild half-guesses and comments that barely seem relevant to work your way toward the best guess. Your humble best effort will be right more often than you’d think.
1 Others also cite not being competitive enough. While I would never engage in trivia I didn’t intend to win, there are plenty of teams that come out, screw around, get horrible scores, but have a good time. Much like that guy who goes bowling, bowls a 48, but cheers like crazy for the one strike he gets, these teams are just there for fun and that one answer they get right on a wild guess. Cheers.↩
2 Amazing answers we have pulled out of deeply thin air: Mr. Hooper, Meow Mix, and Admiral Stockdale. Answers we have screwed up famously: white dwarf, The Valley of the Kings, and many many many more.↩
3 This has become not just a huge lesson we learned and is now something teammates readily admit after so many of us have burned so often by our bullish confidence that led down a dead end to a wrong answer.↩
4 And sometimes saying your guess out loud at the same time as your teammate to see if you both had the same instinct while your teammates wait to see what track to follow you down.
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5 One other potential barrier is when the team is split on what the best guess is. This is where the “trigger man” comes in. Someone has to be the person who keeps track of categories, scoring, and questions, and this person has the responsibility of deciding on the final answer. This is a job I personally love.
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