# 2019 IFPA Pin-Masters Playoffs | Semifinals **Source:** IE Pinball **Type:** video **Published:** 2020-06-10 **Duration:** 98m 49s **Beat:** Pinball **URL:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdMgyV14SLM --- ## Analysis 2019 IFPA Pin-Masters Playoffs semifinals broadcast featuring tournament commentary on X-Men and Pirates of the Caribbean pinball machines. The video covers game strategy discussion, player performances, and a notable mid-tournament game substitution when Adam Becker successfully argued for X-Men to be replaced due to insufficient rule complexity for competitive play. ### Key Claims - [HIGH] X-Men was removed from the semifinals due to insufficient rule complexity for competitive play after Adam Becker successfully argued with tournament organizers — _Kaley George, color commentator, reporting on live tournament decision_ - [HIGH] The optimal strategy on Pirates of the Caribbean is to repeatedly shoot the whirlpool ramp, which provides safe value and repeatable scoring — _Raymond Davidson and booth commentators discussing tournament strategy observed across multiple players_ - [MEDIUM] On Pirates, the minimum possible bonus without hitting any switches is 5,110 points (5,000 default + 110 from hitting slingshot) — _Booth commentary on bonus mechanics; some debate about exact calculation_ - [MEDIUM] Stern AC/DC Premium solved the center window durability problem that plagued earlier games with similar features — _Commentary comparing AC/DC window to Whodunit, Creature, and Congo window durability issues_ - [HIGH] The Pirates of the Caribbean machine has a notoriously unreliable cannon feature that commonly breaks down — _Multiple commentators noting blown-out cannons and repair attempts; one commentator mentions owning a Pirates and having to replace the cannon_ - [HIGH] Tournament setup on Star Wars caused inconsistent ball feeds and 'fun house balls' throughout the tournament — _Kaley George and other commentators discussing setup issues observed during tournament play_ - [HIGH] Zach Sharpe achieved the 15 million target on Pirates in one ball through repeating the whirlpool ramp strategy — _Live play-by-play commentary of Zach Sharpe's game on Pirates_ - [HIGH] Power plunging on Pirates was previously leading to tilts but the tilt sensitivity was adjusted to be more friendly — _Booth commentary noting adjustment between tournament days_ - [MEDIUM] On X-Men, the prevailing strategy throughout the tournament was to light the villain and then choose between collecting Wolverine or Magneto multiball — _Kaley George discussing X-Men strategy before game was removed from competition_ - [LOW] Jersey Jack Pinball uses a default code template with approximately 900 Whitewood modes that designers then modify — _Speculation by booth commentators comparing manufacturer practices; not confirmed_ ### Notable Quotes > "Adam has successfully argued that the rule set on X-Men is not interesting enough for competition. Especially in the semifinals." > — **Kaley George**, Early in broadcast > _Announces a major tournament decision mid-semifinals affecting game selection_ > "That is the tutorial for Pirates right there." > — **Booth commentator**, After Zach Sharpe completes Pirates target > _Praising exemplary strategy execution on the whirlpool ramp approach_ > "I'm convinced that it's impossible to have a bonus under 16." > — **Booth commentator**, Discussing bonus mechanics > _Reflects ongoing debate about hidden scoring mechanics on Pirates_ > "Whoever out there owns a checkpoint, you have made a poor decision in life." > — **Booth commentator**, During discussion of older pinball machines > _Humorous but pointed criticism of a classic pinball title_ > "I have always wondered, you know, you would think it would be prudent for the pinball manufacturers to have, like, a default code set when they're making a new game." > — **Booth commentator**, During code discussion > _Raises industry practice question about game design methodology_ > "I think it's because it opens the locker, which then gives you some options to go for a double broadside or other things." > — **Raymond Davidson**, Discussing Pirates skill shot strategy > _Explains reasoning for competitive strategy on Pirates_ > "Yeah, I chose to do that, too. I think it's a really safe strategy, going up that ramp." > — **Booth commentator**, Analyzing player strategy on Pirates > _Validates the whirlpool strategy as consistently safe_ > "This format's great." > — **Booth commentator**, After Zach Sharpe's Pirates performance > _Endorsement of pin golf tournament format_ ### Entities | Name | Type | Context | |------|------|---------| | Zach Sharpe McCarthy | person | Professional pinball player competing in 2019 Pin-Masters; achieved the target score on Pirates of the Caribbean in one ball using the whirlpool strategy | | Kaley George | person | Color commentator and analyst for the broadcast; tournament insider providing strategy analysis and rule explanations | | Raymond Davidson | person | Pinball player and commentator; noted as potentially the only person in attendance who owns a Pirates of the Caribbean machine; expert on Pirates mechanics | | Adam Becker | person | Tournament competitor who successfully argued for X-Men to be replaced from the semifinals due to insufficient competitive rule complexity | | Jim Belzito | person | Tournament competitor in group 2; struggled with Pirates strategy execution | | Andre Massacoff | person | Tournament competitor who played Pirates and X-Men; noted for distinctive competitive habits | | Karl DeAngelo | person | Tournament competitor in the semifinals group | | 2019 IFPA Pin-Masters | event | Major pinball tournament held in Las Vegas, Nevada; semifinals broadcast with pin golf format (15 million target score) | | Pirates of the Caribbean | game | Stern pinball machine used in tournament; known for unreliable cannon, complex bonus mechanics, and whirlpool-dominant strategy | | X-Men | game | Stern pinball machine initially selected for Pin-Masters semifinals but removed due to insufficient competitive rule depth; featured villain/multiball stacking strategies | | Star Wars | game | Pinball machine used in earlier rounds of tournament; noted for setup inconsistencies and ball feed issues | | Tron | game | Pinball machine referenced in tournament; featured in practice and play during broadcast | | Stern Pinball | company | Manufacturer of Pirates of the Caribbean, X-Men, and AC/DC machines discussed; referred to as 'Sam Stern' regarding AC/DC Premium window solution | | Jersey Jack Pinball | company | Manufacturer discussed speculatively regarding default code practices and Whitewood template usage | | Kiefer | person | Recognized code designer known for deeply complex game code; referenced as expert in rule set creation | | IE Pinball | organization | Broadcast/media organization producing the tournament coverage | | Josh Sharp | person | Apparent tournament organizer or official involved in the X-Men replacement decision | | Colin | person | Player observed achieving multiball on Tron during practice sessions | | Norm Clark | person | Player referenced briefly during opening commentary | ### Topics - **Primary:** Tournament strategy and rule exploitation, Game setup and mechanical reliability, X-Men competitive suitability and removal decision, Pirates of the Caribbean mechanics and cannon durability, Pin golf tournament format - **Secondary:** Code design and manufacturer practices, Stern AC/DC window durability improvements, Classic and vintage pinball game comparison ### Sentiment **Positive** (0.72) — Generally enthusiastic and supportive commentary about gameplay, strategy, and competitive format. Some frustration with game setup issues and mechanical reliability (Pirates cannon, Star Wars feeds), but overall tone is engaging and appreciative of player skill and format design. ### Signals - **[business_signal]** Pinball machine durability and maintenance costs reflected in ongoing mechanical failures (cannon, windows) on competitive machines (confidence: medium) — Discussion of replacement parts, repair costs, and prevalence of blown-out cannons across machines - **[event_signal]** 2019 IFPA Pin-Masters tournament in Las Vegas with pin golf format; semifinals semifinals broadcast with competitive depth analysis (confidence: high) — Tournament broadcast with multiple commentators, player performances, official format structure - **[community_signal]** Tournament organizers responsive to competitor feedback on game selection and rule balance, adjusting mid-tournament (confidence: high) — X-Men removal after Adam Becker's appeal; tilt adjustment between tournament days on Pirates - **[competitive_signal]** Whirlpool ramp strategy on Pirates of the Caribbean emerged as dominant repeatable scoring approach across tournament competitors (confidence: high) — All observed players adopting whirlpool strategy; noted as safest, most repeatable path to scoring; contrasted with other riskier approaches like middle shot and broadside attempts - **[competitive_signal]** Pirates of the Caribbean and Tron selected as tournament machines over X-Men due to rule depth and competitive balance considerations (confidence: high) — X-Men replacement decision; commentators note goal of avoiding games where 'people were expected to do better than par' with 'easy outs' - **[design_philosophy]** X-Men removed from semifinals competition mid-tournament due to insufficient rule complexity for competitive play (confidence: high) — Tournament organizers replaced X-Men at player/Adam Becker's request before semifinals matches began - **[market_signal]** Star Wars machine showed setup inconsistencies with ball feed issues affecting playability in tournament environment (confidence: high) — Kaley George: 'The setups on Star Wars are wild. Led to a lot of fun house balls'; 'inconsistency coming out of those feeds' - **[product_concern]** Pirates of the Caribbean machines have notoriously unreliable and constantly blown-out cannon features (confidence: high) — Multiple commentators note cannon failures; one notes owning Pirates and having to replace cannon from eBay for $80; references to jerry-rigged repairs with 'staples and paperclips' - **[technology_signal]** Stern AC/DC Premium successfully solved center window durability problems that plagued earlier games with similar features (confidence: medium) — Commentary noting AC/DC window durability vs. historical issues on Whodunit, Creature, Congo --- ## Transcript A little Lazarus action. for half a second. The man left transferred into another double L-Wing into a double catapult super. What are we wishing here? Flip all of this. I want to shout this. Clark. Clark. Is it Clark? Clark got it first. Hey, uh... Oh, what? What? What just happened? So we're just setting up here in round two. If you've just joined us, you are listening to the 2019 Pin Masters here in beautiful Las Vegas, Nevada. We will be joining the action here shortly. The rounds are being put up and the machines are being chosen. And we will get you to the action here very quickly. Stay tuned. We still got tons of pinball action here to give you. See you in a bit. Okay. Looks like we're very close of getting this settled in here. And we are ready for X-Men. So they're just doing a little practicing right now. We've been in this group. And group two of game one of three, we have Zach Sharp. We have Jim Belzito, Andre Massacoff, and Carl D'Python Anghelo that will be in this round. Again, it's going to be three games in this format, in a pin call format, where the target score will be 15 million on this. And joining me in the booth here is the one and only Haley George. How you doing, Haley? Hey, how's it going? Doing great. I'm going to watch this X-Men game. Is everybody practicing right now? No, just in the practice mode right now. We're just chilling out. All these practice balls are lasting longer than... Yeah, I thought there was a 30-second... The real balls or something? Tell us how you really think about that, Kaley. Yeah. This has been a funny tournament. Yeah, the setups on Star Wars Game of Thrones are pretty wild. Led to a lot of fun house balls. Yes, yes. You know what? Star Wars gave me fits as well, too, and a lot of house balls on that as well, too, and just some inconsistency coming out of those feeds. Yeah, it's been a little crazy, I tell you. I do like the setup on Game of Thrones. I think that's a more fun way of playing the game, to tell you the truth. Not as much trapping and putting a little danger into that play field a little bit. Yeah. I felt like the tournament setup on these games was kind of missing one game somewhere where most people were expected to do better than par or have an easy out to getting through on a one. I think it's fun when you set that up in pin golf where the people that don't get that low score basically blew it and it's kind of fun to have that scenario as well like if they had left thrown standard and everybody was going Zac Stark and trying to ramp out and get the one shot win there yeah I did you know what you could do it on the Greyjoy and you had the five shot opportunity to do that if you collected your swords and to do that so it was risky to do it but you had the opportunity if you wanted to I've seen Lesher do it. I did it yesterday as well, too. It was successful, but it was damn risky. Yeah, I guess the hard part on that was the shooting left orbit was just kind of a crap shoot because that rubber on the feed, it was going too fast. You couldn't knock it off the rail, and then you just had to hope that you got a little bit of luck coming out of the right orbit. Absolutely. That was a dreamy shot. You miss that shot, and boom, 75% of the time you're done. Yeah. So X-Men here, what do you think most people are going to be shooting for? You know, I think most people have been successful in going ahead and lighting that villain and then going ahead and either collecting your Wolverine or your Magneto, and that's been kind of a strategy that we've seen throughout the tournament. Yeah, it's been interesting. So a lot of people are going for Brotherhood, light the villain, and then I guess the question for some people is do you choose a different villain first and stack it with Wolverine, and then after that try and finish it off by playing Brotherhood? Yeah, I've seen a lot of people ignore the Brotherhood when they have that going and not taking it because they want to do the stack with the Villain and the Multi Balls. Early in the tournament, that was my strategy. I think it's not the right one. I think you take the Brotherhood up front because you can finish it in one Brotherhood. Okay. I don't think you should play with your food. I think you play that out, see how it goes. I mean, the Magneto is actually not that hard. You'll finish it up there if you need to. Yeah, I found Magneto actually quite friendly. And actually, that's how I finish this game most of the time, is I actually end up with Magneto with a stack on it. And that's really crazy. If you have that and you have some heroes done, you're done. That 15 million comes pretty quick. Yeah, good Brotherhood and the good mode can actually pull you through. Now, it is, what, five shots to get Brotherhood? Yes, on the right target. So there's some work to be done there in order to get that lit. I found a couple times when I was hitting that, especially when it was coming down on the fly, that I'd get some bad luck and he hit a target up there and come right down the middle on me. So there is some danger with that shot. But absolutely, that's been a strategy that has been prevailing as well. I know Escher was doing that strategy. Yeah, I think the payoff is certainly better first reward for Wolverine, which you're probably going to play anyways. So I think it's really worth going for. Here we've got Adam Becker practicing, sort of. Practicing, talking. Practicing, talking. It's weird. I've never seen Adam wear a Rick and Morty t-shirt before. Yeah. It must be a new thing he's into. I'm super jealous that Canada has eight-digit license plates. So he has a Rick and Morty vanity plate. Oh, does he? Oh, nice. It's a tiny Rick. is his license plate. But I'm not the biggest Rick and Morty fan, but... It's cool. It'd be nice to have more options if you get a custom plate. Yeah, I've got BC Rage on mine, so, you know, it's nice to have the custom option that we have in Canada. Yeah, we're a little different up there, right? So I'm not sure what's going on here on this machine right now. There's a lot of laughing and joking and stuff going on here, so there must be something wrong with this game. I think Adam's trying to talk Josh out of having X-Men in the tournament. I know they were having a few problems with this, but, you know, on one, actually, the ball got stuck right up here on a switch. It was so weird. And they had to actually add a ball in that game, so it's very strange. Ah, you need to escape for me, Haley. Oh, wow. Oh, oh, oh, oh. Oh, this is interesting. This all of a sudden got real interesting. Yes. So, Adam has successfully argued that the rule set on X-Men. Yep. Wait, hold on. It's coming in my ear. Yeah, the rule set on X-Men is not interesting enough for competition. Especially in the semifinals, right? Yeah, has successfully argued with Lefkoff and Associates to change game to a new venue of Black Rose. Wow. Okay. So we're now going to practice Black Rose as X-Men has been removed. And you heard it first from Kaylee George, who is our insider today on the telecast. With us, we also have Raymond Davidson. Just for a second here, I've got to go on Tron soon, but I saw Black Rose and I had to jump in. Yeah. Is this crazy? I love Black Rose. So what do you think? Is it like the primo strategy, just whirlpool out and be done? I think that's definitely probably the best strategy, since it seems to be a repeatable shot and doesn't punish you too much when you miss, except when that happens, I guess. If you can hit the broadside, that's actually, you can get, yeah, man, that happens. Yeah, you can broadside it four times if you want to. Whoa, that was bizarre. Yeah, I think I'd just go whirlpool. you know I gotta give credit to Stern like when they made ACDC I was certain that it was gonna be this huge shit show because of the center window in the middle right like I remember talking to somebody who had bought one and I was like oh well did you like buy another playfield for that game cause that thing's gonna get all warped and like blown out in like about three days and that plays great so they solved like the center window although this has the cannon so it's different a little bit but you know Nothing worse than, like, an unleveled cannon or a window on whodunit or creature window. Yeah. Congo. Ugh. No fun. It's fun seeing people manage this one, though. When you're not in it, then it's hilarious. It's very unpredictable. My favorite, on some Black Roses, oh, that's not the teletrader. Some Black Roses, it will, um. In here? It just sort of, like, rolls along this, like, like a canoe. Stops in the center and then just drops down. Want to use the key? Perfect. Looks like Colin got a multiball going on Tron right away. And we're just in practice time here. So you're thinking the prevailing strategy, you know, they're going for that all day long. Yeah, once you build that, you build it to millions, right? And then you're going into here. And I don't even want to pass it over or anything funny. I just want to keep shooting it. And then as soon as I miss, if the ball's on the right flipper, I'll shoot the lock. And if the ball's on the left flipper, I'll shoot the whirlpool. Yeah, because you're building the whirlpool value, and so it's still worth a lot. Yep. You might as well go back to it. And if you've blown it and you're on the right, maybe start that multiball. Okay. And the randomness of the mode, you're thinking, okay, well... Whoa, did you see him just levitate that ball? Oh, it's practice, though. Yeah. He literally, like, levitated the ball, like, up the rail. It was really beautiful. Because in the modes, you've got a couple good modes in there as well, too. You've got multi-millions. Oh, yeah. You've got multiball. You know, is it worth taking one pot shot at to see if you get lucky on the mode? I think so. because if you do land in the broadside, you're going to get something good. I think the worst mode is probably knife throw because people can't seem to get the timing down on it. But even if you fail at the mode, it's still like the 2 million hurry up, so you can just shove it back up there for 2 million. Absolutely. You can also hit this little doubloon target to collect your 2 million hurry up. It's not like you'd actually aim for it, but it can happen. Interesting. And I learned something new today on this game as well, too, with the bonus. It seems that if you hit your targets, that's how you're getting that bonus collect, and then as well your treasures. So that's why it's such a variance in your bonuses when you end a ball. It's just switch-based. Switch-based, and then you can get hidden treasure mode, which is in multiball. All right, I've got to go play. All righty. Good luck, Raymond. Out of the booth. Out of the booth and into the fire. All right, looks like practice is winding down here. Getting the power cycle. Probably going to see Adam Becker right there. Josh Sharpe on over to the game. Have another little discussion, vie for a change of venue once again. Jeez. All right. Okay, here we go. We're ready to go. Skill shot has been made. 500K skill shot. You know, if this was set to 30 balls, it would be reasonable. Yeah, we'd be doing it. We'd be done. Got the letter. Trying to go for the whirlpool. Lame award. In lane. Here's X working that whirlpool. And he's got his lock. With his lock. He passes the whirlpool. Good job. Good job. Here we go. Now he's on some million ramps. He's just ramping out. Ah, interesting. So now it's still worth going back to that ramp because that timer is pretty long. So would you be past it over there and went for it? You would have been. It's pretty long and it resets each time you shoot it. Interesting. I don't think it's a bad play, though. So you can go 15 ramps and be done. Yeah, why not? Okay. But I mean, here, ramps are also worth millions. Yes. And here we go. Plus you're getting letters. not that you need them in this play but it's a little overkill sets you up for a potential two shot win alright so two locks, going to get a third ball yeah there's some really nice progress being made here he's getting very close to the target here we're sitting at 15 million target he's at 6 million right now and he's got his multi balls and he's getting 2 million sink ships now with the three balls so three shots up on the ramp and Zach will be done Wow. Two more. Two. Oh, one more. Here we go. It's in it. Wow. Very nice. Finally done. Zach not paying attention to his own score. No, he just, you know, he wants to shoot more. He wants to play a little more out there. Very nice. Blow the thing up. That's the way you do it, guys. That is the tutorial for Black Rose right there. I now recant my suggestion to shoot little pool only with one ball in jeopardy. You know, I think that works as well, too. You know, if you feel you can nail that thing 15 times in a row, then by all means, it's a great strategy. Yeah, this format's great. So now Zach has just set the bar. Everybody's going to be playing catch-up from here on out if they don't do the same thing. I didn't think Andre was going to hit four side ramps in a row either, and that's the strategy he employed, right? so, you know. Keep that ball in the upper play field. That's right. Okay, now the pressure's on now. The bar has been set. Yeah, so yesterday power plunges were leading to tilts. Tilt's been adjusted now. It has. Much more friendly. I don't think we've really seen much people doing that yet, though, so to really test that theory out... He might see a skill shot here. Yes, you do. So 500. The skill shot actually seems to have a pretty safe return somehow. It seems to bounce towards the top of the right sling. Oh, that is over. There was a lot of arguing going on earlier about what the default bonus is, which is... 5,000. 5,000. Huge. We have yet to see anybody who had essentially a house ball collect 5,000. Really? Yeah, I don't know. I mean, if you plunge the out lane, you might get 10,000 because the switch might count as something. Yeah, the lowest score on a ball you can get is 5,110. If you hit a slingshot switch and you drain down the middle. Earlier when Zach Sharp had 550,000 to win, there was a debate on whether he should skill shot and walrus flip his way to victory or if he should go for a double broadside. So, Andre had just played this machine. This is actually a perfect scenario, you know, winning on a machine and then coming back to it again. I think it's a nice advantage to have both him and Zach have the odd opportunity. So, let's see how Andre does here. Oh, wow, my mom registered for Twitch. Wow. Hi, Raymond's mom. Raymond's mom. Is her call sign Raymond's mom as well? Yeah. Hi, mom. That's awesome. Shout out to Raymond's mom. Yeah. Thanks for joining us So that was very quick ball there from Andre Yeah, so unfortunate drain there. He was trying to get control on the right-hand side and unfortunately popped over into the red oak lane There's a question from the chat. Is it possible to not validate the playfield and cradle? No, every switch validates the playfield and plunging short to a flipper and dumping it down the middle. You'll get it back. You can also do the fun short plunge to a flipper and then shoot at the yellow targets with the flipper. Get the skill shot that way. The old whirlwind sweep that doesn't give you extra flip credit. Well, if you get the three bank ricochet, it'll give you three mil. And you have the right guy at the table for that question because he is the validation master at this table here. You're the only one, Raymond, I've ever known that has owned a Black Rose. Yeah, they're not very common. They only made one in your own game. Brought it all the way out here. That's good. We got a skill shot right to the left flipper. We all have our love of weird games. It's surprising everyone's going for that skill shot. I think it's because it opens the locker, which then gives you some options to go for a double broadside or other things. The left ramp on this one is super juicy. It just flies around there. Yeah, it's very smooth. Right ramp is okay. Sometimes it'll fly off. Oh, yeah. Yeah, here we go. Whirlpool. And that is it. I'm a fan of shots in this format that if you don't miss, you're not in jeopardy. That's why I like that whirlpool ramp. Yeah. Yep. It's all up to you whether you're going to... I mean, sometimes it'll fly off the rail, but not that often. And it usually is recoverable. Well, what we saw in IFBA in Seattle, you can argue for a compensation ball in that case. Ah, tank throwing away back. Yes. Roll the tape. So everybody has chosen pretty well the same strategy so far. You know, I'm interested because, like I say, we've seen in the previous game where people were going up the middle. So it looks like they've now made their bed, and this is the strategy they're going with now. I don't know if they'll switch. Yeah, I think this would be a fun game to own, but everyone I've ever seen, that cannon is just blown out. Yeah. I know somebody reproved, like, those plastic shell at some point, but I don't know if you can still get those. They all just seem like jerry-rigged with, like, staples and paperclips. Actually, I think we did buy one. We might have bought the last one, because early on when we got a Black Rose, we had to basically replace our cannon, and we found one on eBay. It was like 80 bucks for the whole plastic thing. Oh, that's nice. Maybe you could like 3D print one, huh? Yeah. Maybe you can just replace the ACDC one. Just break out the router, put a whole new window in it. Why not? Jim going for double broadside. This is the speed run strat if you want lowest number of flips. Okay, here we go. Oh. Nice save. Whoa, the cannon grabbed it. Yes. The old cannon grab. The upper ramp on this one is pretty juicy. It is. It's nice. It's nice and smooth. Jim's going back up the middle. Yes. Oh, he almost banked it. Wow, this thing leans like every direction. It seems to lean, yes. And just has not been able to hit that middle shot. It looks like it wants to go. Yeah. Those swings are just way too active. The three-second timer was activated. Yes. Yeah, saving a right drain on this. Isn't this the theme of this tournament? The right lean? That abracadabra. The one wasn't dangerous anymore because it just went to a cradle on the right flipper. It's pretty bad. Now that they fixed it, it's now dangerous again. So, very interesting. Oh, how awesome would it have been if it was Black Rose 2 instead of Pirates. Yes. You know, maybe the game could have also had, you know, about 50 less modes. Yeah. Andre got 20,000. What happened? Well, he drained. Oh, my God. He got the skill shot. So how many points? Hey, damage bonus, 15,000. So three switches, five for the yellow target, five for the flingshot, and five for the outlanding. Yes. But did it actually award 15, or did it just show that on the display and then give them something awesome? You're convinced, man. I'm convinced that it's impossible to have a bonus under 16. Well, we'd have to go back on the replay and see exactly the math on that one if you actually got it properly. Hilarious. I've always wondered, you know, you would think it would be prudent for the pinball manufacturers to have, like, a default code set when they're making a new game, right? It's like, maybe Stern, they're like, okay, we're going to make a new game. well, let's load up, you know, Whitewood game rules, and it's got a multiball and ball tracking and some default scoring and stuff. I have this feeling that at Jersey Jack, like, their default has, like, 900 modes that are like the Whitewood modes. Yeah. And then they decide from there how they want to fill that in. Yeah. It wouldn't surprise me. Oh, my God. Shout out to Kiefer. You're awesome. Yes. The master of the deepest code in the world, and you'd never be able to figure out that game ever, any of his games. He's got so much tucked into his coding, it's unbelievable. Fun games. It'd be fun to run a tournament on kind of the B-level, but also good games from Williams, or just that era. Have a Black Rose in there. Maybe the very underrated Shaq. I love Shaq. Serpent Safari. Yeah. I like the older Gottliebs. I love TX Sector. Those type of games. Good games. Yeah. Just fun games. Something I just want to flip and have fun, right? Yeah, although I think Mario Andretti is pushing it to find the fun factor in that guy. That's Vivistinker. Checkpoint. Whoever out there owns a checkpoint, you've made a poor decision in life. Also, Raymond, when he thought the fireball home game was going to be a fun pinball machine. That is not a fun pinball machine. So we have Jim Belzito here, and we are looking at a lock. Yes, good choice. Very good choice. Video modus. Yeah, I didn't realize that you actually got the mode as well on that as well, too, when you make that shot, which is interesting. I thought you always had to hit the middle. Oh, we made it out of the ship. Too late. right over the top. So what does he do? Does he land in the water on the other side Yeah I don know It feels like it successful and it rips you off I guess he like went down into the hold Okay he got his lock made And he is ready to go. And again, another thing I learned today, scrolling through all the animations and everything will give you a hold here for a couple seconds, which is kind of nice. Yeah, so in this format, minimum number of strokes you can get is one. That's correct. Maximum is ten. You want the least amount of strokes after three games. So pulling a one on the first game is great. But you can still have a meltdown on game two or three. He's got the 20 million cent ship here, and this could end it right here. This has to hit the middle. And stick. Oh, no. That's a pretty big miss. Yes. and he almost drained off of it as well, too. Oh, that was a nice flip with the upper play field. So here we go. Second chance. Right up. No. He's late, yes. And there is a bit of a delay on that button. There's Jim trying to work that right out lane, and you can see when it's on top of that sling, he was doing all the right stuff and still just slowly bobbled out there. Yeah, a couple lost opportunities there. Those ones will come back to haunt you, unfortunately, in this format. Everybody thinks I'm American because I always wear Broncos jerseys and hats. I got a good ribbon in New York, I tell you. So we're down to the top eight right now. Best two players from each group will advance. The players end up in a tie in their golf strokes. To advance, it will go to a tiebreaker game. And up the ramp. Yeah, I chose to do that, too. I think it's a pretty safe strategy, going up that ramp. Well, until you do that, right? Yeah, Andre has his lupin down on that Davy Jones ramp, but I'm not sure that's a strategy I would have picked. I like the safety of shooting either the lock on the left or straight up the middle when it's in that cannon. Agreed. You're either getting good value out of the middle or you're getting a nice return to the left flipper. Okay, we have Carl D'Python Anghelo that is now up. It's a pretty tight game. Yeah, Carl's sitting here giving a second, waiting for the good vibes to return. Right now, Zach is in the driver's seat. He's like, yeah, just keep going, guys. Just keep going. Every ball here is just giving Zach breathing room. Yes. Just more bullets he has to burn on some draining house ball game. Yeah, Darryl having a tough time with his sucker right now. Just like I was all weekend. So I feel pretty good about my play now on this game because there have been struggles. So yeah, if after five balls, players between zero and three million points look at a score of ten, between three and six, look at a score of nine, six and nine, eight, nine and twelve, seven, twelve and just under fifteen, look at a six. And this is where it will get real interesting if they do get to ball five here, because if you are sitting kind of where Jim and Carl are right now at the 2-9, You're sweating bullets and trying to get some points to get yourself out of that 10 or that 9 range and at least getting some points to get closer to Zach. Because right now with him scoring a 1, that's putting a significant amount of pressure on the other competitors. Absolutely. So target score here is 15 million, but if you're not going to make it in 5 vols, every point counts. Try and get less strokes on your total. Let's see if Jim can get this for the third time. He likes to wait a little bit. Oh, in and out. Wow. Okay, he's got a chance to reload. Almost. It's a nice little nudge. All right. Couple more for that ram. He wants that 20 million walk-off. Okay, here we go. Fourth time. And no. Just has not been able to hit that nudge. A nice 50-50 there. So he's going to go for again. Right ramp. Oh, bricked. Yeah. Let's try it again. And back in. I don't think this... That side ramp is not being friendly. This cannon can be trusted. I respect Jim not changing his strategy. No, he's adamant that he can make this shot. He feels that it's safe when it comes back out there. So let's try it again. You know, one of the worst things you can do in this format is kind of do a little bit of everything and never reach something that's going to pay off for the score. Wow. Jeez, hey, five times he just has not been able to snake that chip. And again... Asterix, I still think shooting the ramp is the right thing. Yeah, like, you know, at what point do you change? It's a really tough decision because, like, he was just missing that shot. So, to me, I'm like, okay, I'm just missing it. I'm going to continue on doing it, you know, until I get this because I know I'm close. If I'm just completely missing a shot and bricking it everywhere and having no luck at all, well, then maybe I changed my strategy at that point. But I think he did the right thing there. Okay, what's Andre going to do here? He's trying to go up and get that middle. I like whirlpool locks. The way he was shooting them, I really do. Like he was pretty accurate with them before. Nice. That's a good shot. There we go. There we go. I'll let that lock. Keep it going. Oh, the bounce over, huh? Yeah, and then the lock. Yep. Excellent. What he's doing, flawless. Probably wait for some animations here. And here we go. Now let's see if he can actually get some action. A lot of people are plunging. He's getting a quick drain. Is he going to do a hard plunge here, you think? Hmm. Tilt's a lot easier today. Might be something we'll see. Andre's looking for his platoon. Maybe a new wad of dip. I don't know. Playing with Andre sometimes, I'm always scared he's going to kick his soda bottle that's full of like spit underneath the game. So gross. I also really like Andre, but that's gross too. Yeah. I got a good story off air where the double spit when I was younger, so yeah. It's funny, like about like 10 years ago for some reason, like chewing tobacco became very popular in Sweden, at least from my perspective as an American being abroad. And, yeah, that's pretty funky. That gets spilled around a pinball tournament. Oh, it's awful. Awful stuff. All right, Andre's a multiball. Ramps are valuable. It's out of multiball. They're not valuable. But he's got the lock timer back on. This ball sponsored by Skull. Chewing tobacco products. Soon to be hopeful sponsor of the IFPA. Yeah, I don't think they're allowed to sponsor this stuff anymore. Oh, here we go. Instant multiball, see? He got the nice award, right? So there are some good awards up there. As they say down in Portland, multiball. multiball? multiball. Okay, interesting. I thought I had a crazy accent. If Gottlieb was sponsoring this tournament, it would be tri-ball? Tri-ball, yes. Or if it was on Shaq, it would be balls multi? Balls multi? Man, that's like one of the best try balls ever is balls multi. Maybe this will be a new t-shirt. That's hilarious. All right, back in multiball. Six million. About six ramps. That's where the lean helped him. Nice, million. Now he's got that ball on the lock. I think he's going wrapping up. This is where you do it. Oh, geez. This is like ball set time right here. So here you go. Yep. Now you've got the lock. Nice. And is he in three ball now? He'll be in three ball. Here we go. Two million ramp. So this is where the two million, this is where Zach did his target. I know. So he's only going to need three in order to achieve the target. Two and a half shots. We can just go halfway up that ramp. It'll give him half value. Yeah, I don't think it works that way. Okay. I'm just thinking that way, but, you know, I haven't tried it, though, so, you know, I might be able to do it. Lazy programming. It would be pretty cool, though, if they decided to put a little switch on the middle of that ramp and score that. Here we go. We're not going for the trap up. No. One more shot. Lots of pity points going on. Yes. Only one more ramp. He tried to backhand it there, actually, which was impressive. We'll have at least a few of those. That should do it. Pretty close. We don't see a tilt. I don't really trust the pulse on this game. Yeah, perfect. Tilt away, Andre. Tilt away. You've got it. You've earned your tilt. And so that's a four. So Zach with one, Andre with four, and still Jim and Carl need to go ahead and play their balls. So the best that Carl can do right now is a four if he was to complete. So still a lot of work to do here for those two competitors. All right. Andre's at the bar for the other two players. And there is a lock shot. And he's going to get his video mode. What is he going to get here? Walk the plank. It's a fun one. I like this one. People were saying earlier, if you only hit the left flipper, you'll swim backwards to the ship and jump back up on a diving board. Really? Yeah. Interesting. Good half value. So they're forcing you to hit both at the same time. Two balls multi. Okay. All right. He's got a chance here. About nine ramps, eight ramps. Control and ramp. That's how you think he's going to play this one? I think he should go for that relock and ramp out strategy. Oh, Donnie. Jeez. That's kind of the story of the weekend on this game is can you actually get yourself into multiball, get control, and actually make shots. to get your kick outs yes we got one letter for sink ship would be nice but then we've seen how that went for Jim that's gonna be okay now what do you do we're pull out rapping yeah like a champ okay here we go keep going you like that must have been a miss yeah I think it was. And do you lock it up after this, or do you ramp out? I guess we won't know. He set himself up for the next ball. He did. We've got Escher on the mic here. Yep, just got some time, so. How's your rat showing, Escher? Started poor on Tron, but just got a one on Game of Thrones, so. Nice. You guys are done two games already? Yeah, we're, I'm done on two games. Holy cow. Game one. It's the backwards, the a group that's very efficient is the pastor group. Like in normal scoring where... Yeah. So, Jim has his trip ready. He does. And that's what he's going for. So here's number six to this year. Six times. Six times the time. Here we go. Alright, let's see. There it is. He did it. There it is. Oh, Jim. Yes, the relief. He made the shot. TV on that cannon is like 3.1 million. Good for Jim. He stuck with the strategy, and it finally paid off for him. What did Andre end up with, a four or a three? He got a four. And Zach got a one, so, yeah. So Carl's left here, and he is on, is it ball five now? Ball five. Yeah, so for those of you joining us, these are the areas that Carl wants to avoid. Yes. He wants to do things in this area here. Yes. His heading point. Yes. So he's got his multiball ready. All right. Ball's multi-started. It's about what? Five shots? Yeah. Five ramps. Five ramps. Or... I feel like Andre got like 20... He hit six ramps for like 20 million. I don't... I don't know. Andre just goes with it. He checks his score later. Yes. He keeps on ramping until... Okay. Here we go. Oh my goodness. Thanks. Is there a lock or is there ramps? It's like a cradle separation. Under Rover. He was trying for the lock, I think. As noted in the chat, side ramp is worth more. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. That's it. Okay. It went in the cannon. So if he hits it, it'll plot him a ship letter as well. But if he hits it... Five million. Got it. Very nice shot. That was huge. Is that enough? No. His ship is also ready, though. Unbelievable. Let's overkill it. Oh, and then instant multiball. Instant multiball. I'm liking his chances. Yes. That was huge, because Carl was at 8 million, and that was at an 8, so he's now fought back, and he's going to get a 5 on this. I'm going to say Carl should walk away and get it on bonus. You see that, Bold? Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. Even though bonus is, like, random in this game. I've seen people play forever and get 6,000 or instant and get a million. He's got it. All right. Carl's got it. Good job. Good job, Carl. Yeah, that was a way to fight back there. And that's the trouble with this format is that... Oh, we don't get to see the bonus. What's going on? Come on, Carl. We're ruining all of our fun. We're going to Star Trek. This is the Carl point of view cam. Yeah. Whee! Hot POV action. Yes. All right. do their warm-up. And, yeah. It's funny that we're not seeing any Star Wars or, you know. Nobody has been picking the boat anchors in this group. Yeah, what's going on? Only some young, off-the-handle, crazy group leader would pick something like Star Wars. Yeah. Yes. My new group has no idea. Or Attack from Mars. That would be another good one, though. I don't know. It's a toss-up. Refresh this and then swap it to the next one. All right. Start trick. All right. One, four, five, five. So if Zach has a lead by nine over two players, he can just walk away. He can go get some lunch. Yes. And you played this on your tiebreaker, didn't you, Kelly? Let's see. the tiebreaker this morning wasn't it Game of Thrones? Game of Thrones, yeah. Did you play Game of Thrones and then we played X-Men? X-Men, okay. Yes. X-Men's out. I was able to defeat Werdrick on X-Men with a little assist from the magnet into the lock. Yes. Nah, it didn't give you the lock. You still got to hit the side shot. It gave you a fee. Yeah. I mean, it's kind of character. Yeah. No, not with that upper flipper. It rejects. The flipper is so powerful on that X-Men that the rogue shot rejects. But, yeah. And now they took it out. It's out. So no one's playing it now. It's going to be my pick, too. So what's your strategy on this game? What are you thinking of doing? Let's see. I'm sure we vary a bit. But I think you're playing the right column of modes, starting at the top. Yep. Get your away team under that upper flipper. That will light the lanes at the top for some pretty valuable points. Yep. You can hit that five, six times for that mode. Then, actually, if you start with green mode at the bottom, save the Enterprise. Next. And if you can hit a few warp ramps in a row, you'll actually be done. You'll be done. Yep. Interesting. If you go Nero 3 before that, then you will have about ten times the Nero 3 strategy. Yes, I heard that Nero 3 strategy. It's interesting. I'm going to try that when I get back to my location. If you want to get hundreds of millions, then you're Nero 3. Nero 3, yeah. When you're going for 35 million, I think it's a little risky to try and get yourself through all the zeros. All the zeros. Okay, so at the start here, players are going to get to pick a mode, choose from any of the six in the middle. Yes. Slightly different objectives. Any of those modes, if you shoot a shot, you want to dump it under that upper right flipper. That'll boost the value and objectives of the mode. Unless it's zero. And are you taking hot shots at those side targets at all, or are you just saying, you know what, I don't need multiball. I can mode out. For me, no. You're not a clean on multiple guy? I think for this scoring threshold of 35 million, that's perfectly achievable even in one ball without breaking your shots. I think going for the lock targets is just putting the ball in too much risky play. Interesting. Yeah. So for me, I trust myself to be able to hit my shots or own my failure. Well played. strategy. What do you think of the middle shot on this one? That left flipper, it's like super weird. You have to see someone hit it. Yeah, it's nasty. Yeah, these flippers are a little bit hard to see on the camera, but a little bit higher than one would expect. I think the close shots are weird. And actually, shooting the ship in the middle is pretty difficult. So, if players end up going for vengeance or getting in that position, I bet we'll see a few bricks there and it could be pretty risky. And the vengeance timer is five seconds. I find vengeance is more worth even shooting for because the timer is so quick on it. Yeah, and it's not worth to punch it. Do not punch it. It takes precedence over Klingon. So if you're playing for Klingon, then... Or you can play like Kaylee and you don't even have to worry about the middle shot. Yeah, he doesn't care about the multi-balls. Just be accurate on your shooting and you don't need it. I've seen Jason Weirdrick do this as well too and he got a one on it and didn't get a multiball, right? So you just need to be accurate on your shooting. This is Zach Sharp guy. He's played in a few tournaments before. I think. Seems to really be a fan of Stern. He's wearing all their stuff. He does, yeah. I wonder why that is. Yeah. I think he told me he's hoping they will sponsor him. Ooh. The way he's been playing wouldn't surprise me. The away team little free points And there's a lock. Immediate backhand in the spinner. Yes. Lots of value. Makes a little value, yeah. And by the way, I'll say this is why I'm not in a tournament anymore, because I do things like not go for the lock. Yeah. He's only one target away, and he's already survived. He got, like, a rebound, so he doesn't even have to hit the middle anymore for his multi-bop. So he just has to hit that bottom scoop twice after hitting that bottom green flashing target. Here we can see the value of this mode and those lines up top. Yeah, pretty good points. It's also a good value because he gets to get to his multiball now. And on this game, those pops are so active, it's just putting it right back up in your lanes as well, too, on this mode. Multiball, for some reason, that's fed around. Oh, it's his final shot. So he finished Prime Directive. Jumping in his space jump. I think he's just going to try an away team. Away team and do it in one? Finish it in one. Oh, nice move, and you can do that on this game. It will be okay. Cop check on seven. Oh, jeez. Completing that right set of modes will light super ramps. Yes. So that exact strategy is to power through the modes as quickly as possible and ramp out. That's right. That is, multiball is two bottom scoops away. That will probably be worth 20 million. I do like going the other side just because of the super pops and how active they are, and then once you start to cling on multiball, man, those add up real quick. Yeah. Zach isn't really he doesn't need a one here he's so far ahead he just needs to do okay like a two or a three yep he paces everybody else yep he's gold style we'll see how Jim, Andre, and Carl do all those Californians one group the Chicago guys battle of the states here yep galactic spinners Black, yeah, that'd be way overachieving to go Nero 3. Stacking Nero 2 with multiball is pretty valuable, especially if you're accurate on one shot on each place in the playfield. You can hit the spinner, the ramp, and the other ramp. You can just get probably 30 million in just Nero 2. Wow. Because the completion bonus for hitting three shots quickly is quite a lot. Well, you got me excited to go back home and play on location, I can tell you that. Because I will try that. And then if you can go Nero 3 into Save the Enterprise and you go Spinner, three side ramps into the bottom Spinner, you'll have the Grand Champion, probably. Wow. Be pulled home. Give that one a try. It's fun. Maybe Stern will fix it one day. Alright, so he's got one lock. One lock. We have to go there, didn't we? One day. Everyone's talking about Ghostbuster code, but I'm on the Star Trek yeah I would love to see a new Ghostbusters code in a heartbeat yeah Ghostbusters code is perfect yeah you like that yeah amazing you just shoot the left ramp Kaylee's all about that left ramp for until the game ends that game's got like an amazing exploit that like nobody uses and then you know one of these days it's gonna get written out of the code and then it's not gonna be fun anymore it's like Megalodon on Deadpool yeah let's take the only interesting thing in this game and take it out it's just like walking up to a baby and just taking their candy and just throwing it on the ground can't have that so right now in the booth you have Derek Thompson, you have Keeley George and you have Eshert Lethkoff and we are at the 2019 Pin Masters here in beautiful Las Vegas, Nevada watching Star Trek in our game of two our game number two of three in the semi-final round Got Jim Belsito playing with five strokes. Ander Messinkoff up next, four. Karl DeAngelo, five. Zach Sharp hole the first game on Black Rose He shoots three side ramps here He probably got it or at least he be close Target score of 35 million Yeah. Those pops are just going. And now he has a lock lit. He's locked two already, right? So either one will start. If he can get a hole-in-one here, he's right back in this thing. Jim going for the center shot. Yeah, I missed it by mile. On the left side. I would have been tempted to post-pass. Yeah. Post-pass the... Yikes. That shot is not where most players are expecting it to be. Yeah. Yeah, it's just so difficult from that left side. I'm at the point where I prefer to shoot three side targets to get my third lock on the bottom. Agreed. At that point. Just how not where it's supposed to be. And it looks fine, too. I'm almost tempted to go right ramp and then just go into the scoop from that as well. You know, just to stay away from it. Yeah. All right. All right. Andre doing his pre-ritual. How high did he jump? All right. Okay. Off we go. Destroy the drill. Is he going to go for some super pops? Or, uh... I do like the super pop strategy. That's the one I employed all weekend and was very successful with. Get those super spins, so then you can bump off of the upper flipper while holding it up to get some safe lock targets. Very nice. Shoot the spinner. Yeah. Shoot here and here. Do not shoot here. Do you have your own tutorials? Because I tell you, they're very insightful. Yes, man. Yes. I love how, like, Centaur tells you all the different features of the game in a track mode. It's like orbs feature. Yes. In a drop feature. In a creepy voice. Yeah, I always thought it should also tell you where the drains are in drain feature. All right. I got to go play now. All righty. Good luck in your game three. Thank you. It's always nice getting all these guest speakers, eh? Just coming in and spicing it up a little bit. Escher's got quite the game knowledge, I find. Just very, very depth for such a young... He's like a rules sponge. Yeah. You ever want to know strategy on a game? Talk to Escher. That's right. But you're also going to be warring with the fact of whether or not you're also able to execute the minutiae that he can. Because he's very complex in his strategies. You only got to hit 14 shots, and then you get where you need to get to. It's like, holy cow, and you got to do them in this order. right here Carl trying to crank it up or away team it up under that right flipper got his first lock there it goes those flings are quite active eh Wow be so perfect if that kickback just shot it up for the away team yeah would that be sweet That would be something Steve Ritchie would do. Yes. Yeah, I think Carl will be a little disappointed with that $2 million. This scheme, I think, is very playable right now. I think it's one you can take advantage of. Carl had his opportunities. He had two or three shots that the away team didn't make him. Ball just got in his flanks and was gone. Zach's in pretty good shape here. Yeah, here we go with lock two. Ball two, yeah. multiball is lit. Going right up the middle with the big miss for multiball start. It's nice just forcing it in that in lane. Yes. See, I don't know if I would have took the vengeance at that point because now if he hits that lock shot up the middle he's actually going to start Klingon and he won't have a mode, you know? And if he shoots the drain he's not going to have a ball. No. So I question that tactic a little bit, but, you know, he's up there playing and I'm not, so... Yeah, the Megalodon strat on Deadpool is old and busted. So the new strat on Deadpool is... I mean, it's kind of still the same thing. You just have to get lucky and bounce it up the ramp and get those weird playfield multipliers and stack that with stuff, I guess. The good strategy on Deadpool is don't get tired when you play it because you can last forever on that game unfortunately it's a battle of endurance who can last the longest I think some of the rulesets lately I'm enjoying when it's there and missing when there's not a big risk reward for lopsided pay off. A lot of the games have been edited to a point where it's almost like time equals money. So, you know, you think you look at the, you clock somebody's game and you say oh, they probably have 10 million. Sure enough, they do. A little bit longer, they probably have 15 million. Probably left with the option to big deep strats and blow it up. Yeah, well as you progress in these newer games, it seems that you just keep on getting higher and higher and higher scoring on them and it bloats the scores that are there, right? Because of that. I don't know. I'm more of a fan of the more balanced scoring throughout the game. And then with those extra features that are in there that you can get a super jackpot or you can get a higher jackpot to increase it. Kind of like ACDC, right? Where you get a nice shot to a jackpot that is a risk-reward feature in it. You can either build it or you can take it. That's unfortunate. Right outline there. Still hovering at that halfway mark. So here we're on ball two, Andre. Andre was looking like he had a good start and then kind of came up about where everybody else did. So are you doing anything in April? What tournaments are you going to in April? Are you hidden anywhere else? Yeah, I don't know. I don't know what the pinball calendar looks like. I think not. Yeah, I think we've got Portland Pinball coming up at some point in the month or two. That's always fun. and then, of course, IFPA in Italy. It's going to be interesting. Yes. We have our big Yank pin tournament that will be on April 26th to 28th in Edmonton, Alberta. We've got a bunch of Seattle people that will be attending that event. It should be fun. I don't know what else is going on in April. I'm sure there's a few things going on. I think there's a tournament every day of the year nowadays somewhere. It's crazy. It is. Rocky Mountain Pinball Showdown in May, says the chat room. Yes. Allentown, I think, is coming as well. Yeah, how is Rocky Mountain these days? You know, at one point that became a pump and dump, where essentially there was a payout that ended up feeling like it was about one-tenth of the money taken in. So I think a lot of players stopped going. I wonder if they've been able to turn that around into something that players feel like isn't a ripoff. I love having you in the booth. Just say it as it is, right? Yeah, why not? Yeah, absolutely. I think that was kind of the takeaway that I was never corrected on. So it's been plenty of years. I'm sure it's a great event. And we are here on ball two. There's a delay, though, on the machine. I'm not sure what is going on with it right now. Looks like Carl's ready to step up. Again, everybody's in the ballgame here. We are at, you know, very close scoring that's in here. a very doable target in any one ball. Carl can turn this around in a hurry. He has Axe Player 1 still in the lead here, and that's great for him. He had the hole-in-one on game one, so him keeping pace with these other players is just fine for him. Carl getting that lock. Yes. And is that lock one for him? Ball two. Here we go. So now he's got a great opportunity here because I think he's got all the locks ready to go, doesn't he? Yeah, he should have his third lock lit. Yes. And he's got a mode. What mode is he going to pick here? I think that's a good choice instead of the space jump just because, you know, you can get the space jump in one shot anyway. There you go. That's a good stack. Yeah, we've not seen too many people make that shot today. On the right side, a little bit more doable than on the left. I think you made the right choice there. And here we go. Now he's shooting blinkies. Away team. Light the warp ramp. Bones combo. Very nice. Here we go. Warp ramp. He's going to stage it. Oh, he's got the staging. Go. Look at this. Wow. Big brick. Yes. But worthy try. It was. it was impressive. Alright, nice. Trapped up, uh, well now down to two on the right. A little over under. Oh, very nice. Spades to the left. Yeah. Oh no. Not the most fruitful multiball. No, it wasn't. Still got some time to try and get that warp. Uh, here he goes. No, didn't get it. Oh, good try. That was a huge shot of... Oh yeah, this game is... I don't even think it has a tail bulb in it, to tell you the truth. I don't blame him for really making sure he got a piece of it, but that looked a little bit more like a slap save than a game toss. Yeah, the tilts here today across these nine holes, if you will, are a bit all over the place. A little inconsistent. Yeah, it actually makes it interesting. Some of these machines, you can move around quite a bit. A couple of them have feather tilts. A lot of players have been doing pretty good adjusting as they move from game to game. Other ones, not so much. And I think that's a bit of the charm of this format. All right, Zach on ball three. Let's see what he's got in store for us. So he does have Save the Enterprise going. I think if he hits that lock shot, there he goes. And he's going to be in multiball. So again a nice stack after Save the Enterprise is done too. He'll have super ramps as well. Try ball! And he's got his add a ball as well. Zach coming into this with 19 million. Surely up to about 20-21 right now. Yes, he's got a very good opportunity here to get the target score. Set your timers if Zach can keep this multiball going for 90 seconds, he'll be at the target score. Oh, very nice. Away team. Warp ramp. Still a little ways away. Oh, jeez. Yeah, that was unfortunate there. And that ends the multiball, unfortunately, for him. Oh, that was a little right in lane. Yes. Alright, this is a good choice, going for that warp. Not terribly dialed. And he's still getting points off of that shot as well, too, which is nice on the spinner. Oh, love from that rep. Wow. All right, he can't have vengeance going up the middle now. Now, he's at 30. He's probably got it in bonus right now. He's at 34, 34.8. So this is a foregone conclusion, I think. And Zach has punched this one out of the park. So he is looking at two? A three? Zach landed down with a three here. Nobody else has hit the target score yet. He also won game one, meaning he's retained his lead in strokes at minimum in the first game. He can only improve, if anything. Right, so it's excellent. And he can only get more bullets here to go into game three. And, of course, try ball, seen in games such as Jurassic Park. Yes, Data East. Last Action Hero Yeah what's the like what's the best theme and worst game and worst game and best theme Yeah I don't know So what was the first one worst worst theme and best game I actually You know, you're talking about Last Action Hero. That's a pretty good one there. Kongo? Yeah, I don't know. I like Kongo. Ghostbusters. Pretty darn good theme. Pretty good theme execution. Not so much. Well, you know what? I think with a code update, it could be a fun game. So I'm going to reserve my judgment until the game's done. I love that movie I thought it was pretty good yeah three seashells yeah Sandra Bullock and her prime I don't know I thought it was pretty good yeah Johnny Mnemonic was a terrible movie I agree so here we got Jim worked on Vengeance. Yes. And it's very quick. Vengeance, unfortunately. He's up to 32 million. Now's a good time to work on that bonus X. Oh, no. Oh, good save there. Oh, he's got Super Ramps as well, too, which will get him there. So that's a good choice. Two more Super Ramps should do it. Maybe even one if he's got high enough bonus. Ken, that spinner. There you go. This is so risky. I can't endorse this. He's got it, bud. It's all about that ball. It's an accident. It is, yeah, for sure. And so, Jim. Ended up with a three on that as well, too, to keep pace. Yes. And it was very important for Jim to do that just because Andre's sitting at four strokes right now. So he might have a chance to tie or to pass him if Andre's not successful on this ball. Yeah, this is really looking like going into game three after this, that Zach's almost... It could be a three-horse race for that last spot, I'm thinking. Yeah, so Andre and Carl really want to make sure they can pull it off on this ball. Andre especially, because that'll give him a one-point lead at minimum over Jim and Carl. And again, that spinner holding the flipper up and getting those targets has been a popular strategy on this, which is being employed by Andre right now. And he has zero locks lit, so he's got a lot of work to do if he wants to get those locks. So there's one. Yeah, the flipper up spinner shot, I mean, totally acceptable way to get those lock targets. I think it's a lot more... Takes a lot of momentum off the ball, right? Makes it a lot more safe, I think. Yeah, you're gonna have to hit him anyways. Might as well hit him at low speed. It's kind of similar to Family Guy in holding up that flipper around the loop. Absolutely. Is he trying to time it out, or...? Trying to go up the middle, it looks like. It's funny you didn't hit a switch there because his timer isn't moving. Yeah, I'd say that this is coming across a little bit as a looser tilt than it is on the camera, but maybe it has gotten looser than I remember. Certainly looks like they're getting some good nudges with no dangers. Absolutely. So that mode is done. An extra ball. What, two and a half? I have no idea what that's worth. Could be five if you doubled it on the ramp. I feel like I, like, rank extra ball value in my brain for different games. And, like, it's, like, good or garbage. And, like, I'm pretty sure this one's, like, in the garbage bin for me. Okay. Now, worth changing strategy for or not? I think it's, like, a no. Now, Aerosmith, on the other hand, very valuable oh yeah I don't know if you can double this one maybe the chat knows I think you can yeah can you ramp middle and get a little extra juice on that maybe that makes it worthwhile but still two and a half million times this is the minutiae we need Ezra here for yeah he would know exactly the answer to this question I guarantee you it's like a sponge wealth of knowledge Escher said yes yesterday it's worth something Escher said yes but then his dad said no I'm guessing that happens a lot in the Lepkoff I'll always default to the senior Lepkoff to have the real data of the situation yes ooh there's that tilt All right, Andre at 17. That means at best he can. Yeah, he'd be tying Jim at best if anything, right? So this is getting very interesting now as we're moving up in balls because Jim and both Zach are done, and these guys are fighting for their life right now trying to finalize and get this target at $35 million. Now Andre's bonus there could have been pretty worthwhile in this match probably dropped a couple million we're looking at maybe a five ball game here. Yeah I think you know because the tilt is the way that it is you know he's probably thought that he might have had an extra push there in it it's sometimes a danger with the more looser machine is you don't know how far you can take it. This is the stuff I don't like. Thanks for the info chat room. It says, can't double with combos, is the assumption. I mean, how's a player supposed to know that? Points on a shot. Oh, but playfield X, you can... Wow. Why not just be nice? Hook the player up. It's already worth nothing as it is. What's the sense of, you know, you might as well allow the person to double it. You know, like look at Batman. Players aren't going to freak out if you give them a lot of points if they do something cool. Oh, Mike, that almost came back. That was exciting. Oh, no. A little bit of malfunction in the junction. Is that what we're seeing here? So I think as we were kind of only half paying attention Carl got a third ball for free it has drained I Think the ruling will be to play on is my guess Beneficial malfunction That said play on yes And if he would have trapped it, they probably would have gone ahead and just got him to drain the ball anyway, I would think in that scenario. So, no harm, no foul. Yeah. Carl seemed to be saying that it gave him the third ball for free, but not as a malfunction, but that maybe the vengeance had triggered itself. Oh, interesting. So, it'll switch now. That'll certainly play on, so I don't know why Carl would be confused about that. Hmm. Free stuff is always, uh, acceptable. Carl keeping those torpedoes loaded up just in case. He's locked and loaded. Alright, he's ready. He wants to combo this off the ramp for double value up the middle. Oh, boy. Ten million's ready. Yeah, he's not. He's going for super ramps. That's, yeah. He could put it away, but has chosen to... I mean, really, you won't... So now it's... Three balls in play? Yeah, well, he's got the... I don't agree. Just hit it. You're done. Especially since he had one trapped on the right side. He could have just took a pot shot at it, right? Because I find on the left side it's a little tougher. Yeah. Oh. I disagree. Now Carl's in jail. Yes. What do I know? All right, Carl's seven and a half million off the target score. Well, I get to mow it here. Get that started at least. A little mow start. That's a good shot. I think ramp out's a reasonable choice. Is Nero 3 a strategy now that he's in jail? I mean, over the course of seven million, I think. I think he's a safe bet on that one. Yeah, that would certainly put it there. I think he'll get there early. I actually like going for bonus times right now. Okay. I see his bonus X, but I think if he pushes that to 4 or 5 X, he'd be done. This has been a pretty good ball. A few multi-balls. I'll switch it. Oh, here we go. Now he's got it. Yep. It's looking pretty good. 35. So, very good. He got there. Not maybe in the conventional way that you thought he would get there. I think he went there in a perfectly wonderful way. I just don't know what I'm doing. I'm always like, ah, well, like, be safer to shoot the left orbit 50 times than actually take a legitimate shot at a ramp. Yes, yes. Yes, he did have super ramps, so it was definitely a worthwhile strategy for him to go ahead and do that. We were just questioning that he had the shot up the middle, you know, especially when two balls on the left side. I would have thought that he would have took that shot. Yeah. So there's Carl bringing it home on the same ball as Jim. They'll both remain tied in strokes. Andre here is going to plunge out these two players, and he's going to hope he can do it now to have the same number of strokes as those two players. Certainly looking like a fight for the second spot to move on with Zach playing. Could we have another tiebreaker? Absolutely. I mean this is like you playing NBA fast break and the point range is 1 through 10 Yes Why aren you a pro Why aren you a pro That's hilarious. Love the game choices over there with the Star Wars. Just craziness. You know, I think a lot of the pros play a lot better than the premiums and LEs. I find that with a lot of the titles, to tell you the truth. I was talking with somebody from Stern and talking with them about that, and I guess they often design the LE first, and then they have their game, and then they look at it and say, okay, what are we going to take out to make the Pro? Yep. And, I mean, that makes a lot of sense from a design standpoint. You can't necessarily shove 10 pounds of meat in a 5-pound bag. Makes sense. So you've got to start with a big bag. Yep. But I get the feeling that there's not a lot of design by elimination going on, And so they kind of end up with this kind of big monstrosity of LE stuff. And then I think, oh, what can we take out? And maybe some of that stuff is actually the natural choice that shouldn't be in there because some of those early ideas kind of didn't work out. Yeah. So I kind of wish they'd go through a little bit more of that revision up front, make the LEs a little more lean and mean, and try to have some better games. Now, you look at a game like Iron Maiden LE, I think it's a pretty solid entry. Absolutely. I think that game seems like it's gone through revisions to get to the premium up front, and then they made some really critical choices to cost out some things like the center ramp, and I think it plays pretty great in both versions. All right, here Andre really wanting to get in on this ball. He's got $35 million to go for, $15 million left. It's in vengeance. If he can get that center shot, he's going to have an opportunity at a $10 million combo. Worst case, five million without. So he really wants to get that ramp and stuff it up the middle when that's ready. And if he had bombs, he could actually do ramp bomb if he wanted to as well, too. That's out. He's got three in a row. Yes. And, oh, so he must have already took the add-a-ball. He's going to be pretty close right now. Yeah, he's going pretty good here. And that one's through. And Vengeance was defeated for 5 million. Not comboed, but still good value. And he's doing some victory laps. It looks like Andre will have done it here. Yeah, it's over. Is there a time limit to choose your game at the start of a match? I don't think there's a time limit expressly listed in the rules. However, Andre's just going to keep on playing until he gets $400 million on this. Over under the wrath of the tournament director, Josh, I would say it's a safe assumption that after 20 minutes you'll get ejected. Andre, overachieving by $8 million. I think you're good, buddy. Double-checking that he's good to go. I think you're really good. Not sure that that big $35 million written on the back glass is legit. Yes, because they made a change, right? They could have made it to 45 or something like that on them. It doesn't count if you go up there with a pen and add another zero. Then everybody's like, oh, shit, zero three. Let's do this. Strategy changed immediately. All righty. We're moving. We're moving to game three. The final game in group two. Carl's Haircuts, sponsored by Super Cups. Yes. Shampoo by Head & Shoulders. Oh, boy. Zero planks. So here, Zach, we're going to assume that it's Zach's pick. Yeah, and this is such a smart pick. This is a smart pick. So here we've seen very few, if no players, get a one. I don't think I've seen a one all weekend. I had a two. I was close. But anywhere from a two to a six, let's say. Tilt endgame here. However, a lot of players are able to make steady progress towards a target score of 30,000. across the five balls here. Now, Zach has a considerable lead. And he's hoping that he can just kind of maintain pace with these other players. And Carl coming back to... The only thing you've got to watch out on this game is that one feed. Because that one feed will put it straight down in the middle on this game. And you're talking about the ball rolling through the number one rollover at the top, coming straight down towards the middle. This game leveled amazingly, has no twisted play field. Yes, and I think it goes exactly like that, too. I think we should leave it there. Look at that. Look at that track. Amazing, ladies and gentlemen. Those drafting skills that I did in high school, I tell you, they paid off. Let's see. Okay, I'm going to see if this works. The ball likes to go here. Let's see. No, it's not a magnet. Okay. No, no. It doesn't work like that. Did you want to give me a tutorial? I think you should. With the three outlanes, I think that they might need to know. I do like those tutorials that you do on this game. Do not go here. Do not go here. Do not go here. Yeah, so let's see. So for people that have not seen or played Abracadabra before, you have the one, two, three, four rollovers. You can also get them on the lower part of the play field. If the player completes those rollovers, the bonus tower in the middle will increment by one value from 1,000 towards 5,000. That value is awarded from an outline or from the drop target at the top of the screen when it's lit. Only the lit one will score that value. You can also boost that bonus tower by getting all the drops down and hitting the center target straight up the middle. You betcha. another underrated feature on this game is the lit pump bumper that you see in there right now and sometimes what ends up happening is you can actually get that ball into here and you're getting super bumpers that's in there and you're getting you know two or three thousand four thousand other cracks sometimes on that so again that is another viable strategy that I employed on this game when I ever I seen those lit I just did a nice graze off of those bumpers and I was getting thousands from it. And since we've been more concerned with what these other three players are going to do, we have not noticed that Zach is playing this game live. This is for real. Zach's on ball three. Holy cow! Zach going for $30,000 to $26,000. And if he does make it on here, he has advanced. If he can do this in five balls, that's all. and that will come back nicely for him and this should be it 500 more there it is oh it's actually like outline yes oh my god can you believe it can you believe it yes and that's it right there so he will get 8 strokes he is guaranteed to go through with that So congratulations, Zach Sharp. You will be again in another final. Jim, Andre, and Carl all coming into this game with eight. Zach with four. His four here will put him at eight. Other players get a minimum of one stroke. We haven't seen that on this game this whole weekend. So these next three games are going to be a fight for who joins Zach in the final four. Yes, one spot for one of those three players. So these will be the critical games coming up here for Jim, Andre, and Carl. And we're going to get a little practice session here, I think, first. And the practice sessions work a little differently on this game as well, too, where the player will step up, they will practice, and then they will play on these one-player EMs. So it's just a little bit different than the other modern games that you've seen. It just shows the level of competition here and how tight these groups have been It's been great It's been great play All the seedings have been very very tough There's been tiebreakers There's been lots of drama It's been a great event so far The maximum score of 10 strokes Generally game 3 has been relevant for all players Zach Harber has just advanced himself to the final 4 Yeah so we've just I've just got a note here that Ray and Escher were out in the other group. Escher with his crazy game picks? Yes. Finally bit him. Getting just his nerds? I loved the game picks, personally. I would too if I was in your position, so yes. It's good to see the one is still going straight down the middle. yeah they fixed it so now it actually goes down the middle again like it did on the first day they fixed it it's actually level now oh there you go Jim starting his first ball of his actual game game three yes oh that's going to be okay this game leading so hard to the right you really have to pay attention to what's going on with the track of that ball I played with him on the first day and I believe he got a one on this. He was just crushing it. Wow, he did, eh? Wow, there's been a one. Wow. It's funny. It's a really good trap. It's funny that there's no lead on the four. I just find that strange. Maybe that the playing field's warped on the left side. Yeah. Uh-oh, that one's gone. It was a surprising drain that it kind of tracked right where I was going. Yeah. Not a bad start, though. 7,000 is enough to sneeze at on your first ball. Get this two. That'll light the 2,000. And that's a great plunge. That's a really nice plunge. That's huge. Really, we want to make the best use of that bonus ladder and the whip-up pumpers. Get them when you can get them. Oh, that's a nice, very nice. That looked so gone. That was awesome. I'm surprised there's no dead pass there. Getting that ball in that right flipper so he can shoot that number one from the bottom. The top target. Trying to get rid of this bank so that he can go ahead and start shooting the rest of them. Nice little pick there. And dead. Yep, perfect. And shot. Look at that. He's only got one more left. Two. That was great. Oh. Another nice nudge. That was awesome. That was reminiscent of what it looked like a couple days ago. And he has the drops cleared, so he's looking for the middle now. Oh, just missed. See, there's some pop-up reaction there. The action that I did on this game is definitely risky, but the tilt is pretty medium. It lets you knock it around a little bit. Fairly liberal, I find, yeah. You'd really have to do one of those Carl specials to get the tilt here. Yes. Yeah, I didn't see a tilt the entire weekend on it. No. People were moving it pretty well. I think it's playing. All right. Just as I was going to say, this game's pretty much done. Yeah, Jim gets centered right. Being at 3,000 on the bonus ladder is huge. Yes. Don't plunge the one. It's not worth it. Yeah, because you only get three for it. Here's where you want that little plunge that just trickles through that gate and down the four. Get you on that 1,000 pop. Yes, that'd be perfect, actually. The four would be nice. I wouldn't be surprised if we see Jim shooting the pop bumper directly from the flipper. Right now it's not lit, so he probably should be shooting that second target that's on there. Oh, just missed it. And he's got the fourth? Nope. Moved on him. There we go. And there he goes. That is it, folks. Very nice. So we did take a three on this, so Jim will end up with 11 strokes. Three is very nice. I think that's a good start. I think that's tough to beat on this game. Is it possible to get a one or two? Absolutely it is, but it's definitely a nice one to put up to make sure that your competitors have to match that, right? Good likelihood of a tie at three here. It could be. Yeah, absolutely. A three is solid. It's a very solid score on this game. Andre Mazenkov coming up. He's going to have his practice ball. 4.30 seconds, as it were. Yes. What's the best EM pinball theme? Ever. Thief. Yeah. Hmm. I like Atlantis myself. Atlantis? Yeah. Yeah, that's pretty nice. That is a very pretty hand. Hmm. That's a pretty good one. That's a good question. I'm a fan of Totem. Kind of got that whole like peyote acid trip thing going on in the back glass. Okay. It's like the player's being attacked by spirits of the Indian spirit world. I think this one's high on the list too. like the wizards and the magic kind of thing. Yeah, great art. Team 1 probably has the better rules, but you could get a Team 1. Team 1 in every game. Yeah, that's actually a really good idea. Totem isn't an EM, though. Yeah, shows what I know, right? I was talking earlier about how I'd bucket things, like garbage points, good points, like old garbage games, good games. Totem's somewhere down in that barrel, I guess. You were close to old state. Oh, Spanish eyes. That's great. And there's also the Spanish eyes sister slash brother game that looks exactly the same. There is an EM version of Mata Hari. Is it called Canasta or something? There is an EM of Mata Hari, is there? I swear there's an EM totem. Somebody look that up. Interesting. Double down that I'm wrong. You're in Vegas. Why not, right? Genie. No, Genie's not an EM either. Totem is an EM. Changed my mind. I don't need to look it up. It's gone. Nice, Steve. Oh, wait, wait. There's hope in the chat. Oh, I think there's an EM version of Totem. Pretty rare, though. Okay, well, there's hope for you still. Sonic Games Best. Heck yes. Prospector. Marstrack. Builds Awarehood. Prospector's a great game. I do love Prospector. I don't know much about the art package on that one, but I definitely love his game. Those playfields put the rest of the pinball industry to shame in that era. They all last so awesome. I agree. Classic, right? I think they're just clear-coated. Yeah. But somebody probably knows. They do some kind of Spanish magic. Oh, that's right. Is it acrylic at all? When you look at it, they definitely seem... Because they look like it. They don't seem wood. There were those playfields in the Rolling Stones slash Speakeasy era that were made of some kind of weird plastic, but those all ended up sagging and getting all crazy. Okay. Well, from the heat, I guess, eh? That's a stupid start to warp it. PBR can crusher. Yeah. Ooh. Nice. Thanks, Adam. All right, Andre here. Ball two. Yes. 7,000 points. He's got some work to do here for that three. I mean, you know, he's at 9K now. That would have been a decent ball one, but he'll just pretend he just started. Only at 1,000 value right here right now, so he's got to start getting some lanes up there. So now the pop bumper is turned on. There it is. It's a beautiful shot. And they're both lit at the same time? Correct. Because it just seemed like sometimes the lights. The light on the right is working so hot. Yeah, so if this one's lit, that one is lit no matter what because they're both on the same circuit. And by this one, we mean this one. Oh, yeah. Well, you know. For those at home who cannot see what we're pointing at. It's actually this one that's been out, right? Correct. Okay, Andre on ball three. Needs to hit the target on this ball. Oh, nice pop-up reaction there. Or else he will not be advancing. Oh, that was nice. Oh, that one came out nice. Oh, and that is it. That is his tournament, unfortunately. and Andre Massacoff has now been officially eliminated. Still a slim chance that Jim gets DQ'd somehow. When he trips on the chair or something. Andre's ball drops an F-bomb way too loud three or four times. Yeah, you're hanging on, aren't you? Something. It's always hope. Ooh, right in that ball too. And you can really see how boosting that bonus early really helped Jim. Yeah, it was key to the entire ball that he had, and it was some masterful shooting and great plunging. And I think that's the one thing that people, you know, when you're playing EMs, the plunge is very important on a lot of them. And this should be it right here. There it is, 31. So again, a 4. And that would have been a par. Still a very good game by Andre. 4 on this machine is pretty good. Andre raising his hands, not with a malfunction, just declaring victory. Yes, I survived. And we were talking about that one lane. I think the right play is when it goes in there you give it a little little shouldn't you? Yeah, I decide to get it to pop out on an angle for sure Rather than letting it do its own thing and fall straight through there Yeah, that was the day one for sure you had to do that and I believe now It's it's the same setup and I give a little wiggle to get it bounce side to side in that land. I hope it bounces left So the situation the same you see a three yeah Carl needs to get a three Was this practice or is this real? Practice. Okay. Just wanted to make sure. This ball is sponsored by corn nuts. For those of you not in the know, ranch flavor does not exist in Europe. It's known as Cool American. I bet you we've got ketchup ones in Canada. Mmm, good times. Nothing like a condiment on a snack. Yeah, we have three different countries represented in here. Yes, very international flavor that's going on here today in the booth. Alright. Here we go. Carling a trap on his first ball. Picking off the target. Oh, there it is. Very nice. Shot it before. Really wants that four either on the right end lane, upper lane. Yeah, that would boost up his bonus. Taking shots at it from the left. Smart play. Oh, that's nice. That's huge. Now he's at two. He's got a great opportunity. 11,000 ball one. He can clear that bank. He's got the bank lit as well, too, on the right-hand side. And he nails it. Wow. Alright, two targets left on the left side. If he can get those and shoot the center he'll be boosted to 3,000. He's already at 16,000. He's halfway to the target. It's interesting, I feel like Carl just missed a dead pass there. Okay, he's still in great shape though here at 18,800. He's got a ball in hand here. If he can get it in this ball he will advance. Yep, Carl needing 6,000 a ball. The tie. The safest number. Oh, just missed that lane there. Oh, some good bumper action, but it wasn't lit. So he didn't get full value for that. Carp just wants this ball to be done. So what do you do now? Do you take a pot shot at a pop? He did not. I was going to say you go for the alley pass, but I'm not seeing anybody do that here. No. So it's super safe. Nailed it. Oh, center's lit to boost to three. It is. One center shot. There it is. Nice. Oh, no. The video captured the frame of Carl's hair dipping in the spirit. Oh, jeez. Okay. So now this is critical. This is it right here. He's got to make it here. This is the tie gym for playoffs. Yes, we could be in another tiebreaker. Oh, no. Oh, no. That's trouble. That's trouble. Oh, my God. Where was that line that you drew before? Yes. It was something like that. Yes. And it makes you go like this as well, too. Oh. Jesus. Unhappy face. That is the worst way to lose in this game. You know, that's just awful. So into the final four will be Zach Sharp and Jim Belsito. Carl playing here for final ranking status. Yes. From IFP points. And ball five. So he actually falls below Andre on that. And he will finish with 13 strokes. Your finalists in this group will be Zach Sharp and Jim Belzito. The final four is going to be up next. You are here at the 2019 IFPA Pin Masters in beautiful Las Vegas, Nevada. You are here with Derek Thompson, Kelly George, and... Joe Lemire. Soon to be out of here. Yes, in the finals. So we're going to probably get some final telecasters in here for the finals. I may take a break. Let the young man, I know that he's aching to get in here, to give you some insight. You know, it's been a hell of a tournament, man. It's been a long grind. Been here since, what, Wednesday? Yeah, been a long weekend. For the Nationals, we've got... But I've been here for, what, two days for the pin masters and now third day in the playoffs. I'm ready to go home. You know, it's been a long week at pinball, man. Last week in Texas, this week here, and I did the double-double. You know, had to do it for my Canadian contingent and had a lot of fun. And where are you off to? Are you flying home today? Yeah, flying home tonight to Seattle. Awesome. See how that works out. Got a nice 12-hour drive over two days back to Colorado. Yes. You drive it. Escher just got his license. Yeah. Awesome. I don't even have my learners yet, unfortunately. Where are we? Oh, yeah. _(Acquisition: youtube_groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_ --- *Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: fc83801a-42de-458e-945f-419f67314af3*