# INDISC 2019 - Classics II Playoffs - Quarterfinals

**Source:** IE Pinball  
**Type:** video  
**Published:** 2020-04-14  
**Duration:** 84m 19s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWy6wNLlOOM

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## Analysis

IE Pinball broadcasts INDISC 2019 Classics II playoff quarterfinals, featuring competitive EM pinball matches with detailed commentary on gameplay, strategy, and player performance. The commentary covers multiple groups playing classic machines like Bow and The Arrow and Blue Note, with discussion of tournament formats, player rankings, and regional competition dynamics.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] Bowen Kerins is referred to as 'Phil the berm bomber' due to his ability to hit spinners — _Commentary during Bow and The Arrow quarterfinal match, directly stated by hosts_
- [MEDIUM] Blue Note was the EM used at IFBA National Championships in Vegas for the second year running — _Commentator discussing Blue Note game history, recalling personal play experience at nationals_
- [MEDIUM] Will McKinney beat Zach Sharpe and Josh Jean-Paul de Win at Papa 3 or 4 juniors — _Tournament commentator discussing Will McKinney's background and tournament history_
- [MEDIUM] MAGFest was the first Sam Stern Circuit event of the season (prior year Texas Pinball Festival typically kicked it off) — _Text received from Nick Zendejas about MAGFest attendance, noted as unusual scheduling_
- [MEDIUM] Donovan Stepp prefers to go third when given choice between third and fourth in tournament play — _Commentator discussing player order preferences in Colorado tournament context_
- [MEDIUM] Rick Stetta always chooses to go first in tournament play — _Commentator Jon Hey discussing various player preferences for play order_
- [HIGH] The IFPA ranking cutoff for B Division eligibility at this tournament is 250th world ranking — _Direct statement during player interview about B Division qualification threshold_
- [MEDIUM] Blue Note was one of the first games with a built-in skill shot — _Commentator discussion of Blue Note features, stating 'first skill shot that was created'_

### Notable Quotes

> "There's just as much skill, but you need a little more fortune involved... tremendous skill, but then you also need to have a chance."
> — **Tournament commentator**, mid-match
> _Philosophy on classic pinball vs modern pinball and the role of luck in EM machines_

> "The best no lane or out lane is to have no lane at all. Sure, sure. Because the rubber of the slingshot is really what bounces it out."
> — **Tournament commentator**, Bow and Arrow analysis
> _Technical explanation of EM drain mechanics and slingshot physics_

> "Why would you care? I mean, it's like... And I don't believe the notes are actually in places, I don't believe that's a correct musical bar there."
> — **Commentator Jon Hey**, Blue Note discussion
> _Critique of game designer attention to detail on Blue Note musical scoring_

> "You generally just play. You just try to survive."
> — **Tournament commentator**, late in broadcast
> _Core strategy for classic EM pinball tournaments_

> "It's only like, what, 6 a.m. over there? Oh, trouble. Oh, nice. No panic."
> — **Tournament commentator**, During Yanni's Blue Note game
> _Reference to Finnish timezone and player tiredness factor_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Bowen Kerins | person | Competitive player known as 'Phil the berm bomber' for spinner accuracy; playing in quarterfinals |
| Corey | person | Competitive player in Bow and The Arrow quarterfinal, received bye into quarterfinals |
| Yanni | person | Competitive player from Finland (EPC Finland jersey), strong performer in quarterfinals with multiple game wins |
| Adam McKinney | person | Competitive player from Arizona; made second seed in group, participates in tournament organization |
| Louise Wiggins | person | Competitive player who jumped into standings with strong run late in qualifying; number two seed |
| Raymond Davidson | person | Competitive player in Blue Note quarterfinal group, second seed |
| Escher | person | Top seed in Blue Note quarterfinal group; prefers to go first on EM games |
| Will McKinney | person | Phoenix-based player with junior tournament history; beat Zach Sharpe and Josh Jean-Paul de Win at Papa juniors |
| Jay Collins | person | Competitor in quarterfinals; helping with tournament venue/PECs organization |
| Derek Thompson | person | Tournament competitor; noted for strong Harley Davidson gameplay earlier in event |
| Chris Frame | person | Seventh seed in Bow and Arrow group |
| Zach Sharpe | person | Lost to Will McKinney at Papa juniors; pinball player referenced in broadcast |
| Josh Jean-Paul de Win | person | Lost to Will McKinney at Papa juniors |
| Nick Zendejas | person | Pinball player who attended MAGFest Stern Circuit event in New York; sent text update to commentary team |
| Donovan Stepp | person | Colorado's best player; prefers third position in play order |
| Rick Stetta | person | Pinball player who always prefers to go first in tournament play |
| Jon Hey | person | Tournament commentator providing analysis and historical context |
| Andre Gascoigne | person | Strong competitive player who defeated commentator in National Championships semis; nearly rolled countdown |
| Snow Galvin | person | Qualifier with unfortunate tiebreaker loss on Blue Note (three drain issues) |
| INDISC 2019 | event | Tournament event featuring Classics II division with quarterfinals broadcast by IE Pinball |
| Bow and The Arrow | game | Classic EM pinball machine used in quarterfinals; noted for specific drain patterns and playfield design |
| Blue Note | game | Classic EM pinball machine used in quarterfinals; one of first games with built-in skill shot; used at IFBA Nationals |
| IE Pinball | organization | Broadcast/media organization covering tournament with expert commentary and analysis |
| IFBA | organization | International pinball federation; runs national championships |
| MAGFest | event | Event in New York that served as first Sam Stern Stern Circuit event of season |

### Topics

- **Primary:** EM classic pinball gameplay and strategy, Tournament format and play order strategy, Player performance and competitive meta, Machine-specific playfield design and drain patterns
- **Secondary:** Player backgrounds and junior tournament history, Tournament organization and rule details, Skill shot mechanics and design history
- **Mentioned:** Regional tournament circuit and scheduling

### Sentiment

**Positive** (0.75) — Tournament broadcast maintains professional, enthusiastic tone with appreciation for player skill and machine design. Minor critical observations about Blue Note design details (musical accuracy, flipper asymmetry) are presented in analytical rather than negative context. Overall celebratory of competitive play and player achievements.

### Signals

- **[competitive_signal]** Discussion of play order strategy preferences varies by player; some prefer first (Rick Stetta, Escher on EMs), others prefer late position for information (Donovan Stepp prefers third of four). Indicates strategic depth in tournament decision-making beyond gameplay skill. (confidence: high) — Multiple commentators discussing different player preferences: 'Rick Stead always goes first', 'Donovan Stepp...given a choice between third and fourth, he'll go third', 'Josh is at home right now...you go as late as you can'
- **[gameplay_signal]** Detailed discussion of asymmetric flipper design on Blue Note and Lazarus machines affecting play; slingshot physics and drain patterns critical to strategy. Spinner mechanics and target value systems vary by machine state. (confidence: high) — Multiple technical discussions: 'because the flippers are not level, so that ball five...the flipper angle means you have to flip at a different cadence', 'one-time only switches in outlane', slingshot rubber asymmetry
- **[competitive_signal]** Seeding distribution shows strong players spread across groups; top seed prefers first position, second seed strong finisher. Bye advantages discussed as potentially detrimental ('cold' player issue with byes vs. continuous warm play). (confidence: high) — Escher (top seed) vs. Raymond Davidson (deck seed) vs. Adam McKinney; discussion of 'when Escher started getting byes, it's a different mentality', bye players coming in cold vs. warm competitors
- **[event_signal]** MAGFest in New York became first Sam Stern Circuit event of season, unusual departure from traditional Texas Pinball Festival/Expo opening. No streaming available from MAGFest location. (confidence: medium) — Text from Nick Zendejas about MAGFest attendance; commentary: 'Usually Texas Pinball Festival or similar event kicks off the Stern season...but magfest snuck in this year'
- **[community_signal]** Bowen Kerins referenced as established figure with teaching/mentorship role; younger players like Will McKinney have junior tournament histories and are tracked by community. (confidence: medium) — Discussion of Will McKinney's Papa juniors history where he beat prominent players; Bowen Kerins active in commentary and discussion suggesting mentor/expert status
- **[gameplay_signal]** Commentary discusses score-chasing vs. survival strategy; in EM classics, conservative play (avoiding zero-point balls) is viable meta despite seemingly lower scores. Some players adopt aggressive flipping approach with higher variance. (confidence: high) — Analysis of Corey's play: 'game one, it's all about just don't take zero. One point's all you need'; discussion of nudging decisions and their consequences; 'you need a little more fortune involved'
- **[design_innovation]** Blue Note noted as one of first (or first) games with built-in skill shot mechanic, indicating early design experimentation with what became standard feature. (confidence: medium) — Commentary: 'There is actually a skill shot that's built in. It was, I think, the first skill shot that was created. First game with a skill shot, yep.'
- **[product_concern]** Blue Note exhibits several design inconsistencies noted by expert commentators: asymmetric flippers, questionable musical scoring accuracy, unexplained dual outlane switches, spinners that 'really don't spin' (heavy Alvin Gottlieb design). Suggests manufacturing/design trade-offs or oversights. (confidence: high) — Multiple technical critiques: 'game designer could not even align the flipper', 'don't believe the notes are actually in places...that's a correct musical bar', 'two switches in the out lane' with no clear purpose, 'Alvin Gottlieb spinners...they're so heavy'
- **[operational_signal]** Tournament venue experienced mechanical issues requiring Jay Collins to halt play for repairs (high roller bank and EM mechanical issues), suggesting venue maintenance challenges during event. (confidence: medium) — Commentary: 'he had to stop playing in order to fix machines because there were issues with the high roller bank and there was issues with some of the EMs'
- **[content_signal]** IE Pinball providing detailed expert commentary coverage of tournament with real-time analysis, player interviews, and machine breakdowns; indicates mature streaming/broadcast infrastructure for competitive pinball. (confidence: high) — Entire broadcast structure with expert commentary, score tracking, game analysis, and viewer engagement (patch giveaway challenge)

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## Transcript

 We're in the left cough. It's the left cough. The left cough. Oh, incredible. Saved his tournament life right here on ball three. Oh, he got it. He got it. Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. Oh, look at what we have. Bow and arrow. Quarter finals. Wait, I think I've seen this game before. We've played. You know, you could sit in the stadium for a little bit. No, that's okay. I'll catch him in the semis. You can't mix personal and professional at him. Yes, I can. You can. So, Gene, Yanni, and Corey. Oh, Corey, we won. We were second. Gene and Corey. Oh, yeah, Corey came. Yeah, and he's back. And he had a bye here. Yeah, very strong. Yes. Bob couldn't qualify, but Corey came back and got a buy again. Phil Birnbaum. Arsenic, Dave, unfortunately got knocked out. Wow. We see that drain very regularly. That's the drain. That's the bow and arrow drain. And Phil is a classic player, right? I think his ticket was ODMs. But check out his standings in Maine. Birnbaum got a huge run in Maine, too. Yeah, he's in buy position at the moment. because the main bank is somewhat classic in its... Oh, he's the number four in front of that Adam Lovkoff? Yeah, but how many points? 7.97 to 7.91. He's going to bleed below me. All right, all right. It's my prediction. All right, so Yanni here. Arsenic actually... It's our first chance to see he's got his team Finland or team Europe jersey. Yeah, EPC Finland. All right, let's see how he plays. Trouble. Trouble. Oh, it came in. All right. That's nice. Oh, he's using the New Zealand style. No, that's... Yeah, that's the New Zealand approach. Let me just try to find the spinner. First goal. I do like that shirt. That's awesome. That is so cool. All right, so here's Gene. That looks like a bowling shirt, but yeah. Gene back at this. He played that the last round, so... So, you have the... That's, you know, it looks like it's going to be safe, but really what you want to do there is bump straight up. Just take the worry out of it. Get it, just don't even... The best in lane or out lane is to no lane at all. Sure, sure. Because the rubber of the slingshot is really what bounces it out. Yep. One side there's no rubber, the other side there's rubber. If there's any side-to-side movement on the ball, that's enough kinetic energy to throw it out there. All right, let's see, Corey. It's his first ball of the day because he had a bye. And welcome to the Classics. And if you don't get housed on your first ball in Classics, it's like, what am I doing here? That's why we play five of them, though. So what is it, 5,023, two, and three. I suspect these next couple balls are going to go much better. Oh, my God. Or not. The next couple after these. Yes, yes. The last three. It's a three-ball game. No, for a feel anyway. He's dancing in front of the camp, showing off his moves. We like to call Phil the berm bomber because his ability to hit spinners is awesome. Yes, super strong. Oh, yeah, he's going New Zealand all day. Look at that. Three New Zealands already. He got 5,000 for me. Yeah, you got a one in six chance at that. Right. So the average is going to be 2,500 to hit arguably the most dangerous target in the game? I'd much rather go for that left to left. As we say, you know. I'd even talk. I think the four green targets at 3,000 each are better value. Plus you get double bonus at the end of it. So I'm not saying it's not something to do, but I think it's like eighth or ninth on your list of things that, you know. you know you can light abcd on your pop bumpers and play pop bumpers all day uh i mean but after you've been playing these tables so much you're just looking to spice it up a little so hey fair enough yeah yeah i guess good point that's an excellent point you know oh lovely lovely uh back and forth you get two greens at that angle he's down to one to get that double bonus if the lower oh that's uh yeah that's a save into the right out lane unfortunately you do the right thing and then you still end up poorly. Well, that's what classics is all about. There's just as much skill, but you need a little more fortune involved. It's pretty what you do when you have the ball, right? Yep. Tremendous skill, but then you also need to have a chance. Alright, so let's see what Corey's going to do. Backhand spinner, very nice. Oh, but straight down the middle. We're seeing just, I mean, people are doing the right thing here and they're just getting killed. The game's like, I'm tired of giving up good scores. We pretty much are. Yeah, nothing in it. It's 34,000 in the lead now. None of these scores would have been any good on a ticket. All right, let's see if Phil gets the flip. A little bit. Oh, my goodness. Center post. Yeah. Depth by Kiwi. Cold. Get that Kiwi. You think he's in the cold? Sometimes, I mean, the bye, you come in, you know. Yeah. I had that issue last year at B Division. Yeah. When Escher started getting byes, he really took, it's a different mentality. And the competition's warm. So, I mean, they're just survivors from the first round. They're all warm. So, in a way, it's better to play the first round if you get through it than to come in cold. We'll see how Adam will do tomorrow. What are you trying to already jinx me there? I'm not getting in your head or anything How are you standing in the main, Jermaine? Like 11 So you're good, because you're on the mic here You're not playing at the moment So you're happy with where you are? I'm not going to chase it by right now How are you doing? I'm solidly in B Did you try hard? I didn't try that hard I had some really good games And some really bad games And you are B eligible. What's your IFB ranking? I think it's somewhere around 400. What's the cutoff for this? 250. 250. So you had to be anyone below the 250th world ranking is eligible for the B. Lovely. And he got double bonus. Don't tilt. Don't tilt. He's flipping away. Wow. He likes to flip. Okay. It did not tilt at least. Did it tilt? No. He got it. Yeah. He's up to 72,000. I mean, he's crushing it. You know, when people are saying, oh, he's out of control or that's not the way to play the game, I would say the points say differently, and some people play better that way. Bob Matthews is the one-time master. Yeah. Why do two times when one time will get it done? You know, like Andrew Messinghoff. Yeah, Andre's a lot more control than people give him credit for, though. Right. He's busy and he's got things to do. He's got shots to make. He doesn't want to wait around a lot. All right, so player four, ball three, 9,000. He's going to try to put some point on the board. Really, Corey hasn't missed a shot. He's just got two. And he made it. And then he died. But as Jason showed, you can get 100,000 on a ball in this game easy. If you can get the scoop pod. Oh, my goodness. He is snake pit right now. This is a five ball game Like if I would bet For four ball, was that three balls? Or four balls, that was three? I'll give you three balls And I bet you can't get less than that By just plunging three balls and not flipping Like between the pop bumpers and the three thousands He's got one good spinner Yeah but Good shake there Oh a little too good shake I feel like Yanni got it moving in last ball and it probably hasn't settled yet because uh wow so you're saying if i punch three balls i would score higher than eleven thousand you have a you have a nod like yeah maybe two tries but yeah i can i tilt the machine first no tilting allowed that would be fine that would that would defeat the spirit of the bet all right so uni must be feeling pretty good yeah just keep flipping man it's working great he actually played the game a little compared to the other so that's a little bump nope you gotta bump that yeah that was a way but we're watching we've seen this like our third game in a row we've seen all the train patterns these guys haven't seen it it makes a difference right i'm not a big game watcher when i'm playing but oh no i yeah Oh, my. How many left out leads is that? A lot. I don't have enough fingers on my hands. This is... All right. Come on, Corey. All right, Corey. Corey's like two collectible points away from being in second place. And really, in Papa style, game one, it's all about just don't take zero. One point's all you need. It keeps you, guarantees you to be in the mix. So, all right. Come on. Give him a flip. oh he get control quite a bit nice all right take a deep breath hit a spinner try and survive boom what he's just going for 1 000. he's scared of that uh backhand he got uh screwed oh he almost got that that's oh yeah yeah yeah i don't agree with the mentality either but he uh hit the uh the shot there and went to the outline at one time well yeah but that's the the game yeah yeah he shot for 1,000 and lost the ball anyway yeah yeah no no yeah that's uh i don't i don't agree interesting that ball was gonna come to the in lane if you did nothing and he gave it a little nudge and it was just enough energy to rattle on the in lane to go to the out lane so it's such a hard call right you have to play it over and over to really get over nudging is yep he's as bad as not nudging yep and so sometimes when you see one of the not nudge, it's actually a really smart, good read. Well that's a bold fight for Phil, I think Phil here is going to try to put some points. He's got a good spinner going at this, he's raised it to what, 6,000, he's going to start cashing in. Good cashing. Ooh. Okay nice. This is actually a bold. Oh no. And I just cursed it. Yeah. I feel like he could have drop catched that. Phil's going to be really disappointed with that. Is that like a 50,000? Yeah, I think it's 50,000. All right, so that's a point at least for Yanni. That's good. Good start. And then Gene at 54. I just got a text from Zen in New York. Nick Zendejas. He was at the MAGFest, the first Stern Pro Circuit event last weekend. Oh, that was right. That was last weekend. Usually Indisc kicks off the Stern season. In fact, last year we got double value for it. uh but magfest snuck in this year uh i don't know they didn't tell it they i don't believe there was any streaming from there no it's the location just now it's pretty much remember who wow all right oh he was already uh you know 78 000 so no he's got at least uh one point in hand and uh all right now gene we saw play this much he had a much better game uh round one so let's see if he He's got a point at least, right? 59,000? Yep, yep. And he just needs a little bit of work on the spinner to... Oh, that's fine. That's fine. Oh, a little. Yeah, I thought it was going to have enough energy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. It's like I wanted to nudge the screen. All right. So what do we have? 78, 70, and 50. And, of course, Yanni took first in his first two games last round as well. So, Mr. Four. four points is better than two points. It's even twice as good, actually. He's trying to get himself composed. He hasn't had any luck. I want to see him back on the flipper and make a spinner. There you go. He's not laying the ball yet on the flipper. Spinner. Hit the spinner. That's the plan. You have to. 2,000 is... But he goes back up to the saucer. 28 now to 50. He has to eat it like 13 times. So, okay, but here's my one defense of it. He knows that the ball's put into danger after the scoop, so why not? He's just setting up the spinner shot by shooting the scoop. You know, but he knows he has it. Or not guaranteeing, because we saw it. Nice drop catch. Yep, a little flutter. Now, if he could do that flutter again. Jason was the only one who pulled it off. Yeah, what are you going to do? No, you don't. Does he have it? No. Just too short. No. So you're gonna try I mean that was would have liked to see the spinner shot on ball for there Yeah, but all right, but it's only game one. Oh, oh, yeah the groups for the quarterfinals We are nice. All right. So let yeah, let's see our new players. So of course in the group we just watched we had Cory and Phil joining in group two, which would have been the second and seventh seed would be Chris Frame and Derek Thompson from Canada. Watch Derek have like a 40 million, 35 million game of Harley Davidson earlier. He had a lot of fun with that. Got a double jackpot. So we have Adam McKinney and Louise Wiggins. Yeah, actually it was funny. I was looking at the standings towards the end and Louise hopped in like with about half an hour to go. So she must have put a really nice run together. Yeah, number two seed. Yep, and Raymond is in Escher's group, so that'll be fun for them. And who else we got in the... Will McKinney and Jay Collins. And Will McKinney from Arizona. Yep, and Jay Collins, you know, helping out with the pecs here. Yeah, that's pretty amazing. He's got a taking job he was doing. Yeah, now he had a lot... The other day, like, literally, he had to stop playing in order to fix machines because there were issues with the high roller bank and there was issues with some of the EMs. Will McKinney's an interesting guy. He's been playing since juniors. He has a great story where at Papa 3 or 4, he beat Zach and Josh to win at juniors. Oh, nice. I think he made Josh cry or Zach cry. One of them cried about it. It was his kids. And he kind of disappeared for a while, and then he came back in the scene. And we see him sort of a lot of tournaments, He's from Phoenix, right? Uh-huh. He usually comes out with Mark Pearson, but Mark's not here this year. Chad gets its request, and we've got group three starting on Blue Note. Escher's in the, yeah, I was going to say Escher's in the clubhouse. They are four, so I'm not sure what he's chasing. I think she, so she was the top seed. She decided to go fourth. Raymond was the deck seed. He decided to go third. Adam McKinney decided to go second. No, Escher wouldn't have picked Blue Note. Adam McKinney picked Blue Note. Escher decided to go first. So Escher had 65,450 points. Raymond Davidson had 74,660 points. Adam is currently sitting in last with 36,800. And now we've got Luis. All right. Okay, so our first target is 36. He has 29 after two balls, so that's a good start. Every unlit target there on the left is worth 5,000 points. So it's a funny game. Like, you can get a ton of points or you get house without any points. And this is a really dangerous feed right there. Right there. We unfortunately had a qualifier with Snow Galvin, which had that three times, unfortunately, in a tiebreaker. It was really heartbreaking. Oh, she's moving that game. And the spinner down the middle, the value can be raised to 1,000, right? No, yes, but really it's the... Oh, very nice. Coming back from the dead. Yeah, this game, Lazarus, if you look at the configuration of the flippers, they're asymmetric. And so Lazarus are very common on this one. It's still nice. We can be excited. Yeah, a little bit. I was sort of expecting it there. And then you just, she's going for the spinner, but I think you throw it into the unlit. The unlit targets are 5,000. She's at 53, so she's already catching Escher. What's her final? Yeah, no, she's past Escher, I think. No, Escher at 65. Oh, 60. All right. That's full. Yeah, she had 65 and Raymond had 73, so she's trying to catch up to both. There's a five. Yep. I can't quite tell when she's hitting them. Yeah, and even when you're trying to hit them, it's kind of hard. Yeah, because there's a lot of wood in between. She just passed Isher. Yeah. Catching up to Raymond. And she's caught Raymond. There you go. She is gonna end up with very nice Wow in four balls. That's what you do when you're the top seed in the group That's good thing, I mean she was pretty off for right so Yep, and she looks up and realizes she is When did you like? No, I sure wouldn't have picked it Escher always likes to go first on the EM. So I'm saying Adam McKinney Kenny picked. Oh, Kenny picked. He did third, and he picked, and Escher chose to go first. Yep. Or Adam just thought he would be second? I don't know. I'd be surprised if Escher picked it, because there's other games here that he prefers, if he gets game choice. What's different for this final format is if you pick a game during the final, you can only pick it once. Once for the whole final. That's true. So that change, it's harder to figure out who's picked what. Right. I'm trying to remember if it was Adam, actually, at Pinball at the Lake, which would deliberately choose second place. Just to go second? He likes to go second? Yeah, someone did. I forgot. Like in Colorado, there's our best player, Donovan Stepp. He always likes to go. Given a choice between third and fourth, he'll go third. It's like he wants to have some information but not be the last player last ball. Which is. A few people. And then Josh is at home right now, sharp and just going, no. Just no. Just never. No, you go as late as you can and know everything you need to know. Different for everyone. Yeah, absolutely. If you get it in your head. Hey, Rick Stead always goes first. I've decided to go first once in a while just to switch things up. I like to go first and then leave a little present for the guy going next. I mean, in some games, it matters more than others as well, right? Some games, you want to go first, you want to put pressure. If it's a game everyone knows, then for the most part, you know. Well, it really comes down to whether you would change your approach and the shots you make based upon whether you're chasing a small score or a large score. Some games it doesn't matter, especially in the classic. You generally just play. You just try to survive. You know, if there's ball locks, mobile locks, gumballs. Whether you try and save a ball when you know you have it in bonus, like when we saw Ian miss. He tilted his bonus when he could have gotten additional points. So that knowledge is good. But at the same time, you know, some people don't want to know. I don want to know I never look at scores Got our group coming up here Okay here we go And we got Phil starting off with Blue Note We need to update our And we do have the skill shot Our people are Oh, there we go. Yep. So we have a skill shot on this game? So yeah, there is actually a skill shot that's built in. It was, I think, the first skill shot that was created. First game with a skill shot, yep. Yep. There's a green light above one of the... ABC. Yeah, one of the lanes. Yep. Phil's there's a spinner on this game so he's going to be excited about that and he's going to burn bomb some of those Phil's going to try to play that one hard after the Phil's game he's looking forward to a getting some flips in and you see the different switches change the value he just yeah he just didn't just a little flick right there and then out the out Maybe that's the asymmetric flippers. It's not quite middle earth, but it must be a little trench. This is a tilt game. So what is it here? It's a tilt ball, but you can tilt through multiple balls. Yeah, we saw some people lose more than one ball on a tilt. So here he's just going after the target to unlight them and then hit them again for 5,000. Now they're all worth 5,000. And if you hit that last one, it relights them all, which is actually what you don't want to do. Right. So the play field is hot right now. And he's still at 28,000. Yeah, he's just not getting any target love. Oh, and another. That's two pilot errors, I think. And it could be he's not familiar with this game. The flipper angle means you have to flip at a different cadence because the flippers are not level. so that ball five wow does get a 5,000 there back up gets another 5,000 that is his last ball unfortunately 39,000 he's the five ball that would have been last in the other group right that was equivalent to I think what Adam got yeah so but we will see yeah I mean it's not you never know it's not about it's about beating the group they had this they had this game in at the IFBA National Championships in Vegas second year that they had it in Vegas. This was the EM there. Oh, Bruno. Yeah, I was in the clubhouse with like 45, and I was like, oh, it's over. I have no chance. And I actually ended up winning by maybe 1,000. Was that the year you were the national U.S. champion? That was, I want to say the year before, actually. I lost in the semis to Andre. kicked my butt. Andre Gascoigne. Played great. Like nearly rolled countdown, I seem to recall, on ball one. He had like $700,000 on ball one, so okay then. But anyway, that was my one time I got to play Blue Note, and I remember, I hadn't seen it since, so it was cool to see it in the bank. But it's a funny one. Not funny, haha, funny, strange. There was a question on why is there two switches in the out lane, and I'm guessing because this is an EM, they were for different 5 ball versus 3 ball different rule so you've got the two in lane switches there and yeah what is the reason the one's worth a thousand and the other one there's a text written but I can't see the text says one thousand I believe just in case there's a flaky switch they put two in there maybe maybe they just had one left over because there's no good argument to why that's there. Yeah. Like if there was a gate or something, like there's nothing, right? We'll have to... Maybe they were... Okay, so a free... We will give a patch, an IE pinball patch to someone in the chat who will tell us why, the correct answer of why there are two switches in that outline. That's a good one. But you have to be here at INDISC to redeem you the patch. This offer is not valid in New York City, Washington, and all other states. It works for 2020. It's good through the end of 2018. But please tell us why there are two outlane switches. At the same time, the game designer could not even align the flipper. So, yeah, I mean, we're talking. Why would you care? I mean, it's like... And I don't believe the notes are actually in places, I don't believe that's a correct musical bar there. You go E. Yeah, there's a B flat, but it isn't B flat. That is interesting. All right, there's a bit of a gap there before Yanni's. This is going to be fun. Has Yanni not taken first on a game yet? And he goes. This is going to be awesome. So what do you think? I'm guessing over 100,000. I would like to see over 100,000, but I'm thinking more like maybe 75,000, 80,000. Nope, nope. I'm going to take 100,000. So you're taking the under on 100,000? Yeah, I'm taking the under. Okay, I'll take 120,000. Oh, you're taking the over. I feel like that's the kind of game where you can already flip around and get it going. It seems to be a lot of on the fly. This game is perfect for him. Right. So. We'll see. Under 20 or over 100. Nothing in between. So we're taking a picture for some reason. Was there a scorekeeping issue? Okay, here we go. All of Finland is holding eagerly, waiting to see what Jani can do. He can secure a position in the semifinals here with a solid score. It's only like, what, 6 a.m. over there? Oh, trouble. Oh, nice. No panic. One note. and he hit it again wow everybody got the double out lane switch I wonder if he scored twice we should keep an eye out we need the slow motion, boy that feed is dangerous gotta find the skill shot so already you don't want to hit the note at the bottom clearly they go in the right out lane so better try to go up top let's just go he's up to 14,000 nice, nice, oh see he's settling too Yeah. With purpose. Very nice. Up to 19. And the notes of the... Lovely. What makes the spinner value change? Oh, nice. Right. Oh, no. It didn't change. No, the spinner's just all switches. All general switch. Oh, no. The spinner, the right spinner chooses the value for the... Chooses the value for the middle. So the spinner's hot. Yeah, yes. It's hot. Oh, he was going for it. It's hot. Oh, there it is. Yeah. It's not a great spinner. He's got like 8,000 out of it. All right. It's one of those Gottlieb spinners, right? The one that really don't spin. Yeah, they're so heavy. It weighs like nine pounds. When you take it off, you can't even lift it. It's not weighted underneath. It was designed by... Like right there, I wouldn't have flipped. I would have expected a Lazarus. 60 going in a ball four. I like his chances for the hundy. Get that skill. Get that skill. All right, B is the best one because you get that. That happens on the B. Wow, he's got 5K? Yeah. Boom. Did he get it? 1,000, is he lit? No, he's not. No, not anymore. No, those are the things. Don't worry about the spinner. Those are the things you want to hit. Uh-oh, he's got his special lit now. I think they're still hot for 5,000, but maybe not. He's up to 72,000. So he needs six. Six targets. Five targets and a skill shot. All right, six targets here. There's one. Nope, didn't get it. Nope. Okay, there's one. That was nice. The lowest one, too. Side to side. That's where you want to be, side to side low. 82. Oh, nice save. Nice save. Did you get any there? No. 87 there. 90. Oh, 92. You had 120. That was the closest without going over, but I set the over-under at a reasonable value. You took the under, so, yep, yep, you win. Well, I mean, Yanni wins, actually. Yanni does win, and that's a really good score in this game. There wasn't many scores over that. I saw a few hundredths lit, but... There's a light right there. And he played it well. He put the ball at the correct angle to get your best value from that left. Yeah, so really you want to try the low two, right? Yeah, because the slings... Yep, and these slings, right, keep it in there and good things happen. But if you go up here, it comes out and goes down the middle, too. And let's not forget this drain. Yep. And, yeah, we're just making Carl have to erase the telestrator. Gene's wasting no time. Gene. So basically Gene and Yanni are co-pilots here. Yanni wants Gene to do well. and even if Gene passes Yanni here and they go to the 6611, they can lock Phil and Corey out. That's my cat. Actual? Yep, Penelope. Oh, how old is she? She is three years old. Excellent. Thank you, Lockboy, for showing my email. I'm actually a Twitch streamer, so I got a... What's your handle? Vuvoo. And what do you stream? I stream pinball, virtual and real. Okay. You have a rig? I do have a rig. Very nice. I'm going to say I like the Modica. You know, I do like the Modica. Does Escher follow you? Are you following Escher? No. I got his name now, so if he streams, I'll see him, and I'll definitely add him. So what do we have here? Ball four? 17,000? He's just not real comfortable on this one. Ball five, that's... for all five this is gonna need a lot of work here oh well he took that one out that was that was down below the flippers practically nice dead bounce oh it could have gone again for the dead mounts is that five thousand it is yeah i think so quickly up to forty thousand so he passed phil he does pass he literally got that save and went from like 24 to 45. all right so if corey does not pass uh phil then yanni will be through well i'm down he's gonna if yanni doesn't get past he's through he's he's in great shape at six he's guaranteed six points yeah so he's uh he's in a very happy if cory doesn't pass gene uh then gene is also going to be in excellent shape at a at a four 411, like the outs for Phil and Corey are lowering a lot. I feel like Kiefer is trying to give us an answer on the double switch on the outlink. Oh, what's Kiefer Johnson tell us? He said the top switch will score 1,000 and the bottom 500. Otherwise, 500 wouldn't be done before. That's awesome. It's for the 1,000. It makes sense because it's an electromechanical. It takes more time for 500s to click through versus a single click for the 1,000. I figured there would be a difference in scoring for that. Why not just make it 1,000 for the outlaying like every other game in the world? 2,000. 2,000. Oh, my God. But they wanted 1,500 for whatever reason. So for double or nothing, Kiefer, why 1,500? Was there a meeting to decide that 1,500 was the way to go with that outlaying switch? And 2,000 seemed like too much, but 1,000 wasn't quite enough? Imagine the additional cost for the extra wire. They had to have an extra switch, and, like, what do we do with it? I mean, they already put that second spinner in. They already put in the skill shot, so maybe they said, hey, you know what hasn't been done on an EM? A 1,500 score in the outland. So maybe they just wanted to go for first. No, maybe it was done for, you know, reasons with the old EU laws of gambling versus. Well, in shorter words, he does not know why 1,500. But you will still Keith I will bring you a patch Thanks for the information When I see you at Circuit finals in Chicago Apparently Rockstar also is 1500 With the same Double switch configuration Oh 5000 Corey can easily Get into second place here With a solid score But his whole tournament life is Coming down to a couple balls here on the blue note He did get the extra ball though Did he tilt through though? So Yanni would get an 8 Even if Corey is only second Which would actually be good for him If you don't get the 4 You want the guy with the most points to get the 4 Yeah But Corey has 0 points going into this game He's got to win I mean 2 will get him back Into it right because yanni if you get second yeah and then and yanni get yep then it'll be uh yep keifer says it's probably the same play field ah add a ball version all right so that's what ball four he has forty thousand so he's already oh nasty that's why you stay away from that spinner it's just it's a great monster one more five thousand to pass Yes. Gene. And get back in this thing. And then it'll be a one ball game. One game for Phil, Gene, and Corey. Yep. You got it. 10,000. All right. So now what's his next target? 92. Up to 60. Justin needs a few more targets. Yeah. That's always the case. Oh, very nice. nope miss that one i'm stingy see how this comes out oh a nice little nudge up but uh a little early that's good all right but he's back in it so uh yanni is through with another eight yes he's the eight master yeah and we're pretty much gonna have a uh one game yep so eight three for gene yep two for four and one for film wow top seed uh one One point after two games. The good news for all three of those players is they know if they win the game, then they're through. And that's always true. You never want to have to have help win and get help. That's when you're down to your last house. Win, get help, and only get a tiebreaker. It's the worst, though. Yeah. And yet, Jason made it. We see a good four and another eight points. Will McKinney. And another top seed getting zero points for two games. Coming out cold. Yep. Wow. He's out. Yep. Who's my call? Did any of us know who Michael Mattson was when we looked? I do not know. Not a local guy? I'm not familiar with him. Anyone in chat know Michael Mattson? Paging Michael Mattson. So Jay's not out. You're right. No, he's got a couple out. That's the needing first. No, Jay's out. No, he needs first with help to get there, basically. He needs Michael to get zero. And Paul to get second. Paul to get second. Three-way tie at four still. There's one scenario where. You have one scenario where Jay gets a tie. And Will McKinney is uninterested in all of that. He's through. You were talking about his exploit as a junior. Yeah, he's really good. He can still make Josh cry. Yeah, he still could. And we've got a group still fighting over in El Dorado with your kid. Yeah, how'd the boy do? They still haven't announced anything. Yeah, no, I heard Raymond got like $100,000. Escher got like $60,000. Good games on El Dorado. We're waiting for Adam and Louise. Yeah. Yeah. Escher always brings the best out of Raymond, it seems, in Classics. Yeah. They were in the same group a couple times last night. They were. Raymond is last year Classic Defending Champion. Oh, is he on the banner? Yeah. Yeah. Had an amazing game on the Starlight, if I recall. Yes. And then I believe he brought it in, actually, because I think he qualified first in Maine, too. He did. But he was unable. Last year, was that Carl won last year? Was that two years ago? Robert. Robert. Gagno won last year. He's not here this year. I'm surprised. Yeah, we realized that at lunch yesterday. We were asking, and yeah, I don't know. I assumed he would be here. Yeah, I really like the thing. Yeah. I actually mentioned to someone that had just recently known that I got into pinball and had watched the documentary on Netflix with Robert. Oh, Pinball Wizard? Yeah. I mentioned that I'd met the guy and it's a really nice guy alright so 107,000 for Raymond and 60,000 for Escher no score for player 3 which was Adam McKinney so we're going to go to Joker Poker so this Joker Poker is pretty evil were you in the group against Corey when he blew that up no Escher was I didn't play classics but yeah he got like an 800,000 And he had a ridiculous. Yeah. I mean, he had like two extra balls. Yeah, he had two EVs. On ball three, when the aces are hot, you can get an extra ball. Extra balls are on. For me, Joker Poker is all about ball two because on ball two, it's about the queens. Yep. After you drop those queens, it re-raises them, and each queen from then on out is 5,000 for the rest of the ball. Yep. And the queen shot, really, you can hit them forehand, backhand, and they aren't dangerous. Right. And so the whole game is ball two. On ball three, you've got to do the aces, which are up here, and you can get an extra ball from it, but that's obviously the hardest targets to hit. You have two different lanes where you can get to those aces. You get the flipper as well. Yeah, and you do have the upper flipper. That's trouble. I think we were discussing the other day actually quite a bit. These are 5,000. And it would go there, but this one doesn't like doing that. But the lanes are also 5,000 each, so the lanes are always good. and abc give you eb as well so why not and so uh from the left your your best angle on the on the left flipper is to try and just graze it and get back up to the lanes because you get both 5000s and possibly aces so we got phil here so on ball one it's you got you want to hit the 10 there on the far left edge to light the uh that'll it lights up 5x on your bonus so it's basically a 5000 point shot for that one and then if you happen to get some additional cards down but would you start with that or does it really matter on ball one sure why not got nothing better to do yep i guess from the right right but really it's ball two that i'm i'm interested in notice a lot of these guys are just not really caring about those up inlanes yeah i know they're not really looking for that skill shot and we also this isn't a live sling it's a it's a dead sling so you have to be ready for it and change your your brain calibration yeah it's a symmetric sling design right like on one side much higher so it's a fun game uh there's an em version of it i think the em's more as a rarer i think there's more solid states than em copies of it um i've only played the em one once i think we see the solid state quite a few places they're hard to keep running those boards uh whatever the system they're on is uh flaky at best. So here's Corey, which was the one which blew it up. And he played this last night, so he should be the most comfortable on this one. He's the one which blew it up. Well, you see, he's dialed into those aces. Oh, that's a nasty out drain. So once again, whoever wins between Gene, Phil, and Corey is guaranteed at least a playoff. If they win outright, they're going to make it through. And if they don't win outright, then their various players have, Gene has more outs. Corey has one out, and Phil has no outs. He needs the tie at five. Yeah, Gene wants to be first or second for at least the tie. We were talking about that ball, too, being so important, but Yanni doesn't care too much about this. Well that doesn mean he doesn want to try right Maybe maybe not I don know He not going to know these players like who to try and get through or who not to So let see Phil go after those queens Look out He did a backhand towards two and now he dropped them All right. So those queens, every queen now is 5,000 for the rest of the ball. 15,000 in the bonus. Yep. There's two. There's another one. Back up. Wash, rinse, repeat. Boom. Goes for the. Yeah, well, you know, that's a 25,000-point shot. And the Kings, too. Like right now, because you got your 5X bonus, all the bonuses are solid now. Oh, okay, so he has to fix it or they'll drain it for him. Yeah, that's where it's at. He may want to tip the game, right? Yeah, I played this back in Lake Alice, and I had this same issue come up, and I just nudged it, and I nudged it the wrong way, but I always wondered. I went up to Jim, and I asked him, what would happen if I asked him to fix the stuck ball? And he was like, well, it would go to the out lane. You would drain it. If you nudge it and you tear it. If it were stuck on the insert of the in lane, then that would be different, but this is textbook. textbook you you bake it you drain it or you try and save it yeah although it looks like they're gonna save it no no no no no way he's there he's gonna push it he's gonna he's gonna drain it for him yep okay just to avoid because uh it's super tilty and people have tilted through on this game a lot did you guys did you get 5k from that lead outling uh i don't know it was a c right so is Is it the same as the top lane, or only the top lane gives you 5K? I don't know whether the outlanes are for 5K. Oh, it does. It says 500 or 5,000 when it's there. So, yeah. No, that's a good choice. So, yeah, good idea to avoid that. Especially, we've seen people tilt through on this game. There's a good skill shot from Gene. On my last game of my last ticket. Which was best takeoff. See, I like him throwing it into the Kings here. That's a good place to park the ball on that side, because it's pretty safe from that angle. And he'll go for the Queens here. Now he just needs one more Queen to... Oh, that's nice. Oh, he's getting some good in-lane love there. Look out. Oh, and he survives that. Wow. And that. Jeez. Okay. Queens are down. He's got his... We're opening up for business. Boom, and there's a 10K there. That's gone. Oh, yeah. Yegpin, thank you so much for the 500 bits. I'm sure Carl will greatly appreciate it. This is a close game. It's going to come down to the aces. He's doing some TD work right now. Yeah, so I mean, Gene still have an hour to benefit second, right? He could tie at five. He feel texted, so you really want to put the points on the board. Yep. And here's Corey. Oh, that's trouble. Corey just not getting any luck. Yeah, that's sometimes classics. You don't get to play much. Yeah. I mean, it's, you know. Yeah, I... You got a one big goal, right? I did enough playing on this. I know how it goes. Well, he got his Queens down. He's currently on his Aces, though. Yanni's just having a little fun here. Boom, on the left. Nice. Nice little flick up there with the mini flipper. Good to see you. Ooh, ooh. That's nice. It was a no-nudge to... Yep, it worked out for him. Okay, so what does he have? One ace and one joker? Do you need the joker to complete the ace? You do. So you need all five? Yeah. Yeah, you have all five showing on. And then it'll light the extra ball switch up there in the right-hand corner. All right, so Philly where he wants to put some distance between him and Gino. All right, so here we go. So the winner of this, because Yanni is pretty much out of it, the winner is going to go through. Well, if Gene is second, there'll be time. There's your link. Right, Gene has the one out, one additional out. More tiebreakers. So he's going to want to try and get to those aces. Lovely. Got two of them. Yep. That's a nice little scary feed, but worked. Oh, that was very efficient shot. All right, so extra ball's lit. Up to the corner. Nope, little early. That's pretty hard target, too. You could get it from the pop if you get the feed on the right side. Can he go on the right? So we're at this point really... Yanni's just playing a play right there. Okay, so that's pretty good. I like Phil's chances to get to a tiebreaker. Sorry, that was Phil. Yeah, no, Yanni's already done. I missed something. Okay. Great score by Phil. Yep, got to hit those aces. Ooh, the 10. Got the 10. He's trying to go up to the left side there. No trapping him. Oh, dude. Oh, lovely. Boom. On the right. Yep. Gets one from the pop. That's fine. That's fine. No worries. Again, fine. Nope. Fine, fine. That looked fine. I saw Carl shaking his head before it even went out. Carl knew what was coming. That wasn't fine. All right, so Gene has an out. Okay, so if Corey doesn't pass Gene, then it's a tie. If Corey passes Gene but not Phil, then it's a tie. What? Yeah. That's also a... No, no, no. Phil's through. Yeah, yeah. Sorry. He would have to pass Phil all the way. All right. Oh, he's got it set up nicely. Got a few of the aces. All right, and he was the ace master last night. Let's see if he can do it again. Oh, he missed. No, he didn't get it. Oh, no. Yeah, I know. I thought he had it, too. That's a... Come on, bounce that over. Bounce that one over. All right. Good bounce. Right up through the center gap there. He can hit both of them. He was thinking about it. Boom. Oh, early. That's what happens. Oh, but he gets another try. Oh, he hits one. Oh! He needs it. All right, he tilts. All right. So, Phil's through. Well done, Phil. Tiebreaker. No, tiebreaker with Gene. Tiebreaker. Oh, tiebreaker. Tiebreaker, yes. Adam is just going for it How many hours did you sleep last night, Jermaine? Ah, six Yeah, about me too And how many hours of pinball have you played in the last 48? About 24 Yeah, me too, so Sorry for my, uh Our commentators are, um Jermaine Jermaine Vuvuf And Adam I'm Escher's dad Escher's dad No, no, no How you doing, Horty? I think you earned your name back after your big win. Uh, no. Big in keys in the finals. Yeah, but it's I'm Escher's dad. Escher's the head to head. I know he was in the world championship, but that was a very impressive final. I mean, that was like the grace of God. I appreciate that. That was very impressive. So based off of head to head, like situations like last night, do you like lose it and then you get it back? Uh, no, I'm generally, it feels full time now. Just with all the Escher's, you know, we went to Florida and he won both the main and the classics. And there was also a side tournament for fundraiser on Deadpool and he put his billion down on a Megalodon. So, yeah, I'm happy to be Escher's dad at this point. Very proud of my boy. So, he's going to have to win the last game here to get through to the final eight. but I'm confident. Are they done on their side? Yeah, I think it's a 7-5-3. They're big scores on Eldo. I think he got last at 60,000, so that'd be... Adam is 52, so he's got at least a point. He's got a point. And then Luis, the score hasn't been reported yet. Oh, 59. Oh! Wow. 1,000 short of passing it. Yeah. So he's got a 2, so we've got a 6-3-5-0. Yeah, 6-5-3. So it's Raymond the five? Raymond the six. Oh, Raymond's the six. So Escher could still get through. Ray and Esch again. Yeah. All right. Or Luis could. Maybe we'll get to watch that. Yeah, Luis has the five. The best player will. Yeah. The best player in the next game will. Yes. Whoever has the highest score in the next game will probably get four points. Unless they do something that causes them to, you know, get. Oh, here we go. Are we going to sit? Oh, no. Bow and arrow. All right. with an interesting... All right, so... All right, so we'll see if... Wait. That's a different group. No, they've already done. Yeah, so who's that playing right now? That's Minnesota... That's Chris Frame. Chris Frame, yes. They're four. Ball. And they're only on game two? Are they... What ball are we on, though? We unfortunately don't have the ball in the frame. Because it's... Yeah. Why is that game two? That can't be game two. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because everyone else has just finished game two. This is the last group to finish. We were just able to jump into this game. So group one already finished all three games. Yeah. And these guys are still in game two? Yeah. Oh, my goodness. Maybe there was a mechanical error or something. I guess. I would just point out that he did a nice backhand on the spinner there. And it was worth about 8,000 points total. Really? I just look back to Corey's decision again. Yeah. And there's 10. Oh, now he's... This is player four, bowl five, producer just let us know. Oh, nice. And what's the red light? It makes you, it's like, oh, something red was on. Special. So what's the score? 126,000. 128. 126. To 100 in, what's player three score? 16 or 76, I can't tell. Player one is 112. 69. So did he just get that on that last 10,000 collect there? I don't know. Might have. So that was a very dramatic moment that we came in a little bit late to fully capture. All right. Here we go. We'll have to wait until it's closed. All right. So round one. Group one, who we were watching, Yanni, is through with eight. And we're going to have a tiebreaker between Phil and Gene. Corey is out, so he will not be repeating into the finals as he did last night. Sure. Group two, Derek is through with eight. and wait, why is Chris Frame They haven't reported the last game. It just finished. So we'll see the updated No, that was game three then. So Jason mostly is out, right? Jason was the only player with no That's game two. Game two. Well, no. We're late for things. So they're going to be playing They're going to be playing Blue Note. So there's the update. Derek's got eight. Chris has three. So Jason is not out. Jason has an out. If Jason wins and Chris takes one of the threes, takes last, and the other three takes third, it's a single out, but there is an out there. Send us that tiebreaker. Yeah. Pretty much. It's actually worse than before. It is worse than before. He had one other out. Right. He had two points last time. But, hey, Jason, you know, he's living. He pulled it out one time. Let's see it again. It's Raymond. There's still a – there's also everything. Yeah, Adam McKinney is out. He cannot get to five, so he's out. But Escher and Louise and Raymond, there's three for two spots there. And on our other group, Will McKinney is through, and there's still an out for Jay at zero. If Michael takes last, then Jay takes first. And actually we could have a three-way tie at four points there. So everyone's still, really when you're playing classics in Papa style, one of your goals is to have a chance on game three first off and then be able to control your own destiny on game three and the ultimate is be done and through after game two so we're having a request to see group three if we can although they're finishing up Bell Dorado Bell's pinball from PDX I'm guessing they want to see Louie's well what do you guys think We have the tiebreaker we can watch or that group? I don't know. What do you guys want to do? Watch the group we've been watching? Let's do the tiebreaker because we've been following that group. Yeah, we should follow the group. And then we can move over to the next group. We'll move over there. Yeah. Yep. Because pre-fall shouldn't take that long. Yeah, the chat's kind of split. Some people want the tiebreaker. Some want to see group three. No, we're good. And we are going to do the tiebreaker and free fall after. Oh, okay. So we get both, guys. Wow, Carl just makes everyone. Everyone gets their way. Congrats, chat. So Adam McKinney's going first just to sort of move out of the way because he knows he can't win, but he can still affect the outcome. Yep. This was actually a game I had no clue how to play, and from commentating yesterday, I got to play it, and I put up some nice scores on it today. So it's really interesting because there's another game called Sky Jump, which is the exact same play field with all these same switches, but an entirely different set of rules. Oh. Yeah. So basically, you have your eight bank and half and half are on the 10X. When you see a target with both the yellow and the first row and the second row lit, that's your super hot target. Yeah. Bottom four or upper four are your sort of secondary targets that you want to hit. And when you complete a bank, it'll relight them. The numbers, the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, of course, all correspond to this. Was I saying 8? There's only 7. Yeah, there's only 7. So the only thing I don't know is after you get them down, what do you get for the reset? Because on SkyJump, it's 5,000 for a reset. We'll see right here. He's at 11, 7. Please, Adam, hit the bottom target for us. Thank you. And, yeah, so there's still a 5,000 for the reset there. so you can try and pick off the hot the hot target or you can just go for bank completions generally the lower value the lower targets the one two and threes like there are more dangerous because they put the ball a little more at ease but uh it doesn't have the rule where uh on on sky jump you can choose where that the the 10x spot is um this one uh so there's less there's less incentive i think to shoot up top on this game versus sky jump because i i think you're mostly just focusing on that seven bank so we try to backhand that five so i'm not sure what the numbers do other than maybe a special like i don't uh so the the if you complete the numbers you get the uh special the wow and is there points or no tilt um there's a tilt ball and play plus one extra ball. So if you tilt you not only lose your ball currently in play but you lose the next ball. And I've seen several tilt-throughs on this machine. Can you get an addable? Oh, that's what it is. So they turned it off on this. Oh, there is no addable. Because then you would get way too many addables. I would much rather see SkyJump then because there's so many better decisions you have to make in SkyJump about whether to move the target or shoot the target. I see. I remember last year they had 2001 and they left the addable. They had cranked it up to 10 balls or something at some point. Yeah, that was, they originally set this up and we didn't know how many addable balls would be added. So the first guy showed up and they're like, yeah, we made a mistake. All right, so what's a good score on this then? You know, there's been some 60s, sounds solid, 40s that are okay, and then you can still blow it up at 80. My two qualifying games were 99, I think, and like 95 or 85. Nice. Wow. And you're not today? Yeah, today. And you didn't get in. I had bad sea witches, unfortunately. The witch. Yeah. Whoops. Sleepy. Adam is playing for fun now Adam always has a lot of fun Yep, he does indeed So what ball are we on, two? Is that what I'm declaring? It should be the balls left then Yeah, there's two balls left So this is ball four basically And then we got one more after this Oops So you don't want to play with your feet much on this one You kind of want to just get up and go. I think Yanni would be really good on this one. He doesn't have to. I don't know. I'm not going to try and jinx the boy to have a bad game, but I know he's put some pretty good scores on it. So I'll be interested to see how he plays it because I have no idea. But he obviously has a plan in mind. He's going to play next. Oh, that's it. He tilted, and that's, yeah. Another game. So 39,780 to finish. His game. And he's not really in the runnings anyways. Escher's going to go first here, so Louise will know what her target is, as will Raymond. Does it matter on this game? Is there a strategy decision we need to make? That's why I don't think so. I haven't talked to Escher about it, but we'll be able to tell by the way Escher plays, whether he's going up top or just going after the bank. The thing is that 1,000 pop bumper in the middle, right? That's pretty juice. I mean what was the score 39 yeah not that interested no compared to a 5,000 reset plus the target the one hot target there's another 5,000 out of the seven so I don't know we'll see how Escher does yeah he's had a lot of good success in classics lately but you know classics is really it's hard to be consistent in classics oh he looks tired to me that's a I don't like his body language at the moment, but we'll see. He's trying to relax. Yeah, so group one has chosen the tiebreaker, and it's going to be this game. It's going to be this game after these guys are done. So let's see if he has a skill shot or whether he just plunges it up there. Let's see if he has a spot. Oh, this is almost Belcedo-like in his preparation to play this game. All right. Oh, he had a spot. He touched the nose. That's a spot And that's I like that spot Uh not that Oh you know That was saveable Yeah So uh There's 500 points At this Uh so I'm gonna That's 2500 for the game If he keeps this up It looks like he's trying to plunge the four That's gone Oh my god So uh Okay he's on pace for the 2500 Stop it Well he got the thousand pops So there goes that Nice Oh, that's good. All right, so boom. There's 5,000. And he dies. That's the death one. So he's three for three. He's made three shots, and all three have killed him. Well, I mean, if you include two lungs. Yeah, well, I mean, that's like making a shot. And he's dead. He opts not to let it bounce over there. And like I was saying, when he's had a lot of success lately in classics, this happens. Wow. I mean, it happens. It does. You can't always, you know, Raymond sees it plenty. we've seen that game and he that was the same shot I mean you know that it's worth 5,000 and you die we've seen that game of bow and arrow earlier where I just you know keep draining on everybody else so alright so 15,770 yep yep I mean you know anything can happen right tilt throughs but no that you not that he has no chance I mean he plunged two balls for 500 points well the best he can do is second here and he had to beat Louise To get to a tiebreaker with Louise he had to beat her by two She has an extra out. So his only chance is Louise takes last and Raymond tucks. Yeah, it's pretty rough. I don't know what. If Louise happens to get less than 15,000, I don't know how much Raymond would need to tuck in between to get to the tiebreaker. And that's to get to a tiebreaker. So it's pretty unlikely. Right. Yeah, he was the one that needed more. As you said, you know, even if Luis, like, tilts through or has a really worse game. And generally, it's funny with EMs, it never really works that way. Like, if somebody has a terrible game, like, the next ball will probably be a 30,000-point ball. It's just the way EMs work sometimes. then we'll talk Raymond's saying there's no way but there's always a way and Louise is a fine player and I expect her to beat this score on ball one I mean she won that game of Blue Song she's got a single player in sort of you know if Esther was sitting on 60,000 it'd be a different but he had to get past Adam at least So, Louie's also plunging the five. And has a little better outcome. Yep. His speed's out dangerous. She's on pace for, yeah, about 12,000. Yeah. And then Raymond would have to tuck in between those. Yeah. Yeah. Everybody gets a patch. The whole chat room gets a patch if that happens. I'm just saying it's not going to happen. We've seen weird things happen. Not that weird. Not that weird. That's a good four. That's the shot. There's the shot. Oh, nice. Nice little tip. Look at that. Going to go for that 5,000. There it goes. The 5,000 is the yellow one? So your first one is 500 points. The second one is 10X. So there's one shot. From the left four, the right four. So right now there's two spots that are hot. The two double ones? Yeah. So the double one, the green is the 500 points. So all those drops are worth 500 points. And the other one's the 10x. All right. So she's going after the 6. Oh, she's got a 5 again there. There's 1,000 and another. Oh, that was good. That's trouble. There it is. Nope, I thought that was the 5. And that's gone. That is gone. So one ball. One ball. One ball for Escher. But remember, Raymond has to still tuck in between. Or finish below, actually. Oh, no, not finish below. Then it's 2-1. No, he has to tuck. But those 2,000 pops, I believe, will get him there. She's got it. Not by a lot, but let's see what she can do now. So she's through. And Raymond's through. If Raymond takes last, the best Escher can do. So, yeah. So, Raymond and Louise will be going through to the next round, and Escher and Adam McKinney are out in, like, 9th through 12th. It's time to see if Adam can get a 4 and maybe pass Escher on the overall standings. That's about it, right? There you go. If Adam wins this, he'll get a 4. Yeah, you're right. So, I don't know if everybody's tied or whether they use the points for positions. We were talking about 39,000 maybe not being that great. The way it's playing right now. Yeah. If you get that five or six lane, you've got to bump it. You can't let it just come clean. You've got to help that ball go somewhere else. It has to keep going. Yes. Yeah. If you saw Louise, actually, when it went down the pod, she did nudge it, and the 1,000 came down over. And that's what you wanted to do. And also, it's funny because on our sky jump, these are the three death targets from here where it goes dead. But on this one, those two middle ones, you do not want to hit on the right flipper. I do know you can do the backhand on this one, but it's really hard to hit the middle one. Yeah, backhand's the way to go there. Yeah. So I was just surprised because Escher, I know, had played it yesterday and today as well, and I would have thought he had learned some of that. You want to see how badly I botched my cards, Adam. Alright, so Raymond's... Here's how badly I've watched my cards. Alright, let's have a look. So Raymond's stepping up. Not really playing for much on his side. Just maybe changing the standings for the other players at this rate, right? Some of them were just throwaways. I just played through them for the experience. Alright, so now he's got a... Nice Kings of Steel game. Thank you. Yeah, the 7 looks pretty good too. Oh, nice. Yeah, see, right there, that was the ball one on Escher. That's what he needed to do right there because he had about the same amount of ball. Yeah, and he kind of just let it go. Yep, nice alley. On the fly. Yep. Yep, again, all you need is just the tip. Yep, just that tip. So those bottom ones are good. It's the bad ones. Oh, look at that. No, the sling's higher than the outline, so that's a really tough one. Yeah, you got it. All right, so 17. so that's a point for Raymond. Ball two, just straight down. So this is a position, this is whoppers for Escher and Adam McKinney if Raymond passes Adams. He's just going to go for this one and two here. Gets the two. He does make the one worth 5,000 here. So it's actually worth 10,000. and he gets it 25 right and now now the half the bank is hot yep so there's there's two 5,000's there one there he got it yep so uh and uh all of those are yeah so this is sort of what we were expecting this is how you play the game he's got it now 41 yeah all right so that Adam was a two Escher was a three so that's still Escher yep and uh Raymond and Louise go through to the final eight. And we're going to get the tiebreaker. And we've got a good primer for the next tiebreaker. Yeah. So, what did you say, Gene? Phil? Phil Birnbaum. Oh, yeah. Coming back, right? All right. So, hey, go tell Raymond to stop playing. What ball is that? Is it ball three? Yeah. Goodness. And he might have to play the sixth round, so he gets to play the full game. He wants to, I guess. This isn't, we're not on any time constraints. Tomorrow night's going to be silly. Hey, and if you're just joining us, this is the 2019 at Neverdrain's in Southern California. Pinball extravaganza. Extravaganza. We have a main tournament going on and many people busily trying to get into the finals for tomorrow. We have a women's bank. We have a children's bank. We have a high-stakes bank, $50 a ticket to play four games of pinball. I've seen almost no one playing over there. Not a lot. So it doesn't take the biggest score to get through. You just got to have four games that aren't terrible. But it's qualifying tomorrow still for high-stakes. High-stakes. I feel like it will pick up tomorrow. I'm sure it will pick up as people are eliminated from the main tournament, I suspect. You get the smile on his face. In fact, here's a thought. I'm not playing. Here's a thought, Carl. when people are eliminated in the main, pay them out immediately in $50 increments and then see how many of them turn around and buy an entry into the high stakes. So we've got about 13 games in the main bank being played right now in the qualifiers. I see at least six or seven people on each of the machines. We never have 100 people queuing right now trying to qualify in main. So after Classics is done, if it's still going on, we'll definitely peek over. Can we peek over, Carl? Can we put the guillotine in there? Oh, he has the feeds on all the. Yeah, he has feeds. We'll be able to check out qualifying. I think he's going to give you guys a little sneak preview right now. I'm going to let Escher take over because he's played in classics both days, and he knows the games way better. Pirates of the Caribbean. Oh, look at this. We're a little peek in. Pirates. Actually, and Escher knows Pirates, too. So, yep. Yep. score of 33,728. Did anyone else play Pirates other than myself? I have. I tried. I mean, I liked the game, but it set up pretty hard, so I wasn't very too successful. I played it the one time, and I got the 833,000. I was really happy with how it was set up. I know Escher knows how to play it. I've never played it until yesterday. So, yeah. I played it. The play is really mean because of the lightning flippers but uh yep yeah it's uh it's fun i like the game well we uh we sat there at a carl's place and we're playing it and we're like how do we make this harder because we're playing it for way too long even with it set up hard and i said you know lightning flippers would maybe do the trick yeah all the jersey jack these days and tournaments always have lightning flippers on them i mean he took out the pose from the outline as well that makes Yeah, yeah. From that left out there. Yeah, well, we've been playing in league at my location with it out for ages because it just took too long. You get some feeds that go out and back in to the right side, but that's the only way you get it is if it goes under the right flipper and just glides through. You typically see it in multiball. Yeah. So we're going to be on our tiebreaker here, Phil Birnbaum against Gene Lewin. Escher Lefkoff is taking over for his dad here. Yep. Escher's dad. Yep. All right, so it looks like Phil picked the game. He's going to be player one. Yep. Congrats on making the classics again. Yeah. It's fun. I enjoyed it. Wish I played a bit better at the end there, but win some, you lose some. You do. All right, so I think we know how it works. Just to see how many TD can survive in 5,000 targets. Yeah, that five and six lane, there's like a couple of rolls. The six lane, if it goes straight down, it will just go right down the middle. And the five, if it doesn't hit a pop bumper, then that's trouble. Goes for that three bank and gets it. Gets that 5,000. If you can, in a tiebreaker, each 5,000 matters. Yep. And even that pop a few times is a thousand a pop. Yeah, and he picked up the six there, which is huge. Was it a three-target set? Yep, so he goes for that safe one. You've got to be careful to not finish all seven, though, because it becomes worthless for a ball. Yeah, I did that, unfortunately, in qualifying twice on ball four. I did as well. Finish all seven what? All seven of the three, four, five, six, seven. Yeah, because once you get the wow, it goes away, and then you need to re-light them off. It's supposed to give you, like, add-a-balls, but they're turned off. Probably try and reset the bank here. He's still got the 5,000 in the middle there, the four. But you really don't want to do that shot. That was good, but this shot has been dangerous. Now it's... Everything's lit. Except for one and two. So he's going to go for one of the five. He's putting some big move on the machine. Yeah. And that's dangerous because you'll lose two balls if you do that. Yeah. So he's up to 46. With two ball left, that's pretty decent. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we were expecting bigger games the last game, but it just didn't go up. It's not qualifier anymore. It's just about beating the other guy. He just lets it roll off that left flipper there. All right. Well, make it count here. Yep. Let's put something together at least. Cool. Nice save. 60. If he can reset a bank here, it'll be huge. Oh, nice save. Bounce back. Nice quick Lazarus. Very speedy. He's still got that 5,000 there. Nice. 9,000 or 5,000 if you can hit that last target. If he hits that last target. There it goes. Oh, it's a survival. 72, 310. That's a good score on a tiebreaker. Put the pressure on. Going first and putting that score is pressure on Gene, for sure. All right. Let's see what his answer is to it. So which in lane were you going for, Escher? Top lane? Like the top lanes? Yeah. I always try and get five and six out of the way early because they kill the most. Gotcha. And six I try to avoid because you can hit it really well off of the left flipper. Yeah. But if you plunge it, whatever, it works. All right, he's gotten insane progress here. He got four of the seven drops. And when you're chasing 72,000, you plunge that six, you start rolling. There it is. All right, it is time to start hitting some 5,000s. Oh, my goodness. Oh, look at that bounce. The double bounce. Wow. You don't see a lot of those. Pretty. All right. So he's going to try to backhand the six or seven here. Yeah. All right. So that top one's lit for 5,000. A little late. A little late. Yeah, if you go late, it swaps the lit ones. Yep. So he did hit that 5,000. He's got another 5,000 lit. Alley pass or just throw it up top? Just throws it up top. Good things happen up there. Some 1,000-point pop-up. Good bounce there. Misses his spot. There goes the 5,000, but now you've got to get that one. Goes through the post pass. Oh, my God. That's a two and one ball. Three and one tiebreaker. All right. So, come get the one. Yeah, that's the only issue here. He's on ball three. Ball three. But if he gets that one, it might actually be a lot of work. Yeah. Okay, so he's got lots of 5,000s here. That's nice. Good timing. All right. There it goes. He's picking them up. He's got up to 40. Back in seven. 45. Oh, that was a big in lane. He's getting all the right bounces right now. And a reset. So he's up to 62. So he needs to hit two more 5000s. And one of the more important things he did there was he didn't go down the left out lane, which would have reset everything. Yeah, and he didn't want to plunge the one here. Alright, one more target worth 5000. The four will do it. Oh, and he's got it. He got it. Yep. Wow. Four balls. Good comeback there. That was impressive. Yep. Well, Gene definitely knows his classics. Yep. He was up against, I believe, Keith Elwin two years ago. Oh, was he? Yeah. He's like, hey, I'm done. Get the extra practice in. You're probably going to have to play it again. There is the six feet, but it came wide. All right, so is that the only tiebreaker for this round? Only tiebreaker this round, Josh. Hey, he got his wows lit. So here's our groups finishing up. We've got on blue note Derek Price and Derek Thompson, the two Derricks, passing through. Chris and Jason Woodwork, unfortunately, gets knocked out. No comeback this round. No comeback this round for Jason, unfortunately. We just saw the free fall round, so Raymond and Luis are going through Yep, and the last group I didn't understand And they want to see group 2 Michael Matson and Will McKinney moving on? Did anyone say where Matson was from? I don't know So no one really knew that Hopefully we can get some different games, I feel like we've seen a lot of bow and arrows King of Steel, Sea Witch Last night was Laser Q and Sea Witch We saw that about 3 times each, so it's nice that we saw some bow and arrow, but we've seen a little too much Somebody should wreck that game again Yeah. Yep. Good catch. Thank you. All right, so a quick break before the semi-final. NeverDream.com 2019 for the standings, progress in the finals. Qualifying, still going on, on main, women with over 40 competitors and high stakes kids. A lot of action going on tonight. Yeah. over 200 people in the main 225 last I checked Wow 125 in the main Wow yeah that's the highest they've had quite a quite a bit this year yep even classics I mean so one classic every day which is a big change compared to the last year yeah still have over a hundred people every day 140 something players crazy so that's a good change just make my travel arrangement different I used to fly in on Friday around midday and be like, yeah, you know, you got a day and a half. Yeah. But you can't do that if you want to do classic. Yeah. I like having that extra time to get a few more tickets in. It's always nice to be safe on time. You guys flying on Thursday then? We got in on Thursday, yeah. Yeah. Here at Rope Drop on... Yeah, they dropped in, I think, on Thursday while I was playing glass. I remember that. Yeah. We flew in late and we showed up nice and early, got our games in when the lines were short. But not anymore, so... Yeah, oh, I see the queue for, what is that? Pirates, only have two people. Wow, must be eating people alive. People were not playing that Pirates well. I was kind of surprised because I went up and just blew it up. But a lot of it's, you need to understand all the scoring possibilities on it. And there's so many rules to that game. I think a lot of the, like, the reason that the scores are, like, fast, like, it plays fast. It's because of just how evil it is. If you miss any shot, it's just, it's gone. You already want to get at least one multiple going. Yeah, if you can get, like, if you get Stranger Tides going on ball one, or you can hit your super skill shot for Tortuga with a five-way combo. I'm also curious if anyone actually read the rules there saying that the tilts are per ball, not per game. Because a lot of people will not move the machine as much because of that. That was all Jim. That was Jim, yep. I like that. You want it per game? I like it per game as well, but I didn't even know that setting existed. Yeah, I mean, I think it's fair that the game owner doesn't have the last say on how the game is set up. Yeah, I agree.

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: fe852a02-655c-4eed-8856-244b3f15d51e*