Friday, August 10, 2007

Play Your Cards Right

We went to a pub quiz last night – one we’d not been to before. The days of a pub quiz consisting of a basic picture round followed by straightforward questions seems to be long gone as every quiz I’ve been to in recent years has had some gimmick or a few complicated rounds. Last night’s, however, had the strangest variations I’ve come across.

There was the quiz with a few bonus questions, picture and music rounds as you’d expect. But then when the questions were marked, the top three teams entered into a head-to-head. One member of each team had to enter an answer to one of those questions where the nearest answer without going over wins. Then the team winning that round (this is the big twist!) had a play a round of ‘Play Your Cards Right’ to win the prize money!

So we did the quiz and thanks to a splendid performance on the music round (where we left with full points, but a lot less credibility) we came third. Which owing to the bizarre rules meant we were in with a chance of winning the cash prize. The OH stepped up to do the next round, and made a decisive guess on the population of Belgrade. It is not, as one other team wrote 25,000 (did your pen run out, quipped the Quiz Master) but a bit over £1.5 million which had been the OH’s guess. I was so proud until chronic embarrassment set in when I realise we all had to get up to play the card game.

Bill, who I’ve described as ‘the cynics’ cynic’ said that surely everybody else in the pub had lost interest now they hadn’t won, but he was wrong. Someone in the ‘audience’ asked us to stand back so they could see the turn off the cards. The theme music was playing. Tension was running high. The audience was shouting ‘Higher’, ‘Lower’ and getting right into it. I had a fit of hysterics when the surreal nature of the scene hit me. I can’t remember the run of the cards now, except that we were dealt a couple of middle cards (not good) and changed two of them (which dwindled the prize money from £70 to £50). But we won! I think the OH may have punched his fist in the air.

We came third in the quiz but we won!

6 comments:

M said...

Fabulous! Spend those winnings on something frivolous and fun!!

SandDancer said...

Those winnings sadly were to be split between six people and we bought a couple of celebratory drinks afterwards, so there isn't much left of it.

M said...

Well that was something fun and frivolous!

SandDancer said...

Yes, especially since I had get up for work this morning - most of the rest of the team didn't as one is a teacher on her long summer holiday, another is a professional gambler(!) and the OH was off to watch cricket.

I'm feeling very tired and thankful of the sunshine so I had hide behind sunglasses.

Chocolate & cherries said...

That sounds so surreal, I think I would have joined you in your giggles, that or started to think I was actually at home in bed dreaming!

Hope you're feeling better now?

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