Trivia Vagabond: Kate's Pub (Sept. 25)

As we promised last week, Seattlest played the quiz at Kate's Pub last night. Our team, Eclectic Boogaloo, ended up winning the pot, although it took a tiebreaker round to get there. (Sorry, Ozzy's Outcasts. Good game.)

Where & when: Kate's Pub in Wallingford, at 45th and Latona. Officially the quiz time is 8:00, but rumor has it that it usually starts later. Last night, it got started at about 9:00 and finished about 10:20.

The host: Billy, an affable guy who helpfully spelled out the rules for us when he took our money. $5 per team to sign up.

The quiz: One round (10 questions) of movie quotes. Billy gave us a sheet with 10 quotes and 10 movie titles on it -- we had to match them up. We ended up confusing quotes from Planes, Trains, and Automobiles and Men in Black (don't ask), so won 16 out of 20 possible points (most answers at Kate's are worth 2 points).

The second, longer round of trivia was 45 questions in miscellaneous categories. One of those questions was worth 10 points if you could answer it with 1 clue, 8 points with 2 clues, etc. To answer those, you went up and talked to Billy.

The tiebreaker round was 3 questions, again miscellaneous.

Scoring: Swap answer sheets with a neighboring team after the movie round, and again after all 45 questions of the main round. Billy graded the tiebreaker.

Prize pool: First place team wins the pot. Second place wins a pitcher of beer. And a few glasses of beer are awarded in a post-quiz quiz for the non-winning teams.

Difficulty: Moderate. Some questions were standbys, like "where do Chinese gooseberries come from?" (A.k.a. kiwifruit, they come from New Zealand.) There were a number of fairly easy questions, and a number of head-scratchers. Billy's also fond of multiple choice questions.

Unusual feature: After the main quiz, each team can talk to Billy privately and get "cryptic clues" for three questions. These clues gave us two answers we wouldn't have had.

The takeaway: Billy could use an answer sheet designer and occasionally a fact checker, but he's a great host and put together a strong and varied quiz.

Sometimes, though, his questions are just wrong. Case in point: possible answers for "most popular name given to baby boys in 2003" were Justin, Joe, James, or Jack. "Correct" answer was Jack; real-world answer, per the Social Security Admin, is Jacob; both James and Justin were more popular than Jack that year. We had similar difficulties with a question about how long it takes your blood to circulate through your body. So at least some of your performance will end up being luck.

Tip: Sit near the front of the pub, near the host. There's really just one speaker, and sitting in the back of the room (as we did for the first half) makes it really hard to hear. And Billy's got an accent, so some people on our team who shall remain nameless had a tricky time deciphering that, as well.

The food is excellent, easily the best we've had (well, seen--we foolishly ate dinner before going) at a quiz pub aside from The Jones, which is a full-fledged restaurant. Their menu actually folds out, like a real restaurant menu, and includes a popular build-a-burger section. And though there was only one bartender/server when we were there, she kept on top of things. And her name was Katie -- coincidence, or does she own the place? Hmm.

Extra fun between rounds: trying to ID all the famous Kates on the wall. ("That's Kate Beckinsale." "No way -- she's too curvy!" "Look at her face. It's from before she got Hollywood Actress Wasting disease.")

Bonus points: they've got Magner's cider on tap.