Tournament Rules & Scoring

The biggest live trivia competition in Maryland culminates each season with our championship game, The Trivia Bowl.

Teams will have the opportunity over 12-15 games to earn what are called bowl points which allow them to qualify for postseason play. Bowl points are determined by the following formula:

1. First place bowl points are equal to the number of teams at the start of the game minus two, with 10 being the maximum points possible for first place.
2. Second place points are two less than first; Third place points are two less than second. Thereafter, the points decrease by one for each place. Some team will always receive one bowl point.

For example: In a twelve team game, the bowl point breakdown is as follows:

Teams entering a game already in progress will be included in bowl point count if they play at least 3 rounds and the halftime question or final question. Games which end in a tie for 1st, 2nd or 3rd place will use a single question tiebreaker to break all ties. Teams that end up tied for 4th place or lower will all receive the same bowl points for their position.

There are two ways for a team to earn a first round bye and advance directly to the semi-finals.

(1) Win the house title at your location or,

(2) Play a minimum of 6 games at a second location and finish in the top 5 at either location.

The following are rules for tournament play:

1. Teams MUST use the same team name for the entire season.
2. Teams are welcome to compete at different locations each night of the week, but must use the same team name in ALL games.
3. Bowl points count ONLY for the location where they are earned. They CANNOT be combined with bowl points from games at other locations.
4. If the same location hosts Final Score games two or more nights per week, they are considered separate locations when tallying bowl points.
5. Individual players are welcome to play on as many different teams as they like, but they must declare which team they will play on in the playoffs, before the first playoff game occurs.
6. Players may never play on more than one playoff team. If they are found to have done so, then both teams will be disqualified.
7. In order for a player to be qualified to play in the playoffs they must have played at least 4 games under that team name in the current season.
8. Family members of Final Score employees may not compete for bowl points or prizes while playing any game that the employee is running.
9. Persons who share a domicile with any Final Score employee may not compete for bowl points or prizes while playing any game that the employee is running.
10. Employees of any Final Score location may compete for bowl points at any location, including their own as long as they are not actually working during the game. Establishment owners may also play and are exempt from the phone rule ONLY for official business calls.
11. If the 12 player limit rule is broken, the team will be disqualified from that game, but will retain all bowl points earned up to that game. A second violation of the rule will result in the loss of all bowl points.
12. Violation of the rules will result in disqualification from that game, and possibly the loss of all bowl points depending on the circumstances of the rule violation. At the MC's discretion they may issue a one-time warning to the team before disqualifying them.
13. Teams that don't turn in a final answer after the last question has been asked, will receive a deduction of 20 pts from their pre-final score
14. Attempts will be made to make up any cancelled games. However, if a location is cancelled permanently, tournament standings will count IF a minimum of six games have been played.

After the 12-15 tournament games are completed, teams that finish 5th place or higher will automatically qualify for a first round playoff game. Teams must play a minimum of four games in order to qualify. The first place finisher in each location (the house champion) will receive a first round playoff bye.

There will be some wildcard playoff spots for teams that finish lower than fifth place and wildcard bye spots. Those spots will be determined by a factor of bowl point percentage, team’s bowl points vs. total bowl points awarded to all teams in their division, as well as game pt. percentage vs. tournament game points (Z-score).

At the end of the season, if two or more teams are tied for first place in a given location, the following tiebreakers will be used to determine the house champion for that location:

1. Total game wins
2. If the number of game wins is the same, total game points for the entire season will determine the house champion. If two or more teams are tied for 5th place overall, the same formula will be used to determine the 5th place finisher.

All playoff games are played on the weekends. Playoff teams MUST be prepared to play in ANY playoff game. Teams CANNOT request specific playoff dates or times. If an emergency comes up, teams must let me know prior to the posting of the playoff game schedule. Teams are assigned to playoff games based on a ranking and seeding process.

Different players may be used each week as long as the total does NOT exceed 12 players in any one game. Substitutions during a game are NOT allowed.

Twenty* teams will play in The Trivia Bowl. The prize breakdown for the Trivia Bowl is as follows:

• Occasionally additional teams will be added in conjunction with special promotions being run by the company

The email address for Final Score Trivia is .

Updated March 22, 2012
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