# The Ray Rae Show, Episode 12: State Championship = Super Bowl of Pinball **Source:** Poor Man's Pinball Podcast **Type:** podcast_episode **Published:** 2024-01-31 **Beat:** Pinball **URL:** https://poormanspinballpodcast.libsyn.com/the-ray-rae-show-episode-12-state-championship-super-bowl-of-pinball --- ## Analysis Rachel Risto and Raymond Davidson discuss their recent competitive pinball experiences, including Raymond's performance at INDISC (16th place in multiple divisions earning 223.5 WPPR points) and Rachel's organization and participation in Wisconsin Women's State Championship where she finished top 4. The episode covers tournament strategy, game selection, player psychology, and detailed match-by-match breakdowns of Rachel's games against opponents including Michelle Anderson, Lily Piazza, and Dori Ann. ### Key Claims - [HIGH] Raymond earned 223.5 WPPR points for 16th place in INDISC Open division — _Raymond Davidson stated: 'in the open I got 16th place and I got 223 and a half Whopper points'_ - [HIGH] INDISC High Stakes division offers $15,000 for first place, $3,000 for top 4, and base payouts of $1,400-$1,500 for qualification — _Raymond stated: 'if you qualify for that, you already, you know, you get like 1400, 1500 bucks and then you make the top four, you get like 3000 and if you win, you get 15,000'_ - [HIGH] WPPR card limit changed to 15 events in 2024 (down from 20) — _Rachel stated: 'now you're limited to 15 events instead of 20 now that we're in 2024'_ - [HIGH] Wisconsin Women's State Championship allowed players to choose from all 57-59 operational games rather than preset game banks — _Rachel stated: 'At Nerd Haven, I permitted women to choose from all games there. There are 59 games, 57 of them were operable'_ - [HIGH] Cassidy Milonowski won Wisconsin Women's State Championship undefeated with 4-0 shutouts in all matches — _Rachel stated: 'Cassidy went the whole day undefeated. She shut out Dori 4-0 and won the tournament... Nobody could beat her the whole day'_ - [HIGH] Rachel won a cash tournament at Titletown Tap Room without initially realizing the tournament had ended (no finals) — _Rachel stated: 'all of a sudden they announced that I won the tournament. And I laugh, I laugh and laugh and laugh... And I won $72 and a six pack of beer'_ - [HIGH] Dori Ann (Milwaukee player) made finals at Wisconsin Women's State using a consistent six-game rotation strategy — _Rachel stated: 'Dori, I do want to say that she, her, she played the same six games all day long. Basically, Medieval, Godzilla, and Iron Maiden, those were her games she chose all day long'_ - [HIGH] Rachel advanced to top 4 at Wisconsin Women's State Championship — _Rachel stated: 'I was very happy because I came in top four and I was very, very, very happy and excited'_ - [HIGH] Rachel lost multiple consecutive games (three house balls in Cyclone) during semifinals vs. Dori Ann — _Rachel stated: 'I got not one, not two, but three house balls. Three... And I shook that game pretty hard, I'm not going to lie. I was pretty frustrated'_ - [HIGH] Dori Ann defeated Rachel 4-1 in Wisconsin Women's State semifinals — _Implied from Rachel's match narrative where she won one game against Dori and lost four_ ### Notable Quotes > "in the open I got 16th place and I got 223 and a half Whopper points" > — **Raymond Davidson**, early in episode > _Demonstrates significant WPPR points earned at major tournament_ > "all of a sudden they announced that I won the tournament. And I laugh, I laugh and laugh and laugh, like I'm such an idiot. I'm like, there are no finals?" > — **Rachel Risto**, middle section > _Humorous story about winning Titletown Tap Room tournament without realizing it had ended_ > "I will not be organizing another state championship. Oh. That will not be happening." > — **Rachel Risto**, mid-episode > _Rachel expressing burnout from dual role as organizer and competitor_ > "I took her to the Sopranos and the reason for this is when I was practicing in warm-up, I noticed something interesting on this game... it immediately shot the ball to the left out lane" > — **Rachel Risto**, tournament match breakdown > _Strategic game selection based on machine-specific knowledge acquired during practice_ > "I got not one, not two, but three house balls. Three in a row?" > — **Rachel Risto**, semifinals breakdown > _Moment of frustration during critical match_ > "Cassidy went the whole day undefeated. She shut out Dori 4-0 and won the tournament" > — **Rachel Risto**, final match results > _Championship victory announcement_ > "you came with a plan and you practiced ahead of time and you put in the work. You deserve to get paid for that" > — **Raymond Davidson**, mid-episode > _Commentary on legitimate strategic advantage through preparation_ > "I really wanted to meet her again in the final two because I know that I could have given her a loss" > — **Rachel Risto**, finals discussion > _Rachel's confidence in her ability vs. Cassidy despite early exit_ ### Entities | Name | Type | Context | |------|------|---------| | Raymond Davidson | person | Co-host of Ray Ray Show, competitive player ranked #1 in IFPA, competed at INDISC 2024 earning 223.5 WPPR points | | Rachel Risto | person | Co-host of Ray Ray Show, organizer of Wisconsin Women's State Championship 2024, finished top 4 as player | | Cassidy Milonowski | person | Wisconsin Women's State Championship 2024 winner, went undefeated 4-0 in all matches | | Dori Ann | person | Milwaukee-based competitive player, finalist at Wisconsin Women's State 2024, uses consistent game rotation strategy | | Michelle Anderson | person | Wisconsin women's player, Rachel's first-round opponent at state championship | | Lily Piazza | person | Illinois player who competed at Wisconsin Women's State Championship, faced Rachel in round 2 | | Dave Anderson | person | Organizer of Titletown Tap Room tournament in Green Bay, Wisconsin | | Mike Williams | person | Tournament director for Wisconsin Women's State Championship 2024 from Madison | | Preston Curry | person | Provided tips to Rachel on how to play Game Show during tournament practice | | Joe Bear | person | Provided tips to Rachel on how to play Game Show during tournament practice | | Becky Meyer | person | Final four finalist at Wisconsin Women's State Championship 2024 | | INDISC | event | Major pinball tournament held in January, features Classics, High Stakes, and Open divisions, offers significant WPPR points (240th place = 11 points) | | Wisconsin Women's State Championship | event | 2024 championship held at Nerd Haven in Madison, featured 57-59 operational games, winner Cassidy Milonowski went 4-0, Rachel Risto organized and competed | | Titletown Tap Room | venue | Brewery in Green Bay, Wisconsin hosting cash tournaments, where Rachel unexpectedly won tournament | | Nerd Haven | venue | Madison venue hosting Wisconsin Women's State Championship 2024 | | Ladies of Wisconsin | organization | Women's pinball community group that hosts boot camps, associated with Michelle Anderson and her husband | | Poor Man's Pinball Podcast | organization | Podcast network hosting Ray Ray Show | | Ray Ray Show | organization | Competitive pinball podcast hosted by Raymond Davidson and Rachel Risto | | Guns N' Roses | game | Stern pinball machine, played by Rachel in tournament | | Led Zeppelin | game | Stern Premium pinball machine, played by Rachel in multiple tournaments, she considers it fun with Electric Magic feature | | Walking Dead | game | Pinball machine played by Rachel in tournament, feeders cause drain issues | | Iron Maiden | game | Pinball machine, Rachel considers herself skilled on this, part of Dori Ann's consistent rotation | | Cyclone | game | Classic pinball machine with historical significance to Raymond, Rachel had bad luck with three house balls in critical match | | Attack from Mars | game | Pinball machine Raymond advised Rachel not to play in finals, Rachel won on it despite it being her weak point | ### Topics - **Primary:** INDISC Tournament (January 2024), Wisconsin Women's State Championship 2024, WPPR Points and Ranking System, Tournament Strategy and Game Selection, Match Play Mechanics and Format - **Secondary:** Player Psychology and Mental Game, Women's Pinball Community, Machine-Specific Knowledge and Preparation ### Sentiment **Positive** (0.75) — Generally enthusiastic about competitive pinball experiences despite frustrations. Rachel expresses satisfaction with top 4 finish and competitive matches, though frustration about specific losses. Raymond satisfied with consistent performance at INDISC. Celebration of community and sportsmanship throughout. ### Signals - **[competitive_signal]** Raymond Davidson earned 223.5 WPPR points for 16th place finish at INDISC 2024 Open division, with additional points from Classics (148 points for 14th place) (confidence: high) — Raymond: 'in the open I got 16th place and I got 223 and a half Whopper points... My 14th in classics, I also got 148' - **[competitive_signal]** Wisconsin Women's State Championship 2024 won by Cassidy Milonowski with perfect undefeated record (4-0 shutouts in all matches). Rachel Risto finished top 4, Dori Ann finished second in finals (confidence: high) — Rachel: 'Cassidy went the whole day undefeated... she shut out Dori 4-0 and won the tournament. Did she get any losses? None.' - **[competitive_signal]** Wisconsin Women's State Championship allowed players to select from full game roster (57-59 operational games) rather than pre-determined game banks (Classic/Mid/Modern), increasing selection difficulty (confidence: high) — Rachel: 'At Nerd Haven, I permitted women to choose from all games there. There are 59 games, 57 of them were operable, and women had a good time choosing. So I think it made it harder to choose from the field' - **[competitive_signal]** Dori Ann demonstrated consistent strategy using same six-game rotation (Medieval Madness, Godzilla, Iron Maiden) throughout tournament to reach finals (confidence: high) — Rachel: 'she played the same six games all day long. Basically, Medieval, Godzilla, and Iron Maiden, those were her games she chose all day long' - **[market_signal]** WPPR card limit reduced from 20 to 15 events in 2024, affecting player eligibility and point accumulation strategy (confidence: high) — Rachel: 'you're limited to 15 events instead of 20 now that we're in 2024' - **[event_signal]** INDISC High Stakes division features limited entry format (10 entries max, $500 total buy-in at $50/entry) with significant prize pool ($15,000 first place, $3,000 top 4, $1,400-$1,500 qualification payout) (confidence: high) — Raymond: '$500 one time try... you could only do 10... $50 an entry, essentially. But you could only do 10' - **[community_signal]** Ladies of Wisconsin community group actively hosting boot camps and tournament preparation for women competitors, facilitating skill development (confidence: medium) — Rachel: 'her and her husband love to host Ladies of Wisconsin for boot camps and so forth' - **[player_signal]** Rachel Risto experienced performance impact from dual role as organizer and competitor at Wisconsin Women's State Championship, expressing reluctance to repeat the responsibility (confidence: high) — Rachel: 'I will not be organizing another state championship... That will not be happening' and 'it definitely affected my gameplay' - **[gameplay_signal]** Attack from Mars played smoothly ('butter on a roll') while Cyclone experienced multiple drain issues during critical matches (confidence: medium) — Rachel: 'this copy there played so nice, like butter on a roll... I got not one, not two, but three house balls' on Cyclone - **[venue_signal]** Wisconsin features multiple local cash tournaments (Titletown Tap Room recurring Thursday events) supplementing major regional tournaments (confidence: medium) — Rachel: 'I've never played that before. This has been going on for all of last year where it's like a cash kind of tournament' - **[design_philosophy]** Players gain strategic advantage by thoroughly practicing limited game selection beforehand and committing to consistent games rather than attempting broad game diversity (confidence: high) — Rachel: 'I really should have... picked the same six and played the same six over and over and over and over again' and noting Dori Ann's success with this approach - **[competitive_signal]** Rachel expresses confidence she could have defeated Cassidy Milonowski if they had faced in finals, despite losing earlier (confidence: medium) — Rachel: 'I really wanted to meet her again in the final two because I know that I could have given her a loss... I can do it again' --- ## Transcript It's Raymond and Rachel, Rachel and Raymond, tournament pinball is what they really know. It's Rachel and Raymond, Raymond and Rachel, giving all of the info for the travels we go. It's like free college and the sharing the knowledge, so if you don't listen you won't know. It's the Ray Ray Show. Hello friends, welcome to the Ray Ray Show, a podcast about competitive pinball. I'm your host Rachel Risto, along with your other pal, Raymond Davidson. Welcome to the show. We're happy to have you here. Raymond, we've been playing some big time pinball this past weekend, some state related action. Yeah, yeah. And even before that, there was INDISC. It's been a busy January. Yeah. Do you want to give us like a little highlight about your INDISC trip? Yeah, I mean, it was, you know, probably the biggest event of the year in terms of your opportunity. I ended up being pretty consistent. I basically got like 16th in Classics, High Stakes, and Open. So I held my own. I didn't break out in any of them, but I was still pretty happy with how I played. It's always nice to, you know, make it through the first round of finals, and I did that. But then the second round, both in Classics and in Main, I just all of a sudden didn't know how to play pinball sort of deal. Sortedil. Oh yeah. I've had those days. I think we all have. Okay. What's crazy is in the open I got 16th place and I got 223 and a half Whopper points. Wow. Yeah. Wow. So I was going to ask if any Whoppers made your card because now you're limited to 15 events instead of 20 now that we're in 2024. So I was curious. That's a heck of a lot of points. Yeah. My 14th in classics, I also got 148. So they both made my card. High stakes, unfortunately, I kind of made a error because the first day I basically I used like half my entries, you get 10 tries, I use like half of them. And I was just burning through them. And I was like, Okay, I gotta stop. I'm going through these too fast. I gotta slow down. And so I waited and waited. And then on Sunday I was like, oh, once I get eliminated from the open, I will play the rest of my high stakes. But the open kind of dragged on so long that by the time I got eliminated, it was five, it was over five o'clock and high stakes qualifying was closed. So I ended up not getting to play all my high stakes entries. You made, I think you still made a good choice because if you're burning through the cards and you're not, I mean, it's unfortunate that you didn't get to finish it, but if you're John Popadiuk, Bob Betor, Knapp Arcade, I'm a fan of your games, but I just fell short, which is a bummer because at high stakes, man, if you qualify for that, you already, you know, you get like 1400, 1500 bucks and then you make the top four, you get like 3000 and if you win, you get 15,000. It's just such a huge opportunity. So to make such a mistake, it probably cost me a good chunk of change. So my question is, is can you buy, because I've never played INDISC and I still don't, and hearing about the WAP-portunity that's there, I'm a little bit on the fence now and having played the Clark Park format at the UK Open, I at least know a little bit what I'm doing. So maybe in 2025 I'll go because it still sounds so hard for me. But my question is, is how many, so you get 10 entries for the high stakes and that's it, or can you buy in again? No, that's it. It's $500 one time try. Oh, yeah, that's but yeah, it is what it is. Yeah, I mean, it was Yeah, $50 an entry, essentially. But you could only do 10. And, you know, mentally, that just messes with me. Like, even if you could, like, you could have told me, hey, another $500, you can try another 10 times, even though I probably wouldn't do that, like, just knowing that it's possible, I bet I would play way better. I don't know, just relaxing, knowing that you have unlimited tries or the Potential for more tries. Right. I can see that. I can understand that brain's on for sure. Um, but, uh, yeah, if you want Whoppers, uh, INDISC, 200 and... I'm just looking at a random spot here. 240th place got 11 Whopper points, and that's more than, you know, winning a lot of small-town tournaments. So... I think 11 points would have made my card, because I think that's the bottom number now on my card. Yeah. So maybe it should have gone. Yeah, but then again, 250, if you know, it sounds easy. It's still tricky. You know, you gotta put a couple of games together. Yes, absolutely. And putting all the games together on the same card. So maybe next year. You should definitely go check out all of the streaming footage on IEPinball on Twitch. Uh, it was amazing. I was home a little bit that weekend. I did tune in. The, all the commentary did really great, especially with the high amount of traffic that Twitch provided. The Valley Company, Subsidiary of Walter Kidde & Co., Inc., Mirco Playfields, Tim Tim Kitzrow, Scott Danesi. No, not too much. I basically, actually, my qualifying strategy was I picked my five favorite games, I played them, I did pretty good, but I knew that I could do better. So I just played those five games again, and I did better. And then I qualified. And so I just kind of played what I knew. And I think that is a good strategy because you're going to be tempted by the shorter lines of other games or tempted by, you know, oh, maybe if I just do one of this kind of luck box game, John Popadiuk, Bob Betor, Knapp Arcade, I picked all my favorite Bally Williams games, you know, Judge Dredd, Terminator 2, and then Ripley's, one of my favorite games. So the bank was good to me, and I just stuck with my guns, and it worked out. Of course, on Sunday, I hadn't played a bunch of the games, which meant I was a little, you know, rusty. But honestly, the way I was playing in that second round, I don't think it mattered, because I was also stressing the high stakes that was ending in, you know, 20 minutes, and I was kind of split between those two things. And that's all the time we have for today. I hope you enjoyed this video. If you did, please subscribe to our channel and hit that notification bell so you don't miss out on any of our new videos. And if you haven't already, please do so by clicking the little bell icon on the top right corner. And I'll see you next time. Thanks for watching. Okay, so, Raymond, have you ever won a tournament without realizing you've won a tournament? Uh... I mean... I have. Not that I can recall. Oh, so, the week leading up to Women's State Championship here in Wisconsin, I didn't...I was the organizer for it, and I was very much into organizer mode, and I had not really touched a lot of games. I looked at some videos, I talked about a lot of pinball, things to the people that donated towards Wisconsin Women's State, all that kind of stuff, and doing all those things, but I really hadn't played. And we also had a lot of snow the weekend before, so it had spoiled my plans about trying to get some good time on games. So I had a good friend of mine that encouraged me to come up on that Thursday night to Tettletown Tap Room, Tettletown Brewery in, of course, Green Bay, Wisconsin. Now, I've never played that before. This has been going on for all of last year where it's like a cash kind of tournament. I really just play and I realized a couple of things from this tournament. One, I really just play at District 82 and I like to travel around and do stuff, but I really got to get back into playing some of the many other local tournaments that go on here in Wisconsin, either on the weekend or on a weeknight. This is hard because I have to travel about an hour to go to anywheres, but this was definitely worth it. So I got there and I didn't even know really the style of the tournament. I just assumed it was match play with finals. I knew that the top four got cashed out in the six pack of beer. I'm like, great. So I play all five games. My first game didn't go so great, but I took like all first and second. So I'm like, this is great. I'm playing hot. This feels good. I'm playing games that I've not played before, games that I haven't played in a long time. This is great practice. So I plug along, we get to, we're at, we finish the fifth round of match play and I'm standing there playing The Walking Dead, practicing for Women's State and all of a sudden they announced that I won the tournament. And I laugh, I laugh and laugh and laugh, like I'm such an idiot. I'm like, there are no finals? And they're like, and the guy, Dave Anderson, my pal, he's like, no, I don't, you know, I don't, I don't want to make it more complicated, any more complicated than this. And so I won $72 and a six pack of beer. It was great. Nice. But it was, it was really, but that really helped instill the confidence in me as a player that I can actually just walk in somewhere, play games I haven't played in a while or never played before, figure out the game. It's all the stuff that I needed going into women's state. So that felt really good. But I like to hear from people out there if anybody else has won a tournament without even knowing they won it. Or if it's just me. Maybe it's And that's just me, Raymond. I don't know. Well, sometimes, you know, there's the, like, you do a game, you know, high score wins at the end of the night sort of deal, and you'll play your game, and you don't know how good it is, and then it holds up, and you're like, oh, right. Yeah, exactly. So that was pretty cool. It was really good preparation for me, for sure. But there's one really important factor I want to talk about that tournament. It's I played Led Zeppelin, and it was a premium. Mmm. And yeah, and I thought of you. I always do when I play Led Zeppelin or Rosh or Foo Fighters. I always think of you, Raymond. I'm standing there playing it and it's been a while since I played one. There used to be one local to me at a bar that I played a whole bunch and then now there's a Star Wars premium there instead. But I digress. The Led Zeppelin premium, I forgot the game is fun. It's fun. I do like the, I don't know, the electric, the electric mayhem? That's not it. The electric magic? Electric Magic, thank you, that was close. I think I was talking about like Jim Henson there or something. Electric Magic Arch or whatever that comes up and the spinner and ripping it and opening the multiball there and whatever. It was great. So during that Titletown Tap Room tournament, that's a hard one to say, when I played that game, I had walk off as player three or as player four on ball three. That felt that's a story a while back the fact that I finished my high school football college football video as a один doing awards coach when I was just Granny Zuckerman chair said I'm family with your friends your they are willing to help bring upijitzman j이라는 a that's a story I love and as someone who plays you can probably erm lean a little bit on that I Sett Pro that's at Women's State, I should add that to my lineup because I do know how to play the game and I do like playing the game. Rigby. Oh no, everybody Rigby's here to say hello. Yay, Rigby! Yay, Rigby! But she'll cause a mess otherwise. There we go. Her back down. Okay, so I went on that... so we'll talk about Women's... Wisconsin Women's State North American Championship Series or whatever the long title of it is for, We'll talk about that first and then we'll get to you Raymond, okay? Raymond All right. All right. So, like I said before, I was the organizer for this and I will say that that definitely affected my gameplay. I organized it last year and this year and it's in as much as, and I had a tournament director, Mike Williams, he stepped up, a guy from Madison, the event was held at Nerd Haven in Madison. It was a great day at pinball. It's just hard to take off that organizer hat in a lot of different ways. And as much as great of a job that everybody else did, I think that some of that was also me being stuck in my head feeling like I also have to be a host or hostess. Even when players are leaving, I felt like I had to say goodbye to them and stop, you know, and like walk away from my game. I'm not able to be as compartmentalized as I would like to be in that type of situation. I feel like going into playing state championship, nationals, women's world championship, all those kind of things, or any type of finals, I feel like I need to figure out how to set myself, how do I want to phrase it, just be able to play more fire and ice, be more focused. I had a hard time choosing games because I just was not focused or I didn't have, maybe I didn't permit myself to have as much time, I thought I did, to practice beforehand. But whatever, even regard all of that, all of that stuff. I own it because as a player, you need to be able to shut out outside influence and other things that come up, et cetera, et cetera. Right? Yeah, it's hard to pick games and, you know, especially if you're like, well, I picked it, so I need to blow it up. And so if you don't, you feel like you bozoed. It's like, no, it just happened. You know, sometimes it doesn't work out. Sometimes it does. But as long as you feel you made a good choice, you know, it might not work out every time. And if you had done that 10 times and it worked out six or seven out of the 10, then you made the right choice. Right. So with Wisconsin Women's State as the rep at the time, I chose to, we had an option to play from a bank of games. Like a lot of people did choose to play from a classic, a mid and a modern game bank. At Nerd Haven, I permitted women to choose from all games there. There are 59 games, 57 of them were operable, and women had a good time choosing. So I think it made it harder to choose from the field, even though prior to that, I looked at the game list and when I was there, I pre-played the games that were on my list. I would have looked down to 12 and from there, I would have looked down to about eight. And I thought that was also still too many. I should have really picked the same six and played the same six over and over and over and over again. But I think that I was too nervous to do that because I either if I had a loss on the game that I thought was a sure thing I kind of freaked out. So here we go. The first person I played was Michelle Anderson and the very first game as a higher seed I deferred. I deferred in every single one of my matches so that the other player chose their game that they wanted to play first. Network Network Network Network Network Network Network Network If you get to choose first, you're guaranteed to play all of your games. Yeah, but I wasn't worried. That's a really good point. I didn't think about that at all. I just thought about taking the pressure off of me and putting the pressure on the other player. And that's totally fine. And like I said, Andy did it and he made it all the way to the Illinois finals. And I have been known to do that sort of thing. Like I will often defer if I want to, but I don't know, I just felt in this format. I was just scared that, you know, I wanted to make sure I played all my games. You lose the advantage. You lose the advantage otherwise. That's a good way to look at that. So I'm glad I did bring that up and talk about that. But yeah, I mean, either way is fine. Especially because if you do beat them on their game, now you're just so far ahead because now you are guaranteed to play all your games and you're ahead one. I'm a little ahead one, so it's actually, it's like a double down. It's like, you know, you're, if it works out, then you're just all of a sudden in a way better spot because, yeah, because you won on their game. Yeah. Now, when you said that you could choose from any games, did you have to pick an old, mid, and a new, or did you say you said, no, you can pick... Any available game. So, when you chose your three games up front, you could pick three moderns? If you so desired. Okay, wow. All right. I vote for Rachel for state. I like that. Oh no. Oh no, Raymond. I will not be organizing another state championship. Oh. That will not be happening. And also, I do not live in Illinois. True. Yeah. So, okay. Let's jump back here. So I go to play Michelle. And I knew that she was going to pick games that she owned. I just kind of figured that. I figured that and I know the games that she has because her and her husband love to host Ladies of Wisconsin for boot camps and so forth. So I've got to play her collection. So she takes me to Guns N' Roses first and I'm not going to lie, I was watching her during our practice warm-up period to see what games she was going to choose. So I did have a great warm-up game on it and I mostly know how to play GNR because you and I have talked about it before, about different things to do there. I was starting a little bit late, which is a good thing. And then I was just thinking, I'm going to play a little bit of this game. And so I was playing a little bit of a lot of Zephlyn, which is a good thing. And so I went to Led Zeppelin and I was able to win it and I won the game by I don't know by enough where I didn't have to play it all three. So that felt good. So then we went and then as my first choice, I went to Led Zeppelin because I figured, you know what? I have that nice big honking game earlier this week, let's go play. I was able to win it, but let me tell you, by the skin of my teeth. And that affected me later on. And maybe I should have chose it again because I really can play that game. And also, I don't think it was on competitive install because you didn't have to light your lock for the Zeppelin. Oh, that's nice. So, yeah, so I was like, this is great. So I don't know, you know, like, light a pick-a-mole that you like. Pick a mole with the shots that you like and go to town. So I was happy about that. So then she took me to Elvira's House of Horrors and I lost that game. I had just I just struggled getting the skill shot on there and I hadn pre it So from there I took her to Cyclone which I really liked that game It exciting I know your history with Cyclone Yeah. And Raymond, man, I lost Cyclone. It was not good. So I won two in a row. She won two in a row. I'm like, oh man, I don't even know. And I had a house ball where I, it was my fault because I lifted my flipper. I'm like, whatever. It just was, you know, it took a little, I took a little breather after that. And I'm like, okay, what do you want to play next? And she's like, game show. I'm like, what game is game show? And I'm like, um, oh, so I reached out. So I sent you a message. You responded later, which is okay. And, uh, but I wanted to give a shout out to Preston Curry and Joe Bear because I don't know if they were together or whatever, but they, uh, gave me a couple of tips on how to play that. The Valley Company, Subsidiary of Walter Kidde & Co., Inc., Mirco Playfields, Tim Tim Kitzrow, Scott Danesi. I'm going to play a game that I've never played in my life. And I had a big blowout game on that and that felt really good. So I was able to advance after beating Michelle. I had so much fun playing with her. I always have fun playing pinball no matter who I'm playing with. But I don't like playing against the ladies in Wisconsin anymore. It's really hard because I care about them as people too. It's that whole frenemies thing. So then I advanced to round two and I play against Lily Piazza. She's an Illinois player that came up to play. We go and play Twilight Zone as our first game. That game scares me, Raymond. I have such a hard time doing anything on that game, but I was able to get my clock millions going and I had a huge bonus and that's what helped me win the game. Nice! So you started the round off with a win and didn't even... you just played modes, not even a multiball. I just played modes, not even a multiball, that's right. So, and again here I had deferred to her to choose first. And then we moved to Walking Dead and I got jacked twice by the feed out of the pop bumpers and straight down the middle. Wow, so that was your game pick. You picked Walking Dead. That was my game pick. I did. Because I like my strategy on that and I like playing the game. I like games that you can nudge. You know, that's part of it too. But she just blew it up. She didn't, she, we both had, I think, one multiball, but I was too nervous to bring a mode into it, and that was my own fault. Because after the two horrific drains on ball one, ball two, I'm like, let's just get points. But it was okay. So we're 1-1, and we move to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles LE. I don't think I've ever played an LE of Turtles. So the feed and the plunge and all the things are so weird. I'm so used to playing a pro that like the ramps and the diverter and all this other stuff is going on. I tried my best but I just really couldn't get anything going. It wasn't even a close game. She really knows how to play that game and she just really just blew it up so she won. So now I'm down one. Two to one. Okay. All right. Here comes my secret strategy, okay? I played, I took her to the Sopranos. So I took her to the Sopranos and the reason for this is when I was practicing in warm-up, I noticed something interesting on this game. The drop down target for the lock shot, which I don't go for anyways, I just happened to, I wanted to test it, it immediately shot the ball to the left out lane. I play like three warm-up games and I have that happen I think three or four times from hitting it from the left flipper. So I thought, huh, that might be actually a critical advantage to somebody that might not know how to play the game and that they think that multiball might be the best way to go. They might get jacked by that drop down target. And guess what, Raymond? It happened on ball three. She was chasing after me and she hit that drop and it would immediately sail into the left out. Oh no, just airmailed it right over the left? Yep, absolutely. And so I know, so I felt like, okay, as a player, is that dirty to do? And I think the answer is no, because I think that's a good strategy. I've warmed up on the game. I try to crack the safe all day long, let's straight up the middle and you can usually re-catch the ball. That's usually, that was my strategy, how I played out the game. Yeah, I mean, you came with a plan and you practiced ahead of time and you put in the work. You deserve to get paid for that. Okay. Yes, I thought about that afterwards, but like that's any kind of strategy, as Carlos would say, free, right? Because it's like that's the strategy that you should be going into that like, if I know how this particular copy of the game plays, and something that I can remember and note about it, I guess it was totally an advantage. So from there, we went and played Spider-Man, but not the Spider-Man everybody thinks we would play. We went to go play the amazing Spider-Man. Oh boy. And I've never played that game before. And I'm like, look at this beautiful, it's a solid state, right? Look at this beautiful solid state that's just gorgeous. This is a game that's got, you know, double flippers on the right and it's got like weird little saucers up on top and drop downs that are super deadly right in the middle. I'm like, this looks like so much fun. And it was. It was. How do you play that game, Raymond? Can you tell me? I just know that there's, I think the A lane or the AB lane and then like the drops are good. I really, I haven't played it much. After watching her play her second ball, I think the drops are the multiplier, the bonus multiplier. But I had, I just decided we're just going to play the ball as long as we can and try to shoot safe shots. Yeah, so try to shoot it up the middle and once I had two drops down I tried to get another one You know that kind of thing and that was that was good and so that led to a win on that game So I'm feeling good. We're at three and two and Or we're at three and three. I had a fight back a little bit there. So here we are going to six games again So I take her to the one game you've told me you're not that I should tell you to never play and finals again Do you know what game that is? Remember? Attack from Mars Oh yeah! Because this copy there played so nice, like butter on a roll. It was gorgeous. So I had, I blew up a saucer. I think I blew up two saucers and she was right behind me and she ended up tilting out and I won the game. And she was such a great competitor. She hung out for a little bit with me outside, we chatted for a little bit. And I think of course we're coming up to play. It was so much fun, but it's very stressful trying to like choose those games. So I chose my first round, my second round, I chose my games wisely. So now here comes the problem. As I move on, now I know I'm in the final four. It's Becky Meyer, Cassidy, Milonowski, Dori, Ann, and myself. Now, if you don't know Dori, she's a player from Milwaukee. She is, she plays all the things, all the things, and I love that because she just wants And I think most people would agree. So, so I'm going to my third match against Dori. And I decided to pick Demolition Man and Sopranos and I chose Cyclone again. And Cyclone, I really should have, I chose that as the third game and I probably should have picked Led Zepp or picked something else. I could have picked Amazing Spider-Man again there as well. But you have to pick them ahead of time, right? Yes, correct. And so, because you're declaring the games before you even go to play. And so I picked Demoman, she picks Iron Maiden, I picked Sopranos, she picks Godzilla. I picked Cyclone, she picks Medieval Madness. Well, we go, I defer, and which was now was not so good, Raymond, because I didn't get to play that other game of mine. I kind of got busted that way. So we go to, yep, so we go to our first game is Medieval Madness, and I just cannot get anything rolling on that game. And she had a great game, she won it, and I was very happy for her. So we go to Demolition Man. Now I did not play this game. I played a couple warm-up games and I didn't pick it earlier, but I really liked this game. I owned one for a long time. And this one I felt like the triggers were really weak, or the handles or triggers, guns were very weak. So I used the flipper buttons themselves. And I thought that was a huge advantage. I felt like I made every shot and I had a great game on that. So from there, now I was terrified Dory was going to pick Godzilla or Venom because I know she's a very skilled player, both of those. And she chose Godzilla. I had an okay game, but she just had a better one. You know, sometimes it's just the way it is. Yeah. So after that, I'm like, well, do I go play Cyclone or Sopranos? What should I do? And I chose Ron. I chose Cyclone thinking it's my girl, you know. I've had great games, even this one. I had found the skill shot before. We're in good shape. Nope, I should have chosen Sopranos because I went up to play Cyclone and I got not one, not two, but three house balls. Three. Three house balls. Three in a row? Yes. And I would say two, the first two were my fault where it just, um, it dribbled down at the bottom of the flipper. The one I had my flipper up and the other one I had my flippers down. It just went down the middle. And the other one, it was like a sling to the right out lane. And that was it. And I shook that game pretty hard, I'm not going to lie. I was pretty frustrated. And Dori just looked at me and I looked at her and I walked outside, because now I've lost, I've won one and she's won three. And I go outside and I took a nice long walk in the parking lot in the 12 degree Carl Weathers and I had to calm down. I didn't swear, I didn't yell, I didn't curse or anything, but I really had to calm down because I wanted to go play and I knew her next game was going to be Iron Maiden. And I still thought that would be good for me because that game and I are pals. Nope, didn't work out. She just had better games. She's just so dialed in in terms of knowing, I think she's got a better, Dori has a better rule set than I do, bigger knowledge base, those kind of things. Yeah. But anyway, I was very excited. So she got, she had a plan and she basically stuck to it, you know, picked Iron Maiden, knew what, you know, got the multiballs, got the modes, all that goodies. Yep, all the things, yeah. I was just gonna say, I'm just realizing now that, um, deferring or not deferring actually doesn't end up mattering, it's more of a mental thing anyway, because if you wanted, if you lose on your own game, you're, you're in trouble either way. John Popadiuk, Bob Betor, Keith Elwin, Laser Los, Bowen Kerins, Lyman F. Sheats Jr.., orbit ramps, Automated Amusements, Python Anghelo, Joe Kaminkow, Tim Tim Kitzrow, Scott Danesi. Sure. Maybe if you're playing your game under pressure, you don't do as well or, you know, who knows? Yeah, but I still, what I did wrong there is instead of playing Cyclone, I should have played Sopranos because I knew about that issue with that drop target. Oh yeah, you could have got, yeah. Yeah, and I knew how the game fed from the pops. I knew all of that. Maybe that would have been different, but coulda, woulda, shoulda, even. So I was so happy because I came in top four and I was very, very, very happy and excited for Dori to go play against Cassidy. Cassidy went the whole day undefeated. She shut out Dori 4-0 and won the tournament. Did she get any losses? None. Just 4-0, 4-0, 4-0? I believe so. Nobody could beat her the whole day. Wow. And it's interesting because I really wanted to meet her again in the final two because I know that I could have given her a loss. I'm not going to be giving her a loss. Yeah, you've done it before, you can do it again. I can do it again. And I will say that Dori, I do want to say that she, her, she played the same six games all day long. Basically, Medieval, Godzilla, and Iron Maiden, those were her games she chose all day long. She came within 100,000 points of beating Cassidy at Medieval Madness. And maybe like 20 million. It was a very close game on the shadow that Cassie picked. So Dorian was right there knocking on the door, you know. Cassie is an incredible player, so congrats to her. She goes to Nationals at Wizards World in March. And she will also be playing Women's World Championship the next day, as will I. So we'll see how tired she is the next day or not, but it should be a really, there's gonna be a lot of women that qualify that won their state and will be playing Women's World the next day as well. So it should be very interesting in terms of endurance, because as we know, pinball can be quite a physical sport. So that's interesting. So this year, the winner of the women's states are going to play the day before the women's worlds? Yes. So we'll have a national playoff. I think it's that Thursday and then maybe Thursday, Friday, and then qualifying for women's world Saturday with finals on Sunday. I think that's how they're doing it. Are you going to be at the women's worlds? Oh, hell yeah, Raymond. I qualified as 12th woman overall last year. All right. Yeah, so I can talk pinball and believe it or not, sometimes I can play it. So you'll get your chance to get revenge on Cassidy and Fort Wayne. Oh, I have every Tilton Tuesday to get my revenge on Cassidy. Nah, it's not even like that. You know, she's my pal too and I'm really happy for her. She came dialed in, hyper-focused, and she wanted to win. So I'm really happy for her. Just before we get into switching to talking about Illinois State Open, I just want to say also thank you to all across the world, I guess, to all the tournament directors, organizers, scorekeepers, people that open up their game collections, the techs, the people that donated or anybody that helped to make the state championships for Open Edwomens happen because it is an awful lot of work. I'm going to say it's been a while since I've said this Raymond, but if you travel and you're going to go play something, I always encourage you to try to volunteer or, you know, look for the volunteers and see if they need anything because, you know, it really takes a community to make all those things happen. Yes, thank you to all of our tournament director friends. Yeah, all those people doing the doing the IPA things. So I think the only other thought I had about that actually before I throw it to you is it was very hard to play being the only person in the team that was able to play the tournament. I'm so excited to be the organizer and I want to give a shout out to all the people that do that and then they go play their state championships as well. I was happy. Oh, you know, we didn't even finish. I played out for fourth place. Oh, how'd that go? Well, I played against NotGood for third and fourth place. Becky Meyer, we played, she chose Foo Fighters. I chose Lost World, which was a mistake. I should have chose Orbiter One. That would have been a great game to play. Because like the bronze match or whatever, you know, to me, it's fun. It was more like fun. But Becky and I had a good time playing. She won both games and shut me out. It was fine. And I took fourth. And I'm really happy with that considering all the other stuff and outside noise that was going on that day. I'm really happy with the way that I played. Did you get out of hardware? I did. Nice. And it's the best thing is when, because as the organizer, I chose to have trophies made for second, third, and fourth, and also some key chains to commemorate the day for all players. But the trophies are really cool. It's almost like a little mini play field. If you do not know who Jim Dietrich is of Cauldron Falls Trading Company, this is my plug for him. He makes, he's great to work with. He custom makes the most amazing trophies, hands down. I think that is, oh, and I think that's everything. I don't know. It's all bungled there, but I know if anybody knows, this is like, you know, the sloppiest, one of the sloppier podcasts anyways, right? Yeah, we get it done. We get it done. That's right, Raymond. Thank you for that. Okay, now let me throw it to you. I want to hear all about your travels. And actually, what I want to start with is why did you choose to play Illinois? Because you're qualified to play in several different states. I chose because it's like 10, 12, 15 minutes from my apartment. Well, that makes sense, but also like do you think about like the other people that are going to have to play? I mean you knew you're going to play Andy Baywell or some other really great players. Well, I was also, I think Illinois was my highest state, so it made sense. Okay. I mean, technically I was higher in New York, but it didn't matter in Illinois because the second seed chose a different state. So I was basically second in Illinois, which is very helpful because it means that I wouldn't have to play the one seed until the finals, which is Andy. So you can really want to be high ranked, assuming everyone else is also doing what they're supposed to do, because it's nice because I got to have Andy kind of, you know, take out all the players on his side of the bracket before meeting up with me. And in that way, I don't meet an early exit to Andy. Sure. So the seating can really matter. So that's why you should usually, usually play in the, in the state your highest seated in, but not always. Okay. Sometimes there's some sharks lurking in those lower seats, especially if they're coming from out of state and they just want to see if they can run the gauntlet. So you gotta, you gotta look at your brackets and, and kind of choose accordingly. Okay. Interesting. I'm always, I love, what I love about pinball, I'm always learning and like, I love this, I'm really trying to get into the strategy of playing these more complicated and higher payout kind of tournaments. I appreciate that. So where you had a buy round, that's how you started then? Yes. Yep. So I basically spent round one trying to get the stream working and try to record the matches of people I was there for like eight hours the day before trying to build this mobile rig and get all the wireless things to work and get everything to work And let me tell you, I was, oh my goodness, I thought it was never going to work. Things were so flaky, they kept working and then not working, and I was, I didn't know what to do. So eventually it was 1 a.m. I was like, I just got to go home and hope it all works tomorrow. And let me tell you, Rachel, I got there at 930. I plugged everything in, I turned it on, and everything worked. And it was a miracle. Yay! It's just kind of like one of those things where you cross your fingers. Yeah, I know that raydaypinball was streaming that. I saw that. And I'm curious because I was curious if there was the pressure for you just streaming. Yeah, I mean, honestly, that kind of felt like my first priority was making sure the stream was all good. Right, exactly, because you're trying to assist and help the other players in doing that, so I think that's very natural for us both to feel that way. Interesting. Yeah, so luckily that sort of went pretty well. There was a little hiccup at the beginning and then a little hiccup at the end, but we got through it. So that's all on YouTube if you want to watch it. And, uh, yeah, so my first round after the bye, uh, was against Jane, who, you know, Jane, she's a local Chicago player. Oh, and Jane is also, you know, number one woman. I think she's still number one woman in women's division in the world. And I think she won the women's state on the next day as well. She sure did. And she, and she won the women's at INDISC as well. So she has been on a roll, on fire. On fire. And let me tell you, she, you know, that she got to play in the first round and I think she was warmed up because when she came to me, she was playing lights out. We started on Gorgar and we both kind of, you know, middle of the road games. My very first plunge of the day on Gorgar, straight to the right out lane. I'm like, oh, that's not a good... Oh, not good. No, no! Oh, but I managed to make it happen on balls two and three. I, you know, I put up maybe 200 something thousand. Jane got up to about 100. It was just being very mean. And so then after Gorgar, we went to, what did she pick? She picked, I know she picked Elton John, because she wanted to play Elton John. She picked Elvis, because it was a goofy game and it was considered a mid. So she wanted, she picked Elvis. And she picked Space Time as her old, which was another game that she hadn't really played and thought was cool and it was brought in for the tournament. So I think after El- Gargar, maybe we went to Elton John perhaps, and I was able to, you know, start Croc Multiball and just kind of send it around a bunch and that was enough. I don't really know the game that well. I just knew how to get the multiballs, so that's what I did. That's doing it right. I have no idea how to play it, so that's doing it right, absolutely. Yeah, so then we went to Iron Maiden. I'm trying to think what my other picks was. It was, I picked Iron Maiden, Gorgar, and ACDC. Oh, I think we went to ACDC, and I just was dialed in I'm a fan of ACDC. I hit a bunch of ramps, got a bunch of multiballs, you know, got like a million. Everything was going my way on ACDC. And unfortunately for her, things were not going her way on ACDC. It just kind of just was punishing. You just, you know, sling out sort of situation. Yeah. So I'm feeling pretty good. I'm up 3-0, right? Well, if you look at our bracket, you'll notice I ended up advancing 4-3. So how does that happen? Wow. Well, she turned it on. She turned it on, let me tell you. So then we played Space Time and she was really good at hitting that center target and getting the up post and just keeping it alive and collecting over and over again the tunnel value. I was not. I just kept draining in weird ways and also not, I kept missing that target and then when I finally did hit it, the post would go up in the middle and I would react in a way that was, you know, I should have just not flipped, but instead I like panic flipped and it was just not a good situation. So, I actually was losing to the plunge player after three balls. That was kind of embarrassing because they did players one and three so that you couldn't tilt through. I don't know if you've ever done that on any of your games where... No. Yeah, so they, on the older games, since they can tilt through, you start a four-player game but you only play as players one and three and you plunge the other two players so that way if you tilt through you're tilting through to nobody. I think I saw that on a D82 stream. It was pin masters or something. Yeah, that sounds about right. Okay. And yeah, I was losing to the plunge player after three balls. Oh, Raymond! So my first goal was to beat that person, which I did achieve. I did achieve. Yay! So she took space time and then we went to my Iron Maiden. And I was a little shaky on Maiden, Pinterest is best known for its That's right, so after I did my second ball that was okay, she had this blow up second ball where I don't even know, I should have been watching, but I literally turned around and was like checking on the stream, you know, checking things out. I come back and she's at like 250 million just from, I'm like, whoa, did you do all the things or whatever? And she's like 3x scoring with trooper, you know, just like crazy town. I was like, damn, okay, so I'm going into ball three down 200 million. And I start some things, start mummies, start aces, start my trooper, do some stuff, but just fall short, just don't quite get there. So, I mean, I would have had to go past her because she was player two. So she was dialed in, she took Maiden from me. And so now I'm like sweating a little bit. I'm like, okay, I just lost two games in a row. So, we're going to play a couple of games in a row. So, then we went to, what were the games? Oh, Elvis. So, then we go to Elvis, and she's doing pretty good. I'm not doing that great. She ends up starting this mode with double scoring, and the mode is called the King of Rock and Roll. Have you ever played Elvis? Yes, I have. So there's this mode where you hit those king targets in the middle of the playfield. And the mode's pretty good. You know, it scores, I think it counts down from 5 million and every time you hit one it's like, you know, 5 million, 4 million, 3 million or whatever. But she had double scoring running and she shot it up there and hit like two targets at once, came down, two targets at once. She got like 28 million points in like three seconds. And I was like, oh, okay, that's the mode right there. So she crushed that mode and then she also played a couple multiballs, she did a bunch of stuff. So she had like 58 million, I have like 8 million going into ball three. I managed to start a couple multiballs, string some stuff together, and unfortunately my ball three drained the same way her ball did and my ball two, which is just this pop rocket down the middle, like from downtown, like all the way from the top of the playfield director Karl Nitzer struggled with the invention of PIN and BLP, It was the fifth point in the rotator cuff offer of this년 And you can pick whatever you want. And so I... The ultimate murder match. Yeah. The game seven, the ultimate one. Yes. And so I picked Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles... You did? ...as my secret weapon. Interesting. Yes. Was it a premium, a pro, or an LE? It was a pro. They used to have a premium there, but they since swapped it out for a pro. And yeah, I just, I felt confident on Turtles because I owned one for a while, and I kind John Popadiuk, Bob Betor, Keith Elwin, Laser Los, Bowen Kerins, Larry K. Sheats Jr., And yeah, it all worked out. So I skirted through. Yeah, awesome. I think that's amazing pinball when you have to go six or seven games. I think it's great because it means that you're equally matched. I mean, it's stressful. Yes, absolutely as a player. I don't ever want to play another thing like this again because it's so stressful, but I will. But at the same time, like, when you're able to have a competitor that takes you that far, it actually is, I think, a very good feeling versus getting shut out before. Well, I was just sad that one of us was getting eliminated after that. I feel like, can we both move on? Yeah! I love that, Maiman. I love that. So that was round, that was my round one, already thrown into the fire. And yeah, so then, let's see, and then I played... I've played... Oh, Zach Sharp. You know him? I've met that guy once or twice. Yeah, and so Zach Sharp was also difficult. He also chose Space Time, which I did nothing on, and he did very well. Let's see, what else did we play? Oh, I did absolutely nothing on ACDC. It was the complete opposite of my last ACDC game. Oh no! I got like four million or something. It was very embarrassing. That's awful. That's really bad. I never made a shot. I just could not. Yeah. And it was kind of like in my head, like every time I would miss the shot, you know, I'd be like, Oh, why can't I find that shot? And then the next time I would take the shot, I'm like, Oh, you're gonna miss it again. And then I did. And it's just I couldn't get I was just off by like a millimeter. And every time just couldn't quite figure out what was going on there. So that was, that was sad, but I shook it off. Let's see, what else did we play? I didn't pick Maiden because I I was like, well, I guess I'm not as confident on Maiden as I thought. Zach picked Terminator 3, which he just crushed, and he kind of taught me kind of a different way of playing it. So I always played it, you know, multiball first, maybe go back to a second multiball, play some RPGs, do some other things. He was just laser focused on nothing but left and right ramps to get payback time and also work his inlanes to light the left orbit to get to assault. Okay. And that's all he did was just left right ramp, got to assault and got like a hundred and something million. I came back on my ball three kind of imitating his strategy and it was all going according to plan. I was up to like 60, 70 million getting there and then one left orbit shot instead of shooting left orbit, I'm a fan of the show, but I shot a little early and hit this little target and just down the middle and I was like, oh, no, I guess that's over. Oh, no. So now are you down? So now you're down three? Well, those were my three losses. Yeah. And I don't remember the order because I did win. That's okay. His modern pick was Jurassic Park and he just had a not a great game. And I also was not having a good game. But on my ball three, I was able to start Raptor. I got, I needed the two jackpots to pass him. I shot the one jackpot and then I could not hit the other jackpot for the life of me. I come out of Raptor and I'm short like eight million, nine million points. And I'm like, what the heck do I do for these, these nine million points? And I'm just like scrounging for scraps. Yeah, right. Just shooting the spinner, shooting the spinner, shooting the rescues that I have, you know, just trying to get anything. I think eventually I started a control room mode and made a shot and then it was fine, but it was sketchy there for a while. If I would have just hit that right ramp in Raptor, I would have been fine. So that was the game I took off of him, and then I also took the... let's see... He picked Space Time, Terminator, and Jurassic. I picked ACDC. FHSU, Toys for expo 2019 And so it was really, it was like 70,000 to 50,000. It was not spectacular. Okay, sure. So I won Dolly, I won Jurassic, he won ACDC, he won Space Time, he won Terminator 3. I'm trying to think, what was the other game? So I picked, oh, Dialed In, of course. So I picked Dialed In as my modern. Okay. Okay. And I, uh, I didn't have a spectacular game, but I did, I did enough. I, uh, basically I, um, well, the game started off, I picked Alien Invasion where you have to hit this roving shot and then it lights all the shots. And I kept miss- mistiming the roving shot. Like I missed it like eight times. And by the time I finally hit it, there was only like five seconds left of the mode. And so then I like, you know, rapidly comboed like four or five shots, trying to get as many points as possible. I didn't end up beating that mode, but you know, I got some points on the board and then eventually I started another mode, which is Meteor Storm, and I stacked that with multiball, which you can do by double flipping to cancel the multiball so that it lets you light a mode. So when you lock your ball, if you double flip a bunch, instead of lighting multiball, the phone will just turn back to being a phone. Now, if you drain in this state, then on your next ball, you have to play multiball. So I risked it a little bit because I wanted to start Meteor Storm, which is the target mode. So I stacked that with multiball, beat the mode, and then once multiball was over, I just spent the rest of the ball trying to get the SIM card. And eventually I actually did get it. I hit the shot, I got it, and so I got about 500,000 points or so before I drained. And that was enough. So that's that. I always love dialed in. And our venue had so many good moderns that it was tough because you could only pick one. And so... Right. I agree. Oh, yeah. It's hard then. Yeah. Because how do you narrow it down? How do you narrow the field down to just... How do you pick just three games? How do you do that? I don't know. Yeah, it's hard. It's hard. Very hard. So that's... Yeah, so now we're tied 3-3. We're going into game seven and I pull the turtle's parachute again. Oh, boy. And this time it does not go as well. I do not get dialed in. I play both my multiballs and they both sucked. I had like four million, five million points without any, yeah, after both multiballs. Zach had about 15 or 16, so he did okay. He had 15 or 16 mil. I'm player one, stepping up, ball three, nothing lit, and I'm just like, alright, I guess I just gotta play modes and hope for the best. And I somehow played three modes on that same ball, got to team up. And because I, because your team up has different perks based on if you beat the modes. And because I played those modes and I was trying to beat them because I didn't, you know, if you beat a mode, it goes away and now you can work towards your next mode. Right. And so I was really focusing on trying to beat those modes. Was Honestly, like I came out of Team Up and I was just so like, you know, oh, that was awesome. And then I instantly drained. I'm like, oh crap. I should have, I could have gotten like another 20 million if I would have, you know, I was so excited. But, uh, yeah, so I lost focus for just a second there, but Zach steps up and after going from a plunge off, essentially, now he's looking like he needs to double his score. John Popadiuk, Bob Betor, Keith Elwin, Laser Los, Bowen Kerins, Lyman F. Sheats Jr.., orbit ramps, Automated Amusements, Python Anghelo, Joe Kaminkow, Tim Tim Kitzrow, Scott Danesi. All right, so then you go to your final boss that you have to battle. Second final boss. Second final boss, sorry. Lot of rounds, yeah. So I'm going against Mike Pantoliano, which I have played in Seattle before. He used to be a Seattle player before he moved to Chicago, and so I knew exactly how good he was, and I can't really remember what happened. I think he started off pretty rough. Will Biener, Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah, I did not. I got no millions. In fact, my balls, two of my balls drained from hitting the drop target down the middle. Nice. I was just like, oh, okay, all right. So what do you learn? So let's pause there. What do you learn from that? Did you hit? What do you learn? If you're catching the ball, you're taking the shot, you're hitting the drop and it goes straight down the middle, am I hit? What do you learn? I don't get that. John Popadiuk Bob Betor Keith Elwin Laser Los Bowen Kerins Lyman F Sheats Jr orbit ramps Automated Amusements Python Anghelo Joe Kaminkow Tim Tim Kitzrow Scott Danesi Are you ready for it to come back and do some crazy move Yeah I don know Or just hit it a little bit differently I not sure but it did not matter thankfully because he literally rolled the game So he was back. He was on fire. He was... So then we... Oh, I picked Turtles this time. I made a joke as we were picking games. I'm like, I picked Turtles. I don't know. I don't have confidence I'll make it to game seven, so I'm going to pick it as one of I'm like, three games. That's really funny. That's really funny. And I did okay. I didn't like super blow it up. I had a good enough score. But then he was coming back and he had a weird sort of malfunction. We think what happened is he had two balls locked for ninja multiball. He started turtle power multiball. And during the chaos of turtle power multiball, we think one of the balls got loose from the Garyujemy милли And so now he's down to just one ball, which was fine. You know, now he could have started multiball, but I think he was just so confused by it all that it just really threw him off and he drained a couple shots later. Oh, so, you know, that's the kind of thing. And, you know, he asked Andy for a ruling and it's not really any ruling other than I'm sorry. It's yeah, the game. It was a game malfunction. And it didn't end his ball. It never ended his ball. The Winning Pinball Show, Knapp Arcade, Bally Williams, Straight Down the Middle, Bally Williams, Get yourself back in the moment. Keep playing hot. You know, whatever's going on. It's very hard. Yeah, so then we went to Trident and we both just blew it up. Like, we both had great Trident games and I was player two. And, you know, I was ripping spinners, doing bonus things, and then I died on Trident. I think it was one of those up the write-in lane and then out sort of situations. Oh, sure. Oh, sure. Mm-hmm. And I made the decision not to try to nudge it, and as I watched it drain and count up the bonus, I passed him by like 10,000 or something short. And so... Wow. It was a dramatic countdown. Crazy. I think all the games starting with my Zach Sharp match are on the stream, so you can watch for yourself. There was also an epic game with Andy on Elton John. He put up like a billion against Nick Wayna. It was disgusting. Yeah, he got like the wizard mode. Oh man, yuck. Oh man. Yeah, so Trident allowed me to move on to the final boss of Andy Bagwell. And yeah, so we played Dolly. Again. Again. And what's that? Because this was the same final two last year, correct? These are theped Morten N無 projectors for All Seems Obsession fasting same ! all is well Together we are one A fan presents The Valley Company, Subsidiary of Walter Kidde & Co., Inc., Mirco Playfields, Tim Tim Kitzrow, Scott Danesi. This game was probably an hour and a half. Oh. And Andy beat the game, I think on ball one. Oh my god! Yeah. On ball one. On ball one. He got all the way through assault, all the way to final battle, all that stuff. I don't remember what I did on ball one, probably not much, but... Right. All I know is ball three I come in and he has 280 million and I have like... Wow. I have, you know, not, nothing. And 280 million, that's so many points on that game. It takes so long. So I honestly was checked out. I was like, I mean, I guess I'll try, but like, this is gonna take forever. And well, I did try. And I basically just shot ramps until I got to my assault. Yep. I got the assault. I played like the best assault ever. Like I played it for a while, and I still only had like 100 million. And so then... That's so frustrating! That had to be frustrating because you knew you just did all the things, you got there, and then you had this great frickin' multiball, you did all these things, and then you looked up at the score and you were like, I'm not even halfway there! Yep. So then I was like, okay, what do I need to get to the wizard mode? Because if Andy beat it, I need to beat it. And I realized I blew my super jackpot, so I was like, okay, so I need to go to regular multiball, I need to make sure I get a super jackpot. And so I did that, shot the drop target, a bunch, got the locks, got the multiball, and got the super. So then I played Final Battle, and I was like one second away from losing. I'm pretty sure it was at zero, and I just like sent balls up the middle hoping one of them would go in, The Stanley League Finals January 31, 2015 I had a win in the finals and I hit two million after that for the game. That was a good game. It needed to go away. It wouldn't have been a good game. It couldn't have been a good game. It was a good game. It was a good game. It was a good game. I was playing a game called the Victory multiball. I was trying to get a win in and it barely got in, beat the game, and started the victory multiball, which was where all the points were at. So then I got to play the victory multiball for like a hundred million. I come out of that and I'm at like 240, 250. It was just like that turtle scenario where I was just, I wasn't focused. I should have just said to myself, all right, one more multiball and I'm good. But I just, I didn't have a plan. I was just like, just kind of dazed and confused and I just drained like almost immediately after I came out of that. So almost, almost got there. An hour later, back, back at the pinball farm. You know, like that's, that's like, that's crazy to come back that far. I'm going to go back and watch that game because I think that's how, and I probably, I'll probably I skipped ahead a little bit. Yeah. But like, you know, it's like an hour and a half. Who wants to watch that? But I think it'd be fascinating to go back and watch that because I've never seen the final, I've never seen the game be beaten before. So it'd be really interesting to watch that. Yeah. That's insane. So after an hour and a half later, you lose your second game, your first game, but the second game you played. Got it? Yeah. Uh, let's see. What was it? Oh, actually, I think it was, you know, uh, so he picked Elton John, Terminator 3, I picked ACDC, Dolly, and Turtles. We played Turtles and Rachel, after two balls, I had 7,000 points. Oh my gosh! What happened? Well, ball one, I full plunged and tried to catch it, and instead I just like perfectly sent it into the right out lane. Like, by one flip, somehow, just perfect, right out lane. And then ball two, I short plunge, I try to catch it. I try to catch it, but it kind of slips away a little bit, so then I kind of defense it, and I shoot it into a slingshot into the out lane. Oh no! Andy, meanwhile, is doing all the things. He's got, you know, maybe 18 million or whatever. My ball three, I'm like, okay, well. I short plunge, I make sure I get the ball. Good job. I backhand the turtle power ramp to start turtle power multiball. And I have probably one of the best turtle powers where I, you know, I got some jackpots, I got some supers. I got the attaball at the last second, which is crazy because you have to hit, you have to hit all four turtles to get the attaball. You have to hit the the lair shot, the left ramp, the van and the side ramp, and then that lights the right ramp for an attaball. Wow, that's a lot of work. Yeah, so I did that, and so now I've got another three balls. I'm going, I'm going, I'm going. Then all of a sudden I notice my attaball's lit again, but a ball's draining down the, down the right, and I have the other ball, and I'm like taking a shot, and I'm like, okay, if I, you know, just try to hit this attaball, resurrect it, and I miss the ramp, it was a four-hand shot, so already dangerous, right? Yes, correct. But I miss the ramp and just it powers and joins the other ball in the right out lane and double drain. Triple drain. Double drain, triple drain, double drain. Oh, and it would have been so good if I would have got that out of all. It would be so good. And then I still hadn't played my van multiball like it was gonna happen. But it didn't. It didn't happen. So those things do happen. Yeah. So then there was also the Elton John game where Andy just, he just kind of flubbed it like on ball one just kind of the weird Jersey Jack flippers he tried to do. The Valley Company, Subsidiary of Walter Kidde & Co., Inc., Mirco Playfields, Tim Tim Kitzrow, Scott Danesi. plasticfinstac情况ès Frog Summer Uh politikخ SUBSCRIBE I had a big advantage against him because I lit Rocketman, but I deliberately didn't start it and I kept doing other things and then I filled up my fuel and so when I did start Rocketman it had another ball in play, it had longer ball save, more scoring, everything was all good. And I just, you know, I put up maybe 150 million or something, which was pretty good for El and John. But Andy just didn't, didn't quite pull it together. You know, had some outlay drains. He had some big saves, though, like, like huge. Oh, that's right. Ball two, he tilted because he did a big save and must have forgotten about it or something. Because then he got that third, you know, tilt with just like a little, little flick, like, like trying to, you know, do something in the middle a little too much. And so that ruined his ball too. And then ball three, he just had an unfortunate left out lane, you know, consume the ball. So, so I got, I got lucky to get Elton John on that one. And I won. Well, I didn't win anything. That was Yeah, I won Elton John. He won Turtles. He won T3. I won Dolly. So we're 2-2. I think it happened in a different order, because I know I was up 2-0. I won I think I won Dolly and then I went out Elton John and then I think I won then I think I won ACDC as well so I think I was up 3-0 because I know Andy was saying how embarrassed he would be if if yeah because we actually offered to split the prizes you know we were saying when we started the match hey first gets this much second gets this much do you want to just both get the same amount since the winner gets to go to nationals anyway and oh yeah Yeah, so we were like, sure. That's interesting. Yeah, so that way, less pressure, right? You're getting money either way. Yes, for sure. And so when I was up 3-0, he was like, man, I was going to feel bad about that split, you know, if I go out 0-4, like, I feel like I just robbed you of your money. But no, I did win ACDC where I had, that was an interesting game because I was able to I had like 150 million. He's coming back on ball three. He has 60 something million. He has the opportunity to hit a song jackpot for 13 million and he says no. And so he realized he needed to keep building that song jackpot, get a 3x scoring, get a triple song jackpot, and he could have passed me because he knew exactly how many points The Valley Company, Subsidiary of Walter Kidde & Co., Inc., Mirco Playfields, Tim Tim Kitzrow, Scott Danesi. For our, it ended up being our final game because just like in the previous round against Mike, uh, my ball three, so Andy, Andy had a good ball one, he had a good ball two, his ball three unfortunately was not good. It, uh, so you know how Trident has those little kickers that kind of ping pong the ball back and forth? Yes. And those actually give you bonus every time. So if you just get the ball to kind of bounce around a little bit, you're gonna get like 30, 40 thousand. He somehow had a ball that just dodged everything, didn't hit any kickers, no bonus, no nothing, just outlaned. Oh, and on ball one, he told me he drained with the special, which is 100k. So he had this strategy of, see, I was doing the spinner strategy where you hit the targets and then shoot the spinners. He was doing the drop target bonus X strategy where you hit the drop targets and then eventually the drop targets will light for special. So, it ended up working out that my strategy worked out because he didn't make it all the way to the end. He had it lit when he drained, whereas spinner points are points now and not later. So, I like spinner points. Me too. I do too. But it almost worked out, but it didn't. So, going into ball three, he has a bad ball three, but he's still ahead. He's ahead by about 50,000. And so my ball three, I just plunge it and I'm just like in total defense mode. Just see ball, hit ball, just get me anything. And I just wanted the ball to do its little dance and oh man, Rachel, it danced. It just ting, ting, ting, ting. I got like my bonus built up. Everything was, you know, I didn't even have to hit very many shots. The game kind of just played itself. You set the ball where it needed to go. Yeah, but then the crucial thing was, just like last round, I did an up and out the right out lane, and I decided not to try to save it. The bonus counted up, and it stopped short, but then I had 2x, and then it did its second lap and then passed him, so it was a very dramatic finish. Yes. Oh, wow. I like Trident. I like that game a lot. Oh, I do too. The more I play it, the more I like it. Thank you for joining us. We're so happy to be here. We're so happy to be here. Congratulations. You had some epic battles, epic battles. Oh, it was great. It was a fantastic day of pinball. Yeah, mine too. It really was. And I'm not disappointed at all that I wasn't able to advance to play Cassidy, but I do know that as a player, I can play better. You know, and I think that's part of it too. It drives me to try harder for next year. I think that it was a great day of pinball for a lot of people. So, there's some upsets in different states and provinces where people won. But congratulations to all the winners. Yeah. Congrats, everybody. It's such a great time. It's the Super Bowl of pinball or, you know, it's like every everything going on at once. There's so many streams happening. Oh, it's just a fantastic day. Absolutely. My only other thing I think I want to add there is I think my strategy for next year is a little bit different. I'm going to try to punch my ticket to play a women's state in another state. And I can do that by, I think, playing a good quality tournament wherever I decide to travel. So I'm going to see and play around with that. I traveled a lot last year, but I didn't play a lot of big tournaments. But this year I've got a couple other things on my mind that I want to go play in different areas. So we'll see. Stay tuned. Ooh, exciting. Stay tuned. So I think I'll see you next the winter 3x at District 82? Yeah. Are you signed up? I will be there. That's February, right? Yeah, I think sometime in February. Well, that'll be exciting. Yeah, that's a circuit event. So get your Stern Pro Circuit Points if that interests you. Otherwise, just come play some pinball up there. Yeah, and that's also awesome because he's going to do it as a divisional event. Oh, fun. Yeah, he doesn't normally run those. So it'll be A and B division, that kind of thing. And I think there's still spots, so come on down. Well, hopefully this gets posted before the event happens. Oh yeah. District 82 Arcade. I think it's just district82.com. It's district82pinball.com, I think. I don't know. But you can Google it and Facebook it. Everybody knows what I'm talking about. Oh yeah. And that's everything. And everybody knows it. Yeah, it's district82.com. All right. There you go. And that's everything I got. What about you, Raymond? I think that's it. Yeah. I think that's it. Yeah. I think that's it. Yeah. I think that's it. Yeah. Alright, well nice job playing and I'll talk to you soon. Alright, happy flipping! Happy flipping! It's Raymond and Rachel, Rachel and Raymond, tournament pinball is what they really know. It's Rachel and Raymond, Raymond and Rachel, giving all of the info for the travels we go. It's like free college and the sharing the knowledge, so if you don't listen you won't know. It's the Raymond Show. _(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_ --- *Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: 7ab3fef0-62af-46c0-89e3-1bd7a6b1af11*