# Episode 83_State Finals Season

**Source:** The Spinner Is Lit Pinball Podcast  
**Type:** podcast_episode  
**Published:** 2026-01-27  
**Duration:** 161m 40s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://soundcloud.com/thespinnerislit/episode-83_state-finals-season

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## Analysis

Episode 83 of The Spinner Is Lit Pinball Podcast covers state finals season with host Spencer and co-hosts Dan and Mark, plus guest Rick Dimmel. Mark finished second at the Nevada State Championships, narrowly losing to Jeff Reinhart in the finals after a strong tournament run. Dan hosted a local CCPL Interleague Championship. Rick competed in the Oklahoma State Championship. The episode features detailed game-by-game breakdowns of Mark's tournament experience, highlighting competitive strategy, game selection, and the emotional intensity of state-level play.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] Jeff Reinhart won the Nevada State Championships — _Mark stated directly: 'Jeff Reinhart, which I totally congratulate, he deserved it. He played so great the whole season. He won the Nevada State Championships in first place.'_
- [HIGH] Mark finished second at Nevada State Championships — _Mark: 'But I got second place against a player that almost beat Jack in Vegas last year.'_
- [HIGH] Jeff Reinhart is in his 20s and has been playing pinball for about 2 years — _Mark: 'Jeff Reinhart. He started a couple years ago, too. He's younger. He's in his 20s, which really helps.'_
- [HIGH] Ted won the Nevada State Championship twice — _Mark: 'Ted won it twice, actually.'_
- [HIGH] Mark chose the same three games throughout his tournament run (Freedom EM, John Wick, Embryon) — _Mark: 'I chose the same games every round. So did I.'_
- [HIGH] Mark maintained a 4-1 record in the first three rounds before the finals — _Mark: 'So I had a 4-1 record on every round, but now I came to the ultimate, which was Jeff Reinhart.'_
- [HIGH] Alex won the CCPL Interleague Championship for the third time in a row — _Dan: 'our eventual champion for the third time in a row was Alex'_
- [HIGH] The Nevada State Championship had 24 players total with the top 8 receiving byes — _Mark: 'We had 24 players playing in the tournament and the top eight, of course, got buys.'_
- [HIGH] Jeff Reinhart is the son of Mark's close friend — _Mark: 'This is my buddy's kid.' and 'I'm really good friends with his father. So that's how I got to meet him.'_
- [HIGH] Rick Dimmel is a California resident competing in the Oklahoma State Championship — _Rick: 'a couple Fridays ago I jumped on the plane and flew back to Oklahoma City for the Oklahoma State Pinball Championship Tournament' and 'what the hell is he – why is a California guy going back to Oklahoma for the States there?'_

### Notable Quotes

> "I completely forgot what I was going to say. Oh, so. I'm like blank."
> — **Dan**, early in episode
> _Light moment showing the casual, informal nature of the podcast_

> "If you let it go up and over, goodbye, it's gone... if it goes in the out lane and bounces around a little bit, it can also drain. So it's really definitely an area where the ball should not drain because you're going to lose it instantly."
> — **Mark**, Embryon discussion
> _Detailed technical analysis of specific game hazards that influenced his tournament strategy_

> "You know you're in trouble when you're playing a guy who can choose Algar. Because that is the kind of game that you're sort of like, I have this in my pocket because I know someone who owns it and nobody else knows anybody who owns it."
> — **Dan**, Algar game discussion
> _Highlights the role of game knowledge and access in tournament play_

> "First time ever, I didn't get mad at a machine. I didn't cuss, didn't get pissed off when I walked off. I was calm. I was like, this is just pinball. Have fun. Try your best, but don't get so worked up over it."
> — **Mark**, Joker Poker game reflection
> _Shows Mark's mental game evolution and sportsmanship, though he notes he lost composure in the finals_

> "He scored $458 million on his second ball on Kong. That's catchable, Mark. I know it's catchable. Catchable by you. It's catchable, but not catchable if you don't know the rules that well, with King Kong because I still don't know that game."
> — **Mark and Rick (collaborative)**, King Kong finals game
> _Reveals the knowledge gap that ultimately cost Mark the tournament_

> "Reno proving its superiority in pinball. Pulled it off. In the pinball arena."
> — **Mark**, post-tournament analysis
> _Highlights regional rivalry and Reno's tournament dominance_

> "When I got to Joker Poker, I didn't lose it, but I lost my concentration and was, like, forgetting how to play the game."
> — **Mark**, Joker Poker analysis
> _Self-aware commentary on how tournament pressure affects execution_

> "Every year I get past another round. So maybe next year might be my year, especially being retired for half of the year. I'll have a lot of chances to practice."
> — **Mark**, post-tournament reflection
> _Shows determination and planning for next season despite the loss_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Mark | person | Co-host of The Spinner Is Lit Pinball Podcast; competitive player who finished second at Nevada State Championships |
| Spencer | person | Host of The Spinner Is Lit Pinball Podcast |
| Dan | person | Co-host of The Spinner Is Lit Pinball Podcast; participated in CCPL Interleague Championship |
| Rick Dimmel | person | Guest co-host and state champion; California-based player competing in Oklahoma State Championship |
| Jeff Reinhart | person | Winner of Nevada State Championships; young player (in his 20s) from Reno; skilled in rules knowledge and precision play |
| Alex | person | Three-time champion of CCPL Interleague Championship; unbeatable in that format |
| Ted | person | Two-time winner of Nevada State Championship; from Reno area |
| Brandon | person | Reno-based competitive player known for precision play; defeated Mark in quarterfinals of Nevada States |
| Tony | person | Proprietor of Tony's Place/Incline to Play in Incline Village; hosted Nevada State Championships |
| Richard Jenkins | person | Vegas-based player; finished ninth in seeding and faced Mark in second round |
| Tom | person | Vegas-based player; calm and focused style; finished fourth at Nevada State Championships |
| Patrick | person | Newer Reno pinball player (2 years experience); becoming a skilled competitor |
| Dan Armstrong | person | Reno-area player competing in Nevada State Championships |
| Jeff (Reno area player) | person | Reno-area competitor at Nevada State Championships (distinct from Jeff Reinhart) |
| Nevada State Championships | event | Held in Incline Village at Tony's Place; hosted 24 competitors; won by Jeff Reinhart with Mark finishing second |
| Tony's Place / Incline to Play | venue | Pinball arcade in Incline Village, Tahoe area; hosted Nevada State Championships; features EMs, early solid state, and modern games |
| CCPL Interleague Championship | event | Local pinball tournament held in Lodi at Adam's House; uses non-IFPA ladder format; won by Alex for third consecutive year |
| Oklahoma State Pinball Championship | event | Tournament that Rick Dimmel competed in; Rick flew from California to Oklahoma for it |
| Silver Ball Showdown | event | April tournament on Stern Pro Circuit where Rick previously competed and did well |
| Reno | organization | Regional pinball community that dominated Nevada State Championships; has recurring rivalry with Vegas |

### Topics

- **Primary:** Nevada State Championships tournament results and analysis, Game selection strategy in tournament play, Mark's path to finals and performance against Jeff Reinhart, Specific game mechanics and difficulty (Embryon, John Wick, King Kong, Joker Poker, etc.)
- **Secondary:** Regional rivalry between Reno and Vegas pinball communities, Mental game and pressure handling in competitive pinball, CCPL Interleague Championship results, Jeff Reinhart's rising status as a young competitive player

### Sentiment

**Positive** (0.78) — Despite Mark's loss in the finals, the tone is celebratory and supportive. Mark displays excellent sportsmanship, congratulating Jeff Reinhart enthusiastically. The hosts maintain energetic, friendly banter throughout. Minor frustration expressed during game-specific technical difficulties but overall positive reflection on the tournament experience. Rick's upcoming Oklahoma victory creates additional positive anticipation.

### Signals

- **[competitive_signal]** Jeff Reinhart wins Nevada State Championships; Mark finishes second; Ted is two-time champion; Reno dominates Vegas again (confidence: high) — Multiple confirmed tournament placements and rankings discussed in detail by Mark
- **[competitive_signal]** Mark's strategy of selecting same three games for all rounds proved effective (4-1 in first three rounds) but meta-game knowledge disadvantage vs. Jeff Reinhart on King Kong became deciding factor (confidence: high) — Mark's detailed breakdown of game selections and scores across multiple rounds
- **[gameplay_signal]** Multiple games noted as difficult in tournament context: Joker Poker (pressure-sensitive execution), King Kong (steep learning curve), Embryon (high-skill ceiling but predictable), Algar (obscure knowledge advantage) (confidence: high) — Detailed technical commentary on specific game mechanics and Mark's performance variations
- **[personnel_signal]** Jeff Reinhart identified as rising star in pinball; young (20s), two years into hobby, already state champion with strong rules knowledge and precision play (confidence: high) — Mark's extensive commentary on Jeff's skill level, rules knowledge, and future potential at nationals
- **[community_signal]** Reno pinball community maintains dominance over Vegas at state level; third consecutive regional supremacy; described as ongoing rivalry (confidence: high) — Mark: 'We all beat Vegas once again. We always have that rivalry. Reno proving its superiority in pinball... Reno dominated again every year we win.'
- **[venue_signal]** Tony's Place (Incline to Play) hosts Nevada State Championships; praised for smooth operations, fair game setup, no mechanical issues; featured three-era game mix (EM, early SS, modern) (confidence: high) — Mark praised venue and organizer; noted 24-player field, top-8 byes format, and game variety
- **[content_signal]** Nevada State Championships streamed live but not archived; Mark expressed frustration about inability to review footage of his performance (confidence: high) — Mark: 'Unfortunately it never got archived. So it's like it was only live, and now it's gone... I would love to see how crappy I played on Joker Poker'
- **[competitive_signal]** Mark demonstrated improved emotional control through first three tournament rounds but lost composure and concentration in finals against Jeff, attributed to falling behind 3-1 (confidence: high) — Mark's detailed self-analysis: 'First time ever, I didn't get mad at a machine... But when I got to Joker Poker, I lost my concentration'
- **[competitive_signal]** Mark as runner-up at Nevada State Championships qualifies for nationals; stated he will take Jeff Reinhart's spot if Jeff cannot attend (confidence: high) — Spencer: 'So since you were second, if he can't make nationals, do you take his place?' Mark: 'I do. Yes, I do.'
- **[operational_signal]** Venue operator Tony adjusted EM settings from standard 3-ball to 5-ball for Nevada State Championships to increase skill variance and decision-making (confidence: high) — Mark: 'Tony decided to be kind in his heart and set him back to five ball. Because when you go up for normal tournaments, he has all the EMs set for three ball.'

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## Transcript

 Welcome to the Spinner's Lit Pinball Podcast, episode 83, state finals season. I'm your host Spencer, and with me are my co-host Dan. Hey, what's going on, folks? Mark. Hey, everyone. And back for another fun run, a guest co-host and a state champion, Rick Dimmel. Hello, everybody. Nice to be with you. So it's been about a month since we got together last. I know Rick's got a lot of cool stuff to share with us. Before we get to you, Rick, I'm going to grab Dan and Mark in that order, and you guys can tell us what you've been up to. So Dan and Mark, in that order. I completely forgot what I was going to say. Oh, so. I'm like blank. Yeah, so I thought you were going to go into your usual start off. Oh, what have you guys been up to? Well, sort of. Business Spencer. So here locally, I didn't go to any sort of state championship or anything, But we did have our CCPL Interleague Championship on the same weekend that our other cohorts here were competing at State. And it was a really, really good day of pinball. We did it over at Adam's House in Lodi. And the way that it works, it's not an IFPA event. So we're kind of free to do sort of more of an eclectic format. And this is like a ladder. which is everybody basically starts playing from the lowest ranked to the highest ranked, and it's four-player games, and when you lose, you get bumped off, but you get to choose the game that the next guy is going to come in, and then you choose the game, you know, just to kind of screw them on your way out the door. so I was I think I was like second from the bottom and I think I lasted like seven rounds or I lasted until seventh play so maybe five rounds and yeah it was you know I was playing my little heart out you know I thought maybe I was going to make a run at it but you eventually get to the top half and the killers start coming in so it was fun you know our eventual champion for the third time in a row was Alex wow he's killing it Oh, yeah, he just can't be stopped, man. He gets into that state, not state finals, but that, you know, interleague finals format, and he's unbeatable. We've got like a championship belt that he wears. Now, you know, one of the guys bought a championship belt. I think Juan bought the championship belt, so he wore that, and we did like an intro, and he cut a promo and recorded it. Oh, my gosh, it was just hilarious. Really, really fun day of pinball. Really, really great chance to get together with your buds. And one of the great things about the whole just, you know, format of playing over there with your friends is that we also got to check in on some of the state finals, which our compatriots were playing in. So big congratulations to Alex. and, you know, let's get on to the guys who were doing something really exciting. How about you, Mark? What were you up to a couple Saturdays ago? Well, I was playing in the Nevada State Championships up in Incline Village at Tony's Place, Incline to Play, which is also Tahoe Paddle Sports. And I was fortunate enough to start in the second round because before we had the state finals, I was hanging by a thread at the ninth position trying to get to that eighth position because we had 24 players playing in the tournament and the top eight, of course, got buys. And I was fighting for my life trying to get to that eighth position so I could have that advantage. and on the very last tournament, I think I did really well. I don't think I won, but I got enough points to get into the eighth position to go ahead of a Vegas guy. And it worked out that I was able to make it right at the last, literally the last day of the season in December, December 31st to be exact. And it allowed me to get into the eighth position. And so I got to play in the second round. And Tony has a great variety of games. He has plenty of EMs, plenty of early solid state, of course, solid state, which is pretty much anything, and then moderns. So he definitely gave us an opportunity to have three different games from different eras, which is really cool. The tournament was run really well by the Vegas guys. Shout out to Joe. He ran the whole thing, Joannthus, and did a fantastic job. And we had no issues as far as any problems, any controversy, any games going down, any questionable calls, none of that. It was one of those state finals where it was just really a great time to play. Everybody was cool. We were on edge, of course, because, you know, it's the state finals and everything. and it was really a great experience because it was cool. I was having half of the Vegas guys, half of the Reno, and it was definitely a great battle. So was there anybody else from Reno that we would know that was playing with you? Yes, there were plenty of people. Ted was playing in it, Brandon. We also had Patrick, who just got into pinball about two years ago, and he's becoming a killer player right now. Dan Armstrong was in it, Jeff Dixie Reinhardt. We also had Tony, who hosted the place where we had it, and Jeffrey, of course, Michael, and Marlo. So we had all these people from that area, and then the rest were the Vegas guys. And it was really great to see that it was kind of a nice balance. And Ted won it a couple years ago, right? Ted won it twice, actually. Yep, yep. You know that. I mean, those guys are super good. Yep. And there was no Jack. No Jack, yeah. Jack played for California. So we had a shot. We actually were thinking, you know what? This might be the moment. Now, one of the people that is coming up that is really good is Jeff Dixie Reinhardt. He started a couple years ago, too. He's younger. He's in his 20s, which really helps. So his reaction time and everything else is definitely something that I wish I had at 54 years old. But, hey, not bad. So, anyway, I started the second round, and I was up against, when I played, I played against the person who was just below me in the ninth position, because that's how it panned out with the bracket format. And it was Richard, Richard Jenkins, who is from Vegas. and I was a little nervous because I was like, oh my gosh, here is where we've been fighting all year long, basically, between this eighth and ninth position shot. Great player, really nice guy. And so I played some games against him and I did a different kind of strategy. I don't know if you did this, Rick, but I chose the same games every round. So did I. Yep. Nope. You got to stick with what you're comfortable with. I thought it was what I was comfortable with. I had a killer game on some of them, and I'm looking at my notes right now so I can tell you. What were your go-tos? Like, what were you playing? So my go-tos were Freedom for the EM. That's the one I went to. John Wick because I knew that would be a good equalizer. Okay. Um, the other one that I chose was embryon because I was able to nail those targets on the top after I did a little bit of practice. Cause we had like 45 minutes of practice. I was like, this one's good because a lot of people have it drain in the left out lane. A lot of times, mainly because Tony removed the gate. So there's no gate on the left side. So if you let it go up and over, goodbye, it's gone. And trying to bump it, if it goes straight down in the middle instead of the out lane, it's a goner. And even times when it goes in the out lane and bounces around a little bit, it can also drain. So it's really definitely an area where the ball should not drain because you're going to lose it instantly. So I picked that one. And then the last one that I picked, and I'm trying to remember, let's see, it was, let me look here just so I can remember and get my Embrion is a heck of a pick definitely a game that you know if you have experience on it you know you're probably going to run into a lot of people I mean I guess this group would probably have had some experience with it but a lot of folks probably have never even seen an Embrion yes they're probably a little bit scarred for life by it yes it was definitely a huge advantage because i was able to blow it up every time i played it um i didn't have one loss on that game which really helped a lot um you know it's funny the fourth game the third game i always chose i never got to it and i know why um yeah so those were the three there was one more and i can't remember off the top of my head but um actually i take that back. I only had to pick three. That's right. Because the seventh game is the tiebreaker one when you're 3-3. So that's why. Okay. So those are the ones. Freedom, Embryon, and John Wick were the three that I picked from the different eras. So in my second round, which was when we had the top 16, I did really well. And I ended up with a 4-1 score. So I was pretty much done. He We had one win against me, and ironically, it was on Medieval Madness, probably the worst game of Medieval Madness I've ever played in my life. Let's just say both scores were no more than 2 million. How's that? Yeah, Medieval can kill you. Would it set up that way? Absolutely. And, of course, you know, hitting the gate, straight down the middle. I never learned that lesson, but I just, like, I'm going to go for it. I just got to blow up one castle. Couldn't do it. And listen to this score. 1,821,020 to 1,951,070. So I was thinking, uh-oh, here we go, down the road of self-imploding. Craig likes to keep our audience riveted. Yeah, exactly. So I'm thinking, oh, man, what am I going to do now? I only have to win one to get this done. And then finally, I was like, I'm going for it. Let's do John Wick. So I picked that one. and blew it up. I couldn't believe how good I did on it. I scored over $170 million on it. I had lights out constantly, so I kept hitting the button, and it was during multiball. I was able to start the car multiball and also the other one, which is when you smash the car. But the one with the captive balls, I was able to start that one too. And if you watched, I wish you could watch the recording, but unfortunately it never got archived. So it's like it was only live, and now it's gone. Oh, wow. But I was on my third ball, and the most dangerous shot on John Wick, as we all know, is the center ramp, right? And I was thinking, this is the only way I'm going to get ahead. I'm going to do this. So sure enough, I went up the center ramp and nailed it perfectly, started the multiball, and, of course, that was the end of it, and I was able to win. The second round was 4-1. so unfortunately Richard got eliminated and I moved on to the quarterfinals and I had to play against my nemesis Brandon he is an amazing player every time I play him in tournaments he beats me and I was thinking uh-oh I know what he's going to pick and sure enough he did pick the ones that were tough and they were Uncanny X-Men, Little Joe and Hubert's Quest oh wow Yeah. And the one thing about Brandon that I have to say is he is Mr. Precision. He can do skill shots perfectly every time. And one of those shots in Q-Bert's Quest is nailing it in that top rollover and then making it into another rollover to complete two sets of blocks or whatever you call it, pyramids. And he nailed it every time. And I was like, oh, crap, he's going to destroy me on this. And he did. I was thinking, oh, crap. This is not good. So then my next game was Embryon, and I blew it up. I can't believe what score I got, but he had 71,000, and I had 834,490. Very nice. And the reason why I did that is because all I went for was the saucer in the upper right and try to hit as many of those drop-down targets as I could and keep hitting them and try to fill in all those. I also was able to make the shot on the left orbit to make it up and make the times multiplier. So I had it up to five times, which is not easy to do, trying to keep the control of the ball. But I was on fire with that game. I was like, you know what? This one I'm going to stick with. I'm not going to leave this one. There you go. And then on Freedom, I was able to not technically roll it, but I did hit 100,000, over 100,000 on Freedom. And that got me the win on that. And then the last one was on Canny X-Men, and I was super nervous because he knew how to play that. He knows all the rules. He knows which modes to pick. And fortunately, I was able to pull off a win with that. I don't have the score on here, unfortunately, but that felt really good. And once again, I was able to pull it off with a 4-1 victory. So that was cool. It's definitely one of those games that will sneak up on you, too. Just when you think you have it figured out, the ball will do something. It'll come at a different angle, or it's got that weird kind of offset play field. So I can see how even walking into that game with superior knowledge, you can still get killed by the physics. Absolutely. Absolutely. In fact, I did have a multiball going, and you can relate to this, Rick, and everybody else who plays this game. I had a multiball going. I was like, oh, yes, I can do this. I'm going to trap them up. Well, when I tried trapping them up, they knocked into each other, banged into the post, and all four drained. Oh, a quad drain. A quad drain. I had a freaking quad drain. So I was thinking, oh, crap, how am I going to be able to pull this off? And then I was able to just finish the modes, and I was able to make it by. I can't say I blew it up, but I was able to at least get a higher score. So that was cool. So that was 4-1. I moved on to the semifinals, and I played against the Vegas guy finally. They were all Reno. Actually, it went Vegas, went Reno, and now back to Vegas. And I played Tom. And Tom is a really nice, calm player. He is just up there. He reminds me a lot of how you play, Rick. You know, you're very calm and collective, and at the same time, you know, you're focused. And he was focused. And I played, once again, I played the same games because I thought, you know what? These games are doing really well with me. And I was thinking, ah, shouldn't I change it up? And I'm like, you know, this is working. It's already two rounds in a row. I might as well just keep going. So anyway, I started off with Embryon, and I was able to do well on that. And then the next game that was picked from Tom was Boomerang. And Boomerang is a really fun EM. I don't know if you ever played it, Rick, but the whole goal of that game is to hit those captive balls. When you hit those, then that increases the multiplier. And that's what I was doing. And for some reason, usually I miss them all the time. That day, I was on. I mean, I was able to hit it right on there and not just hit it halfway up with the captive ball, but all the way up to the top. So I ended up really well on that and got $144,000 on that, on Boomerang. Then we went back to Freedom. That was a very, very close game, but he had a house ball on his last ball, and that saved me on that one. And then he chose Jaws. And Jaws, I love the game, but I hate it in tournaments. Because every time I play it, I suck at it. I always drain right away or I miss the shots or it rattles in the middle and then it goes straight down the middle. I was like, oh, gosh. Yeah, that's another game where it'll get you. It can get you. It bites you. Pun intended. It does. It really does get you. And so I played it, and I don't know the rules really well. All I know is it's good to stack a mode, usually raft attack, and then what's the other one? There's another one that's good to stack it with multiball, and that's what I was trying to do. Unfortunately, Tony had it on the hard settings, so it was really hard to start multiball because I really had to hit that captive ball a lot and make a lot more shots. But the good news is I was able to start a multiball on my third ball, and I ended up with $173 million on Jaws. Respectable. Yeah, so it was good. And then John Wick was my last game. that I had picked and pulled it off again. This time not as high as the other one, but $37 million to a little over $7 million. So 4-1 again. So I had a 4-1 record on every round, but now I came to the ultimate, which was Jeff Dixie Reinhardt. Dun, dun, dun. Now, Jeff Dixie Reinhardt is not only a great player with his flipper skills, but he's a genius when it comes to scoring. So he's got the young mind, and he's got the young reaction time, and a wonderful, great guy. He's one of my best friends, really, even when we compete against each other. He plays so well, and he knows the rules. And one of those, starting off, I had the chance to start the first game. I picked Ambryon. I beat him on that, so that felt good. Then he picked a real good one out of left field. That was their Algar. Ooh. I do not like Algar. I had to play Algar against him. And unfortunately, he knows the old games too. It's not just he knows the certain games. So I was like, oh, crap, this is not good because I know he's very good on his aiming and his precision also. He's a very precise player. And really the name of that game is hitting the captive balls. There's three captive balls on the right-hand side, and if you hit all of them, you complete them. But there is a catch. You have to hit a shot on the left side that goes through a spinner, which resets the captive balls. I couldn't hit that damn target to save my life. So I had them all sitting there. That 5,000 was just flashing, just totally trying to coast me. And I'm like, okay, come on, I can do this. I've got to hit that damn thing. And I grazed it, but I didn't get to go all the way around, and it didn't register, and it drained in the left out lane. So it ended up with a score of, if I'm looking at it correctly, it was 390,000 to 283,000. That's still tight. I mean, you know. It was a very tight game. Yeah. And that was a, yeah, go ahead. Sorry. You know you're in trouble when you're playing a guy who can choose Algar. Yeah. Because that is the kind of game that you're sort of like, I have this in my pocket because I know someone who owns it and nobody else knows anybody who owns it. So when somebody whoops that out on you, you're just like, oh, crap. Yep, exactly. But he didn't kill me on it, but he did get the lead, and it was a challenging thing because if I would have reset that, damn it, I could have hit him again, and I possibly could have took him, but he got me on that. Then we played Freedom, and, of course, that was my choice again. and he got me on that one. It was a very close one. It was like, I think it was like only 10,000 he won by. And it was pretty high. It was like in the 60,000 or something like that. But I had some house balls, of course, which we all have on EMs. The good news is Tony decided to be kind in his heart and set him back to five ball. Because when you go up for normal tournaments, he has all the EMs set for three ball. So I was very relieved when he switched all of the EMs to five ball. Because I was like, oh crap, If it's a three ball, that is just pretty much a crapshoot. And then I didn't do so well in this game, and I love this game, and it's Joker poker. And we both had awful games on it. Unfortunately, I played worse than he did on it. And it was set up so fast. Usually you have a little bit of floatiness going, but he had it so steep, and that play field was waxed like you would not believe. I swear I tried to hit those damn Joker targets, not thinking really what I was supposed to be doing because I was, like, in awe as to how I could not control the ball in that game, could not control it. I tried hitting the 10. I missed it, like, by a millimeter every time. I tried hitting the jacks. Then I was like, well, let me just shoot up to the right side up that rollover. What was I thinking? I'm not going to get an extra ball. But the nerves are kicking in, okay? The nerves are kicking in because, of course. You're getting desperate. I was getting desperate. You started to feel the yips. It's such a great game for competition because it's so execution-based. Yes. Everybody knows how to play it. It's just can you do it under pressure? Right. Exactly. And that is what I did not do under pressure. And here's the thing that's interesting about it is I won on Embryon, right? He won on Algar, and then he won on Freedom. So he was ahead 2-1. That's where my nerves kicked in because I was thinking, oh, crap, if he keeps going, he's going to beat me on this. You got behind in the count. I got behind in the count, exactly. And it got in your head. Yep, and it got in my head. It did, and I was so good. I swear, I was so good in just being calm. First time ever, I didn't get mad at a machine. didn't cuss, didn't get pissed off when I walked off. I was calm. I was like, this is just pinball. Have fun. Try your best, but don't get so worked up over it. And I did that through all the first three rounds. I was totally calm. But when I got to Joker Poker, I didn't lose it, but I lost my concentration and was, like, forgetting how to play the game. Because all I was thinking is, why wasn't I shooting for the Jacks before? Oh, I know why, because I couldn't control it to get it to shoot to the jacks. All the balls went, they went all over the place. I could not get, and he had, of course, bouncy rubbers on the flippers. So you really had to have good flipper control. And Jeff did, but he drained a lot too, a lot of left out lane drains, a lot of right out lane drains. Not many center, but, man, those outlanes just killed me. So he beat me, and these were very close scores, kind of. all I had to do was complete just a five times and I would have been great, but nope, I did not accomplish that. I was a second player too, which would have been nice. Uh, but he got me 149,000 to 94,000. So it was fricking close, but he did have a five times in one of his balls. So anyway, that was, uh, that was his win. So now crap. Now he was three one. So now I was thinking, Oh, and keep in mind, everybody who's listening, this is the final. So this is it. This is the last two. This is the deal breaker right here. So I went with John Wick, and I knew he would destroy me on John Wick. I knew he would. No. But I went with it. I went with it. I was like, you know what? I'm going to stick with my thing of playing the same freaking three games. It's taking care of you all day, right? Exactly. You know, maybe you'd get one more out of it. Maybe I'd get one more out of it. So it was 3-1. And I was like, okay, I could do this. So I played John Wick, and fortunately, his balls did not go the way he wanted to. They drained really easily, and he was not able to start the multi-balls, and he definitely did not get the lights out, so he couldn't destroy me in the score. I was the second player, and I pulled it off with a win of $19 million to $53 million on John Wick. So it worked. It worked. So I'm thinking, okay, I got this. I got this. Okay. I'm two now, and he's three. I got to tie this up. Well, here's where it all changed. He picked one of his favorite games, King Kong. And he knows King Kong really well because he knows how to do the multipliers. He knows what mode to stack with the multiballs. I know a little bit, but he knows all of it. So first game, or first ball, it was okay. He got it set up. He had a couple of locks ready to go. He hit some of the drop targets down, tried to get the spider multiball set up. So he's setting up everything. And then he drained. I'm like, okay, I got a chance here. Cool, cool. So I played it, and not so good. I think I had like 19 million or something like that on my first ball. I'm like, okay, this is cool. No problem. Let's just hope he drains on the second ball because if he blows it up, I'm in trouble. Well, he did. He blew it up out of the point where I almost was in the point of saying, I don't know if I'm going to be able to catch up. He scored $458 million on his second ball on Kong. That's catchable, Mark. I know it's catchable. Catchable by you. It's catchable, but not catchable if you don't know the rules that well, with King Kong because I still don't know that game. You know, King Kong, though, like if you get it going, like, yeah, you can put up, you know, as long as you can keep the ball alive, which I'm sure on those games was super challenging, you'll get yourself into a place where, you know, you're making 20, 40, 60 million points a shot. Yeah. Racing 400 million is doable. But, yeah, in that situation, I imagine the nerves were overwhelming. They were overwhelming. I was calmer on Pong than I was on Joker Poker. But then when I saw that score, I was like, okay, I can do this. I can get this stacked up. So I tried to do Save Anne. I remember Travis having that tutorial because I love his because they're quick and easy. And it's like, try these things and you should blow up the game. So I did. I started Anne and I tried to start Spider. Great, but I didn't have the balls in play long enough. That was a problem. I drained them right away. Then I was like, okay, what's my next choice? Oh, yeah, let's do pterodactyl, and let's stack it with King Kong multiball. I got that started, too. But once again, I was trying to trap up, but I just couldn't trap them up. They just went flying all over the place, and I was down to two balls, and I was like, oh, crap, I've got to keep control. So I held it on the flipper, and unfortunately, my trapping skills were not as great or cradling as I wanted to do, and I ended up just a little over. Yeah, I only ended up with $75 million and he had $450 million. And that was the one he needed. And Jeff Dixie Reinhardt, which I totally congratulate, he deserved it. He played so great the whole season. He won the Nevada State Championships in first place. But I got second place against a player that almost beat Jack in Vegas last year. Awesome. Which is fantastic. I mean, what a performance. Yeah, I'm super happy. I mean, yeah, I was a little disappointed. I'm like, oh, I could have came home with a black and blah, blah, blah. But I was like, you know what? It's all right. I played one of the best players, and he is the best player now officially. And I congratulate him wholeheartedly. Great opponent, great friend, and awesome job, Jeff. But it felt awesome to get second place. I'm getting closer and closer. Every year I get past another round. So maybe next year might be my year, especially being retired for half of the year. I'll have a lot of chances to practice. So, anyway, it was great. Third place, what was awesome is we all beat Vegas once again. We always have that rivalry. Reno proving its superiority in pinball. Pulled it off. In the pinball arena. Yep. And it was the battle of the Jeffs, by the way, that had to play against each other, which was really cool in the semifinals. I was fortunate to not have to play Jeffrey in the semifinals. So the bracket worked out perfectly being in the eighth position. But he ended up with third. And then Tom Nabors ended up in fourth. But Nevada, again, for the winner, Reno took home the trophy and the women's, too. So Reno dominated again every year we win. One of these days it might change, but we're probably going to Vegas this year for the state championships. But overall, it was an awesome tournament. I give a huge shout-out to all the organizers that did it, and Tony especially. Those games played tough, but they played fair, and they played great. There were no issues as far as any mechanical issues or anything that caused any bumps in the road for the tournament. It just went super smooth. Only wish he had the stream archived. I don't know if he maybe did that and he's doing it later because I would love to see how crappy I played on Joker Poker to see what the heck I was doing. You know, I just want to sit there and just torture myself. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I want to torture myself. So since you were second, if he can't make nationals, do you take his place? I do. Yes, I do. I don't think he's going to miss it. He's not even out of it. We just need to find this guy and, you know, he can steal his plaque, too, so then you even get the plaque. No, congratulations to Jeff. It sounds like he put up a heck of a performance. And we're super proud of him. And the future of pinball, he's the cornerstone of Reno's continued dominance. Exactly. He's a Reno guy, right? He's a Reno guy. You don't like coming and playing from California? He literally lives like three miles away from me. And I go to his house all the time. And he just got a new Harry Potter, and I got to play it. And I'm really good friends with his father. So that's how I got to meet him. Oh, so this is your buddy's kid. This is my buddy's kid. Oh, my goodness. And he's coming up. He's coming up. Yeah, oh, my gosh, that's got to be crazy. Yeah, it is crazy. But I'm really happy for him. And you know what? When I look at it, he has a really good shot at going far in the nationals. I don't know if I could deal with that, man. If I was in the tournament final and, like, one of Spencer's kids beat me, I think I would just work him over. Actually, at this point, I probably couldn't. That'd probably be like, that's real cute, Dan. Yeah. So a great tournament, and Rick, I know you have some great news too, so I'm going to hand it over to you. Yeah, so we have the agony of defeat here. Yep. We have the near miss with Mark. Now let's hear how Rick did. Well, yeah, so a couple Fridays ago I jumped on the plane and flew back to Oklahoma City for the Oklahoma State Pinball Championship Tournament. And you might ask, what the hell is he – why is a California guy going back to Oklahoma for the States there? I hear you. At heart, you're an Oklahoman. Well, yeah, you've alluded to that. And now it might be my second home. Like, deep down, you're a dust bowl kid. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, no, I went to a tournament back in April. It's called the Silver Ball Showdown. It's on the Stern Pro Circuit. And I actually did really well in the main tournament and then one of the side tournaments. And I was actually able to build up enough points to get in the top 16 of that state. In Oklahoma, it's the top 16. In Nevada, it sounds like it was the top 24. In California, it was the top 24. Now, as it turned out, I could have been the 24th seed in California, but that was based on several Europeans not showing up and several people from out of state not showing up due to their large point overhaul from Indisc. And so at a certain point, I'm like, eh, I'm kind of in limbo in California. I need to make a decision, buy some plane tickets. So, you know, two weeks before, I, you know, I chose Oklahoma. So, yeah. And then the other thing was, you know, I felt really comfortable with their games. And I was actually the top qualifier in the main event when I went back there. So, yeah, I felt really good, you know, about my chances. And you never go in truly thinking you're going to win, right? I mean, that's storybook type stuff. So, yeah, so I jumped on the plane, went to Oklahoma. And one of the things that really kind of caught me by surprise early on is in the invitation email from the tournament director. He's like, everything in the house is available to play. And, you know, we went to Cactus Jacks, and they have, I don't know, 60, 70 games. Yeah, they have, like, everything. Yeah. I mean, they have it all. And then in his email, he's like, yeah, we're not going to change the settings on any of the games. So whatever you come in off the street, that's what you're going to expect. So extra balls are on. They're playable. A lot of the games, as it turned out, the tilts were really loose. You really didn't know if there was any competition settings on there. So, yeah, so I'm like, ooh, okay, so how can I, you know, take this to my advantage? And as I get into the start. It's easier for you. It's easier for everybody. True. Yeah. And you may go into ball three with a lead as, you know, as player one, but if player two has set up and potential to grab one or two extra balls, I mean, no lead is really safe, right? So true. You really got to take all that into consideration and how you set this up. So, yeah, I went in as a seed number 14. and so in a 16-player group, and I was slated to play the number three seed. And just like Mark, I had to select my games. Now, in Oklahoma, you have to select a new, a mid, and an old. And my choices, and I kept them pretty consistent throughout, was my new was King Kong. My mid was Bram Stroker's Dracula. Ooh. Yeah. And my old was Grand Prix. A little background on my game choices. So King Kong, I purchased that one maybe about a couple months ago, and I've been playing that, like, incessantly. And I know the strats. I know, you know, how to score, how to efficiently score points. And more importantly, I knew how to farm at least two extra balls in each game I played. And so, yeah, that was definitely one of my top choices. And then Rams, Strokers, Dracula, I borrowed Dan's for three or four months, and I just played the snot out of that thing. I think it was more than three or four months. You had that sucker for a while. A long time, huh? And, you know, so part of my success definitely goes to Dan for allowing me to choose that. But, you know, on Bram Stoker's Dracula, two video modes, you get an extra ball, you hit enough left ramps, there's an extra ball waiting for you at the mist hole or whatever you want to call it. Yep. You know something sad? Yeah. Because we've always played it, like, in tournament settings, and I never would take it off. I have no idea how to get extra balls on Bram Stoker's Dracula. Oh, really? Yeah, I know. They pop up right and left, you know. See, I need to turn all that crap back on. If we ever set up a game at my house for competition mode, except for maybe World Cup soccer, which I reset for my wife, I just leave it on that way, and I'm just like, man, why do all my games suck now? It's like, oh, I have extra balls and everything fun off. I need to go and turn all the fun stuff back on. Yeah and then this particular BSD the right flipper was really strong and had no problem at all hitting that left ramp So it was very repeatable on most You know, the right flipper gets a little tired, and then that ramp becomes problematic. And, yeah, if you want to excel at that game, you have to hit that left ramp repeatedly. So, and then Grand Prix, I, you know, throughout the years, I've just had really good confidence in playing that game. And Cheddar loaned his out to me for a brief period of time. So I played it in disc on several of my cards and got over a million points. So, I mean, I felt really, really, really good about that one. And then the other one. The king of EMs. Yeah. It felt good. It's with the two spinners, right? Yeah, those wonderful spinner rips. I love that game. Oh, it felt good. I wish Tony didn't get rid of that. He used to have that inclined to play. I love that game. The spinner rips. I mean, it feels so good when you get it up to 1,000, a spin, and you just rip that. Yep. Yeah, just let it shine. Hear that scoring box go crazy. Got to love that. Yep. Yeah, so I guess we can get into a little bit of the gameplay. Dan feels, you know, I had a lot of friends and family just kind of watching from afar and following things and kind of rooting me on and helping behind the scenes. We were watching you on the stream, you know, because I feel bad that we weren't watching Mark. But, you know, since it was a CCPL thing, and Rick is one of the guys who does CCPL with me, everybody was like, oh, we've got to put on Oklahoma, Oklahoma, Oklahoma. So I was like, all right, let's check out Oklahoma. Yep. No offense, Mark. We love you, too. All good. Only a three-hour drive. There you go. So in the round of 16, I was up against Adam Nickel, and he is a local Oklahoma City player. And so, you know, the local guys, they definitely have the home field advantage, right? They know how these games played, especially if none of the settings and the tilt or any of that stuff is adjusted. So, you know, coming in, I was like, okay, yeah, I got to see. And I actually watched the video from a year ago in the playoffs, and I knew Adam was probably going to pick some of the games that he picked last year. So I was kind of ready for that just in case. But so the first two games we split, and then his next choice was Black Knight Sword of Rage. Oh, wow. Yeah, yeah. That guy's a masochist. Yes. But I did play it the night before when I got in, and I had some pretty good games on it. And if you've ever played Dan's Sword of Rage, you know, you're used to being brutalized by that game. And I don't know if you recall, Dan, but, like, League Night, the last League Night, I was playing the heck out of that game just to get my mind set because I thought it would probably come up here. But, you know, you've got to play controlled. You can't really shoot on the fly. And so anyway, I was ready for it. Unfortunately, on ball one, you know, sort of rage did what it does. It drained me out. And it's not like he had a great ball. But on his ball two, I think he got up near $200 million. And I was like. Whoa, that's a lot. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, I probably started ball number two around $7 million at the most. but um yeah i you know i i fought and i i got my uh my multiball ready uh got my mode ready okay i gotta hit that center lane and then backhanded into the scoop to start it and i was able to do that and uh you know i had a pretty good multiball for the first one probably came out of it was, I don't know, 70, 80 million, something like that. And so, yeah, I got a long way to go, right? So, went back to the well, just trying to backhand that lock shot. Second time, you have to hit it two times for each lock. And yeah, so it gets harder every time. and I'm just playing really controlled you know when it feeds that right in lane I'm post trapping and you know just trying to control the ball and I was actually able to start a second multiball on ball two with another mode running and that one I really played for an extended amount of time and mixed in some war hurry-ups and got my attaball going. And so, yeah, I mean, playing Dan's, it really helped me tremendously. And I think I came out of that second ball with a lead of, like, 30 million. Wow. So I was, like, at 230, and he was, like, at 200. So, yeah, these games, I mean, and you could really move this one. Dan, you can barely breathe on it, and it's like, go away. It got that Mike Hosier tilt. And I let it out a little bit. Yeah. Yes, I still need to let it out a little bit more. To me, it feels like you can move it. But, yeah, there's many people that were tilting on it last season at finals. I mean, don't get me wrong, my inner coordinator goes like, that's right. That's right. That's what you get. But, you know, the rest of me goes like, yeah, maybe that's a little rough. Yeah. And so, you know, I was feeling good at that point, but, you know, he had the Black Knight challenge mode ready to go at the left orbit thing. That's the other saucer. Yeah, the saucer up there. And I'm like, you know, I don't feel good, but I also have ball three, and I'm pretty close to that as well. So, anyway, yeah, he played his ball three, and he just, like, he struggled. He couldn't get control, and we've all felt it on Sword of Rage that you just can't get control of the ball. And it finally, you know, added up. And, yeah, he drained down the left out lane, and he tried viciously to try to save that ball. He threw that machine all over the place. Deep sigh of relief. So I don't know about you, Mark, but to me, the series or the match really doesn't start until you, you know, break ground. Kind of like in a tennis match, you don't break, you know, until you break serve on the other person, win a game that they selected, then you're really in the driver's seat. That's the way I feel. That's a great analogy. You're so right. What a perfect dude to use that analogy on. That means nothing to me but everything to Mark. Yep. Yeah, because there's a game later in one of the series where, you know, I got crushed, but then the next game I won. So that was their pick. You know, who cares? I mean, yeah, I want to win every game, but until they beat me on my game, it's even-steven, so to speak. Exactly. Mental game. Yep. Totally a mental game. Absolutely. So then I'm like, okay, I'm up 2-1. All right, I'm going to go to my go-to game, that's King Kong, and really put the pressure on him following that game. And, yeah, I just felt so good on that game. I must have played 20, 25 minutes on ball one. Oh, gosh. I got several extra balls. so Mark you mentioned earlier that you know you don't know the rules that well but if you play all the modes you get to like a mini wizard mode it's called crash the gate oh okay uh huh yeah and so it's basically a time mode but after your ball save wears off if you drain or if you're out of it but basically you can build up to a super jackpot by hitting the five shots that you played in the various modes. And each time you complete the five shots, a multiplier on the super jackpot goes up. So the first time you complete the five shots, your multiplier on the super jackpot goes to 2x, and it's accumulating all these hurry-up values that you get at the gong. So I was able to complete two rounds of the crash the gate shots, and my super jackpot multiplier went to 4X. Oh, my gosh. Wow. Yeah. So when I cashed out, and you cash out by the left side ramp, the side ramp shot, and I cashed out, that was like $1.4 billion in one shot. Wow. Now, did you have to finish the mullets, or did you have to just start them? No, you just have to start them. But if you don't finish them, obviously the shot and the hurry up is worth less value. Okay, okay. So, yeah, you get to crash the gate. So, yeah, that was a $1.4 billion shot, and I had, I think, two or three extra balls. Wow. So I ended up with, like, $2.8 billion, which was the GC on that game. And so, yeah, Adam was, yeah, he played out the game. But, yeah, I won that one fairly easily. Have you gone back and watched any of the stream of this? So at this point, I was not on stream for the first round. I'm just saying of the competition, have you watched any of the stream? Yes, I went back and watched some of it. It was a well-known fact by the end that you were unstoppable at King Kong. I think we're just like, well, here comes King Kong. And so far, Rick's just bulldozed everybody who played on it. Yeah. Well, I got an interesting story later on that affected that, but I appreciate that. So then, so I was up three to one. So Adam really needed to win the next game, and he picked Scared Stiff, which I don't know about you guys, but I'm kind of lukewarm to that game. You know, sometimes I play it well, sometimes I don't. Sometimes I can hit that left ramp. It's so easy. Yeah, it's so easy at times. We were watching dudes play it who didn't know how to play it. And we were like, why aren't they playing Scared Stiff correctly? How come they're not using any of the tools? How come they're not going for the spider pit? But, yeah, it's a game that, like, if it showed up in competition, except for the fact that I'd be playing, like, one of you guys and you'd mob me up, I'd feel real good because I'm pretty proficient at it. Yeah. Now that I know that you don't like it, got to get a scared stiff. Anybody want to sell me one? Yeah. So, again, I don't think any of us really did much on ball one. You know, we might have gotten some locks ready, and then Adam came up on ball two, and he got his multiball going, and, you know, he captured a few jackpots. But it looked like he was trying to set up for what's the final, you know, what's the, you know, he was trying to go for the other shots and the laboratory and the deadheads to try to get what, that wizard mode at the end. The stipple meter. The stipple meter, yeah. Seems like he was trying to set that up a little bit, which, you know, I mean, seems risky to me in this type of environment. But so anyway, I think he finished ball two with like 12 million and some change. And then then I came up and I got my first multiball going and it wasn't overly productive. I might have hit a few jackpots. and then I came out of that and I think I did have the extender. So I went through the extender and I don't know, I probably came out of the first multiball with, I don't know, five or six million. So, you know, I had some catching up to do. So, you know, I just did what I knew, hit that left ramp. Now you got to hit it one more time to right each lock and boom, boom, I was hitting that left ramp really efficiently, so I got into my second multiball. And, you know, I didn't have the extender, so I got ball trapped up on my left and the right. And normally, you know, to get the jackpots going, you have to alternate, right, from right to left or vice versa. Yeah, once you start shooting jackpots, you can't just abuse one ramp. Yeah, and that's very – I mean, Escher, Lefkoff, those guys can do that. I mean, I can do it for a few, but to extend that out very far is very difficult for me. So, yeah, at some point I got trapped up with two balls, one on the left, one on the right. And then I remember watching – I think it was like ZMAC or whatever, or maybe even Escher. but I saw those guys on a very difficult scared stiff just still pound that left ramp, even though it wasn't lit for a jackpot, and that value builds every time you hit it if you continue to hit it. So I probably hit that thing six, eight times in a row with the value building. Oh, really? Yeah. It's like the theater of magic technique. Yeah. The value builds, it starts at $50,000 and goes to $150,000 because the jackpots are $500,000, right? So if you can build that up to $300,000 or $400,000 and the left ramp feeds the right flipper, you can do that all day long as long as you don't miss. So is that $500,000 added to the $300,000? So it's $800,000? Well, at this point, right, it's not lit. It's on the other side. It's not lit. So you're hitting the unlit left ramp and, you know, the value is going up. So, yeah, if you can do that, you know, you can get some fairly good points. And finally I missed and, you know, I drained out. Man, we were like within a couple thousand, you know, points of each other. He was at 12 and change and I was at 12 and change. And so it was a one ball game at that point. And, oh, one interesting thing is I drained out. I noticed I had hold bonus. going out for ball three. And so that turned out to be huge because... Yeah, which on scared stiff is significant. Yeah, I think it was half a million, roughly in the half a million range or whatever. So then Adam went up for ball three, and he was just immediately out of control. and, you know, he was trying to get the stiff-o-meter going or multiball, and, yeah, he just struggled, and he finally drained down the left-out lane. You know, he gave it a great shimmy try back and forth, but, you know, he couldn't get there. So coming up to ball three, I was down by like 400 and some thousand, and I checked my bonus and my whole bonus, and, yeah, I think it was enough to get me there without playing, but I ended up playing it out a little bit. Don't take the chance, right? Don't take the chance. Put the points on the board. Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, that was huge. Winning another game on his list and winning that match 4-1, it was huge. and kind of a relief because, you know, like I said earlier, I didn't go there wanting to necessarily win or expecting to win. I just wanted to put on a good show, especially from last year at Nevada when I ran into Jack. I thought I put in a valiant effort, but, you know, it was denied. Nobody wants to travel and then get splashed in their first match. Exactly, exactly. Even with just playing in Lodi, we were just like, oh, my God, all of us were like, just let us get past the first round. We just don't want to lose immediately. Yep. Yeah, so, yeah, and then in the back of my mind, And I knew how, like, if the bracket played its way out, my next opponent was going to be very difficult. I ended up playing in the round of eight, Travis Murray. Wow. He's a top 100 player. And I think this is where we picked up. This is where we called you. Yeah, I think, you know, they started streaming some of our games. and so you know a lot of a lot of pinball folks know Travis Murray from the Triple Drain Pinball Podcast he's a great ambassador for pinball a great guy you know and just playing with him he's really relaxed and you know he's not so overly aggressive that you know you're taken off But, yeah, so I knew I had my work cut out for me playing against Travis, and, you know, I wouldn't have been surprised if that was it for me, you know. But, you know, hey, I'm here to play. I'm here to compete, so let's do this. Some highlights from that match. So what did we do? We played, I think, the first game he selected Pulp Fiction, And, you know, Pulp Fiction for me also is hot or cold. Sometimes I can hit that mode start shot. Sometimes it's very difficult. I don't know about you guys, but once you get it going, yeah, it's fun to play. But, you know, it can be a grind. I think he ended up winning that game. I made an effort on ball three that game. especially in competition because I cannot figure out why everybody else can plunge into 250,000 points and I get like 900,000 or 9,000 Dan I feel for you I totally agree with you there's one game that always destroys me every time it's one of those random games that gets picked is Pulp Fiction all the time and it's like do I try to get the mode started and then or do I go for the drop targets to start the multiple because you can't stack them anyway, right? There's no stacking. So it's like, oh, hell with it. I'll just go with the targets. And then, of course, whoops, you hit it wrong way and out the left out lane it goes or right out lane or whatever. But, yeah, good game. It's super fun casually. Like, if I could just sit there and run, like, 15 or 20 games through it, like, I promise you I'll have my fun. But, yeah, in competition, man, it always has my number. Yeah, hit the drops in the center and put the ball out of control. Okay, hit the mocha. Oh, no, I can't hit it. Exactly. The backhand is not working. Okay, what do I do now? Just fall in that stupid scoop. Just fall in there. All you have to do is just fall in that hole, and it's like, no, I'm going to go down to the drop targets. No, I'm going to go up the side. Just like, ah, I hate this game. Yep. There you go. So, I mean, he didn't blow it up by any means, but it was enough to win, so he was up 1-0. and then, you know, I'm going to, so then I go to Dracula and, yeah, I'm having a good game. I mean, I'm starting this multiball. I got my coffin. You know, at some point I got my castle. I got a castle jackpot, which, you know, they can be pretty huge. I think I finished around 700 million nice but again I think I mixed in an extra ball or two there and then Travis is probably I don't know 250 starting ball three but to his credit I mean he just he grinded it out he got an extra ball he got his multi balls going. He got some jackpots. He played his video mode and, you know, he got up to 900 and then, you know, he let it drain. And he, so he was up, oh, you know, I was down. Oh, two. Oh, two. Wow. He had, he had taken serve. Right. So he, he took, he took a game from me and, you know, it's not looking overly great at this point. Yeah. Did you start two times or three times at all or just for your multiball? Yeah, I don't think in all the games I've played, I don't think I got the triple stack once. I did get the double stack several times. 30 million. Yeah, that's so good when you get that. Oh yeah, it feels so good. 30 million. 30 million. The game was playing so good. Yeah, yeah. So, all right. So, yeah, I'm down 0-2. I'm like, okay, there's no sense holding back. All right, we're going to go to King Kong. Damn right. Heck, yeah, I got to get back in this, right? I got to do something to change the momentum a little bit. And so, yeah, I mean, I didn't have the game I did in the first round, but I think I put up like $1.2 billion. um felt really comfortable on it um played for a good 15 minutes or so just out of the gate and uh yeah so I put up a really good score Travis was also making pretty good progress although um he had a couple of gnarly drains and um you know anything could happen on ball three There's some extra balls out there. So, you know, it was still tenuous. I mean, a great player like he is that, you know, he could come back at any point just like he did on Dracula, right? So, but this one worked out for me. He eventually drained out. And so at that point, it was like I was down one to two. One to two? Yeah, one to two. And then his next selection And we know the selections before the match starts So, you know He was either going to go to Star Wars Fall of the Empire Or Super Sonic And he went to Star Wars Which This was probably the game I had the least time on That I played Oh, maybe Harry Potter I mean, they're pretty close but yeah I just you know I don't know about you guys but have you guys have much time on the new Star Wars game it's only probably in the same places that you have I can't get much time on it when I can't keep the ball in play it drains so fast it drains so fast and there's tight it's really bricky for me and you know it's borg-y For me, I need, you know, a lot of things are lit. And so what's the best value on the play field? I still don't understand that part of it, and hopefully I will at some point. But, you know, I just wasn't really overly comfortable on that. I did put up like $260 million, but, you know, Travis, you know, he puts out his videos and exploits of games and how to approach them. And, you know, he was able to put up a good $400 million. It's supposed to be a very surface-level game. Yeah. Like, it's not supposed to be super deep. Like, I think kind of a response to the original Star Wars where nobody really understood the multipliers. I think the directive here was make a game that people can play. I agree. And I think, you know, the more time I put on it, the more I'll be able to, okay, let's focus on this. We just don't know who's bought one. Exactly. I'm trying to think. Does anybody in our group have one? No, I don't think so. I don't think so. We're here to press start, but like I said, I need more time on it, like you said, Rick. What I always love doing is trying to get that dust star because that is a lot of points. If you get the dust star going, but you've got to keep the ball in there, that's the problem. Well, that's probably the sucker shot, too, Although I guess it's supposed to have a factory upgrade that fixes it somewhat so it doesn't, like, bounce into the top and then come shooting back down and murder your face. Yeah. Was it on there or not? No, I've seen there's some Twitch videos where the person had installed that and it was working pretty well. Early on in our practice session, Travis tried to hit the Death Star and it rejected straight down the middle. I doubt it was installed. Try to shoot the Death Star and you will die. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, he won that game. Again, probably not unexpectedly. And so at that point I was down one to three. and the two, you know, the remaining picks on both sides were going to be old EMs or, you know, older pinball games. So, you know, and anything can really happen in that type of situation. So my next pick was Grand Prix, and it was interesting. They had the EMs in, like, a side room, like, right where they were doing the stream, and so yeah the stream was like 10-15 feet behind me and you could hear them a little bit but so the interesting part about this is Grand Prix has enough score displays to play two players but the tournament director wanted us to play one player games because EM's are notorious for screwing up the score reels from one player to the next. So they wanted that to be consistent, which I can totally understand. So the way it was set up is I would play my game in its entirety, and then Travis would come up and play his game. And so I played my game. Now, did you view that as an advantage or a disadvantage, or was it just sort of a no factor for you? Well, it could be both, right? If you put up a – This is just so you know, this is where we started watching. Oh, okay. So this is where we brought you up and we're like, oh, Rick is against the wall. Against the wall. And he's putting a game on Supersonic, which – or not Supersonic. Not Supersonic yet, but he's putting a game on Grand Prix. Yeah. And, yeah, he's putting up a game right now. So this is where we picked up and started to watch it. So, yeah, if you put up a good score, then I think the pressure changes from you to him. But if you, you know, you put up a mediocre or less than average score, then I think he comes up with, you know, an abundance of confidence. So true. Yep. So, you know, it can go both ways. I know a lot of people that even in like match play, they want to go first to set the bar, and then they don't have to think about what other people are doing. And so it's kind of that mentality. You know, so I went up there, and I think I had an early drain on ball one. And then ball two and three, I played a little bit. I think I was in the 300K range or whatever. Nothing outstanding. I mean, I did max out some spinners, got some collects, got some bonus. But, you know, I wasn't really satisfied with my final score. What was it like? I think it was 500 and something. Yeah, it was in the 500s, and we thought it was a very middle-of-the-road score. Yes. Like, we were like, oh, that's not, like, that might not stand. Absolutely. And I wasn't feeling good. I'm like, okay, I'm going to go grab something to eat. I'll come back and play some pinball. I mean, it's not the worst thing, right? I'm here stuck in an arcade for the rest of the day, no big deal. But so, anyway, Travis went up, and Dan, I don't know if you remember, but it seemed like on ball one and two. I mean, he had a good ball. I think, like, on the first few balls, he was, like, knocking at the doorsteps of 450,000, 500,000. I think he was close. He immediately ran up on you. Like, after ball two, I think he had close. He probably had 400K on the board. I think so. And we were like, oh, he's screwed. Like, Rick's done. Like, he's going to get splashed here. And then he just had three shooting balls in a row. Oh, gosh. And we were like, yes. So, yeah, in my mind, that was just like, that was awesome because it was just like, yeah, it stood. You know, the score that wasn't going to stand, you probably finished up on it by like 75, 50, 75,000 points, which in that game is nothing. No. It wasn't nothing. and yeah just for whatever reason like he had it in the bag and he just fell apart yeah and like i watched ball three and ball four and he had like you said you know horrible horrible balls and i'm like come on he's he's teasing me he's you know he's teasing me he's gonna you know rack it up on ball five and you know you know this is the end and um so yeah when he uh he had a You know, coming Grand Prix, you've got to plunge the ball. It goes into those pops, and it has like a thing that kind of diverts the ball towards the out lane. So anything can happen on that game. You know, you're going to get some house balls. You have to get control. You will house ball on that. So, yeah, it's not like it was an automatic by any means that he was going to get control and win. But, yeah, he just didn't. I don't know if he got a hundred. Yeah. Yeah, he just something didn't click with him the rest of that game. Like, he had you in his hand and just sort of let you slip away. So, wow, I'm still alive. Yeah. I know with Grand Prix, sorry to interrupt. No, go ahead. It's the up and over that kills me every time. If you try to trap up, like you said, there's that little opening, and it can go and roll right out. The whoopsie-doo. The whoopsie-doo, yep, exactly. Yep, so at this point, I'm down two to three. I'm still breathing, but the next game is his game, right? So it's Supersonic. Are you guys familiar with Supersonic? He always picks that one, by the way. He always picks that one. Supersonic is a very popular game he picks. Yep. But all about spinner on that one. All about spinner. Yeah, and the other thing is you want to plunge that middle lane to light your spinner because the points are so good there. and this is definitely one that I practiced on Friday evening and I knew where the spinner was. I had it dialed in and I think I hit it on two out of the three balls, the center lane that lights the spinner. Nice. And so, yeah, I got some rips out of that eventually. But the cool thing is that also helped out is so once you hit that center lane, and it goes into the pops, and then there's a saucer on the right side for your bonus X. I think on ball one, I got some pop love to go in there like three times, and so I was at 5X bonus on ball one and ripping some spinners, and so I think I came out of ball one with the lead. I think I had like $150,000, and he was in. Oh, wow, that's really good. Yeah, and he was, I don't know, less than 20,000 after ball one. And, you know, he never really got anything going on ball two or ball three. It was one of those games where it just kind of went my way, and I got some breaks. And, yeah, so I didn't have to play ball three. And at that point, the feeling in the room was that the pinball gods had turned against us. Yep. And that wrist was about to roll like you were dead, and now you were in the driver's seat. What a comeback. Man, now you're 3-3, huh? Yep. Oh, my gosh. With him, so he was the higher seed, so he had the choice of game or position for the tiebreaker, so to speak. And what do you think he chose? He went to Beatles. Beatles, okay Beatles, which was an interesting choice but I've heard him talk in the past about owning one and so I'm sure he felt very comfortable about it I love that freaking game so do I I love that game too, it's so fun it is really good so yeah we were I don't know, Mark, you're afforded like 30 seconds of practice before each game. Was that your practice? Did you practice every game, or did you guys do that in Nevada? But, yeah, I definitely needed my practice on this game. I'd say 90% of the time I took a practice ball. Yep. Okay. Yep. We were allowed to do 30 seconds. Quick question about practice. Yes. Who paid for it? each player was kind of responsible for their portion so let's say a game costs a dollar we would each put in 50 cents okay we were we were wondering about that because we're like the funny thing about it is our players are so spoiled they're putting quarters in the machines and it's like yeah this is an operating arcade they're they're playing on coin draw yeah absolutely well who pays for practice and i'm like i assume they don't quibble over it right yeah so uh you know for me beetles you know you have to choose your mode at the beginning of each ball and i generally go ball one with the one that's for pops yeah that's what you want to do is you want and then the second one second one i go loops and the third one is the balty ball one And so anyway, I just kept with my stride, and, you know, I was confident. But, you know, Beatles, again, is another one that can be hot and cold. You know, it can be drainy at times, but, you know, this was a Republic. Oh, that disc is a serial killer. Oh, yeah. I can't grab it without Magnum to sort of throw a screwball right down between the flippers. And the outlings on that game are not kind. No, no. I think I had at least two right out lane drains for my play. But so ball one, I think, you know, Travis didn't do a whole lot. I think he chose the loops one, and so he was hitting that, and I think he missed a shot, and it probably sling drained him out. So I'm thinking like, okay, well, he didn't blow it up. I'm still in this one. and then I started my pops mode and, you know, for the pops mode, I like to get it up, you know, on the upper flippers and just go, you know, loop that out because the magnet catches it, drops it in the pops and boom, boom, boom. Exactly. Yep. Good strategy. Yeah. And so I think I got to stage four on that, but then I drained out. But, you know, my score wasn't overly impressive. I think maybe I had a little bit of a lead after ball one, but it certainly wasn't anything. Were you able to, obviously you weren't able to cash the super jackpot on him. No, I didn't. No, I never cashed out any super jackpot. And I don't think he did either. So I think the second mode he picked, I don't know what he did the second ball. But, you know, he plunged and, again, was hitting the loops and I think eventually missed. And then I think he misjudged like a dead bounce that he thought was, you know, solidly on his left flipper. And it trickled off the nose of the flipper and drained him. Oh, yeah. And he had that look like, oh, I did not see that one. And I've done that before where you misjudge a dead bounce and you look like a fool. and so at that point, you know, I was in a fairly good position and for whatever reason, this was not on stream because they changed to the other group. I think the other group was having a game seven as well, which was fine with me. Fresh pressure without having a camera on you right Yeah yeah but you know I stream and you know I been to enough tournaments and been on stream before So it doesn really affect me that much anymore Rich White is on stage. We're all watching him. That's true. You have a good point there. I don't know about that. Seriously, we've got cameras at your house. It's weird. Oh, what am I doing right now? I thought you were talking to people on the Internet. Okay, there you go. Yeah, you're right. With your pants on. And I'm talking no pants at all. No chonies, no nothing. It's just out there. Yeah, on my ball, too, I play the loops mode. I got it going around, you know, the Beatlemania thing going around the loops for a while. But, man, it's so dangerous when you miss one and then the ball is out of control. Zoom, right down the middle. I know. Yeah. Yeah, and I had one of those. And so, I mean, for all intents and purposes, it was like a dead heat going into ball three. And then, you know, Travis selects his – All my loving. Yeah, the two ball, multiball, and, you know, gets some loops going, gets some – get the jackpot ready. I think he got one jackpot, and then I think he drained down a single ball play. And I don't know what happened, but, yeah, I think he got sling drained again or something, or, you know, he took a danger trying to save the ball, and I think he saved it the first time, but then, you know, for whatever reason he couldn't get control of it. And, you know, sometimes when you play a game that you own, it's a death nail because the shots are just not where where you think they're going to be so right well yeah i think go ahead what with beatles honestly it's a modern game but it's a classic layout so true the fact that he went there almost tells me that he was just putting it up right like he was he was picking like i would pick which is just like this guy's got my number I need to pick something that's so hard that I'm betting on him to have a worse game than me. Right. Yep. Yep. Could be. Could be. Like, when you were running back on him, he probably felt the heat. And, you know, he went with something that was, like, maybe comfortable but was just sort of random enough that, like, you know, and I'm not presuming to think for him, but, like, my take on it is he picked a game that was, like, it could go either way, you know. Yep. I'm betting that, like, I'll have maybe a little bit more knowledge. But with Beatles, again, it's stupid easy. Like, you know, every mode tells you what it does. It's just 100% execution-based until you're getting into the, I can beat the modes, how does the super jackpot rule work? If you know that, and that's assuming that you're executing at a very high level at it, that's where you can really exploit and get the big points. But, yeah, beyond that, it's just like, can you be better at hitting pops? Can you be better at hitting drops? Can you be better at hitting loops? And it's true, Rick, right? That jackpot shot is dangerous, right? Because you're going side to side and you have to hit that captive ball, right? Yeah, you got to get it behind that center bank and then drop it. That drains a lot of times when I try to play that game when I'm going for that shot. So, yeah. Oh, but it's so good. It's so satisfying. It's so good. And the loops are so satisfying. You have two or three of them stacked up? Yep. It's so good. Oh, such a great game. I wish we had one in Reno on location. Yeah, so I think heading into my final ball three, Travis had a little over two million. And I was down to the point where I think I needed one jackpot and some miscellaneous points here or there to pull out the win. And so I started my two-ball, multiball. And what I try to do is, like, during the ball save or whatever, try to hit that spinner to get the jackpot at the magnet lit, right? So at some point, yeah, I had my jackpot lit, and I had a ball trapped on the right and a ball trapped on the left. and my goal is to hit this you know this the orbit or whatever but you know the upper flippers are in the way so i'm trying to stage the flipper oh my god stage flipping with that i'm trying to stage flip now the the beetles for whatever reason is very difficult for me to stage flip and keep you know, keep that flipper down, so I have a nice open gap, and I was going to go for the right orbit, because that one, for me, is easier to hit, and it just wasn't staging right, I don't know if it's the flipper mac or whatever, but yeah, it wasn't, you know, wasn't working out for me, so at some point, I think I took a shot with the right flipper so I could get that upper flipper down, and then took a shot with the left flipper, and Boom, hit the jackpot up there, which drew me really close. And then, you know, it released the ball, and I still had two balls in play. And eventually I trapped up again and looked up at the score, and I was there. Nice. I was there. And being able to kind of just drop your flippers and let the balls drain for, you know, a victory in the seventh game. It really felt good. Yeah, seventh game victory. Yeah. And, you know, doing it against Travis, who, again, is such a great player and very respectable. So that was awesome. And at that point, I'm like, okay, let's see what we can do the rest of the way. Yeah, absolutely. Like you said, Mark, all it takes is a little bit of momentum, and you feel comfortable on your games. Anything can happen, right? So, yeah, I was down to the final four. I advanced. Wow, so semifinals. Amazing. Semifinals, yes. so in the round of four I played Austin Trent who is a local and he's a very good player I've seen him at traveling event tournaments and he's very knowledgeable so he knew the games inside and out there at Cactus Jacks So real quick, Rick, before we get into this. Yes. So the other game during the semis seemed to end incredibly quickly. Like, did the other Austin just completely curb stomp his opponent? Because he was in the finals, like, early, and you guys were still playing it out. Yeah, I think he 4-0'd his semifinal match. You were all that was standing between an all-Austin finals. Yeah. and an Austin Rick finals so it was up to you yeah and so we thought I mean it happened so quick we thought somebody might have like forfeited wow like did somebody have to go to the airport and I'm just like I seriously doubt it well that can happen right because so if there's some early you know 4-0's or whatever and your match is ready to go then you play it right you don't wait for the other groups to kind of catch up to you. So, yeah, so the finals, Austin, you know, he had been waiting for a while, although he was practicing on the side. But, you know, who knows how that impacted him in the final run. But, yeah, so it was me and Austin Trent. And so in his first game, he picked Harry Potter. and I have had very limited time on Harry Potter. You know, we went down to Matt's in Lodi and played a few games on that. But beyond that, you know, I watched enough to know the basic rules, and since it's a JJP, I know if you do enough things, how multiball is going to start. So my strategy was like right flipper, I'm playing Quidditch, and then left flipper, I'm hitting the staircase or whatever the heck it is, and then the shot that goes up past the right upper flipper, and I think that starts a multiball. Yep, golden trio multiball, yep. There you go. I mean, so see, I don't even know the names of these things. Yep. And so, and I've been in this position before where I don't know a game very well, and I just try to just rip shots. And I've won games like that before where, you know, I really had no business winning it. It's often a benefit. Yeah. Because the truth is you're not thinking too hard about, like, well, what am I trying to do? You're just like, well, I'm going to hit things. I'm going to do what feels comfortable and what works and what's fun. and I'm going to hope, you know, that the guy who I'm playing against isn't executing any better than I am. Exactly. I'm just going to do what makes sense to me at the moment. Yeah, yeah. And so, you know, Austin played his ball. You know, he probably put up 100 and some million. And so, you know, I started my ball. I'm playing a little bit of Quidditch. and then I know at the very least you have to start like your movie at that right scoop or whatever. So I was able to do that. Not an easy shot, by the way. That kind of makes me feel kind of like World Cup soccer trying to hit that final draw. Right, right. Yeah, I hate that shot. Yep. And World Cup soccer. Mostly Harry Potter. You know, I was struggling with that Quidditch. I would get it up there and then my timing was off a little bit and I'd only get maybe two two you know two circular spinners or whatever I would only get a couple of those and it would drop out but anyway my ball one wasn't anything glorious but you know I was kind of in the running here where he was maybe a little less than him but on ball two I had a really good ball I got a multiple multiball going. Is there like a staircase multiball too, Mark? I don't know. There is, yes. Explore Hogwarts. Yep, so you get all the banners from the direction of where the arrow is, and you get all eight of those lit. It qualifies Explore Hogwarts multiball, which you have to start by shooting up the staircase. Yeah, so I think I got two of those multi-balls going, and then I was just trying to hit those same shots during multiball and sometimes going up to quidditch. And so I think I finished ball two in the lead. I think I had, I don't know, I want to say $300 million, and he had $200 and some change or whatever. Those are incredible scores, by the way. It was looking good. I mean, it was looking good. But, again, I don't know the game really well, and JJPs and extra balls are on. And so who knows? He probably knows how to exploit that. I don't think I did get an extra ball. So on ball three, he played a little while, but not enough to really catch up to me, and he drained out. So it looked like I had a walk-off, but someone in the earlier match told me that even though you're leading, there's like some bonus points for whoever wins Quidditch. The Quidditch bonus, yep. So we were watching that, and we were watching them kind of go back and forth, and I think you were kind of waiting to play. Yeah. and that's when we were like I think Ivan sent you a message I'm like just run it up on him don't even stop just run it up on him because who knows if he's going to get 60 million points in Quidditch you know like so yeah just run just don't even have any mercy if they're going to let you keep playing just run it up on him and as it turned out it wouldn't have really because I had more I got more than he did or whatever yeah but again and not being familiar with those rules and how that all plays out and how well he did, I think I played that out. Yeah, it was hard to tell. Even we were sitting here and just sort of thinking, like, well, what's it going to do because, you know, you get, like, a multiplier. I think it means more in, like, four-player games, but even in, like, a two-player game, it's like, that should be a thing that turns off for competition. I totally agree. Yeah, because that is really a, like, you know, that's really a casual. Funnier advantage. Yeah, it was really like a casual sort of thing. But it was one of those things where it was just like, oh, man, we didn't think about this. Because, yeah, if you had a slight lead and then just dumped it and he got 50 million points off you, yeah, you just handed him the win. So it's like, yeah, keep going until the game makes you stop. The way that works, just so you know, because that setting is usually always defaulted and not as on, is every player is $10 million bonus if you win the Quidditch match against the other player. So if you play four players, you get $40 million. If you play a three-player game, you get $30 million, $20 million, $10 million. Okay. So that's how it works. The more players you play against, the better your bonus can be to give you an advantage. And it's helped me many times, and that's kind of why I picked that game a lot of times when I play in the finals and press start. Okay. Because I know that rule. There you go. There you go. That's how it works. So, yeah, I win that first game. And like we were talking earlier, you know, the match doesn't really start until, you know, you break serve. And at that point, I had beat him on one of his games, and I was really feeling good. So we went back over to Bram, Stroker's Dracula. and, you know, nothing noteworthy about the game. I mean, I put up a pretty good score, and he was chasing it down on ball three, but he just never really got there. I mean, I got missed. I think I got Castle going. But, you know, it wasn't the earth-shattering scores of the previous rounds. but so yeah I ended up winning that one so I was up 2-0 and then I think in his head he's like okay I gotta I gotta get back in this and so I think he picked his A game which is Cactus Cannon and he must have played that thing for 30-40 minutes. Oh my gosh did he just keep starting gold mine multiball. Oh, yeah. He went around the horn two or three times, and he must have gotten at least four extra balls. Did it not have that new blocker on it, that kit thing? I don't know, Dan. On Cactus Canyon now, they have a thing that blocks off the bandit, so you can't just continuously smash the bandit in the face. It gets rid of that ultimate safe shot. It really changes the game. Huh, really? Cool. Yeah, kind of, until you play with it and it just kills you. So did the – I was like, oh, yeah, Texas Canyon, I got this. I can play this for 40 minutes. Nope. Did the ball bounce from the left flipper to the right flipper no problem to catch it? Yeah, yeah, you could dead bounce, and then it would pop back to one or the other flipper. Yep, yep. So, you know, it was very controllable. I mean, from my perspective, okay, yeah, I'm going to let him play for 40 minutes and hopefully, you know, tired him out a little bit and, you know, we'll move on. Good idea. So, anyway, I mean, I put up some points, but I think he had, oh, man, he must have had 300 million. I don't know. It was crazy. Whoa. Yeah, it was crazy. Oh, yeah, it was outrageous. Wow. You know, with seven or eight balls, yeah, I mean, and playing a long time. So anyway, yeah, so I took my hat off to him on that one. So I was up two to one. And then, okay, we're going to go to King Kong. And I don't know what it was, maybe a little bit of overconfidence. But I didn't have my A on Kong this time. I had some drains. I was missing some shots. But I did put up like, I don't know, $300 million, $400 million or whatever. And Austin, he was chasing it down on ball three, but he just came up a little short. And, wow, if he had beat me on Kong, it would have been a totally different match from there forward. um but you try to use your own technique on you where he ices you by playing the game for like 40 minutes yeah but luckily he didn't or he didn't do it well enough anyway he tried to king kong you with shakas canyon there you go yeah and so yeah he just fell a little short with bonus and wow i i had a big sigh of relief so i went out of that game up three to one and then we were going to his old game pick, which was Fathom. Oh, Fathom, okay. Fathom, yeah. And so this is an interesting one for me. It's, you know, you can steal locks, so it's a little tricky how you play this. There's different ways of playing it. You know, some people go for the spinner, trying to light the spinner. Some people go for the drops on the right, lock balls, get into multiball. So, yeah, I mean, I felt pretty confident in this game. But, you know, it was his choice, and he's familiar with the game. So you never know what's going to happen. But I think on his ball one, I think he locked the ball and left it for me. and then drained out. So, yeah, I don't think he put up any major score on ball one. And on Fathom, it has those weird in-lane, out-lanes. You know, the outside is actually an in-lane, and the straight through is an out-lane, kind of like skateball. And Harry Potter. Yeah, right, right. Right. So I think on my ball one, I was able to start the multiball, but I immediately, like, drained out of it. So I'm like, I really didn't get much benefit out of that. Ended up draining. And, you know, it was pretty much an even match after ball one. And then ball two, again, neither of us really did a whole lot for whatever reason. I don't know how, I don't recall the drains, how they happened, but basically it was a one ball game, you know, going into ball three, Austin was a little bit in the lead, but not by a whole lot. And he had a pretty nasty drain. He saved it a couple of times from the out lane. Somehow he nudged it properly and kind of saved it, which was pretty amazing at that point. under that pressure. I think his tournament life was kind of on the line there. And so he put up a little bit of points. And I was coming up at ball three. I think it was down like 400,000 points. That's a lot to get. Yeah. No problem. That's nothing significant. No, no. So I had like two choices. Am I going to try to go to multiball, which is, okay, you got to block the ball, then you have to knock down three stand-ups just to get into the multiball, or do I try to light the spinner, and then the spinner is worth 5,000 points a spin, and that spinner was pretty juicy. So my strategy was to light the spinner, and you light the spinner, There's a little stand-up target on the right side just above where the kind of the lock mechanism is. So you got to hit that to light the spinner. And so I plunged. I got control on the left flipper. And to my surprise, I hit that stand-up on the first shot, and it was lit. Nice. Yeah. So I'm like, okay, this might work out. So I got the ball to my right flipper, and then the spinner was lit. They should name a podcast off of that. Yeah, there you go. Hey-o. The spinner is lit. There you go. Landing. I hit the spinner. All right, so I try, you know, attempt number one. Okay, I'm off a little bit. I get control, and I miss it again. and the third time I miss it again. Oh, gosh. And I'm like, ooh, should I change my strategy or what? No, no, keep with what you're doing. And then on the fourth attempt from the right flipper, I hit the spinner. And in my head I'm like, okay, I'm really close. I might need to look at the bonus. I think I'm there on bonus. I trap up, get the ball on the left flipper, and immediately backhand the spinner. And I knew I was there at that point. You backhanded it? Wow. Yeah. So you can – actually, the backhand proved to be a lot easier shot than the forehand on that fathom. So with a sigh of relief, I let the ball go and move on to the next round. Wow. So 4-1, you got that. 4-1. So now as far as the fathom, did any of the players go for the extra ball by hitting the 1-2-3 in order? I didn't see it. Okay. It's hard to get. Didn't happen, but no, that was not really on my radar. Probably a smart move. Those are pretty dangerous. That's cool. That's awesome that you were able to pull that off on the fathom. So now you're on to the next round. Wow. And I don't think there are any more rounds after that, right? Is this the final? No, this is the final two. Whoa. Yeah. Austin number two. Austin number two. Austin Kemp. Oh, there's two Austins. Okay, now I'm getting this. Yeah. All right. So Austin Kemp is from Texas. And so, yeah, me from California, him from Texas. It was going to be an out-of-stater that was going to be the champ. So, you know, who is it going to be? That's kind of cool. Okay. Yeah. Well, yeah, I mean, you know, I mean. Tell all the locals, jump in the parking lot. There you go. Exactly. You know, the pinball beatdown that happens at every tournament. Yeah, yeah. So, all right. So, he was the higher seed. So, we started off on his modern game, which was Iron Maiden. And when he picked it, I'm like, okay, yeah. I can play Iron Maiden. I mean, you know, I mean, I feel comfortable on it. You know, I can get things going. And he proceeds to put up, like, 300-some million on ball one. He got the Cyborg. I mean, you know, he had been playing that probably every round, you know, throughout the tournament. And so, you know, he was pretty much dialed in on that. And, you know, I'm dialed in on my game, so that's why I say, you know, you got to break serve. So, yeah, you know, I ended up putting up some points, but it certainly wasn't up to where he was at. So, yeah, he took game one, Iron Maiden, so I'm down 0-1. And I'm thinking, like, okay, I got to break his momentum. So I'm going to just, you know, in the past I had picked Dracula as my first game, but then I'm like, no, I'm going to play King Kong. I'm going to even this thing up. Good plan. Yeah. Just start launching nukes, right? There you go. Start launching bombs at each other. Yeah, I mean, I don't want to go down, you know, I don't want to go down 0-2 and then have him pick one of his games and, you know, then I'm in trouble. So, yeah, we start playing, and I don't know what happened. I just wasn't playing up to my caliber. I did get a nasty sling drain to the right outline on either ball one or ball two. And then the other one, I had a drain on the left side in that middle lane. So, after ball, you know, and he didn't have a great ball one, but after ball two, I think I had 40 or 50 million. But I had made some progress. You know, I was fairly close to an extra ball, which you only need to climb 200 feet to get that first extra ball with. And then if you climb to 300 feet, then you get your New York City event ready. And that's an easy 120 million for me. So it still felt okay. Didn't look like Austin was overly confident in that game. So that's when the chaos started. And I don't know how this transferred to this dream. So I wasn't watching at this point. I was kind of trying to listen in my car. Okay. But it was really disjointed. So this is all edge of your seat stuff to me. Okay. Okay. So I kind of walk away dejectedly just to kind of compose myself. And then, you know, I was assuming Austin was starting his ball too, and he's like, he comes up to me, he's like, the game shut off. I was trying to move the game next to it over, and the game shut off. And I'm like, what? What the heck's going on here? Oh, no. Yeah. And so I go over there, and he's explaining, you know, I don't know if he had moved, like, Iron Maiden over closer to Kong or whatever, but maybe he was. So the other player was moving a game? Yes. Okay. Okay. And so evidently what happened was the leg on the other game engaged the power strip that turned off three or four games that were on that set. Oh. Oh. Okay. And so, all right, tournament directors, what's your ruling? How do you think this should be resolved? I think he forfeited. I don't think you can move a game as a player in a tournament like that. Even if it was inadvertent, he turned off the game. Yeah. I mean, are there rules? You can't move a game around and reposition it, right? Well, I mean, it's something that you really should have asked the tournament director to do. Right, right. Well, it was not the active game. It was the game next to ours. However, it turned off our game of comp. Right, that's what I'm saying. And he was, I don't know why he was moving that game, but that really wasn't his purview, right? Right. Correct. Dan, you're spot on. And if you go to the IFPA and PAPA rulebook, it falls under Section 9. And I did all this research afterwards, but I think I had an inkling what the correct ruling should have been. But it's under Section 9, player errors. and it says a player error is any player action purposeful or accidental, which affects the normal play or outcome of a game in progress. That's turning it off. Yeah, even accidentally or, you know, by whatever I mean. So the tournament director comes out, and then Austin, who is now on the stream, comes out, and they're trying to resolve the issue. and the tournament director goes, oh, it's a catastrophic malfunction. And I'm like, no, the game didn't malfunction. It was running perfectly fine. The only thing that happened is power was taken away from the game. And he started thinking and, you know, I didn't know 100% at the time, but I was pretty sure I was right, that it should have been a disqualification. But I didn't want to be the dick, right, that was, like, pounding on the game and making a big scene. But eventually he stuck with the catastrophic malfunction ruling. They had the scores up to that point on the stream. and so I would get one ball. We would start a new game, start one ball. I would get one ball, and then Austin got two balls. Oh, wow. Yeah, and, you know, talk about a momentum. Right. And, you know, just the time that it took to get that reconciled, you know, kind of screws with your head a little bit. Takes your rhythm away. Like tennis, same thing. Yeah. Right? Yeah. And so, yeah, so like I said, my progress, which I was close to an extra ball. Man, if I get an extra ball, I think I start humming and then get to the New York City event. And then, you know, it's off to the races. So I had to start over. And he started off with no progress as well, but he had two balls, right, to progress. and so uh uh how did that work so he i think he drained out my ball and then austin played his and then i played my final ball and yeah i had an a nasty i mean i was making progress i was climbing i wanted to get to the 200 foot level to get my extra ball with and i think i was like one shot short of that. I drained out and I had maybe a combined like 50 million. So yeah, it was not looking good for me at that point. Um, but, uh, you know, Austin made it close. You know, he, like I said, he didn't really look overly comfortable on King Kong. Um, but to his credit, He did enough with the combined scores to eke out the victory on Kong. So that was a gut punch for me. Yeah, that would make me upset too. And that does mess with your mental game there. Yeah, so I was down 0-2. I lost for the first time on my go-to game, which is King Kong. And then the next game was his choice. So I was really in a huge hole at that point in time. But you've been here before. Yes. Just not as jankily. Right, right. Which, you know, to my credit, you know, I mean, I don't want to pat myself on the back, but I still felt I was in it, all right? You know, if I win one game of his, we're back on par, right? We're back on serve. Yep. All right. So, yeah, the next game we went to was Tron, and I hadn't practiced that, hadn't played it. So I took my practice, and to my surprise, the shots were really buttery smooth. On some Trons, that Cora shot is very difficult. But, I mean, I was hitting it from a trap. I was hitting it on the fly. And so, yeah, I was, you know, as it turns out, you know, I felt really good on that going into ball one where, you know, he didn't do anything on ball one. And so I immediately got into my life cycle, you know, and got, you know, up to six, seven, eight million on my life cycle. And in the process, I think I drained out. But like I said, I made some Quora progress on that, and that was close to ready to go. I think starting my second ball, I was within one shot of being ready to start Quora. And Quora is really how to blow up that game, isn't it? I think so. Yeah, for sure. So hitting the spinner a certain number of times, is that what lights it? Yep. Okay. And I hit the side ramp on a couple of those and maybe got to end of the line also. So, anyway, I started my Cora on ball two. Again, Austin didn't do a whole lot on ball two. So I went into the ball two with a lead and my Cora ready to go. And so I got that started, like, almost immediately. Was just hitting some shots. And then the add-a-ball is at the, what, the recognizer, that stand-up bank in the middle. Oh, okay. I didn't know that. So, yeah. They hit it so many times. Yeah, so many times. And so I think I got at least two out of balls. I don't know if you can get a third. So I was playing that for a while and got some miscellaneous points. And I think I was, you know, ended ball two like at 20, 25 million. I don't know. It was something like that. Good lead. I'd have to go back and look at the stream and see what the points were. But, yeah, Austin had a hill to climb, but, you know, I assumed he had been playing this all day long and would eventually get it going. But, no, to my surprise, I don't think he really – I mean, I think he started his life cycle, but he didn't get close on Cora. I think he was trying to try that middle multiball, the recognizer one. Yeah, the disc one. The disc one. but no, he, you know, so he drained out rather quickly on ball three. And so, all right. So I took his game, one of his games away from me. He had taken one away from me. I took one away from him. And so we were kind of, you know, back close to even. So I was down one to two and I'm going into Bram Stroker's Dracula. and it's kind of funny because I think he knew my game selection when he had that long wait and I saw him playing several games of that knowing that and that's smart on his part right so um he saw maybe this has excellent taste in games and he really likes games that moan yeah maybe maybe but um so uh yeah this this was the one i think that really changed the tides um and again i think it goes back to you know my being comfortable on this game having a lot of time on it and knowing where the extra balls were but uh well and now you're playing with rage. Yeah, yeah. Now you're out to destroy him. Yeah, well, it's going to be me, agents, everybody, but not so much, really. You're like, oh, you're going to steal my game from me. Well, now I'm going to destroy you. But if Austin ever listens to this, he's the nicest guy. He, you know, all this, all the things. No, no, this doesn't have anything to do with Austin. It wasn't his decision. It was totally unintentional. unintentional weird sabotaging move the nicest guy though um so uh yeah i mean i get my missed going well first i get my bats going uh three left ramp shots get your bats going because you want to build up your bats on ball one because you get that bonus on all the other balls including extra So you could multiply that by four or five times what you get on ball one. So I got my bats going. I think I got a really good score on that in the $40 million. So I had million banked on every bonus collect Eventually the mist was lit I think I started my mist got some miscellaneous points And then I made progress. If you ever played this game, the big points are obviously in the triple stack. But you can also get very good points just by the castle multiball. so if you have at least two out of the three running you get your castle going and then you lock uh you lock balls by hitting the left ramp and then you hit that scooper i don't know if it's a scoop or the hole for the miss shot and that gives you a castle jackpot and those can go up to several hundred million and i think i hit a few of those throughout the game but yeah this This game was mine to be had. I think I scored like 1.2 billion on it. Oh, phenomenal. Yeah, you just, like I said, you played that game with intensity. Yeah. Whether you think you did or not. Yeah. It was like, dude, Rick hung up a billion points on Bram Stoker. Yeah. Yeah. And so. I was like, well, he is welcome. That left slipper was so strong and repeatable. That helps so much when you have those flippers working strong. Because if they're not, watch out. Because that ball can just come right back down the middle. One question I want to have as you continue on is, did you hit both flippers at the same time and slam them against the cage or whatever? You know? Yeah, there's a thing where if you hit it in a certain shot, I forgot what it is, but if you hit both flippers together, you get like five million added to it to slam them. No, I don't worry about that. That's what you're doing, the master. Master, yeah, the master. You're giving me eternal life. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The Renfeld shot. Yeah. Oh, you get five million plus the five million? You hit both flippers at the same time. I don't know anything about this. I don't know that either. I'm going to play my own game. Yeah, you slam them, and then you get five million. Yep. Oh, I didn't know that. Yep. Well, I'm going to have to try that next time. There you go. It's fun, too. It's very satisfying. He's like, oh. Yeah, so I got through the second video mode, got an extra ball there. then I think you hit enough ramp to get an extra ball. You can do that several times. I almost got through the third video mode, which, you know, the werewolves or whatever, the wolves are really charging at you. That's so hard in third. I almost completed it a third time, and I think I came within one wolf of doing that. But so, yeah, I take game four. It's now even-steven, two-to-two. I feel I have the momentum. I just blew up my game. Okay, Austin, you know, all right, let's go to your game. You know, you need to win your game. And put the pressure back. Now we're getting to the oldies, right? Yeah, we're going to Firepower 2. Oh, Firepower 2. Yeah. Cool. Are you guys familiar with that game at all? Yeah. Okay. I mean, I've played it, but I couldn't tell you, yeah, the ins and outs of the rules of the gameplay. So Firepower 2 is there's a lock in the upper right between the right orbit and what do you want to call it, the upper rollovers. And when you're not in multiball, that's always lit. So obviously you want to hit that shot. and then to start multiball you have to hit a stand-up that's at the very middle of the play field but it's right before right under the upper rollovers in the middle of the pops so just because you lock a ball doesn't mean you're going to get into multiball but so you need some you need some really good accuracy if you're off the flipper or some divine intervention and maybe some pop help where the pop drives the ball right into that stand up and you start multiball. So anyway, I felt good on this game. I had practiced it the night before and, you know, got over a million points on it. So, yeah, I felt good. But I didn't know how Austin was going to play it. Obviously, it's one of his choices, so I'm sure he's going to play it pretty well. and the other thing to mention is this game has lock stealing so if you lock a ball your opponent's going to grab that right away and take advantage of it so that would come into play later in the game so uh so austin is player number one and he uh he doesn't get much going he drains out rather quickly and you know this is an older game. So it's, those outlanes are wide open or it's pretty drainy. Um, you can get house balls, anything can happen. So, uh, yeah, he didn't, he didn't put up much on ball one. Um, and so I'm coming up, he didn't leave a locked ball for me, but I immediately locked my first ball and then I plunge, I believe, and I got some pop action right into the standup. So I'll write Right away I'm like into multiball. And I'm like, okay, this is coming together. I like what's going on. And then the other thing is you can hit those stand-ups down lower on the play field to eventually light your spinner on the left side. And that's really the strat, right, is you want to get into multiball for some protection, get your spinner lit, and hit that, and then get to the upper play field, get some bonus multipliers, get some bonus, and play it that way. And so, yeah, I was able to do like maybe two or three multi-balls on ball one. Wow. And I don't know what I ended up with on ball one, but I know by ball two, I was – I don't know what the numbers were. I was in a commanding lead, let me put it that way. and it got to the point where on my ball two, I had the ball on my left flipper and the lock ready to go, but I'm like, I'm not going to shoot that lock and potentially leave that for Austin on ball three to start off with. And by then I had the spinner lit on the left side, so I was just post-passing and hitting the spinner on the left. and I think that was really a good decision although I ended up having an extra ball so I guess I could have played another multiball or two but by then I think I was over two million and so yeah Austin had to come up and have a miraculous ball three to even get back into it and for whatever reason you know firepower was not kind to Austin he uh he played for a little bit and was fighting it but you know those outlanes are huge and if you get any side to side action you're in trouble so um yeah I was was able to plunge off ball three and at that point I was up three to two. Wow. Three to two. Um, I was up three to two and, um, man, if I had a confidence meter, you know, uh, if I had a confidence meter at that point in time, I think it would be pegged out because, um, you know, to come from Oh two back and looking like I was on my death sore to being up 3-2 at that point. Wow, what a huge turnaround. And we were going to my old pick, which was... He knows it should be over, right? Because you had aced him at King Kong. Yeah. Like, he knows in his heart. He knows in his heart, but you didn't have him. Maybe, or it's karma, or someone's looking over me from above, or something's going on. So then we're going to go to Grand Prix. And, again, I feel confident on it. If there's any hesitation at all, I might have skated by in the Travis game. But, again, you know, the pressure's on him. You know, I definitely don't want to go to a game seven, but in all likelihood the pressure's on him. and so again I'm player one I play my entire game I have some good early action some good spinner rips some good bonus collects throw in a house ball or two here or there but I was ended up rolling it I got over a million points I think just a tad over a million points. And so... A million points. That's beautiful. And all this is on stream and the guys are kind of like 15 feet behind me and you can kind of hear them. They're like, holy crap! You know, clenching up at certain points. And I had some fortunate inlanes. It's always nice to get some inlanes into some spinner rips. But yeah, a million points. I'm feeling way better than what it was against Travis. But by all means, I'm not 100% sure on this one. Yeah, you're not out of the woods. I mean, anything can happen. If you get some confidence on those spinners, you can make a million points pretty easily. But so Austin starts his game and I think he had a tough drain on ball one. And I'm thinking, ooh, okay, all right. But, you know, to his credit, man, he really fought. He made some really good saves. He was catching up. He had some house balls like you're going to have on Grand Prix, just like I did. So on ball four and five, he played quite a while. and you know he was a couple spinner rips away from catching me on ball five but yeah he made a couple of you know trying to get control some defensive flips and I think it went straight down the middle and I really to this day I really can't believe it you know I'm kind of reliving it right now but the relief and And kind of the joy that went in my head is just like indescribable. Yeah. I had come back from 0-2 to win that match 4-2. I was kind of shaking hands with everybody. And everybody was so great. I was actually able to go on the stream and thank everybody and kind of give them a little bit of my story. So, and then, you know, everybody kind of back home was kind of cheering me on and sending me messages. So. Oh, yeah, we were stoked, man, as soon as the word got out. I was super happy to hear that, too. Yeah. Immediately. Yeah, everybody was telling everybody. And I wasn't aware of it. You're the Rick one. You're the Rick. I was like, that Oki, whatever. What a loser. He couldn't even win here. I wasn't aware of it. We were super impressed. How long have you been playing competitively, Rick? Like, I know you've been playing pinball forever today, but how long have you been playing in leagues and tournaments and competitions? Well, the first league I joined was Lodi, and I think that was when Adam was at his old house. So I don't know. It's maybe six years or so. Six years. Wow. Maybe seven. I don't know. But like you said, I've been playing. It's got to be like five, six, seven years, right? Because I remember you weren't really playing a lot before that, at least, you know, not according to you. And now that we all know that's a fix. You know it's a lie. No, I mean, just seriously, you know, it's at this point, it's the culmination of your journey, right? Like, you know, you've gone, you've won a state. So what's next? So what's next is, I think it's March 5th. it's the nationals so all the people Jeff from Nevada, myself from Oklahoma we all all the state winners and actually the providence the winners from Canada all the providences they go to the nationals which is going to be held in Chicago Illinois and it's the same format the first player to seven, you know, wins their match and moves on. But, you know, you have the winners of all these, you know, from a couple weekends ago culminating and coming together and playing in the nationals. And, man, there's, I mean, you know, if you didn't think the player level was high at the state, just imagine what it is at the national. I mean, it's just a joy to be able to attend that and represent. The best of the best. Isn't that Josh Sharpe's house? Is that where it is? It's called Ord. I don't know if it's at his house or what, but it could be. It could be a lot of people unless you have a big house. Yeah, that's true. I don't know. I don't know. There's going to be at least 50 people. Yeah, there's going to be a lot of people. Maybe it's his private location or something like that. I don't know. So it's a combination weekend with the Pin Masters. So now I get to attend that. I wasn't originally going to go to that, but now we're going to make a whole weekend of it. Yeah, you're automatically in when you win the state, which is cool. Yeah, we know Jeanette's excited just because she gets to go to Chicago. Okay, yeah, exactly. West Chicago, which is a nice area. Yeah, it's cool. You know, and she did not go with me to Oklahoma, you know, because I was like, I'm just going to fly in Friday afternoon, play Saturday, and come back Sunday morning. You know, it's going to be a really short trip and not a whole lot sightseeing. So, you know, and she had some other things going on. So, you know, I went by myself. But this time, Sheila, I'm definitely going. That's awesome. So she was there for your support. Was she there while you were playing, too? Well, no, she was not in Oklahoma. Oh, she was not in Oklahoma. I was wondering, too, because there was like a lady in the background. Like you couldn't really see her super well, but we thought it might be her. okay so uh yeah i mean and and you know these things for um your spouses uh or whatever are not overly you know fun for them but um definitely not for heidi in hindsight it probably would have been fun for her yeah yeah but um now she gets to see the nationals though which is you would have been happy just hanging out in our cave for 12 hours come on really not so much no but I mean I know she would have been there to support you oh yeah the support would have definitely been there she would have found her own fun yeah so yeah but like I said I felt all the support from family and friends and yeah it was an awesome event and that's a great accomplishment and what I'm amazed and fascinated with is you remembered every shot from every game from the whole tournament That was a great rundown of exactly what happened in each game. That's a good memory if you ask me. You know, if I would describe how – You think your border is on some kind of unhealthy obsession. Yeah. I was going to say that. You know, the way I study more than I play. I mean, I watch so many videos, try to learn the rules, the exploits. You know, in this case, how to get the extra balls. You know, I do a lot of that in addition to playing a lot. You're a smart player, Rick. I need to play controlled. I can't play like, you know, some of the players that just can hit shots left, right. Yeah, on the fly. Mouse and cough. Exactly. I just can't play effectively like that. Well, you know, with you, I mean, and I'm sure you know this or maybe you don't know this. I mean, it's probably a lot of self-actualization. But, like, nobody's mental game is better than yours because you just seem completely unflappable. So true. So true. It's very rare that, like, something happens where I see you off your game. And it's never when I'm playing against you. It's always when something happens off the side and you might say I'm annoyed by it. Like, you know, you're just like, I'm annoyed by this. And I'm like, I can tell, man, you see him off your game. But, you know, you're such a nice, cold competitor. And that's why it's pretty amazing that, you know, with the way that that King Kong thing went down, you know, it doesn't surprise me one little bit that you just sort of said, okay, well, if that's the ruling, then that's how I'll take it. That's amazing. I would have lost it after that. I would have been pissed. Yeah, me too. And the funny thing is, Mark, I kind of think of you as the same way, but I'm just like, man, I would love to see Mark in a situation where he was really mad. Oh. You haven't been around me a lot. You'll see. I haven't been around you really in an environment where I've seen you lose and I've seen the disappointment, you know, like when we were playing at Golden State. Yes. And I've seen you disappointed, but I've never seen you just like, I'm super pissed. But you can definitely see your emotions a little more than Rick. Oh, absolutely. It's like a pinball tournament. Absolutely. But, yes, it's, you know, I mean, huge congratulations for, you know, bringing that home to Elk Grove Pinball and, you know, really representing, you know, really representing your brand and the people that you play with, you know. Yep. Because we know that without slopping us around for all these years, you probably wouldn't have, you know, reached these heights. Yeah, absolutely. there's definitely truth to that I mean I I'm very fortunate where there's so so many friends and league members that have games where we can come over and play and and learn the rules and you know just work on our skills for me you know the other thing that has really changed in the last year or so is just working on my flipper skills drop catches drop catches, live catches, stage flipping, stage flipping. It's so huge. And if you look at the nuances of the good players versus your, you know, your casuals or whatever, is they're making shots that are controlled. And if you do that, you stand a higher rate of success. And so, yeah, it's one of the things that I would maybe like to do with maybe our league members is, like, have a flipper skill session where we work on the various moves. Because, you know, everybody wants to play better, right? And the longer you play, the more fun it is. So that's one of the things. Pinball drills, like tennis, right? Work on your volley. Work on your overhead. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, that tennis analogy is really fitting well with pinball when I think about it. Exactly. I appreciate that you have that kind of dedication. I'm just going to be happy if they pay their dues on time and stay with their group. That's true, and we did really well last week. You got your empties. Yeah. No, but I mean, yeah, that is a good point that, like, you know, there's always that space for, you know, if you really dedicate yourself to not just, okay, how long can I keep the ball alive? Is it going to be enough to win the game? And, you know, can I control the ball? Can I, you know, can I affect the pace of the game? I was watching, I think it was Elwin early on, and, you know, his advice was just like, if you want to win a pinball, just slow down. Slow down. Your goal is to stop the game, catch the ball, make the correct decision, and don't miss. Think about your next shot before that ball gets to the flipper. Yep. That's what I've done too. Yeah, the ball's not always going to bounce your way, and you're going to miss shots. But if you put yourself in the best situation that you can, you know, You're going to have your share of, you know, good games. And it's so true because I got to be a better player because I wasn't taking the shots right away. I was thinking. And sometimes if you think too hard, you don't play as well. But when you know what to expect and you know what you're going for and you feel confident in it, it totally changes your game. And that's what made me become a better player because when I was an amateur, I was just like, eh, I'm just trying to hit the shots on the fly and not really thinking. And then to win tournaments, you have to know the rules. You have to know what to stack. You have to know what's the best mode to choose. Like you said, there's so much studying that is involved. And really, I mean, when you think about it, pinball is really for a lot of intelligent people because some people couldn't even handle just one rule of a game. And we have, what, 300 games to remember? So it's pretty amazing. Right? I thought you killed me. Well, yeah. Can you name another sport or hobby where the play field is constantly changing? I mean, golf. I mean, tennis, baseball. You know, it's kind of the field's always, you know, the bases are the same distance apart. The pitching, all that stuff is the same. But pinball, every game that you walk up to is different. It's different. And not only is it different, but even the same game is different. Yes, right. You know, we've talked about this before, but there's a lot of facets to the hobby of pinball. And, you know, today, especially this episode, with basically all three of our stories telling, you know, a range of competitive pinball stories. I think that, you know, for anybody who loves pinball just for casual play and for anybody who loves pinball just because the machines are cool, like, that's awesome. Right. But I do think that, you know, find yourself a local club or a local league or just some buddies who you think you'd enjoy playing with and indulge in some competitive pinball. And if you like it, find a way to make that official. Find a local league that you can join or, as Spencer's trying to do, make your own. Because really, for somebody like me who I was into pinball for 10 years before I got into competition pinball, and it really reawakened my love for the entire activity. And now between competing and organizing and the podcast and working with Rick on his stream, which we'll tell you about before we all leave, it's amazing the facets of pinball that have been opened up to me because of league play and competitive pinball and joining the occasional tournament and doing some competitions. and I just play for fun, you know. You know, I'm really, you know, I really just, I enjoy participating, and, you know, it's great to win and it sucks to lose, but, you know, as long as I'm there and I'm giving it a try, I enjoy it. And it's nice to see guys like you and like Mark who are taking it to the next level, you know. Going from local competitions to state is awesome. Now going from state to nationals is incredible, you know. And knowing that, you know, one of my closest pen pals is going to be competing on the national stage is going to be really, really, really cool. That's awesome. Awesome. Did we get Spencer back? Yeah, Spencer's still here. He left for a bit, but he says he's back. Yeah, I'm here. Can you hear us? He's here. All right. Yeah, I'm here. So, hey, Rick, why don't you tell us where we can find you on the Internet if we want to partake in your state championship pinball skills? Yeah, you can find me streaming here or there on Twitch at Elk Grove Pinball. I have a YouTube channel under the same name, Elk Grove Pinball, so you can see a lot of archived videos there. big thanks to Dan we typically stream the Golden State Pinball Festival together and so yeah I just trying to get more of a regular schedule and so you hopefully see me out there a lot more in the days to come but yeah check out my channel I suggest we do an every other Thursday pinball show I think that yeah Yeah, that would be so cool, especially if it went over rules. It would be great, like King Kong. That would really help me out. We run a league together, but we only do that every other week, so I've suggested that we do a show. Well, Mark, if you think that sounds exciting, talk about it on our webpage or shoot Rick a memo that you want to see pinball every other Thursday. There should be several multi-billion games up on my Twitch channel right now If you want to go check out the Kong, it's like a tutorial. I'll watch it. For sure. Because that's the game that always gets me in tournaments at Elbow Room. So, awesome. Yeah. So, we got any shout-outs and thank yous this week? I have a shout-out to my wife. To my wife? I think Spencer's like, go ahead, man. Go ahead, man. Go out of it the whole time. Spencer's been eating the ribs. How are the ribs? Good? I know. I was kicking the wheel. I got a smoker for my birthday. I'll just throw this out real quick. And my birthday was in December. So I haven't had a chance to use it. Well, it's been really warm and really dry. While you guys were getting that horrible rain and cold, we were dry, sunny, and 10 degrees warmer than you. Okay, in December, a week before Christmas, we were still in the 60s. It's been really weird. So finally, we have 10 degrees. It's like 10 degrees right now. Snow in most of the morning. I said, if I finally got Sunday, I'm going to use a smoker. I picked up ribs. Okay, I start the smoker. I get smoke going. Everything's going good. And then the pressure regulator freezes. It shuts out. It's like, well, shit, what am I going to do? So I just switched them over to the oven. And so I've been babysitting the ribs. Okay. So I got them running at 250. An hour ago, I did butter. And a lot of times I use brown sugar, but I went with honey. So I wrapped them in foil. Oh, boy, that sounds good. I'm hungry. I got them on the last hour, and I sauced them up. And just for fun, because I always try different stuff. So I did a nice rub, but then for the sauce, I did a Jack Daniels sweet and spicy sauce. I've never used it. I've got just a little taste of it because I had some on my fingers. It's pretty good. So they're on the last hour, and I'm going to serve those with coleslaw, potato salad, and macaroni salad because at least one of the kids likes all of those or one of those. And I'm going to speak to Brock. Nice. And they're like, you've done nothing about pinball. I have nothing to talk about other than we got a Godzilla premium at the bowling alley three blocks from my house. That's getting a lot of play. The new arcade is scheduled to open for March. They're still working on finding a pinball vendor. Hopefully we'll have that dialed in soon. And I've been playing I've hardly played lately But I've played about four games And have one really good one today On Dungeons & Dragons And that's about it guys for pinball So my shout outs to all of you guys And congratulations to both of you To Rick for taking it home all the way And Mark No dishonor man You took second in your state Be proud of that Because I'm proud of my brothers And like Dan you guys said But, you know, I'm watching, I'm cheering on. When the word came out, it was like over the wire, the newswire, which today's newswire is all our local pinball club pages, you know, like our Slack groups and like that and texting. And everybody's like, I'm like, well, how the hell did Rick get to Oklahoma? You know? And it's like, I didn't know you were playing tournaments out there. But it was like, holy crap, you're a state champion. You're going to the nationals. So, you know, guys, be proud of your achievements, man. And that is no small effort. So I'm happy with you guys. Thank you. Keep going. And I didn't wear it today because I didn't want to get barbecue sauce all over it. But I have the official Old Man Drains Balls T-shirt. So are you still selling those, Rick? Oh, absolutely. Yeah, if you want one, reach out to me. But, yeah, it's kind of cool that an old man like myself can win a state championship. Yeah. It's kind of a – Oh, them whippersnappers. What for, Rick? Yeah. There you go. Yeah, I feel the same way, too. Yeah. So I'm going to give it back over to you, Mark. Go ahead and do shout-outs, and thank you to all our listeners. Well, shout-out to all you guys. Rick, congratulations winning Oklahoma. That's awesome. And shout-out to my wife. She actually watched a pinball stream watching me play, which I thought was really cool. And she watched the whole thing to the end. Good. So I was really proud of her for doing that. They actually all watched it on TV, on Twitch, once my son got it all set up. And they were cheering me on. So thank you, Heidi, for supporting me all these months, all these years. Who knows how long it's going to be when I retire. Oh, boy. And I'm really going to get into it probably. But just thank you for the support. And thank you for watching me and cheering me on. Because one thing about Heidi is every time she comes to the tournament in person, I win. and it's been two times she's come and I've won the finals at those times she came. Now, I'm like, she always makes a joke and says, oh, man, I wish I was there. I could have been there and you could have won it. And I'm like, yeah, it was good enough having her text me and support me. So thank you, honey. I love you and thank you very much for sharing me on. She's your good luck piece, man. She's your good luck piece. Yep. For the record, that's what you think. Your honeydew list is going to be six pages long. I'm tired I got all this time for pinball she's like oh we'll see about that yup she's probably wondering when am I going to be done with this podcast pretty soon so she's standing behind his tap and the watch you know a huge shout out to all the pinball widows who you know have to deal with us you know way too much time and energy and attention to this, you know, activity, hobby, business, whatever you want it to be. You know, absolutely huge shout-out to you guys, you know, for competing at this level and, you know, coming in victorious. Huge shout-out to Alec Lambert again for his third in a row CCPL Interleague. And to, you know, everybody who came to Interleague and participated, to Adam for hosting, to Mike for running it. And, you know, to Rick for missing it, you know, giving most of us a chance. We could have used you to nullify Alex. But, you know, if Hector couldn't do it, who knows if anybody can. I think that kid might be unstoppable at the interleague format at this point. And, you know, to everybody who engages with us on the webpage, who watches Elk Grove Pinball streams and participates in the activity of competitive pinballs. Yeah, and a huge shout-out to all the state organizers, all the reps for all the states of getting these tournaments organized and everything. This is my turn, and I expressly not shouting them out. No? I would like to remove that shout-out. No, I'm just kidding. No, that's what I was saying, to anybody who participates in competitive pinball, you know, like the organizers, the IFPA, you know, any level that you play at, you know, whether you play local for just funsies or whether you play, you know, at now the national level, the state and the national level, you know. Competitive pinball, whether you believe it or not, it drives pinball. It does. You know, and while the collecting aspect of pinball is important, and I'm sure we'll talk about that again, you know, next month, you know, competitive pinball, I think, will really awaken the fire in you for all aspects of pinball, more than just like, oh, I got a new machine or I got a new mod, but like now how can I use this piece of equipment to its, you know, fullest potential? Hear, hear. Hear, hear. Hear. Do it. Do it right here. The line must be drawn here. You want to take us home, Skipper? Yeah, let me give my usual shout-outs to you. You can find this on our home at SoundCloud. SoundCloud. You can also find us on iTunes and where fine podcaster sold and rented. You can reach us at the spinner is lit at gmail.com. Check out our Facebook page. Like us, share us, give us a shout out and check out the live streams at Elk Grove Pinball. Hey, Spencer. Yeah. I messed up. Did you? I didn't even notice. Hey, Rick. Yes. Give me a shout out. Thank you. Well, you've got a lot of talk time, so, you know, that's okay. Well, yeah, thank you guys for having me on to share my little story, my little adventure. It's been really fun. Hopefully I can join you in the future. Absolutely. Yeah, just to all my pinball friends, you know, this was kind of a collective effort throughout the years. family and friends, my wife, Jeanette, daughter, Katrina, son, Jared, who put up with me playing games in the background while they were trying to watch TV or do things. But, yeah, what an amazing ride. And, like I said, it's great to speak about it with you guys, my pinball buddies. That's what we're here for, man. We have an expectation, too, that we're going to be doing this again in a few months. Yes, we are. On the national level. Okay. Or you're crushing defeat on the national level. Yes, schedule it. Either way. We'll schedule it. Yeah. And you know what? I just wanted to tell you, Rick, you're playing when my father passed away on March 5th. That's really memorable for me. So kick some major ass on that day. There you go. I'll do what I can guys You know the most important thing is Go have fun You're going to nationals It's like If you know somebody that you know High school or college or whatever that made it to the major leagues In baseball even because I know a guy A guy I went to high school with And he got on a split card A clear baseball card And he got to go play Like a season in the majors It's like you know even if that's it You know, you got to walk on the field at the big show. Yeah. So, you know what I mean? Like, Rick, you're walking onto the field at the big show, and you're going to get to play in the big show. So, you know, just enjoy the ride, man. I will. Thank you, guys. And no pressure, but if you lose, we'll just disown you. We'll be like, Rick who? Rick who? No, man, we're real happy for you. We're real happy with everything that you did, Mark. I mean, you made it all the way to the very end, to the final two, in your state championships. And that's not a needed thing because, you know, some of the players are Vegas and some of your fellow Reno players are just, man, they're monsters. They're monsters. They're so good. And they're always good. They don't have, you know, when you get to that level, and I've heard a lot of people say this about the top level players is they don't have off days very often or even an off game. No, it's probably one in ten probably. Yeah, it's that, man. So, good to talk to you guys. Thank you. Yeah. All right, gentlemen. And, you know, again, so good to have you guys on. So good to have you on, Rick. And we are looking forward to having you on to give us, you know, your take of, you know, the eyewitness first-person view of what it's like to play at the Nationals. Because we've never, you know, I've never heard anybody podcast that. So we're real excited about that. Anybody have anything else? Nope. Take us home. I think it's safe to take us home this time, boss. So, yeah, so again, check out Elk Grove Pinball and watch those cool streams and learn something about pinball you didn't know before maybe or just have an enjoyable afternoon watching other people play pinball. It actually is pretty fun. Come and listen to our shows and check us out. You guys know how to find us. And, you know, just rewind two minutes. So, play pinball. Keep America strong. All right, everybody.

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: 09d1bb5c-e28c-487b-8967-4e06ad72d8b9*