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Episode 289: Top Rope Pinball

Pinball Profile·podcast_episode·24m 52s·held·Dec 1, 2020
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.032

TL;DR

Robert Byers on Top Rope streaming, Texas dominance, and pin baseball innovation.

Summary

Jeff Teolis interviews returning guest Robert Byers, a top-ranked competitive pinball player, discussing his recent Texas State Championship win, his Top Rope Pinball streaming show featuring wrestling-themed intros, participation in Raymond Davidson pin baseball format competition, and Carl IE Pinball Jurassic Park (Pro) qualifying event. The conversation covers COVID-19 impacts on Austin venues (Buffalo Billiards closure), new pinball locations (Shooters, Cidercade), and Robert's growing game collection.

Key Claims

  • Robert Byers won the 2020 Texas State Championship, ending Colin MacAlpine four-year winning streak

    high confidence · Robert Byers stated directly in interview that winning Texas State was 'this year' and came after watching Colin MacAlpine win four years in a row

  • Jurassic Park (Pro) qualifying event has 43 total participants competing for 24 finals spots

    high confidence · Jeff Teolis states he counted 43 different people participating, with top 24 making finals

  • Buffalo Billiards in Austin, home of Bat City Open tournament, has closed due to pandemic and is being repurposed

    high confidence · Robert Byers confirmed closure and that the property on Sixth Street is being repurposed

  • Cidercade Austin location has approximately 25 pinball machines, mostly new games, no solid states or EMs

    high confidence · Robert Byers described Cidercade's pinball inventory and mentioned streaming Avengers: Infinity Quest (Premium/LE) there

  • Robert Byers has produced 55 episodes of Top Rope Pinball with 71 total wrestler intros featuring 25-30 different wrestlers

    high confidence · Robert Byers stated specific numbers from his notes: '55 episodes of Top Rope, 71 wrestler intros'

  • Raymond Davidson created 'pin baseball' format where players play nine one-ball games with target scores mapping to baseball hits

    high confidence · Robert Byers explained the format in detail with Jurassic Park as example; credits Raymond Davidson with creation

  • Jurassic Park challenge requires hitting 30 shots in under 2 minutes to achieve qualifying score of 225+ million

    medium confidence · Robert Byers performed calculations: '30 shots is what you need to make' and 'if it takes two seconds a shot, that's one minute'

  • Robert Byers has streamed Top Rope Pinball episodes primarily on Saturday/Sunday mornings 10am-12pm Central Time

    high confidence · Robert Byers stated directly: 'Saturday, Sunday mornings, usually maybe 10 to noon Central time'

Notable Quotes

  • “So you set that minimum score for the single, but then you set a doubly minimum score that if you don't get like 10 million, then you get a double play.”

    Robert Byers @ ~11:30 — Explains the strategic innovation in Raymond Davidson's pin baseball format with double play mechanic

  • “The best 24 qualifying times on Escape Nublar Challenge without the randomness make the finals. So you've got all these streamers going online trying to beat the best time. It's just brilliant.”

    Robert Byers @ ~14:45 — High praise for Carl D'Angelo's PIN Slash tournament design and its appeal to streamers

  • “I'm going to get into this multiball and try to get the $30 million. Once I get the $30 million, then I'll step back and decide where I'm going to go from there.”

    Robert Byers @ ~9:30 — Demonstrates how pin baseball format fundamentally changes competitive strategy on Jurassic Park

  • “Stone Cold, they're out of your beer. And he's like, better get a new brand then.”

    Robert Byers @ ~47:00 — Personal anecdote about meeting Stone Cold Steve Austin backstage at 1999 WWE Raw in Detroit

  • “After watching Colin MacAlpine win that four years in a row, it was nice to have somebody else new. I'm happy it was me.”

    Robert Byers @ ~58:30 — Robert acknowledges his Texas State Championship win and the competitive bar set by MacAlpine

  • “Unfortunately, the ones I've been invited to were like the two days before. Oh, by the way, a spot opened up for you and I hadn't pre-booked stuff.”

    Robert Byers @ ~61:15 — Explains challenges in qualifying for IFPA World Championship despite high rankings and invitations

  • “I'm a happy drunk, so once I get, you know, five or six shots in, it's all fun and games.”

    Robert Byers @ ~42:00 — Reference to his appearance on Final Round podcast drinking game episode

  • “You have to hit 30 shots. And so if it takes two seconds a shot, that's one minute right there.”

Entities

Robert ByerspersonJeff TeolispersonRaymond DavidsonpersonKarl DeAngelopersonColin MacAlpinepersonElizabeth DronetpersonPhil GrimaldipersonAshley Ludwig

Signals

  • ?

    content_signal: Robert Byers' Top Rope Pinball show has grown significantly during COVID-19, with 55 episodes produced featuring 71 wrestling intros across 25-30 wrestlers, establishing a unique entertainment-focused niche on Pinball Network with Saturday/Sunday morning broadcasts

    high · Robert stated '55 episodes of Top Rope and in those 55 episodes I have done a total of 71 wrestler intros' with specific costume/music elements

  • ?

    venue_signal: Austin pinball venue landscape disrupted by pandemic: Buffalo Billiards (historic Bat City Open host) permanently closed; new venues emerging (Shooters north/northwest locations, Cidercade) with pinball additions from displaced stock

    high · Buffalo Billiards closure confirmed; Shooters received five machines from Buffalo inventory; Cidercade opened with ~25 modern pins on Lady Bird Lake location

  • ?

    event_signal: PIN Slash Jurassic Park qualifying event represents innovative streaming-era tournament design: online-based qualifying with Twitch integration, neutralized difficulty across machine variants (Pro/Premium/LE), and technical 48-hour review/clip workflow; 43 participants, $1k prize

    high · Carl D'Angelo created format with best 24 qualifying times from Escape Nublar Challenge; Robert praised design as 'brilliant' and 'exciting'; streaming requirement with official Twitch linking confirmed

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Raymond Davidson's 'pin baseball' format introduces strategic depth shift: single-ball play with target-score-based hits (single/double/triple/home run) vs. traditional multi-ball stacking strategy; changes how modes/multiballs are sequenced

    high · Robert Byers detailed format mechanics: '9 players, 3 outs per inning, set target scores'; demonstrated on Jurassic Park where he altered T-Rex multiball sequencing to hit $30M single threshold

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.075

0:00
it's time for another pinball profile i'm your host jeff teels you can find everything on pinballprofile.com past episodes and more all your subscriptions you can also see us on twitter and instagram at pinball profile emails pinball profile at gmail.com i mentioned past episodes I've been putting old episodes on. So I think there's actually about 90 of the almost 300 still to go. They'll get on there. It just takes a little while, a little bit editing and maybe freshening up, adding a few intros, extras, that kind of thing. And also the search engine. But one of the ones I just recently uploaded was one from March of 2018. The first time you heard our next guest because he was coming off a big win at TPF in the, I think it was the Wizards Challenge or whatever it was. Robert Byers joins us again. Hey, Robert, how are you? I'm terrific, Jeff. How are you doing? Good, good, good. I hope everything is well there as far as coronavirus land and all that. Everyone's safe and sound? Yeah, we're safe here. We're taking precautions, mask, minimum touch points where we can, but still want to live. It's that tough balance. So, you know, still being extra cautious. That's all we can do, right? Just throw on the mask and make sure that we are washing our hands and all that kind of good stuff too, and we can still continue on. How's your toilet paper stock? What's your Lysol wipe situation like? Lysol, okay. Got lots of toilet paper. Got stocked up on that. You know, good Costco run when everything got back to normal. So I think I'll make it. Okay, good. Because you're a busy guy. You've been competing even though the IFPA isn't happening right now, and you're one of the top players in the world. But there are some competitions still going on. I know with Ray Day, Raymond Davidson, you've been kind of tackling his pin baseball. Can you explain what that is? Yeah, it's an interesting format that Raymond put together, and I was actually one of the inaugural people. He put it together, and I just happened to be set up to play, and Zach from Slam Tilt, and we fired up a game in Jurassic Park. So to quick overview, it's like playing baseball. You play innings in a game, so you set target scores on the machine, and you play. If you reach the first target score, you get a single, double, triple, or home run. If you don't reach the target score, you get an out. So you get to bat nine players, So you get to play nine one-ball games to try to score runs. That's the overview of it. Which is interesting because the way you and I as competitive players play, we don't really play that way. We play the long game, which is what you're going to get at the end, whether it's setting things up, getting things ready for maybe stacks of modes and multi-balls, as opposed to just one ball, not so much a speed run, but just put it all in one ball. You can't really play the long game that way. Yeah, it's definitely a strategy switch. So we played Jurassic Park, and usually I'll hold off to start T-Rex multiball until later in the game or if I can stack it on something with a control room mode or different things. But in this format, it was $30 million to get a single. So if you didn't get $30 million, you got it out. You got three outs, your inning's over. So my strategy had changed to I'm going to get into this multiball and try to get the $30 million. Once I get the $30 million, then I'll step back and decide where I'm going to go from there. How many outs an inning? Three? Three outs an inning, just like regular baseball. Is it a three-inning game or a nine-inning game? You can pick however many innings you want. The inaugural, we just did three innings because we started at like 9 o'clock at night. So, you know, it depends on how hard you make it. You know, I think nine innings, you know, is a long time because you could bat nine balls, nine players each inning if you don't get three outs. That's going to be a long day for better players. But the one thing, too, is when you get that home run level, you stop, right? You can't do any better than a home run. What are you, rounding the bases twice? Well, it's just like a baseball game. If you get a single, you got a guy on first. And then if you get a double, the guy on your next ball, then you got a guy on second and third. There's no extra base advances. You just move around. And then if you hit a home run next, it clears the bases. But you still got six more batters. You fire back up. Wow. So it can be some strategic moves when you come into, okay, I got a guy on second. I really want to go for a double because this is my last batter. Because if I get a single, it doesn't do me any good. So it changes strategy based on players you got on base and how many outs you got, how many batters you got left. So it's intriguing, and it makes you think and adjust your gameplay from, quote, batter to batter. You need to add things like tilt as like a double play or some kind of interesting baseball audibles. I don't know how you could do a steal. Death save? Yeah, maybe. He talked about that. is that you set that minimum score for the single, but then you set a doubly minimum score that if you don't get like 10 million, then you get a double play. So that's kind of interesting. You can check that out. Contact Raymond Davidson maybe on Facebook or check out. He's got a Discord channel too for his pin baseball. It sounds like a lot of fun. But you mentioned Jurassic Park. Now that is a game that's going to be highlighted in IE Pinball. Carl D'Angelo's Pin Clash, which is coming up in early December. Tell us about what's going on in the Pin Clash and what you've got to do there. So first off, we'll give Carl super kudos for putting this together. One, just from a tournament standpoint, a lot of work on his part. But then to set up and have an interesting qualifying because he had so much demand was also brilliant because it sets up for a quick four, five, six-minute gameplay on a stream. And what they're doing is the best 24 qualifying times on Escape Nublar Challenge without the randomness make the finals. So you've got all these streamers going online trying to beat the best time. It's just brilliant, and it's fun and exciting, and I thought I would get tired of it after a couple goes. But I'm just right now just talking about it. I'm itching to fire up Jurassic Park as soon as we're done and play some runs. And you do that online, like you said, with the streaming too, so that everyone can kind of see your progress. And it doesn matter whether you have a Pro Premium or LE he does different setups so that everyone kind of basically playing the same way Correct The Escape Nublar challenge is pretty standard across all the models so that kind of neutralizes things and he didn set too much store in set this set this I mean you can move in and out lanes if you want to, but most people have factory setups. You have to have your tilt, and you have to play online. That way, he's editing each one, so within 48 hours of your stream, you have to... I've been clipping highlights of just that game and then sending it to him, and he reviews and posts it. So on the PIN Clash website, you can see all the qualifying times and you can actually click that time and he set it up where it links you to the Twitch page so you can watch that person play that time. It's just, it's brilliant. Yeah, Carl's done amazing with his IE pinball and really during this whole COVID-19 thing, his incredible wizard mode runs and now giving back to the community with this PIN Clash, $1,000 prize for the winner and so many different entries. I know the top 24 are going to make it, but I think I counted 43 different people are going to be participating in this. So watch for that in early December. And good luck to you on that, Robert. Thanks. I know in Austin there have been some changes there. Sad to see Buffalo Billiards closed down again because of the pandemic. That place was the home of the Bat City Open. I loved what Jesse and the crew did there. So much fun in Austin on 6th Street. And it was a bummer to see that one closed down. Yeah, that was unfortunate. I knew a little bit about the potential for that, but it was just kind of hearsay here and there. And then there was a post. And I think that that property been down for a while. It's right in the middle of Sixth Street on the corner. And I don't know all the details, but I know they're repurposing it. But long story short, we lost the best place in town to play pinball and have tournaments. Of course, we didn't have the Bat City open this year with the COVID thing. So that that was a bummer. But we've had some spinoffs off of that. a couple of new locations open up. Yeah, I saw Shooters, which I had to look at their website and I was shocked. I'm like, okay, am I in Austin, Texas here? What's going on here? Because it was like a Green Bay Packers headquarter. What's up with Shooters? Shooters is a, they have two locations. I'm excited because they're on the north side of town. Most of the locations have been kind of south. So it's a good 25, 30 minute trek for me. But Shooters is on the north side. there's one on the north side one on the northwest side of austin and it's just your standard your bar lots of tvs pool tables atmosphere but one of the things that the owner there wanted to do was to bring in pinball and start exploring that so he finally got a hold of jesse and jesse's still working to route the machines that were in buffalo billiards and he brought up five machines and it's seven minutes from my house. So I'm excited to, once things settle down and it's more open to start maybe setting up a league night and maybe weekend monthly tournaments here and there. Pretty excited about that. Best of luck to shooters. There's also Cidercade, which I thought I saw, was it 150 different pinball and arcade machines? Correct. So Cidercade is not really an arcade. They're a cider maker. um they have two locations in dallas and they finally opened up one here in town and they couldn't have picked a better place so there was a joe's crab shack that was located on ladybird lake on the opposite side of downtown so this location has balconies it overlooks the walking trails overworks looks the lake overlooks downtown and i think they have about 25 pinball machines most of the new ones heck one of my streams at top rope colin and i set up uh with the owner there we were able to stream an Avengers Affinity Quest LE on site. That was pretty cool. You mentioned Top Rope Pinball. That is your stream and you can find that on the Pinball Network. It's fun and, first of all, you get to see some great play, but also a lot of entertainment too because as we know from previous streams and appearances in tournaments, Robert, you certainly love wrestling and the intros you put on Top Rope are very funny. Thanks, I appreciate that. That idea of Top Rope came because once everything started getting canceled and more people were streaming, I said to myself, I'm going to think I'm going to gear up to do some streaming. It'll be fun. Once COVID's over, I can go over to Colin McAlpine's place or Brad Holiday's place or Buffalo Billiards tournaments. We could set up streams. Unfortunately, that's not going to be possible now. But it kind of grew. I figured, ah, top rope. But after a couple of my initial streams, I came up with the idea to do wrestler intros to open the stream up. And that's been fun and kind of crazy. You've always kind of done some fun things, whether it be on streams or, gosh, I remember you doing karaoke in your videos from your drives on Facebook. And I'm like, this guy's fearless. It's a lot of fun. But that's the thing I like about you because, you know, you're just trying to have fun and make people smile and laugh, and you do that. And that's the key to Top Rope. You know, I do gameplay tutorials. I've done a couple drinking streams which have been over-the-top funny. I'm a happy drunk, so once I get, you know, five or six shots in, it's all fun and games. I remember one of the streams I was doing on Star Trek. I was pretty toasted and started a new game. And next thing I know, I had collected all six gold medals for the sweep and didn't even know it. That was pretty impressive. Well, your pinball play must be good when you're hammered because your trivia sucks. We had you on final round, and that was fun. This is going back to, I guess, episode six or seven or something like that. Middle of the pandemic, we're throwing up our hands. We're like, what the heck can we do? Everything was closed. Zoom was really popular. We're like, you know what, we're going to get a bunch of people on, and we're going to have a little drinking contest. And you did not disappoint. I will say that. Yeah, I'm a fun drunk, for sure. So I don't drink often. That's the thing, especially when tournaments. When I'm out of town, I very rarely have a drink. But when I do, I have more than one.

  • Robert Byers' current collection includes Jurassic Park (Premium), World Poker Tour, Star Trek (Pro), Iron Maiden: Legacy of the Beast The Beast (Pro), Gottlieb Genie, Argosy, and Aztec

    high confidence · Robert Byers listed machines directly when asked about his collection

  • Shooters bar locations (north and northwest Austin) has brought in five pinball machines from Buffalo Billiards stock through operator Jesse

    high confidence · Robert Byers confirmed locations and that Jesse brought machines to Shooters on north side

    • Robert Byers @ ~75:30 — Technical breakdown of Jurassic Park PIN Slash qualifying mechanics and timing requirements

    person
    Steven Bowdenperson
    Jesseperson
    Zach Sharpeperson
    Top Rope Pinballproduct
    [name withheld pending review]event
    Buffalo Billiardsvenue
    Shootersvenue
    Cidercadevenue
    Texas State Championshipevent
    Houston Arcade Expoevent
    Bat City Openevent
    IE Pinballorganization
    Jurassic Parkgame
    Escape Nublar Challengegame
    IFPA World Championshipevent
    Pinball Networkorganization
    Final Round Pinball Podcastorganization
  • ?

    competitive_signal: Robert Byers' 2020 Texas State Championship win breaks Colin MacAlpine's four-year winning streak, signaling shift in Texas competitive hierarchy and confidence boost for emerging top players in state tournament circuit

    high · Robert: 'After watching Colin MacAlpine win that four years in a row, it was nice to have somebody else new. I'm happy it was me'; described it as major confidence boost in playing

  • ?

    community_signal: Elizabeth Dronet leading women's tournament expansion at Houston Arcade Expo; Texas has strong pool of female players not yet fully exploiting out-of-state tournaments; infrastructure developing for women's circuit growth

    medium · Jeff noted 'There are a lot of good women players in Texas. They just don't venture out that much yet. But I see that changing in the future for sure'; Ashley Ludwig won Houston women's tournament; Elizabeth Dronet managing women's bracket

  • ?

    regulatory_signal: COVID-19 pandemic has severely disrupted pinball tournament circuit in 2020: IFPA events frozen, Bat City Open canceled, TPF questionable for late 2020, venue closures in Austin reducing tournament infrastructure

    high · Robert: 'I don't see TPF happening, unfortunately'; Jeff: 'border is closed' preventing international tournaments; Buffalo Billiards closure eliminated primary Bat City Open venue

  • ?

    collector_signal: Robert Byers' recent collection additions reflect mixed portfolio: premium new games (Jurassic Park Premium took 8 months to acquire from January INDISC order) plus intentional EM classic acquisition (Argosy, Aztec for spinner combos), showing engagement across eras

    high · Collection listed: Jurassic Park Premium (8 months to acquire), World Poker Tour, Star Trek Pro, Iron Maiden Pro, Gottlieb Genie, Argosy EM, Aztec EM; Robert noted EM additions as 'good combination' for spinner mechanics

  • $

    market_signal: New pinball venues (Shooters, Cidercade) adding modern pinball as secondary draw rather than core business model; Cidercade cider-maker primary business with arcade/pinball as attraction; Shooters bar exploring pinball league/tournament potential as operator-supported development

    medium · Shooters owner 'wanted to bring in pinball and start exploring'; Cidercade not 'really an arcade' but cider maker; Cidercade chose premium location (Lady Bird Lake overlook) suggesting pinball as amenity, not primary revenue

  • ?

    historical_signal: Jeff Teolis shares personal wrestling fandom backstory (1999 WWE Raw loaded area infiltration in Detroit) connecting entertainment culture to pinball content strategy; reveals entertainment/showmanship value Robert Byers brings to streaming community

    medium · Jeff detailed pre-smartphone era infiltration of WWE loaded area; connected to Robert's wrestling-themed streaming content approach and appreciation for entertainment value

  • ?

    event_signal: Houston Arcade Expo positioning as premier end-of-year pinball destination: low-key party atmosphere, strong women's bracket expansion, accessible travel logistics (two airports), growing reputation attracting out-of-state competitors

    medium · Jeff: 'It is the party show'; Elizabeth Dronet driving women's component; Phil Grimaldi praised as top tournament director; described as requiring 5-6 day vacation mindset for attendance

    • 12:07
    I try to keep up with Marty, you know, which is hard to do. Oh, good luck on that. Not going to happen. But I think we even had a secret word, and I don't even remember what the word was for your round. but it might as well have been the word the because we guys got you hammered pretty quick. Yeah that was crazy I was just looking at my notes here because I like to be prepared But yeah I done 55 episodes of Top Rope And in those 55 episodes I have done a total of 71 wrestler intros Wow. Let's see. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen. About 25 to 30 different wrestlers. And so this is not just doing their gimmick. I have their music. It opens up. I've got costumes. I've got outfits. I've been known to spray water around like Stone Cold with beers and spraying with the game. So I encourage everyone to go on the top rope. You don't have to watch the whole hour stream. Just watch the first four or five minutes of some of these, and you're going to get a good laugh. They are funny. I met Stone Cold once. Did I ever tell you that? It was backstage at a Raw event in April of 1999 in Detroit, Michigan. And, okay, can I confess this to you? what we did? Sure. We were actually there for Tiger's opener. We went, we saw the Tiger's game, and then we went to a bar. I can't remember what it was called, Il Postino or something like that, The Post. And it was really close to the Joe Louis Arena. And we saw the WW, maybe it was WWE or WWF at the time. Probably F back then, yeah. We saw these trucks and we're like, oh my God, they're doing a show there tonight. It's a Monday night. It's got to be raw. So I said to my buddy, and You've got to remember, this is 1999, all right? So flip phones, no camera phones, stuff like that. I said to my buddy, I said, okay, we're going to walk in in the loading area. This is like mid-afternoon, right? So it's like 4 o'clock maybe. Walk in, pretend you're talking on the phone. Don't look anybody in the eye and just keep walking. Like you own the place. Until somebody touches you and says, get out of there. That's it. And he's like, oh, we're going to get busted, Red. And I'm like, no, no, no, because the wrestling guys will think we're with Joe Lewis. Joe Lewis will think we're with the wrestling guys. If you just keep walking and be confident. We did. We walked in. As soon as we walked in, there's this sandwich and drink bar and a little lounge area. And we're like, oh, my God, there's Jerry Lawler. There's Gold Dust. And they're all watching TV. And we're like, okay, quick, grab a sandwich, grab a drink. Look like you're supposed to be here. And just not ooh and ah over these people. Right. We stayed there for three hours. All the stars are coming in. There's Triple H. There's China. and the rock came in and we're talking to all these people, just kind of casual, not fanboy stuff. Stone Cold was there and I saw this case of Coors Light beer and it was an empty case. And I said to him, Stone Cold, they're out of your beer. And he's like, better get a new brand then.
    14:59
    He didn't get really nice, you know, on with his day. That's awesome. Yeah. No, that's the key. Just you act like you're supposed to be there and then nobody questions you. So that's awesome. Better to ask for forgiveness than permission. What's interesting is Undertaker has like 100 acres in Bastrop, which is southeast Texas. I'm just hoping to one day run into him. Big Mark? Yeah. When I lived in Houston, I saw, who was it? It was, oh my gosh, I'm drawing the blank. The guy that used to do the break dancing. R-Truth? No, no, this is old school. I'll think of it in a minute. But there's a couple guys that live in Houston. I ran into them in a Gold's Gym. That was pretty cool. Okay, first question. What were you doing in a Gold's Gym? Nice. Nice. Delivery's one. Yeah. I'm just kidding. Again, Top Rope Pinball on the Pinball Network. Yeah. You know, you mentioned Houston. I'm bummed I'm not going there because I was there exactly a year ago for the Houston Arcade Expo, which I found out very quickly. It is the party show. If you're going there to just play in the tournament, you're going to have a bad time. You've got to go there to have fun and hang out all hours of the evening. It's just great. It's so low-key that it's a unique show, I would say that. The tournament was great. Phil Grimaldi and everyone who ran that, it was a lot of fun. I enjoyed the different banks. I know the women's tournament was spectacular. I remember, I think, Ashley Ludwig won it last year. And with Elizabeth and everyone who runs things there, It was great to see all these wonderful people from Texas and people from Louisiana kind of showing up there. Good show, lots of fun, but I don't know if it was just because it was the end of the year, the party atmosphere. I don't know why. It was a go-to event. Once I went there, I'm like, I've got to come back because that's just way too much fun. Well, what's great about Houston is, one, like you said, you've got Phil Grimaldi, top-notch guy, top-notch tournament director. Elizabeth Dronet has come on to drive the women's portion of that. And there are a lot of good women players in Texas. They just don't venture out that much yet. But I see that changing in the future for sure. So you're going to watch some names move up the list on that group. But it's just the nice thing about Houston is if you're traveling, it's easy to get in and out of. It's relatively cheap with the two airports there. And there's so much to do. It's so easy to make a five or six day little vacation out of it around the tournament. enjoy the tournament, and then go see NASA or go down to Galveston. Pick a thing to do. I've got to come back because there was just limited time for me to be there, and there was a lot more I wanted to see for sure. I never ran into Beyonce, which I was kind of hoping for, being an H-Town native and all that stuff. But you mentioned Elizabeth Droné. Boy, she was wonderful. We had contacted before I showed up in Houston because she helped me with the Pinball Profile World Tour event that we did, and she was spectacular. Her kids are great players too. So yeah, it's a good community. The only thing I didn't like about Houston, everyone was banging garbage cans. It drove me nuts. I was going to say, bring your earplugs, you know, bang, bang.
    18:09
    No, it's a good time and I look forward to coming back. So as we talk about Texas and, you know, that's obviously been postponed with COVID-19. You mentioned the Bat City Open. That didn't happen in June and now Buffalo Billiards is gone. Do you think that might show up at another venue? Is that something that is possible? I mean, it's probably too early to say. well so since I'm so close to the new location shooters I told Jesse anytime he's up there tech and machines are doing anything to give me a holler so I ran into him a few times and he determined to continue that he real passionate about it We just got to figure out the locations Side arcade is probably the front runner just due to the size. We just have to figure out how to mix it up a little bit because the machines are pretty close and they're all moderns. You know, there's no solid states or EMs. They don't want to tech that stuff. So that will be the challenge. But I wouldn't say next year because I'm not sure what's going to go on next year. I don't see TPF happening, unfortunately. Well, I booked my hotel for TPF. So, I mean, yeah, we don't know. I mean, we have to see what's happening. And a lot of the companies are advancing and they're on stage three of vaccine testing. But yeah, I mean, right now the border is closed. This is the closest I can get to you, Robert, is by Skype. Yeah. And it's not like the numbers are flat or going down. Let's be honest. We never really got out of the first wave. We didn't lock down long enough and it tailed off, but then it picked right back up. And now we're kind of in a second surge of the initial wave. I'm optimistic about being able to do things with the mask wise and not being locked down in the house, like some of the stuff they've had in Australia and other places. But I don't see any mask, then you let's touch everything that's occurring. And unfortunately, that's like pinball in a nutshell. We're all going to touch the same spots in the same places. And it's going to be hard to mitigate transfer of anything at that point. So, but we'll see. Masks help. If you've got Lysol wipes, that's great too. Purell, boy, buy stock in that for sure. But I'm hoping TPF happens because I know that's obviously big for you. Winning that still has to be one of your all-time highlights. For sure. I mean, that kind of started my run of really pushing up. I think I ended up getting up to about 60 in the world rankings and almost qualified or came close to qualifying for the big boy tournament. The IFPA World Championship? Yeah, the IFPA World Championship. I've had a couple invites. Unfortunately, the ones I've been invited to were like the two days before. Oh, by the way, a spot opened up for you and I hadn't pre-booked stuff. So there was just no way.
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    The year in Denmark, I got an invite and I can't remember the other one. But anyways, I digress. So that was a big win. But then my next biggest win was this year that started my A year off gangbusters is I was able to win the Texas State Championship. And after watching Colin McAlpine win that four years in a row, it was nice to have somebody else new. I'm happy it was me. But the competition here in Texas to pull that off, talk about a confidence boost in your playing. That was it. Yeah, there's so many great players for sure in Texas. And I know Stephen Bowden now lives there in San Antonio. I don't think he played in the Texas finals, but still, I mean, you've got good competition there. All the people in Space City as well. Great group in Dallas. And there's no shortage of good players in Texas for sure. Actually, I think this year was the year that Steve played. Did he? Yeah, because he's been down there for a couple years with Deep Root now. So I believe he played here. I mean, our grand prize was like $1,500. We were like third or fourth. So there was no reason to travel anywhere else for sure. if you qualified here in Texas. Well, I know once your game really stepped up and the big win at Texas a few years ago in 2018, and certainly with what you've done early here in 2020, and now we're kind of frozen to IFPA. But that being said, your collection has grown a lot since the last time you were on Pinball Profile. What do you got? Oh, right now, it took me eight months to get my Jurassic Park premium. I think I ordered that in January with Josh when we was at InDesk. I added a World Poker Tour. I have a Star Trek Pro. I have an Iron Maiden Pro. I still have my Gottlieb Genie. I think I had that the last time we talked. Yep, you had Lancer and Genie. Yeah, Lancer's is gone. Getaway is gone. But I did add a couple EMs. I got Argosy and I added Aztec. So I got a right spinner and a left spinner rip EM. So that's a good combination. Well, we're going to catch you on Top Rope Pinball on the Pinball Network. How often are you streaming? I usually try to stream at least once a week. Most of the time I try to avoid evening, weekday streams just because there's so many out there. And I've kind of found a little bit of a niche kind of Saturday, Sunday mornings, usually maybe 10 to noon Central time. It's a good time and there's not a lot going on during that. So I find that a good time. And I also pick up some European people that are still awake that'll come on the stream. So it's fun times. It is good. It's good to see all the different streamers, you being one of them, at it here in 2020. So we will catch you maybe, maybe in the top 24 in pin clash, too, for that Jurassic Park challenge with IE Pinball. I think my best is 237, and I only need to get to 225. But repeating that over and over is tough. I did some calculations the other day, and I posted on my Facebook group on Top Rope. You have to make 30 shots. 30 shots is what you need to make. if you don't get any the bonus shot from the Raptor pit or the target between the pop bumpers to get extra escapes. So you have to hit 30 shots. And so if it takes two seconds a shot, that's one minute right there. So you only have another minute of getting the ball in the flipper, trapping up, or if you brick a shot, getting back in control. It's impressive that Escher and Ray Day have put under two minutes time, but that's my goal. Sub two. Wow. We'll see. Well, check it out on PIN Clash. We'll check you out on Top Rope Pinball. Robert, good to talk to you again, buddy. Yeah, it was good to talk to you, Jeff. Hopefully, I'll see you again. 2024? Yeah, 2022. TPS, let's do it. Okay, buddy. This has been your Pinball Profile. You can find everything on pinballprofile.com. All past episodes, including the original one with Robert, episode 115. We're also on Instagram and Twitter at pinballprofile. And please email us, pinballprofile at gmail.com. I'm Jeff Teolas.
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    We'll be right back.