Okay, so this is a trivia game and winning isn’t as important to most players, but you know me… I have to put some thoughts down on how to outperform in this game, at least on average:

Back Yourself; It sounds simple but the biggest mistake I see is players not betting some additional chips when they think they know the answer. If your aren’t worried about coming last, and you want to try to win, then the best shot is to bet big when you are confident you know the answer.

Who Would Know; The answers infront of you are not random – they are written by those around the table. Who is the best at movie knowledge, science, history…. who would know this question and did they bet on their own answer as well?

No Regrets Bets; I like this concept – there are points in the final question where betting a bit more will take you to the top of the pile, but betting a bit less won’t change your position…. the players behind you can’t win enough to go past you, but you can win enough to go past the next player…. this is a no regret bet. Often these are just ignored because of uncertainty on the question, but in the last round you might as well go for it.

Being Lowest or Highest; Sometimes you want to be at the extremes…. when no one knows but the spread of answers is quite tight then the odds boost for betting on the outside guesses can be big. Watch out for the opportunity to be really low or really high and still catch a lot of possible answers and some great odds. Also, on the board there is a spot for lower than all the answers shown – this is useful when everyone gets carried away and bids high (often useful when you were the lowest bid but want to hedge it being even lower).

The Biggest Spread; Because the winning answer is the nearest one that is not over the actual answer there can exist good odds for a spread of answers between two player guesses. If the range between all guesses is 100, but between the second and third guess is 50 of the gap, that means the second answer (and not the third which is higher) will be right for a very wide spread of answers. I like to bet on these ones because often people don’t know and these big gaps are the best bet – particularly in answers about a period of time, this is where you know something happened in the 30’s or 40’s but no one quite knows when…. one answer that covers a five year spread could be worth a bet.

Don’t Over Think it; What’s the fastest a certain bird can go…. well bound it by things you do know, cars etc, and then take a stab. Your answer won’t matter as much as what you bid on.

Increasing Stakes; Even if it’s just a marginal increase, I like to bid a little more in each round. Otherwise I tend to find you leave yourself exposed to someone knowing the last answer and betting it all to over take you. This can be avoided through steady increased betting as long as you are reasonably good at the game!

Best of luck!