Wellington team crowned national pub quiz champions

What is the 10th largest US state by population, and 11th largest in land mass?

The shape of this state is unique with southern and northern peninsulas surrounded by water.

Initially, Kelvin Lange's quiz team of eight did not know the answer at Saturday night's SKY TV Pub Quiz Championships at Eden Park's Grand Hall. They pooled their knowledge, eliminating possible options on the west and east coast of America.

"In the end, it was an easy question because we thought 'It literally has to be Michigan, because all of the other don't make sense'," Lange said.

(It was a trick question, because Michigan's peninsulas are surrounded by the Great Lakes and not the ocean).

That was one of the correct answers that clinched Lange's team the prize of ultimate winners of New Zealand's biggest quiz competition.

The team - called 'Eddie's Back, Don't Panic!' - had come second place for the last four years, and won the competition three times in the 2000s.

They beat out about 70 other teams in a three-hour-long knowledge duel that spanned almost 100 questions across eight categories, including sport, film and TV, and science.

"I think the most proud moments were when we sort of worked together as a team to land on an answer," said Lange, who is 48 and a government researcher from Lower Hutt.

The team has been "quizzing" together for years and are friends with various knowledge specialties.

"This isn't a sort of manufactured quiz team or anything like that... You've got to have a good dynamic because you all know each other and who to trust on what things, what topics they know."

How the competition went down

The team cake-walked through easy questions such as who invented the printing press (Johannes Gutenberg) and who discovered polonium and radium (Marie Curie).

They got into trouble in the sports section with real curlers such as the most recent person to be given the title of "Immortal" in rugby league. Somehow the team found their way to the right answer: Andrew Johns.

While the Australian breakdancer Raygun stole headlines at the Paris Olympics with her unusual style, name either country that took home the gold medals for breaking. Lange recalled the men's gold medalist had a Korean-name, but wasn't from South Korea or North Korea. The team landed on the correction answer: Canada.

"That was definitely a fist pump moment," said Lange, of their hardwon high score in the sports category.

One question that stumped them was an Australian beer brand with the slogan "Australian for Beer." Is it XXXX or Fosters? If you thought XXXX, like Lange's team, you would be wrong.

In the end, the team won 108 points out of 118, trouncing second place by a handsome margin of five points.

Preparing for competitive quizzing

Competitive quizzing takes a lifetime of curiosity, building up knowledge from research and life experience (think the inspiring storyline from Slumdog Millionaire, one of Lange's favourite movies). Some quiz champions like to prepare for competitions and others don't.

Lange practices quizzes at home. He predicts what topics might come up in a category and researches those topics, "basically chip away at it."

"I'm sort of looking for something, thinking about a [knowledge] gap or a question comes up and you go 'Oh, jeez. I really don't know anything about that topic. I really should sort that out."

Memory recall

What about when you have an answer on the tip of your tongue? How does one recall that information, especially under pressure?

Lange tries to pretend he hadn't read the question and shocks the answer out of himself by circling back a few minutes later.

"I guess my tactic tends to be to try and switch off from it for a little bit and pop back into that fact."

Teams tackle ten questions from one category at once, in a certain timeframe, so there is time to pass and come back.

Sometimes Lange will see the shape of an answer - like the shape letters in a name form, or that the name might end in say an "al." He shares this intel with the team who throw out possible options.

"We've all got crazy crazy brains that work in different ways."