Maximum Learning Speed + Luck Magnifier: A trivia nerd becomes a trivia god

[Trivia Nerd]

I'm a huge fan and a loyal customer of Shannon's subs. In the past I've run ASC, AM5, and WM2 (in that order), and I've found they've improved every aspect of my life.

In the future I'd like to do AM6, SM3, and the BASE, but for now I'm doing a combination of Maximum Learning Speed and Luck Magnifier just for fun.

For the past year or so I've come to lead a trivia team that plays 3-4 nights a week at various restaurants and bars in my town. It's my main social activity and I enjoy it a lot. We're a very strong team, and we win pretty consistently. In last year's qualifying rounds we were first place in league points at all three venues where we played, and ultimately placed fifth in the state finals (and it would have been first had we not betted conservatively in the final question). The stakes are much higher this year since there's a national component with a huge cash prize, but I'm not terribly concerned about that right now. For the moment we're enjoying winning in house cash every week and getting free meals.

I'm good at trivia but I'm far from being a master at it. I'm competent at the "academic" stuff but I'm fairly weak at the pop culture or sports categories that always pop up when we play. Of course other people in my team are good at these categories but I want to shore up my own weaknesses and transform from being just good to ridiculously good. Ken Jennings level, if you will. At some point I'd love to compete on Jeopardy or some of the more hardcore quizzing events like Learned League; I just feel until now my knowledge has been pigeonholed and I'd like to expand it.

So here are my main goals with Maximum Learning Speed:
-To improve my memory and recall of information I've heard or read
-To become more intellectually curious about topics I know little about and actively learn more about said topics.
-To improve my skillset at trivia. Sounds odd but being good at trivia isn't just about knowing useless things. Recognizing patterns, listening and understanding the nuances of each question are all relevant skills that I still need to work on.
-To acquire a breadth of knowledge such that I could go solo if necessary, or fill in gaps if any of our stronger team members are missing.

I'm doing MLS in combination with Luck Magnifier. I've been running Luck Magnifier since November. It's hard to quantify what results I've gotten from LM, but I will continue it in maintenance mode (about 3-4 hours/day). I will say we have had quite a string of first place finishes lately. (At our Thursday night venue we've won 1st place 5 weeks in a row), and we've won 1st place the last three days we've played (Wednesday, Thursday, and Sunday). We'll see if we can pull off four in a row tomorrow at the Tuesday night venue.

Basically I have a playlist set on my laptop for 6 hours of MLS followed by 3 hours of LM. I just keep the ultrasonic on at all times. I run a business online from home so the only time I'm not exposed is when I'm not in my room.

I prepare for all this by reading a lot in my spare time, mainly Wikipedia and news sites. I also devour trivia and quiz books to expand my knowledge: Amazon's Kindle Unlimited has a ton of these books, and I'm thinking of writing my own as another income stream. There are also various lists that I'm trying to commit to memory as well, mainly stuff like Billboard Hot 100 rankings, Oscar film winners, box office year end rankings, etc., which always pop up in bar trivia.

So, yes, I realize this all sounds trivial but I'd like to see where this takes me, and I want to keep a record of this. Plus it would be a good testimonial for anyone interested in these subs.

[GlaizenGold777]

I'm interested in your experience with every sub you already use. You must write testimonial dude.

[Trivia Nerd]

Had a dream last night in which I was walking the dog but couldn't remember where my apartment was. A little odd since I don't even live in an apartment.

Just came back from trivia at Tuesday night's venue. Sadly, we didn't win. We were in 2nd place going into the final question with 93 points (1 point behind the first place team), bet the maximum 20 points but didn't get the final question right.

The final question in our trivia league involves putting items in order, either by corresponding number or the year in which they occurred. We were confident on 3 of the 4 tonight but couldn't pinpoint the last year in which Phil Jackson coached an NBA team to championship. In hindsight it should've been easy since it would've been the last year the Lakers won. (All the more reason for me to brush up on sports!) So we lost 20 points, and several teams got it right. It happens.

Our trivia team is fairly fluid. There's 10-11 people in our team total, but not all of us play every night, so our team any given night is typically 4-6 people tops. Our Tuesday night team tends to be weakest. Our strongest team member only plays on Thursdays, which explains our success on those nights.

Playing again on Wednesday night. It used to be that on Wednesday nights trivia was held at two competing venues at the same time, but the restaurant where we played on Wednesdays just moved trivia to Sunday nights, leaving Wednesday nights open at the other place to play. Sadly, no one else wants to commit to 4 trivia nights a week, so I'm likely going with just one other person tomorrow. Last week I went one only teammate, teamed up with a group of college guys that were seated next to us, and ended up winning. We'll see if history repeats itself tomorrow.

[Trivia Nerd]

We would have won this one tonight had it not been for a very poorly worded final question.

For the final we had to put items in order based on number from largest to smallest. These three I knew off the bat:
-Number of secretaries of war under FDR (3)
-# of states with their lowest point below sea level (2, CA and LA)
-# of completed trips of the RMS Titanic (a gimme, 0)

The other one was the years in which the US census stated the population was over 300m. Since the last census was 2010 my inclination was 5, since about 5 years have passed since the last census. She meant the number of years in which the census was taken, in which case it would be 1, since the 2000 census was still under 300m. By the time we realized this was what she meant we had turned it in. :@

At the end of the day it always comes down to these little details. I need to make sure to listen carefully, and clarify clarify clarify if there's anything ambiguous.

On the positive side, I did have a couple lucky guesses. They asked what state grows the most garlic, and I guessed California since I recalled reading that CA grows the most of pretty much everything. Also, the guys who joined us last week came this week so it looks like I've got a regular group for Wednesday nights as well.

On the studying front, today I've committed to memory every host of the FIFA World Cup by year. Working on winners next. Also they've been asking a lot of Oscars questions so I'm studying the winner lists of the major categories year by year.

[Trivia Nerd]

We absolutely rocked trivia tonight. Only missed two questions during the main rounds, putting us in first place going into the final question. We didn't get the order in the final question correct, but wisely bet 0, so we retained our first place standing in the end. This would be our 6th first place finish at the Thursday night place in this year's qualifying rounds, and it's a big deal since it is the largest venue in my state for this trivia league (on a typical Thursday 30+ teams play here).

We had a number of lucky guesses tonight that we had reasoned through. One of them was to state the circumference of the liberty bell at its lip. I've seen the Liberty Bell decades ago, and recalled it was not very big. I estimated the radius to be 2 feet, so that times 2 pi would be approximately 12 feet, which was right on the dot.

Another lucky guess was a question asking the number of volcanoes that make up the island of Hawaii. I've seen a topographical map of the island before, and tried to recall the number of peaks on them: I guessed five, and it was absolutely right.

Of course only 4 days in it's too early to tell if I'm seeing any real results from the MLS sub but I'm definitely not feeling any signs of resistance. And my memory certainly hasn't weakened. I think this is going to be a fun run.

[Trivia Nerd]

Usually I read a book or browse the internet on a Kindle before going to bed. The last webpage I looked at before going to sleep was a Wikipedia article with a ranking of beer consumption per capita among countries. I skimmed the list no more than a couple minutes, and made no conscious effort to memorize it.

Upon waking up this morning and seeing the page still in my browser, I found I was not only able to recall the first ten countries on the list, but I was able to do so in almost perfect order. I even had a vague recollection of the numbers involved, e.g. that Czech Republic's per capita beer consumption in liters (ranked #1) was about 40% higher than the 2nd ranked country (Austria), and about twice that of the USA.

I'm liking these results so far.

[Trivia Nerd]

Placed 3rd at trivia tonight (Sunday), just enough for a $10 gift cert and a few league points.

There were a lot of TV questions, and we got none of them right. We were dead last going into the final question, but got it right, which bumped us to 3rd.

TV, like movies, is one of those categories where you either watched it or you didn't. So there's little room to make a logical guess based on how the question is worded. It's difficult to "study" TV as well. Obviously I don't have the time to watch every show on television, but I do need to find some way to expand my knowledge of the shows currently out.

[Trivia Nerd]

Third place finish tonight, just enough for a $10 cert and a few league points.

I'm finding myself a little more confident in my ability to recall facts, and sticking to them even when others disagree.

From tonight:
-I remembered Al Pacino played Big Boy Caprice in the 1990 Dick Tracy movie. A teammate tried talking me out of it, but I stuck with the answer.
-We got the order in the final question wrong. A couple people in my team were adamant that Seinfeld was the #1 rated show for 6 seasons. I disagreed, thinking it was far less and that ER dominated ratings during most of the 90s (and I was right, it was #1 for only 2 seasons). Our compromise was to bet 10 instead of 20, so we didn't drop far in the rankings and got 3rd place.
-There was a tie-breaker, which we weren't a part of, but it asked the height of Big Bird from Sesame Street in inches. My guess was 8'3" (99 inches), which was only 1" over.

[Trivia Nerd]

Unfortunately, no win tonight (or Wednesday either). We only scored 5th place, which is enough for 1 league point but not any prizes. The questions were generally on the easier side; we missed 2 questions, and conservative betting on a couple questions we weren't entirely sure of did us in.

So this week we only had two 3rd place finishes. By our standards a mediocre week. We'll step it up next time.

[Trivia Nerd]

Last night I had a dream that I was back in high school taking the ACT again, and ended up with a near perfect score. It seems lately a lot of my dreams have been of this nature: whether taking some sort of test or succeeding in a class. Like my subconscious is making me become smarter.

Had a huge win at trivia tonight as well. Although we were not first place going into the final, we got the final question right and bypassed the other teams. Some parts of the final question I was able to recall perfectly, such as the number of Earth hours in a single day on Jupiter (~10 hours), and the # of cities in Texas in the top 20 US cities by population (6). So I definitely feel the MLS sub is starting to work its magic.

[Womanizer]

I have the same sub and I didn't do it for very long , it's a great sub and very underrated I think.

[Trivia Nerd]

It's good, so far I'm liking it a lot. I'm no longer in school, but I can certainly vouch that MLS has helped with my memory, and no doubt would be a good tool for people who struggle with exams. I'm finding myself increasingly able to remember stats and factoids, even without substantiation. Almost as if everything I've read has been neatly tucked away in a file cabinet, ready to pull out when needed.

We had a near perfect trivia game tonight. We were in the lead at both halftime and before the final question, and we were the only ones that got the final question right. That "lone wolf" question meant we got an extra $10 on top of the $60 in gift certs we won tonight.

One of the portions of tonight's final question was the number of independent countries that border China. Didn't even have to list them: I just remembered that the number is tied with Russia at 14.

[Trivia Nerd]

Third place finish tonight at Wednesday's venue, enough for $10 and 3 league points. Wednesday is the only night I don't go in expecting to win anything, since we only have half our team and none of our "strongest" members are available that night. So I'm pleased.

[Trivia Nerd]

Another win at the Thursday night venue. And it was a come from behind victory, as we entered the final question in 5th place with 92, with the lead team (who we suspect may have been cheating) had a perfect score of 111. We bet the maximum 20, got the final question right, and won with 112.

At times I wonder the extent to which Luck Magnifier has contributed to my team's success. The rational side of me doesn't believe in luck: but as the description states it's a wish fulfillment subliminal. My understanding is that it focuses on what you want to achieve, and steers you towards doing those very things necessary to achieve those goals. In the case of trivia, I wanted to win as much as possible, and it wasn't until after starting luck magnifier that I seriously began studying lists, reading quiz books, etc.

But there's always that intangible aspect. Like somewhere along the line fate steps in and things turn out as you want it. I didn't think the final question was terribly difficult (it had some tough aspects but anyone could have logically pieced it together), but we still beat out every other team (including the suspected cheaters). My own logic says if your team was smart enough to get a higher score than ours, especially with some of the obscure questions we had in the second half, then you would have also been smart enough to confidently answer the final question correctly.

I think about this a lot, and it makes my head spin. Of course, the flipside has happened to us numerous times as well, even while running Luck Magnifier. Fate: it's a fickle finger.

(As I type this, I'm looking at my March Madness bracket. I put no thought into it whatsoever, and fat-fingered several of the choices because I did selections on a Kindle. Yet I'm currently 12/16 and leading in my league.)