10 Years of LearnedLeague

I was invited to join LearnedLeague in 2015, and it's become a significant part of my life. Before I get too far, LearnedLeague is the trivia league of all trivia leagues and features countless Jeopardy! contestants and champions. There are six divisions or rundles: A, B, C, D, E, and R for rookies. It's invitation-only, and you're obviously in R for the first season. R is the most difficult season. You face players of all skill levels, and without knowing their question history, you're somewhat guessing how to play defense. Plus, you're still trying to understand how all of this works.

My rookie season was LL66. Due to my terrible performance that year, I was naturally placed in an E rundle where I have pretty much stayed for the next 40 seasons. Every once in a while, I earned promotion to D only to get relegated back to E the following season. I've actually been very successful (for me) recently as I got promoted to D for LL season 104 and stayed up for 105, 106, and now the upcoming 107 season. Yes, we're now up to season #107. 

I know that I'm not explaining LearnedLeague very well and skipping a lot. You can get basic information as a non-member on the LearnedLeague website. There's also an LL Wikipedia page and articles about LL by places like The Ringer, The New Yorker, and Milwaukee Magazine.

In my now 41 seasons of playing, I've learned a lot about my knowledge base. My best categories are pop music, television, games/sports, current events, and American history in that order. Meanwhile, my five worst categories are language, art, science, classical music, and math. I've only got 5 of 133 math questions correct, which is like 0.004%. (Math joke. It's actually significantly better at.038%!) I really should try to find a way to improve these scores. Anyway, it's really easy to play defense against me. If there's a question about one of my best categories, assign me the lowest possible points. Conversely, assign me lots of points for the latter categories since there's an excellent chance I'm going to get it wrong.

The primary mantra of LearnedLeague is don't forfeit, don't cheat. I'm proud that I have never forfeited in 1025 matches. What's funny is that I should have forfeited my 5th ever match. I drove to Pittsburgh that day and stayed at a hotel with my two young kids at the time. I was busy and exhausted and didn't answer the questions. However, the LL website ended up being down for part of that day, so they extended the deadline by a day. Over the next ten years, there have been plenty of times when I fell asleep on the couch, woke up right around the 1:00 AM Eastern time deadline and got credit for completing the answers.

One of my favorite parts of LL is the offseason mini leagues. While there are plenty of mini leagues that aren't for me, there are others particularly focused on sports and music which are perfect. In mini leagues, you are placed in completely random groups. It's fun defeating A-rundle players who would crush me in general knowledge but not in genre-specific games. I actually had a close loss in a mini-league several years ago against Jeopardy! champion Brad Rutter!

LearnedLeague is not for everyone, but I do have referrals available if you want to check it out. Just let me know The first season is free, and then there's an annual fee. It's fun and you might learn something. Not trying to sell anyone on this. Just sharing my experience.