Beginning in mid January, 2018, me and my trivia team started playing at a place in Ypsilanti, MI called Powell’s Pub. It was kind of a “quick switch,” as we’d previously played a few seasons at The Wurst Bar. One of my players told me he wouldn’t be able to play Wurst games in winter weather without getting a ride from us, so I did a little “switcheroo.” For one season, we played Wednesdays at a spot he could walk to (Corner Brewery). And my husband and I proceeded to try to win tournament spots at Powell’s on Monday nights. For two consecutive seasons, we did just that – we won semifinal spots playing mainly as a “duo.” Sometimes Brad would join in, but usually, it was just the two of us.

Then a perfect storm of unrelated things happened – one, I got burned out on trivia in August. Two, a rival team at Powell’s REALLY started to kick up their game! They brought as many as 9-10 players to games. After four games, they managed to get a four point lead on us. Then the third thing happened – Brad said he didn’t want to play at Powell’s anymore. And with that, I just called off playing here for the remainder of the season. Without his help, I knew the other two of us wouldn’t have a chance against the “megateam.”

And you know – I’m not even bitter about any of this (though I was a little bitter at first)! It’s been good to step back a bit from trivia. And I’m genuinely happy that this team decided they wanted to step up their game (presumably because of us). In some seasons, they only managed to qualify for semifinals by having another team cede their spot to them (this other team doesn’t play tournaments, apparently). Thirdly, I honestly don’t care much for this bar – or the trivia host. After one of the servers whom I liked left a couple of months ago, it just made the decision to stop playing here all the easier.

I took a peek at the scores, and this team has managed 60-plus point games almost all season. I say if they want the semifinal spot SO badly that they will summon an army of players to take out a two-person team, then by all means, do it! I have no problem with a team doing what it takes to win! We shall see how well they do when they have to slim down to four players for semifinals…