# 033 - PinGolf & PinEtiquette

**Source:** Punk Rock Pinball Podcast  
**Type:** podcast_episode  
**Published:** 2026-02-02  
**Duration:** 42m 1s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://share.transistor.fm/s/ea4bb49a

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## Analysis

Punk Rock Pinball hosts discuss their first pin golf tournament at PRPHQ and community pinball etiquette. They organized a 9-hole pin golf event with objective-based scoring (multiball/lock challenges per game), attracting 13+ players with no formal advertising. The main segment covers etiquette topics from a Facebook discussion: maintaining distance from playing opponents, verifying player order/extra balls, asking questions between balls, hygiene, appropriate nudging vs rage-tilting, warm-up procedures, and staying ready during multiplayer games.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] Punk Rock Pinball HQ held its first pin golf tournament with 13-14 players and 7-9 additional kids playing casually — _Hosts directly describe organizing and participating in the event same day_
- [HIGH] IFPA rules prohibit coaching during ball play but allow coaching between balls — _Stephanie explicitly states IFPA rule; Punk Rock Pinball Association rules don't have this restriction_
- [HIGH] Extra balls earned during play are treated as mulligans in their pin golf format — _Hosts describe rule implementation for their 9-hole tournament_
- [HIGH] Pulp Fiction has a skill shot worth 100 points that provides significant competitive advantage in tournament play — _Stephanie describes skill shot ease and advantage during Bells and Chimes tournament discussion; Mike agrees it's 'cheesy' competitively_
- [HIGH] Spike 3 Stern machines (Fall of the Empire, Walking Dead) produce black screen output via HDMI to OBS streaming setup despite proper cable configuration — _Mike directly experienced technical issue during attempted live stream with Blackmagic ATEM Mini Pro capture device_
- [HIGH] Cat Davis leads Global Punk Rock Pinball Association leaderboard and attends events in Illinois and adjacent states — _Hosts verify Cat Davis placed third in pin golf tournament and reference her tournament dominance_
- [MEDIUM] Women's and scene-specific leaderboards for Punk Rock Pinball Association are in development, expected within weeks — _Stephanie references conversation with Nick Green about feature timeline_
- [MEDIUM] Some tournament scenes use timer systems (typically 60 seconds) to enforce player availability during multiplayer games — _Hosts discuss timer practice as standard in some scenes; Stephanie notes acceptance of 45-60 second windows_

### Notable Quotes

> "Stay back from players' line of vision and don't talk to them while they're playing."
> — **Dave Felgren (Chicago scene player, quoted in Facebook discussion)**, ~07:00
> _Key etiquette principle for tournament and casual play; addresses distraction caused by hovering spectators_

> "It's okay to nudge. In fact, it is part of the game. But people also said, do not rage tilt, meaning when your ball drains, don't be an asshole and beat up the game."
> — **Stephanie (paraphrasing Facebook responses)**, ~26:00
> _Distinguishes between legitimate nudging as game mechanic vs post-drain machine abuse as poor etiquette_

> "If you're not tilting you ain't trying you're not trying so that is all well and good like whatever while you're trying to keep a ball in play if you smack it up on the side and jiggle it like do what you got to do after you've drained like leave the game alone"
> — **Stephanie**, ~27:15
> _Explains the boundary between active play nudging and post-drain behavior_

> "Don't go outside and have a smoke. It sucks when you have to track down somebody to play their ball."
> — **Stephanie**, ~37:00
> _Addresses player availability etiquette in multiplayer/tournament games_

> "She wants to know what the plunge can do. She wants to know if there is a scoop or something the ball is going to shoot out. She wants to know where does that shoot out to and how do the flippers react."
> — **Stephanie (quoting Jane's warm-up strategy from Ladies State Finals)**, ~32:30
> _Demonstrates professional-level warm-up technique for machine familiarization before tournament play_

> "If you're player two make sure the game says player two or player three or player four whatever your player number is you walk up to the game double or triple check to make sure i am player three the game says player three yep plunge it plunge your own ball"
> — **Stephanie**, ~16:00
> _Critical error prevention in tournament play; directly references personal disqualification mistake_

> "Wash your hands. Yeah. Like every once in a while."
> — **Mike (paraphrasing multiple Facebook responses)**, ~24:00
> _Hygiene emphasis repeated multiple times in community feedback; relevant especially during cold/flu season_

> "That would be like a 50 million point skill shot on Jaws. That is easy to do. If you know that skill shot and you're playing someone who doesn't know that skill shot, it's pretty much a guaranteed win."
> — **Stephanie (discussing Pulp Fiction skill shot advantage)**, ~56:00
> _Identifies competitive balance issue where knowledge of easy skill shot creates unfair advantage_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Punk Rock Pinball | organization | Hosts of podcast; organized first pin golf tournament at PRPHQ venue |
| Stephanie | person | Co-host; won pin golf tournament; plays in Monday (Peoria), Tuesday (Champaign), Thursday (Bloomington) leagues |
| Mike | person | Co-host; experienced technical streaming issues with Spike 3 HDMI output |
| Marshall | person | Show host/co-host mentioned at beginning; watching on screen |
| PRPHQ | organization | Punk Rock Pinball Headquarters venue where pin golf tournament was held |
| Cat Davis | person | Competitive pinball player; placed 3rd in pin golf tournament; leads Global Punk Rock Pinball Association leaderboard |
| Kevin Johnson | person | Placed 2nd in pin golf tournament; provided HDMI cable during streaming troubleshooting |
| Dave Felgren | person | Chicago scene pinball player; provided etiquette advice on Facebook (staying back from player line of vision) |
| Global Punk Rock Pinball Association | organization | Leaderboard system tracking competitive play; women's and scene-specific leaderboards in development |
| Shelly | person | Host of Bells and Chimes tournament at her house (~18-20 players); won her own tournament |
| Ann | person | Competitive player; placed 2nd in Bells and Chimes; defeated Stephanie in finals; active tournament competitor |
| Nick Green | person | Developer working on women's and scene-specific leaderboard features for Punk Rock Pinball Association |
| Jane | person | Competitive player; participated in Ladies State Finals; uses professional warm-up technique |
| Kevin | person | Assisted with streaming setup by fetching alternative HDMI cable |
| Fall of the Empire | game | Star Wars pinball machine; used in pin golf tournament with 'Battle of Hoth multiball' objective; experienced HDMI streaming issues |
| The Walking Dead | game | Stern Spike 3 machine; used in pin golf; experienced HDMI black screen streaming issues |
| Pulp Fiction | game | Data East pinball machine; featured in Bells and Chimes tournament; has controversial 100-point easy skill shot |
| Bells and Chimes | event | Tournament at Shelly's house with ~18-20 players; format appears to be strikes-based playoffs |
| IFPA | organization | International Federation of Pinball Associations; has rules against coaching during ball play |
| Blackmagic ATEM Mini Pro | product | Capture device used for streaming attempt; successfully captures Nintendo Switch and camera but fails with Spike 3 HDMI output |

### Topics

- **Primary:** Pin Golf tournament format and rules, Pinball etiquette and player conduct, Tournament best practices and rules enforcement
- **Secondary:** IFPA coaching rules and exceptions, Spike 3 HDMI streaming technical issues, Competitive pinball skill shot balance (Pulp Fiction), Local pinball league activity and organization
- **Mentioned:** Punk Rock Pinball Association leaderboard development

### Sentiment

**Positive** (0.78) — Hosts enthusiastic about inaugural pin golf event and community engagement; positive tone discussing player etiquette and community norms. Frustration evident regarding HDMI streaming technical issues but resolved through community problem-solving. Overall celebratory of tournament success and community participation.

### Signals

- **[community_signal]** Punk Rock Pinball Association actively developing leaderboard features including women's division and scene-specific rankings (confidence: high) — Stephanie references conversation with developer Nick Green; features expected within weeks rather than months
- **[sentiment_shift]** Pinball community values objective-based game play and rule learning over pure score chasing, particularly for new players (confidence: medium) — Facebook discussion emphasized learning game objectives; hosts describe pin golf format as more engaging than score-based play; strategy of learning specific shots during warm-up periods
- **[sentiment_shift]** Strong emphasis on hygiene etiquette in pinball community, particularly during cold/flu season; multiple community members prioritize hand-washing and machine sanitization (confidence: high) — Hygiene mentioned repeatedly in Facebook etiquette discussion; hosts wiped down machines multiple times during pin golf event with Clorox wipes
- **[competitive_signal]** Data East Pulp Fiction skill shot (100 points/easy execution) creates significant competitive imbalance in tournament play; community considers it 'cheesy' despite enjoying the game (confidence: medium) — Stephanie describes skill shot as 'pretty much a guaranteed win' if opponent doesn't know it; compares advantage to 50M point modern Stern skill shot; suggests potential rule modification (turning skill shot off)
- **[event_signal]** Multiple local pinball leagues operating in Illinois (Peoria Monday, Champaign Tuesday, Bloomington Thursday) with regular participation and tournament activity (confidence: high) — Hosts describe attending three different leagues weekly; mention specific league formats (strikes, finals structure)
- **[event_signal]** Punk Rock Pinball HQ successfully executed first pin golf tournament with 13+ players using objective-based scoring format; event organized with minimal advance promotion (Discord-only announcement) (confidence: high) — Hosts describe organizing 9-hole tournament with specific objectives per game (multiball/lock challenges); ~13 players showed up; plan to run more events using this format
- **[community_signal]** Ann returns to competitive pinball play and achieved tournament victory; husband Alex also attending events (confidence: medium) — Hosts reference 'Ann is back' and describe her winning Bells and Chimes tournament; Alex attended same event
- **[technology_signal]** Spike 3 Stern pinball machines producing black screen output via HDMI to OBS streaming setup despite proper cable configuration; issue affects multiple games (Fall of the Empire, Walking Dead) (confidence: high) — Mike directly experienced issue during streaming attempt; tried multiple cables; Blackmagic ATEM Mini Pro works fine with other video sources but not Spike 3 HDMI output

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## Transcript

 are you ready to start the show marshall are you ready to start the show did you catch the reference no it's a led zeppelin pinball reference oh yeah it is yep let's get ready Are you ready to start the show, they say. Let's get the show started. Sometimes he says, are you ready to start the show? Well, I'll try it again later. Yeah. Well, episode something or other. Yeah, 34? Maybe. Three? Maybe. It's one of those. We're in the 30s. We're in the 30s. I am Stephanie. I'm Mike. This is Marshall, if you're watching on screen. We're the hosts of the show. Marshall's really the host of the show. Marshall's standing up. He is a hound dog. He might start barking. He's like looking out that front window. Yeah. It's Sunday night, about 7.30 p.m. Roundabout there. Roundabout there. We had a big day. Yeah, we were at the club. We did something new. We did a pin golf tournament at Punk Rock Pinball HQ, the first time we've ever done that. Yeah, it was fun. It is fun. Yeah. I know Cheryl that organizes a lot of stuff at Logan Arcade. She does it a bunch. And I've wanted to do this for a really long time. I've been secretly very jealous that we haven't been able to go up there and play. So we did our own. Yeah. We did a nine-hole tournament. Nine-hole pin golf tournament. It was objectives. We had different objectives for each game. and if you don't know pin golf basically there's like most of the games are set to five ball and we had different objectives for instance on star wars fall of the empire the objective was to get the battle of hoth multiball so if you were to get that multiball in ball one you got a one i think our par for that hole is a three i think that was a par three Four. As a par four. We put all the games on five ball. All the games are on five ball. If you don't get it after ball five, you take a six for the hole. There's like a penalty stroke. If you get it on ball two, you get a two. And if you get an extra ball, it's a mulligan. Yeah, I think some people do different things with extra balls. We considered extra balls to be a mulligan. So if you're on ball two, you get an extra ball, and that drains, and you plunge, and the game still says ball two, then, hey, you got it on ball two. game says ball two. It was fun. That's how we did it. Firepower got everybody just about. Yeah, we didn't know how to put that on a five baller. It was a three baller. So we kept it on three ball, and I think everybody got a four. Just almost, a couple people looked like maybe had threes, but the objective for firepower was to lock a ball. Yes. And I was very confident going into it, because last night I played, and I got the multiball on ball one. I did it at least once last night. So not only did I lock one ball, I locked three balls. But I couldn't perform when it mattered. Me neither. But it was really fun. Yeah. We had just a little over a dozen people show up, and it was great. I want to do it again. Yeah, it was a nice turn up, given that we didn't really publish it anywhere other than our Discord. last night like a day or two ago maybe on friday or did we put it on saturday and we just said hey we're doing a pin golf at the hq sunday at 2 30 and yeah we had i think like 13 players or so everyone had a good time i like it as casual it was really fun it's kind of a cool thing to do because people kind of came in and came out. It wasn't as intense as holding up a proper match play tournament or strikes or whatever. It was very cool. Yeah, because you had your scorecards. Made some scorecards. Made these scorecards. So people just come in, grab their card, and then they go play. Yeah, it was kind of weird to set up into the match play app, so I'm going to do that. I'm going to put it into match play to make it official. But it's kind of a to-do to set up the objective-based things. Sometimes people do pin golf and it's score-based objective, but it was really fun to pick. Things like Cactus Canyon was start a gold mine multiball. Deadpool was defeat Sabretooth. Firepower was lock a ball. John Wick, start the consecrated multiball. Did I say that right? Yeah. um monsters was collect a super jackpot oh my god i had the best single ball of my life on monsters i got 41 million on ball one and then i just reset it because it's a five ball it's not going to go up on the leaderboard yeah i mean it could have gone on the leaderboard had you chosen to go that that route well i actually thought for a second i'm going to open the coin door and i'm going to change this to a three ball yeah i and then i was like that's not really fair yeah because 41 When Melon Ball won, like you maybe could have got over 100. I think the top score on the leaderboard right now on our Munsters is like 80 something. Last month it was like 150. I could have been that. You could have done it maybe. It was fun. And Pirates of the Caribbean, the stern, was Sink the Interceptor and Dauntless. Yep. That's the first two ships. The first two ships. Stranger Things was Start Trap'Em, which is the second Demogorgon. That was too easy. It was too easy. That was a par four also. Yeah, I thought that would be harder to get to. I don't know why. Star Wars, Fall of the Empire, Start the Battle of Hoth. And Walking Dead was Start the Well Walker multiball. That was also too easy. It was fun. I need to make it the prison multiball for the next one. And I was surprised Firepower was the one that got everybody. Like, all you got to do is lock a ball. Like, you clear the numbers to light the locks, and then it'll light two of the locks on ours. And we just got to hit that once. Top three from our thing today. You were number one, Mike. I was the winner. Uh-oh. Sirens. Sirens. The dog hears them. It's okay. Second place, get ready to drink, Kevin Johnson. Kevin Johnson, number two. And Marshall's very excited to announce that number three was our friend Cat Davis. Cat Davis, who's currently leading the Global Punk Rock Pinball Association leaderboard. That Cat Davis. The Cat Davis. So a little update on that. I talked to our buddy Nick Green up last night, and he's working on making the women's leaderboard for the association, and he's working on making the scene leaderboards. So those, I don't have an exact time frame, but we're probably talking weeks rather than months for those features to be available. I just have to come up with a list of the existing scenes and send those to them and we'll be able to split up the leaderboard I know we have a lot of new players in Ohio and this season they're not going to catch Cat probably unless they start doing a ton of events a lot of people aren't going to catch Cat Davis they're going to need some big events you would need some huge events with like 80 to 100 players at them, and then you could catch her real quick. As long as you're not in a state that touches Illinois, because she goes to all of those. Yeah. That's her rule. Yeah, if it touches Illinois, Kat Davis is going to be there. Kevin WK is going to be setting up a bunch of the Kansas City ones. So some of those Kansas City folks are pretty high right now. Like once Kevin starts scheduling a bunch of stuff, he's got one in there now. Casey, people are going to be coming to get us. All right. We're ready. But what are we going to talk about today? What's our main topic? Our main topic is this, pinball etiquette. So there is this gal that popped up in my Facebook feed. I guess I must follow her. And her account or whatever on Facebook is MelPlaysPinball. pinball like her name must be melinda or melanie or something like that i'm not sure but mel plays pinball and she said experience pinheads what's one thing you wish you knew when you were starting out about the etiquette of pinball leave a tip below and i saved that because i thought it was really interesting to read some of the comments like as a new player you're nervous you know you might be nervous in playing, I guess I'm thinking of it from like a competitive standpoint, you might be nervous, but I thought some of these tips were really good. Our friend Dave Felgren from the Chicago scene, he said, and this is his tip, is to stay back from players' line of vision and don't talk to them while they're playing. That's a good one. It's a really good one. It's a good one. Because when you're new, you're really excited and you want to ask questions and you want to be close. You want to see what's going on. Yeah. But you have to fight, like resist the urge to get up in people's business. Yeah especially in a tournament setting especially you should be at least like four or five feet back away from the player You don want to hover like lurk right over their shoulder and look at the game If you're playing in a casual setting and if you're like buddies with the person, like do what you want. Yeah. Unless they're really on a mission to like score a billion points or something and they might not. It's harder to play pinball when somebody's like right there. Yeah. You know? I mean, sometimes when you're trying to figure out a game together, that's totally different. But if someone's playing a game, yeah, you certainly don't want to disrupt them. But I like that he kind of called out, like, stay back from their line of vision. Because sometimes that is really distracting when you know someone is, you can see them in your peripheral vision. You can see them staring at you playing the game, and it's a little unnerving. Yeah, that happened to me in our last league night. I'm not going to name names who did it to me, but I didn't like it. Yeah. Because they were kind of just right there. I could just see them out of the corner of my eye and could tell they were like looking at what I'm doing. It's not like a secret what I'm doing, but I just found it like a little unnerving. It kind of puts like some additional pressure. You feel like, at least I do, I feel like additional pressure, like you're being watched. You know people are watching anyways, but it's just like, whoa. Yeah, it's almost similar to if you're playing on the live stream. You know, like I don't play as well on a live stream because there's like a camera. And if you have like people hovering that you can see, it's like you've got eyeballs and you're just trying to get in there. Yeah. So that's a good one, Dave. Yeah, super good. But I liked this one, too. I mean, we say this at the start of all of our tournaments, but this Sam Arnold said, If you're in a tournament, always double-check the game order and make sure you're not plunging someone else's ball or extra ball if they've earned one and didn't realize it. Yeah, I've done that. It cost me dearly. not the last league the league before last because a lot of the games for league we have the extra balls left on so you plunge it but this was my error i was on stranger things and i got the extra ball but i had forgotten that on that one the extra balls were off so my ball ends i knew i got the extra ball during play so the next ball kicks into the shooter i plunged it because i thought that was my extra ball it turns out it was not yeah so i disqualified myself so i took nothing for that round i would have had second place in that round yeah so definitely always make sure if you're player two make sure the game says player two or player three or player four whatever your player number is you walk up to the game double or triple check to make sure i am player three the game says player three yep plunge it plunge your own ball we've all been guilty of this we've all done it yeah we have all done it so i thought that was really really good a good reminder and it happened it's gonna happen to you it's gonna happen it happens to everybody yeah you just kind of get like zoned out and yeah sometimes somebody will even say like oh hey stephanie it's your turn and you go up and plunge it and turns out it wasn't your turn but it's not their fault it's still your fault yep it's the player's responsibility yeah um i i also liked um i can't find it right now but um but a lot several people said in here like If you're new, talk to the other players and ask questions. So don't be afraid to ask questions of how to do something or what an objective might be or just how the game works. Most people want to share what they know and help you. And I think that is within even the IFPA rules. Like in between balls, people can tell you what to do. But it is against the IFPA rules to coach during when a ball is in play. Okay. So just so you know, like in an IFPA tournament, for the Punk Rock Pinball Association, we don't have a rule against that, I don't believe. I mean, I wrote them and I don't recall writing that. But I know that IFPA, it is against the rules. like if I'm standing behind our friend Rob and he's playing Fall of the Empire I can't be like hey the hoth lock is lit hit it in the hoth shot I can't call out like what to hit but in between balls I can tell him like hey check for this or look for that shot you can kind of coach in between balls but not during a ball cool I didn't know that Uh-huh. The. This one you're going to really appreciate. I think like a half a dozen people said this in here. Wash your hands. Yeah. Wash your hands. Yeah. Like every once in a while. Yeah. Wash your wash your hands. It was just said multiple, multiple times, especially like, I mean, all the time you should wash your hands but during cold and flu season people are coughing and sneezing and whatever i think today i wiped down the machines like three times with a like just wiping them down yeah i went through and wiped them too we had those clorox wipes at the hq thank you jeff yeah i was over huge uh because we had a lot of people over today because not only were there the 13 people or 14 or whatever that played in the pin golf there were i don't know eight or nine kids seven or eight kids that weren't in it so you got kids there flipping a bunch of people flipping so yeah we're wiping i was wiping the flipper buttons and the lock bar and like the start button yeah me too oh i didn't get the plungers i did you got the plungers good yeah I got the knobs. Yeah, I forgot. You rubbed the knobs? I rubbed the knobs. All right. Mm-hmm. Yep. Let me see if there's other... Oh, the other one that people said quite often, too, is it's okay to nudge. Yeah. In fact, it is part of the game. Yeah. But people also said, do not rage tilt, meaning when your ball drains, don't be an asshole. and beat up the game because your ball drained. That's not going to help you. No. That's bad etiquette. The post-drain machine abuse is very poor etiquette. Yeah. But while the ball is in play and while you're trying to keep it in play, the machine will tell you what's too much because you'll tilt. Mm-hmm. so and if you're not tilting you ain't trying you're not trying so that is all well and good like whatever while you're trying to keep a ball in play if you smack it up on the side and jiggle it like do what you got to do after you've drained like leave the game alone yeah don't like slam on the glass kick it nah nah you could call it a piece of shit yeah you could do that a hunk of junk i do that like you hunk of shit yeah yeah garbage man wouldn't even pick up that hunk garbage man wouldn't pick up that hunk of shit yeah you can do that but like don't slam the game after you've drained no it's not the machine's fault you drained it's your fault you should have shot better shut up but yeah like nudge it around try to save it because if you do that too much it'll tilt and then you'll know like okay well this game won't tolerate that it's a good thing to do if you're going if you are warming up for a tournament is to kind of nudge and see how far you can kind of push a machine yeah it's a good thing to know totally when you watch like those high level tournaments on that like the kind of papa style finals where it's like head-to-head or a few games and oftentimes they'll give the players 20 or 30 seconds to warm up and they're always shaking the game to see like how much nudging will will it accept before like a warning that's how the ladies state finals were yeah we got 30 seconds to do it and that's what jane because i played her afterwards i was kind of asking her like during your 30 seconds what do you like what are you doing i know what i was trying to do but like what were you doing and she said she likes She wants to know what the plunge can do. She wants to know if there is a scoop or something the ball is going to shoot out. She wants to know where does that shoot out to and how do the flippers react and all that good stuff. And then she said when she's done, that's when she tries to tilt it to see how far she can push it. That's smart. I didn't think about shooting the scoop shot. because the scoop shots, even if you play like three different John Wick machines that scoop on the left, all three are going to be different what the ball does coming out of there. Yep. Because on ours right here, you hit the left scoop, it kicks out, hits the right flipper, bounces over to the left flipper, you catch it. That's what happens every time on ours. you go over to our HQ and Greg's John Wick kicks out a little bit harder so it hits the left flipper or the right flipper then hits the left sling and goes crazy so you need to try to catch it on the right flipper if you can or hit a shot off the right flipper because otherwise it going to the sling Yeah And so you just don know You don't know. So I thought that was really pretty cool, like a cool thing to try to do. Real smart on games with the scoop, because Godzilla's a big one that way, because I've played Godzilla's where it kicks out and you can just catch it on that flipper. I've played them where it kicks out, you could dead bounce it over to the right, And I've played some where it's just kind of chaotic and like not maybe the coil sleeve is bad or something. And like sometimes it shoots hard, sometimes it shoots soft. Yeah. So, yeah, test the scoops. Yeah. Test the tilts. Yeah. Yeah. It was good advice. Any other comments in there? I mean, a lot of repetitive stuff like, you know, don't crop dust. Don't crop dust. Uh-huh. That's a good etiquette one. That's a good etiquette one. And a lot of like don't walk up to people while they're playing. Somebody said something along the lines of if someone's playing darts, you don't walk up to them. So like when they're playing pinball, don't walk up to them. Yeah. I mean, that's the same as like staying back. Yeah. Yeah. Especially like in a tournament, like obviously don't walk up and say something. But I've seen it happen back in Peoria, where CJ is the tournament director and the tech. And I don't think it's happened to me at any of ours when I've been one of the tournament directors. But I've seen it happen to CJ where he's in a match and somebody has an issue on their game and they go over and try to get him while he's playing his ball. and it's like you have to wait even if they're the tournament director and you have a problem on your game if they're in the tournament they're playing the ball let them finish their ball let them finish the ball yeah like he shouldn't have to sacrifice his play to fix your issue yeah it's hard when you're like being a tournament director at a place where it's your machines it's a lot Yeah, where it's like, you're the tournament director, and you're also the one with the keys that can get the glass off the game to fix a problem. Yeah, it's a lot. A lot going on. And somehow he still would win most of those. He is really good at multitasking. Yeah. I have one, especially for tournament play, but this would go to any time you're playing a multiplayer game, and that would be stay with your game. Oh, that was one in here. Stay with your game. Until you see bonus at the end. Well, I mean, like, if you're player one. Oh. And you play your ball and you drain, don't go too far away. Yeah, it sucks. Don't go outside and have a smoke. It sucks when you have to track down somebody to play their ball. And I know some people, some, I guess, scenes or tournament directors are really hardcore about, like, if they're not there, start a timer. and they've got X amount of seconds to get there to plunge. Otherwise, you can plunge their ball. Feels really like kind of dickish, but like I get it because it sucks when you have to go find the person to say like, please play your ball. I don't have any problem with the timer thing. Like if you're not there to play your ball, start the timer. And I think most give you like two minutes. I'd be fine if it was like 45 seconds. I think it's 60 seconds. 60 seconds. Because unless you've got like a biological emergency or something. That happens. And then if you do, you could say like, hey, I'll be right back. I got to go poop my pants. Yeah, I'm going to poop my pants. Which, you know, we may or may not start another podcast about pooping your pants, but that's a different thing. Deanna, let's talk. But it is annoying because like a lot of the tournament rounds take long enough as it is. And then if you're waiting for, especially once the game has started, I get it if it's in between rounds. Like the round had just started and somebody's outside having a smoke. Well, like they didn't know the round had started. So get them in there. But once you're in the game and you're playing, like, don't go start another game on a different machine, like 50 feet away. So that people have to call you over. Don't do that. You know? It's annoying. Just stay around. be ready. I know even if you're with good players you might feel like, well, these people are good, so I've got 15 minutes, but maybe they have a bad ball. You never know. So if you're in a four-player game when it's your turn... I mean, what if you're playing Zach McCarthy? I'm sure even he has a bad ball sometimes. Probably. You know? And he's like one of the best in the world, and I'm sure he has like short balls sometimes. Yeah. Probably not often, but I bet sometimes. But you're right. Yeah, so just be ready. Be ready to flip when it's your turn. Yeah. You got any others? No, that was pretty much it. I mean, just like, you know, some crappy people as usual. Crappy people? I mean, here's one. The most important rule if you're at an event, I don't know what TPF means. What is it? Texas Pinball. Yeah. Oh, take a bath and use deodorant. Okay. Then it said, this isn't necessarily etiquette, but many people don't realize there's objectives to the game. My advice to new players would be learn some of the basic rules and work to achieve the goals of the game. It makes it way more fun to play when you know what you're trying to do. Yeah. Yeah, that's totally true. And I think that's like what we did today with pin golf was really fun. I think a lot of people, it's just kind of fun to forget about the scores and really just try to achieve something, even if it's like something that you've done before. Yeah. And you know you can do it. It's just kind of, it's fun to see how quickly can you do it. Yeah, I think the objective-based stuff is cool because we do more of these and you have the same games in it, but it's like a different objective this time. People start to get better at the game by doing the specific tasks in the game. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. I can't wait to do that because I feel like it's going to help everybody level up. All right, so that's... This person... All right, here, this one. If you're playing in a non-public place, like somebody's house, bring a snack to share. That's cool. Okay. And hit the tip jar with at least a 20. What? Are you sure about that? I'm not so sure about that. No. I say no. I'm not down with the tip to people's houses that you're playing at. Like, we've hosted big tournaments here at this house and never once asked for a tip and wouldn't have accepted a tip. No. That just seems so weird to me. We've had tournaments where there's, like, double header with 30 plus players each. So you have, like, technically 60 players. Yeah, where it totally changed over the people. And, no. You don't have to hit the tip jar. No, if someone's inviting you over. Yeah. Unless they say, like, I'm going to charge a $5 coin drop or something. Yeah, like, of course. But I think, I don't know, it would be weird. I don't know. We haven't seen anybody, I don't think, put out a tip jar. No, Joe and Shelly don't have a tip jar. No. I mean, I guess it's not out of line if you're hosting tournaments at your house all the time and you put it as part of the deal. That's different. Like it's a $5 coin drop and I use that money to buy new rubbers and get new balls. Like that's fine. That's totally fine. But I wouldn't say you have poor etiquette if you don't tip the host. No. No. You don't have to tip over here if you come here and play. No. Tip free. Yeah. Just bring booze if you like booze because we don't drink. but I'll give you Coca-Cola. I'll give you Coca-Cola. I'll give you Cokes. I also played this past week Bells and Chimes at Shelly's house. Oh, yeah, you did. She had a great turnout. How many? I don't know. 18 or something. I think so, yeah. I was going to say close to 20. Pretty good turnout. Shelly won. Shelly won. Ann got second. Ann is back. Kat got third. Kat and Danielle tied for third. And then were you fourth or fifth? I would have been fifth. I didn't make it to the finals. I was just below it. Just bubbled out? Semi-final. I was out. Because you made the finals cut. Yeah. But then you were eliminated in the first round of the finals. That's the right way to say it. The final final. Yeah. Yeah, I guess. Yeah. That was a strikes one. and you had three strikes real fast but then you went on a streak yeah i fought hard and then ann took you down yeah she took me down on pulp fiction tough game yeah i wasn't gonna let her win but i couldn't get the goddamn skill shot killed me are you really you didn't get the skill shot only once and i think she got it every time and she did really well i then tore up um jurassic park Is there a way to turn that skill shot off on that Pulp Fiction machine? Probably. Because if you could and it was mine, I would turn that off in tournaments. Did you hear that, Joe Sharp? I don't know if you can turn it off. I'm sure you can. I'm not sure. If anybody watching knows put in the comments whether or not you can turn that super skill shot Because in Pulp Fiction there a skill shot that will get you 100 points 100 Which on that machine is a lot of points Yeah. That would be basically like a 50 million point skill shot on Jaws. That is easy to do. If you know that skill shot and you're playing someone who doesn't know that skill shot, it's pretty much a guaranteed win. Unless that person's like a badass. Well, yeah. Like, unless they shoot like a crazy good game. True. But I mean, it gives you a significant advantage. Huge advantage. It would be like on a modern Stern having a skill shot that is easy be like 50 million. Yeah. Or at least 40 million. So it's like cheesy. I know, you don't like it. I think it's totally cheesy. I love it. I love the game. I love the game too. Love the game. I was just thinking competition in that particular skill shot is cheese. Well, anyways, Ann kicked my ass. Nice job, Ann. But she's got her groove back. And her husband, Alex, who should be doing the dishes right now, by the way. Alex do the dishes. Alex do the dishes. He was there, too. He said he hears our voices in his house all the time. And he told me he's pretty sure that we say do the dishes. And he's like, I am doing the dishes. Yeah, it was fun. That was really fun. They're going to start up their league right after Valentine's Day. Very cool. We'll try to get to those. Yep. So, I have Monday leagues. Tuesday leagues. Monday leagues in Peoria. Tuesday leagues in Champaign. Thursday leagues in Bloomington. Just lots of pinballing. It's so awesome. Yeah. it's so awesome what else we got this week i think that's about it i was just struggling today because i was going to live stream our fall of the empire in our pin golf and i was testing i was having issues with getting the hdmi to show up on obs i don't have a spike 3 game here at the house so i got my nintendo switch to show up I got that video camera to show up via HDMI into OBS. So I'm like, I got it. So I did a post in a group that, hey, we're going to stream this. We were pretty excited. And then I go over there, hook it up to the Fall of the Empire black screen. And the same thing on The Walking Dead, out the HDMI output black screen. We swapped out. Kevin went and got a different cable. I thought maybe that cable was a problem. like a shorter cable. That was so nice of him. Thank you, Kevin, for that. Black screen, black screen, black screen. So if you have streamed a Spike 3 Stern and not had issues with OBS, what did you do in the settings? Because it does not work. I have the Blackmagic ATEM Mini Pro as the capture device. going that into a Mac computer. And a Nintendo Switch works just fine. That camera works just fine. The Avatar pinball machine worked just fine. But the Stern Spike 3s do not. And I'm going out the left HDMI out, like everyone says. So somebody help. Because it didn't work on the Follow the Empire or... What do you call it? The Walking Dead. Neither. Dang it. Black screen on both. So then I was pissed. I didn't want to set up a camera on the score thing, but it's fine to do, but I was too mad to do it. He was mad. Mad, real mad. So I don't know. If you've done it and had it work, like, what is the trick to make OBS not see that as a black screen? Don't know. It's probably something very simple. That's probably something super stupid. But we don't know. But I don't know what it is. And Mike was real mad. I was mad. I was disappointed. Yeah, but you were just like mad. And now I'm dealing with these stupid Rode lob mics that work, but my dumbass computer won't see the audio files that you've recorded on them. So that's a whole other thing. It was kind of like a bad tech day. It was a very bad tech day. Thank goodness for the... You hit record on this, by the way, didn't you? Yeah, it's going. Okay, good. That light's red. I've recorded here because if we had to redo this, I would just quit the podcast and never do it again. That's not true. This Punk Rock Pinball podcast is over. Not true. Marshall said no. It was a tough tech day because I was... The lav mics worked through the Blackmagic device to the audio. Perfectly. So I was excited that we were going to be able to stream and we could commentate on people's play. and I was so excited to do that but the stupid Spike 3 HDMI out is giving me a stupid black screen in OBS and I'm hopping mad about it hopping mad hey anybody from Stern can you guys help us out I don't know I need help or I'm never streaming these damn games help us out give us a hand just a little help here please please just a little help over here just a little help well i think that's i think that's all um one other thing yeah i actually that i should have said before so sorry kevin that i'm rambling marshall didn't like it either if anybody else does pin golf i would love if you could put in the comments if you do objective based what are some of the things you do because we want to do this a couple times a month and I would love to see what games people are doing and what kind of objectives and how many strokes are you trying to get people to do it within. Yeah I mean I guess they would need to know all the games that we have but even if they have other games I want to know because we have a lot of games and we have especially if you've got cool objectives for like modern sterns we have like most of those yeah and um and even if we don't have the game it might inspire us to do something similar in a different game i really thought that stranger things when it's going to be harder well i think everybody got that in like one or two and i thought that was going to be one of the harder ones yeah i think i got it in two and i was worried if the firepower one was too easy it wasn't like nobody got it we're keeping that up We're doing that one again. Yeah, I like that Firepower one. Yeah, objective-based pin golf rules. Marshall likes it, too. He likes it. Yeah, let us know some fun objectives. And maybe next time we can set up an 18-hole pin golf course. We could. Because this was nine. We've got more than 18 games. We could come up with 18 objectives. I'm also curious when other people do pin golf, I wonder if they do it like we did today where it was like choose your own adventure as far as the order that you go on or do they make people go like hole one hole two hole three and like follow a course right I think if you have a lot of players you might need to start them all like everybody goes in order but we had just like the 14 or so and they weren't all doing it at the same time yeah i mean you could do it like the front nine back nine so it's like kind of like lawless wild west pin golf where it's like take your card and just go pick which game you're going to play at which time um yeah let's know do you make people go in order one two three four five six seven eight nine or do you just let them go and do what they do yeah i think if you had a bunch it'd be cool if you had 18. Some people start on the back nine, some people start on the front nine. And then they'd kind of switch. And after, it'd be like Amazing Race once you get through the first few people, there'd just be a flow. So that's all I got. Really good. Thanks, honey. And thanks to Mel Plays Pinball for having the cool post about etiquette. Yeah, very cool, Mel, who probably doesn't listen to this, but it was super cool. Also, we should just very quickly mention our friend Ryan Young and his band, Off With Their Heads, coming to Bloomington in April. And we're doing a gimmick, but not really, a tournament, where you can play the band. Yeah, you can play pinball against Off With Their Heads in a tournament. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we'll put a link to, I think there's just a couple tickets left to that if you're interested. You, yeah, there's a cool t-shirt. You get to go to the rock show. You get to try to beat Ryan at pinball. Yep. I think he's been practicing. That'd be fun. Yeah. I hope he's been practicing because I'm going to be playing him. Oh. So he better be practicing. Oh. Uh-huh. And I am the pin golf champion. Well, you can. So... He's going to be intimidated. So there's that. Okay, Marshall's ready to be done. We got to still mix this and edit it. Yep. It's late at night. It's eight something now. We got to work tomorrow. Boo. Yeah, so let's wrap it up. Okay. If there's something you want us to talk about next week, let us know. We'll be here. Always interested in new topics. Yeah. Or maybe we'll see a new stern by then I don't know Alright thanks for listening Ma-toodle-oo Bye

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: 72b0100c-5333-4dae-9791-41993600c35f*