Triple Drain Pinball Podcast Episode 29.5 - INDISC 2023 Recap!

The Pinball Network·video·1h 20m·analyzed·Jan 20, 2023

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.030

TL;DR

Triple Drain recaps INDISC 2023 tournament with Keith Elwin victory and record Twitch viewership.

Summary

Joel and Travis recap INDISC 2023, a major international pinball tournament featuring five concurrent events (Target Match Play, Classics I/II, Main Open, High Stakes). They discuss the ticket-based qualifying system, Keith Elwin's dominant Classics II victory, memorable game moments including CarHop's exploitable meta and the controversial 'Ketchup' mode, and Carl D'Angelo's partnership with Twitch leading to the tournament being front-paged to 15,000+ viewers—a significant exposure event for competitive pinball.

Key Claims

There are only three current major tournaments per year in pinball (EPC in Europe, The Open, and IFPA in Germany/rotating international)
medium confidence · Travis, during discussion of tournament majors; expressed uncertainty ('I think there's only three current')
60 of the top 100 IFPA-ranked players competed at INDISC
medium confidence · Joel citing stream observation
High Stakes tournament had 80 participants, $15,000 for first place and $30,000+ in prize money for top four
high confidence · Travis providing specific prize pool numbers
High Stakes ticket cost was $500 for 10 tickets (effectively $50/game)
high confidence · Travis explaining ticket mechanics
CarHop game had exploitable spinner loop meta in qualifying rounds, allowing safe scoring of 1-5 million points repeatedly
high confidence · Travis describing gameplay meta discovered by competitors
CarHop was thrown out of the tournament due to the 'Ketchup' mode feature that allowed players to instantly jump scores to match leaders
high confidence · Travis describing incident with Colin McAlpine, Eric Stone, Haley George, Andy Bagwell group
Carl D'Angelo's IU Pinball Twitch stream was featured on Twitch's front page, driving 10,000-15,000+ concurrent viewers
high confidence · Joel and Travis discussing Twitch partnership and promotion
Carl D'Angelo recently achieved Twitch Partner status after multiple prior applications
high confidence · Joel explaining partnership timeline
Keith Elwin won Classics II tournament, defeating Teolis, Johnny Mnemonic, and Jack Tadman in finals on Eight Ball, Paragon, and The Stars
high confidence · Travis confirming Keith's victory and finals matchup

Notable Quotes

“in disk is essentially the Super Bowl of tournament play”
Joel@ 6:00 — Frames INDISC's importance in competitive pinball landscape
“Keith Elwin is arguably one of if not the best like pinball tournament player of all time”
Joel@ 14:44 — Establishes Keith's legendary status; contrasts his all-game versatility with younger specialists
“the whole entire game turned out to be that...you would just rip the spinner again”
Travis@ 17:03 — Describes CarHop's dominant meta play that made qualifying trivial
“when there's money on the line there's Whoppers on the line...you want to try to find repeatable shots”
Travis@ 17:39 — Justifies safe/boring meta play at competitive level—reveals player priorities
“this not human what he was doing”
Travis@ 25:00 — Reaction to Keith Elwin's The Stars performance in Classics II finals
“Partners is a whole other story because they're they limit the number of people within each category”
Joel@ 25:37 — Explains rarity of Twitch partnership vs. affiliation
“I got several messages just text messages from different people that didn't even realize I was at a pinball tournament but they get on Twitch all the time”
Travis — Documents unprecedented crossover audience discovery from front-page promotion

Entities

JoelpersonTravis MuriepersonTomperson Carl D'Angeloperson Keith ElwinpersonRobert ByerspersonAndy Rosa Jr.personJason ZollerpersonColin McAlpine

Signals

?
event_signal: INDISC 2023 confirmed as major international pinball championship with 5 concurrent tournaments, 60 of top 100 IFPA players competing, front-page Twitch promotion reaching 10,000-15,000+ concurrent viewers
high · Joel and Travis discussing INDISC scale, participation, and streaming results
?
competitive_signal: CarHop qualifying meta discovered: spinner loop exploit providing 2.5-5M repeatable safe points; Cheetah left orbit meta also identified as safe alternative
high · Travis describing exploitable shot patterns and player adoption
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product_concern: CarHop removed from tournament competition due to 'Ketchup' catch-up mode allowing instant score jumps to leaders, creating non-skill-based scoring swings (e.g., Andy Bagwell jumping 30M+ instantly)
high · Travis detailing CarHop incident and subsequent tournament action
?
content_signal: Carl D'Angelo's IU Pinball stream achieved Twitch Partner status and received front-page promotion during INDISC, driving unprecedented 10,000-15,000+ concurrent viewers vs. typical 1,000 for tournament streams
high · Joel explaining partnership achievement and front-page placement impact
?
community_signal: INDISC Twitch front-paging exposed pinball tournament to non-pinball Twitch audience, with Travis receiving messages from casual Twitch users unaware of pinball community
high · Travis describing cross-audience discovery; Joel noting pinball's typical small close-knit perception vs. sudden scale

Topics

INDISC 2023 Tournament StructureprimaryTicket-Based Qualifying SystemprimaryKeith Elwin's Classics II ChampionshipprimaryCarHop Game Meta and ControversyprimaryTwitch Partnership and Front-Page PromotionprimaryTournament Prize Pools and High Stakes EventsecondaryCompetitive Player Meta and Safe Play StrategysecondaryTriple Drain Podcast Merch and Communitymentioned

Sentiment

positive(0.82)— Hosts express genuine excitement about INDISC as a major tournament event, marvel at Keith Elwin's skill, celebrate Carl D'Angelo's Twitch partnership success and unprecedented viewership, and view the exposure as crucial for pinball's growth. Some frustration with CarHop's broken mechanics is mild. Travis's 8th-place High Stakes result is presented matter-of-factly without bitterness. Overall tone is celebratory and optimistic about pinball's visibility.

Transcript

youtube_auto_sub · $0.000

network is online launching triple drain pinball podcast all right here we go so um yeah today's gonna be a weird one today's gonna be a weird one this is the triple drain pinball podcast episode number 29.5 0.5 it's not officially episode 30 and you know what we're not gonna do theme song and the reason we're not going to do theme song is there's only two of us so I just feel like the triple drain theme song makes sense when there's three people but there isn't three there's only two it's myself my name is Joel and my co-host in this case Travis Mary Travis you are you good you ready you ready to go Joel your your ability to do math is very inspirational so yeah I'm definitely ready to go there's usually three but now there's two yeah so no we're just gonna really just dive on in here um Tom unfortunately so we are recording this in the middle of the day uh the three of us the two of them were at indisk there they just came home Travis is traveling again this weekend for the Oklahoma finals so he's going to that to cheer on his friends Tom has a date night with his lovely wife it's just trying to coordinate all these things we're like well we got to talk about in this when's this gonna happen the reality is it happens in the middle of the day apparently is the only way we can get in an hour of talking um and and Tom's a dentist and he uh he's drilling teeth so you know I think it's obvious Tom's trying to leave us for loser kid I kid about it I think he's for Real about it I'm pretty sure yeah you saw he was wearing their hat right now I wore our merch I know well he wore their hat he did he's I asked him I was like Tom um where's your sweatshirt yeah oh I didn't bring it I was like all right great Tom yeah well I see you in the video there you are wearing a triple drain hat that is yeah so we just got those in those are uh silver ball swag if you want to check that out and speaking of merch I do have to give a huge shout out to Ben Smith Ben Smith is a listener of ours we've been making a lot of jokes about the Elgato no signal uh Travis is just a way of life at this point I feel like you fully embraced it and um yeah Ben actually took our logo and kind of redesigned it and and made a logo that says Elgato no signal he sent it to us I then tweaked it to make it more black and gray which is what we see on screen and uh now now we now have a shirt so if you're if you want to support Travis in the poor decisions he makes it wasn't only that if you're watching Classics two finals yeah this is in front of over 10 000 people apparently it showed up on there while I was playing as well there's a screenshot of that so shout out to Carl D'Python Anghelo we're going to be giving him a lot of love this episode but um Carl's embraced it I think when you were announcing for part of indisc he had your um they they listed the announcers names and then they would give you like what you where you're from and he just wrote no signal under underneath that so um really cool really cool that yeah that is that is a meme of yours at this point and I think you're stuck with it um so yeah definitely check out silverball swag and I appreciate it Ben appreciate you doing that um we are definitely getting a kick out of that uh Second thing um if you're watching this on YouTube here you go this is video number two and the question is why I I our initial goal was to put video kind of behind a paywall or it was like Hey you know we have a patreon let's let's reward the patreon members by giving them video ask access that was a plan I thought it was a good plan um we get roughly 2 000 plus 2500 plus listens on the podcast what surprised us was our video got like over a thousand views so what what surprised you guys I was I kept yes yeah okay can we can we give me props oh yeah yeah I'm just gonna come for nice Joel but that that was a a huge surprise to me I was just and and what's crazy to me is it didn't actually hurt our podcast numbers so our podcast listens were still a normal amount but then there's roughly a thousand plus additional views so our thought is like why are we why are we taking that away why would we um if if there's people out there that want to watch us on you that aren't aren't used to watching or listening to podcasts and would rather watch a YouTube video you know let's go for it so we decided let's go ahead and continue to do video for free for everybody it's free access for everybody now I was like well I would feel bad for the people that signed up for patreon just for the video you know that was my hesitation well lucky us not a single person did so we don't it's not like I have to apologize to the one person that just started a contribution um because of video so that's totally fine we we really do appreciate though the patreon supporters we do have uh thank you thank you for our support I mean if we just keep patting ourselves on the back over and over again there we go yeah you know we could do that this afternoon if you want to I don't know but so anyways that's the house the the housekeeping by the way so overall swag check it out and then yeah we're gonna we're gonna stick with video so if you're enjoying the video please what is it all the YouTube stuff like And subscribe you know leave us a comment all that fun stuff smash the like button smash that like button hit the Bell stay in the algorithm Kerry Hardy ding my dong that's what he that's what he says is that what he says yeah yeah so I don't know if I want to go that far I don't want to give people the wrong impression yeah this is a very professional and yeah this is very very like while stick is the long so um in disk the reason we want to record this episode was in this just happened what is in disk indisk is essentially the Super Bowl of of tournament play is what it seems like now I I'm speaking a little out of my comfort zone I'm I'm I'm a very inexperienced tournament player so Travis you're gonna have to answer a lot of these questions so indisk is considered a major right so it's how many majors are there yearly do you know I want to say I think there's only three current okay like I'll be honest I'm not even there on that since pinberg went away I want to say EPC which is over in Europe the uh the open that we just played in and then I guess it would be ifba I don't know somebody's that can correct me that's over in Germany this year it rotates it goes over to like European countries or overseas or at least at another country that's not the US and then it's back in the U.S every other year so regardless it's a big deal it's a big deal I think I I think I saw on the stream that out of out of a hundred out of the hundred topped World ranked players there were like 60 of you guys there playing in this so this is kind of it's kind of a big deal and um another thing that's amazing is is Carl D'Python Anghelo with IU pinball he streams the majority of the whole thing and Carl as most people that listen to this podcast know he is like one of if not the top streamer out there when it comes to tournament streams his quality is unbelievable I mean his production value it's such a treat to be able to watch not only this this high of quality of pinball players but also to be able to watch it in such a high quality stream is just a treat overall um so this is I know you guys traveled on Wednesday now there are there are multiple tournaments here so there's there's a Classics one tournament that was on Friday correct yeah so actually there is five tournaments total you got your target match play Classics which is on day one which is Thursday right and then you'll still have qualifying for the main that starts during that time and then the next day you'll have a one day tournament of Classics one you'll have qualifying that goes from like 9 A.M till I believe it's like 4 30 p.m and then we'd play the finals that night and then the very next day would be Classics too okay so that's kind and then plus there was high stakes going on at the same time as well so the qualifying was is the corre correct me if I'm wrong but is the qualifying very similar this is this a pump and dump where you can just play each individual game or is this a ticket system or how did this work it's a ticket system so it's a pop a card ticket and it's very difficult this is much more difficult to qualify for than just a pure pump and dump because in a pure pump and dump you can go play I like ass on the same game for like 15 20 games in a row and you'll eventually break through but on this you have to play good or at least halfway decent on five straight games now that doesn't mean you could you could go back and forth you could play a couple games in the main then you you could go over to high stakes and Classics But ultimately you have one ticket that leads to each individual event so you'll have one ticket for Classics one for Maine one for high stakes whatever whatever you're playing in so there's no crossover in between that they're each their own individual thing but you have to put in five games in Maine and I think high stakes was five games and Classics was four games and that's it's insanely difficult to do though and how much is a ticket I think Classics was 15. Maine was 20. high stakes was 500 for 10 tickets is what it was so originally it used to be just 50. per ticket which it still was but up front you're putting in 500 yeah so just one more Ticket No you're buying a whole nother 10 tickets yeah it's like coin dropping what like five dollars a game or whatever it was whatever the math works out to but yeah and then they had they maxed out the participants in that tournament too There Was 80 people total that was a cap and I'm pretty sure that they reached I know that there was a couple that couldn't make it that had signed up but you know it reached 80. so it was a lot of money whatever 80 times 500 is it's a lot I'm not going to attempt to do math on a podcast ever again yeah not doing it even my dad gave me a hard time for that to give you an idea it was it was fifteen thousand dollars for first place and I believe it was over thirty thousand dollars in prize money for the top four and what made high stakes even more difficult only the top eight got it yeah yeah yeah yeah so I mean we could skip right to it because you were high stakes so high stakes is the final thing this is Sunday night it's the final thing you're saying anybody that's that bought tickets to to try to get in this put a lot of money down to try to do it you I know going into the open were like right on the bubble you were you were eighth I think and then our good friend Robert Byers of top rope pinball kept grinding away and he ended up as the number one seed so he bumped me yeah yeah I made this even worse I ended up with only one or I still had one ticket left so I spent fifty dollars and didn't get to play it but yeah but still so high stakes so fast forward this is Sunday night this is the the open just finished the top eight players are there they're all very good players Keith elwin was one of them I know that Escher was one of them they were all great players because they're all great well here's the difference Joel is that and I was mentioning this to a few other players I mean it's we were all psychotic basically to put in 500 let's face facts and the reality is there was like 30 or 40 of us Knuckleheads that legitimately thought we were going to be in the top eight because you know math it just made sense but yeah yeah you know Midway through that type of qualifying you're looking at the scores and you're just like holy [ __ ] where is this coming from I I would put up 20 billion on Johnny Mnemonic and I would look up and it's like 25th so the so back to the ticket system for for non-tournament players what do you means by ticket is you have to play five games in a row and you're looking at your score compared to everybody else so if you happen to get the top score in a game you get 100 points right and then I believe it was 200. 200 okay but then like the second highest score goes down to whatever it's a few points less than that and then it so you're as whatever position you are your points are dwindling down down down down down so you know in a perfect world if you're playing five games and you get the top score in all five games and you're saying each games were 200 points you could walk away with a thousand a thousand could be like that's a ranking that would be unbeatable I mean you know it's a high score well looking at a lot of these qualifiers these top scorers are close to the 900 Point range so I mean you it's like to qualify out of five games in a row and on one card you better be placing like in the top ten of each one of those five games to be ranked high and and then on the high stakes it's I mean it's absurd like it is you have to have five amazing games in a row just to make the tournament it's it's pretty crazy so well I saw yes I saw your eighth unfortunately that knocked you out so the high stakes tournament we'll come back to that but I think that's an incredible but you're saying just the classics so Classics tournament there's match play on on Thursday and then we got to Classics one on Friday um class is one you're saying four four tickets to get in I watched a good bit of that that was fantastic to watch it's kind of a great like intro fun stream to watch um I think that was the first one that Carl streamed um really well done I don't remember exactly with Classics one who came out the winner I think Andy Rosa was really high when I checked I don't remember who won do you remember the one in Classics one well I know Andy Rosa Jr or the second baby Rosa as I like to call him he won the target match play okay I'm actually I'm not sure who won the classics one because honestly I wasn't paying attention to it I didn't play in it so I was over in the main you're just writing I want to say Jason zoller won it I thought I saw a picture of that earlier that's right oh that would make more sense to me that's right okay so Jason won that's kind of the first night now side note Keith Ellen did not play in that tournament he did not play participate in Classics one Classics II rolls around Classics 2 was another great day of fun exciting things um we'll fast forward right to the end Keith Owen Keith Owen I'm going to be saying Keith that one a lot and the reason I like for anybody that's listening if you're still here that you're not a tournament player thank you hopefully you're learning and we'll appreciate some more about tournament play Keith Owen was arguably is arguably one of if not the best like pinball tournament player of all time and I don't I don't think there's any argument insane what key can do but Keith I mean Keith the designer of of Jurassic Park Godzilla like incredible incredible player um but he's good we're talking Classics so Classics games are anything prior to a DMD right that's what's considered a classic pretty much yeah so you're talking em alphanumeric that's that's that wheelhouse well Keith obviously grew up playing all these he knows these this is a challenge because we got a bunch of these younger kids with you know Jason and esher and I don't I mean there's a ton of young we can say Ray day a ton of these younger guys Dalton that are incredibly good at modern Sterns but the challenge there is let's you got to go backwards too you got to be good with these older games with weaker flippers and more simple skill sets and whatnot and so this is where you get these Classics tournaments um Keith excels in Classics well Keith and sells at everything but he excels in Classics you participated in Classics too how did you and Tom do going into that uh I'm not quite sure how Tom did I know Neil he ended up qualifying yeah I will I think he was like 25th or so and I ended up and now I put in one practice card just to see where everything was at then I put in just one card to uh to get in I put up a decent score with Paragon and Frontier and then of course we all discovered CarHop which was freaking hilarious yeah so that was like the low-hanging fruit that all of us were talking about that that we were just like oh okay here's a game that we can all control here's a game that we can uh put up a lot of points on and it's it's a got leave for those that don't know and basically the whole meta to that game was you would plunge and it would go up to your upper right flipper then you would shoot it across the Playfield through a spinner that would give you basically like a skill shot that was worth two and a half three million but then the ball would come right back down to a perfect trap to your left flipper and then you would just rinse and repeat because as soon as you went up to that spinner or you go up the middle it'd come back to your left flipper and then you would just go to the right side that would hit this Target and then feed back to your upper right flipper and then you would just rip the spinner again so the whole entire game turned out to be that well until we got the finals but the whole entire game was pretty much that so yeah I did that and then uh did the cheetah meta too to where we all realized that the left orbit was perfectly feeding the left in lane and that you could just rinse and repeat that shot and just bump it over and I mean it was a boring way to play it but it was a safe way to play it it basically all but guaranteed you one million points possibly even two up to five million if you just followed it through so I mean that's that's part of it I mean unfortunately it may not be the sexiest thing to watch on stream but you know when there's money on the line there's Whoppers on the line you travel out there to compete you want to try to find repeatable shots and if you can find a repeatable shot that does not make you be in trouble yeah then that's what you're going to do you got to play safe now car hop I was watching you on stream with that it looks like there's some sort of mode or option where you can pick a perk almost is what it was and it was one of those points one of those perks double or nothing yeah so it was so bizarre because again some some of the game Behavior would be a little bit different if you're in a four player game compared to a single player game okay and what I mean by that is is so for instance for mine there was a double up feature to where you could double your score well I was aware that it was there what I'm not aware of because this the first time I've ever seen the game I was not aware of how to actually light it I just knew what to do as soon as it was lit as soon as it started well I'm gonna you know raise the degrees just follow the inserts around then eventually just start bashing the center Target so I had figured out that much and so in my uh in my match with uh Jeff teolis and I believe I forget the other two but I know Jeff was in the group with me but I ended up finding that a couple of times and used it in that way and so that's I mean that's just figuring out what's there now what was hilarious is I think you're talking about the ketchup though I think is what you're talking about so one of them said double or nothing yeah so this one didn't happen in my group I we might be talking about two different things but this was hilarious and this is what led to this game getting thrown out so okay in another group it was Colin MacAlpine Eric Stone Haley George and Andy Bagwell I know a really crappy group for those scoring at home yeah yeah just horrible players yeah obviously so but no so you have all these exceptional players right and you know that they are going to just Crush these shots over and over again well then it was seen that somebody had picked what was called ketchup it just went into saucer you get to pick what it was and apparently by doing this it would launch your score up or bring it up to the person closest to you that's still above you yep so we saw Andy basically instantly scored 30 some odd million points to catch up to Kaylee and then I think somebody else did it later on so this was like it was just a game of cat and mouse the rest of the time but it was so freaking hilarious to watch it in person I don't know how it was awesome no I'm pretty sure I was watching it at the time it was on mute because I was doing something with I think the kids were watching a show or something but I I just kind of had it on and I was like what just had like to see him pick that and then and all of a sudden it's like oh all he has to do is hit one more Target and now he just took over went up a place but the double or nothing I swear it said double or nothing and I think you have 10 seconds or 15 seconds to hit the target x amount of times whatever it was okay yeah that was like the heat wave or something like that yeah that's what did it was a little bit different than ketchup I I think it's almost your score yeah yeah it did but it pretty much it was kind of scary because then you had to basically flip real quick you had to do the thing real quick and I don't know I mean I like that in a game I don't know I don't know if it necessarily belongs in competitive pinball but it was awfully fun to do I swear at that moment though I feel like you're in second I think it was ball three I feel like you were in second you're in a good spot and all of a sudden he picks this double or nothing and I was like is this truly double or nothing like is he gonna lose his score if he doesn't finish this mode oh that's what you're saying counting down time and you got down to like and I see you just bashing this middle Target and then all of a sudden like with one or two seconds left boom you bash the target again and boom your score is doubled you're in first place and I was like if he would have missed that Target he could have gone from second to Fourth I think I assume that's what double or nothing means but that was just having that kind of stuff in a tie-in tournament was crazy to watch luckily I I don't think it would take away my score because I did fail at it once and it didn't go it didn't go back so but that would have been hilarious yeah oh yeah yeah if it would have truly been a double or nothing if it would have taken away my score I don't know if I would have tried to sacrifice two points for that yeah I'm like he's in second place so what did he mean by points so this the way that this tournament works is once you get in so you qualify with this with this card system so you got to play consistently you know five great games in a row or Classics four great games in a row otherwise you throw in the card out and you're going again and that's why like the open which is the main tournament was on Sunday so people had all day Thursday Friday Saturday to grind away to try to get in a good spot for the open or just to qualify for the open and I think the open it was like 260 something people bought cards or attempted and they only let what the top 40 in I mean it was so it's and like I said earlier this there's the tops there are 60 of the top 100 players were there and so only 40 are making that I mean it was absurd it was absurd um so anyways the he mentioned points so when you win if you're if you're competing against four people or three people so there's four of you when the game ends whoever got first place got four points whoever got second place got two third place got one a fourth place got zero and so it's best of three games so the most that a person could get would be 12 but you end up in some weird positions where okay going into this next game we need this person to get third and this person to get first and then there could be a tie breaker situation it's it's super intriguing to watch um even if you don't know about the game or don't really care it's just watch the game usually the announcers or you know Carl has a really good setup where people can draw on the board and they're gonna say like hey this is what they're going to attempt to do or this is what they're trying to do and try to get you in the mind of the player um it was awesome it was super awesome to watch so Classics two finished and you you got in but how did you finish in Classics too oh gosh I think I flamed out in quarterfinals because I got through the first round and then quarterfinals it was just like completely forgot how to play Pinball probably like three worst games I think it's the first time I ever got a zero in a round I did I took last every single game all three games and I think I was playing uh Josh Sharpe back tadman and uh Joe lemir so definitely three yeah these are all players that yeah it's insane yeah okay so Classics too but yeah so I know Keith Helen he won it he won the whole thing that's so cute he did it in style too if you guys haven't seen this so he basically went to finals and I think he played might have to bring it up so he played teolis uh Johnny Monica and Jack tadman and they played eight ball Paragon and stars and of course you know elwin he did decent on eight ball got 263 for it for him that's probably an off game for me that's like exceptional you know that gameplay stuff then Paragon he gets 620 and he just makes it look easy yeah it's insane but then he steps up the stars and basically just absolutely destroys it is getting specials left and right he's trying to roll it I'm just we're just all watching like oh my God what what is going on this not human what he was doing it's crazy so if you get a chance to watch it definitely it's a Classics two playoffs and this was done in front of I think 10 or 15. yes during the time we do have to mention that so IU pinball Carl D'Python Anghelo's streaming this whole thing Carl got partnered um on Twitch and what that means is it's it's relatively easy to become affiliated with twitch um you just have to have like uh I don't know like 50 followers or something it's not in a certain number of hours it's not particularly hard to like get to a point where you can make money on Twitch you just gotta have a pulse is what you need pretty much you'll get affiliate if you have a pulse now but Partners is a whole other story because they're they they limit the number of people within each category on who how they can get partnered do you have to there's a certain number of average viewers you have to get hour streamed all this stuff Carl has met those requirements for quite a long time and I know he's applied multiple times to become a partner and it finally happened it finally happened a few months ago he got partnered and it's like well cool that's you know now he has a little badge but what it what it did do though was it kind of opened a door for him on now twitch is aware of who he is and so I think what happened was there was somebody at twitch working in the background that liked car or liked pinball and knew this was coming and so what happened was they put the stream on the front page now this has happened before in pinball typically when Jack danger with dead flip does uh like a Stern reveal Jack has reached out or Stern has reached out there's some sort of communication so twitch knows hey during this two hours or one hour slot let's go ahead and put this stream on the front page I don't know what happened with with IU pinball but all of a sudden boom it's on the front page so what does that mean it means anybody that logs onto twitch.com that is going to be one of the suggested what six eight videos and the number of people that popped into chat I mean it got over 10 000 people which is normally for a stream like a this type of tournament stream I don't know I don't maybe a thousand I mean somewhere right around there yeah but like that's the normal pinball Community watching is a thousand and now all of a sudden boom ten I think it got over fifteen thousand at one point yeah and what's what's crazy about it is that was basically people coming in and out too so there's it's kind of hard to tell like who all was staying there but we do know that there was a lot of people still sticking around because you could tell the questions in the chat that people were asking about certain things I know I got several messages just text messages from different people that didn't even realize I was at a pinball tournament but they get on Twitch all the time they're like you're on the front page and I'm like oh yeah I am yeah yeah it's like there's there's a lot of different people that that were discovering it and so I mean for pinball that is excellent because yeah and it was happening during multiple events multiple days because they did the same thing for Maine too so hopefully hopefully they decide to go ahead and start showing at least the major tournaments they start showing it more on the recommended page or the front page just because it's to me it's it's something that's important I think it's something that's needed because you see a bunch of other I guess video games or Esports or what have you that's on Twitch that gets that type of publicity so I mean just being able to have that with pinball I think that's crucial and that was one of the things that I was hoping to see too once Carl did get partner and even with Tom with Fox Cities is I was hoping that the ones that can achieve partner that that's what opens up the door and if that door opens up more that just helps pinball even more it gives a bigger opportunity for people to come in and sponsor because it's in front of more people it gives more chance for Discovery from a younger demographic because obviously twitch's age they skew younger anyways we've talked about that in the past so something like that is excellent as well and you know I overall it was pretty exciting to be a part of a heavily watched pinball event it's very surreal it was as a viewer it was surreal like I mean I've watched I just feel like pinball feels so small and close-knit that it's like to see all of a sudden 10 plus thousand people in chat first uh part of me is like proud like proud of Carl I'm like Carl earned this like he deserves I was so proud of Carl for that like for him to get all those views but also like chat was amazing there were so many people were like oh I didn't know people stream pinball and for chat to be so supportive and like of course you should check out Pen side you should check out pin map you should see if there's pinball machines in your area you know it was just like there were pinball people in chat just like being supportive it could have gone toxic really quick it could have been you know it just it was awesome to see the chat be the because I know for a fact there were people that that followed Carl so I hope they get to see many more of his streams and and other people are like this that you could tell these people that had no idea were excited we're excited and locked in and watching so as oh there it is there it is his his camera has gone out it is it's that time yep I wish I could say I just do this on purpose no Elgato no signal there it is I'll fix that eventually so anyways so it is it is great though for Carl I mean just to touch base on this a little bit more before we move on I I think that I hope everybody out there understands how important Carl is to the industry in general and how important he is to competitive pinball but not just that it's truly the industry in general because somebody putting in that much time and effort to get the equipment out there he he is a world-class player himself and he's sacrificing his chance for a world championship in order to basically put this whole thing on a platform and to give us the opportunity to be on that platform because without Carl nobody's paying attention to this except for us that care that are there nobody's discovering and so to me just the sacrifice I hope people understand how important of a sacrifice that really is how big of a deal that really is and I think the last I checked even the Bots combined views it's over a million now yeah which is just that is for pinball that's insane if you go to Reddit some of the stuff the Escher clip which we'll get to later that that's already gone viral I mean I have people I came home and I had over 200 messages on my Facebook just people discovering it going viral like seeing the clips seeing on Twitch so I mean that's huge and none of that would have happened yeah if Carl doesn't stream yeah I mean that that's just the reality of it 100 and he's he's put in the work he's put in the work to deserve that and I mean there's a lot of other people that stream tournaments obviously our good friend Tom Tom Graf with Fox City streams a lot of tournaments and I it's just it's a it's a selfless act in that sense and and so uh it was amazing it was so great to watch and it was exciting to watch for sure but what I want to say so for Classics too Keith shows up I have no idea how many cards he it took him to get in gets in just dominates dominates the tournament boom he he gets first uh then there's the next day there's the next day so that was on um Saturday so he's qualified for both high stakes and the main tournament so here we go you get into the main tournament if you qualify top eight I think you got two rounds of buy because you qualified pretty high so if you qualify top four you get two rounds top eight you got a buy okay that's how it worked I think it might even been more than that it might have been like top 12 maybe okay I forget but whatever I'm drawing a complete blank right now remember seeing this is the open so this is the big one this is the one that people have been grinding away for two days now the open is is any game so it's any game from a modern I think they had all the the most modern I think was Rush there was a rush in the in the game all the way to EMS like it was everything was in the open um and I know you got in now I Neil got in did Tom get in I don't know Tom didn't get in and Neil he got in at 40th like this yeah he barely snuck in there and luckily I mean we knew that if he got in he was going to do some damage yeah in the tournament so I was happy to see I was happy to see Neil get in and it is it is top 16 top 16 gets a buy so yeah well okay real quick side note I don't want to go over overpass it but there was a women's tournament as well and that there were some really good high-end women players that were there I Know Carl streamed that um and Monica your wife she plays well that's true that's true you are correct I totally forgot there is there's actual if we want to go in even deeper there was more than even those tournaments there was The Gauntlet for the volunteers there was there was a Strikes Tournament yeah there was a Youth Tournament so yeah yeah there's a lot of other stuff going on no the women players are exceptionally good I mean there's there's some scary players there that that they definitely can play if you watch some of the prospector games they they were blowing it up I mean even Monica she got like over 700 000 I think and lost by two or three thousand points to uh I think it was Anna nil from uh hot nudge I believe yeah that happened in semis and then of course she got Leslie Rockman as a player fantastic player then Ashley Weaver ended up winning it and she that's what I was gonna look like she's a very good player yep I don't know Ashley but I do know I do recognize Anna Neal from streaming and then Leslie Ruckman she streams as well she streams pinball so her twitch name is El Rocco she's on Game Time television with raw dog but it's um it's great it was cool to see that it's just cool to see players that I know do well exceptionally well so that was Saturday morning I or that was on Saturday I think but yeah this is so so okay so here we are on Sunday you guys are in the open uh I just feel Tom did make some like I don't want to leave Tom I know he's not here it feels weird him not being here he did make um like I think he threatened to retire multiple times I think only a few weekends but I I definitely know he was a proud papa because Tom made me feel true but I don't know where he I don't know where he ended up at because here's the reality of it there's just like you said earlier there was like 60 or 70 or however many top 100 players there and there was only 40 spots yeah so there was a lot of big name players that are known that did not make the a finals cut off I mean there was there was a couple of former world champions that didn't make the cut there was you know some upsets some players that snuck in and got into the top 40 then of course you know there's you know the the normals that you would expect the peace and the Edwards yeah yeah I mean it's just and that's the way a tournament like this goes it's it's tough It's a grinder it's not guaranteed for 95 of us that we're gonna make the cut I mean sometimes you just got to have the ball bounce a certain way sometimes you just got to make the right decision and what's crazy about it is it could be like one spinner rip or one extra jackpotter or one out of all that's the difference yeah I mean because you you mess up on one game you have a busted card and when you bust your card it's catastrophic because then you set yourself back five games to where you have to re-queue up you have to wait in line then you have to do well all over again in theory each busted card most likely will set you back if you're playing certain games two to four hours at a time because if the queue is 25 minutes so 30 minutes long for a game you're gonna be waiting for a little while no wonder you're grinding for days you know essentially to try to get that spot so you got you made it into the open I know Neil made it in the open I don't know I did not watched really start watching the open until later that day we were pretty busy on that Sunday and I think Neil had already he was already out at that time do you remember how far Neil got Neil made it all the way to uh semifinals he was on his third game in semis he had a chance okay to go through so he made it oh maybe he wasn't being streamed at that point because I we did see him on stream I saw Tom on stream I saw you on stream many times yeah the stream was just kind of bouncing back and forth but yeah he started Neil started in the first round and so he won out three straight rounds and he just he got on an extreme heater I think it was in his second round he was in a group with uh Arvid and I'm going to pronounce this wrong apologies flight likely gear I don't know he's a European player young kid but exceptionally good I think he's the reigning EPC Champion too so I pretty sure he won a major just recently and then he was also in a group with dominant stepp and then Danielle who anybody in competitive pinball knows about but yeah Neil just he did rate that round I think it was on Tron mystery castle and Deadpool and he uh swept around and got 12 points nice and then I think even the next round he uh he was in a group with Zach McCarthy who's the reigning open champion and Danielle again and I forgot who the other player was I think his name was gay but I've never met him before but nil he did great again he swept around again so yeah the kid was on absolute heater I mean just destroying games left and right and then he put himself into position to uh to advance on it just unfortunately didn't go that way for him but I fully expect him to make it up there eventually yeah well so I was watching that and then I saw you were still in it so Random side note here um TNA is no longer here and it's not that idea I did not sell TNA I love TNA I'm a huge fan of TNA but I have I wanted to try Jurassic Park and I have a guy in the area that has one and he's got a good collection and so we decided to do a temporary Trade for Jurassic Park so I had a Jurassic Park premium that was all bundled up all I had to do is get it down to my basement my brother came over to help me do that and that was our plan for Sunday evening was to unbox Jurassic Park and play Jurassic Park instead I turned I'm waiting for my brother to show up I turned this on and I see you are in at that point you were in the semifinals and you were in a position where you you went to a tiebreaker I think first Kaylee correct oh yeah yep so I'm like holy crap like Travis might make finals here so my brother shows up right while you're in this tiebreaker and here I am like standing in front of the television you know like pacing in the room you know like okay where are we at this and Jerry's like what's going on I was like competitive pinball game of world like brief like this is what's going on you know Travis for him to pass like this is what we're doing so let's watch and that that tiebreaker was pretty intense just for you to get through it yeah that was yeah right yeah so it was I believe in that round so if we're talking semi-finals I had Escher levkoff Haley George and Jason uh weirdrick in our group and we played Congo Mystery Castle Tommy and it was it was definitely a tough group I felt fine on Congo I felt fine on mystery castle I just barely came up short against Usher I wish I would have got a win in one of those so I didn't put myself in the position but Tommy was like the one game I did not want to play which is I think when it started streaming was Tommy that's right yeah oh boy yeah yeah and it was so Tommy that was probably maybe the fifth time I've ever actually played the game and I'm not too familiar with the rule set I know the basics of it but wasn't familiar with the bounces wasn't really familiar with anything in general I was just trying to survive and I mean I was fortunate with a couple of bounces just to survive in order to get to a tiebreaker so what happened was and I was put in just the it was a horrible position to be in because here I was I was going to face off against Kaylee George who is one of the best pinball players of all time and yeah and I had pick but I had exhausted my picks so the games I would normally go to I couldn't do it I couldn't go to rush I couldn't go to Tron I couldn't go to Deadpool I used those up in uh in quarterfinals and I couldn't go back to Congo to my knowledge and so I literally ran out of games that I would have chosen and so in my head because I had picked twister earlier too and so I was thinking about the games I wanted to play and I just kept eyeballing Flash Gordon and to be flat out honest with you I still remembered that game kicking the dog [ __ ] out of me after we play Florida and I instantly as soon as I just thought about that and it just crossed my mind I was like I don't care about any other game I'm gonna prove to myself that I can beat this game so as crazy as it sounds I didn't pick it because I was like oh Kaylee I could beat Kaylee at this or oh you know I think he might have like I don't think on that level I think about what can I do on a game we won't give you too much credit yeah exactly well because I had rewatched it I think somebody had mentioned to me that they were that they thought I did it as a strategic pick avoiding Stearns like no I would have picked rush if it was available 100 I would have picked rush or I would have picked Tron I felt comfortable getting to 500 plus million on Rush I felt comfortable getting to 100 million on Tron at that point because I had enough games on them but with Flash Gordon I was just like it was just an emotional pick yeah yeah I'm putting up the double-barreled middle finger at it I'm gonna show it that I can beat it and it just happened to be at that stage I I know it's psychotic to pick it for that reason but you know when I really get down to it I wasn't gonna pick other games I wasn't going to pick Revenge from Mars and I wasn't going to pick the Next Generation Star Trek it just those games I'm okay with but in that situation I don't know just something competitive clicked in me that I wanted to show myself that I could do this on this game in this spot so and fortunately it worked out I mean it's just you know Kaylee he obviously had an off game he could very easily put up two or three million on flashcord unless I kid ourselves but you know it's just it it was what it was I was happy that the balls bounced my way for that tie breaker and then we got the finals well so that tiebreaker one thing that was surprising is most time during tournament play uh extra balls are always turned off after it's like a point thing but for whatever reason Flash Gordon the extra ball was there and so it was you had inline drops over to the right and it's like you have to hit boom boom boom you have to hit those down and then you can hit that shot and so it's it was like to see it's like okay that's what Travis is doing he's trying to get that extra ball and I'm pretty sure you did and that helped and I you got through but it was kind of a nail-biting thing of like holy crap he just made finals like it's and you look at the four people that were in it it was Keith Owen Asher left Asher if anybody's new to this Escher is the number one rated player in the world right now he's 19. he's been winning tournaments since he was like 12. I mean the kid is unbelievably good unbelievably good and then Zach I'm sorry I don't know his last name um uh no Jason zoller Jason Jason and Jason was the guy that had won Classics one right yeah he won Classics one and he's been on an absolute Terror this past year as well I think he's ranked third in the world currently so the guy that won the classics won the first tournament of the of the week is in quarterfinals the guy Keith ell won that won Classics too is in the quarterfinals Escher the number one player in the world is in quarterfiles and then Travis Murray this all was finals Joel not quarter five you're right you're right but it's finals it's you I mean quarters as in you but the top four but I see what you mean though when you look at the names you're like one of these doesn't belong yeah but you know it was one of those things to where honestly I I had and just kind of like a little behind the scenes I have been like just practicing my ass off and we've talked about this before off of off camera and you know on the Facebook messenger and everything I I've set up my games just on Death Mode all saves are off I've taken posts completely out if you're on raised Discord you probably saw what I did to my rush just to get prepared to wear the lanes just like as wide as the Grand Canyon I just I had to do the things necessary to try to make it to where I really focused on accuracy and I really focused on defensive capabilities of getting the ball back under control and so it's not so much I'm used to high stress situations just from baseball and everything so I don't get nervous when I play that never enters my mind and the money doesn't matter I don't compete for the money so that doesn't even enter the equation either I just enjoy competing and I want to see how how far I can get so yeah there was a lot of prep that went into getting to this point and a lot of hours spent just practicing and I just I'd always wanted to try to get into a top four and my overall goal has never been to actually win a major championship it was just to be in the conversation about it and if I could do that I would be happy and now that it's happened I mean yeah it's I'm as ecstatic about it it's amazing it was insane like as a friend of yours you know to see you in that position was incredible and don't get me wrong like you and Neil and Tom and every other tournament like high-end tournament player top 100 player you guys are putting in work I mean you guys are traveling to tournaments almost every other week is what it seems like I mean you are putting in work not only you know going to tournaments competing in tournaments doing it at home like you know just you didn't just fall into the top four there's no you you know you had no it was that but the whole weekend well every single group was a grinder if you look at all the names that were there in each group each group could have been a final on its own in all reality it could have been it wasn't you know tournaments like this it's not necessarily the most skilled player that will always make it through I mean at times you've you've got to have some luck on your side I mean for instance when I was in I think it was quarterfinals I mean I was going into the last game with a one and so I had to have Keith basically co-pilot my ass to the next round because I had to win and I had to exceed everybody else's score and Keith had to finish a certain spot too to make the points go right and sometimes that's just where it falls I mean we've we've all been there before if we competed enough but yeah it's just when I look at the names whenever whenever I go play competitive pinball this is what I want I want to play the best players that I do and I want to play them as soon as possible I mean yeah I want to win yeah I want to make finals but you know I I get I I do this because I want to see how good I can possibly be and the only way to know that is to play against the best of the best that's the only way you know which is a huge a plug just for this tournament in general like the open is open to anybody anybody could have walked in there and and bought a ticket so if you're into competitive play or like let's say you dominate your local bar whatever like you could do this you could come competing in this next year if you wanted to I mean which is really cool but so here you are the finals now it's best of three games same system you get first second yada yada um I remember the so Flash Gordon was one of them uh um bad girls was one of them what was the first Firepower was the first fire powers the first one so like I said I have a brand new Jurassic spark premium that I was ready to play and instead my brother and I are we're glued you're watching the title of power instead glued to the television and um there are some really good announcers at the time and just trying to okay what's the strategy here what are we trying to do um and I know I remember Keith one Keith won it so he got four points where did you I forget what position you ended I had to I had to grind out just to get a third because my goal was when I played Firepower earlier in the weekend I had shots my way to over 200 000 without even putting it back up top so I figured okay I could keep it safe it wasn't going up and out I'll just do that until I get it maxed out then I'll start going up top to collect bonus and go from there but you know my first ball it didn't go the way I planned then the second ball was a house ball I feel like I probably should have saved it I just didn't nudge it hard enough and it went to the left out lane so that was most likely my fault I'll just take full blame for it but then my uh my Ball three yeah I only had 19 000 points going into it and I think zoller had about 70. I think Escher was probably at like 20 or 30 or maybe even 40 50 somewhere right around there I know he's a little bit above me so I had to uh I had to do some work just to make sure I at least got a point out of it because it could have could have gone either way so I just switched up tactics I decided just to keep putting it up top get a get a multiplier going and then I discovered I just didn't feel good about the spinner shot at all which was from right to left and so ultimately anytime I was on the right side I tried to shots over to the left and then send it back up top through the orbit and I wasn't worried about lighting my Kickback or anything like that I just I didn't want to send the ball out of control ball three I just wanted to try to get points get pops action where I can't where I could and just hopefully get back under control that was my main goal with that game and absolutely I mean if you're listening or watching this like Carl will upload these streams to YouTube at some point but as of right now you can go on this twitch page and watch all of this but it's like go watch the other 600 000. it was it was so awesome to watch and and I remember seeing that I was like okay Travis ball three like you've got to get one point you worked your way up now it ended with Keith winning so that was for um Escher got second so he had two you had one and then shot it might be forgetting they got Josh right Jason Jason so then we go to the next game in the next game uh was bad girls all I know about bad girls is people say bad girls is a mirrored Eight Ball deluxe with some other stuff I know the Buffalo pinball guys love bad girls they think it's incredible I know Chuck wart is a big fan of bad girls Gottlieb right it's a so the the flippers are a little different but bad girls so so this is Keith right Keith is picking these games correct yes yeah Keith and I know he likes going like he doesn't want to put my he doesn't want to give you a modern turn he doesn't want to give extra modern Stern I would ask I would keep in mind too he had exhausted a lot of pics okay once you pick a game in any round you cannot pick it again so that's oh wow that's a big reason why you see these types of game picks as well so here we are at the end bad girls is what we're playing and um look it up if you're not familiar with the game look up the art it's horrendous but um what something very unique happened so what I was saying so just what it seemed like it seemed like the play was uh on the left side you have one through seven the balls and then you have a drop Target which is ball eight if you hit that drop Target then then catch it you go back up there and again that's essentially how you start your multiball and it just seemed like that was the tactic just get into multiball then do some stuff there's a very Target on the right that seemed valuable there was Steven Bowden kept talking about the right orbit you could kind of do that for a while and get get points so there's there's definitely options it wasn't a do one thing except for being multiball well Travis did something very unique um in pinball there's something there's you qualify the Playfield and what that means is when you hit the start button it sticks a ball into the um shooter Lane and it's sitting on a switch and you can sit there and you can plunge and plunge and plunge and plunge but the game doesn't know you're out of the shooter Lane until you've hit some other switch on the Playfield and you validated the Playfield and that's validating the play field so now the game knows the ball is on the Playfield so at that point start your ball save or if the ball saves turned off it understands no the game is the ball is in play If you happen to plunge and the ball can literally roll all the way around the Playfield and never hit a switch and it goes back into the trough the game assumes the ball there was like a male fat a malfunction or something like and it just spits out another ball I don't know exactly the logic behind it but it will spin another ball out into the shooter Lane this is very common even in modern games this is very common and you typically can do that as many times as you want as many times as you want and so typically typically typically typically yes yes so what I'm here we are my brother and I were watching we're glued to the television what's Travis doing he's doing something I didn't see Keith do it I didn't see Esther do it or the people before you but you are trying to short plunge so that that ball just kind of goes up in the orbit and then rolls down so you can catch it on the flipper that was no no you were trying to like short plunge it up into the the pops or something yeah I was trying to get a skill shot is generally what I was trying to do and then there was there was something else I'll I'll probably have to tell you exactly what I was trying to do off podcast but we had made a discovery on the game okay so and I feel like nobody else was really trying for it but I was like hell I'm gonna throw a Hail Mary and see what happens in the wrong direction so what happens is he plunges the ball it doesn't do what he wanted it to do but it doesn't hit a switch so he like kind of caught it up on his flipper and then just like let the ball drain because there was no it looked like the Playfield wasn't validated so it happened once so he plunges again doesn't hit his shot lets the ball drain it's like okay he's he's doing for this goes the third time plunges it again doesn't hit what he wants lets the ball drain then he looks up at the score and what does he see he sees the score instead of player three flashing player 4 is now flashing the game said nope you've tried enough you're You're gone you're done you're done with your ball and this does not happen in pinball like he got zero points zero zero is what flash on the screen zero zero think about it in pinball for a play field to be validated you have to hit a switch and almost every pinball machine ever made when you hit a switch it gives you some points 10 five I don't know it depends on what the switch is it gives you some points away to play his turn without earning a single point I I found my way playing in front of thousands of people that was a major championship that's Keith elwin and Jason zoller and I decide to score no points zero points ball without tilting or anything ball what are bad girls zero zero that would instantly become an overnight meme for everybody oh my gosh it was incredible to see so so what happened I mean I don't so truthfully so thank God you looked and saw that it had gone on to player four because if you didn't and you plunged his ball oh yeah then it'd be even worse yeah yeah so what happened was in qualifying that behavior was not happening at all on a one player game it was not happening so it was not expected to see this happen either that's why you saw me just kind of step back and give that look like yeah huh yeah is this really happening you know that that was that was in my that was in my head I was just like bruh and like no no so yeah yeah and so I asked for a ruling and nobody really knew like at the time nobody around the area knew and then they decided well we're just gonna we're gonna play on and of course we were able to recreate that and sure as [ __ ] you know single player game it doesn't do it multiplayer game it does do it so I think Escher was I think Escher was after you and he's like do I play do I go yeah that was when I was Consulting with Jim and uh and Carl to see okay how are we going to approach this because I mean the last thing I wanted to do was literally just skip my turn with all that on the line so yeah I was just like hell I can't believe that happened but I mean you know I I yeah well I was let's be let's be fair I was basically a walking meme all day long for the stream I mean on Congo earlier I was in skill fire we didn't talk about this on Congo there's a mode on their skill fire right I don't know if you know what this is I don't know it's so basically you get to a point in the game where you just plunge for these three stand-up targets or even the left out lane to keep getting points for it's like a timed plunge thing right okay and my dumb ass could not find the plunge the whole time and I realize I'm not hitting it so I even stop and slow down try to time it and I let it go again still don't hit it I only got five million points and you should get like 300 million I go oh wow yeah I got like 325 in qualifying and then also I just could not find it but yeah so again walking meme that's what I ended up being but yeah I just I did not expect that nobody happened on that game what he did I had I had this huge plan in my head I knew what I was going to try to do and I was I was being calm I told myself after the first couple of plunges I was like let's just be patient stick to the plan don't get impatient just send it to the pops and be out of control because I knew coming out of that orbit I could control it I knew it was going to come you know from a left to right dead bounce so when the game when the game does things that you expect and it you feel safe you do those things you don't do so in that in that point you don't do anything different now if I was just playing at the local bar I would have probably just said eff it just let it fly but you know at this point it was like no it was three you gotta you yeah you need all other tricks yeah so oh yeah and I I showed the best trick of all don't score any damn points in hindsight I'm glad that you've I'm glad that thinking of double zero doesn't you know make you fall up into a corner and cry because I'm glad you've embraced this but it was uh it was so weird to see and we're just like that just happened and and I know Jeff teolis was giving you a hard time he's like I think there's a good chance Ball 2 is going to be a better ball for Travis you know infinitely better like it's like oh yeah zero um but it was great so I so fast forward on that um Escher ended up winning uh Eight Ball deluxe um now Escher said bad girls bad girls yes yeah he won he said later on it's like the fifth time or first time like he's almost I don't think he's ever played the game yeah I think he had told me before we played it it was the first time yeah he never played it but I mean everybody knew the meta oh yeah you know what I mean you just do that yeah yeah and ultimately that that was my big plan I wanted to max out my Orbit first and then start going in because I just wanted to get base points on my ball too that's why I decided not to go for a multiball because I saw where Escher was at I saw that zoller was having a difficult time getting some points and I saw the L one was around four and a half million so I figured I need to at least catch up to that and be safe going into ball three then I can start going multiball but then of course you know when Escher came up and just absolutely destroyed his ball too after me I just I just yeah double zero again I just I just knew immediately I was just like you know you know I I gotta do something different cut my ball three because esher he played his all too exceptionally well yeah so that's what happened was it it ended up so Escher won it but there was a time where I was like okay Travis is looking good you may get second in this and then Esther just went off and then it was like it just I don't know it as a viewer it was like Keith is Keith Escher just went off Travis you got a long road to catch up but you ended up getting third I think in that one right yeah but I mean it was even close I mean Ellen he he made a run on his ball three and he had some fantastic moves and he kept getting into uh into multiball and then getting his re-rack bonus on the left drops and all that basically it's almost like a hurry up yeah yeah so they were all doing great and I just I knew going into my ball three I would just have to go For Broke you know and just try to catch up because I was down at the time like maybe 18 million I think which is a tall order to get that on one ball in that game so it just wasn't meant to happen but I was happy enough to come away with one point yeah so we got to game three so we're we're at Flash Gordon again and going in the way the math works so key set six points escher's at six points you're at um two two and Jason was at zero so I was like okay I think it's I mean mathematically Keith and Escher one of them is gonna win this like yeah yeah Jason and I were eliminated mathematically and we were I knew I was playing for at least second yeah so I was still trying as hard as I could and you know it halfway it halfway crossed my mind to get out of the way and just go to second position and let them be there together but then at the same time I knew I was still competing for it so these game so Keith has picked he picked the first Keith why was Keith picking games explain that real quick why because he he was the higher seed he was the third seed going in I think Escher was the fourth seed I was the ninth and I think zoller was the 19th so this is all back to qualifying for the tournament in general this is all back to the cards system so Keith was running the show because he was a higher seed so he was driving the bus right so you either pick the game or you pick your position that's the way that works yeah and that's ultimately why you saw the position stay in the way that they were because then it went to esher to have pick a position after Keith took his pick of game so so he would go forth class right so Esther picked fourth and I would take last available which would be third then zoller would take first or second I think a couple of the games he ended up taking first on fire no I'm not sure maybe maybe it's a different time the last one he picked first because there was a chance yeah you started to walk up because you were so used to playing after him that you started to walk up and then stopped and realized yeah and then I realized like wait a second he took yeah yeah yeah yeah I caught myself an even even Keith to his credit he was like Travis no don't do it I'm like sorry Mr goat I didn't mean it but yeah it's um yeah so I halfway thought about getting out of the way to going into second I don't know maybe hindsight I probably should have went ahead and did that but I also felt like I was still playing for something because I was still trying for second place my my placing could have changed but yeah it was kind of surreal to be in that last match though considering what happened during it against two of the best players of all time it was insane so really I mean um your play was good uh I'm trying to remember I know you got extra ball and whatnot but you still ended up with third overall uh yeah on the game yeah in this game I didn't get an extra ball and I ended up I mean it was it was an average game if you're gonna have a solid game of Flash Gordon on this particular model you're gonna have eight hundred thousand that's that's a solid game and that gives you an idea of how exceptional of a game both uh esher and Elwyn had on it yeah so Keith went so um Jason had gone he didn't have a crazy great game um Keith's put up some some great points I I don't think he loved it but I don't think he loved the number of points that he had he ended up at like 1.5 million but it was a great like in comparison to your score and Jason's and even eshers in ball three it was way higher than everybody else's yeah it was close to a top ten score it was all that would have been unqualifying really good then you went and and it was like okay Travis got third like Travis is or at least he could have had second but like I think you were barely above Escher or I don't know it wasn't well I was what happened was is I was actually behind zoller so I had to like grind out and make sure that I at least got a point got that yep yeah but I mean I don't think it would have mattered anyways because I think the best is all I could have done at that point was just one point so I think we were pretty much done so my goal was is I was trying just to put up as many points as I could at the off chance that that I got it for but I think at that point mathematically speaking I was pretty much done for regardless so I mean if if I wasn't in that spot I I kind of thought about just plunging and just getting out of the way and letting them do it but at the same time yeah it's yeah I was just going to play it out yeah I don't blame you for playing it out at all but I remember that just the fact that key score was higher than Jason's I knew like that you you weren't you had no chance at second whatever it was it's like okay but you're putting up points you got third you're ball drained it's like way to go Travis okay let's see what Escher does let's see what Escher does but I thought the way it was going to play out was Escher might surpass you it may not I don't know it doesn't matter but is is Esther going to catch up with Keith he's gonna have to have one heck of a ball three one heck of a ball three and um he did so I know Keith in that last round got a got an extra ball and his extra ball like was really short it just he didn't really do anything with it I think he had a really good ball one he got an extra ball didn't do anything with it his ball two was okay maybe it was real quick and then ball three was fine but he had put up such a great score then Escher walks up and just hits stuff I mean he everything he needed to do he started doing and I remember the way the the announcers were describing it is he he hit something it was a spinner or something and they're like his score is going to keep going up for a while here like it's not yeah it's not all at one point it's just like watch it that score is going up and we don't know where it's going to end like so just buckle up basically and and it just kept going and going and he's playing and he's playing and he's playing and then he drains and everybody is watching that score slowly go up up up up up up up and and there's a clip of this you got to watch it it's on Twitch but as you're seeing it 1.5 is what you're wanting to see as soon as he it was shortly over 1.5 and as soon as it crosses 1.5 or it was 1.4 something was key so as soon as we knew we saw 1.5 it was over and as soon as he hits it everybody flipped out Escher goes and hugs his dad I mean it was incredible to watch and here's Keith I mean Keith has been in this position so many times he just walks up to the game kind of gives it a you know kind of a okay and he lost by 6 000 points you know out of 1.5 million he lost by 6 000 points which is unbelievable I mean what an incredible finish incredible finish and you know I'll I know Zach many he goes on a huge thing on like I I why are modern games not being used this could be such a good selling tool you know would this have this final have been better if that game would have ended that way on Rush I don't know but to me as a pinball person I don't care it was just to see that to see The Flipper mechanics that you have the control that you guys have the nudging the this is what you're trying to do what are you trying to and then in the way it did I was I mean it was unbelievable to watch yeah you were there obviously yeah it made for fantastic pinball I mean it by far it's probably at least for sure the number two moment in pinball history I mean Johannes a couple of years ago yeah with Dracula that was insane when Johannes put up like three billion on the last ball and I think it was the very last game for if the world title so and that's a heads up thing that that was incredible and this ranks right up there with it I mean it's just yeah I I think for me personally the way that I think about this if it's a world championship I don't mind it being across different eras of games I mean to me that's what shows hey here's your world champions We we have stortnaments they're you know Expo and then even the stern pro circuit finals that's going to be on All-Star and so there are tournaments out there that are sponsored by Stern with the pro circuit that you know you're gonna see the those types of games you're gonna see the new modern games you're going to see games that are currently in production but with this I I thoroughly enjoy this type of tournament because it requires all kinds of different skill sets it it requires you to have a certain capacity of of rules knowledge of flipper skills of understanding the nudges and the nuances of different geometries from different eras I mean you got upper playfields you got you know three flipper games you got bigger flippers you know with the way that the Bally Williams play I mean even Revenge from Mars you had basically what felt like a little home pin and it had lightning flippers on it I mean that game played tough so I mean I I don't mind it at all and hopefully the people watching at home hopefully that was a little bit more entertaining to get to see a different era of game for people to play I I think that that's overall that that's good for pinball now it could be argued you know that maybe if they set it up to where you're required to have a modern a you know a mid game or something like that like I understand that but there's tournaments out there for that and I you know I got no qualms with how the how the open set up and how these games are I think it's absolutely fantastic that you see you see uh people that have been in this game for 20 plus years playing against up-and-comers on games that might be 20 years old they might be a year old I I think personally that's pretty cool just because it it makes you see a wide variety of skill sets I I liked it just and also some of these modern games they play so long that it's like to have these you know that final game be like okay this is going to happen in 15 minutes or less and it well I don't know I I loved it I loved every bit of it um I thoroughly enjoyed it and I mean I was proud proud of you Travis obviously that's awesome to see you perform the way you did to end up three obviously triple drain that's pretty great um but dude it was awesome it was really cool to see and I know the interview afterwards Keith Keith and Escher have gone at it so much over the last few years like it's fitting it's fitting that it was and and I I think what was really cool is you think you know you think your family you think your wife you know the amount of travel and stuff that you and your mom the amount of travel that you have to do to be able to compete at this level and it it takes an army or a village right I mean it's it was it was pretty cool for sure yeah yeah and I wish I would have in that moment I was trying to think of everybody I wanted to thank and then of course I ended up stumbling over my words and I just forget things because we were just we were crushed for time but yeah I mean even right now it's yeah my family they're fantastic and a lot of this I can't do and you know and I know it us doing a podcast our family is making a sacrifice yeah in order for us to be able to do something like this in order for us to be Knuckleheads that we're talking on the microphone away from each other and putting this out there for everybody to consume but yeah it's just I'm very thankful for my family allowing me the opportunity to be able to to travel to follow what I'm very passionate about I think that for me even from you know I I'll get a little bit deep here but even for me from a men's mental health perspective I I need something that I'm passionate about and I need to be able to follow it and that's really my outlet with pinball after I got done playing baseball and you know all the stresses in life and everything I can turn on a game and I'm happy and I can share that with my family and you know what you have kids and a wife yourself that play Pinball with you from time to time when I do that with my family like I'm ecstatic that's just for me that's great so yeah I'm very thankful for them and also I forgot to mention too when I was out there I'm very thankful for Oklahoma pinball Enthusiast ope so that's my original group that's back in Oklahoma with Cactus Jacks in Oklahoma City I came up through there they let me play there Carolyn big shout out to her I know she's listening let me play at their facility and just learn the games get used to get used to playing and yeah it's it really is surreal Joel I mean when I started competitive pinball I was watching this all on stream and I was thinking I want to do that that looks fun and you know I never imagined that it would come to this I always wanted to do it and I always envision myself playing against the best possible players I could so I mean it's it's definitely surreal to be up there with them and hopefully is somebody that's listening to this or watching this that is just now getting into competitive pinball or has been playing for a while and thinking about traveling thinking about doing it like do it take a chance like come check it out people are very accessible and you know I I think I I don't see myself as being the exceptionist I think that there's so many excellent players out there that are undiscovered right now that are just waiting to be found I mean there's so much information out there with rules with everything that you know I think that we're going to see the the talent level in pinball rise dramatically over the coming years and I for one I look forward to seeing it yeah no it's awesome it was awesome to watch I mean Carl did an incredible job to stream the quality of the stream the quality of the play it was awesome it was really really cool and uh yeah so right around midnight we're like okay well hi and that's what I told my brother I was like there's another tournament that's about to happen with high stakes we'll fast forward Kaylee George so the guy that you bumped out to get into finals he ended up winning it so 15 grand right there in his pocket and who gets second Keith Owen so it's like that's what blew me away was Keith participated in three tournaments and people say he's retired or semi-retired what that means is like you know you and Tom you travel a lot throughout the year and you know other friends of ours obviously Ray day and whatnot are very consistent at Carlos like boom boom boom hitting all these different tournaments all over the U.S Keith doesn't do that he doesn't do that anymore he just hits his local things or what he wants to so for Keith to be just fly out show up boom wins a tournament second in the next second the next I mean he's still got it there's no denying that yeah he's an exceptional player when you're up close and you're watching the decision making and just the thought process you're just like how's he doing this yeah they were they were all like that though I mean even in the finals Kaylee excellent player in Jermaine I for anybody that doesn't know Jermaine he is an excellent excellent player and I think I was very impressed with his uh with his overall ability and his flipper skills yeah finals Eric Stone I mean everybody it's like everybody uh the only person I didn't see was Ray Ray was the only one that that wasn't there that I'm used to seeing stream and compete at that level and uh or Dalton adult wasn't there either but I'm just thinking of people that stream or people that I'm seeing consistently you know at these tournaments so hey if you're interested at all in competitive play check out Fox if well it's Fox City's been well for sure but um I.E pinball check out his twitch Channel go back I you could start at any game I mean the the quality of play was so high that it's like just started any anywhere in in those three days of streaming and you're gonna learn stuff and see stuff that was pretty incredible so um but yeah that's that's basically all we had I know this was a shorter episode shorter episode in an hour and 15 minutes but uh indisk was incredible and and Travis you you performed exceptionally well and I knew we wanted to to try to knock a knock a podcast out here while it's still relevant um but yeah was there anything else you wanted to say about it no it was a great time it was uh very surreal during it I was enjoying it and it's been just a crazy ass 48 hours since then with all the messages and everything I just want to tell everybody out there if I haven't got a chance to yet I thoroughly appreciate I mean I know Joel and I and we can speak for Tom here we we thoroughly enjoy doing this podcast and we genuinely appreciate everybody that takes time out of their day to listen especially Joel because we all know he sucks but yeah we just play right into that they were feuding too the the amount of people that come up to me asking if we're okay it cracks me up trust me guys we we love to have fun we also we enjoy everybody that comes up talk to us if you see us out please come up introduce yourself we love talking pinball and yeah it's just it's a great time and you know if this podcast is out before then we're recording this on Wednesday so hopefully it is out Saturday this Saturday on the whatever date that is on the 21st that's when you're going to see state championships being played so on Twitch you're going to see a lot of different streams and also on the 22nd you're going to have women's state championship as well so hopefully they have different streams going on on that day as well so it'll be an excellent weekend of competitive pinball if that's your jam if it's not you know what put on Twitch leave it on anyways then you go play Pinball yourself yeah yeah no that's cool I I would I I will say when I first got into this hobby anytime competitive pinball came up in conversation it was just like meh but it the reality is once you grow that your passion of just enjoy playing these games to see people play them at such a great level is uh is I don't know I find it like motivating and I just I think it's really cool to see nah I don't know when I'm gonna start finding the time to play myself but my brother like my brother loves playing competitive magic so he's like man he's he's like I know I'm not that good at pinball but just like he's like I want to play I'm ready just join League like it's perfectly fine I tell this to everybody yeah you're watching world-class players at these tournaments but I promise you you you're not going to see world-class players at every single tournament at every single League you're going to find a lot of leagues are just like pure fun and nothing else people just having a good time getting out on a week night having a couple of beers enjoying pinball talking pinball talking about life you'll find if you get out there and you find a league it's a lot of fun and that's what I would highly recommend to anybody especially Joel like get out there I know play Pinball it's much more fun when you have other people to enjoy it with totally get it I totally get it but yeah so thank you to all the people that that send us you know Facebook messages respond to our Facebook posts all that good stuff patreon members emails all that we really appreciate the feedback we enjoy what we do um but yeah I think that's it for this episode we call it 29.5 because Tom's not here uh episode 30 uh we do have some plans for that I think we're gonna have an extra ball should be a good time hopefully hopefully that's happening next week if not the week after next week the 28th is the pinball Awards the voting has happened it's already been counted everything's figured out but the actual pinball Awards will be live on Facebook YouTube and twitch uh on the pinball Network so check that out that's the 28th I think it's at eight or nine o'clock at night I don't know eight o'clock I believe yeah it's gonna be awesome I think it'll be great I'm looking forward to it I'm gonna be there for the filming I'm really looking forward to that but normally we go to Tom normally we go to Tom I don't have my Tom sound board no I should just call them right now oh no we need this this is supposed to be an hour and we're at an hour 20. so uh believe it or not I think I can call them hang on you're gonna call it we're waiting we're gonna wait for well we can edit it right uh you're no I don't edit I don't edit stuff out of there okay never mind sorry Tom not gonna call you you're on your own well okay then so uh yeah you have you can have it Travis you can wrap it up uh good night everybody and thank you for listening