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Spilling the sweet tea with Greg Fanoe

 I recently ventured down to Tampa to interview Greg Fanoe who made TOTW in Season 17 week 8 of OQL USA. This is his fifth time making team of the week and he was the only one to get a full house on the set.  He also got a full house in OQL UK on 3/18, making TOTW. I met up with him at one of Tampa's first Michelin starred restaurants, Rocca in Tampa Heights. Their tableside mozzarella cart was fascinating and  I tried the Agnolotti, a stuffed pasta that I had never had before. For such a nice place, it was very affordable. Tim:  How did you first get into trivia as a hobby? What are your first memories of it? Greg: I’ve always been interested in trivia. My family was big on Jeopardy! & Trivial Pursuit from when I was a kid. In high school I was part of my quiz bowl team at Walton High in Marietta, GA which was reliably a top level team until our longtime coach retired not long after I left (my team got top 5 at both of the first two NAQT nationals in 1999 and 20...
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Wine with Steve Winer

I recently caught up with longtime OQL vet Steve Winer.  He is a 14 season vet of OQL and has written many friendlies and playtested even more. He recently got Team of the Week honors for Season 17/ Week 8.  We stopped by Louie's Pizza in Woburn, Massachusetts, a city just outside of Boston. The linguica and hamburger pizza was delicious. Rich: How did you first get into OQLUSA? What team were you on? Steve: I saw a post in the LearnedLeague message board.  Started back in Season 3.  Initially was on Extraneous Abstract Thoughts - eventually wound up on Cooler Heads which is my current team. Rich: How did you like playing in D1 last season? What was the experience like? Steve: Definitely a challenge between no free guess and the quality of the opposition.  I did enjoy getting to play against so many great quizzers. Rich: When did you first get into trivia as a hobby? Steve: Played Quiz Bowl in High School in Burlington VT.  I also played a lot of Trivial Pu...
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Breaking down the Full Houses

In OQL USA Season 16 Week 4, nine players got full houses, a high number indeed.  I caught up with Smarter How’s Dan Blim after he achieved a 21(8) full house against Sunday in the Park With George Costanza.  Tim: Is this the greatest individual performance in your Trivia career? Dan: It’s definitely up there, particularly in terms of individual performance! There’ve been some memorable wild guesses, like randomly picking the name Kevin as a given member of the Pentatonix (just seemed like the name of a kid in the 90s who’d join an a capella group?), some deep cut knowledge I’m really proud of pulling, but on a larger scale it’s pretty high. But I also like the team aspects of OQL, and my Smarter How? colleagues have all had amazing games, impressive pulls, and as the 3rd member to get a full house, I’m now pulling for the other two! Tim: During the game, did it cross your mind that you were headed towards perfection? How much pressure were you feeling during round 8? Dan: It ...
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