# Episode 505 - Utterly Stochastic

**Source:** NYC PinPod  
**Type:** podcast_episode  
**Published:** 2025-10-06  
**Duration:** 69m 31s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://www.spreaker.com/episode/episode-505-utterly-stochastic--68019648

---

## Analysis

NYC PinPod Episode 505 covers competitive pinball league results and venue updates across New York City for the week of September 27–October 2, 2025. The episode details tournament outcomes, team standings in multiple divisions, machine location updates, and personal anecdotes from hosts Benjamin Furiga and Eric Sweetland about attending matches and venues. A significant focus is placed on match play settings and their importance to tournament structure.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] George Underwood won National Drink Beer Day 2025 with 31.11 Whoppers (WPPR points) — _Direct tournament result reported by hosts; specific numerical outcome stated_
- [HIGH] Matthew Grady scored 66 points out of 70 possible across 10 rounds of match play in two separate leagues (Barcade Brooklyn Pinball League and SSPL) in a single week — _Calculated and explicitly stated by hosts; verified across two named tournaments_
- [HIGH] Balls of Steel remain the only undefeated team in Pinball NYC's Left Flipper Division after four weeks — _Direct statement during division standings review_
- [HIGH] As of October 3rd, 2025, there are 347 pinball machines in New York City at 80 public locations — _Official data from Pinball Map creators cited in episode_
- [HIGH] Dune was added to Scrapple Land's machine lineup during the week of September 27–October 2 — _Venue update from user Dantastic on Pinball Map_
- [HIGH] Godzilla Premium was added to Gebhard's Beer Culture — _Venue update reported on Thursday, October 2nd_
- [HIGH] Jaws Pro and Jaws LE were removed from Sunshine Laundromat; Jaws Pro was added to Single Cut Beersmiths — _Machine location updates tracked via Pinball Map_
- [MEDIUM] Split flipper tiebreaker on Simpson's Pinball Party was used as tiebreaker for Aristocrats vs Special When Lit match at Rulo's — _Anecdotal report; hosts mention it was used twice in consecutive weeks at Rulo's_

### Notable Quotes

> "I just want to point out that we said Matt Grady won on Sunday. So we celebrated his birthday on Saturday. We said he won on Sunday. and then he, in 10 rounds of match play across two different leagues, in the Barcade Brooklyn Pinball League and SSPL, Matt Grady, out of a possible 70 points, scored 66. That is to say that in 10 rounds of match play, only two of group match play, he played 30 other players in these 10 matches and he beat 28 of them."
> — **Benjamin Furiga**, ~31:00
> _Demonstrates exceptional tournament performance by a local elite player; highlights the data-driven competitive depth of NYC league play_

> "Chris Dooley also wears a jacket to go play pinball. Frankly, it's nice to have someone else with the exact same standards in men's fashion around. It's nice to feel like, oh, I'm not the only person who insists on this, even though I will happily admit that it is my safety blanket, it is my Thunder shirt, it is my purse, it is any number of things, my blazer."
> — **Eric Sweetland**, ~49:00
> _Personal anecdote revealing community personalities and the social dynamics of competitive pinball venues; casual observation of player culture_

> "And like I walk in and Neil was just like, hold my fucking martini, motherfucker."
> — **Eric Sweetland**, ~52:00
> _Humorous anecdote about Neil of the Aristocrats' tournament attire (white top hat, tails, velvet jacket, cane) as a home match tradition; reveals community culture and performance aspect of competitive pinball_

> "I made it very clear that I considered there to be one acceptable option for the evening, which was my having 35 points at the end of the night. After two rounds, that was still possible. In the third round, I played Billy Vazine, Robert Wong, and Matthew Grady. Two of those people ended up the night with 31 points."
> — **Benjamin Furiga**, ~65:00
> _Reflective commentary on match play mechanics and competitive draw; illustrates the impact of opponent matching on tournament outcomes_

> "Tommy strolls in, takes a look around and goes, Jesus is dead over here."
> — **Eric Sweetland**, ~58:00
> _Social observation about cross-venue visits and the dynamic of league match night attendance at Brooklyn venues_

> "I went to Rulo's after we won our match. And, you know, it was the Battle of Rulo's. And when I walked in, it had been 6-6 after three. They were playing doubles. I think it was on Bond. I know it was on Simpsons, but I think those were the two games."
> — **Eric Sweetland**, ~50:00
> _Description of close match dynamics and the practice of cross-venue observation between home-based league teams_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| NYC Pin Pod | organization | Podcast covering competitive pinball in New York City and surrounding areas |
| Benjamin Furiga | person | Host/co-host of NYC Pin Pod; pinball player, tournament organizer, competitor in SSPL and Scrapple League |
| Eric Sweetland | person | Host/co-host of NYC Pin Pod; tournament director in NYC; player in Pinball NYC's Left Flipper Division (Colliders team) |
| Matthew Grady | person | Elite NYC pinball player; tournament winner; scored 66/70 points across 10 match play rounds in single week; winner of Read'em and Flip and Barcade Brooklyn Pinball League round |
| George Underwood | person | Pinball competitor; winner of National Drink Beer Day 2025 tournament with 31.11 Whoppers |
| Kate Martin | person | Tournament director; directed National Drink Beer Day 2025; director of Barcade Brooklyn Pinball League Season 7; SSPL finals director |
| Greg Pavarelli | person | Lead tournament director for Scrapple League; placed third in Read'em and Flip tournament |
| Scrapple Land | organization | Pinball venue in Greenpoint, Brooklyn; hosts Scrapple League; added Dune machine during week of Sept 27–Oct 2 |
| Buttermilk Bar | organization | Pinball venue in Brooklyn; hosts SSPL and Colliders home matches; hosts Pinball NYC Left Flipper Division matches |
| Rulo's | organization | Pinball venue in South Slope, Brooklyn; hosts Aristocrats home matches; visited by cross-venue league team members |
| Barcade Brooklyn | organization | Pinball bar venue in Brooklyn; hosts Barcade Brooklyn Pinball League Season 7; hosts multiple Pinball NYC division matches |
| Jack Bar | organization | Pinball venue in Williamsburg; hosted Ida's Birthday Bash pace match play tournament; hosts Pinball NYC Right Flipper matches |
| Sunshine Laundromat | organization | Laundromat and pinball venue in Brooklyn; removed Jaws Pro and Jaws LE during week of Sept 27–Oct 2 |
| Gebhard's Beer Culture | organization | Bar and pinball venue; added Godzilla Premium machine during week of Sept 27–Oct 2 |
| National Drink Beer Day 2025 | event | Private pinball tournament held September 27, 2025; 35 players; match play format; winner: George Underwood; directed by Kate Martin |
| Barcade Brooklyn Pinball League Season 7 | event | Recurring league tournament; best 4 scores count toward series; 6 meetings total; held Mondays at Barcade Brooklyn |
| Scrapple League Season 4 | event | Recurring league tournament; 6 qualifying meetings; held Wednesdays at Scrapple Land; directed by Greg Pavarelli |
| Pinball NYC Left Flipper Division | event | Team-based league; multiple venues across NYC; 4 weeks completed as of Oct 2; Balls of Steel undefeated |
| Pinball NYC Right Flipper Division | event | Team-based league; 4 rounds completed; Ball Drainers at 4-0 (top); held at multiple venues citywide |
| South Slope Pinball League (SSPL) Season 4 | event | League tournament; 6 meetings qualifying; held at Buttermilk Bar; finals held Thursday; directed by Kate Martin |
| Read'em and Flip | event | Texas Hold'em style card tournament; 8th of 9 tournaments in NYC Triborough Series; held Sept 28 at Scrapple Land; 13 players |
| Balls of Steel | organization | Undefeated team in Pinball NYC Left Flipper Division after 4 weeks; team-based league competitor |
| The Aristocrats | organization | Pinball league team based at Rulo's; left-flipper division; known for elaborate home match attire (Neil wears white top hat, tails, velvet jacket, cane) |
| Chris Dooley | person | Pinball competitor; plays for Pinbots team; known for wearing blazer to matches; played exceptionally well in Monday Oct 6 match |
| Cliff Albert | person | Pinball community figure; from Allentown area; commentator/broadcaster for National Drink Beer Day 2025 |

### Topics

- **Primary:** Competitive pinball league results and standings, Pinball venue updates and machine location tracking, Match play tournament formats and settings
- **Secondary:** NYC competitive pinball community culture and personalities, Team-based league dynamics and inter-venue rivalry, Individual player performance and rankings, Pinball machine acquisitions and removals from venues
- **Mentioned:** WPPR scoring and tournament point accumulation

### Sentiment

**Positive** (0.75) — Generally enthusiastic and celebratory tone regarding tournament results, venue activity, and community participation. Hosts express genuine affection for the community and its members. Some minor frustration expressed by Benjamin Furiga regarding his own match play performance (ending with 25 points instead of desired 35) and loss of favorite beer (Narragansett) at venue. Overall tone is engaged, warm, and community-focused.

### Signals

- **[community_signal]** Social performance aspect of competitive pinball: The Aristocrats team member Neil wearing elaborate attire (white top hat, tails, velvet jacket, cane) as home match tradition; dress code culture among players (Eric and Chris Dooley wearing blazers) (confidence: high) — Multiple anecdotes about player attire and performance; Neil's outfit described as consistent tradition for home matches
- **[community_signal]** Cross-venue participation and social cohesion: Players visiting other venues between matches; league members socializing across team venues; multiple instances of intentional venue visits for observation and community building (confidence: high) — Matthew Carlson visiting Buttermilk during Rulo's matches; Tommy Ortega visiting Buttermilk during Scrapple Squad match; Eric Sweetland attending Rulo's tiebreaker; multiple anecdotes of inter-venue mingling
- **[event_signal]** Large-scale tournament activity in NYC region during week of Sept 27–Oct 2; 6+ tournaments/leagues active in single week across multiple venues (confidence: high) — National Drink Beer Day, Ida's Birthday Bash, Read'em and Flip, Barcade Brooklyn League, Pinball NYC divisions, Scrapple League, Thursday Night Strikes all occurring in same week
- **[sentiment_shift]** High engagement and participation across multiple NYC pinball leagues; consistent tournament attendance (35 players at National Drink Beer Day; 15 at Barcade Brooklyn; 21 at Scrapple Land; 23 at SSPL finals) (confidence: high) — Multiple tournament reports with consistent participant counts; detailed league standings and results across 4+ simultaneous active leagues
- **[competitive_signal]** Elite player concentration: Matthew Grady achieving 66/70 points across 10 matches in single week; consistent appearances of same top-tier players (Billy Vazine, Robert Wong) in finals across multiple tournaments (confidence: high) — Matthew Grady scores documented across multiple tournaments in same week; repeated finalists in league standings
- **[market_signal]** Jaws machines being rotated/replaced in Brooklyn venue (removed from Sunshine Laundromat; relocated to Single Cut Beersmiths); suggests operator route management and machine rotation patterns (confidence: medium) — Specific machine removal and relocation data from Pinball Map; same IP removed and added at different locations in same week
- **[community_signal]** Tournament director and operator culture: Kate Martin directing multiple leagues simultaneously; Greg Pavarelli taking time off but league continuing under assistant TDs (Woody Richmond, Alex Kelly); decentralized leadership model enabling continuity (confidence: high) — Kate Martin listed as director for Barcade Brooklyn League, SSPL finals, National Drink Beer Day; Greg Pavarelli absent but league run by known assistants
- **[technology_signal]** Machine acquisition patterns showing recent release availability: Dune machine added to Scrapple Land; Godzilla Premium added to Gebhard's; Jaws machines being distributed across Brooklyn venues (confidence: medium) — Venue machine updates show rapid distribution of recent releases to NYC locations during late September/early October 2025
- **[venue_signal]** Beer/beverage supply chain issue at Scrapple Land: Narragansett unavailable, replaced by Bud Light; described as 'short-term supply problem'; venue management encouraging rapid consumption to restock (confidence: medium) — Hosts note change in beer list at Scrapple Land (Sunshine Laundromat); bartender Dee confirms temporary stock issue

---

## 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. I was not the only pinballer in a blazer in either of the Monday night pinball venues I haunted. My name is Eric Sweetland. My initials are HIP, and I'm a pinball tournament director in New York City. Oh yeah, and this episode is going to be released on my birthday. Yeah! On this week's pod, we'll run down local competition results in Ball 1, as usual. In Ball 2, we will, as usual, do our venue updates and bullet journals. And then in Ball 3, we will talk about match play settings and really how important it is to pay attention to them. Let's get started! Let's talk about competition results from NYC Pinball in the last week. On Saturday, September 27th, 35 players gathered at a private location in Brooklyn for National Drink Beer Day 2025. Parenthetically, happy birthday, Grady. Under the direction of Kate Martin, they played 10 rounds of group match play and advanced to A and B finals. In the A finals, the overall winner was George Underwood. Second place went to Alex Kelly. David Patlock took third and Matthew Grady fourth. In the B finals, Janos Kiss Gonzalez got the top spot, followed by Alberto Santana, Caitlin James Rees, and Douglas Lewis. George Underwood picked up 31.11 whoppers on the day. That's a massive haul for a local tournament. Yeah. It's for real, those Whoppers. Also, on Saturday, September 27th, Ida's birthday bash and high speed to the getaway retrospective was held at Jack Bar. This was a pace match play, like the tournament that we talked about with Jose a few weeks ago, where you had to keep a pace up to a certain point. And for that reason, I think they actually ended up with nine players in the finals. They did the Pace and then an Amazing Race Finals. And they ended up with nine players because the Pace, you know, wouldn't cut off someone who had made the Pace. Out of the 23 who started the day. Yeah, exactly. So they had nine get into the Amazing Race Finals, which also does well with a, you know, with an odd number of players. That's also a good format if you're going to do that that way. If you must have finals after this, as we talked about before, then this is probably a good way to do it. And Alex Weisenberger topped the field in this one, gaining 9.11 Whoppers on their scorecard. Connor Kalista got second, Kane Bloomfield third, and Boris Soriano fourth. Gabriel Chazanov directed. on Sunday, September 28th, Jose Garcia put on Read Em and Flip, a Texas Hold Em card tournament at Scrapple Land. This being the eighth of nine tournaments in the NYC Triborough Series. This time around, it's a card format, but a little modified where three games were predetermined for everyone and then everyone also received two random other games from a bank to make their five game card and as i understand it you could then potentially buy a new version of those two games i think you'd also get a new play of those three games you'd do a whole new five games in a row right 13 players came out for the day and four advanced to a group papa style finals Matt Grady got the win Kate Martin came in second Greg Pavarelli third and Tommy Ortega fourth Matt picked up 3.52 Whoppers for winning this one on Monday September 29th Barcade Brooklyn Pinball League's season 7 had their second meeting of 6 during which they will attempt to garner the most points toward a series Their best four will count. This is just like the format of Scrapple League. This is just like the format of SSPL. They play every other week right now on Mondays. Kate Martin is the director of record, and she gathered 15 players to Barcade Brooklyn, where they played five rounds of match play with IFPA scoring. That's 7-5-3-1. and Matthew Grady, whose name we just said in the last one, he scored 35 points. If you're counting, if you do your math right, seven points at max per round and five rounds, that seems to me like that equals 35. So he was perfect on the night. After the next meeting, we'll take a look at the status in the series so far, but I have a feeling we'll be talking about Matthew Grady somewhere near the top of it based on his finish in this one. Alex Weisenberger came in second with 24 points. And just below them at 23 apiece were Jose Garcia and Sean Grant. Also on Monday, in pinball NYC's left flipper division, the Mutants traveled to upstate Manhattan to visit our New York City Flipper Sport Association at At the Wallace. NYC FSA with a big 13-3 home win. The pin pals traveled to Gebhard's Beer Culture to see the lesser players The Pin Pals got a 10-6 road win there. They did go to the Upper West Side. The Deluxe Horses had a bye week. The Two for Oners welcomed Parliament to Scruffy Duffy's Tap Room. And the home team got a 9-7 win. They are undefeated at their new home so far. Balls of Steel and Lion Persons battled at Arcade Fight Eye. Balls of Steel with an 11-5 road win. They remain the only undefeated team in the division. Harry's hand grenades met Intermission Dolores at Commonwealth. Intermission Dolores with a 13-3 home win. And unfortunately, having been on the wrong side of the previous one, I can state unequivocally, that's their second straight home win. The Colliders hosted the Pinbots at Buttermilk Bar, and the Colliders got a 9-7 win. Chris Dooley played great and looked great. I had a great Twilight Zone in round one doubles, and I had a terrible Ghostbusters. in round four doubles, but we came out nine strong and were super cute as we be. Nice. Special win lit. Went to Rulo's to see the Aristocrats. After a tie-breaking game, the away team wins eight to eight. That's the virtual away team, to be fair. Both of these teams call Rulo's home. I actually went over and saw the end of this. The tiebreaker was split flipper on Simpson's pinball party. Last week, we knew that they did Split Flipper on Roadshow because you played them there. And it went to a Split Flip tiebreaker that, again, Sam and MMC played together and won. It was an exciting night over there. Apparently for the second week in a row. After four weeks of play, taking a look at the standings is a little confused because some teams have had buys already. And some teams haven't. One team every week. Exactly four teams have had buys. And so the number of games each team has played is varying. And there's not a real clear story jumping out right now, but we're going to keep an eye on this. In the general, there's one team, the Balls of Steel, are undefeated. There are three teams that have yet to win. On Tuesday, September 30th, round four of Pinball NYC's right flipper division was convened all over New York City. At Barcade Brooklyn, Danger Danger went to visit Reston Pinball and the away team came away with a 9-7 win. Danger Danger staying undefeated. The ball drainers visited the schlubs at Jack Bar, where again, the away team got a 9-7 win. This was a match of two other previously undefeated teams. The schlubs didn't quite meet the moment that night. No quarters for Laundrie visited the replays at Rulos and visited some violence upon them with a 14-2 away win. Wow. Neptune's Treasure did something similar, going to Skylark, but Pinister Six were the victims in this one, and 12-4 was the score. The Harlem Globe Flippers visited Everybody Loves the Sunshine at Sunshine Laundromat, and again, the away team won a 9-7 victory. The Globe Flippers giving Everybody Loves the Sunshine a home loss for their first loss in their team history. The Pin Babes visited the Trolls at Barcade Fi-Di. Again, the away team picked up a 9-7 win. And Scrapple Squad went to Buttermilk Bar where they visited your Butterballers, Eric. The Butterballers, unlike all the other 9-7s in the division, the Butterballers got a home 9-7 win. So both of those last two matches, the Pin Babes Trolls and the Scrapple Squad Butterballers, were battles of winless teams. And both of them being 9-7 means a single game was the difference between a tie. A doubles win going the other way would have gone, right? Yeah. And one singles win by the other team would have made it a tiebreaker. A lot of blowouts last week, but a whole ton of nine and sevens this week. Yeah, a whole lot of nine and sevens. And in fact, a whole lot of away nine to sevens. Butterballers were the only nine to seven that bucked that trend, I think. This division's a little bit clearer after four weeks, since it doesn't have the complication of the bye. It also looks very symmetrical, as you might imagine, with a team or a division that has an even number of teams and an even number of games have been played. There are two teams that are 4-0, two teams that are 0-4, a bunch of teams at 3-1, and a bunch of teams at 1-3, and there are exactly two teams in the middle at 2-2. On Wednesday, October 1st, 21 players came out to Scrapple Land to play in Scrapple League's fourth season of 2025, the fourth meeting of six in the qualifying. Greg Pavarelli, lead tournament director, was not there, but the evening was covered by myself, Woody Richmond, and Alex Kelly, his assistant TDs. It's another league, another regular night, five rounds of match play with IFPA scoring with the goal of garnering the most points towards your series total. Alex Kelly did it the best, getting 29 points. Tyler Convery and Zach Till both got 27, and Nitsan Gabai got 26. I believe there were six people that joined in the optional side pot for the evening, which paid out to the top two, Alex Kelly and Nitsan Gabai, who had joined in. We've got four weeks in the books, and that means some people have four meetings in enough to fulfill their total requirement, but can keep coming back for the next two weeks to try to do better. Zach Till is leading the way at 98 points with four meetings. And Adam Kane has 91. Greg Pavarelli, Woody Richman, Nitzan Gabai, Tyler Convery, Dan Merrill, and Hunter Hayden would all be in the A-finals if we stopped it right here. That said, most of those people have three meetings only. Woody has four. And the B and C finals are mostly full of people who have three or fewer meetings so far, and so all of that is subject to a lot of jumbling up over the next two weeks. A lot of pinball yet to be played. There's a picture, it's just not a perfectly clear picture yet. On Thursday, October 2nd, No Bro Presents Thursday Night Strikes 10-25 was convened it was Yosemite Sam who directed I presume that Sam Hall uh for the night this is strikes every time it is three strikes it is head to head there is a wrinkle that maybe we'll talk about later about what happens when you get a buy in this league when we're talking about match play settings and gabriel chasanov the director of record came out on top with only two strikes to his name after 11 rounds he played 10 games nintu was second zach till third and travis rosenberg fourth also on thursday the sixth and final week of qualifying for the south slope pinball league's fourth season. At Buttermilk Bar, directed by Kate Martin, 23 players came out, played five rounds of match play with IFPA scoring. They needed to get those final points. Billy Vazine and Matthew Grady both got 31 points. Matthew Carlson, Janos Kiss Gonzalez, Caitlin Rees, and Benjamin Furiga all got 25. so last week we talked about these standings and i i i'm gonna say i believe i had that when i said 88 your your 88 is that that's what you had yeah your 88 is well i'm not i'm not looking at those bottom two numbers because those bottom two numbers are not actually where this cut line is i i'm i'm looking at your 88 that's about where it is and last night caitlin came up to me as round four was beginning and said, I can't catch up to you. I can only pass Eric. Kate and I talked about it at the beginning of the night too. Then I was just like, these two low 80s are not what we're looking at. The cut line turns out to have been 95 for Kate in eighth. So that's the cut line for A. Above that line are myself and Janos Kiss and Billy and A.J. Gould and Matthew Carlson and Matthew Grady got himself into second place with those 31 points. And perennially, Robert Wong is at the top of the standings. Rob and Matt will drive buses. B, if everybody shows up, looks like Caitlin and Eric driving buses, Franklin DeFelice, Stephen Christopher, Thomas Milburn, Morgan Levinson, Zen Zokmiak, and Paul McHugh. If any of them should not be able to occupy the duty of their office, Courtney Wetzel would be next up and Kelly Arisa would be the following option. I just want to point out that we said Matt Grady won on Sunday. So we celebrated his birthday on Saturday. We said he won on Sunday. and then he, in 10 rounds of match play across two different leagues, in the Barcade Brooklyn Pinball League and SSPL, Matt Grady, out of a possible 70 points, scored 66. That is to say that in 10 rounds of match play, only two of group match play, he played 30 other players in these 10 matches and he beat 28 of them That crazy That a crazy good play for a week This week, Barcade Brooklyn Pinball League Season 7 will be off. This week, they'll come back. Next week, Pinball NYC's Left Flipper Division will have Round 5 on Monday, October 6th. New York City Flipper Sport Association will visit the Pin Pals at Skylark. The Two for Oners will have a bye week despite their hot home streak. The Lesser Players will travel from Manhattan into Greenpoint to visit the Pinbots at Scrapple Land. One of those teams will get their first win. The Lion Persons will go to Barcade Brooklyn to visit the D Lux Horses. Manhattan versus Brooklyn. Solid State will be the host of the showdown between the Mutants and Special When Lit. Both of these teams are at 3-1. The Mutants have 32 points, while Special When Lit has 31. This match should separate them in the standings. Harry's hand grenades will go to Midway to visit Balls of Steel. Hand grenades looking for their first win. Balls of Steel trying to avoid their first loss. We Colliders will visit Parliament at Owl Farm. And the Aristocrats will host at Rulo's. And this time their opponent will be Intermission Dolores. The Aristocrats have earned more points than any other one-win team, and in fact most of the two-win teams. They're only one point short of Special Win Lit at 3-1. On Tuesday, October 7th, in Pinball NYC's Right Flipper Division, Round 5 will see the replays visit Danger Danger at Buttermilk Bar, The Ball Drainers and Neptune's Treasure will fight at Milo's Yard Ball Drainers are 4-0, they're atop the division The Neptune's Treasure is at 3-1 and they're 12 points behind them but that's a good home field advantage they might be able to make up some ground The Pin Babes will host Penister Six at Birdies That's a matchup of 1-3 teams Rest in Pinball parenthetically R.I.P will go to Jack Bar to see the Schlubs We Butterballers are headed up to At The Wallace to see the Harlem Globe Flippers. Sounds to me like your Tuesday night team is visiting your Monday night home. That's pretty nice. Trolls and Scrapple Squad will be at Scrapple Land. That is another O-N matchup for both of those teams. So we're in another situation this week where last week we had four O-N teams. This week, we're going to go down to only one based on who, well, unfortunately, based on the way I framed this, who loses this match. And in the battle of the longest team names in the division, Everybody Loves the Sunshine will see no quarters for Laundrie at solid state. One win in Everybody Loves the Sunshine's favor and one point in no quarters for Laundrie's favor separate these two teams in the standings. On Wednesday, October 8th, Scrapple League's fourth season of 2025 will have its fifth meeting at Scrapple Land in Greenpoint, Brooklyn at pinball 8 o'clock. at exactly 8 o'clock on Thursday, October 9th. No Bro Presents Thursday Night Strikes will be convened under the guiding hand of someone in the overall collective of tournament directors that are No Bro. That will happen at Jack Bar in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Also on Thursday, the South Slope Pinball League will have the finals of their fourth season of the year at Buttermilk at Pinball 8 o'clock yeah I always hope when it might be six rounds that I'm playing that night I always hope we start closer to actual 8 o'clock it's going to be what it's going to be people have lives pinball isn't everybody's life on Saturday October 11th South Slope Strikes will be convened under the guiding hand of Jess Warren. It will be convened at Rulo's in South Slope, Brooklyn. As of October 3rd, 2025, there are 347 pinball machines in New York City at 80 public locations. Thanks to the creators and users of Pinball Map for this data, here are machine updates from the past week. On Saturday, September 27th, a Jaws Pro was removed from Sunshine Laundromat. Also, a Jaws LE was removed from Sunshine Laundromat. Also, a Jaws Pro was added to Single Cut Beersmiths in Queens. Removed from Single Cut? No fear. on Monday user The Barracuda was at Rock-A-Rolla in Brooklyn and said of their Playboy works pretty good the flippers feel a little weak but you can still have fun with it. On Tuesday The Barracuda was at Birdies and said that their South Park is currently out of order also on Tuesday user Pops Pinball went to Milo's Yard and said of their whirlwind, nicest whirlwind I've ever seen on location. Beautiful playfield, fast-spinning discs. Rascals look all right, too. All-incandescent GI. What's a rascal? Not sure. On Thursday, a Godzilla premium was added to the lineup at Gebhard's Beer Culture. User Hitchhiker said, This is in the front room. Also on Thursday, a dune was added to Scrapple Land. User Dantastic says, spice it up. So when did you play pinball this week? Last Saturday. Played a little bit at work at Barcade Brooklyn. But then after work, I stopped in to see how National Drink Beer Day, Happy Birthday Grady, was going on. And you know what? I'm thinking back. I'm not sure if I played a single pinball game. No, I do. I remember I played a game of Robocop right when I got there. I spent most of the evening in the commentary booth for the stream as the finals was going on and then just partying with all the pinball people there. It was huge. It was very cool. Who were you in the booth with? I spent most of my time in the booth with Cliff Albert, who's a real pinball character and it was a lot of fun to commentate with him. From Allentown, I believe, or at least part of the Allentown scene, if not from Allentown proper. I don't know if he's from Bethlehem or... Over that way. Yeah. I also went to National Drink Beer Day for a minute. I'm going to say this now and hopefully not get too emotional about it, but we put a cat down on Saturday. She was my little best friend. Her name was Waffles. She had effectively been my studio assistant on every episode of NYC Pin Pod to this point. But I wasn't going to play that pinball tournament that day. That was not a possibility. So I had made two dozen potato donuts for this because sometimes, often, when something happens at this particular private location, there is a potluck competition element to it. I was very excited about my entry. I have received a lot of positive comments about them. Those were some delicious potato donuts. They were very good. And I will tell you the secret is that a little bit of duck fat goes a very long way. When you see shortening, vegetable shortening as a recipe or as an an ingredient in a recipe and you choose to use duck fat instead, you have just injected a great deal of flavor into the thing. And at that, I should apologize to vegetarians. That is a knee jerk reaction. That's what I do in my kitchen. And when I was making these things the first time, it wasn't until I had dropped the duck fat in that I was like, fuck, I like to take something that vegetarians can eat to these things. And I wasn't going to do a second batch. It was my first time trying them. They are pretty labor intensive. I dropped by to drop those off. I was consoled by friends. I was incognito. I had many close friends who walked past me and did not recognize me or acknowledge me because I went in a roll collared shirt, no jacket and a baseball cap. I took my morning outfit out. I have a collar and my hair is going to look like whatever the hell my hair is going to look like right now, so it's getting under a baseball cap. I had great chats with a bunch of folks, not only about waffles, but also to distract me from thinking about waffles, if even only for a minute. I also rapped with Jonah for a couple minutes about what the sound effect might be for Neptune's Treasure results. Ooh. On Sunday, I had intended to go to the Read'em and Flip tournament, but I found myself needing a day of recovery after the party the night before. Sure, sure. Same in terms of intent and just a different, I was recovering from something different on Sunday. Both of my team matches this week were at home. We've got a fun new thing up at the Wallace, a big Buck Hunter cabinet up on the upper level where the pinball machines are. That has been replaced now by a claw machine. Oh. And this claw machine is full of only little rubber ducks. Okay. And NYC FSA, several members have gotten very proficient at winning lots of these little rubber ducks. Enough to say how many they feel they need to take home at this point. and they are now a topper on top of Hot Wheels. Oh. It's a line of little rubber ducks that have been won. And, you know, sometimes some of them disappear. I would put some more up there. Yeah, sure. Sure. That's fun. They got some really cute ones. You know, there's yellow ones, but there's pink ones. Sure. And there's little glitter ones. Sure. Are there some like wearing hats or anything too? Like accessorized? I think some of the colors might have slightly different molds. The pink one might be like a little punk duck. Gotcha. Like have a mohawk or something. Yeah, something like that. On Monday, I went to Buttermilk where we played the pinbots. Chris Dooley is on that team. I teased this in my intro. Chris Dooley also wears a jacket to go play pinball. Frankly, it's nice to have someone else with the exact same standards in men's fashion around. It's nice to feel like, oh, I'm not the only person who insists on this, even though I will happily admit that it is my safety blanket, it is my Thunder shirt, it is my purse, it is any number of things, my blazer. But it's nice to have someone else around who's always in a blazer. Chris played great. I think I said it when we talked about the results, but he played great. on Monday night. He was the one person that would have been really easy to be afraid of just based on the way he was playing that night. Harlan is a fine player to be afraid of. Nick Berry is a fine player to be afraid of. There are good players on that team, but Chris was killing it on Monday night. MMC, Matthew Carlson, came across the street from Rulo's to check in with me as he has now done the last two times that they've been home at well although they were away at their home bar but the last two times that they've been home and we've been home he or you know virtually home he has come over sometime around their halftime to check in with us we talked for a minute and caught up and you know it was clear to me it was halftime over there when our round three was just about wrapping up, I think. So I was going to go catch the end of theirs, for sure. I did go to Rulo's after we won our match. And, you know, it was the Battle of Rulo's. And when I walked in, it had been 6-6 after three. They were playing doubles. I think it was on Bond. I know it was on Simpsons, but I think those were the two games. I don't remember who was playing bond but aristocrats won it you know and it was over much before the simpsons and so they were waiting it out and sam was super killing it on simpsons pinball party neil of the aristocrats was wearing a top hat a white top hat tails he wasn't actually wearing the blazer when i walked in he was not wearing the hat or the blazer nor carrying the cane when i walked in although you You could see he had French cuffs on. It was clear that Neil was dressed up more than I am used to seeing this gentleman dressed up, wearing French cuffs, had a white top hat, had a velvet jacket with tails and cane that he and I strategized about how to most effectively make a cudgel, use as a weapon. He was wearing that and apparently does that for all of the aristocrats' home matches. This was news to me and something that I found out on Monday night that I just, I was, my mind was blown. While I, you know, I just, I was just this fucking dude who came across the street and was like, look, it's cute. I wear a tweed blazer and I was just playing against the guy also wearing a wool blazer. Look, we're so cute. And then like I walk in and Neil was just like, hold my fucking martini, motherfucker. Oh, you're talking about going back and forth across the street reminds me on Tuesday. We Butterballers were at home at Buttermilk and we had a visitor come across the street from Rulo's. Tommy Ortega stopped by to see how stuff was going on. This was just at the beginning of round four of our match with Scrapple Squad. It was a very quiet night at Buttermilk. There were the two teams for about a total of 11. We had six, they had five. There wasn't anyone else in the bar besides a few of the regular patrons. Tommy strolls in, takes a look around and goes, Jesus is dead over here. On Wednesday night was Scrapple League. Greg, as mentioned before, was out of town. We ran a good night. There was a change. Narragansett was not on the beer list. Right after we just said we lost all credibility, dear listener. The moment that you walked into Sunshine on Wednesday night. We lost all credibility. What the hell happened? Was there still a cheap beer there at least? There was. There's a cheap beer. There was Bud Light. And it was only four bucks. Gross. Yeah. Not the four bucks. But. I mean, it's gross at any price. Dee, the bartender, encouraged many of us who were shocked to find Narragansett not on tap. She exhorted us to drink all this Bud Light real quick so they can empty the keg and get Narragansett back on the line. I see. I see. So it was a short-term supply problem. That's what it looks like. Yeah Okay All right Well then I don feel like such an idiot for having spouted as capital T Truth capital U Utter Nonsense a week ago Well Thursday night I missed South Slope Pinball League in that the sixth and final qualifying week. I had a prearranged board game night with Jess Warren and friends. I did manage to come over afterwards and see what was going on. I stepped in just in the middle of the fifth round. I stuck around a little bit. I played some pinball with you. Yeah, that's right. How was your experience of the whole SSPL night? Well, so look, first I went to Rulo's. As I've said before, I like to, after I've walked through the park and been in my own head for an hour and a half, or well, not that long, for 40 minutes, that I like to have a buffer of like, I can acknowledge the existence of fewer than 30 people around me, only four of whom I know as the sort of transitory phase between that and I walk into a bar where I know 25 people and like all of you. I like all of you. I don't want to make it sound like it's difficult to be around you because you're difficult to be around. It's difficult to be around you because I'm difficult to be around. So let's be clear on that. But I went to Rulo's and I always play the Big Lebowski first if I walk in and it's empty. But then I tried to get a hold of Simpson's Pinball Party and I haven't got there yet. I kind of know what I'm trying to do. Kind of. It's not in my bones yet. It's in my brain and not in my bones yet. But then I went to SSPL. I made it very clear to anyone who would listen in the half hour that I was there between you know, 8.45 in the time we started. Or 7.45 in the time we started, rather. I made it very clear that I considered there to be one acceptable option for the evening, which was my having 35 points at the end of the night. After two rounds, that was still possible. In the third round, I played Billy Vazine, Robert Wong, and Matthew Grady. Two of those people ended up the night with 31 points. One of them ended up just a couple of points behind me and is perennially the number one seed in this tournament. I played two of those three people for the last three rounds, I believe. After I got first in the first two rounds, I played two of those three people for the last two rounds. And that did not do me well. That did me dirty. I ended up with 25 points, having been beaten by five people whom I was not supposed to have been beaten by if I was going to have the result that I went there to have. So I am not embarrassed because everybody should have been shooting for 35 points on the evening. I'm not embarrassed to have 25, but I'm not happy about it. That's for fucking sure. I'm not happy about being either player one or player two for every round, you know every game that i play i got to put up the high score as the 76ers on the nba you know that was erased a couple of weeks ago so i now have knicks and nets and 76ers i will always go in that order the bullets are next taking a trip down the atlantic seaboard proximity to new york it will always be the knicks first it will always be the nets second and then after that it's proximity. So it'll be the Celtics after the Bullets. I think that we're slightly closer to Washington than to Boston, but I might be wrong. But that's, in my mind, they're the next closest ones. It's also the Celtics are a rival. I can't fucking like the Celtics. Celtics. Yeah. And I received more compliments on my donuts. Yeah, I'm on Thursday. Yeah. I was very happy with them. Let's talk about match play settings per tournament. Ask any tournament director who uses match play often, and that's pretty much any tournament director who directs tournaments often, because unless they only run gigantic tournaments and only use Neverdrains for their gigantic pump-and-dump tournaments, a tournament director probably... And they use any kind of software at all. a tournament director uses match play. They're going to tell you it's a vital, vital tool. They will also tell you that setting it up correctly the first time will save you a whole lot of agita. I have a dirty feeling that most of them have earned this knowledge in the most effective way possible, which is, of course, failure. I, myself, failed at it for the six games, six songs challenge. I was notified by Matthew XYZ that they were unable to enter scores despite having registered. And then I said like, oh, I didn't confirm your registration. And then I did that and they still were unable. They pinged me on Monday night still to say, sorry, I still can't do this. While they were at Barcade Fidei and trying to, you know, be a stand-up person and, like, put in their score right when they did it and everything. And I was non-sober at the end of my Monday Night Pinball match when I saw this message sent directly to me on Discord and responded roughly, we'll look ASAP. Thankfully, you know, my failure happened in the lowest stakes way possible since hour challenge is just that. It's a challenge. It's interesting. It's maybe where a pinball tournament meets a borderline augmented reality situation. We want to change your environment when you're playing this pinball machine. And I will just mention that you can find the six games, six songs challenge at matchplay.live slash numeral six games numeral six songs. You don't type out numeral. When I say numeral six, it's the number six, right? Six games, six songs. The sixes are the numeral six. When I dropped that note on Discord, Jose Garcia Negron chimed in to mention that he'd recently had something similar happen and offered a suggestion for a setting to check. That particular setting had been correct in this instance, but then I puttered around match play for several minutes and discovered that even I, as the tournament director, couldn't input results for any player. There were registered players. I, as the tournament director, could not say that they scored any number of points on any game. And so I puttered around a little bit more and I honestly don't know what I changed. If I told you that what I think I changed is I think at some point I changed a radio button or a drop down menu and then I didn't save it. But then I changed it back to the thing that it was on before and then I saved it and it fixed it. Now, that can't be right. that like it's not possible that the software was that wrong and I'm somehow right because software is right most of the time and the human brain is wrong if it's a binary someone's right someone's wrong that that's that's how it's going to work the algorithm is going to understand it I mean the algorithm doesn't understand matters of the heart you know I'm sure I changed something and all of a sudden it started working I've had people confirm that they were able to submit scores matthew has submitted scores since and i you know also said when i dropped the thing in discord like please you know take your photo be ready to submit it it's i trust you that you were doing this thing by the way the six game six songs challenge you should listen to the particular playlist it's linked you should do that that got me thinking about what the setting should be and i also last week eric and i before we started recording i specifically asked or two weeks ago I guess it was like, what are the settings? What am I doing here? What's, what do I need to do? And we worked through it and I thought we had all the right things. And, you know, I guess there's, there's a world in which I could say, I still think we did, but that's probably not true. There was probably one thing that was a little bit off. There was something I didn't ask Eric about that I should have asked him about. And so like what it is now kind of intimidating to me about how to even start a tournament in match play because I was just trying to do a really simple thing where anyone can suggest what their score is and submit a photo, and I failed. Every week, Eric introduces himself and says, I'm a pinball tournament director in New York City. And so what are you looking for? What is the essential bit of match play, of the match play settings? I set up a lot of tournaments and almost all of them are all the same setting. I set up all of Scrapple League so it's again and again and again just the copy paste settings Does it have that functionality? Let's just talk about that for a second. When you say the copy paste settings, is there something where you can duplicate the tournament and now I have all the same settings and I just name it something different? Exactly so. Okay. And that is a great time-saving feature that's been added along the way. So many new things in match play. So many new capability. You must know the name of the person who programs this. Let's recognize them, please. Is it Andreas? Am I right there? Yes, Andreas. Do you know their last name? Hogstrop Peterson. Very good. Originally from Denmark. Lives in San Francisco these days. Cool. He has an active community of beta testers organized around a Discord, and he is always adding useful things and rooting out bugs. So a lot of it changes from time to time as new capabilities are added or maybe the workflows are adjusted. So it's not always just knowing the interface, but knowing the right details that you need to know is important. Right. The first thing that happens when you create a tournament in Match Play, you've got a few things, some basics to set the name of your tournament. And it's date and time, where you're going to have it, maybe a little description. But the most important thing is what format is this tournament going to be? And also, let's just point out, when you say the where you're going to have it, there is API tied into Scorbit and maybe also Pinball Map. The Pinball Map, correct. The Pinball Map. So when you say where you're going to have it, it's going to auto-populate games once you've chosen a location based on what the Pinball Map says is there. You're able to do that, yeah, which is very nice. the most important thing you've got to decide on right away is format because there's so many wildly different formats and we've talked about some of the weirder ones that we've been trying out this year in new york city a lot at jose's hands they vary so differently the following screens after you've put in this basic stuff are going to be directed by what the format is there'll be all sorts of options for each of the different when you were setting up six game Six Song Challenge, you saw how to set up a best game tournament and all the options that relate to best game. A lot of that stuff about entries and queues, none of that applies to a group match. Yeah, no, I was able to skip a lot of that stuff because it's a selfie league. Because we're not all there at the same time, so we have to queue up. And then also, yeah, you were setting up a very simple best game tournament without a lot of the extra stuff that match play these days in the last year or two has gotten very good at best, best game tournaments with Andreas's work. And it can handle lots of complicated stuff like managing cubes and having scorekeepers and you can do best game. You can do card format also. It's a different format, but very similar in its expression. Yeah. And at least it's logistics in that, in that you, play whatever it is that you're playing it it gets recorded in one way or another right now you go through and do it and then you can do it again so it has has those things in common at least now the vast majority of what i set up are group match play tournaments so once that extremely standard format has been selected and you hit the create tournament button You're just brought to the regular tournament screen as anyone sees it when they're in match play. But parts of it are editable as the tournament director. Right. You can click on it as the tournament director. You can click on a link and like something that kind of looks like it's going to be a hyperlink turns into a drop down all of a sudden. Roughly. Right. Is that roughly the idea? Yeah. And then a lot of the options that you can set on a group match play are actually pretty common across major. many of the common formats. A lot of this stuff applies to strikes. Sure. Pairing. Let's talk pairing, for instance. That's a common one. And honestly, I think that the different formats almost require you to choose the certain types of pairing sometimes. I mean, they should require that. In my mind, they're better is what I mean to say. They require you to. There's certainly not in a match play sense. you can choose almost any kind of pairing in almost any tournament, right? Yeah, I've played a strikes tournament with balanced pairing, and I found it odd. Yeah, it's crazy. It just feels very natural for a strikes tournament to use Swiss pairing. Right, so balanced pairing means you play the greatest number of different opponents, right? As possible that the algorithm can arrange in the groups. Right, randomized to some degree. Yeah, but hopefully when you get drawn into a new game, you've got all new opponents. Right. There is a random pairing that you can turn on. Sure. And it would just be totally random. And then, I mean, I've seen it on message boards and in the Discord where Andreas is developing the software. People turn on random and then they go, hey, this isn't random. I keep playing games with this one other person. Right, but that's what random is. Yeah, random is just, it's random. There's no pattern. Right. Yeah. Utterly stochastic. So then you've got balanced. You could go completely random. The big option you're going to find most places, Swiss pairing. Yes. The algorithm attempts to put you into groups with people who have the same number of tournament points that you have at the moment, or the same number of strikes, or you're playing the same way today. Yes, you are playing at roughly the same skill level, at least after you've advanced through a few rounds. When it reverts to the mean, you have scored about the same as these folks today in Swiss pairing. I believe we took Swiss pairing from chess. There's also tiered Swiss, which is Swiss pairing, and it requires a large enough field and a long enough tournament to really work. In the first round or the first number of rounds, everyone is in one tier. Yeah. It works just like Swiss. Okay. Then you start breaking people into smaller and smaller tiers. So say you break it into halves. Then you do Swiss within the top half and then Swiss within the bottom half. then break it into four and do Swiss in each of those groups. The tiering goes pretty quickly because the tournaments are short and it's not a giant field of 128 or something. Right. The tiers, building the groups within a tier is then done slaughter style. The effect is in the final round of it, you will have the groupings be the top group is 1 2 3 4 Okay The next group is 5 6 7 8 Got it It keeps the top players in the standard Swiss from fighting against each other in the earlier rounds. Got it. In the end, it will be the top four people in the top group. But before that, they'll be mixed in with some people who are at the bottom of their current tier. I haven't personally found a reason to use it yet. Your last option under Match Play currently is a great new addition from Andreas. It's balanced pairing across series. Oh, great. What is new and cool is the across series kind of option. I'm not using the pairing one, but it's also you can do balanced arena choice across series, and that's where I find it incredibly useful when we'll talk about how you choose arena. It's actually making the arenas is just like making the groups. The arena assignment can be completely random, or it can be balanced, or balanced across the series. Now, this is great in a league like Scrapple League. Sure. Lots of games to choose from. You can't dominate because of the one machine in a place that has enough machines to play. When you're setting how the algorithm's going to choose the arena, Swiss is not a concept that exists. These aren't. The machines aren't ranked. But there's a couple other options you can do. You can put them into banks and you can have the software build the banks for you or you can set up your own banks. And let's also very briefly talk about an example real world right here in New York City. The Jess Warren runs South Slope Strikes between the host venue each month alternates between buttermilk and rulos and she is able to create the bank at one place in the bank at the other place and favor the bank at the home place we still go play at the other place but as soon as the groups have decreased to a number that only fit in the home place she's able to do that with this with this arena stuff it's great it's incredible as a player watching it happen is incredible. It's a really good effect that she's able to get out of the Match Play software, although it is not chosen here at this point. She hasn't entered them as banks. Oh, interesting. They are just all entered in the normal way, but the ones at the home venue have a checkbox inside of each of their settings that says make this a preferred arena. Oh, preferred arena, okay. A preferred arena will always be drawn. It just magically works then. If you set all of the machines inside of the home venue for the month as preferred arenas and all of the machines at the other venue as not, the other ones will get chosen when needed, but the first nine or whatever will get filled up from all the preferreds, and then if you need more, it'll start taking from the other set. which is perfect for a strikes where you reduce the field of players throughout the course of the tournament. Setting banks of arenas is something you might commonly see in finals. We've started doing it at Scrapple League. We're using banks for finals, whereas the bus driver gets to choose a bank, not choose each of the three games in the round separately. Makes sense. So we set them up there. And then also, in a lot of finals, when the players do get to choose each of the games, you'll want to set the algorithm to manual. So that just is the tournament director is saying, I'm going to go to each game and I'm going to click the buttons to make it say which one the bus driver chose. Right. This game does not start until I choose which game it starts on and input the player order, which the players will probably choose in a finals like that, right? Yeah, exactly. There's a few settings that you'll need to set depending on which format you've chosen that are just like basics of how does the tournament run? Like how many rounds are we playing? Sure. If that's deterministic in a group match play or on a league night, it's five rounds. You got to set that up. And you can also, a round could be more than one game. Right. Most of the stuff that we're playing around the city, we're playing one match per round, and that's what you set under how many matches per round setting. You tell it what scoring system you want to use. The leagues are mostly using IFPA, 7-5-3-1, but there's all the different ones, finals and Papa. There's whether you're going to have some scorekeepers. You can set if they can change a couple of other settings. Are players suggesting results or not? That I imagine is a really important one for a lot of leagues in particular if it's either in a big venue or if it's very public. At Buttermilk, for instance, you need people on Thursday nights to be able to submit their scores and say, this person got first, this person got second, this person got third, this person got fourth, and then step away from the machine because there are civilians in that bar who might want to play that pinball machine while in between. And you don't want to be in the way. Obviously, that model is amplified at a place like Barcade, but nonetheless, you don't want civilians to be chased away just because it's League Night, right? Yeah, and indeed, this is key to the challenge that we're running right now. Yeah. That players can submit their scores and it just goes in. Yeah. I'm not going to fucking camp out at Barcade Fight Eye down in the basement. Right, whereas at a big tournament... With official scorekeepers, only the scorekeepers can put in the scores. Yeah, and Match Play can now support this. This was something that for a long time you almost had to go to Never Drains for, but Match Play is now getting pretty good at it, as witnessed by The Harvest last year. So a lot of those are common, but some of them change if you're in a different format. Strikes, probably the other most common format you'll see. and it's got player pairing your same choices, you can do Swiss you can do balanced, you can do random you can assign the arenas the same way, balanced or random or manual and those have across series as being options and then some basic stuff you need to set that's a little different, you gotta say how many strikes is this tournament and how are the strikes being distributed Is this where we start to talk about fair strikes? And so then there's a couple of differences. If you're doing group strikes in groups of four, you've got all sorts of different ways to distribute strikes in the group. The usual one just being first and second place don't get a strike, third and fourth do. But then if you have a three-player group, how many strikes are distributed in that? Then you can do some of the wackier formats like fair strikes and progressive strikes, or you can change it to something like only the winner doesn't get a strike or only fourth place does get a strike. Right. But then in contrast, if you're doing head-to-head strikes, you've got to start dealing with buys for when you have an odd number of players. Right. In match play, it lets you say if you don't get a buy, you don't get a strike. If you do get a buy, you do get a strike. It's worded strangely in that the value of buys when you're doing a head-to-head strike is a full win, a half win, or zero points. It defaults to full win, and that's where the buy doesn't get a strike. I'm going to assume that zero points, the opposite, means that if you do get a buy, you do get a strike. Right. And maybe it keeps track of half strikes. I'm not sure. those are half settings strike sounds like something that i think i have sort of understood that like you know if if you find yourself with two buys then you've got a strike if you've sat out two while your opponents haven't you get a strike yeah that makes some sense to me i look at the jack bar settings every week and it says full win the time that i played and i got a buy I didn't sit out the round and wait for half of my opponents who were playing in the round to get a strike. I played in a three-player group. Do you know exactly what happens there? Yeah. So Thursday Night Strikes has adopted a slightly different format for how they deal with buys. in which, as you found out, instead of having a buy, you're actually joined up with two people who are already playing and you'll play a three-player group. Does Match Play do this assignment or does that happen outside of Match Play? It's not supported by Match Play. Each round, it takes a little bit of tournament director intervention in the software to make the results match what they want them to be for how they design the format. in which those three people then play that game and only the third place person gets a strike. You can't have the group automatically built. Once you've chosen a head-to-head knockout format, it won't make a three-player group. The Thursday Night Strikes TDs have developed a heuristic where the person who received the buy will be put into a group with other people who have the same number of strikes as them. Sort of Swiss. And the knight is Swiss in general. So they'll look for a pair that has the same number, or at least hopefully one of them, and randomly choose amongst the groups that meet the criteria and throw the person in. So that takes care of setting them off to play. But then once the results come back, it's a possibility that there needs to be some adjustments to the number of strikes, or a possibility that there doesn't need to be an adjustment. Sure. Should the person who had received the buy not get a strike, everything's fine. That's right. Because they don't get a strike. Because the software gave them the value of the buy, a full win, no strike. Got it. If the person who had received the buy does come in third place and gets the strike, you've got to do two things. first you need to declare a winner in match play between the two people who were originally in the match yes and neither of them are supposed to be getting strikes but one of them must in the software that's right so you just choose one of them it doesn't matter which one but you give one of them a strike okay good the match is closed now you need to make two score adjustments right the person that you just gave a strike to wasn't supposed to get a strike so you need to go give them a negative one strike in somewhere that would list the players you need to see you got to dig into their side screen to get to the adjustment menu okay so like you got to be like in your registration screen as a well i guess i think if you're on the match uh you could be able to click on the person and open their sites but you have to like open their profile in a side frame and not like do it from the main window that you're doing most of your other stuff in got it right and then once you've accomplished that then the person who did get the buy you need to go give them a plus one strike adjustment right of course yeah there has to be a net zero adjustment there i'm positive that if i were faced with the problem i wouldn't uh consider it so daunting but recreating it uh as as you just have for me it feels like it took a brain trust to figure out how to accomplish all of that. That's very clever. Very unique. I don't know if anywhere else is doing something like that. Right. There might be. Someone tell me. Tell us where your three-player groups are in head-to-head match play. nycpinpot.gmail.com There's a lot, then, of lots of little menus that you can go into and set the various properties of each of the many formats. Right. but the big ones is your player pairing and your arena assignments and then depending on your format you've got a couple of crucial ones like your scoring and number of rounds or strikes or whatever that you've got to know that you've got to hit but I'll say there's a lot to go through we went and counted of the unique tournament types that match play is offering right now there's 21. And then if you're a tournament director and you're dealing with the IFPA tournament submission form, you've also got 11 different qualifying formats that they recognize and another 14 finals formats that you can combine them with. 154 combinations? But I don't think all of those would necessarily make sense. No, probably not. Probably not. It doesn't make sense that all of them work well together. The most important thing is to fiddle around in there and try it and fail. That's how you get all the failures like you said earlier. Luckily, the software lets you set up test tournaments and you can mess around all you want and not worry about interfering with any actual results or any of your testing needing to be seen by anyone. I recall a time that I was sitting in for Kate at SSPL. She was out of town, probably playing pinball at a tournament, a big tournament. I recall that as I was getting ready to set everything up for the night, that Jess Warren came and found me and was like, hey, let's look through match play and make sure it's just right. That was a kindness to me because while Kate had set it up, it was the exact right time to look and make sure that everything was exactly right. Because you can set something up real quick and miss one little thing. And I don't remember what the one little thing was. It might have been balanced arenas versus random arenas or something. But we were looking at the settings and Jess was like, I don't know if this is what we did last week. And then she went and looked at last week's and was like, this is what we did last week. right before I was actually about to do the thing. And that was a great kindness to me that I don't think at the moment that she started trying to help me that I understood how kind she was being. The moment that I saw that there was something that we needed to change, I was like, oh my God, I'm so glad that you came and found me and were like, let's do this. Let's look at this first. It's a really important thing to make sure that you've set it up correctly before you go to primetime. And that is maybe the thing that having that test environment is really helpful for. There's one particular newish feature of match play I want to point out, and this is for all players, not just for tournament directors. you can set a profile picture on your account these days. And if you do, it looks really nice when the stream uses a web frame from Match Play showing the current match going on. I just think it looks real smart. I encourage everyone to set themselves a profile picture. Right, because my middle finger in the middle of the screen is really going to help everybody. Or really, let's be clear, Mike Pantino's middle finger. Yeah. That's all for this week's pod. Join us next week when, as always, in Ball 1, we'll run down local competition results. In Ball 2, we'll have venue updates and our weekly bullet journal. And in Ball 3, we'll talk with Gabriel Chazanov about the upcoming Harvest Tournament at Gebhard's Beer Culture on the Upper West Side. Between now and then, whatever you're up to, pinfo, go get them. Shall we intro? Let's, Batman.

_(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v1)_

---

*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: e0f88914-daa3-4ce9-bfe9-22376ef20e23*