Circa Brewing Company – Downtown Brooklyn – Wednesdays @ 7 pm

The Trivia: Music Clue Trivia. Four rounds of five questions. Each question is accompanied by a song clue as a hint (or a deliberate misdirection) for the answer. Teams submit their answers on their phones, and the host reveals the answer before going on to the next question. Teams can wager 1, 2, 3, or 4 points on each question (once per value per round), and then are forced to wager a certain amount on the final question of each round. You don’t actually lose any points for wrong answers, though, so the term wager, which they use, is a bit of a misnomer here. If done correctly, I like the wagering system, as it keeps teams closer longer. I do, however, disagree with the final question being worth 10 points (as much as an entire round), especially if it is an all-or-nothing type question. When the rest of the night was relatively very easy, the final question (“Who was the last Roman emperor?”) being so difficult makes it feel like the last question is all that matters, and the rest of the night was just a tiebreaker for the teams that got the last question correct. This is the same trivia night (different host, but same questions) as Putnam’s Pub. If I had to choose, I prefer the host and the venue at Circa. Here’s the thing, though, you don’t have to choose. Putnam’s Pub’s trivia is on Tuesdays, and then they ask the same exact questions less than a mile away at Circa on Wednesdays.

Now let’s talk about cheating. I hosted bar trivia for many years. I also happen to be a high school teacher, so I’ve given lots of tests in my life. Cheating happens. In fact, it happens almost every time. It often doesn’t make a difference: kids who are cheating on a test rarely improve their score enough to pass, and teams who are cheating at bar trivia rarely crack the top three. From my experience, there are two things that have the most influence on whether or not somebody will cheat. The first is the stakes. The higher the stakes, the more likely somebody is to want to improve their odds of succeeding. The top three prizes are $100, $75, and $50. I have never seen a trivia night giving out that much money before. The third place prize is higher than the first place prize at many other venues. With prizes that high, and the actual consequences for getting caught virtually non-existent, a simple reminder that “Cheating at bar trivia is pathetic” may not be enough to deter unscrupulous teams from cheating their way to a bunch of free drinks.

The other, and more significant, factor that has the most influence on whether or not somebody cheats is how easy it is to do so. This is one of my biggest issues with bars that do trivia on the phone. One of my best weapons against cheaters as a host was just observing which teams were on their phones during the trivia rounds. Obviously not an option for the host here. It would be SO quick and easy for a team to quickly google “last roman emperor”, and considering how the entire night essentially comes down to that one question, I can see how somebody might be tempted.

Another more subtle way for teams to cheat that is unique to this trivia, is that they can easily look ahead to see what the questions are. The app they use doesn’t have anything to prevent you from just going to the next slide. In fact, the first time we played (at Putnam’s Pub), my team was confused about the structure, and we answered all the questions in round 1 before the host even started the game. Not only that, we went back and changed our point wagers to reflect our relative confidence after seeing all the questions. We literally cheated ON ACCIDENT. Once we realized our mistake, it was too late, but it didn’t actually affect anything. This is something that could easily be prevented by using a different app that allows the host to control which questions teams can see. Even a Google Form would be better. Also, if the question is projected on the screens, and the host reads it out loud twice, why does it even need to be on the app?

The Venue: Huge space with tons of places to sit and be comfortable. There are tons of teams playing trivia, but it’s highly unlikely that anybody here will have to stand around a bar stool they’re using as a table. There’s better than average pub fare on the menu and a massive variety of beers, wines, ciders, and spirits. Great venue!