# Episode 18 – Tournament Hunting With Big Game **Source:** Slam Tilt Podcast **Type:** podcast_episode **Published:** 2016-11-10 **Beat:** Pinball **URL:** https://www.slamtiltpodcast.com/2016/11/10/episode-18-tournament-hunting-with-big-game/ --- ## Analysis Episode 18 of Slam Tilt Podcast features hosts Ron Hallett and Bruce Nightingale (calling in from Europe at 1:14 a.m.) with recurring guest Tim discussing tournament formats, recent news including Stern Pinball Arcade's PlayStation/Xbox release, an ESPN magazine feature on Papa World Champion Robert, and Bruce's experience at the Dutch Pinball Open tournament where he placed 68th after a controversial tiebreaker loss. The hosts debate PAPA format changes, tournament structure issues, and operational challenges. ### Key Claims - [HIGH] Stern Pinball Arcade was announced for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One with AC/DC, Star Trek, Mustang, and Frankenstein — _Ron announces this as news of the week; Tim and others discuss the titles and their suitability for the platform_ - [HIGH] Almost 45,000 players are now ranked in the IFPA — _Tim cites this from ESPN article, noting it hit 45,000 as of the day the article was written_ - [MEDIUM] Keith Owen declined to participate in ESPN photoshoot due to past Esquire incident where he was portrayed negatively — _Ron and Bruce discuss the 10-15 year old Esquire article that ran the tagline 'to win at pinball is to lose at life' about Keith; they speculate this caused him to decline ESPN participation_ - [HIGH] The Dutch Pinball Open had a confusing signup format and unclear tiebreaker rules that disadvantaged Bruce — _Bruce describes in detail the tournament signup confusion, the predetermined game format, and his loss on a second-place wins tiebreaker despite never playing the opponent_ - [HIGH] PAPA World Pinball Championship has reached a point where games are never free in A Division during qualifying periods — _Tim states explicitly: 'last year, I don't think at any point during the 10 a.m. to midnight qualifying periods that a game was ever free in A Division'_ - [MEDIUM] ESPN article focused on Robert, Papa World Champion, covering Pinburgh 2015 (not 2016) — _Tim clarifies the article was about Pinburgh 2015 specifically, initially uncertain if it mixed years_ - [HIGH] The Dutch Pinball Open finals featured wood rail games (EM machines) — _Bruce confirms they had to play wood rails in finals, specifically Big Indian/Big Sioux with gobble holes_ - [HIGH] PAPA is removing token system and implementing $20 flat entry with all games on free play — _Tim and Ron discuss this major format change; Roy Wills reportedly opposes it strongly, as do most A Division players_ - [HIGH] 24 Hours at the Sanctum in Meriden, Connecticut had 98 players and had been oversubscribed with a 60-person waitlist — _Ron notes the 60-person waiting list was blown through; Ron mentions considering attending but continued working instead_ - [MEDIUM] Pinburgh format is more profitable than PAPA World Pinball Championship — _Tim references Owen's statement that 'any legitimate business would have killed this format off so long ago' due to lack of profitability; contrasts with ReplayFX/Pinburgh success_ ### Notable Quotes > "I never played this guy. And he wins because he got second place wins more than I did. I said, it's one game. Let's just play a tiebreaker. Oh, no, we do not do that here." > — **Bruce Nightingale (recounting Dutch Open experience)**, ~52:00 > _Captures frustration with European tournament rules; highlights contrasting tournament philosophies_ > "What makes PAPA PAPA doesn't make PAPA money." > — **Tim**, ~1:17:00 > _Core argument about PAPA's business model challenges; reflects broader tension between competitive integrity and commercial viability_ > "I will never complain about a U.S. tournament mostly again. There you go. At least you're getting a tiebreaker here, you know?" > — **Bruce Nightingale**, ~1:06:00 > _Expresses grudging appreciation for US tournament standards after Dutch Open experience_ > "to win at pinball is to lose at life." > — **Esquire magazine (historical reference)**, ~38:00 > _The tagline that allegedly caused Keith Owen to decline ESPN photoshoot; illustrates media bias against competitive pinball_ > "I was the 32nd person in C. I barely made it in." > — **Bruce Nightingale**, ~48:00 > _Illustrates how tournament structure put him in a weaker division, affecting final placement_ > "It's just another format. What I will say is I think it is Necessary for PAPA To do any change Because of all the formats that PAPA has which is Pinburgh uh the PAPA circuit and PAPA World Pinball Championship that one is the one that has been very stagnant." > — **Tim**, ~1:08:00 > _Tim's measured assessment that PAPA World format has stagnated and changes are needed_ ### Entities | Name | Type | Context | |------|------|---------| | Ron Hallett | person | Co-host of Slam Tilt Podcast; upstate New York based | | Bruce Nightingale | person | Co-host of Slam Tilt Podcast; calling in from Europe at 1:14 a.m.; competed in Dutch Pinball Open | | Tim | person | Recurring guest on Slam Tilt; competitive pinball player; provides tournament insights; participated in Dutch Open discussion | | Keith Owen | person | Legendary pinball player; declined ESPN photoshoot participation; subject of negative Esquire article (~10-15 years prior) | | Robert | person | Papa World Champion featured in ESPN magazine article; competed at Pinburgh 2015 | | Steve Bowden | person | Competitive pinball player featured in ESPN article photos; shirt artwork (Battle of the Power/Twilight Zone reference) was digitally altered by ESPN | | Zach Sharpe | person | Competitive pinball player featured in ESPN article photos | | Roy Wills | person | Elite A Division player; competed at Dutch Pinball Open; strongly opposes PAPA token removal; wanted to compete against Bruce | | Andre Massinkoff | person | Competitive pinball player featured in ESPN article photos | | Helena Walter | person | Competitive pinball player featured in ESPN article photos | | Todd McCullough | person | Competitive pinball player featured in ESPN article photos | | Bo | person | Competitive pinball player featured in ESPN article photos; mentioned as 'Bo and Karen' | | Karen | person | Competitive pinball player featured in ESPN article photos; mentioned as 'Bo and Karen' | | Gary Stern | person | CEO of Stern Pinball; joked as potential mystery guest before being revealed as 'no' | | Steve Richie | person | Quoted as saying 'never pick floaty as a mascot name doesn't sound good at all' | | Mike | person | Associated with Spooky Pinball mascot 'Floaty'; lost mascot vote on technicality of 20 duplicate votes from same IP | | Stern Pinball | company | Released Stern Pinball Arcade for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One with AC/DC, Star Trek, Mustang, and Frankenstein | | ESPN | organization | Published magazine feature on Papa World Championship and competitive pinball; print edition at Barnes & Noble for $5.99; altered player photos | | IFPA | organization | International Federation of Pinball Associations; maintains player rankings; almost 45,000 ranked players as of article date | | PAPA World Pinball Championship | event | Major pinball tournament; implementing format change from token system to $20 flat entry with free play; best game format change; historically growing but operationally stagnant | | Pinburgh | event | Major pinball tournament; format used as comparison point; associated with ReplayFX; more profitable than PAPA | | Dutch Pinball Open | event | European tournament at Dutch pinball club with 100+ games; confusing signup format, unclear tiebreaker rules; used preset game and group selection system | | 24 Hours at the Sanctum | event | Tournament in Meriden, Connecticut; 98 players; had 60-person waitlist that was filled; similar to Pinburgh format with 3-4 games per bank | | ReplayFX | organization | Operator associated with Pinburgh; reportedly more profitable tournament operation | ### Topics - **Primary:** Tournament formats and rules, PAPA World Pinball Championship changes, Stern Pinball Arcade release, ESPN magazine coverage of competitive pinball, European vs. US tournament structures - **Secondary:** Tournament economics and profitability, Competitive pinball meta and player politics, Pinball community sentiment and drama ### Sentiment **Mixed** (0.35) — Episode balances positive news (Stern Arcade release, ESPN coverage, 24 Hours event success) with frustration about tournament logistics, format confusion, and PAPA business model concerns. Bruce's Dutch Open experience carries notably negative tone. Discussion of format changes reveals divided community sentiment. ### Signals - **[product_launch]** Stern Pinball Arcade announced for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One with AC/DC, Star Trek, Mustang, and Frankenstein titles (confidence: high) — Ron: 'Stern Pinball Arcade was announced for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One okay what games does this include AC/DC, Star Trek, Mustang, and Frankenstein.' - **[content_signal]** ESPN magazine published feature article on Papa World Championship and competitive pinball with photos of elite players; print-only distribution at Barnes & Noble (confidence: high) — Tim describes the ESPN article covering Robert and Pinburgh 2015; Bruce notes purchasing at Barnes & Noble for $5.99; photos of Bowden, Bo/Karen, Helena Walter, Andre Massinkoff, Zach Sharpe, Todd McCullough - **[community_signal]** Keith Owen reportedly declined ESPN photoshoot participation due to negative framing in past Esquire article that ran tagline 'to win at pinball is to lose at life' (confidence: medium) — Ron and Bruce speculate Owen declined due to Esquire incident; Ron saw Owen wearing shirt with that exact tagline at a tournament; 10-15 year old article referenced - **[event_signal]** 24 Hours at the Sanctum in Meriden, Connecticut drew 98 players with 60-person waitlist; Sanctum facility expanded to accommodate larger event (confidence: high) — Ron notes 60-person waiting list was blown through; 98 people participated; describes facility as 'much larger Sanctum facility' - **[product_strategy]** PAPA implementing major format changes: removing token system, implementing $20 flat entry with free play for all games, switching to best game format (confidence: high) — Tim and Ron extensively discuss the changes; Roy Wills reportedly strongly opposes; most A Division players negative except Bowden; described as necessary but controversial - **[industry_signal]** PAPA World Pinball Championship struggling with profitability and format sustainability; Pinburgh/ReplayFX model reportedly more successful (confidence: medium) — Tim quotes Owen: 'any legitimate business would have killed this format off so long ago'; Tim states 'What makes PAPA PAPA doesn't make PAPA money'; contrasts with Pinburgh growth - **[operational_signal]** European tournament (Dutch Pinball Open) uses significantly different rules, signup procedures, and tiebreaker methodology than US tournaments (confidence: high) — Bruce describes preset game format, random group selection, confusing online/in-person signup, second-place wins tiebreaker instead of playoff; extensive discussion of procedural differences - **[competitive_signal]** PAPA World Pinball Championship has shifted competitive meta away from deep play; players now qualify with only 3 out of 5 games, with winners having 'any game worth more than zero points' (confidence: high) — Tim: 'Players can qualify for A Division with only three games that earn any points. And now pretty much a good ticket isn't good games, like top 10 games. It's just games that are in more than zero points.' - **[community_signal]** Mixed response to Stern Pinball Arcade release as learning/engagement tool; accepted as entry point rather than serious competitive platform (confidence: medium) — Tim appreciates it for learning rules but notes players move to real pinball; discusses leaderboard difficulty; Stern's stated goal is to get young players interested in physical machines - **[collector_signal]** Spooky mascot naming vote resulted in Floaty losing on technicality (20 duplicate votes from same IP); community frustration with voting integrity (confidence: medium) — Bruce notes Floaty lost despite votes that could have been subtracted; notes Steve Richie's comment about the name not sounding good; Bruce jokes about learning to change IP address - **[design_philosophy]** Tension between competitive player needs and casual/family participation at PAPA; token removal may hurt family attendance but improve casual player buy-in (confidence: high) — Tim discusses psychology of tokens vs flat fee; describes scenario of dad with kids deciding not to pay $60 vs tokens; contrasts with movie pricing logic --- ## Transcript I tried that and it still didn't work. And I tried it again, but, you know, I still keep getting the same error thing. And it's really not... Do people ever tell you you sound boring on the phone? Can you, like, shut up and tell me how to get this computer to show porn? What? You've got to be kidding me. Where's your supervisor? Coming to you from beautiful upstate New York, this is the Slam Tilt Podcast, a show about all things pinball. I'm Ron Hallett here with my co-host, Bruce Nightingale. What? Yeah, yeah, you're all mine here. Yes, and welcome to episode 18, Nemesis, I believe. Star Trek Nemesis, yeah. Yaw. Yaw. What's with the bizarre yawing? Are you trying to tell us something? I am in Europe. It is – I already know what the future is. I know who won the election. Oh, very good. Are you a wild and crazy guy or is that something else? I am a wild and crazy guy in Europe. It is 1.14 a.m. Very good. This is the dedication that Bruce has to the podcast. To keep our schedule, he will be on at 1 a.m. But we're not alone. No, we're not. We also have Timmer. Our only returning guest is now returned again, Tim. I think he's like our special guest star, you know, in a show where they have the reoccurring special guest star. Tim is like our reoccurring special guest star. I have no problem with that at all. Hello, I have once again smashed the Slam Tilt podcast record for most reoccurring guest visits. Yes, and you will continue to smash it with each appearance. Yes, you will. Very good. Next week we have our special guest has been confirmed. Oh, our special guest has been confirmed. Excellent. It has been confirmed. You've been building him up a lot, man, so this better be Gary Stern. No? No. Okay. No. I'd like to start the show off with an immediate corrections. Corrections? That means multiple. Yes, as our listeners have been informing us how stupid we are, which we knew already. No, we're not stupid. It's the stupid... Our reading comprehension is poor. No, if you read it correctly... I did. That is the way it was written. I did read it. I did read it again. Basically, we had two little things. Number one, we had the whole bitching about Stern. How can Stern be running a Kickstarter for a book? That's ridiculous. But it's not Stern that's doing the Kickstarter. It's the company that wants to make the book. Yes, but they're backed by Stern. That's the problem. Well, they're backed by Stern as far as the Stern employees are doing promos for them. But the actual book, it's the company that is doing the Kickstarter, not Stern. That's the first correction. And the second correction was the whole 100 new extra LEs that we were complaining about. How can Stern do this? I have 100 more LEs. They were talking about books. Which is asinine also. 100 more limited edition books. But as people who also came to us and told us about it also said it was stupid. So you can see where the fun is with that. It might be stupid, but we have poor reading comprehension. comprehension and we must correct ourselves because perfection is is necessary i don't know about that maybe not yeah we're not perfect so let's get into the topics news of the week first news of the week i have one thing okay i have a couple things all right uh first uh stern pinball arcade was announced for playstation 4 and xbox one okay what games does this include ACDC, Star Trek, Mustang, and Frankenstein. Really? They put a Sega in there? They did. What are your thoughts on that, Tim, that they're putting all these new pinball machines? On Pinball Arcade, because a lot of it's for the younger generation. That's what they're trying to go for. Well, Pinball Arcade was really cool when I first started playing to figure out how to just learn the rules on a machine. Yes. I rarely play it now, but I can tell you a couple years ago when I started playing, it was great. And then when you kind of upgrade your skills to the level of nudging and saves and catches and stuff, you start to lose. You have to replace that with real pinball. So as a way to learn how to learn a game, I liked it. And now it's just sort of like, okay, cool. It's independent of pinball. I don't think it really replaces pinball. I think the best it does is it does get some people interested in pinball. So it's cool. Totally agree. Totally agree. And I think it was the main – I think that's Stern's main idea, get him interested and try to get him to play the real thing, that type of deal. What do you think of the titles they picked? Well, ACDC, Star Trek, they're good titles. I don't know about Frankenstein, but – Yeah, I noticed with pinball arcade games, depending on how they're tuned or how they've kind of set up the feeds, they could either be extremely easy or extremely difficult. But a game like ACDC or Star Trek, if it is very easy, it's a very, very deep game where playing for an hour can sort of let you explore all the things. whereas I would play Scared Stiff for an hour, which makes you want to – Yeah, sure. Yeah, you're going so far in the game, you don't want to end it because you're like, oh, this is a great score. And then when it finally ends, either due to fatigue or whatever, you still see how far down you are on the leaderboard because so many people have also done the same journey. Yeah, it sucks. So they have like a – is it like just the intergalactic internet leaderboard? Yeah, something like that. Yeah, it's ridiculous. Some of the scores are ridiculous. They do split it up by platform, so PlayStation 4 and PC and Android are separate. All those leaderboards are separate. And they also do a kind of cool thing they do is like a 20-minute time limit tournament where pretty much because you can play a lot of the tables for the full 20 minutes, it becomes an efficiency challenge, which I think is good for pinball arcade where high score challenge wouldn't quite work because you'd be playing for 12 hours a day. Yeah. In one table. Yeah. Any other interesting news, Bruce? Yes, I do. Where's it going for it now? Oh, Floaty Lost on a Technicality. Floaty Lost on a... Okay, that's the nickname for the spooky mascot. Yes. What was the technicality? supposedly they uh somebody voted 20 times from the same ip address but in my mind is why don't you just take those 20 votes away and it still would have won i don't think they wanted floaty well what one yeah i don't even know don't even care oh come on they blew me off it but the thing i look at it is as Steve Ritchie said never pick floaty as a mascot name doesn't sound good at all so yeah mike didn't win he got boned i think and uh yeah so your 20 votes didn't didn't do it then no i only voted once now you got to learn how to change your ip dude that's easy yeah i got a mac i can do that easy uh let's see what else we have here i'm just looking at my notes we have shows we're going to talk about but i think other besides that it's just news is uh pretty slight again, you know, except for the ESPN article. We can go into that right now. Okay, yes, there was ESPN the magazine, and I believe it's just the print magazine. I haven't heard about being online anywhere. I mean, the only time I've seen it online is people scanning pictures of it. Yeah, I think it's print only. Yeah, okay. The magazine's listed as $5.99 at Barnes & Noble where I picked it up. that's the only way I think you can get it now. So you've actually, alright, so you've actually picked it up, so you've actually read it. Yes, I just read it now. Okay, because I haven't read it. I saw like some of the pictures, I don't know if Bruce has read it. The poses are pretty weird. I thought it was interesting that they censored, or basically photoshopped, whatever you want to call it, Steven Bowden's shirt, because he had Battle of the Power, which is a Twilight Zone, and I mean it even has the gumball machine on it and the power field on it and they removed like the p they moved the one part of it over so you could so it just like says battle the hour so i don't i don't know if battle the power was is too controversial or something or maybe they they probably took it to mean something else not getting the reference at all well there's just weird how they're all stances that this was like creepy a little bit well then i was like i was like where's keith owen you know But I guess he – I think he turned it down because of the whole Esquire incident. I don't know what that was. Neither do I, so actually – Okay, well, I don't know, 15 years ago, 10, 15 years ago, they did Esquire, Esquire magazine, did a piece on Keith, you know, because the greatest pinball player in the world. And I don't know how it was presented to Keith, but when it was actually published, the main tagline of it was, to win at pinball is to lose at life. That was the tagline. Wow. The only reason I know this is because at a tournament once I saw Keith wearing a shirt that said that. And I inquired, like, what the hell does that mean? And I found out. So I guess the crux of the article was, you know, in order to play enough pinball to be the world champion, you basically are a loser and have no life. Yeah, that's not good. So he's been, I don't think he's a little shy about doing like, well, it's just like, ESPN, we're doing a piece. Okay, what's it going to be about? What's the angle? Like, well, like, no thanks. No thanks. Oh, Elwin is frequently mentioned in the text portion of the article. Well, give us a synopsis, Tim. What is the basic flow of the piece, if you will? The article follows the story of Robert, who is the current Papa World Champion. And I couldn't quite tell if it was mixing in parts from Pinburgh 2016 and 2015, because at the end I figured out they were talking exclusively about Pinburgh 2015. but I wasn't sure if his results, because I didn't remember from this year, were 2015 or 2016. But they talked about his process of going to the tournament by himself without his parents. I think this was all 2015 because his mother was there this year competing in the tournament. And just days one, day one and day two, rounds one to five on day one and six to ten on day two. and it was very well written because it didn't just kind of follow him playing and chunking out it was flowing back and forth between uh things he did to get ready things in his personal life ways you play pinball competing against keith and his style and stuff and it was pretty cool and then in between were some photos like the one that you just mentioned with players like Steven Bowden, Bo and Karen, Helena Walter, Andre Massinkoff, Zach Sharp, and Todd McCullough. And they had all those players playing a pinball machine, but there was no pinball machine. So it was just kind of a front-facing view, which you don't usually get to see in pinball, of these players playing a pinball machine that clearly wasn't there, and had a little excerpt on the side explaining who those players were. I thought some of the comments were funny on the pictures. Like Bowen, they said, is he playing Genie? Because he had his hands way far apart. And then is Zach playing a sizzle? Because where his hands were, it had to be like this tiny game. So I thought that was pretty funny. That is funny. So, okay. So a professionally written piece probably meant to be entertaining or interesting. Yeah. It did have some stats from very recently. had IFPA cited stats about how many players there were because it said almost 45,000 players are ranked in the IFPA, and I looked and just today it hit 45,000. So that was a pretty up-to-date stat. So props to the ESPN Research Department for getting that pretty much right on the dot. Poor Josh. Poor Josh, yeah. Probably. Wow, so when you say it that way, being 300 in the world isn't as bad. Yeah. Yeah. It's the top 1%. Top 1%. Wow. Actually, yeah, if you say it that way. I feel special. I feel awesome. I feel Euro special. Yes, Euro special. Yes, you're in Europe. You're in Europe. Yes. Are you playing any pinball in Europe, Bruce? I did actually play pinball in Europe. You did? I played at the Dutch Pinball Open at the Dutch, not the museum, but the actual, they have actually a club here, which has over 100 games in it. And it was a good time. The language barrier was a hard thing to get over. But games played really well. They had a lot of different games. They had everything from, you know, all the newer Sterns, all the newer, a lot of Williams and Bally's. A lot of old valleys. We had nice Harlem there, nice Paragon, nice Fathom, nice Flight 2000. So right then and there, you're kicking up all the good games right there. Had a little problem with the format and with the way to sign up for the tournament. Oh, boy. Bruce is going to create an international incident here. No, not a true blue one international incident. But Tim has not heard the story. Ron's heard the story. So I want Tim's opinion on this. I haven't heard the story. What are you talking about? We never talk outside the show. Yo, never. No. Never. Oh, my. Okay. But, yeah. So I get there, and I walk in, give them my ticket because they had to pre-buy because they had a limited amount of people who can come into the place. So then I go up to the tournament desk. I said, oh, so how do you sign up for the tournament? He goes, you have to do it online. I said, well, where? I pull up the website because luckily I was able to get on Wi-Fi. I'm like, it doesn't show how to do it here. And then another guy comes over and goes, no, you couldn't do it on the website. You had to do it at here, at the site. I'm like, okay, so how was I supposed to be able to do this? And a couple other people had the same problem. They're like, oh, we'll just fit you in towards the end. Well, I was – they had three groups. Originally it was supposed to be four groups, an A, B, C, and D. Well, they only came up with three groups of 32 players per group of A, B. I was the 32nd person in C. I barely made it in. but I did make it in. So the format was preset. It was really weird. It was like you pulled a piece of paper, and you had your preset games that you had to play throughout the whole match, and then your groups would be picked out by other people just randomly and met up each time. So you were playing. You didn't play anybody twice, which was kind of cool, and you played sometimes the same games next round over, but you didn't play too many repeat games. We played five rounds of three games each, and the points were really weird. It was 8, 5, 3, and 1. So win was 8, second place was 5, third place was 3, last place was 1 point. So that's a little bit of a softer 4-2-1-0. Exactly, exactly. But that's where it gets the burn part. So I got there at 9.30. The doors opened at 10, so I just got right off the plane. So I actually was actually happy that I was actually playing pinball. And if I didn't even get in the tournament, I would have played a lot of pinball there because everything else was set up for free play. And it was $12.50 euro for the whole day. Not bad. So the tournament started at 11. And at the last round, after the last round, I was tied for fourth. And they were taking the top four players in C and B. and A, they took the top eight. So seven hours later, I'm fourth. I'm tied for fourth, though. So I'm like, okay, cool. I'll have a one-game playoff. The guy comes up to me and goes, yeah, you guys didn't play against each other, and we didn't. I was like, oh, yeah, I know. He goes, that's how we usually make break our tiebreakers. But then we go further down in the tiebreaker thing. I go, okay. He goes, well, you guys each had eight eight point games. So we each won eight games. And the other guy won three second place games while you run two second place games. So he wins the tiebreaker. I was like, wait a sec. We played seven hours. I never played this guy. And he wins because he got second place wins more than I did. I said, it's one game. Let's just play a tiebreaker. Oh, no, we do not do that here. yeah so what do you think about that tim playing seven hours of pinball and losing on a rule that they couldn't even prove to me that was a rule uh when in rome i don't know i know it just was very annoying it was like really that's kind of reminiscent of my six million dollar man episode where he had like a five-way tie and it's like you're gonna play one ball of six million dollar man guess what let me play against the guy who i never played with You know, we both had the same amount of wins. You had to go down to second place wins to break the tie. Let's play one game. I said to him, like, do you want to play one game? The guys was like, no, I want to make it into the finals. Like, okay. So I was the better man. I said, okay, whatever. This is your place. You know, I said, I kind of turned everyone. I said, it's kind of shitty. And the three other guys who were in the top three wanted me in the finals. Because they hadn't played me at all either. They wanted to see how they would do against me. but it wasn't meant to be. But yeah, I was really disappointed playing seven hours and losing on a second place loss. Where did that put you overall in the tournament? Oh, it was ridiculous as well because the problem was another thing is I wanted to be in group A because Roy Wills was there. A couple other good players were there. I wanted to be in the best group. No, I was in the C group because that's the last spots they had. So in essence, It put me in 68th place. So when you say C group, how are they doing that? Is it actually just they're calling it A, B, and C and it has nothing to do with skill? They were doing it all by – that was the weird thing also. The people were coming up and saying, I want to be in A. I want to be in B. I want to be in C. So another weird thing. It's not like they were going – like they should have been going by like, hey, what's your rank? oh wait a sec you're you know you're you know four four hundredth in the world maybe you should be an a or b it was just whatever they wanted to be in was it was it a points tournament points tournament and it was less money so of course you want to go for the bigger money and the bigger prizes you know and more wins more stuff it was just weird how i just would have i would have enjoyed myself if i got if guess what if i lost on the playoff game my fault but battling all the way up seven hours of work playing pinball and then getting almost like you know thanks for coming have a nice day kind of like a little bummer bummer yes maybe some of our European listeners if we have any can chime in can chime in on exactly maybe this is a common thing I have heard a lot of the European formats are quite different than what we do here. So as I told Ron and I told Tim, I will never complain about a U.S. tournament mostly again. There you go. At least you're getting a tiebreaker here, you know? Exactly. I don't know. Tim, your thoughts? The oddest part to me isn the tiebreaker which is the most painful part It just the division placement of being that Also because they took the same number of B players and C players in the finals and I assume all those final players are ranked ahead of everyone in A who didn't make finals? In the final standings? It's weird. They do it very weird. So I was happy. The games played really well, actually. They have a repair room on the side of the building, and they actually had wood rails in the finals also. Each division had to play a wood rail as one of their games. I had to play it actually twice. Was balls a pop in there? No, it was not there, but I had big Indian or big Sioux, S-I-O-U-X, you know. Sioux, yes. Yeah. Yeah. It's an old wood rail from Gottlieb. If you hit it in the gobble hole, you lost the ball. Yeah. Yes, yes. Gobble holes. That's awesome. Yes. We need to see that at Papa soon. Papa finals, gobble holes. It was actually fun because if you put it in certain ways, if you hit a certain thing on the play field, whatever points were showing on a roto reel, you would light the light in the gobble hole. Then you'd want that gobble hole because if it said 40, it would go 10 times if it was lit, so it would be 400 points. Now, 400 points on an EM, on an old wood rail, was big points on that game. Super jackpot! It was like that, yeah. But then you lose the ball. Wow. So it was like, you know, good and bad. Hey, back in the day, man, just watching the ball roll around was entertaining. Yeah, it's seven hours. So then right after that, I got a little pissed off, and I was like, fuck this. I'm going. And then I went back the next day. because they had like a family pin golf thing, and then I had a couple hours to burn. So I went back there and vegged out for the second day and played more games. And then by 1 o'clock Sunday, I was kind of like, I better get down to my site and go get to work. And that's where I'm at for actually this whole week working. Yay. Yay. So I'm your old man. Well, speaking of formats, and we discussed this at length last week, but since we have Tim here, Tim what are your views on the Papa format change It's My views are not going to be It's going to sound like I'm skirting The question because I pretty much don't care about Pump and dump I don't have strong opinions on it It's just another format What I will say is I think it is Necessary for Papa To do any change Because of all the formats that papa has which is pinberg uh the papa circuit and papa world pinball championship that one is the one that has been very stagnant now if you go to papa for the world pinball championships you'll see it's been growing by leaps and bounds but in order to do this in order to preserve the ticket format they've had to just create more and more divisions and put more obstacles in your way of competing in A Division. And it's come to the point where last year, I don't think at any point during the 10 a.m. to midnight qualifying periods that a game was ever free in A Division. It's just the number of games that are played is just the number of games you could possibly play there. It's had a strong effect on the points you need to qualify. Players can qualify for A Division with only three games that earn any points. And now pretty much a good ticket isn't good games, like top 10 games. It's just games that are in more than zero points. So the actual change to best game, I don't really see how this changes anything in that regard. The 12 games will maybe help get more games in total. but I think in the future the Papa format will need to entirely change to get that tournament up to the level of Pinberg or another world-caliber tournament that Papa wants to do. So I would not expect that best game format to last too long either. I think something else will happen. That's just speculation. I don't know what it will be. Does that make sense? That makes sense. That makes sense. Well, I'll ask you then, how about what's your view on the other major change, which is basically no more token drop, $20 at the door, all the games on free play. Good thing or bad thing? That just saves them all the work from turning all the games in between free play and coin drop in between Pinberg and Papa Now. So it just seems like they went with one and said, we'll leave it on free play. No Puppet Tokens, though. Yeah, the Puppet Tokens are awesome. I know, that's going to be like, you can't get them anymore, so kind of downer a little bit. I unfortunately don't have strong opinions on that. It's probably cheaper for me to get $20 at the door, and hopefully it encourages more people too to just come in if they don't feel obligated to put money in the games. I think it's like a psychology thing at this point because a dollar seems like it's a lot more money when it's in quarters or tokens to just put that much money in a game. I think it'll be good for most of your competitors or at least the ones like me who will play a shitload of other games. Maybe not like a lot of your Adavision guys who literally will not play anything other than competition games the time they're there. Like what I said last week, where it hurts is the locals. And I don't know how much the locals bring in. Maybe it's not much. Also, maybe it's not a big deal. And by that, like I used this scenario, like a guy brings his kids in. They come in like every year. You know, maybe he comes in, he buys like $10, $20 of tokens, gives it to the kids. They play for a while or they're there for a couple hours, then they leave. Now it's going to be like, you know, there's two kids. Dad is like 60 bucks. You might say, like, I'm not doing that. I was thinking about it after that, after you said it last week. But you bring a kid to a movie with drinks and popcorn, you're at that much money anyway. Eh. We'll see. We'll see what happens. To me, I talked to Roy about this, Roy Wills, and he was very adamant. He did not like it at all. None of the upper A guys like it. Bowen is the only one I haven't heard say something negative about it. And I have to agree with Roy's points. That's what makes Papa Papa. But my point to respond to that is that Papa is less Papa anyhow because you only have to play three out of your five games count. If you play three good games and two games that are the worst, but those three good games are good enough, then you can make A. So it's still – it's just been like a sliding scale of what Papa is. Unless you actually limit how many people can play, like how many rounds you can play in and make the price higher. That would actually offset and make Papa Papa again. Like if you have a limited amount of entries of like seven entries and you can void one or seven or six out of the seven, that's what you do. And then you make the price higher on that, and it would even out Papa. So then you wouldn't – or you make it a scale of 200 instead of 100 points. All the things about making it more Papa-y or whatever still don't address the fact that now Pinberg or with ReplayFX Total makes money. That's the thing. Timmy's going right where I was going. What makes Papa Papa doesn't make Papa money. Yeah. And what Owen told me is that any business, any legitimate business would have killed this format off so long ago because there's no way you can turn it into a profitable event because you have to outgrow Papa like Pinberg did. Now, I have a question for you, and you were the one who brought up the money a couple minutes ago and also in the article we talked about with how you brought up their 403 numbers. There are records there that you – Yeah, the pricing, the money. The only thing I didn't understand is how are they losing – spending so much more money? You would think replay FX would cost more. Was this 2015 or is this 2016? No, it was before they went to replay effects. It was 2014. Yeah. Okay. That's why it was less. I would think their Pinberg bill is huge. It's huge. That's what I was worried about. Are you talking about the 990 PF form? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I've looked at that form too for 2014. Is there any newer ones? Did you find or no? So what I – I mean I'm not a tax expert, but what I found is if they change their status, they could fill out another form that some 501s use, and I'm not quite sure what the distinction between 501c3s, because some of them are like non-profit, some of them are for-profit. They have different categories. Yeah, 503 is a non-profit also. Is 501c3? It's a 501, a 503, there's a couple. There's actually varying things. Like you can have a non-profit corporation but also make some profit. which is weird under a certain amount of money depends on your percentage of how much you take in. You know, it's really weird numbers. This week on the Slam Tilt podcast, we'll be talking about scintillating conversation about tax codes. It's amazing. The information is available for public record, but you may have to actually do some phone calls and visit some. So, Tim, we have a project for you this winter. No, no, we just we walked right into that one. Good job. All right, let's get off of that because whoever is not falling asleep is definitely falling asleep after the tax code discussion. But they might fall asleep again because we're going into more tournament talk because there was another huge event this past weekend that had players from around the U.S. at least. I know there were several West Coast people there. And Canada. And Canada. and that would be the 24 hours at the Sanctum from, okay, is it Meriden? Is that how you say it? Yes, Meriden, Connecticut. Meriden, Connecticut at the Sanctum facility, the much larger Sanctum facility, which was good because they had 98 people there. And all 98 survived. You could have played. We could have played, Ron, or you could have played. Yeah, well, I saw that, and when I saw that, we've blown through our 60-person waiting list. I'm thinking like, you know, if I just went there I almost guarantee I could probably get in Oh, guarantee, you would have Like I said, I was working Instead of working to 4am I worked to 5am Which that's actually with the clock going back So it was actually 6am 9pm Actually 10pm to 6am if you don't Put the clock back, so that was fun It was funny watching some of the comments Because I was up Sunday morning, and it was here. It was the middle of the night. Over there, it was the middle of the night, and here it was in the morning. I'm watching all these texts coming through on Facebook, and I'm laughing my ass off like, oh, I'm getting tired. Oh, I don't believe it's 4 o'clock in the morning, and I'm sitting there going, hey. So, Tim, why don't you just give us a quick little rundown of how this works. I believe it's very similar to Pinberg, it looked like, with the scoring, and the banks. The only exception, they had like three games instead of four. Yeah, you pretty much nailed it. If you're familiar with Pinberg, then you'll know it's four games in your bank with four players total, including yourself, three other players. And scoring is first place is three points, second place is two, third place is one, last place is zero. This game, it's three games in a bank with those players, same players in the bank of three, and all the games are randomized. They're randomized through the MatchPlay.Events software, so it does seem to not place any players of the same game at the same time, which is pretty cool. And you play with your group, and your best score is a 9, your worst score is a 0, and the average was 4.5, so no one could get exactly 4.5. You're either moving up a little bit if you get 5 or better, and you're moving down a little bit if you get four or worse every round, and you get reseated. Unlike Pinberg, they don't have a tier system, so this means you're just playing the people closest to you in points. So after the first round, everyone that had seven points is also playing people that had seven points. When it got to the end, you were playing people with different amounts of points because the spread was a little more like that, was wider. and yeah, you start at 10 a.m., or we really started at 10.30 a.m. on Saturday, and we ended at 9.30 a.m. because we factored in the one extra hour we played when 2 a.m. became 1 a.m. again, which was very confusing at the time, but it all worked out, and as soon as the last group is done, they print out, Match Play prints out the score sheets for everyone. They don't have to write them by hand or anything. They just print them out on their printer, hand them out to everyone, and you get started on your next round. Ever got a text message that said who their players were and what games they were playing, and it went really well. Got to love technology. Got to love it. Yeah, shout out to Andreas. Andreas is the one. He's out in San Francisco who writes the MatchPlay software, MatchPlay.Events, and he's done a great job just adding more features in that made it run so smoothly. And where'd you finish, Tim? I came in 12th place. Which I believe was quite impressive. I was looking there fairly late, and I saw you like in 60th something. Our Tim is not doing well. I started the first round in 88th. After the first round, I was 88th place. I spent the rest of the tournament trying to go up. Come back, kid. Come back, kid. Pretty much an uphill battle from that first round where I had the second worst possible score in a round. But I ended up with – I was six points out of second place. Jerry Bernard was second place, and I was 15 points out of first, where Bowen just ran away with the tournament. Yeah, yeah, because – yeah, when I saw who was actually in the tournament – because I didn't see him originally. When I saw he was there, it's like, I'm going to make a bold prediction that Bowen's going to win. And he won by – I guess you could say a full round because he won by nine points. If you looked at the top, everyone was bunched within a point of each other or tied except him. It was like 82 and then 73. There's 70. 72, 72, 71. And it's like, who's this one guy? It's like he played a whole extra round. Although going into the very last round, Bowen did not have it locked up. He was only eight points ahead. and he got second place on his first game, which gave him two points and guaranteed him the win. So I think I went up to him. I'm like, oh, how'd you do on your game? He's like, oh, I got second. I don't know. I'm like, oh, congratulations, you won. I don't think he realized he won until I told him, but he kept playing through the round. He goes round by round. He doesn't look in between. He just goes round by round. He kept playing. He came out. I think he also won his group, and the thing they do, which sort of lowers the prize pool at the top for the top four, but in the last round of your four players, the person who wins that last round gets a certain amount of money. So it's like five bucks for the lowest group, and I think it goes up to $130 for the top group or something. So there are 25 groups, and whoever gets the most points, and I think Bowen got a six or a seven in his final group, also gets that bounty. I was able to tie with Brian Shepard in group four, so we split $115. We could have had a playoff, but we were very tired. Didn't want to do that. So, yeah, how did you – because you're a younger guy. When did it start affecting you, or did it at all? Oh, it did, definitely. I actually was so tired at the beginning of the day because I just couldn't get to sleep I was so excited for the pinball tournament he was giddy and then it's like oh yep it's 10am you gotta play and I was just not ready but then I think as tired as I was it was when we were getting to like 1am where I think I just felt a little bit better than other people and that was able to just help me, you know, see the ball a little bit better. I think Bowden, who was our winner last year, said he just totally lost his ball tracking ability at about 3 a.m., 4 a.m. in his write-up and his given F meter had run out. Given F meter, very good. That's what happened to me around 6 o'clock last time because I actually did it last time with the boys here And it's about 536 o'clock. I was like, fucking pinball is not fun anymore. It's six in the morning. Fuck this. You know, I hate to say this, but, you know, I was watching what was going on because I was also I was working all night into the morning. You know, and I got home around five. I probably went to sleep around six. It's like I'd only have to only have to survive another three, three and a half hours. Maybe I could do it. it was fun watching it don't run instead of playing in it well i'd almost want to try it just before i get too old just to see what my endurance level would be so are you now saying you want to do this next year i will probably do it next year if i don't work again yeah i just i'll i'll give it a try how would you like a partner in crime with you two boys oh god i thought you said you weren't going to do it well if my if two good friends are there you know maybe we convince Eric again, we can really have a good old time. I'll bring the coffee pot again. I don't drink coffee. No, you will. I've never drank coffee. Hot chocolate. Ron, there were players who had not competed in an IFPA tournament before who made it the whole 24 hours. There were locals, there were people from all over who was like, their first or second event and they were going with the 24 hour battle and they made it all the way through and had a great time. So I think you could do it too. Yeah, well, see. You can do it. Well, 15 years ago I would have said no problem because I used to – one of the shifts I used to do was I'd wake up like at a normal time and then I'd work from, I don't know, until like 4 a.m. and get home and then sleep for like maybe an hour and then go golfing back in the day when I was in my 20s. Now I don't know, but just to see if I could do it. It's like the endurance factor, kind of like the old school, like when they would have marathons with arcade games. These guys play Missile Command for three days or something. Right. You can do it. I know you can. Excellent. So maybe I'll have to do it with the two boys there. Well, I assume it sounds like it was a success, so I'm assuming they'll have it next year. Oh, they've already said it. Okay, because I heard some talk like they think it should be voted to be a circuit event. Well, it has to. Only, I think, four are mandatory, and then the rest are voted on, I think they said. Well, based on the survey feedback that Doug gives to all the participants, and I've gotten a few emails this year for the ones I've played in, he'll say, hey, how do you rate the event? And it's like a 1 to 10 scale. Yeah. I'll definitely give it probably the maximum feedback. there was really nothing I could complain about. Jim and Mark decided not to play this year and instead focused entirely on managing the tournament and fixing game issues. And yeah games were like they were on games We had Silver Ball Mania a game I was playing One of my opponents had over 500 in the middle of the ball too just crushing it, and a fuse blew. Normally that would mean the whole game powered off. Normally that would mean they would probably just say, yeah, it's probably out. We don't have time to fix it. We're not going to be able to figure it out. But no, they looked at that game because they had time. When they had time, they were on it looking at these games. Replaced the fuse. I think they got it back working in the middle of the tournament. Very cool. That would be me. We'll blow in the fuse in the middle of my game, hitting the horseshoe about 30 times. Yeah, it did change a lot. Rob would have easily won that game, and I think whatever we had to go to after, he did it coming first. So it was unfortunate, but that's pinball, and there's the set of rules, the pop-up rules are what you kind of need to follow at a circuit event and they did have those on hand they were looking at them in certain situations and also after 24 hours it's not just you some of the games do start bugging out too uh high speed froze on us and i don't never seen that happen before just locked in on a sound the display the scores just froze in place and they went to the pop-up rule book and said player one's completed their ball we can see their score we can write it down player two in the middle of their ball keeps that score plus whatever they get in a new three ball game because we can't take that away from them then the rest of the game would continue as normal yep that's the proper ruling it's a good ruling too that's actually it's not good thing it didn't imagine if it happened in middle of multivore or something and the siren just got like stuck and Like permanent. Oh, that would have been annoying. It was the putt, the putt, putt of the engine sound where it was like the engines trying to turn over and it just can't over and over and over again. No, we needed the Euro siren like I used to do. Yeah. Bruce had the British siren, which was very interesting. That would always get a reaction like, what the hell? Loved it. It was totally different. also for all the circuit events I think that one and maybe IFPA pin masters are the most one of a kind formats they have for circuit events most are either some pop a ticket style or pump a dump style qualifying it's cool that they have added alternate formats to that circuit too and I think they do get good feedback yeah maybe 24 hours will be in our future next week next week next month next week holy crap no no i don't think they want to do that uh what else we got here so sanctum tim agrees it was it now it is brutal it is brutal because you don't get catch up you gotta agree with that one too tim you're kind of screwed up for a day or two after right uh yeah yesterday well what's happened to me every time is when i get home and I always just want to leave and get to my bed. I don't want to try to – you can't really check into a hotel at 11 a.m., so it's like sleep in your car or get home. I dropped off four New York City people at a train station. The train was like 11 minutes right after, so that worked out really well. And it was off at 84, so I just kept going back home. And then I try to go to sleep. I crawl into my bed, and it's like, no, it's the next day. my brain goes, I know you're extremely tired, but you got to stay up because it's not, you can't just break the cycle that we've had going. It's just like a European, it's just like a European trip. Honestly. Like I had this, I stayed up all day. I flew, you know, I flew over to Amsterdam, stayed up all the next day, played in a full pinball tournament and didn't go to bed till like 10 o'clock that night just to get back in, you know, this time schedule. Now I'm screwing myself up because now it's now two o'clock in the morning here and what am i doing what are you doing what are you doing recording what am i doing what what does happen though is um you don't feel like you're sleeping the same because i think your body is still trying to catch in yeah still trying to catch up to it so when i did get to sleep and i woke up the next day i felt better but i didn't feel like my brain had entirely reset to uh how i feel when i wake up on a normal day but now today i felt fine i went to bed early yesterday too and woke up and i felt a lot better very cool so a rousing yes from tim he likes the format of course he likes he likes the games how they played the guys up there do a great job they really have i've never you know i like playing there It's a fun place to play. If you ever get a chance to do the 24 hours, definitely do at least once in your life. What floor are they on now? Refresh my memory. Second. They're on the second. Okay. It used to be on the third? Yes. Okay. Because I have been to the new place once. So it's a good time. Tim lives there. That and Rock Fantasy. Any Tim rants? Well, hold on. I still got more tournament stuff. We have more tournament. Everyone's already falling asleep there, Bruce. Yes, they have. They have tuned out. I'm going to state it real fast. Retro Game Con had a nine-game tournament this past weekend in Syracuse, and the top 10% made it. They had 90 people playing, which is kind of good for Syracuse. And Andy Cushman won his first IFPA tournament ever, so I'd like to give a big shout-out for that. So that's very cool. You said 90 people? 90 people played in this tournament. Where was this location? Oh, it was like a show? It was a retro game con. So it's actually like, you know, cartridge games, pinball. Buffalo Pinball was there. Central New York Pinball was there. Syracuse Pinheads was there. And Wizard's Arcade was there. The new place that opened up in Syracuse, which we still got to get Mike on. But he's been trying to get the place up and running fully. Which he just got his signs all hung today. so definitely go check out Mike's place on Wizard Arcade in Syracuse he has a Facebook page Wizard Arcade check it out more pinball in the wild is good yes and Bruce are you picking up any games while you're over there oh yeah you gonna roll them back in a boat I got the whole crate I got the big trailer thing I'm picking up some Euro Trash games we're all ready to go I picked up a new game What was that? A big game Big game rocks I am on the old stern kick Nothing wrong with that, right Tim? Nothing wrong with that Great, yeah Until about the 80s Big game is the 80s Big game is 1980 Well, he might not consider that the 80s Yeah, it's right on the border Viper is when it starts to go downhill Oh yeah, duh Yes, thanks to you that made one of my games I hate Yes. Cool. Although I actually did play Viper, and I remember not liking it. And then I watched your video of it, and it's like, yeah, now I remember why I didn't like it. So, yeah, I got the big game. All original. Don't know if it boots or not. We'll see. We'll see what happens. Congratulations. Thank you very much, sir. We give a shout-out to one of our fans. We do have a New Zealand fan now. Woo-hoo. Yes. He is actually Rotordave in Pinside. He posted saying he likes the show and that we have two people listening from, you know, that area of the world. So very cool to hear and see. Big shout out to Rotordave. Hi, Dave. Hi, Dave. He was at Papa last year. Maybe he'll be at Papa again this year. He might be. He might be. What else? Are we doing games we like, games we hate, or are we going to? Yeah, sure. I got it. I got it. I got it. You got something, Tim? I'll think of one. You guys go first. Okay. Okay. Well, I'll do this. This is not necessarily hate, but dislike. First, game I like, Game of Thrones Pro. Game I dislike, Game of Thrones Premium. Premium or LE. Or LE. Okay. Why and why and why? I played, I think the first time I played it was a premium. And it's like, ah, and that really, like the upper play field, I mean, it was better than in WWE as far as, like, it didn't stay up in the play field forever. I know when people first saw the pictures of it, the first thing they thought was like, oh, God, I hope this isn't like the ring and it stays up there forever. But that's really not an issue. However, when I played it, and it's like, eh, then I played a pro. It's like, wow, you know, this plays a lot better. At least I just thought it's just faster, more flow. I thought it was more fun. I had more fun playing the Pro by a large margin than I ever did playing the Premium, which surprised me. Because usually, well, the only other one I could think of is Transformers. I think the Pro plays better. But the thing about Transformers is the Pro was the main model, and then they just added shit. I mean, with Game of Thrones, the Premium was the full model, and then they took stuff away. and I think it actually plays better with this stuff removed. It does have more flow. It does, you know. How about you, Bruce? Me? Game I hate? I just got rid of it. Avatar. You finally sold the Avatar. Avatar is gone. Avatar is gone. I know Timmy doesn't like Avatar. Well, I lost the Pittsburgh Pinball Open on Avatar. Yes. It's a two-shot game. I saw the footage, and the funny thing about the footage was You could see Tim playing it, but the camera that was on it, the playfield camera, wasn't working. But you could just see from his reaction he was quite upset. You could also hear the commentator say, looks like Tim has 15,000 points after ball one. Oh, wow. It's like one pop-up or maybe. Yikes. It was a quick tilt. Were you playing Bowden, if I remember? I was. Steve wound up with three and a half million after he got, I think, one jackpot in Link Multiball. Yeah. And I was playing him thinking I needed Link Multiball. Turns out I needed maybe four Banshee Ramps, and I couldn't hit one. Oh, fuck. And then the game I like, I'm going Old School Bally. Of course. Older. No, older. I'm going Wizard. Wizard. Really? Okay. Yep. I actually like it. I was playing it again this weekend, and if the spinner's hooked up right, that thing really cranks. It's a weird play field out on the right-hand side. It's a little different, but I actually enjoy the game. Is that the one with the flags on the side? Yes. Okay, the flags that flip. So there you go. That could be a feature to bring back right there. I can't remember seeing that in, like, actually, that's the only game I can remember seeing that on. fun with flags fun with flags tim game you like game you hate i'm more sure of the game i hate well that's always better because i'm trying to pick yeah try to pick one from the 24 hour hatred is always more entertaining it is i'm going to say for game i like High Speed. Good boy. That was mine from last week. Yes, and good boy. Very nice. I just love shooting those loops. Yeah. Yeah, it's just really cool for the time, definitely, to have the theme, really see how it changes pinball after that. A lot of games go into themes and stories and stuff, where before it's just things leading to things. A lot of firsts in that game. Like first game to play a complete song. It was the first system 11. The first game with automatic replay percentaging, which operators love. I think it might have been one of the first games with a ball search. Not a good one, though. Just thank Larry DeMar for all that. I did. During the 24-hour, I got the multiball start by completing the spot targets once again. Nice. Which is, you could hit the side ramp, but I just was so busy shooting for loops and stuff that I never seemed to get it. And finally started it at the hole and then plunged two balls up top. All right. Now for the fun part, though, is games to not like, games to hate. That's got to go easily to title fight. What a dumb game. Title fight. Is that like a Gottlieb or something? It is a Gottlieb, flat, no ramps, no nothing, with a picture box in the back. You actually punch the opponent. Oh, is that one of the street games? It is one of the street games. It's right – it's actually I think the last street game before they went to – they changed that to that street game. For those who don't know what we're talking about, there was a period where Gottlieb was trying to make cheaper, like single-level games at a cheaper price. Games like Hoops, which I like. Big League, Title Fight, and a couple others. The thing with all those games is they're designed to be like flow games, and they want you to play it like a flow game. but with those Gottlieb flippers you just kind of hold them up and then line up your shot and then you just reduce it to two or three shots maybe you don't like the round loop you don't like the round loop you know with the right flipper the left flipper the loop I like it when it feeds back to the lower right flipper and then I can just shoot up to the top playfield again that became I shot in that area it was a bailout shot because if you just head up the left flipper, it would go center drain. So just shot it up there, and then... Keep it alive. Yeah, just bat it around a little bit until it gets a nice feed back to the right in lane, which it could go in that hole, too, because they did something weird over there. All right, Tim, I got a question for you, because I remember title fight, because it's coming back to me now. I think last time I was there, actually, it was with you, Bruce, and Eric, or whatever tournament that was, and that was near the door, I think, at the time. Yep, still there. I was walking out, and it's like, I'll play some of this. And I kept playing that over and over and over, just trying to figure out how to get a high score on the thing. I could not figure out the scoring. I'll tell you. Yeah, tell me, because it didn't matter what. I would play a game and get a big score, and then I'd play a game where I hit twice as many things and get nothing. So eventually, well, eventually the upper play field is lit for the championship match. which is you get 20 seconds to clear the five drops in the upper play field twice, gives you 5 million points. That's it. That's the game. There's also a mini multiball that says 3 million if you complete all the lightning targets or something. The lightning targets are all these tiny little spot targets, and I was actually just draining the ball on purpose to get out of that multiball because it locks out every other thing in the game. And it's just set it up for the play field. If you can hit this top bell ring target when the white circle is lit, that means this match will be worth a million. So you try to get those. Otherwise, you just keep doing that until it's your championship fight. That is five million. And that's the game. One thing about Gottlieb's that seemed to be the case is they were never good at multitasking. Like you would start something and it locks everything else out. You have to wait for it to finish. I mean, even their later games, games I like, like if you play Teed Off. I mean, I like Teed Off except the fact you can trap anything, which I have played ones that have been modified so you can't do that, which made it a lot more fun. But, like, the modes are useless. You're just trying to get in a multiball to get the super jackpot or get one of the main, what is it, reigning cats and dogs, the main multiball, and then the anything goes, I think, is the final one. that's all you're trying to do. The modes are worthless for the most part, except maybe like the extra ball or skins if you time it right. That's the thing I like about that game, is you can literally have a huge score and do like just bet it all, the entire score. So if you're playing it, you can spell skins. If it's the beginning of the game, purposely don't finish it. Wait until you have some ridiculous, you know, you have like 3 billion or something, then get skins and then say, yeah, I want to go for it. If you hit a shot, you have 6 billion. If you don't hit it, you have nothing. I always liked that feature. Okay. I went off on a segue. I went off on a Gottlieb segue there. Because I love that play field. I think it just could be done better. Yeah, they do have a lot of cool playfields. I think Hoops has a cool play field. Yeah, I love Hoops. The skin is worth so much when you light it. I had to play hoops three times at this past tournament. Also, lots of Lazarus's God Leaps, too. Yeah. They never figured that out, I guess. It's a good thing for the player. It is, yeah. I have to say, I've been playing a lot of my Ghostbusters. Dun-dun-da-da-dun-tur-tur-dun. I've never seen the just colossal air balls that this thing has. And I thought the Star Trek LE had air balls. And it got nothing on this sucker. I mean, I've had air balls that have gone further than any airball I've ever seen on this. To the point where I'm worried it's going to just, like, plow into one of the buildings and destroy them or go into the mirror they have for the hologram thing. I mean, I had a ball that almost hit the mirror. Ain't my game, man. So, well, I mean, I have the airball protector plastic thing, like, in front of the ramp, and it does get hit a lot. Otherwise, I'd have even more air balls. But I wanted to, like, just point out one positive thing at Ghostbusters that I think I brought up this as a negative on, like, Star Trek LE. Or Star Trek. Star Trek. Just Star Trek. You have all these modes. The modes have literally no personality at all. It's just lit shots. Yeah, that's true. Just different colors of lit shots. And if you just hold the ball, something will light, and you hit it. I mean, they might have their own different theme music and different, like, DMD animations, but it's the same shit over and over and over again. The away team modes have personality. Yes, yes, exactly. The U18 modes have personality. If you play Star Trek The Next Generation, all the modes have a distinct personality, a distinct thing you're supposed to do. And the Ghostbusters modes, the ones I played, have that. I played enough where I'm starting to get used to them. Who brought the dog? Okay, I've got to hit these three shots. Spook Central. Okay, I've got to hit the ramp. Then I've got to hit all four Ghostbusters. They have specific things to do that tell some kind of story that relates to the actual scene. I think they did a good job with that. What they didn't do a good job with is the stupid, I had one of those magnet drains, and it hits the sling, and it holds it. Like, oh, that's neat, and it flows it right down the middle. Like, you motherfucker. That's bullshit. I just had a game where I, just before the podcast, where I was trying to get to the stupid, the safe pup marshmallow man. So I get to the safe pup marshmallow. Now, I start the mode, and the ball goes up in the pop bumpers and stays in there for like a minute. Well, I'm like, come on, give me the fucking ball. I want to hit some shots. So, of course, you know what happens. Straight down the middle. Straight down the middle. Comes out of the pop bumpers on the left side, which you don't want, and down the middle it goes. And like, are you kidding? Which forces you to slide save, too, which I don't like. Yeah. And I don't think operators might not like that either. No, no, and it's kind of, you can't really do it with the rubber. Well, actually, you can do it with rubber feet if you're strong enough. I definitely slid a few games. Yeah, I saved at least one of them, what I didn't think was saveable. And like you say Tim this stern tilt it just like yeah you get warning warning but you almost never get the tilt You have one big shove that you have that you can do And a big shove it is And a big shove it is, yes, yes. But honestly, I don't find I get that many down the center drains. Maybe it's game dependent. I don't know. Most of the time on mine, it will come out of the right side, the safe side. All right, repairs? Do we have any repairs? I don't think you have any repairs. You're in a foreign land. I'm only repairing machines here, not pinball machines. But, yeah, we'll be dealing with that next week. Repairs, repairs, repairs. Repairs, repairs, repairs. Yes. Because next weekend is the big event. In Bloomfield, only the hottest place to go is in Bloomfield. This will segue into the upcoming events. Yes, it does. The Bloomfield. We've got to get near the end because Bruce in Europe, he can't really charge his laptop or it's what you have to have a converter or something I have a power converter to go from 230 to 1 to right hertz from 60 to 50 hertz when I have it hooked up it feedbacks through the whole audio yeah you'll be hearing like a loud fart sound through the entire podcast and we wouldn't want that I got 48 minutes Ron you got 48 minutes alright and the listeners are like oh god no no please no no No, we're trying to keep these at an hour. I got the finger lakes open this weekend. I have all the scores now that I just, before the podcast, since it's already 220 here, I was doing all the scores for the goals for the pin golf. Some are pretty cool. Some are pretty hard. Hopefully, we'll be able to see Mr. Tim this weekend. Maybe, maybe not. I doubt it. Your two million on Paragon is ridiculous. No one's getting that. Come on. Come on. That's not fun. No, my score for Paragon is 100,000. Okay. Not hard, but, you know, Paragon being Paragon. Medieval Madness, 14 million. You know, there's some easy ones here, like Blackjack, 45,000. That's a good one. Yeah, you got to play it. Depending on what card you start with. Yeah, depending on whether the dealer or the, yeah. We got to talk to our buddy Scott and get some tournament ROMs for that sucker. uh freedom 45 000 that's easy too right well since we have the tournament guru tim here like how would you figure out the scores if you were going to run a golf tournament would you like play all the games a bunch of times and do a bunch of math equations to come up with the score how would you go because i i know i know for like the pin masters they try to make like very high scores something that you would normally yeah they put it on a 10 point scale Yeah, something that you would get on your third ball, whereas a lot of golf tournaments I play in, like the one at Expo, they'll try to get it. Getting it done sooner is more important, so they'll have lower scores. How would you come up with scores, Timmy? I'd use a mix of probably timing myself playing for a certain amount of time. I'd say, what score can I get in two minutes on a start or so, and maybe longer. and another game I would say what score can I get in this amount of time but then I would I would probably put those numbers in a spreadsheet see what they were and then come up with a number that I thought sounded good so I'd do it like they do in Vegas where they kind of mix stats with what would people bet on what would people feel like they have a chance at yeah that's what I try to do both plus I also go by past experiences also like if I saw like one score I had was uh You know, let's just use an example. Hold on. ACDC, I had $30 million last time, and I had a lot of threes and fours. So, or it's actually going to be fives this time. So I brought it down to $20 million. A little easier to make. Oh, it's going to be fives? Oh, yeah, fives are your fails. So you're really going to fail. Okay, so, yeah, you really can't afford to fail. No, no failure in pinball. Okay. And aren't you getting back like the morning of the tournament or something? No, the night before. The night before. I get back at 11 o'clock. Okay. Yes. My Euro. Oh, yeah. That's what you need, some Euro music, you know, the intro. Yeah, let's go more. Yes, and also. Ron, where are you going to be? Yeah, this upcoming weekend is going to be free play. You're not going to be at my house. No, I'm not going to be at your house, sorry. I'm going to be at Freeplay Florida, which I've been going there the last three years. I went there when it was its previous name. It used to be – I'm trying to remember what it was called before. It had another name, and then they made it Freeplay Florida. It's a nice little show, very laid back. The tournament, I think Jason Wetterich won it last year. I think it could be Josh Sharpe in the final. Or was that one or the other? They were there. The Sharps were there because they used – typically the show is the same weekend. It's the weekend after the industry show. There's an industry show that happens. I can't remember what it's called. APA. I think it was APA or something like that. Yeah, something like that. And Josh is always there because of Raw Thrills. He works for Raw Thrills. So they're always there. So he played in the tournament. It's actually another weekend. And it's a different weekend than it was the previous two years. So the cool thing is, you know, Veterans Day is Friday, which I get off where I work. So I only have to take Monday off. It's awesome. It's awesome. It's a very laid-back show. It's at the Double Tree Hilton SeaWorld. And it's just nice being in Florida when it's November as opposed to being here when it's November. Yeah, it's colder here. Yes. So what else you got? Syracuse pinball in Eastern Syracuse for the November 17th from 430 to 830 from the Syracuse Pinheads pinball in Central New York is the title for this one IFPA points are available for that and then November 19th the Catskill Classic Pinball Tournament at Howard's I know Tim will most likely be there of course and maybe Ron who knows I will not be there because I'll be in the Outer Banks. You'll be in the Outer Banks. That's right. Chase it down those circuit points. Flipper. The Flipper. Flippers, right? Yep, Flippers. And the winner gets a new Demoman. Or not a new Demoman. A redone Demoman, yeah. Awesome. Where is this at? North Carolina, the Outer Banks. Okay. So, yeah, these guys are all going down there. Levy has a couple more spots, I think, still for rooms. Yes, at our beach house in November. Yes. Right? You can see the ocean. You might not want to go in it. No, you don't want to go in it. No, no, no, no, no. I will most probably be at Howard's. Yeah, I don't know. I probably will not be. I'll probably be just vegging out. Emails will be going out in a couple weeks also for the New York Upstate finals and tournaments. We'll be asking for our first voting on our location from all the people who are important, which is usually the league leaders, a.k.a. like myself is for Western New York pinball, Ron is for Albany pinball, Binghamton pinball, Buffalo pinball, Central New York pinball. We just go and we vote on where our locations will be and actually who will want to possibly sponsor and have a location placed for it too. I'm hoping it's a middle place, which would be really nice to see because then everyone can make it won't be so far of a drive. I know who I'm going to be voting. Yourself? No. No, he didn't vote for himself last year. I didn't vote myself last year. I was very good. I thought I was actually being very PC. I said, well, Ron's going to do it. Let's do it, Ron! So if we can this year, I would actually like to have it at Binghamton. At the Binghamton at that... Boonwalker Arcade. Boonwalker Arcade. And that's still New York, yeah. Because it's right in the center. It's two hours for Middletown guys. It's two hours from Albany. It's two hours for Rochester, three hours for Buffalo, and an hour for Syracuse. That's if the most central location, that would be it. And the games are really good there. They play, you know. I'm running out of time to get those upstate points. You're still in it. I got to go to Howard's, man. I got to get some points. You're still in it. You're 15th. I should have played in the Stars tournament. I could have got half a point. No, that's New York City. That's right, that's New York City. Oh, sorry. You failed on that one. I would have failed. No, they are up to date, actually, so let's go to look right now. Oh, you're playing Zach Sharp. He might not come. Oh, yeah, yeah, some of those. And a lot of the Canadians that are there, it's going to depend where it is. Exactly, and so will some of the other people, too. But for right now, I'm trying to get to it right now. I sense some editing going to occur. Ron is in 15th place. Yep, that's what I thought. But you still have Zach, and you still have DJ. And I don't see Trent coming out either. Maybe Steve. Maybe Steve. I could see possibly Steve. But Steve was in it last year, and he – I think he was in it possibly last year. and then four Ontario players who may or may not come down it all depends where it is if somebody you know if somebody nominates Buffalo and then everyone votes on it it all varies I would like to have a more middle I think it'd be easier for everyone especially in January right you know I I kind of look at it that way also you want to be on an interstate that's in the middle of the state you know you know it's two hours for is it two hours for you for Moonwalker for you for for Poughkeepsie? Yep. Yeah, but it's the same. Yeah. You're on a main highway, you know, so it's not that bad. It's also where I could go to work and stuff because I used to work there. Exactly. So it actually, I would, that's what I'm going to nominate. I have to talk to the actual owner, but when I brought it up to him at that last tournament we had there, he was all for it. He's like, yeah, I'd stay open later. I'd do this. You know, he was really willing to work with it. and it's in the center of the state. The joys of I-88. Ah. Oh, that road is so boring. It is the most boring road. Always under construction. Yeah, it was bad. So, yeah, so they're up to date right now, and some of the people, Greg's in 21st. Got a shot. He has a big shot because if you count two, three, or four people out, but, Tim, you're in third. Third, you're almost in striking distance for second and first. Easy. Levy's right behind you. The difference between Tim and Levy is 89.17 points to 89.05 points. And my six more events than him probably helps. Yeah, it does, of course. Well, you look at me. There's only two people. Well, Ryan Slomik is right there with me, too. He's got 25 events. Ryan's got a chance, too. He does. It really does. And so does Zach. Hey, we got to talk about Zach. Oh, yeah. I almost forgot. Yeah, Zach is 25th. It's one of our gimmicks. Yes, it is. And we already talked about Steve because he was in the pictures. Fun with bonus, Steven Bowden. Oh, bonus. But, yeah, so I'm going to be putting out the emails in a couple days asking for who, you know, places we want to nominate. And then we'll whittle it down to three, and then we'll go from there. Sounds like a plan. That does sound like a plan. And then the Black Friday tournament at Keeler's, November 25th, 3 p.m. Come check it. Keeler's the newest member of the Stern Army. Oh, he did get nominated, finally? Yep, he's in, and the league will now be monthly Thursday night strikes tournaments. Oh, that's actually... The Stern Army prizes. And New York City, Greg's doing them at Sunshine. Yeah, I saw that. He's doing the Sunday ones, I think. How hard is it to become a stern army person? I don't know. You have to clearly demonstrate you're putting on a lot of events, and you have to have some sterns. And you can't be on the Slamtail podcast because they bust out too much, rightfully and sometimes completely wrongly. We can bash them. Not when we're not even correct. Jesus, I can get on them for Batman 66, but I can't get on them for like, How could you make more LEs? It's the book, you idiot. But the problem is when you read it, it really doesn't say. We're out of that. I read it again. It is for the book section. It is all about the book. So, yeah. Fail. No. So, any Tim rants? Any words of wisdom for Tim before he pays some bills? uh no i mean i'm pretty happy i'm in the circuit final i want to do that so where is that unofficially in the circuit final that's going to be at papa the couple days before right yep the day the wednesday before is the circuit final it's the 40 player circuit final um and i the formats you play in four player groups twice top two move on each time and then when it gets the 10 players it's the latter, like it used to be. But just for the top ten. So do I tell you guys who won the election? Because I'm way ahead of you guys. Okay, who won the election? Was it Darth Vader? Yes, it is. I'm just going to say it's the evil empire. And we'll go from there. I vote for Yoda. Yeah, but... Oh, I want to do one other thing. I want to do a new segment. Oh, a new segment. It's so new, I don't even know about it. Cool. I don't even know about it. All right. We're going to rate porno movies? Nope. Porn is all good. There's no rating. Oh, there's no rating? Oh, come on. No, no. There's good porn and bad porn. Come on. No, no, no. But I want to bring up a couple. It's going to be only the week that we talk about these shows. It's only going to be relevant. But I just see a couple of eBay auctions every week, and I like to say, boy, maybe some people need to see these and maybe try to jump on it. I'm going to put out two right now, and you can look at them. One is Sonic, its faces. 1976, pinball machine on eBay, $338 in Santa Ana. I don't know the condition of any of these games, but the number is 131-995-773-397. But for $338 for an EM, that's a good game. I actually like Faces. I already have the name of the segment. What is this? It's going to be called We'd Buy That. We'd Buy That. I like that. We'd Buy That. Just came off with that. So that's going to be the segment, We'd Buy That. So that's the first one. Now, that's a Sonic. Does that have the playfields that are fiberglass? Yes. Yeah. So they will never wear, folks. So if you want a machine that you never have to worry about wearing, The cabinets suck. They really do. Oh, well. And then the second one I'm trying to get to it right now, Prospector. Prospector? Yeah, Prospector. Oh, that's an excellent game, folks. It is. I definitely would buy that. Yes, and that one is in New Jersey, and I think it was $500. I saw it a couple minutes ago, and then it might have been picked up because it was a buy it now. Someone bought it now. You were too late. I know. It's like the Quicksilver. it was there now it's gone i think it's gone since we'll just give you the one yeah that the second one is gone it was 500 bucks we told you it was a good deal folks you were too slow too slow too slow but uh you know the one the faces that's a fun game i i remember playing it and not liking it to the point where i think i was calling it feces nope i found it nope i found another one just now and this one's also new jersey another great one uh sonic super straight another great game 1977 em 500 bucks buy it now and the number on that one is 162-273-884-822 Two, $500 in Montville, New Jersey. He says, powers up. Went up right there. He's disconnected, but it comes with schematics and everything. Cabinets do suck in these games, but the game, those are really fun games. They're based off Williams stuff, so you can't go wrong with that. $500 and $338 on each side of the coast of the United States. You might be able to get yourself a nice deal. And I'm going to watch both of these now because I want to see if somebody grabs them in the next couple days. We both promise to not bid on these. I have no Yims for me. But Tim might bid on it, but we at the Slamtail Podcast promise we will not bid on it. Yes, I totally agree. But those are two games I would definitely go look at. As I said, I know nothing about these games, but for a cheap game, I'd definitely go for these two. If you're looking for a cheap game and you want to get a good EM that plays fast, those are two fast ones. All the Sonics are very fast because of that clear plastic play field. Yep. I'd buy that. I'd buy that. So time to pay the bills, sir. Time to pay the bills. www.pinballlifter.com for your pinball lifter, tilter, helper, rotisserie needs, and creature mods. Come check us out. Say hi. Come on. I've been busy lately, and that's a good thing. And I have to thank the podcast listeners for coming out and buying some stuff. When I get home, I've got to ship more stuff out. Yay. But it's a good thing, very good thing. I gave all the location events, so we're caught up on that. Don't forget, my Finger Lakes Open is this weekend. We only have like three or four spots left. We have 40 people max. How many people we get? Half the people will be qualified in the finals. Pin Golf, it's a 5-3-2-1 format. You heard a couple of the scores already. Come on out, enjoy the fun. Beautiful upstate New York. And I'll let Tim plug himself. Oh, my, I like that. Check out the Tim Balls Twitch stream and YouTube channel for games such as Stern Viper and also perhaps some coverage of the Flippers Outer Banks tournament coming up on the 18th, 19th weekend. Very good. Tim, have you noticed an upkick, hopefully, from us? Yeah, the stream's doing well in general, and I don't have the sources of where it's coming from, but a lot of people are following it, which is awesome. We'll be discussing your payment options later. Yes, we like to plug you too. No, but we definitely want to help you guys. You're out, definitely. year. Don't forget, next week we have a special secret guest. Special secret guest. I'd like to thank everyone for listening to episode 18 of the Slamtail Podcast. I'd like to thank Tim. Our track nemesis. Yes, nemesis. I'd like to thank Tim Sexton again for appearing. Mr. Sexton is the man. Thank you for having me once again. You are always welcome here. And remember, I can't say it stress it enough, Tim Balls on Twitch. I just like saying it. Tim Balls on Twitch. Yes. Go check out his his channel, watch a variety of awesome streaming games like Roller Games and Viper and Ghostbusters, to name a few. We can be found on Facebook. Just search for Slam Tilt Podcast. Also on YouTube, just search for Slam Tilt Podcast. Comments can be sent to our email at SlamTiltPodcast at gmail.com. Thanks, everybody. Say goodbye, Bruce. Goodbye, Tim. Goodbye, Tim. Goodbye. _(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_ --- *Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: 36dc2e55-4501-46a4-a30e-d199993b6095*