A trivial pursuit?

Tuesday night the Dubliner is serious business

GINA DAUGHERTY | CIN WEEKLY

Randy Nickum (left) of Hyde Park disagrees about an answer with friends Chris Vuturo of Oakley and Amy Price of Westwood during Tuesday Trivia Night at the Dubliner in Pleasant Ridge. (Photo by Leigh Patton/CiN Weekly)

HOW TO WIN

Everything you need to know about Tuesday night trivia at the Dubliner:

ARRIVE EARLY: Trivia is from 8:30 to 10:30 p.m., but if you want a table and enough seats for your team, arrive before 7:15 p.m. The Dubliner is located at 6111 Montgomery Road in Pleasant Ridge.

PICK A GOOD TEAM: To be a solid team, members must be made up of people of different interests and backgrounds. If your team members are all accountants, forget it. You've got to diversify. If your team leans younger, get someone over 40 to sit in. If your team leans older, get a whippersnapper to help out.

THINK OF A GOOD NAME WHILE YOU WAIT: Timely ones are best. Focus on national or local news. You will "wow" other teams with your clever puns on current events.

BRING A PEN: Owner Mike Kull will read the questions while teams write the answers on provided paper. There are seven rounds. There are also giveaways. So save a bar napkin to write your names on.

BRING A TABLECLOTH: Not really, but there are usually two or three teams that do. We suspect they are hiding answers in them.

STAY SOBER: Just kidding. Although it could help your chances of winning.

EAT THE BLACKENED CHICKEN SALAD WITH BLEU CHEESE DRESSING: That is what Mark Allgeier eats every week. And his team has won 17 times this year.

Brush up on trivia prior to going at www.brainstormer.com. They have a virtual pub trivia game online to help sharpen your skills.

Mr. Peabody's - they're so smug. (Not really. But it's more fun to portray them that way.)

Mr. Peabody's is the team name of the five Cincinnati guys who make it their mission to stay sober and win pub trivia on Tuesday nights at the Dubliner.

They won last week and the week before, too. They've won 17 times this year. An impressive feat considering many teams have played for months, even years, and have never won a game.

They've gotten so many of the coveted "pub genius" T-shirts - which Dubliner owner Mike Kull has been offered big bucks for - that they just give them away.

How annoying - except that they gave us one.

So consider this your Dubliner Tuesday night pub trivia how-to guide. (How-to beat Mr. Peabody's, that is.)

BEAT THE CROWD

Ann Higdon, team member of "I was just going to say that," arrives every Tuesday at the Dubliner around 6 p.m. to save a table and hoard chairs. Even though trivia doesn't start until
8:30 p.m., trivia buffs arrive early for a spot. By 7 p.m. tables are being scooped up fast and chairs are hard to come by.

Her team members - Mark Vaughn, Amy Stricker, Kelly Ilfe and Harry Smith - have been playing for several months and have never won. Tonight is not their night either. Though they don't seem to mind.

"It's amazing how they can come up with such different questions each time," Ilfe says. "You surprise yourself what you know. The useless knowledge you have."

The Dubliner is the perfect place for traditional Irish pub trivia. It's dark and cozy, and large enough to accommodate many teams. The wait staff is used to the Guinness-guzzling crowd and is deft at filling all pint requirements.

Owner Kull started trivia more than four years ago. And when the bar expanded, so did trivia.

"I wasn't sure that it would go or not, because everyone just knew Trivial Pursuit and what it was like. So I decided to try it once, and it just took off," he said. "There's nothing like it. It's something fun to do with your friends, and it can embarrass them and embarrass you. We're always crowded."

DIVERSIFY

Of the 46 weeks of pub trivia so far this year, two teams have won 32 of them. The competition is fierce, which is why team Mr. Peabody's stays sober. (While most everyone else slowly gets drunk.)

"Diversity is the key to winning," says Tony Shope, member of Mr. Peabody's. "You have to have different ages. If we can, we have one of our daughters sit in to handle the questions from the '90s, like music groups and so on."

They seem to get lucky often. Team member Mark Allgeier
says he eats the same meal every week: blackened chicken salad with bleu cheese dressing.

For teams younger in age, like the "I was just going to say that" team, having someone over age 40 would help. Stricker says the team is looking for a recruit.

Bartender and server Katie Dicken tallies the scores on trivia night. She'd like to see teams be more creative with their names, and she'd also like to see someone beat Mr. Peabody's.

"When somebody else beats them, it's a great thing," she says.