Thursday, April 18, 2024

James Lindsay and Richard Hawke are the hosts of Champions of Champions, a trivia quiz held on the first Wednesday of each month at The Middle East Corner in Central Square.

Does Cambridge have the most trivia per capita of any city in the United States?

No idea. But that would be interesting, wouldn’t it?

With Champions Of Champions Pub Trivia having its first event tonight at 9 at the Middle East — it moved from Radio in Somerville — that makes for, by rough count, the 28th weekly trivia night in the city and, get this, apparently the ninth trivia event in Cambridge just on Wednesdays. Although Champions Of Champions runs only on the first Wednesday of each month and therefore lowers the number on every other week of a month, hump day is still the biggest trivia day, followed by Tuesday (seven events), Thursday (four), Monday (three, but maybe if Think Tank in Kendall Square reopens the managers will revive the night’s trivia as well), Sunday (two) and Friday (one).

That’s right: Trivia junkies have no place to go on Saturdays. They have to stay in, probably playing Trivial Pursuit.

Now, keeping in mind that this is a rough count caught mid-research, subject to the vagaries of poor Internet record-keeping and updating, when there are nine trivia events on a single Wednesday night, how do you choose? Maybe by when the events start?

If you want to start early, go to Tommy Doyle’s in Kendall, which starts at 7 p.m. If you miss that, quick, jump on the T to Phoenix Landing in Central or run to Atwood’s Tavern in East Cambridge for a 7:30 p.m. start. After that you have your 8 p.m. choice of Tommy Doyle’s in Harvard, Joe Sent Me in North Cambridge or Spirit Bar in Porter. And then it’s Tavern in the Square at 9 p.m. in either Central or Porter. (Wednesday night trivia is extremely well spread out, geographically speaking. There’s also trivia at The Druid in Inman Square and at the Thirsty Ear, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology pub.)

You may also want to simply focus on Champions of Champions for now, since it’s new to the city and sounds interesting. Here’s how the Boston Phoenix describes it:

The Champions’ version of pub trivia is a party you’re going to want to attend. COC introduces physical challenges (like building answers out of Legos), categories and questions even more irreverent than the Geeks, and — our personal favorite — guest appearances from obscure “famous characters from history” played by local personalities (a recent edition featured Dan Webb of local garage-rock outfit Dan Webb & the Spiders as Alexander the Great). In short, it’s totally weird, and it’s totally fun.

A final bit of trivia just to wrap up: There are a dozen Stump-branded trivia nights in the city and six for Geeks Who Drink.

Itching for more details? We’ll update this eventually, when it seems to have become of significant importance … rather than being trivial.

The Middle East Corner is at 472-480 Massachusetts Ave., Central Square.