Tau Trivia

Table of Contents

• Getting started
• How the game is played
  • The Daily Game
  • The Monthly Tournaments
  • Topic Selection
• The Current Tournament
• Upcoming Tournaments
• Past Tournaments & Winners
• Monthly tournament scoring

Tau Trivia for the Real World is a daily/monthly trivia tournament for Taus (and their friends and family-members). We make use of a website that offers these sorts of tournaments for free, a cost that fits into the operating budget of the Alumni Association quite nicely. They require registration, but you receive no junk mail or anything else that you wouldn't want... just access to the daily tournament.

Tau Trivia for the Real World was begun some time in late 2004 or early 2005 by alumnus Jason Padron (2001). For various reasons, he was unable to keep up with the maintenance of the tournament, so Pete Lenz (1989) took over in the spring of 2006 (something he is wont to do).

Getting Started:

The set up is pretty simple:

1. use the link above (or here) to go to the private Tau Tournament on the Fun Trivia website.
2. register as a new user, choosing a screen name and password (only one per player, please). Choose a user name that will let your brothers and sisters know who you are... maybe fill out the profile, too.
3. login and play every day!!!!

Okay, you don't HAVE to play every day. But the best way to remain competitive for the monthly tournament is to play every day. Playing on whatever days you can is still fun for you and can throw all sorts of variability into the monthly tournament for the more regular players.

Playing:

The Daily Game

• Each day ten items are randomly drawn from the pool of questions that were selected for that month's tournament.
• All players have to answer the same ten questions.
• Scoring
  • For each correct answer, a player gets 100 points.
  • One point is deducted for each second that it took the player to answer all ten questions
  • Daily rankings are based on this score (which can range from 0 to over 900)
• A new game starts at roughly 11pm central standard/daylight time, but from 11 - 12 central time, there appears to be the potential for glitches, so playing around this time is discouraged.
• Also, try not to play between 3.45 and 4.45 am central time... the site does a database update around 4am and locks everyone out... if you are in the midst of play, however, the clock will still be ticking... causing your points for the day to be zero in most cases.
• The results of each daily game are shown on this page (as well as the trivia site's page, of course).

The Monthly Tournament

• High scorers of the daily games earn points towards the monthly tournament scoring.
• Anyone who plays in a daily game is included in the monthly tournament scoring.
• Points earned on a given day toward the monthly tournament are based upon the number of players on a given day. See table below.
• One can see the progress of people in the monthly tournament by going to the site's "Standings" page for the Tau tournaments.
• The top players at the end of the month will be listed on the Hall of Fame page (you may need to log in to see it)
• It appears that players with daily game scores of zero DO get included in that day's point determination for the monthly tournament, but the display doesn't present it that way.

Monthly Topic Selection

• Monthly topics are selected by the Tournament administrator, Pete Lenz (1989), either on his own or with input from participants (the latter is, by far, the preferred option).
• Pete is happy to accept suggestions for tournaments. The main caveat is that, since we are working through a website run by other folks, not every topic one can think of will have many, if any, questions, much less enough questions to permits a month long tournament. They have a lot, but not everything. And, since they are a "family friendly" site, naughty stuff is very limited.
• Monthly tournaments are generally themed in some way (see the list of upcoming and past tournaments for an idea of themes that have been played or are upcoming.
• While the majority of questions will be faithfully applicable to the topic, the creative addition of a small number of "sort-of-on-topic" questions to the pool will often take place. For example, if the topic were "cats" any of the following would be considered fair game: cats (the animals... this would comprise the majority of questions), Cats (the Broadway production), Red Dwarf (the British sit-com that had a humanoid cat as a main character), Bobcat Goldthwait, The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe... etc...
• We should point out that, although Pete chooses the question pools for the tournaments, he does not have access to the questions ahead of time and so may legitimately participate in the tournament without enjoying any kind of edge on his peers.

The Current Tournament:

November - Music

Contents of question pools and accuracy of items therein are NOT under our control... the Fun Trivia site relies upon the accuracy of their contributors and feedback from players... we may run into occasional errors in content or keying. Also, the site sometimes goes down for reasons that are both unknown to us and beyond our control. There's nothing we can do about it... it's a free service so we are getting far more than our money's worth even with an occasional problem.

Upcoming Tournaments (suggestions welcome!):

December - pending...

Past Tournaments:

October - Halloween, Magic, Superstition
The top five players were:

1. WatcherTau (Daven Howard, 1996) - 249 points, 5 wins
2. beatlebabe (Jessica (Fuoco) Beswick, 2007) - 238 points, 5 wins
3. SirDog84 (Andy Beswick, 2006) - 233 points, 5 wins
4. PlenzOfTau (Pete Lenz, 1989) - 232 points, 2 wins
5. ToriiTau (Torii Swader, 1998) - 214 points, 3 wins

September - Presidential Trivia
The top five players were:

1. imperiousLeader (Bruce Davis, 1982) - 267 points, 8 wins
2. WatcherTau (Daven Howard, 1996) - 255 points, 6 wins
3. beatlebabe (Jessica (Fuoco) Beswick, 2007) - 231 points, 3 wins
4. Carol (Carol (Shay) Hornung, 1988) - 231 points, 3 wins
5. Tish316 (Trisha Shafer, 2008) - 206 points, 2 wins

August - Water Trivia (Islands, explorers, bodies of water, etc)
The top five players were:

1. imperiousLeader (Bruce Davis, 1982) - 219 points, 8 wins
2. PlenzOfTau (Pete Lenz, 1989) - 216 points, 6 wins
3. Tish316 (Trisha Shafer, 2008) - 193 points, 3 wins
4. Carol (Carol (Shay) Hornung, 1988) - 188 points, 3 wins
5. WatcherTau (Daven Howard, 1996) - 186 points, 3 wins

July - Word play!
The top five players were:

1. imperiousLeader (Bruce Davis, 1982) - 260 points, 5 wins
2. PlenzOfTau (Pete Lenz, 1989) - 245 points, 7 wins
3. beatlebabe (Jessica (Fuoco) Beswick, 2007) - 235 points, 5 wins
4. WatcherTau (Daven Howard, 1996) - 227 points, 1 win
5. AliceNTSLand (Viola (Martin) Lenz, 2002) - 223 points, 4 wins

June - Cooking, baking, drinks mixing, and food!!
The top five players were:

1. beatlebabe (Jessica (Fuoco) Beswick, 2007) - 198 points, 9 wins
2. PlenzOfTau (Pete Lenz, 1989) - 195 points, 3 wins
3. SirDog84 (Andy Beswick, 2006) - 184 points, 7 wins
4. Igor (John Kenny, 1994) - 156 points, 2 wins
5. imperiousLeader (Bruce Davis, 1982) - 155 points, 6 wins

May 2008 - Video games
The top five players were:

1. Igor (John Kenny, 1994) - 212 points, 6 wins
2. ToriiTau (Torii Swader, 1998) - 211 points, 3 wins
3. PlenzOfTau (Pete Lenz, 1989) - 210 points, 4 wins
4. AliceNTSLand (Viola (Martin) Lenz, 2002) - 201 points, 4 wins
5. SirDog84 (Andy Beswick, 2006) - 192 points, 4 wins

April 2008 - Weather and related phenomena
The top five players were:

1. PlenzOfTau (Pete Lenz, 1989) - 230 points, 7 wins
2. ToriiTau (Torii Swader, 1998) - 213 points, 3 wins
3. beatlebabe (Jessica (Fuoco) Beswick, 2007) - 206 points, 4 wins
4. Igor (John Kenny, 1994) - 198 points, 4 wins
5. SirDog84 (Andy Beswick, 2006) - 188 points, 0 wins

Because of a problem with the formatting of the web page, In April 2008 the tournament moved to a new account number. The records are still visible from the previous tournament account if one goes to that page, but the page no longer works and so tournaments can no longer be held there.

March 2008 - Irish Trivia
The top five players were:

1. beatlebabe (Jessica (Fuoco) Beswick, 2007) - 233 points, 6 wins
2. imperiousLeader (Bruce Davis, 1982) - 214 points, 5 wins
3. PlenzOfTau (Pete Lenz, 1989) - 204 points, 4 wins
4. ToriiTau (Torii Swader, 1998) - 199 points, 2 wins
5. SirDog84 (Andy Beswick, 2006) - 193 points, 6 wins
6. Tish316 (Trisha Shafer, 2008) - 193 points, 3 wins

February 2008 - Mel Brooks Mania
The top five players were:

1. PlenzOfTau (Pete Lenz, 1989) - 308 points, 10 wins
2. Igor (John Kenny, 1994) - 255 points, 4 wins
3. imperiousLeader (Bruce Davis, 1982) - 250 points, 1 win
4. AliceNTSLand (Viola (Martin) Lenz, 2002) - 239 points, 2 wins
5. ToriiTau (Torii Swader, 1998) - 225 points, 5 wins

January 2008 - Mixed Bag of January-related stuff
The top five players were:

1. PlenzOfTau (Pete Lenz, 1989) - 271 points, 8 wins
2. AliceNTSLand (Viola (Martin) Lenz, 2002) - 243 points, 4 wins
3. imperiousLeader (Bruce Davis, 1982) - 225 points, 4 wins
4. SirDog84 (Andy Beswick, 2006) - 221 points, 2 wins
5. beatlebabe (Jessica (Fuoco) Beswick, 2007) - 214 points, 1 win

December 2007 - Mixed Bag
The top five players were:

1. beatlebabe (Jessica (Fuoco) Beswick, 2007) - 299 points, 7 wins
2. WatcherTau (Daven Howard, 1996) - 269 points, 7 wins
3. PlenzOfTau (Pete Lenz, 1989) - 259 points, 2 wins
4. AliceNTSLand (Viola (Martin) Lenz, 2002) - 256 points, 3 wins
5. Igor (John Kenny, 1994) - 255 points, 0 wins

November 2007 - US & World Military Trivia in honor of Veterans' Day
The top five players were:

1. imperiousLeader (Bruce Davis, 1982) - 252 points, 5 wins
2. Tish316 (Trisha Shafer, 2008) - 230 points, 7 wins
3. beatlebabe (Jessica (Fuoco) Beswick, 2007) - 230 points, 2 wins
4. PlenzOfTau (Pete Lenz, 1989) - 223 points, 3 wins
5. ToriiTau (Torii Swader, 1998) - 222 points, 2 wins

OCTOBER 2007 - The "New" World
The top five players were:

1. imperiousLeader (Bruce Davis, 1982) - 255 points, 7 wins
2. beatlebabe (Jessica (Fuoco) Beswick, 2007) - 247 points, 8 wins
3. PlenzOfTau (Pete Lenz, 1989) - 210 points, 1 win
4. ToriiTau (Torii Swader, 1998) - 206 points, 2 wins
5. AliceNTSLand (Viola (Martin) Lenz, 2002) - 198 points, 2 wins

SEPTEMBER 2007 - Kids and Parenting
The top five players were:

1. beatlebabe (Jessica (Fuoco) Beswick, 2007) - 255 points, 6 wins
2. PlenzOfTau (Pete Lenz, 1989) - 248 points, 4 wins
3. Igor (John Kenny, 1994) - 240 points, 3 wins
4. SirDog84 (Andy Beswick, 2006) - 232 points, 3 wins
5. AliceNTSLand (Viola (Martin) Lenz, 2002) - 219 points, 1 win

AUGUST 2007 - Television!
The top five players were:

1. AliceNTSLand (Viola (Martin) Lenz, 2002) - 266 points, 6 wins
2. imperiousLeader (Bruce Davis, 1982) - 265 points, 4 wins
3. FlipsyCup (Luke Lockhart, 2010) - 260 points, 3 wins
4. PlenzOfTau (Pete Lenz, 1989) - 249 points, 1 win
5. ToriiTau (Torii Swader, 1998) - 245 points, 4 wins

JULY 2007 - Movies!!
The top five players were:

1. altorogue (Kali Jankovich, 2007) - 319 points, 9 wins
2. AliceNTSLand (Viola (Martin) Lenz, 2002) - 310 points, 5 wins
3. ToriiTau (Torii Swader, 1998) - 302 points, 3 wins
4. darla (Darlene Wulf, 2003) - 251 points, 3 wins
5. MadAuntieJ (Jayme Elliott, Plenz's sister-in-law) - 248 points, 2 wins

June 2007 - Music of all sorts!
The top five players were:

1. altorogue (Kali Jankovich, 2007) - 254 points, 4 wins
2. iPwnn00bz!!!111 (Waiken Soo, a friend of Plenz's brother, Eric) - 248 points, 9 wins
3. darla (Darlene Wulf, 2003) - 233 points, 3 wins
4. imperiousLeader (Bruce Davis, 1982) - 228 points, 1 win
5. WatcherTau (Daven Howard, 1996) - 218 points, 3 wins

May 2007 - Botany & Other Vegetabular Topics
The top five players were:

1. ToriiTau (Torii Swader, 1998) - 304 points, 4 wins
2. MadAuntieJ (Jayme Elliott, Plenz's sister-in-law) - 284 points, 5 wins
3. imperiousLeader (Bruce Davis, 1982) - 278 points, 2 wins
4. PlenzOfTau (Pete Lenz, 1989) - 267 points, 4 wins
5. altorogue (Kali Jankovich, 2007) - 264 points, 0 wins

April 2007 - Greek Mythology
The top five players were:

1. PlenzOfTau (Pete Lenz, 1989) - 311 points, 11 wins
2. beatlebabe (Jessica Fuoco, 2007) - 292 points, 4 wins
3. ToriiTau (Torii Swader, 1998) - 284 points, 3 wins
4. altorogue (Kali Jankovich, 2007) - 242 points, 1 win
5. imperiousLeader (Bruce Davis, 1982) - 227 points, 1 win

March 2007 - Women's Herstory (History) Month
The top five players were:

1. imperiousLeader (Bruce Davis, 1982) - 292 points, 5 wins
2. altorogue (Kali Jankovich, 2007) - 279 points, 6 wins
3. darla (Darlene Wulf, 2003) - 252 points, 4 wins
4. beatlebabe (Jessica Fuoco, 2007) - 246 points, 2 wins
5. PlenzOfTau (Pete Lenz, 1989) - 242 points, 3 wins

February 2007 - Love and Kisses
The top five players were:

1. PlenzOfTau (Pete Lenz, 1989) - 251 points, 3 wins
2. WatcherTau (Daven Howard, 1996) - 236 points, 5 wins
3. ToriiTau (Torii Swader, 1998) - 227 points, 3 wins
4. AliceNTSLand (Viola (Martin) Lenz, 2002) - 208 points, 3 wins>
5. altorogue (Kali Jankovich, 2007) - 199 points, 3 wins

January 2007 - Kids' Stuff.
The top five players were:

1. AliceNTSLand (Viola (Martin) Lenz, 2002) - 281 points, 5 wins>
2. beatlebabe (Jessica Fuoco, 2007) - 256 points, 2 wins
3. ToriiTau (Torii Swader, 1998) - 247 points, 3 wins
4. altorogue (Kali Jankovich, 2007) - 245 points, 5 wins
5. PlenzOfTau (Pete Lenz, 1989) - 239 points, 4 wins

DECEMBER 2006 - Chanukwanzamas.
The top five players were:

1. Babs9t3 (Lisa (Thone) Kopic, 1993) - 271 points, 10 wins
2. PlenzOfTau (Pete Lenz, 1989) - 234 points, 3 wins
3. imperiousLeader (Bruce Davis, 1982) - 228 points, 4 wins
4. darla (Darlene Wulf, 2003) - 227 points, 2 win
5. AliceNTSLand (Viola (Martin) Lenz, 2002) - 222 points, 7 wins

NOVEMBER 2006 - Birds, birds, Byrds, and more birds.
The top five players were:

1. ToriiTau (Torii Swader, 1998) - 271 points, 5 wins
2. imperiousLeader (Bruce Davis, 1982) - 261 points, 4 wins
3. PlenzOfTau (Pete Lenz, 1989) - 261 points, 1 win
4. Babs9t3 (Lisa (Thone) Kopic, 1993) - 240 points, 5 wins
5. AliceNTSLand (Viola (Martin) Lenz, 2002) - 218 points, 3 wins

OCTOBER 2006 - Horror movies, Halloween trivia, horror writers, etc.
The top five players were:

1. AliceNTSLand (Viola (Martin) Lenz, 2002) - 296 points, 8 wins
2. Babs9t3 (Lisa (Thone) Kopic, 1993) - 294 points, 4 wins
3. PlenzOfTau (Pete Lenz, 1989) - 267 points, 4 wins
4. altorogue (Kali Jankovich, 2007) - 238 points, 2 wins
5. beatlebabe (Jessica Fuoco, 2007) - 222 points, 2 wins

SEPTEMBER 2006 - Ancient World Myth and Legends Trivia about myths and legends from around the world, with only a few questions about Greek Mythology.
The top five players were:

1. ToriiTau (Torii Swader, 1998) - 269 points, 6 wins
2. PlenzOfTau (Pete Lenz, 1989) - 266 points, 6 wins
3. altorogue (Kali Jankovich, 2007) - 236 points, 3 wins
4. AliceNTSLand (Viola (Martin) Lenz, 2002) - 217 points, 3 wins
5. PlenzJr (Eric Lenz, Pete's brother) - 210 points, 2 wins

AUGUST 2006 - British Television Trivia about British sci-fi and comedy.
The top five players were:

1. PlenzOfTau (Pete Lenz, 1989) - 192 points, 13 wins
2. swtrilogy (Ken Dillon, 2003) - 172 points, 6 wins
3. AliceNTSLand (Viola (Martin) Lenz, 2002) - 160 points, 4 wins
4. ToriiTau (Torii Swader, 1998) - 159 points, 3 wins
5. Babs9t3 (Lisa (Thone) Kopic, 1993) - 144 points, 1 win

JULY 2006 - US History, the US Consitution, etc. Trivia about our great nation's history, guiding principles, and laws.
The top five players were:

1. imperiousLeader (Bruce Davis, 1982) - 225 points, 5 wins
2. swtrilogy (Ken Dillon, 2003) - 209 points, 3 wins
3. WatcherTau (Daven Howard, 1996) - 205 points, 5 wins
4. PlenzOfTau (Pete Lenz, 1989) - 201 points, 3 wins
5. ToriiTau (Torii Swader, 1998) - 197 points, 1 win

JUNE 2006 - General Trivia, Difficult The "difficult" category of general trivia, according to the Fun Trivia website. It was far less difficult than it suggested, making speed a very important factor in this particular month.
The top five players were:

1. swtrilogy (Ken Dillon, 2003) - 238 points, 16 wins
2. AliceNTSLand (Viola (Martin) Lenz, 2002) - 205 points, 1 win
3. PlenzOfTau (Pete Lenz, 1989) - 203 points, 1 win
4. WatcherTau (Daven Howard, 1996) - 195 points, 7 wins
5. darla (Darlene Wulf, 2003) - 170 points, 1 win

How the games are scored:

The method used for generating points for the monthly tournament is a little complex, so we shall spell it out here in more detail.

The winner of each daily game is awarded a number of points equal to the number of players... thus, if 10 people play on Monday, Monday's winner gets 10 points; if 25 people play Tuesday, Tuesday's winner gets 25 points; if 75 people play on Wednesday, Wednesday's winner gets 75 points.

People coming in below first get points based on a percentage of the winner's points. In order, the players in 2nd - 10th places get points equal to 90%, 80%, 75%, 70%, 65%, 60%, 55%, 50%, 45% of the winner's points. People in 11th - 20th place get points equal to 20% of the winner's, 21st - 30th = 15%, 31st - 40th = 10%, 41st - 50th = 5%. If more than 50 people play, any players in 51st place or worse get no points at all.

In cases where two or more people tie on a given day, the person(s) who played earlier in the day is(are) given a higher rank. This also applies to people who might earn zero points in a day... they are ranked according to the order of play, earlier being placed higher, and they do earn points commensurate with their ranking (although the site's daily display makes it appear that they do not).

Below is a table with a few sample games and the points one might expect to get for a given placing. The X-axis (the row on the top) shows the number of players in a hypothetical game, the Y-axis (the column down the left side) is the placement 1st - 51st. The scores in the grid are the scores one could expect for a given placing (Y-axis) in a game of a certain number of players (X-axis):