# Actually Not Sponsored

**Source:** NYC PinPod  
**Type:** podcast_episode  
**Published:** 2024-12-09  
**Duration:** 47m 33s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://www.spreaker.com/episode/actually-not-sponsored--63224127

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## Analysis

NYC Pin Pod covers competitive pinball results across New York City for the week of November 30–December 6, 2024, including women's division tournaments, league playoffs in multiple divisions, and venue updates. The hosts conduct an informal '$10 challenge' experiment where they each spend $10 playing a single pinball machine for approximately an hour, analyzing score data and discussing how mental state, focus, and practice methodology affect performance.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] Monica Whitecamps won Bells NYC Flips Giving, a 13-player women's division event at a private Brooklyn location on November 30, 2024, defeating Morgan Levinson, Miriam Nadler, and Annie Schneider. — _Benjamin Furiga, host, reporting official tournament results_
- [HIGH] As of December 6, 2024, there are 278 pinball machines in New York City at 83 public locations. — _Benjamin Furiga citing Pinball Map data_
- [HIGH] The Mutants defeated the Lion Persons 11–5 in Left Orbit playoffs; NYC FSA defeated the Aristocrats 9–7; Deluxe Horses defeated Intermission Dolores in a tiebreaker match; Two-for-Oners defeated Pinball Union 9–7. — _Benjamin Furiga reporting match results from December 2, 2024_
- [HIGH] Dan Merrill won the Stern Army Sunshine League Winter 2024 No. 3 on December 4 with 31 points; Nint Hu placed second with 26 points; Peter Larson third with 22. — _Benjamin Furiga reporting tournament results_
- [HIGH] Matthew Carlson and Matthew Grady tied for first in SSPL 7 round 5; Kate Martin placed third; Matthew Carlson leads the season with 104 points across four meetings. — _Benjamin Furiga reporting SSPL standings as of December 5, 2024_
- [HIGH] Dante Oliva put up one billion points on Twilight Zone ball one during a match at Jack Bar on December 4, forcing a final game against Phil Grimaldi; Grimaldi won 914,000 to 911,000. — _Eric Sweet, eyewitness account_
- [HIGH] Benjamin Furiga played Medieval Madness 10 games with median score 9.7 million and average 10.1 million; his score variance correlated more with mental state and focus than time elapsed. — _Benjamin Furiga presenting analyzed data from $10 challenge experiment_
- [HIGH] Eric Sweet played Deadpool 12 times, struggling with low scores averaging around 20 million (context suggests this is low for Deadpool), with final submitted score just under 60 million. — _Eric Sweet describing his $10 challenge results_
- [MEDIUM] Madeline Lynn observed patterns in her pinball scores following 3–4 game cycles of incremental rises followed by drops, with each low point higher than the previous cycle's low. — _Madeline Lynn analyzing her own score data from $10 challenge_
- [HIGH] A Mandalorian Pro was added to Randolph Beer Dumbo on December 6, 2024. — _Benjamin Furiga citing Pinball Map venue update_

### Notable Quotes

> "December 2, 2024 at Milo's Yard, a scintillating match. Meats were cooked, bots were jacked, and wins were whirled."
> — **Uchendu Nwachuku**, Email excerpt read aloud during venue recap
> _Colorful match recap emphasizing high-stakes competitive pinball energy; Deluxe Horses defeated Intermission Dolores in playoffs._

> "I quite literally wrote in pen in my notebook, distracted, should have taken a breath between balls after game five."
> — **Benjamin Furiga**, Ball 3 discussion of $10 challenge
> _Key evidence supporting his claim that mental state, not time, drives performance variation._

> "I don't love medieval madness I just don't."
> — **Benjamin Furiga**, Ball 3, $10 challenge analysis
> _Reveals personal game preference; explains why he declined to continue playing despite willingness to continue on other machines._

> "As long as you need to. Yeah, that could be 20 minutes. That could be 10. That could be an hour and a half. You play until you're done."
> — **Madeline Lynn**, Ball 3, near end of podcast
> _Summarizes practice philosophy drawing from music training; frames $10 limit as practical rather than prescriptive._

> "I took a minute, you know, and I psyched myself up, and then I played two games. And look, the 23 million point game had two extra balls, but it was 18.4 million before I played any of the extra balls."
> — **Benjamin Furiga**, Ball 3, $10 challenge data analysis
> _Demonstrates measurable impact of mental reset on performance; shows deliberate focus technique yielding immediate results._

> "I'm always thinking about my nudging and how I maybe this is a technique thing but I always try to nudge with the distal the farthest most end of my radius and ulna so you have a little bit shorter lever arm."
> — **Eric Sweet**, Ball 3, $10 challenge discussion
> _Reveals technical micro-adjustments in pinball technique tied to physical ergonomics and fatigue management._

> "March Madness in December. We are looking at the final four for both the left and the right sides."
> — **Benjamin Furiga**, Ball 2, upcoming events preview
> _Dramatic framing of playoff semifinals across two league divisions; signals high-stakes competitive schedule for following week._

> "I would have that's part of the mental state yeah the interest yeah yeah like it just continuing to play just this one game."
> — **Benjamin Furiga**, Ball 3, end of $10 challenge discussion
> _Acknowledges that continued play depends on intrinsic motivation and mental engagement, not just external time limit._

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Monica Whitecamps | person | Pinball tournament winner; shares Colliders roster with Benjamin Furiga and Madeline Lynn; won Bells NYC Flips Giving women's division on November 30, 2024. |
| Morgan Levinson | person | Women's division pinball player; finalist in Bells NYC Flips Giving; played in four ladder matches; was passed by Monica Whitecamps in IFPA women's state standings. |
| Benjamin Furiga | person | Co-host of NYC Pin Pod; competitive pinball tournament director; conducted $10 Medieval Madness challenge with statistical analysis; abbreviation BCF. |
| Eric Sweet | person | Co-host of NYC Pin Pod; pinball tournament director; conducted $10 Deadpool challenge; attended Brooklyn Trans Pinball Night and Jack Bar events; abbreviation HIP. |
| Madeline Lynn | person | Co-host of NYC Pin Pod; competitive pinball player from Ithaca; shares Colliders roster; participated in $10 challenge experiment; pronouns she/her/hers; abbreviation MXL. |
| Kate Martin | person | Tournament director for Bells NYC Flips Giving (women's division) and SSPL 7; placed third in SSPL 7 round 5; active organizer in NYC pinball community. |
| Dan Merrill | person | Pinball tournament player; won Stern Army Sunshine League Winter 2024 No. 3 with 31 points on December 4. |
| Matthew Carlson | person | Pinball tournament player; tied for first in SSPL 7 round 5; leads season standings with 104 points across four meetings. |
| Matthew Grady | person | Pinball tournament player; tied for first with Matthew Carlson in SSPL 7 round 5; has attended only three meetings with 73 points; tournament director for Quit Talking and Start Chalking event. |
| Dante Oliva | person | Pinball player at Jack Bar on December 4; scored 911,000 on Pulp Fiction in final game against Phil Grimaldi; put up one billion on Twilight Zone. |
| Phil Grimaldi | person | Visiting pinball player from Texas; competed in Jack Bar final match against Dante Oliva on December 4; scored 914,000 on Pulp Fiction. |
| Uchendu Nwachuku | person | Pinball player; sent detailed match recap email describing Deluxe Horses vs. Intermission Dolores playoff match at Milo's Yard on December 2. |
| Stephanie Guida | person | Pinball player known as 'Pinball Princess'; friend of the show; shares Trolls and Colliders rosters; ranked near Monica Whitecamps in state standings. |
| Mutants | organization | Fifth-seed pinball league team; defeated Lion Persons 11–5 in Left Orbit playoffs on December 2; advancing to finals against NYC FSA. |
| Lion Persons | organization | Pinball league team; lost 11–5 to Mutants in Left Orbit playoffs on December 2 at Sunshine Laundromat. |
| New York City Flipper Sport Association | organization | Pinball league organization; hosted virtually at Buttermilk; defeated Aristocrats 9–7 in Left Orbit playoffs on December 2. |
| Deluxe Horses | organization | Top-seeded pinball league team at Milo's Yard; defeated Intermission Dolores in tiebreaker match in Left In Lane playoffs on December 2. |
| Intermission Dolores | organization | Fifth-seeded pinball league team; lost to Deluxe Horses in Left In Lane playoffs on December 2; facing Two-for-Oners in championship match on December 10. |
| Brooklyn Baldrainers | organization | Pinball league team; lost 9–2 to Neptune's Treasure in Right Orbit playoffs on December 3 at Barcade Brooklyn. |
| Bells NYC | organization | Pinball league/tournament organization in New York City; organized Flips Giving women's division event on November 30, 2024. |
| Buttermilk Bar | venue | Pinball venue in Park Slope, Brooklyn; hosts SSPL and league matches; virtually hosted Aristocrats match on December 2; has machines including Iron Maiden (removed Nov 29) and Game of Thrones. |
| Sunshine Laundromat | venue | Pinball venue in Greenpoint, Brooklyn; hosts league matches and tournaments; venue for Deluxe Horses vs. Intermission Dolores match; hosts Stern Army Sunshine League events. |
| Gebhardt's Beer Culture | venue | Pinball venue in NYC; hosts Right Orbit and Right In Lane playoff matches; mentioned as host for Neptune's Treasure vs. No Quarters for Laundry on December 10. |
| Barcade Brooklyn | venue | Pinball venue in Brooklyn; hosts league matches and tournaments; hosts Intermission Dolores vs. Two-for-Oners Left In Lane championship match on December 10. |
| Jack Bar | venue | Pinball venue in NYC (Williamsburg); hosts league matches, tournaments, and casual play; venue for Mutants vs. NYC FSA match on December 9 (potentially streamed). |

### Topics

- **Primary:** Competitive pinball tournament results, NYC pinball league playoffs and standings, Pinball machine performance and mental state analysis
- **Secondary:** Venue machine updates and locations, Pinball practice methodology and skill development, Women's division pinball tournaments
- **Mentioned:** Pinball machine availability and tracking in NYC

### Sentiment

**Positive** (0.75) — Hosts express enthusiasm for competitive results, player performances, and community engagement. The $10 challenge discussion is reflective and analytical rather than emotional. Notably positive about women's division success and upcoming playoff matches. Minor frustration expressed about website issues for venue research, but overall tone is upbeat and celebratory of community activity.

### Signals

- **[competitive_signal]** Left Orbit and Left In Lane semifinals complete; finals scheduled for December 9–10. Right Orbit and Right In Lane semifinals underway with finals expected December 10. (confidence: high) — Benjamin Furiga's detailed playoff results and schedule for upcoming finals between multiple teams.
- **[competitive_signal]** Women's division tournament (Bells NYC Flips Giving) with 13 players; Monica Whitecamps' win vaults her into top contenders for NY state women's championships. (confidence: high) — Monica defeated Morgan Levinson, Miriam Nadler, Annie Schneider; leapfrogged Morgan in IFPA women's state standings; potentially qualifying for top eight in remaining event.
- **[competitive_signal]** SSPL 7 near conclusion with one meeting remaining; Matthew Carlson commanding lead (104 points) with clear separation from field; Eric Sweet (HIP) may miss top 8 due to travel; tight competition for final qualification spots. (confidence: high) — Benjamin Furiga reporting SSPL standings; mentions 85-point cutoff with several players within striking distance; Eric confirming he'll miss final due to December 19 travel.
- **[venue_signal]** Iron Maiden removed from Key Bar (November 29); Mandalorian Pro added to Randolph Beer Dumbo (December 6); multiple venues reporting machine performance issues (Game of Thrones auto-launch malfunction, Metallica snake issue, Terminator 3 RPG broken). (confidence: high) — Benjamin Furiga's machine updates via Pinball Map; specific dates and venue locations provided for additions/removals and reported issues.
- **[gameplay_signal]** Benjamin Furiga's Medieval Madness data shows ~40% of games clustered near 10 million median, with mental state/focus more predictive of score variance than time elapsed; demonstrates measurable impact of psychological reset on immediate performance. (confidence: high) — Benjamin analyzing his own 10-game dataset with statistical breakdown: median 9.7M, average 10.1M; explicit correlation between noted 'distracted' games and sub-5M scores, followed by 18–23M games after mental reset.
- **[gameplay_signal]** Madeline Lynn observed 3–4 game performance cycles with incremental rises, drops, then rises to higher plateau; suggests progressive skill development and muscle memory building within extended play sessions. (confidence: medium) — Madeline describing pattern of 3–4 game cycles where low points of each cycle exceed low points of previous cycle; pattern similar across multiple machines (Indianapolis 500, Deadpool).
- **[community_signal]** NYC pinball community supports multiple overlapping competitive formats: league play (SSPL, Pinball NYC divisions), tournament circuits (Stern Army Sunshine League, Bells NYC), and playoff/championship brackets. Potential Twitch streaming of playoff matches indicates growing media infrastructure. (confidence: high) — Benjamin listing 10+ distinct competitive events across multiple divisions and venues in single week; noting possible Twitch stream of Mutants vs. NYC FSA on December 9.
- **[operational_signal]** Multiple venues reporting machine mechanical issues (sticky flippers, auto-launch failures, broken features); some machines noted as 'not in great shape' (Medieval Madness at Minis); venue operators and players actively documenting problems via Pinball Map. (confidence: high) — Benjamin citing Pinball Map user reports: Game of Thrones auto-launch 'frequently not working,' Metallica snake issue, Terminator 3 RPG broken; notes on Medieval Madness condition at Minis.
- **[content_signal]** NYC Pin Pod expanding analysis depth with data-driven gameplay analysis ($10 challenge experiment with statistical graphing); hosts conducting original research on player performance factors; visual aids shared via WordPress blog and Patreon tier system. (confidence: high) — Benjamin presenting analyzed graphs, statistical medians/averages; all three hosts participating in structured challenge; explicit mention of visual aids posted to nycpinpod.wordpress.com and Patreon paywall.
- **[market_signal]** NYC pinball infrastructure stable at 278 machines across 83 public locations as of December 6, 2024; granular tracking via Pinball Map; specific machines being added/removed weekly. (confidence: high) — Benjamin citing Pinball Map data: 278 machines at 83 locations; specific weekly machine updates provided with dates and venues.
- **[event_signal]** Dense competitive calendar for week of December 9–12: multiple playoff semifinals/finals across four divisions, league finals, specialized events (Rob Wong Invitational, Quit Talking and Start Chalking, Thursday Night Strikes). Hosts framing as 'March Madness in December.' (confidence: high) — Benjamin detailing 8+ specific tournaments/leagues across December 9–12; explicitly calling it 'March Madness in December'; noting potential for Twitch streaming.

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## Transcript

Happy Sunday, Pinfolk, or whatever day you're listening. This is NYC Pin Pod, in which a panel talks location pinball in New York City and nearby surrounding areas. My name is Benjamin Furiga. My initials are BCF, and I didn't eat a single turkey sandwich this week. My name is Eric Sweet. My initials are HIP, and I'm a pinball tournament director in New York City. Hey, y'all. My name is Madeline Lynn. My pronouns are she, her, hers. My initials are MXL, and this past week, I defended my place on the high score leaderboard in Ithaca, New York. On this week's pod, we'll run down local competition results. In ball two, we'll have a venue update. And in ball three, we'll talk about a challenge that Madeline posed to Eric and I over 10 games to get some data points. Let's get started. Let's talk about competitive pinball in New York City in the past week. on saturday november 30th bell's nyc flips giving was convened under kate martin's guidance at a private location in brooklyn new york 13 players were there for this women's division event monica whitecamp who shares the colliders roster with madeline and me came out on top Nice job, Monica. Getting past Morgan Levinson, Miriam Nadler, and Annie Schneider in order. This was an interesting format. It's one I've not seen before. They did max match play for the qualifying and then ladder finals. Morgan was in all four of the ladder matches. Six people qualified for the ladder. That is to say that there was a group of four, and then one person was eliminated, and the two seed joined into the group of four. And then one person was eliminated, and then the one seed joined into the group of four. One person was eliminated. It was a three-person group. One person was eliminated, and there was a winner. Monica got past Morgan and Monica jumped over Morgan leapfrogged past Morgan in the women's state standings for the New York State IFPA Women's Championships. Monica also, interestingly, with this win got past Stephanie Guida Pinball Princess, who's a friend of the show and also fellow trolls, Morgan whom we just talked about, Amy Poulin and Caitlin Reese, a fellow trollider both a troll and a collider Great job, Monica I believe there's one more women's division event in the city this year, and I think that that will probably have a little bit of bearing, but coming out like this in the middle of December looks really good for making the top eight. On Monday, December 2nd, in the left orbit playoffs, the fifth seed Mutants went to Sunshine Laundromat to visit the Lion Persons in a virtual home match, And the Mutants came out on top 11-5 to advance to the finals. Our New York City Flipper Sport Association was playing virtual host at Buttermilk to the Aristocrats out of Rulos. It was a very tight match. NYC FSA took the win 9-7. I took a few photos and put a quick write-up of that on my blog at noonewancetotalkaboutcompetitivepinball.com. In the left in lane playoffs, also on Monday, December 2nd, Intermission Dolores went to Milo's Yard to face the Deluxe Horses, who were the virtual home team and the top seed in the division. Uchendu Nwachuku sent us an email. Here is the text thereof. And I quote, December 2, 2024 at Milo's Yard, a scintillating match. Meats were cooked, bots were jacked, and wins were whirled. Deluxe horses swept the first round, and we tied on both singles rounds, meaning that Intermission Dolores would have to win both doubles games to force a tiebreaker. Dolores started both of those games with massive scores that looked pretty much unassailable. But our guys did not go quietly. both john and evan had massive scores on ball three of barry o's and whirlwind respectively with both teams on pins and needles watching on they mounted their comeback attempts alas both players fell just short and so we went to a tiebreaker we picked getaway they picked split flipper once again they got off to a massive lead on ball one that was too much for us to overcome Our season ends here in a heartbreaking loss, but it was still one of the most enjoyable matches I've had in a while. Uchendu. And the sixth seed, Pinball Union, went to Rulos to face the two-for-oners, the two-seed, in their virtual home for the evening. The two-for-oners came out on top, 9-7. On Tuesday, December 3rd, in the right orbit playoffs, semi-final round, four-seed Harlem Globe Flippers went to Jack Bar, where No Quarters for Laundry were their hosts. No Quarters for Laundry came out with an 8-8 tiebreaker win to advance to the finals of the Right Orbit playoffs. Neptune's Treasure, kind of slumming for them at a sixth seed, went to Barcade Brooklyn to face the legendary Brooklyn Baldrainers. I think I actually said it right that time. And it only took them three rounds. Neptune's Treasure picks up a 9-2 win at Barcade Brooklyn. In the right in lane playoffs on Tuesday, Fifth Seed Scrapples squad went to Salad State where the Butterballers were their host. How did that go, Eric? That match was tied all the way through to the final round when we Butterballers picked up both of the games in round four to make it 10-6. Super cool. go on to the finals to face the winner of the next match. The replays went to Gebhard's Beer Culture, where the Schlubs were their hosts, and the Schlubs picked up a 12-4 win. So the Schlubs will face the Butterballers in the right-in lane playoffs. On Wednesday, December 4th, the Stern Army Sunshine League Winter 2024 No. 3 was convened under Francesco La Rocca's guiding hand. Ten players showed up for five rounds of IFPA scoring match play. Dan Merrill took top honors with 31 points. Nint Hu took second place with 26. Peter Larson, third with 22. And Jose Garcia and Brian Estes, making a special guest appearance down here in the city, tied for fourth. Eric, you went to Jack Bar last night, right? Yeah, I was up in North Brooklyn attending the Brooklyn Trans Pinball Night at Sunshine, and then afterwards I swung by Jack Bar to see all the fine pinfolk there. I wound up sticking around till the bitter end. Gabriel Chazanov was directing the evening, but around midnight He called it quits and asked me to keep watch over the final games just in case anything went awry. I didn't have to make any rulings, but I did watch as in the next to last game, Dante Oliva put up a billion on Twilight Zone on ball one. Jesus. Forcing a very final game on Pulp Fiction with visiting Phil Grimaldi from Texas. Holy hell. Yeah, it was a real banger of a Pulp Fiction game there. Dante finished at 911,000 points, and Phil was chasing from a very low score. He drained somewhere around 700,000, but then his bonus caught up, and he finished at 914,000 to give Dante the final strike and take the win for the night. Oh, my. Ian Leone came in third, having been knocked out on Toy Story just before Twilight Zone. Sounds like we had a lot of visitors in the neighborhood this week, with Brian Estes coming down from Orange County and Phil Grimaldi coming in from out of town. We got some folks coming in to play. Yeah, I saw Kate Smith also was at Sunshine on Wednesday from Upstate. Also on Thursday, December 5th. SSPL 7 was convened at Buttermilk. 16 players gathered under Kate Martin's guidance. Matthew Carlson and Matthew Grady tied atop the standings. Kate Martin herself came in third. And Taylor Connolly came in fourth. so far in that league, because there's one more meeting, the top eight are Matthew Carlson, and he's pretty well in. He's got 104 points in four meetings, and it is not particularly close down at the bottom. 85 points is where the bottom cutoff is right now. There's nobody particularly close to that so uh he's looking pretty good with his 104 points kate martin is currently in the second seed with 93 robert wong is currently in the third seed with 92 gus gonzalez has 90 billy vazine has 89 a.j gould and one h.i.p represented here are tied at 88 points and zen zachniak with a win in the final round last night passed me with a loss in the final round last night we weren't playing each other i just sucked and he played well but he passed me to get into the eighth spot. So he's sitting in the eighth spot right now. There's one more week to go. The people who are within shouting distance are myself, although I'm going to be in Rochester, Thomas Milburn, Taylor Connolly, and Caitlin Reese. Matthew Grady only has three meetings, but he's got 73 points. 85 is the cutoff right now. So he wouldn't need to show up and do much to qualify. Those seem like the folks who are likeliest to make a run. If any one of those folks has a good week next week they could get into the playoffs There could be some folks who are traveling for the holidays Eric I think you above the line but you might not make it right That true I be gone on the 19th so I won be in the top eight in the final result I still planning on playing this coming Thursday and trying to get as high as I can just for, you know, the sake of it. Well, sure. And look, it is a holiday week. So like I said, there are probably other people traveling too. If you You can, you know, whatever you do could be the difference between ninth and tenth, if that's what you're shooting for right now, you know? Quite possibly. Next week, folks, it is March Madness in December. We are looking at the final four for both the left and the right sides. And I'm not talking about politics. I'm talking about the left orbit and the left in lane. On Monday, December 9, we have the Mutants versus the New York City Flipper Sport Association at Jack Bar. The fifth seed clashes with the number two seed. Anything could happen. I heard it's possible that the match will be streamed on Twitch. Keep an eye on the channel Pinball underscore NYC Monday night. Ooh, Pinball underscore NYC at Twitch.com. Shout out Twitch.com, new sponsor of the show. Twitch.tv, Twitch.tv though, to be fair. They're not a sponsor, but Twitch.tv is where you find them. This show is not sponsored by Twitch.tv. We also have the left in lane playoffs, another round three championship match. my tone of voice is not indicative of the seriousness of the situation. I apologize to all members of Intermission Dolores and the Two for Oners. We have Intermission Dolores and the Two for Oners playing at Barcade Brooklyn. Once again, the fifth seed clashing with the number two seed. Then on Tuesday, December 10, we have the Right Orbit and the Right In Lane competing, first of all, with Neptune's Treasure and No Quarters for Laundry at Gebhard's Beer Culture. a sixth seed versus a first seed and then at the right in lane also on tuesday december 10 we have the second ranked schlubs versus the first seeded butter ballers over at sunshine laundromat get your seats folks pay for the whole seat but you'll only need the edge we're in the final four get ready for anything wednesday december 11 we have quit talking and start chalking directed by matthew grady at bar cave brooklyn in williamsburg starting at 7 30 p.m we have six to seven rounds of match play and an eight-person final, so plan on a late night, folks. We also have the Sunshine Winter League No. 4, directed by FLR over at Sunshine Laundromat in Greenpoint, starting at 7.30 p.m. On Thursday, December 12, NOBA presents Thursday Night Strikes with a rotating cast of directors at Jack Bar Williamsburg, starting at 8 p.m. sharp. Then we also have the South Slope Pinball League 7 No. 6, directed by Kate Martin at Buttermilk Bar in Park Slope, starts at pinball time, 8 o'clock. On Sunday, December 15, the Rob Wong Invitational, to which all listeners are invited. I repeat, all listeners are invited. We have the Rob Wong Invitational at Rulo's in Park Slope, directed by Jess Warren. Registration at 4.30 and starting at 5 p.m. As of December 6, 2024, there are 278 pinball machines in New York City at 83 public locations. Thanks to the creators and users of Pinball Map for this data, here are machine updates from the past week. On Friday, November 29th, the Iron Maiden at Key Bar was removed. They still have a Twilight Zone. On Sunday, December 1st, user Undone played the Berrios Barbecue Challenge at Milo's Yard and said, The game sometimes has trouble putting a ball in the shooter lane. I suspect this user was probably practicing for the Intermission Dolores Deluxe Horses match the next day. Also on Sunday, user Pinball Lizard went by Buttermilk Bar and said of the Iron Maiden sticky upper left flipper and of Game of Thrones, auto launch is frequently not working, which fouls up multiball play. on Thursday December 5th Pinball Lizard returned to Buttermilk Bar and played the Game of Thrones again said playing better and of Metallica said playing great except for when the snake sometimes spits it down the middle also on Thursday user TurrT223 played the Terminator 3 at the less dead They said, RPG seems to be broken. Other features worked fine. On Friday the 6th, a Mandalorian Pro was added to Randolph Beer Dumbo. And I'm just going to drop in a quick little note here to say we did intend to review Minnie's bar in this space this week. Some circumstances conspired against us, not least of which there are probably some AI generated hours for the bar out there on the Internet. they open at three or four o'clock on weekdays and weekends both i believe but uh we had some issues where something on the internet was telling us that they were open at one o'clock so we are not going to review minis in this space this week but next week we'll be ready to talk about minis well then ball three y'all if you google the ten dollar challenge you will probably get about nine results for saving $10 a day to have $300 by the end of the month. And then at the very end of the tailored Google search results, you can see one link to a web forum about the $10 to 10K sports betting challenge. Today, we are not going to talk about either of those things, but instead we are going to talk about spending $10 on one machine and seeing how far you get. When I was growing up in elementary school, my mother would take me to the Cyber Station Arcade and I would get $2, $2 to spend however you would like and to play whatever game you would like. And I always had the goal of maximizing my fun and also maximizing my time with those $2. Now that I'm just a little bit older, I figure it's fair to have a little more than just $2 at a pinball machine. And now if I ever have a long day of work or a bit of time after work, I decide that $10 is a fair amount of money to spend on myself for the next hour or so before I need to go home, cook dinner, and prepare for the next day. So what I will do is I will go to a Duane Reade, withdraw a $10 bill, and then I'll walk over to the nearest bar, one that has a pinball table in it, exchange that $10 bill for 10 singles. and then I'll spend approximately the next hour feeding those singles into the machine and then enjoying myself on the same machine with that same $10 over the next hour. This later has evolved into recording my scores across those $10 and seeing what happens. As time goes by, does my score go up? Does my score go down? And we've touched upon this a little bit at a very interesting series of points when we're talking about JAWS. But this week, myself and my fellow co-hosts have all taken the $10 challenge. And again, not the sports betting challenge, nor the savings challenge to see what kind of numbers we can put up. Benjamin, I'm very curious. You said you recorded some statistics to go with your $10 challenge. So I wrote down my scores as we discussed. I then extrapolated some numbers. I took notes about all the games that, you know, about each individual game that I played. and I put up a stinker, one real just blank, just like feels like about what three house balls should be kind of game. But my graph, it keeps returning to right around one score. I played Medieval Madness at minis, and it's not in great shape. but it's not in terrifyingly bad shape either. But I took notes. It's the one from Bargrade Harry. Okay. And I'm sure that is the one that was at Skylark before that. And, you know, it's Max's medieval madness that's been out and around the city for a month. It's the namesake machine of the trolls. Of my 10 games, I did not do $10. I did 10 games because I might have been there for a while longer. It's also not played all that often, and so dynamic replay scoring meant that a couple of them were free. All of my games sort of revert back to a mean of about 10 million. Of the 10 games, I'm going to list all of them that seem to me like they're appreciably close to 10 million. 11 million, six. 9 million, four. 10 million, one. 9 million, nine. That's four of 10. 40% of them are at that level. uh my median score is 9.7 million my average score was 10.1 million i extrapolated a little bit but i also took notes about these games and i think that the x-axis the overtime probably is telling me something, but that controlling my state of mind was a more valuable way to view whether I was doing well or doing poorly. On games one, five, and six, I was way under that 10 million mark. But in the other games, I was not. And in games five and six, I had just taken a break, walked away for a second, you know, after the first four games. And then I came back and I just, my head wasn't there. I just, I was distracted and I should have taken a second between balls. I should have taken a sec, I should have trapped up and taken a second each time. And I didn't. Uh, and it, it happened for two straight games then. Uh, so like, I think, I think my state of mind was maybe more important than the actual amount of time elapsed over that x-axis for the purposes of this i took the data that i downloaded from the harvest all the scores recorded at this point now i've gotten but uh looking in particular at my attempts on deadpool which i played 12 times uh it's it's an interesting question as to its statistical significance because in particular I struggled pretty bad on on this Deadpool and my scores are all what I would consider extremely low Deadpool scores sure sure averaging probably around 20. Oh yeah that seems pretty low I yeah I sure would have thought my average score should have been higher than what my average score was on this Medieval Madness too yeah but not by not by as much as I think you're talking about yeah my final game and the one that was submitted then for the the rankings of the best game had finished up just under 60. But then I think maybe this brings an interesting point. I was playing my early game strat every game. I was trying to get to the part where you start getting a lot of points. I was doing my setups. And so this is a pretty regular data set in that sense, that it's me playing the game the same way 12 times in a row. And in particular, I played that Deadpool, I think 11 of those in a row. Oh wow. Just again I just stayed on it Right Until finally I guess I not going to hit 60 I got to go do something else Wow And never came back to it I did a little bit of that myself. I told myself on this medieval madness, I was only going for Castle Gates. Some of the notes that I took were times that I distracted myself from the point and that that was one of the reasons that I felt like my score wasn't quite as high. But I feel like I tried to keep the early game objective the same. The thing is, with the game that I was playing, you can just keep doing the early game objective. You have to do it for like 20 minutes before you can't do it anymore. So you can just keep doing it. Had I been playing Medieval Madness for the purposes of this exercise, yes, that's exactly what I would have done too. looking at the scores i am seeing a pattern of about a three or four game cycle where it slowly rises up to a height and then the next cycle starts and it drops i've it just this incremental steps up and then a drop and then incremental steps up and a drop with each of them being slightly higher, the drop, the low at the start of the cycle, not being as low as the previous cycle. So you get to a bit of a plateau, and then you drop, and then you take three more steps up to a slightly higher plateau. That's the idea there? Yeah. I've also got the scores I put in on Indianapolis 500. I've talked about those before. In particular, those are marked by where I consciously had changed my play style in the middle of that run. Oh, right. But then looking again at just the scores after I know where that happens, they were all very similar. And these, I think, are better scores than the Deadpool scores. These are middle game scores in the 150 to 200, 250 range. Yeah. And it's, again, got a similar pattern. Sometimes it's two or three games long instead of four games long in this data set, where I set a score, get a little bit better, get a little bit better, then there's a drop down, and a little bit better, a little bit better, and a drop down. But generally, the low point of one cycle is higher than the low point of the previous cycle. My state of mind thing, I think it really holds up. I'm going to share my screen here and show you all what I'm looking at. This will be in the visual aids at nycpinpod.wordpress.com. And listeners, if you'd like to become viewers, all you have to do is subscribe to our titanium tier Patreon. This show is not sponsored by Patreon. What is interesting to me about this graph is that it's after the two bad games, on which my two worst games were under 1,493,450 points. That is roughly three house balls. I probably hit two castles or something like that to get that score. and 4.6 million, and that those two proceed two back-to-back just excellent games. Yes. 20, 23, and 20 million. Not necessarily excellent if this were in perfect shape in a competition somewhere, but it's excellent for the way that this game, for the kind of shape that this game is in. Uh-huh. I quite literally wrote in pen in my notebook, distracted, should have taken a breath between balls after game five. And I wrote down after game six, still not taking my time. But I was looking at the numbers. I hadn't tried to put it on a graph yet, but I knew that I was going to be graphing this. And I also knew that I was going to be talking about it in front of people. And I was already going to be embarrassed by a 493,000 fucking score. and then following it by another less than 5 million point score. That is just embarrassing. So I took a minute, you know, and I psyched myself up, and then I played two games. And look, the 23 million point game had two extra balls, but it was 18.4 million before I played any of the extra balls. The 20.5 million point game was actually 20.2 million before I played the extra ball, which sucked. I think that I might have done something to flip a switch to tell myself, you have to focus now. And that it had an immediate result. But then the next two games after that revert back to the me. The next two games after that were just like, that was it. That was as much time as you could focus. And so, honestly, what I see here for me is much less about the time and much more about managing my mental state. That's really quite interesting. For me, I'm always like thinking about how long has my heart rate been up? Have I dumped all my adrenaline in and then out of my body yet? I'm thinking about my nudging and how I maybe this is a technique thing but I always try to nudge with the distal the farthest most end of my radius and ulna so you have a little bit shorter lever arm but then also that means your carpal bones kind of really hurt after a while so I'm always thinking about you know you got to find the sweet spot I've been playing enough so my heart rate's up but I've been playing so long that my muscles start getting tired. The mindset thing is interesting. I used to play percussion a lot when I was much younger and when I get frustrated with a certain passage, I wouldn't play the passage slower. I'd play the passage faster. And if I was getting it wrong slower, I mean, clearly you'll get it wrong faster, but I'd be frustrated and, you know, analogously plunge the next ball or, or, or start the next ball much sooner in, in frustration or an attempt to, to write some wrongs in my brain. But, you know, mindset, you know, maybe, maybe that's it. You know, we just have to, we, we, We need a new way of thinking. Well, I mean, that's what I needed in that moment, at least. I'm not saying it's what everybody needs at every moment. But that was, you know, I thought, because I was taking notes about the way that the games were going and what I felt like was going right and going wrong. Like, my first game was 3.8 million, which is kind of embarrassing. But also, the right flipper was completely sticking every single time you hit it. Oh, dear. So that I had to hit the right flipper and then hit it again to unstick it. Yep. And, you know, it was the button thing. After the second game, that was never an issue again. It was not a big deal. But also just like I'm not embarrassed about that score because that was the condition. I worked it out and then I had a bunch of 10 million point scores and then a couple of garbage scores. Because I just, I lost the thread. I wasn't, I was, it was rote. It wasn't special. At the end of these 10 games, how did both of you feel about the prospect of continuing to play? Ooh. I mean, I described, you know, I got that Deadpool score, the highest one, sub 60, and I was pretty well done. But also, I was working in a time-limited situation where I had other things to do that had to be done. just you know but i'm wondering is there something out there beyond 10 oh a 20 challenge well where does the performance peak how how long do we have to go till we find it not on medieval madness it's there's not there's not more than 10 on medieval madness there can be more than 10 on something maybe on like a Keith Elwin game or like an awesome you know classic an awesome em or Banzai Run i'll do 20 on Banzai Run any day so you you don't think you were gonna best the 23 on medieval if you had kept playing or or and it doesn't sound like you were willing to i wasn't particularly interested in it yeah i i would have that's part of the mental state yeah the interest yeah yeah like it just continuing to play just this one game. I mean, I quite truly, after I played those 10 games, I walked out and went to another bar. I went to Rulo's to play the pinball machines there because there were more pinball machines that I could play there that weren't Medieval Madness. And so I was like, all right, well, I'm going to now go to kind of the closest place to here and play some games. and so I you know I did play more I still had an appetite to play some pinball I just did not want to keep playing that game I don't love medieval madness I just don't no that sounds right a different pinball game a different machine it's a different mental challenge if I had walked into Rulo's yeah if I had walked into Rulo's and no one was there and I could have played 10 straight on Pulp Fiction I might have done that right after I finished on Medieval Madness. What about you, Madeline? Did you feel like more after or when you, in general, whether or not you're graphing it, if you go and rock your 10 bucks on a single machine, do you feel like playing more? Honestly, I think, you know, you've reminded me of, I met this tuba player in the Philadelphia Philharmonic a long time ago when I was in high school. And they were talking about how long should you spend practicing before you've figured your stuff out. And it's like, well, when you're in elementary school, you get told you should be practicing half an hour a day. Once you get to 30 minutes, you're done. It's a time-based thing. You just got in the habit of playing every day. But as a high schooler, when we had one very serious bassoon player say, how long should you play a day? The tuba player said, as long as you need to. Yeah, that could be 20 minutes. That could be 10. That could be an hour and a half. You play until you're done. And done just means whenever you are satisfied with that section of the piece that you're practicing, or maybe just getting that one measure or that one run of notes. I think for me, $10 is fine because it's a nice round number. I also need to like go home after that. And also, you know, by like eight or nine, it's like, wait, fuck, I need to like build up this multiball again. We're not doing this anymore. This is the last, you know, I think I remember in the early weeks of my unemployment, when I went to Long Island City, the gutter and played the Godzilla to break a couple hundred million and put up a high score there. I was like, we're chasing this thing until we get there. But I think the strategy perhaps similar to going to a casino is you want to set your limit know what you want to do once you accomplish your goal don't chase anything don't be the person at like 12 a.m still playing the machine you know when when you're when you're trying to chase a high that might not be there anymore yeah so for me i'm okay with the ten dollars i think it a nice way to to spend an hour and i think in the realm of getting better you play until you satisfied can i ask since i new how do you all choose to practice like if i want to practice my instrument you just fucking grind right you got to be in the basement or you got to be in the quiet room every day and you're just fucking practicing yeah but do you find a lot of your practice time is like at tournaments like that's when you're getting hands on a machine and you're practicing in a competition setting or do you find a lot of your your time where you get better or learn a game is done individually i'm at tournaments almost every da y it seems like so yeah most of my practice time is i show up early and start playing the games i know i'll be playing i don't want to waste my focus much as i was just you know, describing in that graph about how I feel like I turned it, I was able to stop myself and say, you have to change the mode in which you're playing and the mode in which you're playing has to be focused. That I only have so much attention span for that. And I think that what often happens is that if I show up and just try to play great games while I'm practicing before an event that I am not learning the base level information that I need. Because the base level information that I need is, can I hit that shot? How are the flippers working? How is the plunger working? How is the angle of the play field affecting the way that I am playing this game? Is there any kind of left to right tilt? That's really all of the information that I need about the game in order to go into the competition. It's nice to be warmed up. But I also think that there might be something to warming up too much. Last night at SSPL, Uche stopped me. I had earbuds in. I was playing Iron Maiden. He didn't stop me. He just told me I didn't have to play it. I beat him on ball three. It was a walk-off win. He told me loud enough that he was sure I would hear over my earbuds, you can stop. And I immediately stopped. And he was like, you didn't have to. And I was like, no, but I wanted to. There's an economy of focus for me. I can't just flip it on and it's always on or flip it off and it's always off. I have to try to manage it. And I think that's what I saw in my 10 games was a way to manage it. But it's also, in terms of practicing, that's one of the things I'm trying to manage. I would say if the general goal is to try to get better at pinball in general and not like I want to get better at this game, I want to learn these rules, that you might want to pick one skill. Try to focus on it. for a while until you feel like you've got it down. Bounce pass is a great way to start. If you feel like you don't just, if you feel like your first choice isn't bounce pass every time the ball is coming somewhere around the middle of the flipper, then I would encourage you to, the first thing you should do is when you're out practicing, say to yourself, I will bounce pass every time. And just watch it happen. Watch when the ball drains because you will then know when you can bounce pass and when you can't. Alex Kelly said it on this exact podcast that Escher Lefkoff told him on his podcast. The difference between the really good young players, or at least that this person who is one of the very best pinball players in the world right now, sees between the young players and the old players who are really good and have been doing it for a long time, is that the young players are willing to fail for a while. until they figure it out. And I think being willing to do that, being willing to, in your practice, fail, knowing that that failure improves your skill set is a really hard thing to tell yourself you should do when you're out playing pinball. You want to flip a lot. You want to have fun, just like you were saying. But I think if the question is, how should I practice? to me that's the first step is to to work on the skills and bounce passes probably the first one and after that you probably want to think about how you can expand on it with like orbit passes and things like that if i tried to learn an instrument just playing in concerts or performances i would not be very good at my instrument right and then maybe i've been approaching tournaments and competitions the wrong way i get super nervous sometimes i'm like oh my gosh there's all these people it's time to commit it's time to deliver yada yada but maybe hey if i go into a tournament thinking hey this is just another day to get better maybe i don't get as nervous these games are the games you get for this interval of the time that you have you know maybe maybe that'll help me reframe how i'm thinking about when i'm entering a tournament versus entering a just an evening at a bar somewhere sure sure i mean look don't certainly don't be afraid to fail when there's no opportunity cost to the failure. The only opportunity cost to the failure is however much that one ball costs you. Call it 33 cents. That's the opportunity cost an actuary would tell you at least. Or that's an explicit cost because that has monetary value tied to it, I think. Oh, sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're right. The amount of time is the opportunity cost. The amount of time that you might have been playing that ball in this instance, as opposed to the amount of time that you lost. It's the amount of time that you gained to do something else. That's why I did find the bumper factory an interesting proposition. You can pay dollars for time. And I was like, if there was a new table, I would totally spend more than $20 on that table within an hour. But nowadays, me spending $20 for one hour on any pinball table is probably not worth it. But initially, when I was first starting out, I was like, yeah, that's pretty worth it. I'll pay $20 for an hour. A couple weeks ago, I'd gone to Bar Great Harry. I had about an hour to play pinball. I played about four games because I played two of the best games of pinball I have ever played in my life. And so in that hour, I played four games of pinball. And when I walked out, I felt cheated because I only played four games of pinball. I didn't feel I wasn't satisfied because I had achieved, you know, pinball nirvana by having had two really good games and two pretty good games. In addition, I was just like I was just like, I wanted to play more than four pinball games today, man. so like i i don't i also think my attention span probably drifts based on the scenario obviously that was not a a situation i played four pinball games because i played two of godzilla one of iron maiden and one of monster bash that day it or whatever the third maybe it was jaws instead of iron maiden or whatever the third game is there but definitely monster bash and godzilla we're in the mix that's a little different than playing 10 on the same game and i wonder madeline when you do this recreationally do you always want to go to the same game and work on the same thing is that is it do you want to do you want to exercise that discipline of practice in the way that you just have to you just have to break those sextuplets down until you get those sextuplets god damn it oh you know um i'm sorry to say that my main strategy when i first started playing my main strategy was cradle every ball every time it comes towards the flippers and aim like incredibly intentionally and just like take forever per shot like time per like button pressed but now i want to say a lot of my strategy is just what i call defense in quotes just keep the ball alive like do whatever you want as soon as the ball comes towards the flippers just every shot's on the fly I think that's more fun. So I'm kind of okay playing any table. And as long as I can keep the ball alive and if my time per dollar is a happy ratio and I've also figured out how to play the table, I'm okay with that. place a mile and a half out of your way that had a Jaws and, you know, a Pirates of the Caribbean and a Toy Story? I think if it was super convenient, I would go with proximity first, because I'm still tired and I still got to get to bed on time. But there's definitely been some times on the pinball map where I'm like, okay, fuck, where's the nearest Jaws table again? Unfortunately, that's like a relatively common table. But I think it's just important to practice partially because it's fun to get a little better and see a personal progression, but also it's just fun to do the thing that you like doing. And if it's closer and you have time to do it and it doesn't cost you too much, I spend far less than I used to do when I first started out. If you want to make your money last, go to a pinball table, feed $10 into a machine, take advantage of those replays, take advantage of the bonus games that you get, depending on the ratio of the table, and see what kind of scores that you get, whether for practice or for data interest. See what you can get on the next $10 challenge. Send us your scores and be entered into official lotteries sponsored by DraftKings. This show is not sponsored by DraftKings. Fantastic. This show also is not sponsoring a lottery. That's all for this week's pod. Thank you for joining us. I'd like to thank Uchendu Nwachuku for sending us an email about the Deluxe Horses results. Join us next week when we will review minis in Ball 2. We'll, of course, in Ball 1 have local competition results, including the finals of Pinball NYC. In Ball 3, we're going to wait, actually, I think, because we're going to get some results from the Royal Rumble and see what the New York State standings look like and run down who it looks like has made it into the New York standings after the last big tournament in the state. That said, next week will be the last regular episode of this season of NYC Pin Pod. I am truly hopeful that we will be back in February at the beginning of the Pinball NYC season with a segment on what we did over our holiday breaks. but we'll see you next week first between now and then whatever you're up to this week go get them

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