The teams which will be playing in the My Trivia Live “semifinals” were announced today. For the eighth consecutive time since 2016, my team will play in a “semifinal” game, which will determine which teams will go to “finals.” Semifinal games can be notoriously rough!

We’re currently playing our third season at Powell’s Pub, but previously played at The Wurst Bar for a few seasons before that. We switched trivia spots last winter, mainly because of a player who said he would not be able to get to games in inclement weather unless we gave him a lift. So…since I had no interest in being his Uber driver, I picked a spot closer for him This doesn’t mean he doesn’t skip out on games when it’s raining! He did not come out to games during the first season at Powell’s, but that didn’t really hurt our chances of qualifying there at all. My husband Mike and I did just fine with that by ourselves.

Looking back, it was actually a good thing we switched our games from Wurst, for a variety of reasons:

One, they no longer do the “Whiskey Wednesday” $2 drink special, which me and my team really, really enjoyed! Some nights, a little TOO much…(ahem)! Strangely enough, they start their “happy hour” deals at 10 p.m., when trivia games are ending! They have a full time $5 Long Island drink special, and always have $2 cans of domestic beers (Hamms, Strohs, PBR), but meh. That’s not enough of a draw! The Wurst Bar definitely has more of a “hipster” clientele than the more “townie” oriented Powell’s. You can buy a T-shirt at Powell’s that says “Five Star Dive Bar” on the back. That pretty much sums the place up!

Parking has also become more complicated around Wurst. The metered parking near the Eastern Michigan University campus is now monitored 24/7, whereas it was free after 6 p.m. before. Paying to park on a weeknight after 6? I’ll let Bill and Ted do the talking  here!

In terms of qualifying, had we stayed at Wurst and not moved at Powell’s, we probably STILL would have wound up qualifying for semifinals anyway! The second place teams at Wurst have been kind of “lackluster” since we left, if you will. There is a 149-point gap between the “Pants Team,” which typically dominates this bar (when my team isn’t playing there, LOL) and the second place team (I do not know the name of the second place team). Our two teams pretty much shared supremacy of that bar once we started playing there regularly in August, 2016. Sometimes we would come out on top – sometimes they would. But it was always a close battle.

The Wurst Bar host Stacy told me later that a couple of teams that we’d “scared away” when we played there wound up coming back to Wurst (LOL). Trivia  competition’s a Hell of a thing, isn’t it? I know there are some bars I wouldn’t bring my team to regularly because of better teams in the mix! Mixing it up with your “betters” every now and then is good because it keeps you on your toes. But if you’re looking for a “winnable” trivia spot that will take you to the tournament at the end? Well… you have to pick the long-term trivia battle you and your team can ultimately handle, even if it means you get roughed up every now and then. What fun is it for things to be TOO easy in trivia?

So we will be staying at Powell’s for the time being. Whether those other teams – and the trivia host – likes that or not!