# #34 - Bob Caldwell **Source:** A Pinball Podcast **Type:** podcast_episode **Published:** 2020-12-15 **Duration:** 71m 12s **Beat:** Pinball **URL:** https://apinballpodcast.podbean.com/e/34-bob-caldwell/ --- ## Analysis Bob Caldwell, a pinball enthusiast and collector from St. Louis, shares his journey into pinball—from childhood at a bowling alley arcade through his first tournament at California Extreme 2016—and discusses his playing style, tournament experiences, and encounters with the broader pinball community. The episode blends personal anecdotes with competitive pinball insights, including his performance at the Classics tournament in January despite a head injury. ### Key Claims - [HIGH] Bob purchased a Whirlwind pinball machine on eBay for $1,200 in 2001 while making $7/hour during college, discovering the seller lived less than two miles away in South County, St. Louis. — _Direct personal account from Bob about his first machine purchase_ - [HIGH] Bob attended California Extreme 2016 as his first tournament ever, made the cut to bracket A despite having no tournament experience, and competed against national-level players. — _Detailed first-hand narrative of Bob's tournament debut and qualifying rounds_ - [HIGH] At the January Classics tournament (likely 2020), Bob played well despite a head injury from hitting an overhead bin on a plane, describing his playing style as getting into a rhythm where 'the ball refuses to drain.' — _Host and Bob's conversation about the tournament, corroborated by host's recollection of the event_ - [HIGH] Two men who were frequent pinball players at Bob's bowling alley arcade were among the filmmakers for the 1982 St. Louis Arch Base Jump (climbing the arch with suction cups, parachuting off, and being caught on film). — _Bob's direct recollection and Wikipedia confirmation checked during the podcast_ - [HIGH] Bob's playing style on classics involves keeping the ball going fast and up top rather than precise play, influenced by a soccer analogy about playing better when not overthinking. — _Bob's explanation of his technique and mindset during tournament play_ - [HIGH] Bob owns or has owned multiple pinball machines including Getaway, Roller Games, Earth Shaker, Diner, and Whirlwind, with some buried under arcade boards or stored in friends' basements. — _Direct statement from Bob about his collection_ - [HIGH] Bob grew up playing System 11 Williams pinball machines primarily (Police Force, Taxi, Black Knight 2000) as a kid in the late 1980s. — _Bob's personal account of his formative pinball years_ - [HIGH] Bob's first pinball tournament at California Extreme 2016 involved a qualifying format where 20 credits across five machines determined bracket placement, with scores reaching 170 players. — _Detailed description of the tournament structure and Bob's placement_ ### Notable Quotes > "All I used to do is like I'd lift weights and play soccer and be like a cheapskate and basically like use the campus meal plan, even though I went to college here in St. Louis and my parents live here." > — **Bob Caldwell**, early in episode > _Illustrates Bob's financial discipline and motivation to save for his first pinball machine_ > "Just put that back in the truck. Don't take Whirlwind out." > — **Bob Caldwell**, early-middle section > _Shows Bob's commitment to protecting a favorite machine at the arcade, demonstrating early passion for specific games_ > "Oh yeah I know those guys and she goes how do you know those guys let's go they're they're always in there playing pinball right next to me." > — **Bob Caldwell**, middle section > _Bob's mother's reaction to discovering the arcade players were the St. Louis Arch jumpers, a memorable community anecdote_ > "Well, I've owned a Whirlwind since 2001. Like, we got this one locked down." > — **Bob Caldwell**, late-middle section > _Bob's confidence in his familiarity with Whirlwind at his first tournament_ > "If I just played it wide open, man, I was like locked in cruise control." > — **Bob Caldwell**, late section > _Summary of Bob's playing philosophy—aggressive, intuitive style over precise control_ > "Who are you? And I tell him. And they both kind of had this look like, like, who is this guy, you know?" > — **Host, about Bob's interaction with Bowen Kerins**, late-middle section > _Captures the moment when established tournament players noticed an unknown qualifier from nowhere_ > "I rode the lightning and that whole time it was amazing." > — **Host, about Bob's performance at Classics**, middle section > _A term coined by the host to describe Bob's hot streak during the tournament, illustrating his momentum play_ > "It's because you're not thinking. And that kind of comes back to, like, so I've only played one Pimberg." > — **Bob Caldwell**, late section > _Bob explaining how his soccer background taught him that stress/anger improves performance by reducing overthinking_ ### Entities | Name | Type | Context | |------|------|---------| | Bob Caldwell | person | Pinball collector and tournament player from St. Louis; competitive pinball enthusiast with unique playing style; guest on A Pinball Podcast | | Bowen Kerins | person | Recognized pinball personality and YouTube content creator; encountered Bob at California Extreme 2016 as tournament official/organizer; reacted with surprise to Bob's qualification | | Greg DeFeo | person | Pinball tournament figure; encountered by Bob at California Extreme 2016 as tournament official/organizer | | California Extreme 2016 | event | Arcade and pinball tournament event where Bob played his first competitive tournament; held in California; featured qualifying rounds and bracket play | | Classics Tournament | event | Major pinball tournament (January 2020 or nearby); Bob competed despite head injury sustained on airplane; featured top-tier national players in competitive play | | Show Me Lanes | company | Bowling alley in St. Louis where Bob spent childhood, featuring arcade games including Gauntlet and pinball machines like Taxi, Whirlwind, Addams Family, and Gilligan's Island | | St. Louis Arch | event | 1982 base jumping stunt involving suction cup climbing to the 630-foot arch; two pinball players from Bob's arcade were the cameramen and accomplices, later facing federal charges | | Whirlwind | game | Williams pinball machine from early 1990s; Bob's first owned machine (purchased 2001 for $1,200 from local seller); featured at Show Me Lanes arcade; Bob played it at California Extreme 2016 qualifying | | Police Force | game | Williams System 11 pinball machine; one of first three games Bob learned on as a child; featured ramps and free game award on back; played on location | | Taxi | game | Williams System 11 pinball machine; one of Bob's foundational games; located at Show Me Lanes; site of Bob's first free game win as a child (~7-8 years old) | | Black Knight 2000 | game | Williams System 11 pinball machine; one of Bob's first three learned games; played on location during childhood | | Getaway | game | Pinball machine in Bob's collection; currently stored in friend's parents' basement (fell through window); never been in Bob's physical possession | | Roller Games | game | Pinball machine in Bob's collection; listed among machines Bob owns | | Earth Shaker | game | Pinball machine in Bob's collection; listed among machines Bob owns | | Diner | game | Pinball machine in Bob's collection; listed among machines Bob owns | | Addams Family | game | Pinball machine at Show Me Lanes arcade during Bob's childhood | | Gilligan's Island | game | Pinball machine at Show Me Lanes arcade; location crusher that Bob disliked; operator offered to swap for Whirlwind but Bob refused | | High Speed | game | Williams pinball machine; played by Bob and his father as a child; father was enthusiastic due to car theme | | Blue Chip | game | EM Williams pinball machine; featured at California Extreme 2016; Bob scored nearly 950,000 for third overall in qualifying round | | Pinball Magic | game | Pinball machine featured at California Extreme 2016 main tournament; Bob came in second place despite poor opening performance | | Attack from Mars | game | Pinball machine featured at California Extreme 2016; mentioned in Bob's tournament play; Bob asked Jay Collins for advice on how to play it | | Jay Collins | person | Pinball player encountered at California Extreme 2016; Bob asked him for gameplay advice on Attack from Mars | | Derek Price | person | Competitive pinball player; in Bob's group at Classics tournament; beat Bob by less than 5,000 points on Volton, resulting in tied third place finish | | Nick De Stefano | person | Competitive pinball player; in Bob's group at Classics tournament | ### Topics - **Primary:** Bob's origin story and entry into pinball, Tournament competition and performance (California Extreme 2016, Classics), Playing style and technique (aggressive rhythm-based approach) - **Secondary:** Personal pinball collection and machines owned, St. Louis pinball and arcade venues, System 11 Williams machines and classics era games - **Mentioned:** Arcade collecting and video game culture ### Sentiment **Positive** (0.82) — Bob shares nostalgic, warm memories of his pinball journey with genuine passion and humor. The host and Bob have evident rapport and mutual respect. Tournament experiences are discussed positively despite competitive challenges. Occasional frustration (head injury during Classics, mechanical issues) tempered by overall upbeat and reflective tone. ### Signals - **[community_signal]** Personal connections and mentorship within pinball community: Bob's arcade peers became tournament acquaintances; host-guest relationship facilitates deeper community integration (confidence: medium) — Bob meeting Johnny Monica, Luis Wagonsoner, Bob Matthews at tournament; asking Jay Collins for gameplay advice; host checking on Bob between rounds - **[sentiment_shift]** Strong positive reception to Bob's tournament debut at California Extreme 2016; arcade and pinball community welcomed unknown qualifier despite his inexperience (confidence: medium) — Bob made bracket A despite no prior tournament experience and competed against national-level players; host emphasizes 'who's who' and top players were present - **[competitive_signal]** Playing style diversity in competitive pinball: Bob's aggressive, rhythm-based approach contrasts with precision-focused players; both methods viable at top level (confidence: high) — Bob describes his technique as 'wide open' play that gets into 'cruise control' vs. precise play; successful despite this unconventional approach at Classics - **[design_philosophy]** Classics-era games (EM and early solid-state Williams) reward ball speed and upper flipper control more than modern precision requirements (confidence: medium) — Bob notes keeping ball 'going fast and up top' works better than 'cutesy' precise play on classics; contrasts with modern game design philosophy - **[market_signal]** Arcade collecting community overlap with pinball enthusiasts; retro gaming/arcade acquisition preceding tournament pinball participation (confidence: medium) — Bob attended California Extreme 2016 initially for arcade content after merger/job transition; knew 10+ people in arcade community before entering pinball tournaments - **[community_signal]** Bob's playing performance improves under pressure/stress conditions (soccer background), requires mental state where he's 'not thinking' to maximize play (confidence: high) — Bob describes soccer coaches noting he plays better when stressed/angry; applies same principle to pinball; successful at Classics despite head injury affecting judgment --- ## Transcript All right, welcome back to another episode of A Pinball Podcast, and today we have a special guest named Bob Caldwell. Now, Bob is out of St. Louis, and I've met him a long time ago at a few pinball tournaments, and ever since then, he's one of my favorite people to run into at a tournament because he always has hilarious stories. We always go get a bite to eat. We run into these crazy restaurants and everything. I think we even talk about that a little bit on this podcast today. But other than that, though, guys, I feel like you'll enjoy it. Without further ado, let's go. You know, the main thing I want to talk about with you right now, Bob, is all the books behind you. That's what I want to talk about. All the books? Yes, there's many very scholarly books back here. Right there is whatever box Nintendo stuff I have. PlayStation 4. What is all this? Like, LE stuff that I probably should quit buying. Some Saturn-like gun stuff. Neo Geo MVS carts, which seem to be all the rage amongst some pinball podcasters nowadays. For those that don't know what's happening right now, if you're not watching this on YouTube, behind Bob right now is, it's literally just a bunch of video games behind him. And I mistakenly thought it was books. When I first got on, I was just like, wow, Bob, you have a lot of books behind you. and he just lost it. So, yeah, there's, right here is, like, PlayStation 1, big box, Lycan games, Sega Master System for all the kids whose parents hated them and didn't buy them a Nintendo in the 80s. And then there's a bunch of other crap that you can't see. Gosh, okay, so do you have any pinball machines, at least? Yeah, they're all buried under arcade boards and have various issues. But, yeah, I've got a getaway, which has never actually been in my physical possession because it's in my friend's parents' basement and went through a window into their basement. So it's never exactly been a priority to get it back out of the window. And then here I have a roller games, an earth shaker, a diner, and a whirlwind. And the whirlwind, actually, I bought off eBay, right? So this is college, like 2001. I was making like $7 an hour, right? And I saved up all this money because all I used to do is like I'd lift weights and play soccer and be like a cheapskate and basically like use the campus meal plan, even though I went to college here in St. Louis and my parents live here, obviously. but um i see like ebay whirlwind and it's st louis and uh i've been saving up money because i i had this idea i was like well like why can't i own a pinball machine you know and uh that was one i i played a lot back in the day and uh so it's like 1200 bucks which back at that time was like oh like you you probably overpaid right and so i win it because i'm like oh well whatever i i don't have to uh i don't have to ship it right right so uh i'm the only person who bids on it i win it and the guy's like i like i emailed the dude and he's like uh where do you live and i was like i live in south county and he's like oh i do too it turns out we live like basically like a mile and a half away and at the time the guy was doing container re-imports and he had like uh he had this pretty big house but with like a like probably like a four or five car like detached garage and he just had like a bunch of machines in there that he'd restore and uh that that's how i got my first machine gosh and so you seem to really like system 11s then yeah that that's mainly like uh you know i'm about to be 40 here in february so like when i'm like you know growing up like that's predominantly what there was and right i mean like i've come around on gottlieb now but at the time in like data yeast but well maybe not so much data yeast but at the time like i mean i just thought like williams pretty much blew everybody out and like that that's all you saw on location so like the first three that i really really really learned on were uh police force taxi and black knight 2000 nice so police force i'm assuming you just went ramp all day right pretty much so uh i i didn't actually like the game but it has that like award on the back where you could win like five free credits so being like a little knucklehead i would play that just in the hope that i could get five free games hey that's the way to do it and that that kind of segues into how i got into pinball so uh my mom bowled at uh the bowling alley down the street here uh show me lanes for any st louis people who probably aren't watching but um they had a gauntlet in there gauntlet by atari which is funny being an adult and looking up about like gauntlet basically there's no end is basically like you might as well like light money on fire so i would like my mom would give me like five bucks which is you know back in the day i'm trying to think like it might have just switched like 50 cents for pinball but you know like video games for like a quarter so i'd go play like the hell out of gauntlet and then go bug her for more money and she'd be like no that's all that's all i got you got to sit here and watch me play or watch me bowl which i didn't want to do you didn't watch mama bowl what you didn't want to watch mama bowl no i didn't want to watch her bowl so i used to get lectured that i needed to play pinball because i could match or win a free game and i remember like i guess i was about i don't know like seven or eight and i won my first free game on taxi and I was like oh like okay and then like that that's what started it all and so that really just like clued you in like this is this is what I need to play in the future so instead of going bowling because it's it's funny you mentioned bowling because I've noticed there's a lot of people that are in pinball that for whatever reason are into bowling too well well there's another component to it it was either like you come bowling with me you get five bucks and we'll go out to like McDonald's afterwards or it was I get a babysitter and you have to stay at home so basically it was like uh the the fight or flight of like well I don't want to watch bowling and the arcade's cool so I have to get good at pinball because then I can stay in the arcade see that's the way to do it that's a good reason right there that's hilarious so is that so how long ago was that that had to be what mid 80s late 80s like probably like uh my dating you like way too far it would probably be late 80s right yeah it was like later 80s i mean i can remember playing pinball like with my parents when like high speed first came out and like my dad was huge into cars so he thought like high speed was like the coolest thing ever and uh i mean that they like they played pinball you know i mean my parents i mean my dad's not around anymore obviously but like my mom's 65 and like that was just something you did was play pinball so like growing up i mean we would like go to arcades and stuff and play but and but they always played pinball because they always told me like i guess you know they were around before video games hit it big as far as like the arcade games go and they just always view those as a waste of money which now being like a massive arcade collector i always tell people the like the ultimate flaw of arcade games is like uh what i call like the the restart or reset syndrome like there's certain points where if you don't play it perfectly like you might as well just turn the game off whereas pinball is like well just suck it up you got to keep playing you know yeah at least for the most part i know some of you out there watching and listening you guys are probably the restarters in pinball. And we're not going to look down on you. Well, if you're like me and mainly play on location, you don't restart. But, yeah, at home, I know guys who do that constantly. Oh, yeah, and they get high scores every game. Every game they complete, it's a high score. That's the way it goes. All right, so you were telling me also about your genesis of pinball. There's another story after this, correct? Yes, there definitely is. So fast forward on, like later on, the arcade in the bowling alley expands. Well, it moves. They turn the old arcade into an office, and then they moved it down next to the snack bar. So, like, right inside the door you had, like, I think it was, like, about five pins, one of which was Whirlwind, and I think they had, like, an Addams Family. And I can't really remember what else there was. I know they had a Gilligan's Island for a while just because, like, still to this day, I don't really care for Gilligan's Island. Of course, it's a location crusher. I don't know what you're talking about. Well, let's put it this way. One day they were going to take out Whirlwind for Gilligan's Island. I legit told the operator, I go, just put that back in the truck. I was like, don't take Whirlwind out. And the guy's like, oh, I just throw whatever in. He goes, if you like Whirlwind, I'll just leave it in. I was like, yeah, yeah, don't take that out. Oh, I was about to say that. That would be a terrible trade. So anyway, like there was like, if you walked in the bar or walked in the bowling alley, like right to your right would have been the arcade with like a line of games, like pinball machines against the wall. And then the snack bar was kind of like an L shape. So you could order from the regular area, like bowling out area or the snack bar. So, uh, these two guys would come in and I don't know what they delivered to the bowling alley, probably food or whatever, but they would come in, um, while I was there and they would play pinball and order food and so like they were always in there like probably around like my mom bowled between like nine and like one so they would always be in there around like say 11 30 to one well uh fast forward to one day my mom goes hey come here look at this look at this on the news and uh some dude had like climbed up the arch with like suction cups on like his knees and on like his forearms like like pseudo spider-man right which and we're talking about the st louis arch yeah which if you like so me being the quintessential like uh you know debbie downer on certain things i've actually never been in the arch but uh if you stand right next to the arch it's basically just like stainless steel like nothing about this says like you would be confident in thinking that suction cups are going to hold to this thing much less go up like 650 feet in the air doing this right right so uh i looked it up today on wikipedia just to confirm that like this isn't you know like a bunch of memories melting together but anyway this dude climbs up gets up to the top jumps off with the parachute and two and like he has a getaway car waiting and two guys filming well the two guys who were filming who got caught were the two guys who would be in there playing pinball when i was at the bowling alley of course i remember my mom goes look at this look at this and i go oh yeah i know those guys and she goes how do you know those guys let's go they're they're always in there playing pinball right next to me oh and you're bowling oh my god and then your mom was like where am i leaving little bob around like who am i leaving them around right now that's right you meet all all kinds of people and i think the one guy even has like federal offenses against them for it because that's what it said on wikipedia today so some real winners at the bowling alley there's definitely a lot of characters in pinball too that is for sure okay so one of the last times bob the last time that i actually got to see you in person just because of all this covid stuff was actually back in january which i believe is what like 11 months ago now pretty much or right at it it it legit it feels like uh almost like a decade ago but yeah january at indisc yeah and you freaking at the classics you tore it up or at least the target match play you were on freaking fire target match play is probably some of the worst I've ever felt in my life while playing pinball because um I know I've told you this story so like uh I forget where I connected I think might have been like Dallas or something but um I get on the plane and this lady got like there's I think like half the plane was empty and she goes oh can can I sit down the row from you and I always sit on the aisle because I'm a bigger guy I'm like oh yeah sure no problem well on the planes where the uh the luggage flips up like you can stand up from the aisle and not hit the overhead well on the planes where it folds down and you know they always have the the fold down down uh when everyone's getting on yeah that's definitely like directly over your head so I stood up and hit that thing like insanely hard so fast forward to the next day is that target match play and uh i felt like lightning bolts were going through my head like the entire time but uh i remember i was like well whatever like you're here like if you feel bad like just drop out like who cares and i remember i played one warm-up game and i think it was like bronco and i think i rolled it twice and i remember thinking like all right game on like let's go you know yeah i remember it was like pretty much miserable the entire time and I don't know I was in the lead for most of it and then pretty I don't know I mean it's the nature of classics like I was really hot at the beginning and then everyone else kind of caught up you know I had a few games that I took zeros on like when it actually mattered but yeah looking back on it was like well I'm sure there's guys who are way better than me who you know had worse luck I mean that that's kind of the nature of some of classics but let's face facts though you were absolutely crushing that day and for those that are listening this was this was a legit at the beginning of the day when we first met up you told me the exact story and you you were clearly you clearly had a headache and you were talking about possibly dropping out and i was like well just just try it just see you know the worst that could happen is you just get a seizure and you just fall down and we'll just pick you back up it's fine you made it all the way out get me going yeah i was like you made it all the way here we got to play we got to play and then immediately you're right you played it was bronco and you did roll it and you were just a couple of times you were just on fire and you were just like i got this i'm like okay we're good and then i checked up on you a couple rounds later and you were just i mean literally that you coined the term ride the lightning and you did that whole time it was amazing it was amazing it was funny in that first half of that tournament when i played bad i won and when i played good i still like just crushed it because i went like you could go back and look at some of the scores and like the very first game i remember is uh incredible hulk which i don't really know that well at all i think it's just like let's get down the drop targets to build the bonus a bunch on the right and i look back and like i think my score was like number one overall for the whole tournament on it i just remember thinking like oh okay like whatever but then there was like a game of like space shuttle where i think i came in first with like 130 000 so you gotta get lucky sometimes that's just how it rolls yeah i mean that's what i mean in classics you know there's some luck to it but then there was uh i remember you remember excalibur that upper flipper broke and i was pretty much like i think i would have had like 27 points so i was a win away from winning it and the upper flipper breaks and we get put back on uh space shuttle again and of course i take a zero to go down to 24 i remember that because that was uh i think derrick price was in your group and i forget the other two i was there in your group um nick de stefano right and uh geez i feel bad i can't remember who the fourth person was there was so much going on i just remember i was on a facetime with dom and we were talking about your game and all that and i was like yeah bob's in the zone bob's in the zone i was like oh shit whole pin it's malfunctioning now and i'm like i'm like crap what do we do now and dom's like just tell bob to stay in the zone i'm like i can't because they're already on this game and then he just did a house ball and i'm like i don't even know what to say to him right now because that was such a bad break it really was part of the problem was the spinner on a space shuttle i don't think was registering yeah i Outbursts were like barely strong enough to make the center ramp. Yep, I remember that. So basically I was like, well, if the spinner ain't working, I got to hit the center ramp and I could never find it. But then I remember the next game was Fireball 2, and I think like the first two balls I had like, I think it was like 30 or 40,000. And I remember like, I don't really have outbursts when I play, even though I seem talkative here. especially when I'm like around like more national people right I don't really say a whole lot or get too mad but uh I remember just like at one after ball two I was just like I shouldn even be playing this I was so pissed And I remember the last ball I went into like street fight mode I think on that ball alone, I put 1.1 million on fireball two. And I don't fully, I really don't even know what the hell I'm doing on that. I was basically like, okay, it's an older game. Like we're just going to wear out these drop targets. and it has those like that striker thing in the middle that you can build up yep and uh basically i think when i drained i had like seven or eight of those like left over which are worth like forget i think they might be worth like 10 000 for leftover but um like you know i came back i roared back on that and then the last game was volton which uh derrick price beat me by like like less than 5,000 might've been 3,000. And so me and Derek tied for third. And, uh, I mean, you know, it averages out, I figure over a tournament like that. So when I looked at that before I came out there, I looked at the list of people at work. Yeah. I remember thinking like, man, I don't even know if I should be playing in this, you know, like, like look at this list of people, you know, I was about to say you, you did really well because yeah, that tournament was definitely a who's who i mean basically everybody that was at end disc pretty much all the heavy hitters were over there playing the target match play too it was like it was a couple of heavy hitters that decided to stay out or they just didn't make it in time and then little old me just chilling out in the main area just trying to play over there that's what it amounted to well i remember at one point like is like me uh i think jason wardrick uh jim Belzito and Josh Sharpe playing in the top group and I just remember thinking like uh you know which one of these is not like the other what were you guys playing was it mystic or um we played uh X's and O's that's what it was yeah funny enough uh bowling alley story and I posted this on Facebook a little while back there is an X's and O's in the background of like my I think it's like my sixth birthday party because it's like people from kindergarten in there and i just had to laugh like when i saw it saw it in there then you're then you travel all the way to california and you play it against the top players in the world and you hold your own though when i posted it someone said something i was like oh i just play that out in california for basically like a thousand bucks you know if i would have won it or whatever well they're like that's weird one of the things with you though is that you are it's funny because you have like this i've watched you play enough that you have this hybrid style that it's almost like the slower you play the the worse off you are but once you completely once you get into a rhythm though it's like that ball refuses to drain it's the damnedest thing i've ever seen it's amazing and you do this on classics too correct oh yeah classics so what what kind of like got me figured out on classics is um so way way before i even played tournament pinball you know like i was still involved in the sense like i was still clued in enough to kind of keep up with it but um i went out to vegas for a series of concerts it was matador records 21st birthday party so it was like three days of all the bands on their record label not on their record label but say bands that had released the record on their label and uh they had three days at the palms so i go out to vegas i have six days and uh three of those days i spent at pinball hall of fame and uh i always say i hazed myself with pinball because one day i literally started on one side of the building and was like all right you're playing one game of every single machine in here till you get to the other side oh god That completely sucked, but I did it. So anyway, I was trying to play these classics, real exact some of them. Right. And I realized that some of them, it's more about keeping the ball going fast and up top than it is precision. So there's a certain realm where it's like, if you try and play them too cutesy, I don't think it helps as much. Plus, it kind of comes back to something I had in soccer. Like, when I played a lot of soccer, guys would go, like, you know when you show up mad? And, like, I can just tell you're stressed. Like, you play amazing. They're like, it's because you're not thinking. And that kind of comes back to, like, so I've only played one Pimberg. And Pimberg was the story of if I tried to play exactly how you're supposed to play under control, oh, I sucked. But if I just played it wide open, man, I was, like, locked in Antonio Cruz control. so i try not to uh overthink it too much you know well that just means you figured out your style you know what i mean you got it all figured out no so my style comes from you know i didn't even know tournament stuff existed until like well i knew that it existed but it wasn't on my radar until like uh you know maybe four years ago and so all that mattered to me was like oh how do i get an extra ball how do i start multiball what's the score i gotta get to keep playing right i mean i don't know i would just kind of go around and play pretty loose right so what did your uh what was your first tournament then first tournament ever was a california extreme 2016 and i what so whole reason i ever went to that is my buddy dave who won't watch this so he doesn't care that i'm naming him we're gonna tell dave to watch this yes he saw like some clickbait article it was like uh i don't even know if it's about video games but it mentioned california extreme it was like oh this is really cool you know like they have all this super rare stuff he's like why haven't we ever gone to this and i was just like well i just figured no one else really cared so like i'm not gonna be like hey guys let's fly out there for this you know because i figured everyone's like whatever yeah so uh he's like well you want to go and i was like yeah and so at this time you know I'd have my current job and as I say I went from paycheck to paycheck to no longer paycheck to paycheck so it was like okay I can do this whatever and uh I remember I buy a ticket and time goes by and I can tell like he's not gonna go but um I knew enough people out there from buying and selling arcade stuff I was like well whatever I probably know like 10 people so whatever i'll still go and like around this time my job had just acquired a much larger company so the uh the merger was a complete mess and i was like whatever like i'm gonna go to this who cares yeah and so i roll out there and i remember like that year i walk in and like all it is is like dance dance revolution like pump it up like whatever rhythm or like dance games you can think of right like crank to the roof which if you go to a lot of these shows like typically it becomes like a volume fest like who can turn their machine up louder than the next guy and oh yeah it's not really like people are trying to do it it's just more factor of like all the noise inside the place but um i walk in and it's like it was like tinnitus level you know like concert volume in there and i'm just like man i gotta get out of here right so uh i remember seeing on the map which if you've ever been in California extreme, the tournament isn't in the main area. It's like you go to the lobby, go up an escalator and it's in like a ballroom where you might have like a meeting or something. So I walk in and, uh, I think it was Greg DeFeo who I literally, I didn't know who anybody was at the time other than like, I'd seen Bowen on like YouTube videos enough to go like, Oh, that like, that's the guy from YouTube. I didn't know his name. That's him. Look at him. So, I walk in and I asked the dude, I'm like, yeah, like, how does this work? And he's like, oh, well, you know, you get 20 credits across any five machines here, you know, your, your top highest score on any five builds up your qualifying score. So, you know, like there's a max of 500, say, you know, first place gets a hundred, say 20th place gets 80. So if you score 80 on all of them, you get like 400. I'm like, okay, cool. So I see a whirlwind in there and I'm like, all right, well, I've owned a Whirlwind since 2001. Like, we got this one locked down. So I'm like, all right, I'll play. And the guy's like, oh, like, you're going to play? And, like, I think it was about, like, 2 p.m., right? Right. Which I didn't even know, like, there was qualifying on Friday. Right. So I remember I walk in, and, like, the first game, I'm, like, I'm chimping. Like, I'm just flipping like an idiot on Whirlwind. And I remember thinking, like, what the hell are you doing? Like, no one's standing over your shoulder. like just play like you're playing in the basement so like i think the next game i i played whirlwind again and i think i had like 14 or i think it was 14 million which was good enough for like i don't know i think like top 10 and i think like 170 people played and uh i'm trying to think what else i played there i think it was like beat time um attack from attack from mars I think was there that year, right? Well, we'll get to Attack from the Borders. But there was Royal Flush, Pinball Magic, and I remember that. So, like, I was top of B, like, all day, which to me, like, you could have told me whatever. Like, I didn't know what any of this meant. Right. And I remember thinking, like, oh, well, it would be cool to say I made A in my first ever event, having no clue who anybody is, right? Right. so uh the last game i played i remember was a it's an em by uh williams called blue chip and uh i don't really have any clue of how to play it other than i think it was basically like light the spinners wear the spinners out and uh i'd seen people i could tell didn't really know how to play like blow my other scores out on it and i was like well i remember at one point i was like well screw it i'm gonna go put the number one score on whirlwind just to do it and i was like no that's really dumb you don't have anything to prove on whirlwind go play that blue chip again and so i think i almost rolled it it was about 950 000 which was good enough for like third overall so i think at that point i was like 16 and cut was 24 and i remember i'm in the bar right so like I'm there with all these arcade guys I know and I told him I was like oh yeah like I'm gonna make the cut for a and they're like oh no you're not I was just saying it just to say it more than anything and I remember like Bowen walks out and I knew who he was and I was just like uh I was like oh excuse me it was like uh is the tournament like is the qualifying done and like he kind of looks at me like huh and he's like yeah yeah it's over I was like so it's final and he's like yeah and I'm like, oh, okay. So fast forward the next day, like I show up and they're like, oh, who are you? And I tell them and they're like, oh, what are you here for? And I was like, well, and I know you love this part. I go, well, I signed up for B, but I made A. Like, what do I play? And Bowen looks up from the table and just goes like, who are you? And I tell him. And they both kind of had this look like, like, who is this guy, you know? and so then fast forward i'm playing uh i think it was johnny monica is it monica i never can't pronounce it right i never can i know i think say monica i never can't pronounce it right johnny uh louise wagonsoner and then bob matthews which at the time like i didn't know any of these people so i had like no clue who anybody is and then uh we're playing um pinball magic i was the first game okay yeah i think like the first night we stayed out till like 4 a.m like friday night and then i stayed up to like two or three probably on like saturday with those guys several in their sunday like on fumes right right and uh the pinball magic was like waxed up pretty good and i remember in qualifying thinking like like this thing plays like lightning so like rolling on like no Mountain Dew no caffeine whatever I punched the first ball and whiff it in autosaves second ball same thing I remember thinking like if any of those people were watching they're thinking like what the hell is this guy doing here oh my god I came in second on that and then we played like um what did we play we played NASCAR and I think I came in like third like i think i i came in third but i only beat luis by like a hundred thousand points i think i had like it was like 20 million or something i legitimately i had no clue what i was doing on the machine so then the very last game was attack from mars and i remember uh who i know now is jay collins walks by and i remember going hey how do you play this the guy like goes huh i was like oh i don't play i don't play like this newer stuff this newer stuff like attack from mars yeah yeah well all right we'll get to attack from mars in a second but um he goes just up the middle all day long and i was like oh all right so i i've never gone back and fully watched it i know it's on youtube and you've might have gone back and fully oh yeah i've watched it i played that thing like oh my god did i play it wide open after watching it and i think i only missed advancing by like two or three hundred thousand points which is just like ridiculous but the whole reason i didn't like attack from mars is i was so such like a system 11 person that like large scoring to me was like an offense in the sense of like i knew in system 11s if you got like 10 million and above like you were doing pretty good right like oh well these games where you get like 10 million just to flip you know it was like oh yeah i don't like those so that like that's why i didn't like stuff like that and plus i was like that's when i got into high school and kind of got out of it so i didn't really play that that much and like i first got back into it with uh i remember one day in college reading like williams went out of business and i'm like i remember like my mind was blown i was like how the hell did williams go out of business like williams like killed everybody right yeah and then i remember reading like oh sega became stern and uh this arcade and the one mall by my house had playboy and that was like the newest one and i was like oh well all right i'll play that so me and my buddy would go play that for like two three hours every night and then uh remember roller coaster tycoon came out and they got that too and i wasn't that big on roller coaster tycoon but uh it's kind of a funny segue into someone i'll meet later but all across st louis and most old schoolers are going to know exactly the name i'm going to say but every heist every grand champion on every machine the initials were jr and i i never could meet this person and i was convinced it was just like like whatever tech came out to do the route he just take the glass off just to mess with people and like run these scores up well everyone knows like old school dudes know who jr is it's john miller and right john is an amazing pinball player but at the time it was just like this mythical person because i remember my my buddy would be like oh i i think i like i was at this bar and i think i saw him but i wasn't sure you know like i couldn't tell if like he put in his initials or not oh yeah he was like a giant mystery to me and my one friend it was just like bigfoot was rolling around freaking st louis playing pinball and nobody would know if they saw him or not well yeah like i i had no clue and then i remember i think it was on rec.games.pinball like i talked to him on there and then we met at this like pool hall place and i finally met him and but like i had no idea like who he was and then uh i think i think he might have played his first thing was like 95 they held some tournament here at like this this super shady hotel but it was like midwest something and i've seen like dudes like fred richardson and them all talk like you know they came to it but didn't know who john was yeah john showed up and like really brought it Because I remember him telling me, like, his first ever tournament, I think he won a diner, you know? Yeah. And I think it was that tournament. And they were all like, yeah, we remember showing up thinking like, oh, like, we're going to, like, trounce this thing. And then, like, here's this local guy who just comes in and blows everybody out. I mean, it's amazing how that happens. There's a lot of excellent pinball players that might not play on a national level in terms of just traveling, but their skill level is clearly on a national level. Well, I mean, there's the other end, too. There's dudes like Dominic who, like, local guys are like, who's Dominic? And they're like, is he better than you? I'm like, dude, Dominic would blow me up. And they're like, huh? Dom is an enigma That why I tried to tell him I like you got to travel more That the public accounting lifestyle He needs to get on the corporate side of the fence so he can travel I know. Like the last time he did anything really was what, Cleapin? That was last year. I remember he was supposed to come out to Pinmasters and meet us out there. Was Cleapin after Freeplay Florida? No, before. Before. So, yeah, so then Freeplay would have been the last time. And then, yeah, he just, that's why I told him even after that, I'm like, you need to try to travel a little bit more, play more. Because he even says he doesn't play local at all. That's what blows my mind. He's an excellent player. And he just barely plays. It's like even in-disc, he told me when he played it in-disc, I think this would be, my years all mixed up, I guess 2019 now is the year that he took like third or fourth. Yeah, it was 19. Yeah, he literally had not even played pinball for a few weeks before that, if I'm remembering this right. So my first tournament, I had not, that was in late July. I'd went to Las Vegas like in April. I had played one day since April. And that was literally like I flew into San Jose on that Thursday. And I remember my buddy goes, oh, do you want to play pinball? And I was like, yeah, I know this place up in San Francisco. and he goes oh free gold watch I was like yeah he goes that's where I was going to take you so I remember we went to free gold watch and uh I felt pretty damn good like I remember I was playing their black knight 2000 and I think I hit combo the upper loop like 15 times in a row and my buddy was like watching like holy crap and so I remember I rolled into that tournament thinking like oh well like I don't know I feel pretty good which I think I've kind of honed in on that I think when i i play too much like i kind of get too jumpy it almost be like um i experienced this in baseball like if you go to the batting cages too much you get kind of too jumpy expecting the pitch yeah you get tunnel vision it's literally called tunnel vision yep yeah like i know what you're talking about you'd almost be better off having slower reactions at times and i totally experienced that in tournaments where like i haven't been playing and i roll in there and it just feels like everything is going super smooth but i feel like like a quarter second off yeah but i'm really not off i'm just not as like anxious or jumpy as you know i'd be like when i get like playing a ton yeah and i mean and there's something to that too and i was talking actually to dom about this just a couple of days ago about the benefits to either playing all the time or taking the right amount of time off from playing especially if you are going to play at high level tournaments like me personally i like to play as often as i can but if i know that there's a high level tournament coming up i'll actually not play two days before even traveling out there because i find like i just need to rest up like whether it's hands feet eyes i mean i think a lot of people underestimate that especially if you're playing a herb or something like that to where you're in line you're playing game after game that your eyes like for me my eyes get super tired whenever I'm playing more than anything. My eyes don't really, this will sound extremely nerdy, but I mean, isn't pinball already nerdy? But when I used to play a lot of arcade games, people would know them as like bullet hell shooters, and then I would go play soccer. I noticed my eyesight was significantly better on corner kicks because I could pick up the flight of the ball and where it was going to be like way, way better. And it was all from like, I don't even know if it was necessarily like peripheral vision or focus or whatever. But I definitely think like eyesight is a thing to some extent. Oh, yeah. No doubt it is. I mean, that's honestly, that's what's helped me a lot because I had Lasix years ago, like when I was 18, 19. I used to be blind as a bat. And then once I got Lasix, it just improved my vision to basically 2010 or whatever it was. and it's i mean that helps a lot just being able to see it's just the amount of seeing something in motion though when it comes to pinball when you see it over and over and over again i could just for me personally i can fill my eyes like just tiring out after like the third day in a row of something like that i don't know i don't know if it's mental i don't know if i need to just get freaking eye drops and just suck it up you need pin shades that's what it is that's exactly what it is so we were talking about earlier about how you like to ride the lightning and you tend to play on the fly a little bit so yeah so you've played a guns and roses and i would think something like this would fit your style then right it would have to right uh you know i'm not as negative on guns as guns and roses as uh other people are but um i i would best say it's kind of funny so i I played it, I guess, the Tuesday of Thanksgiving, so a little bit ago. And I remember, like, I didn't know what was happening, but multiballs are just, like, coming out of the walls, basically. Like, multiballs are just happening. And I remember laughing because I was so, like, focused on the flippers that I thought, like, oh, Deep Roots Pinbar would be really helpful right now, you know. and then uh i remember at one point i was like trying to let the balls bounce over to like i think like backhand that uh the guitar ramp or whatever right and uh which i don't even know if that's the technical name but uh i remember i was trying to let the balls bounce over and i started laughing and i know i've told you this but it felt like uh the uh smash tv or robotron of multiball where it was just like an endless onslaught of dudes like you know just coming from every direction because it was just like there was just balls like flooding the flippers and i was just like whoa you know like screw it like i'm just gonna start ripping you know i mean and that's exactly how you have to play that game because if you trap up you ain't gonna be doing any more ripping you're done like you'll just kill your flippers i guarantee that did not happen to you did it it did happen once it happened once how what did you do for that to happen i've never ever see you trap up harley at all so how could that happen well i kind of went into my mode where it's like all right i'm just gonna you know paint my numbers if i want to oh you're trying okay i didn't know the game well enough and i remember like the flippers died and they booed and whatever and i just thought like oh okay and i think it says like what what is this saint louis or whatever the the remark from the concert here well which i'm sure like everyone knows but it was like the I think like opening weekend of like the major amphitheater here and uh like security didn't know the protocols and like so basically like the first three songs they're supposed to be able to take pictures like in the photographer area well it's like almost the encore and they're still letting them take pictures and Axl Rose jumps down there and like punches this photographer in the face gets up on stage and says do your lame ass security concert's over spikes the microphone you And like with that, like basically like they destroyed this brand new amphitheater. So that's the lore of Guns N' Roses in St. Louis. So why couldn't they add that onto the LCD screen? Dude, I was totally like hoping that wasn't. Funny enough, one of the guys, Richard Fortis, who is like their, I guess, rhythm guitarist or whatever. He's actually from St. Louis and played in this band called The Eyes that was around in St. Louis. way predating me even knowing like what concerts were but um it's just kind of funny is like you know like one of your band members is actually from st louis and i'm sure was around at the time you know like when that happened right and then all of a sudden you're just like screw it we're done we're done yeah which they actually they came back and played uh what the i don't even know what they last called it the edward jones dome where the rams played and i thought like well they might as well just let them tear that thing down. I missed that. I probably would have went just to see it, but actually it was one of the years I flew out there for California Extreme. Obviously you just need to buy Guns N' Roses and you could just knock down all your video games in the background and just repeat what happened. I could. I'd sell them first though. I've paid pennies on the dollar for what they're worth now. hey that's the way to do it well it's it's funny too because with guns and roses it's like i've gone back and forth on it of course i did my hands-on review of it and it was obviously divisive but i figured i figured the way guns and roses is there it would cause a lot of division anyways just because the type of gameplay is fairly new compared to what we're used to out of modern pinball but it's i'm interested to see how the rule set kind of evolves to where maybe it might not be so multiball centric eventually because the light show is outstanding some of the shots do feel good obviously the artwork is fantastic and the theme is a winner for a lot of people so i'm kind of curious whether it needs that type of change i mean what do you think i don't even know if it needs that type of rule change because to me they've already sold a ton of games i don't know if it even needs that at this point so i kind of thought of this over the past few days not really like preparing for this but just put in a tournament mode where it's completely different where all the tournament guys have complained about everything it's just like you could you could basically have two different games and you know those guys would always play that and you know everyone at home who's basically wants to play guitar hero the pinball they don't give a crap about that so they're not gonna play it and they're gonna have tons of fun with the normal game and get get to hear all the songs and see the light show which is amazing and i mean right there you could suit both worlds really i mean i don't really have any ideas for what tournament mode would you know you know i really have but that's i honestly do it i don't even know if it would really even need it i mean to me it's i think it's okay to have a major pinball machine not be a tournament pinball machine like i don't think every game has to be that i know stern really prides themselves in doing that but i don't know if necessarily jersey jack really has to do that you know what i mean just because they've sold everything that they need to sell and i know exactly what you mean like i always tell people i go i don't really give a crap about the themes most of the time right say if i hate the theme and a million other people love it i go guess what that just guarantees that the company will like the pinball company will still be around to make more machines that i might like so right i can get over myself if i don't like the the latest greatest release as long as it guarantees that like oh maybe you know they'll be around another five years and make games that i do like so yeah i know that's exactly right and that's kind of one of the things that i've taken a stance on with guns and roses that what i'm interested about it now that that's out and you know this is assuming that they get past of course all their play field issues manufacturing and all that but i'm genuinely interested to see what theme they do next. Because if they change the genre of how music pens are done or seen as in terms of how we think of them, you know, compared to the way Stern did it, are they willing to do that for a different type of theme? Say a comic book theme. Like, is there something different that can be done? Because they've already kind of gone in Stern's backyard and said, okay, we're going to make our own rock pen. We're going to do it totally different than the way you do it. And, of course, it paid off in spades in terms of orders, and they sell out the CEs and all that. I mean, millions of dollars. So I'm really curious to see if they try to do the same thing with their next theme, whether it would be a comic book theme or a movie theme or whatever it could be. I mean, is there a way to really reinvent something again? It's kind of hard to do because I think, like, a song lends itself to maybe the duration of a multiball, especially considering how long some of their ball savers are on g&r whereas like a comic book or a movie i mean maybe you could have like a short little scene that was a highlight of the movie but um i mean from what we've seen like video assets and all that always seem to be a giant hassle so yeah i imagine the licensing just to get like that much the actual movie in there would kind of be prohibitive unless it was like a wizard mode but then that kind of defeats the whole purpose because like how many people are really going to get to that wizard mode yeah the only way that i could see this actually working in any sort of way is if you did have a wizard mode just like you mentioned except you do something at the beginning kind of like how you can play escape from nublar at the very beginning of the game if you want to just play it as its own mode. So I think one of the ways that you could do it to kind of redefine how things are is that you actually play a scene out during your mode. So for instance, once the ball gets stopped somewhere, that's where maybe all the lights go out and then you might see it on the LCD screen. You might see, you know, some sort of action scene playing out because you triggered that and then you hear the sound, the light show happens during that, and then it indicates, okay, you're back to gameplay again. You just kind of repeat that process until you get to the end of the scene you know what i mean i think that could work for certain action games and all that but the only thing i'm worried about is all the stop and go but that's the only thing i can think of to where you can take the newest themes that are comic book themed or like action movie based themes and kind of put that in there because to me the way that jersey jack captured a concert in a box that's not easily transferable to any other type of genre within pinball like i just don't think it is no i i that's exactly what i was getting at like a rock concert like uh you don't necessarily be or have to be looking at the stage necessarily to maybe enjoy it not saying like you're gonna go to a concert and stare at the wall there's a lot of people that go to concerts just to stare at their phones well that's true nowadays but i mean like like the pinball you know you don't have to see like necessarily the video of like slash playing a solo right to like be enjoying the multiball and the song and the lights whereas like oh that's kind of always been my issue with video assets and pinball and i know we've talked this is like i'm not really looking at this like is one thing i remember i said to you like one of the few like video moments i really um like remember or even stands out to me is like victory multiball and star wars you know outside of that like what's going on on the screen a lot of times i couldn't tell you see i honestly think and i'm talking to a lot of people that play pinball a lot i feel like video assets are some of the most overrated assets in pinball today like because even if you ask the casuals you know what i mean like they don't care so they see it off to the side they're like okay yeah it's cool but then after that it's like it doesn't define the game i've never heard the only person i've ever heard really talk about video assets a lot is kaneda the god's honest truth i've been around thousands of people at different shows and everything and i've never once had somebody tell me i really like playing that game because of the video assets i've never heard that sentence ever said now not saying it hasn't been maybe somebody just enjoys just standing there and for instance, watching a Guns N' Roses concert on the LCD screen the whole time. But, you know, I couldn't even tell you, like, if I'm looking at an LCD screen, I'm just specifically looking to either find my score or find out what my progress is. Like, you know, and that's the thing. That's the most hilarious part. Pen Slash, for instance, you watched that, right? I watched. A little bit of it? I watched. I think I missed maybe the semifinals. I forget what I – Oh, I think I went and I walked for an hour. Okay. I watched most of it. You saw enough of it. Okay. So the funniest part, what I'm getting at here, is that there was just this internal fight with everybody of making sure that the LCD screen actually showed what they did. You know, it was – That's what it was all about. And that's what I mean. There's so much stuff jam-packed in there. But that really, I would think, would clue in people that, you know, it's video assets while it's cool you know to some degree i don't know if it's defining enough to to make people want to automatically buy a machine i i have yet to meet anybody that says they bought a particular machine because of the video assets like that's what got them over the hump to pay out i don't think it would necessarily get anybody over the hump i think like uh one example where like kind of feel it's lacking even though i could give a crap about like the theme in the movie is like Jersey Jack Pirates. It's kind of like, oh, it's pirates, but how much of the movies are you actually seeing? And I don't feel like there's much in there. And that comes from me not really even knowing the movies. The only thing I can even think of from the movies is like when you shoot the ship with the ball Yep Like outside of that like nothing honestly sticks out in my mind as being from the movie I couldn tell you I've played every modern there is to play, and I've put on considerable time on all of those pretty much, except for I think Elvira and Batman 66. Those are the only ones I don't have a ton of time on. But I could not tell you any video asset in general that I'm like wow that was just awesome like i can't believe it like i i don't know you know and that's and i have all kinds of different ones like i had a star wars that obviously used live action assets i've got a an avengers that obviously is just animated in the same way of ninja turtles and then iron maiden it's like i i don't recall anybody really making a big deal over you know over the assets that Iron Maiden had on the LCD screen. It's just, it's kind of one of those things, and that's what's funny in terms of what Deep Root is trying to do with the pin bar, thinking that a lot of people are going to look at that. And it's kind of like, to me, getting somebody to actually pay attention to the LCD screen, it just, it generally doesn't happen a lot. Because there's a lot of people that I've said, hey, yeah, just look on this part of it, and that'll tell you exactly what to do. And they still don't do it. It's just, to me, I don't know, is it just not a natural thing to look at the LCD screen for a lot of people? I think a lot of people don't. I don't know. This kind of comes down to, like, your whole, I don't know, this will be a broad statement. Hot take, Travis Lexis. But it kind of comes down to, like, just your general personality. And, like, it's always something I always tell people. Like, you might play sports with people, but there's certain people who strive to be better. and then there's other people are totally content with making the same errors over and over and over and never once think like why the hell am i doing this like why don't i try and do it differently and pinball playing is very much like that and i think that's what you're seeing with like certain people certain personality types are like like how do i do this how do i get better like what's going on and then other people are just like i just want to knock it around which is fine and so like i actually think the pin bar is like pretty pretty cool especially from like the uh like the kind of analytics end of it like exactly exactly i think that is totally cool but um i don't know i mean maybe in today's phone era that'll be more intuitive i mean you know a lot of people crap on stuff that deep roots doing which i've crapped on them too i'm about 50 50 i I like a lot of their innovations. I think the whole rollout is pretty much what everyone else has said, has been shooting yourself in the foot repeatedly. Inquestionable, yes. I like a lot of their ideas. I mean, you know, we'll have to see how the games are, but I think the pin bar thing is pretty cool, honestly. Yeah, I hope when it comes to Deep Root, the way that I really want to cheer them on, because I was very critical of just my first experience on Raza, and that was last year. But my hope was coming out of that was that something would be developed out of it that would enable a whole company to start, because obviously there's a bunch of people working there. But I would love it if there was a new company that wasn't only just competing but was putting out product on a consistent basis. Now, whether they can actually do that, who knows until they actually prove it. But just like you said, a lot of their ideas, though, it's, you know, I don't know if I want to say it's necessarily changing the industry completely like some would want to think. But I think it's certainly a step in the right direction, you know, when you look at the functionality of some of the things that they're talking about. Like, I like the idea of changing around a rule set and kind of customizing it a little bit. I like that idea. I like the idea of a shot log. I know that a lot of casual players might not like that. If you want to get better, you know, to me, it's a great thing. And I don't know, in my opinion, I don't get buying a pinball machine that you flip every day and you don't try to get better. That would just drive me insane, like just flipping away and not having a reason for flipping. And so to me, and the thing, I think you'll agree with this, a lot of things that some of the people get wrong about tournament players, And I'm not saying this for all tournament players, but I guarantee a lot of us are like this, that the common thought is, is that us as tournament players, all we want to do all the time is just get a grand champion score and a high score. And it's like, if you're playing at home, it's not like that all the time. Some of the times you just want to see what the modes are. and if you're an excellent pinball player you know one of the things that comes with that you're able to see parts of the game that other people aren't able to see especially on default or stuff like that so that's why i think getting to see a shot log when that can teach you how to be efficient you know what shots work better what modes work better to me that is the game changer right there i would love to see that across the board with every other company i wish they could do something like that i think it's incredible personally yeah i think uh the shot log is really good because people always go how are you gonna pinball i'm like yeah you know a lot of it's just pattern recognition and timing they're like well what do you mean timing i was like playing enough soccer i go certain shots have the same field of the flippers like i go there's a certain i go if you see me really get into it i might be moving my feet like i'm playing soccer and they're like, huh? It's just like a timing, maybe a mechanism or whatever. And I go, but there's a certain pattern recognition element. Like the shot log to that adds a whole other layer that you've never really had before. I mean, unless you're videotaping it and going back and watching it, which I don't think like anybody is, although I'm sure there is somebody who's doing that somewhere. Yeah, there's some that do. I mean, I've got it set up to watch, but I don't do it much. but I know that there are some that do that. I think it would come in really handy, especially if you look at the speed runs, like what happened at pin Slash to be able to see the shortest distance to something or the shortest, you know, the most efficient way to do something. Yeah. What were you saying about, oh, the innovations. So, you know, while maybe some of their innovations are just like reinventing the wheel, it kind of comes back to like, well, when did Stern get rid of the old displays is when Jersey Jack came out. And, you know, they didn't match Jersey Jack, which is fine. I actually prefer the smaller Stern displays. I think they're more natural to look up from the game as opposed to looking at what the 26 inch LCD that Jersey Jack has. And you need like, you know, a master's degree to understand like what's going on on the display half the time. Especially my most experience on that is uh the the one i've played the most is pirates and usually i'm just like i'm in the weeds as far as like what's going on on pirates you know dude dom i know what i know and i know it's not not enough dom tried to explain pirates to me and usually i can pick up on things pretty quick but i was like lost as soon as we got to the fourth thing because there was like 20 plus different characters to pick and then you got to hit it this way then you got to hit that way but then you have a multiball here but then you can get a multiball here and i'm like this is a lot like it just i mean and it's funny too because that kind of not only just the theme but them being that over complicated it makes me wonder if that's why a lot of people didn't really respond well to it and it didn't sell as much but then same time it's like guns and roses when i look at the way that that uh rule set is set up a lot of people think it's super deep, but I think it's more just wide than it is deep. Like a lot of the rules, it's pretty straightforward once you get into it. And once you just look at the screen, like we talked about, but the funny part is the screen, we're not talking about looking up at the giant LCD. We're just talking about a little screen in the back that's actually on the play field. So I'm curious to see if something like that might be the norm in the future, at least for Jersey Jack to get people engaged more in terms of what they're seeing on the play filled i mean honestly i always thought circus voltaire the way the display was in there was like perfect for pinball but yeah you know i but i mean knowing what i know now i also know that circus voltaire sold like crap and you could buy him like new in box from williams for like 1800 bucks back in the day so what do i know but i mean more where i was going with that was uh if no one is pushing you to innovate then you're not going to innovate basically and that's not to say that like one company's better than uh you know another one as far as their innovation but like okay maybe i i wouldn't have liked stern screen but at least pushed them forward you know and but i did end up liking stern screen so um i don't know i think like i i do really root for all these smaller pinball places like and you might hear like one of my hottest takes ever was that Deadpool is going to completely suck and be a massive, massive failure for Stern. My friend Jesse Leffler, he's the person I said it to, and he still gives me crap over it to this day. Because I remember saying, I can't believe you're going to have multiball on some ramp that's not even connected and just relies on kinetic energy to make it see and go up that ramp. Who the hell designed this? this and then then i remember i figured it out one day i would tap it off the left wall rip on the fly i'd have multi balls started like on the very first ball and people be like i thought you hated this i was like oh well yeah that's before i figured out what the hell i was doing hey that's the way that that game went there was a lot of people early on they did not like that katana ramp they did not like it at all but yeah you're right the people that figured it out and dialed in like they were good to go the same with the schnick shot as well that's one of the most fun shots in pinball i think i don't own a deadpool but i freaking love that shot i mean just the feeling you get it's a highly satisfying shot and there's not many shots like that that are satisfying just on their own without the music and without a ton of sound like it's just knowing that you hit it and just seeing where it's going and knowing what the result is i mean that's a great shot in my opinion i think that uh katana rana ramp um i feel like the one i play on location it loosened up over time just because you're hitting it so much that's what it was yeah it felt like it loosened up or something or maybe just my timing like i can hit it on a fly like pretty consistently but from a trap forget it and i don't know why that is but on the fly like off a plunge like yeah i can just crank on that see that's what i like doing too and i got a habit i sometimes do that even without the ball save on and i know it's a bad habit to have but damn it's such a fun shot though i was doing it at pinberg you know being like uh basically i just thought like well screw it like don't get in your own head like you know play your game and i remember the i think it was like the first round of like b b playoffs like i'd already locked up advancing so it didn't really matter but the last ball i needed one more ball locked for multiball and just like blazed it into the deadpool stand-ups straight out the out lane and was just like oh well guess i shouldn't have done that oh well oh gosh yeah that's well it's funny too a lot of the ways that they have these pins set up especially at herbs it's like if you try to play a modern on the fly at least some of them there's always that one that yeah i swear bob matthews that was the greatest game of tron i've ever seen in my life i don't care what anybody says at free play on and qualifying i played oh yeah wide open and oh yeah yeah yeah yeah what did i have i had like a lot like 80 or 100 million on it i thought it was more than 100 like in that sucker jason wardrick finally beat me at the end but i remember at one point point thinking like if they had this on video this would be like what not to do in tournament pinball this is like not how you're supposed to play and i remember the first ball i bricked the left ramp hit the stand up had 500 000 and i think i drained out after ball two at like 80 million and i remember hearing dominic like at 40 million going dude he's like he's still going And, yeah, that all came together for me. But, yeah, the Bob Matthews performance at Freeplay Florida, it was making me nervous and, like, I don't get nervous on stuff like that. I've never seen anybody rip a disc that much and survive. I swear, he probably played like three. The disc was super controlled. Like, the feedback would come down super slow and you could just drop catch on the left flipper and just right back up into it. Yeah, I should have known that. I should have known that because that game, I was the one that picked that game, and that just killed my whole entire tournament immediately. I think I got like $7 million or something like that because I was trying for the Cora. And I can't even think of the term for it. What is it? Cora, side ramp. Oh, my God. What's that jackpot called? I'm drawing a blank. End of line? End of line, yes. Yeah. Yep, yep. I was planning on doing that, and obviously because I don't know the name of it, I didn't hit one. So, yeah. There you go. That's how you do it. Well, Bob, I appreciate you being here, brother. This was a funny chat. You always have the most hilarious stories, for sure. We probably haven't even scratched the surface of stories. No, no, we have not. And what I'm looking forward to, unfortunately, it doesn't look like we're going to be able to do it this year, but I'm still looking forward. I'm counting down the days to end this 2022 when we can go grab some freaking Mexican food out there again. I was trying to think of the name of that place. I don't know. All I know is, is for my next four games, I just had my butt clenched so tight that I just didn't want to kill everybody around me. Oh, my God. I remember the name now. It was like Consuelos. And we walked in thinking it was like a restaurant. It was like tables down the middle and people pushed against the wall, you know? Not COVID friendly. Not at all. yeah basically if you're not cool like eating with strangers at a shared table like don't go to the place go to Del Taco instead well they had really excellent Mexican food though I just remember all three of us we were set like right there shoulder to shoulder did Sam Swain go with us or who else went with us Sam saw it on like Yelp or something I was like alright I'll eat Mexican breakfast lunch your dinner like let's go you know and uh yeah um i'm looking forward to indus too uh i think that'll be the next uh major or not next major because it already is major but that'll be like the one most people i think go to yeah i i think what i'm hoping is and i gotta talk to Josh Sharpe about this a little bit more i'm curious but i'm really me personally i'm hoping sanctioned tournaments come back by summer. I don't know if that's realistic since we've got to wait for the rest of the world. But I don't know. I have my fingers crossed just because of the vaccine and all that coming out and if enough people take it and so on and so forth. But I'm hoping that we get to play tournaments by then. But, I mean, I don't know. Who knows? At that point, I'm just hoping that some of these places get to stay in business more than anything. yeah there's a locally a few are kind of shaky um the place i always go to two plumbers in uh st charles missouri uh business is down for sure but they're holding on okay but um i don't know it just kind of depends um i think that the demand is still there for people to play for sure yep because um i mean i know people who just they're they're still going and playing but um I don't know yeah it like next year could be different in the sense like well say it starts up halfway through the year do you have a stern pro circuit do you have something every single weekend or you see that's what I'm curious of I the way that I see it I figured why not if people are going to schedule the tournaments like let's just play I mean they have the world like people show up to show up you know I I know for me personally I am going to I will go to so many tournaments it'll make bowden blush i'm going to everything everything i don't care if you have a five-person strikes tournament in wyoming i will be there i just want to play wyoming state champ yeah i don't even know who it was this year but i'm sure someone was i don't know are they one of the states that didn't happen they might be one of the states i might have a shot i might have a shot i don't know all right bob well i appreciate you stopping in today and we'll uh we're gonna have to do this again because we still got a ton more stories to get to for sure all right it was good being on _(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_ --- *Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: 2cc11e9e-8e2d-4272-a44f-baa2b5d22d12*