What Game Was This? Trivia Quiz

Answer: blackjack

This betting card game is a favorite in casinos (at least here in the USA). A "hit" is having the dealer give your hand one more face-up card; "bust" is having your hand count go over 21 points, thus causing you to lose to the dealer's hand.

Answer: chess

A gambit is an opening move in which you sacrifice a chess piece to gain a position advantage; a stalemate is a result where no move can lead to success for either side. Both terms have entered the language as general terms describing many human activities. I suppose that could include yachting, poker, and table games.

Answer: bowling

A turkey is rolling strikes (all ten pins knocked down with a single ball bowled) in three consecutive frames (turns on the alley).

Answer: bridge

Dummy is the partner of the declarer--that's the player who won the contract (bid the highest) on the current hand. Dummy's cards go face up un the table and are played by the declarer, while the dummy player sits and watches. Kibitzers? They are those onlookers who too often like to criticize and second-guess your bidding of hands and the playing of your cards.

Answer: football (American)

The quarterback is sacked when he (or she) is tackled (downed) behind the line of scrimmage before giving or throwing the football to a teammate.

Answer: cribbage

"Muggins" is what one player says to claim points the opponent has overlooked and failed to count in cribbage, which many of us consider to be the best two-handed (two persons or two teams) card game.

Answer: volleyball

A player in the back court accepts and bumps the incoming service into the air. A player at the net performs a "spike" by jumping high and striking the ball downward and over the net--hopefully at a speed and with a trajectory that makes it impossible for any player on the other side to save it from hitting the floor.

Answer: poker

The raise is the player's increase on the amount of the preceding bet around the poker table.

Answer: fishing

A snelled hook is a fishhook to which a short length of leader line has been attached, making it easier and ready to attach to the fisherman's line.

Answer: horseshoes

You score different numbers of points if your thrown horseshoe surrounds the post (a "ringer"), rests againts the post (a "leaner"), or lies within a horseshoe width of the post (it's close). Fact is, I've also heard that "close" is important in hand grenades and dancing. There must be a few other activites that belong on the list, too.

Answer: baseball

If you are Canadian or American, or even Japanese, and especially if you are from the Dominican Republic, there is no need to explain. If you don't have baseball as a part of your life, an explanation would take too many paragraphs to fit here. No offense intended, my friend, that's just the way baseball is-- a simple game that we've made very, very complex.

Answer: football (soccer)

This is one that all of you who are not American or Canadian are sure to know without explanation. Those who rarely see soccer matches will have to imagine what heading the ball into the goal is all about.

Answer: basketball

She threw in a jump shot from the end of the zone marked below the goal--what is that, about 20 feet (6.09614159 meters) away from the basket? Oh yes, and the ball went through the hoop without touching it.

Answer: running (sprint)

One hundred yards or one hundred meters in 9.6 seconds, with some extra effort at the end of the sprint.

Answer: football (American)

The receiver who positions himself pretty far out from the end of the offensive line did an athletic whirl as he ran downfield, thus causing the rearmost defensive player to make a move that sent himself in a wrong direction. But won't you agree that it is much too difficult and pompous-sounding to say it in that way?

Answer: golf

If you've ever hit golf balls, you've probably sliced them, hooked them, and shanked them. If you haven't tried golf, this simply won't matter to you. That's OK.

Answer: golf

I scored two shots over par on a hole, and two shots under par on the next. Again, if you are not a golfer, it all sounds like such silliness. I am a golfer, and I admit it is silliness! But it's very, very serious silliness.

Answer: skating

The axel and the lutz are both spin jumps. They are named for their inventors: Axel Paulson, 1908 Olympic Gold Medalist, and Alois Lutz, who I guess must have been someone who just liked to invent difficult things for skaters to do on ice.

Answer: tennis

I don't know if that sequence of tennis shots really makes sense: in a volley the ball is struck with the racket before it hits the ground, in a half-volley the ball is struck just as it comes off its first bounce, and a lob is a high arcing shot usually made from behind the baseline (far back from the net).

Answer: horseracing

This mare or filly runs well in wet weather, on a muddy track. It's muddy out there today, and I've bet some money on her!