# Episode 171: Kevin Stone, Magfest **Source:** Pinball Profile **Type:** podcast_episode **Published:** 2019-01-03 **Duration:** 28m 30s **Beat:** Pinball **URL:** https://www.pinballprofile.com/episode-171-kevin-stone-magfest/ --- ## Analysis Jeff Teolis interviews Kevin Stone about MAGFest, a major 24/7 arcade and pinball festival held January 3-6 in National Harbor, Maryland. Kevin manages the pinball tournament, which features 34 hours of open-format qualifying, free entry, and prizes in MAGFest dollars. The event draws 20,000+ attendees and is unique among pinball circuits for its integration with a larger music and gaming festival, allowing players to balance tournament play with other attractions. ### Key Claims - [HIGH] MAGFest attendance has grown from 300 people in 2002 to over 20,000 last year — _Kevin Stone directly states attendance figures during discussion of show size and capacity concerns_ - [HIGH] MAGFest pinball tournament is free to enter with no money prizes, only MAGFest dollars and Stern-provided translights — _Kevin explicitly explains the free tournament model and prize structure_ - [HIGH] The tournament features 34 hours of open qualifying (Herb-style format) across Thursday-Sunday — _Kevin details qualifying hours: Friday 4pm-3am, Saturday 9am-3am, specific format discussion_ - [HIGH] Outer Banks & Flippers will move to Never Drain software in 2024, ending manual line era — _Kevin announces this change as assistant tournament director for that event_ - [HIGH] Kevin is the Virginia IFPA rep responsible for state championships — _Direct statement: 'i am the virginia ifp rep so you better go there'_ - [MEDIUM] The Maryland and Virginia state championships will be held at Lyman's Tavern (DC) and Volleyball House respectively — _Kevin states locations but details are somewhat abbreviated in transcription_ - [HIGH] Kevin runs Pinholeks Anonymous, a regional pinball calendar and resource site with federal trademark — _Kevin explains the five-year-old project and its features including interactive calendar and IFPA/PAPA rules guides_ - [HIGH] Over 120 players participated in MAGFest pinball tournament last year, with some playing 120-130 games — _Kevin provides specific participation numbers and game play counts_ ### Notable Quotes > "MacFest is not closed. It's 24-7 from Thursday to Sunday. So what that means is the arcade hall, there's five convention halls at the convention center. All of them are filled." > — **Kevin Stone**, ~25:00 > _Explains the unique 24-hour tournament format that distinguishes MAGFest from other pinball circuits_ > "There were still lines for every game at 5 a.m. It was insane." > — **Kevin Stone**, ~26:30 > _Illustrates the dedication of pinball players and the intense demand for qualifying play even at extreme hours_ > "Some of the highest number of games played, we had people in the 120, 130 range over those 34 hours. That's how many games they played." > — **Kevin Stone**, ~28:30 > _Demonstrates the grind aspect of Herb-style open qualifying over extended periods_ > "If something really bad happens, just tell them, hey, I'll give you a refund and you can play again because it's free." > — **Kevin Stone**, ~34:00 > _Shows the stress-reduction benefit of free-entry tournaments—malfunction rules are less impactful when no money is at stake_ > "Stephen Bowden made a good point. Like you say, always be playing. That's tough to do over 34 hours." > — **Jeff Teolis**, ~39:00 > _References the tension between grinding constantly versus exploring the broader MAGFest experience_ > "I started working on a calendar that I call the regional calendar. You can choose leagues. You can filter on tournament types." > — **Kevin Stone**, ~58:00 > _Explains the motivation and functionality of Pinholeks Anonymous as a regional pinball resource_ ### Entities | Name | Type | Context | |------|------|---------| | Kevin Stone | person | Pinball tournament director, Virginia IFPA rep, founder of Pinholeks Anonymous, consistent top-100 IFPA player with strong performance at Texas Pinball Festival and other circuit events | | Jeff Teolis | person | Host of Pinball Profile podcast; self-created 'Dr. Jeff Teolis' identity; familiar with major pinball events including Pinberg and Replay FX | | MAGFest | event | Annual music/gaming festival held January 3-6 in National Harbor, Maryland at Gaylord National Resort; includes 24/7 arcade hall, pinball tournament, console gaming, Japanese imports, live music, and specialty events; attendance grown from 300 (2002) to 20,000+ (recent years) | | Pinholeks Anonymous | organization | Kevin Stone's federal-trademarked pinball organization providing interactive regional calendar for DC/Baltimore/Richmond area, IFPA/PAPA rules guides, and tournament coordination resources | | Stern Pro Circuit | organization | Pinball circuit providing evaluation waivers, rules, and prizes (translights) for qualifying events; MAGFest rejoined circuit in 2019 after previous involvement | | Never Drain | product | Tournament management software that Outer Banks & Flippers is adopting for 2024, replacing manual lines; also used by MAGFest | | Pinberg | event | Major pinball tournament held in July (six months after MAGFest); uses match-play format instead of open qualifying; features competitive scene but limits exposure to other festival events | | Replay FX | event | Major pinball/arcade tournament and convention; Kevin attends and participates in tailgate parties in the parking lot | | Texas Pinball Festival (TPF) | event | Circuit event with challenging format (20 attempts on 12 games across three banks, requiring 2 EMs/2 solid states/2 DMVs); Kevin has made finals multiple times; recently improved tournament management reputation | | Lyman's Tavern | venue | DC venue hosting 2019 Virginia state championships; Jeff Teolis won his first tournament there | | Fairfax Pinball Open | event | Pop-up circuit event directed by Kevin in 2014 with logistical challenges (moving 20-30 machines into small elevators) | | Outer Banks & Flippers | venue | Venue that brings 10-15 machines to MAGFest; transitioning to Never Drain software for tournament management | | Volleyball House | venue | Maryland venue hosting state championships; also hosts Wednesday FSPA league play | | Mark Steinman | person | Associated with Anastasia pinball; visited MAGFest in 2015 to evaluate it as potential circuit event | | Josh Sharp | person | IFPA contact who worked with Kevin on circuit event qualifying and point calculations | | Steve Bowden | person | Competitive pinball player known for philosophy 'if you're not playing, you're losing'; represents grind-focused approach to Herb-style tournaments | | David Shields | person | Operator of Outer Banks & Flippers, adopting Never Drain software | | James Daly | person | Tournament organizer at Lyman's Tavern in DC | | Greg Pavarelli | person | Associated with casinos near MAGFest venue; invited Kevin to the event | | IFPA | organization | International Federation of Pinball Players; manages rankings, circuit events, tournament sanctioning | | PAPA Circuit | organization | Pinball circuit; collaborates/coordinates with MAGFest scheduling (placed in January/July pattern relative to MAGFest) | | FSPA | organization | League organization with weekly play at Volleyball House and seasonal after-parties | ### Topics - **Primary:** MAGFest tournament format and logistics, 24/7 open qualifying (Herb-style) tournaments, Free-entry pinball tournaments vs. money tournaments - **Secondary:** Tournament management software and evolution (Never Drain, manual lines), Regional DMV pinball scene and state championships, Pinball circuit event coordination and scheduling, Texas Pinball Festival format and reputation turnaround, Work-life balance for competitive players at long tournaments ### Sentiment **Positive** (0.82) — Conversation is upbeat and celebratory about MAGFest's growth and unique format. Kevin expresses enthusiasm for the event despite acknowledging logistical challenges. Both speakers appreciate the balance between tournament play and festival experience. Minor stress points mentioned around tournament scheduling and grind mechanics, but framed constructively. ### Signals - **[business_signal]** MAGFest experiencing capacity concerns; organizers recommending advance ticket purchases to avoid sold-out status (confidence: high) — Kevin: 'they're at capacity almost... I do highly recommend... get your tickets ahead of time... I don't want to see somebody show up... and then they can't even get in the show' - **[community_signal]** Regional tournament coordination improving through digital tools; Pinholeks Anonymous providing comprehensive calendar, rules references, and event filtering for DC/Baltimore/Richmond area (confidence: high) — Kevin explains five-year history of federal-trademarked Pinholeks Anonymous, regional calendar functionality, and adoption by tournament directors - **[event_signal]** MAGFest uniqueness: 24/7 festival combining pinball tournament with music, console gaming, Japanese arcade imports, special simulators, and late-night activities unlike traditional match-play circuits (confidence: high) — Kevin and Jeff describe five convention halls, music programming, specialty events (Chip Rave, Starship Enterprise simulator), Japanese game imports unavailable elsewhere - **[sentiment_shift]** Positive reception of IFPA dollar suppression policy among Maryland/Virginia region; no negative feedback reported, and weekly/monthly tournament participation appears to have increased (confidence: medium) — Kevin: 'I believe effectively everybody was in on it. We didn't get any negative feedback... I think everybody, if anything, it might have even grown some tournaments' - **[event_signal]** MAGFest pinball tournament operates as free-entry Herb-style qualifying, unique among circuit events for scale and format flexibility (confidence: high) — Kevin details 34-hour qualifying window, 120+ players last year, open play model with no entry fees - **[event_signal]** MAGFest rejoins Stern Pro Circuit for 2019 after previous waiver-based involvement; confirmed approximately one month prior to episode (confidence: high) — Kevin: 'This year we are now the Storm Pro Circuit. We are back on the circuit... confirmed really a month and a half ago, but I finally got the information out officially a couple weeks ago' - **[technology_signal]** Tournament management software adoption: Outer Banks & Flippers moving from manual lines to Never Drain software in 2024, representing broader circuit shift away from manual scoring (confidence: high) — Kevin: 'we're moving to Never Drain's software moving forward next year. So that was one of the last circuit events, very big event that was using manual lines' - **[competitive_signal]** MAGFest implementing text message queue notification system (credited to Carl) to allow players breaks and festival exploration without losing place in line (confidence: medium) — Kevin: 'And I think this year we even going to add the text message system which Carl has been offering... When you change the line in queue, you'll get a text message' --- ## Transcript It's time now for another Pinball Profile. I'm your host, Jeff Kills. You can find our group on Facebook. We are also on Twitter at Pinball Profile. Email us, pinballprofile at gmail.com. Please subscribe on either iTunes, Stitcher, or Google Play. You know, I'm looking at things to do in early January, and I really, really like music, and I, of course, like pinball, and there's a way to do both. It is called MagFest, and here to tell us about it, Kevin, Always Smooth Stone. Hey, Kevin, how are you? I'm doing great, Jeff. Thanks for having me on. What's the Always Smooth? I see that on your Pinholex Anonymous. Where did Always Smooth come from? That's funny you mention that. I'm glad you mentioned it because it was kind of a joke, but if you remember the Keystone beer commercials with Keith Stone, and they always called him always smooth. And somebody was referring to me as a K-Stone, you know, because my name is Kevin Stone and just for short, K-Stone. And I heard it and I just said always smooth and then it kind of stuck a little bit and now it's just kind of a joke. I'm not Keith, but it kind of works anyway. And anytime anybody's kind of trying to make fun either in light or if you're trying to be derogatory, I'll take whatever they're doing and make it my own. So if anybody tries to make fun of me in any particular way, I'll flip it around on it. But in this case, it was just ingest and it was kind of fun. and I can actually get the whole word always smoothed in on 10-digit high score tables, so it's kind of fun. One other thing that's funny, though, if you look at my IFPA profile, it's a screenshot from Dowden, and unfortunately I wasn't able to get the TH in, and it's always MUA with two A's at the end. So everybody was watching that game, started laughing hysterically, and of course that's another example of the joke. I took it and made it my profile. Yeah, we'll put the picture up on Facebook. It's very funny. I knew it was from Gallatin. I was like, that's kind of neat. Well, you can see me literally going, what just happened? Why did it stop at AA at the last end? I was like, this is not, you know, me gaping with a questioning look on my face. It's kind of like those people that say, what's your name? And Kevin Stone, Esquire, or something like that. People always say to me, hey, Mr. Teolis. And I always correct them, it's Dr. Teolis. And if you don't believe me the next time you see me, ask to see my Dr. Teolis ID. I'll gladly show him. Oh, I like that. I didn't know that. All right, I'll give you the history of that if you really care. It has nothing to do with pinball. But when I was 22, long red hair, Zeppelin freak, in college taking radio, and I went to the bank to get checks made because I had to pay for rent and things. So they said, what do you want to put on your checks? And I said, what can I put? They said, whatever you want. I said, Dr. Jeff Teolas, PhD. So they did. And I got the checks back. And the first time ever I had to use a check was I was renting a 21-inch TV and a two-head VCR, like the bottom of the barrel stuff for our common room. So, all right, I'll rent this. And I'm, again, long hair, got a Zep shirt on, and I start writing this guy a check to pay for first and last rental of this TV and VCR. And the guy goes, oh, you're writing a check? I'll need to see some ID. And I said, oh, I'll go get it. I gave him the check. He goes, don't worry about it, doctor. Oh, that's funny. I went, what the heck? So I actually have a bunch of ID that says Dr. Jeff Teolis. And I'm worried on a plane when they say, is there a doctor on the plane? I'm like, uh. Oh, yeah, right. I can see it now how many people are basically going to be ordering you checks soon and get rid of the ID. Yeah. That's great. So it makes me wonder if Dr. Pin is really a doctor, too. Let me know about that, Mrs. Pin. Is he for real or is he just fake like me? Anyway, Kevin, let's talk about MAGFest. This is the first circuit event of 2019 and, in fact, a return to the circuit event. But this event's been going on for quite some time. Yeah, it has. we started, the event's gone on much longer than I've been involved in it. I believe, I think 2015 was the first year that I got involved with them to basically piggyback on all the logistics of the show to run a IFPA tournament. And that was really what I call a dry run because we'd already been talking to, actually in 2014, I was the director for the Fairfax Pinball Open Pop-Up Circuit event. And once I discovered MAGFest, I thought, wow, this is going to be a lot easier, You know, because moving machines and moving 20 to 30 machines into a big hotel conference room that has a little tiny elevator, you can barely fit three people, much less a machine. That's Fairfax Pinball Open. It was very difficult. We discovered MAGFest and thought, man, I can piggyback on this and be provided a lot of things. And even the machines, people bring the machines. For instance, Flippers and Outer Banks brings 10 to 15 machines. They come from all over the place because it's a big show. And people bring the arcade games or pinball machines, et cetera. and I get to cherry-pick the best ones for the tournament. And it worked out really well that first year and actually got, this is before replay started, so we had Mark Steinman came down, I believe with Anastasia, that first year to kind of check it out. And even though both are similar, they have their own primary purposes, but they've been trying to partner and be kind of a collaborative effort between both events. As a matter of fact, I think one of the reasons that Pemburg and replay was placed in July was actually Voidmag Fest, which is in January, so they're kind of six months apart, because they do feature a lot of the same things. But it's very interesting. So we did the Papa Circuit event. We kind of received that initial waiver of having a history of three years because once Mark, as an example, saw the show, and I'll explain that, it's just huge and was unique for a pinball tournament, which it really is. And so we did that basically three years in a row. 2018, we were actually part of the Papa Circuit event because they overlapped the Storm Pro Circuit, and Storm Pro Circuit we weren't part of last year, and I probably would have had to decline it anyway because of the cost. But this year we are now the Storm Pro Circuit. We are back on the circuit, so to speak, even though from a calendar perspective we didn't really miss it. Sure, that's a good point. Yeah, so it's kind of odd. People were questioning leading up to it. Granted, I think the fact that we're so early in the season, the first week of the year, I mean, we're talking three days into the year we start, And working with IPA and Josh Sharpe, I was asking early, late summer, early fall, whether or not we're going to make it. I was paying attention to all the tournaments that were eligible based on the average points. And based on the numbers, I was anticipating most of the European tournaments would decline. That wasn't actually the case. I think Germany actually, the Germany Open, I think the German Open, I believe, accepted. But some others didn't. So we did get bounced into it. We were confirmed really a month and a half ago, but I finally got the information out officially a couple weeks ago. So the timing is a little difficult just because we need to know before it starts. You know, three days, you can't get the word on January 1st and do it. But, yeah, it's going to be a big event. The pinball started only a few years ago, really, but this event goes back to 2002. And just to give people who've never been there an example of the size of this, in 2002, about 300 people showed up. Last year over 20 people Exactly Mm it pretty amazing growth and they really now gotten to the point where they at capacity almost They concerned about selling out tickets at the actual show at the door So I do highly recommend, and it's on the website, anybody that does intend to come to play in the pinball tournament, make sure you get your tickets ahead of time to actually get into the show. I don't want to see somebody show up, travel, make the effort to get here, and then they can't even get in the show to play the tournament. That would be the worst-case scenario. That would be bad. The website is super.magfest.org, and that's how you can get all the information for MAGFest. But, Kevin, you run the tournament, and, I mean, this is a lot of qualifying for this because it's open 24 hours. Oh, yeah, 24 hours. Well, in the show, so this is what's crazy. Now, if you go to replay or really any other show, Louisville is one of the bigger shows I went to, TPF, same thing, they all close at midnight or 1 or 2 a.m., right? Everybody goes back to their hotel rooms, et cetera. MacFest is not closed. It's 24-7 from Thursday to Sunday. So what that means is the arcade hall, there's five convention halls at the convention center. All of them are filled. One of them is the arcade department, and that's where we have old game console games, the Tron, Donkey Kong, Ms. Pac-Man, all of them, anything you can think of is there, along with lots and lots of pinball machines. We have an area isolated in there with our 10 games and our entire pinball setup. But that entire room does not close 24-7. So the first year, I got a little bit too ambitious. And qualifying was literally from, I think the first day Thursday we started at 4 p.m. It didn't end until 5 a.m. It started at 10 a.m. It didn't end until 4 a.m. It started at 9 a.m. and ended at 4 p.m. I mean, I was dead. I had a lot of people helping, but it was just a little too ridiculous. And you think that people aren't playing that late? I'm telling you, there were still lines for every game at 5 a.m. It was insane. Well, think of the sanctum and people who play 24 hours straight. So pinball players will do that for sure, and I assume gamers too. I look at my kids playing Fortnite. I mean, yeah, 24 hours, what's that? Exactly. Now, the other facet of this, which is amazing, this is what really is unique on the circuit and most tournaments in general. This is a free tournament. And, you know, unfortunately because of that, we do actually lose some of the higher-skilled players, some of the higher-rated players or ranked players because there's no money involved. There's no money prizes. The only prizes that we give out are basically what are called M dollars or MacFest dollars. And those are dollars that are redeemable in the marketplace, which is, once again, an entire convention hall is just marketplace with all kinds of wild stuff. I think one of the years, I think two years ago, some of the end dollars that were $25 value were these really cool medallions, kind of like a pop-up medallion. And mostly people that won those were basically, this is a great prize. I'm not cashing this in. So it just became something small. But it's really a token prize. This year, Stern Pro Circuit did provide us a lot of translights. And so we are going to be able to give those out as prizes too. But really, there's no big payout that you would expect in a circuit event. So it does diminish some of the turnout. Although we had over 120 players play last year, some of the average plays, I think some of the highest number of games played, we had people in the 120, 130 range over those 34 hours. That's how many games they played. And that is quite a bit. And so it's unlimited. You play as much as you want. But I do recommend people, the intent is for them to enjoy the show as well. Because there's music going 24-7. There's the console and computer gaming convention hall. There's all kinds of stuff going on. It's outrageous. I think you're even aware of some things that I'm not even aware of when you looked at MAGFest. Here's the thing. The event is at Gaylord National Resort, National Harbor in Maryland. So if you want, again, we're talking about January 3rd to the 6th. As Kevin says, get your tickets in advance because they do typically sell out. The tournament you can get in, but you've got to get into the festival. So go online again, super.magfest.org. And, yeah, there are some interesting events. And because this really was a music festival to begin with, there are some cool things. And bringing me back to my youth, like the Saturday Night Chip Rave and the Game Audio Network Guild Remix Competition, the Return of the Wheel of Death with the Super Art Fight. I mean, those are some titles that have got my attention. Oh, yeah. And if you look at the schedule, there's an actual schedule, and it's just crazy, the amount of things that are going on. the musical guests. There's even, I know one of the guys that was running the software at Outer Banks and Flippers, and he has actually set up this Starship Enterprise bridge simulator, where every station that would be on the USS Starship Enterprise is somebody sitting in front of a laptop, and they were operating that particular station under the simulation that he's running. So you have your weapons, your shields, your navigation, all that kind of stuff, and people are doing this simulation. And this is something he just created. And this is the kind of thing people do with this MacFest. They're just bringing all kinds of things all the time. There's all kinds of imports from Japan that people have imported as well that you can't find these games or dance music games, things that you just haven't seen in other places. I've seen recently in the last year, replays started getting a lot of those games as well. So if people have been to replay and they saw some of those games, like those cubes that were music games or types of different things, you'll find a lot of those things on MacFest as well, including additional ones that just show up. And it's kind of amazing to watch what some of these games are. But they They even have, I think, the 10 or 12 game pods where you actually get in the game pod and you're playing some sort of mech in teams, five against five or something. It's just nonstop. Hopefully this year I can actually make it into the concert hall to see some of the music, but I just tend to be too busy and I miss a lot. I'm just too focused on the tournament to make sure it runs smoothly. Always smooth. Always trying to be. Always trying to be. And that's something I wanted to mention too because a lot of people don't know this, But people that will be getting the Papa Circuit or Storm Pro Circuit sends out the evaluations for circuit events. A lot of people that attended Outer Banks and Flippers in Outer Banks, Carolina, will be getting those. And I'm actually jumping on board to help them a little bit to try to help contribute as a tournament director, assistant tournament director. But also we're moving to Never Drain's software moving forward next year. So that was one of the last circuit events, very big event that was using manual lines. I know everybody really hates that. And it seems like we've really moved forward in the pinball community and pinball tournaments at a large and using systems similar to Carl Langella's system. So that is going to be the big improvement next year. The operator, David Shields, is on board. That's good news. OBX is going to Never Drains. It's great software, and I know MagFest uses it as well. Exactly. MagFest uses it. I mean, so many tournaments use it. It's definitely the most valuable software out there for tournament directors. So that will be a big improvement for Outer Banks in November next year. And I hope to get a lot of the players back. So describe the atmosphere of this tournament. You talked about Pinberg, and when Mark came to see this, Pinberg, which is six months later, is very similar in a way. The only difference is the match play element. And as much as I love Pinberg, and who doesn't love Pinberg, the one thing that is always a regret is that I never get to see everything else because there's great music going on, there's the game consoles. I never get to do that because I'm busy with the match play. Whereas this MAGFest because of the Neverdream software because of the herb style you can go check out the other things too Exactly And I think this year we even going to add the text message system which Carl has been offering And so that means is when you change the line in queue, you'll get a text message. That hopefully will help players really get an opportunity to go play some of the games, see some other things. The other difference between this and Pinberg, Pinberg is very structured, right? You have timed rounds, you play rounds, you play against your competitors. Here this is just open and a little bit of qualifying. So my intent, which some people do, some people don't, which I'll explain in a second, is to let people play their tournament, take a break, go see the rest of the show, get some rest, get some food. It's 34 hours of qualifying. There is plenty of time to qualify. But then again, other great players like Steven Bowden will say that if you're not playing, you're losing, right? So some players really feel the grind that they need to keep playing. I'm hoping that players can find the right balance to make sure that they can see the rest of the show. And I know a lot of players do, and that's great. And especially not having to be somewhere at a specific time, like 10 a.m., you have to be playing. You can sleep in. Go check out some music in the evening. I know Saturday night's big for music, so if you don't make finals, for instance, go check out the rest of the show. There's a lot to see on Saturday night. But we will be having top 24 players in the finals, and then we do a top eight novice, so anybody ranked over 5,000 IPA. We try to bring in a lot of new players to pinball. I look at the results. A lot of players that are not ranked, they play there every year, and it's the only tournament they play. and some of those have actually started finding pinball elsewhere as well, I've noticed, on some of the profiles. So it's good that we get a lot of people that have never seen pinball or in a competitive pinball format. And that's part of the point is try to get more people involved. The Herb style is certainly convenient as far as being able to play at your leisure. It depends, I guess, what your goals are. I mean, the match play, you're stuck there, you've got certain times, but you know when you have to play. With Herb, you know when you can play, but Steven Bowden made a good point. Like you say, always be playing. That's tough to do over 34 hours. And especially with the draw, the attraction of everything else going on at MAGFest. So it's a fine balance. What do you think is a good balance? You talked about having a break there. What do you think is a good balance for something like a Herb-style format? Right. And so what I've done with that is I mentioned the first year we went until 5 a.m. That was crazy. Last year, we just went 9 a.m. to 3 a.m. on Saturday, and it was 4 p.m. to 3 a.m. Friday. And then we tried to ratchet it back a little bit. I was even considering maybe 2 a.m. this time, just to make sure the Turner Projectors also get plenty of rest and stuff. But it's a tough one, because I just listened to your podcast, I think, with Josh, and talking about some of the H.E.R.D. format, some of the grind. And that wasn't the intent. Originally, when we did this, I really thought people were going to play, and that they're going to go enjoy a lot of the show. But then I discovered a lot of people were just playing as much as they could. But a lot of the players, because they're not dropping money on every attempt, they really enjoy it because they get to play as much pinball as they want. So I think there's a little bit of a balance here with MAGFest compared to other pump-and-dump tournaments, where you might drop $200, $300, $400 trying to qualify. A little bit more stress with that versus, I get to play, and if I screw this game up, I'm going to go back and get in line. I might do something in the meantime or queue up while I'm getting by to eat. So I hope that provides a little bit more improvement versus the ones that you're just dumping a lot of money. And if you make a mistake, you feel like that's $1 or $2 or $3 gone. Here, free, no stress, get back in line. Also, health and health functions, I've got to tell you, as a tournament director, because if there's a major malfunction and it's going to screw somebody's game up, I jokingly, and I don't really mean this in person when this happens, but my joke to the tournament directors is if something really bad happens, just tell them, hey, I'll give you a refund and you can play again because it's free. So hopefully it doesn't happen in an epic game because that does have an effect, but there are malfunction rules that allows them another ball if they have a catastrophic malfunction or major malfunction. That is something that is different and unique, and I haven't seen that before. So I'm glad you brought that up, Kevin, about the fact that, yes, this is a long herb-style format, but there's so much going on, and by the way, you're not paying for entry. So that is a very, very good point and something that's unique about MAGFest. It really is, especially there's not really any lighting in there. So we get great games. It's also very loud, so bring earplugs. And I have earplugs that I give out because it's very loud in there. So again, we're talking about the Gaylord National Resort, January 3rd to 6th, National Harbor in Maryland, with a casino nearby. I don't think Greg Pavarelli didn't tell me about that when he said, are you coming? Yeah, it's fun. It's a little dangerous. Now you have pinball and poker or slots or whatever you want to play. And it's literally, I think they have a little shuttle that goes back and forth. so let's talk about the entire dmv zone if you will which is dc and maryland and virginia which you're a big part in fact i think you're top six in all those states too so you got a decision to make in a few weeks for the state finals which one you're going to go to do you want to let people know right now where you're going to play well actually i am the virginia ifp rep so you better go there i jumped on yeah yeah i'm stuck doing this and uh you know right from the get-go we decided to alternate between the Northern Virginia area and Richmond. So we've been doing that every other year, swapping back and forth. Richmond has really grown a lot. They have now a collective where they have the private pinball collective in Richmond. And so they have a lot of players coming up. And I'd say half the field is from Richmond now, but this year we're playing in Northern Virginia and D.C. will be playing at Lyman's Tavern in D.C. And I believe the Maryland Championship will be playing at the Volleyball House, which is where one of the original FSPA League plays, I think, on Wednesdays. I've played at Lyman's. That's a lot of fun. I enjoyed it. In fact, I think that's my first ever tournament win was at Lyman's. Ever. Oh, really? That's great. I was pretty excited. It was put on by the mayor, is it James Daly? James Daly. James Daly, yeah. It was a fun tournament. You've got some great pinball places there in the DMV zone for sure, so I know you're going to have fun with that. Did you find any difference in the league with the dollar? Did you see more people suppressed. I know there are a few when I look on some of the stats there. I believe effectively everybody was in on it. We didn't get any negative feedback. We had one suppressed player, but it wasn't really directly related to that either. I don't believe it was. As a matter of fact, I'm trying to convince that player to get back into the unsuppressed field, primarily because I run numerous events, and now one of my own internal circuit event is using an IFPA filter, and I don't want to do manual calculations for next year. So I'm trying to convince my friends, get back in line. But otherwise, no, I haven't seen any impact on the dollar. I think everybody, if anything, it might have even grown some tournaments. We now this year have numerous weeklies and even monthlies now in the area, whereas last year we had, I think, one weekly in the region. So it's just adding more money. Maryland is one of those super states, and it's a big payoff. So people are pretty excited about it, I believe. I think it's been a positive improvement overall. Well, Kevin, you've done well in that area, but also outside that area, too. You've always been one of those guys consistently around the top 100, and I noticed outside of the DMV zone, you done very well in your history going to Texas Pinball Festival with a few finals appearances Yeah it a great show If people haven been it definitely one of the best shows to go to now And the tournament itself had a really bad reputation, as many people know, for quite a few years, which I also played during those years. But the ship got righted within the last two years, or three maybe now. Their format is very challenging. One interesting caveat related to what we've said before about the grind, about open herb style, for instance, MAGFest. The interesting comparison is I found that TPF was just as stressful and spent just as much of my time because you only have 20 attempts on 12 games. And out of those 12 games, there are three banks of four games. You have to have two games out of each of those three banks. Then you have two a la carte games. So you have to use two EMs, two solid states, and two DMVs. the other two can come from either one of those three. And I found myself sitting in the hotel room strategizing, along with other friends, trying to figure out what do I do next, what do I do next, and also waiting, because you want to wait and save a couple at the end to find out what game you need to improve on the most. So I love the strategy involved in TPF, and that's also one of the best shows. So I really enjoyed playing there, and I've got my tickets and my entries for this year as well. Good luck with that, Kevin. I've seen you at Pinberg over the last few years. And if you don't see Kevin inside of ReplayFX, the big parking lot there right at the convention, there's usually a great tailgate party that you've been a part of. And I might have joined you a couple times as well. You might have stopped by there once. I do believe I dragged you over there once. It was one of those funny times. I was coming back from somewhere, and I grabbed you and went over there. And there weren't that many people there actually at the time. But about five minutes after Pinberg, Replay ended that night, about 40 people showed up. And it was a lot of fun. we have a good time. I've been doing tailgates for football, college football, for a couple decades now. And we started actually at Papa where we just set up the tape, brought a grill, got a 192-quart cooler full of drinks. And the trick is just making sure you clean up and there's no trash and discretion is used and people generally don't bother you. So we lost, once replay moved to downtown, I just found a good parking spot with two plugs nearby for Fitbox fans and did the same thing and set up. I had like 10 or 20 chairs and a couple of portable tables. And once again, that 192-quart cooler with about three cases of beverages that were already pre-stocked. Another cooler with about 50 pounds of ice to keep it cold all weekend. And it worked out really well. And we probably had 40 or 50 people there until 3 or 4 in the morning one night, which I don't like doing now because it definitely affected the way I play the next day. So it definitely backed off on that a little bit. But it's a fun time. I think Thursdays now are going to be the only time we really do it because everybody's kind of still talking to all their friends they haven't seen in a while, and everybody's looking at their phones trying to figure out, you know, where am I going to be? Am I making A, B, C, D? And that was actually the most fun is because once it gets posted, we're literally 30 or 40 people sitting around, and everybody's looking at their phones, and all of a sudden everybody's talking, talking, talking, and excited about, I made A or I'm in B. It's a lot of fun. So we'll probably limit that to that this year and avoid getting any crazier. But it's a fun time, fun stuff. Speaking of fun stuff, Kevin, you have something that you've been doing for five years now, Pinholeks Anonymous. Do you want to explain what that little newsletter is all about? Yeah, so Pinholeks Anonymous is effectively my website or pinball organization that I created. I actually got a federal registered trademark on Pinholeks Anonymous. And all it really is, it started off as just trying to provide information for the Washington, D.C. metro area, including Baltimore, even down to Richmond. It started that way because what I discovered is trying to schedule tournaments as more and more people started organizing events became very difficult. You'd have to go to IFPA, sort through the calendar, identify other things that might not be an IFPA tournament. For instance, FSPA, the leagues, they have after-season parties at someone's house or an establishment. You want to avoid conflicts. So I started working on a calendar that I call the regional calendar. And eventually I migrated to the website with an interactive calendar. You can choose leagues. You can filter on tournament types. I even add regional things or PAPA events or IFPA events so people can see what's going on. And that was really the original purpose was just to provide people a resource, including tournament directors. And the other two resources that are provided by Nautilus Anonymous are one is that quick reference guide for the IFPA PAPA rules. You might have seen that. A lot of people, you know, you can go to my website, download it, print it, laminate it. it's great to have on hand in case you're a tournament director and you need to quickly reference a ruling. And I think Replay or Pemberg even had them printed out on postcards one year. And I worked with Mark and them to make sure that everything was okay. And I put the common, whatever it's called, the common license thing on it. So it's really their rule sheet, but I made it into a quick reference guide. And the other thing is a machine settings checklist for TDs. Print it off, put it on your machine, make sure the settings are correct. And it just helps with tournaments. So that was the primary purpose for Pinholics Anonymous. And it has just morphed into really just a tool for all players to be able to see what's going on in the region. It's crazy because if you look at the calendar, you can go back to October, for instance, there's literally a pinball activity every single day of the month in this region. You can play in a tournament or a weekly or league every single day of the month. And so it's amazing how much the D.C. area has grown for pinball. So the newsletter is something that's sent out once a month. And it's just a summary that goes out to all the people that register for the newsletter. It's 450 people now in the region, mostly. It just identifies previous month's winners, all the tournaments coming up for the next two months, a reminder of leagues and where they start. We have additional things such as my Penn Convention Championship rankings, standings, which is a yearly annual circuit event I run with local tournaments in this area, things like that, including also the states, the state standings each month. So where players stand in Maryland, Virginia, and D.C. It's just a good reminder for people in case they don't want to go to the website. So, you know, very simple. Just, once again, information resource for all players and TDs. Yeah, it's nice. It's localized, and I'm sure the people there in the DMV enjoy it as well. I do too. I've signed up, so thanks for that, Kevin. And I wish you all the best with MAGFest. I know it's going to be great. It's now, again, the first event of the Stern Pro Circuit. So with a few of the events, as you mentioned, going to Europe and even Australia, you know, there's less and less in the United States and Canada. So this is the first one of the year, and it seems like it's pretty popular with over 20,000 people in attendance, and the pinball tournament itself is excellent. So again, Kevin, all the best this week at MAGFest. Thanks a lot, Jeff. I really appreciate it, and thanks for having me on. This has been your Pinball Profile. You can find our group on Facebook. We're also on Twitter at Pinball Profile. Email us pinballprofile at gmail.com, and please subscribe on either iTunes, Stitcher, or Google Play. I'm Jeff Teolis. We'll be right back. _(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_ --- *Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: 4197f42a-e994-41d0-836f-a7bd97e33008*