| 306 | Not Everybody Keeps Their Genitals in the Same Place (changed name to "Genitals on Kill" circa 7:30 AM) |
| "305" | Play To Win and I'll Kill You |
| 287 | Fear Is Never Boring |
| 277 | Wildlife Waiting to Be Fondled |
| 233 | Unholy Union of the Basselope |
| 221 | Romulan Ale Will No Longer Be Served at Diplomatic Functions |
| 212 | I Don't Want Condoms For My Shrimp |
| 164 | The Dodd Fuddpuckers |
| 129 | Team Broxda |
| 49 | Karst (???) |
| 28 | Sage A |
| 16 | Tasmanian Tree Biters of the North |
| 8 | Dan and Helene Want To Play Too |
| 6 | What Are You, Some Kind of Swede? |
| 6 | Big Dog |
| 5 | My Nipples Explode with Delight |
| 5 | Wolf Outside the Clinic |
| 4 | Freddy Mercury's Bohemian Mortuary |
| 4 | Drunk, Marginalized and Beset with Scurvy |
| 2 | Danger - Falling Milli Vanilli Zone |
| 2 | Mummenschanz on the Highway, at Night |
| 2 | Papa Charlie's Presents the Jeffrey Dahmer Sandwich |
| 2 | Bring Me The Head of Marni Nixon |
| 2 | Roddy Piper is God |
| 2 | Do Not Taunt Happy Fun Ball |
| 2 | Yoo Hoo! Table Monster! |
| 2 | Beyond the Valley of Marni Nixon |
| 1 | Dark, Religious Underbelly |
| 1 | Keep Your Dinosaur Farts Out of My Ozone |
| 1 | The Taking of Marni Nixon 1-2-3 |
| 1 | They Shoot Marni Nixon, Don't They? |
| 0 | I Suggest That You Begin Drinking Heavily (apparently they did) |
Never was a trivia team more aptly named than 'Play to Win and I'll Kill You.' Never was a team more divided in spirit or purpose. And no messier ending to a trivia contest has ever been concocted.
The unusual name was simply a message scrawled on the blackboard by one team member at 11 PM, to greet the others as they arrived. It was soon surrounded by the usual suggestions for a team name. When the name vote was taken, the less-popular nominees were erased one by one, until only the winner, 'My Nipples Explode with Delight,' remained. But the same member who'd left the 'I'll Kill You' message objected loudly enough that Nipples also fell to the eraser. At this point, it was 12:05 and there was nothing written on the blackboard but the original note: 'Play to Win and I'll Kill You.' And so the ordeal began.
The team, generally known as 'the Python team,' was one of the top two groups playing in the 1989-91 period. In December 1991, they'd just run two of the previous four contests, including the Spring '91 one (as 'Five is Right Out'). The team was united in not wanting to win again. However, there are only two ways not to win a contest: to not win it, or to intentionally not win it. The Python team, always a threat to dominate, could not agree on a strategy. With no solution, the team simply began play and hoped for the worst.
The Play to Win effort was a tale of two halves. Play to Win did very well in the first four hours. Team member Des Devlin went down at 4 AM to deliver the team's Super #1 and Hour #4 sheets, as well as tackle the mano-a-mano quiz. At the same time, it was announced that Play to Win was leading the contest 126-117. The immediately-announced mano-a-mano score of 6 (to the runner-up team's 4) pushed Play To Win's lead to double digits (and this before their Board Games and Fox-TV scores were factored in). Clearly, this was a team in grave, grave danger of winning it all.
The second half grew more and more chaotic. The division of the team was very sharp. Some believed that it was wrong, plain and simple, to play at less than full throttle. However, some were so opposed to the team's first-place standing that they swore not to return to help run should the score hold up. A hasty, half-assed compromise was agreed on: from 4 AM on, no reference materials would be used, and no phone hints would be accepted. This strategy was passed on to the host, Phasers on Stun: TNG, and duly announced over WCFM to some on-air chuckling.
However, even these draconian steps only shaved the lead, and far too slowly. Play to Win teammates were now openly bickering with one another. Players would shout out answers to questions, and then immediately feel guilty for getting the point. In the angry confusion, the 7th Hour Bonus, an audio, was not taped. Play To Win still managed an 8 on it by sheer memory. There were about 3 or 4 players actively striving to get points, a somewhat larger group standing around sullenly, and another handful of players whose allegiance was torn. The team was still on pace to do some Winning, but the time of Playing had long since been extinguished.
As the funfest wound down, one member attempted to physically stop the second Super Bonus from being turned in at all, which led to another argument. Those who felt that the first-place team could not easily explain away a zero score on the second Super won out. (The apprehension was not unwarranted, though, as Play To Win got the top mark.) With the contest over, the team now sat in gloomy silence, awaiting final scores, knowing that either result would be most unwelcome.
Soon enough, the announcement came. 'Number two.... (pause).... Play to Win, with 305.' Not Everybody Keeps Their Genitals In The Same Place had taken the title with 306 points. There was a general cheer that the work slowdown had been 'successful,' but it was not a teamwide one, and not especially hearty. The Play to Win folk sullenly packed up their books, food, props, and coats, and prepared to trudge over to Baxter.
What had actually occurred was a matter of some serendipity. After 8 AM, Phasers: TNG was scoring the final two bonuses, and claimed to be unable to decipher some gnarly handwriting. Play to Win was asked to call the Pus Line to translate. Perhaps sensing something was up, three or four members went upstairs with the person to a hall phone.
Mr. Phaser got to the point: he asked whether the attempt to bungle the contest had actually been serious. He was told how Play To Win had split in two over the issue, and that the cluster wanting to win/run was perhaps 6-8 people; clearly not enough to host a successful contest. Phasers offered to fix the scores. Even the 'I'll Kill You' faction hadn't considered this tactic, but they swiftly accepted.
However, the same miscommunication that plagued Play to Win at the beginning of the night continued, with the phone posse not mentioning the arrangement to all the other team members. Some Play to Win teammates wouldn't know the scores had been changed until speaking with some Phasers at the Baxter breakfast. Predictably, the reaction to their ignorance was NOT bliss. Within an hour's time, word of the switcheroo began to leak out to some of the other squads.
Differing sources on the Phasers team indicate that Play to Win had actually scored 309 (or perhaps 312) even with the four-hour-long attempt to do worse.
The general effect of this was to infect Trivia with an unspoken undercurrent of fraud. Even though the literal fixing of the contest would not be generally known right away, it was clear to all parties listening that Play to Win wasn't. This created a negative haze that lasted well beyond the Winter 1991 contest. A few semesters later, a team that was legitimately losing its grip on first place would be repeatedly accused over the air of 'tanking.' Small wonder that one of the many joke team names would be 'We've Thrown More Contests Than You'll Ever Win.' Happily, this fog seems to have dissipated in recent years. (Although more than one team has been heard to chant happily, 'We're Number Two!')
The impact on the Play to Win squad was more immediate: that would be their last contest together. The team split into two factions, roughly divided by geography and intent. The original Pythoners, most (though not all) of whom were disinterested in first place, became a more streamlined team that no longer competed at full tilt. None of the original Pythoners have won a contest since 1990.
(UPDATE: Believe it or not, despite the nasty implosion described above, the team reunited on a "one time" basis 10 years later. Abetted by newcomers who'd shown up in the ensuing decade, they played the Spring 2001 contest as "I Say It's Duck Season, and I Say Fire!" Older but wiser? Er, maybe not. The reluctant champs won again, this time by a margin that no backdoor chicanery could destroy: 63 points. And sure enough, half the team failed to show up the next semester to host, thus leaving a skeleton crew of diehards to muddle through the night. Will these suckers join forces again in 2011? Stay tuned....)
The gung-ho segment that had continued playing and scoring Play To Win's final points from 6:00-8:00 AM left the Python group with the expectation that, even if they returned to compete as they liked, they were probably too small to win again. Coincidentally, the ex-host Phasers on Stun: The Next Generation experienced some attrition of their own. One of the six surviving Play To Winners was friendly with one of the eight remaining Phasers. Joining up under the 'Phasers:TNG' banner, the combination of forces won the very next 5/92 contest. The new alliance would win a second contest as well, as 'How DARE They Challenge Us With Their Primitive Skills?', in the Spring of 1994.
About ten Play to Win alumnus continue to compete today, albeit separately. They have never had cause to quarrel again.... except about which criteria would be the most appropriate with which to measure their greatness.
Meanwhile, the insolvable dilemma-- what price victory?-- remains.
The preceding account was the combined effort of various Play to Win and Phasers: TNG parolees and their increasingly tumbledown memories.