Thank you. Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of the Flipside Podcast. I'm your host, Retro Ralph. Here we're going to talk all about pinball. It's going to be fun. We're going to have a good time. I think this is episode 38. I don't even know. I think we stopped doing the episode numbers, right? Like we were over the episode numbers. I don't know. I don't know what we're doing with the episode numbers, to be honest. I think I missed one. It's all screwed up. But we'll figure it out eventually. I think I'm one off. So if you're listening on the audio side, it looks like you're one off from the video side. I messed up somewhere. So I don't know. But you didn't miss anything. You didn't miss anything. It's just my mistake because I don't know how to count, apparently. But yeah, so we're here. It's a it's a beautiful day. And we're going to talk about some interesting things about pinball. Now, I know if you saw the thumbnail, you're like, ah, tournaments I don't play. but maybe after this episode, I can either change your mind and you'll go and play in a tournament, or when I share my experience, you'll be like, no, no, tournaments are not for me. Because I'm going to be really, really, really transparent on this episode and vulnerable on this episode because, yeah, stuff's not going so well right now when it comes to Ralph and tournament play. All right, let's lower the music. and then we're going to do a quick word from our sponsor, Flip N Out Pinball, and then we'll get started. Are you looking for a new pinball machine, a used pinball machine, or to trade in your old pinball machine for something new? Look no further than Flip N Out Pinball. They can handle all your pinball needs. They ship anywhere in the United States, and they will give you the best experience in the business. Check out the link to Flip N Out Pinball in the video description for more information now back to the video thank you zach nicole greg and ken over at flipping out pinball what a team over there and honestly i just worked with them uh just recently to trade in my i know i didn't even really announce that i had it but i and and and honestly i i don't want you to take this as i don't like this game it's just that i brought in a game and i needed space to bring in another game that was on my mind. I couldn't get it off. I couldn't get it out of my mind. So I went down to electric. This is all going to make sense. I'm going to tell this little story first and then we'll get into the main topic. But I went down to the bat and they just had they had the uncanny X-Men out on the floor. They've got a pro there and it had the latest code update. And I kind of got rid of it because I felt like I felt like it was an amazing design and I didn't really love the code as much. And they, you know, it isn't perfect, but it's, it's phase one of multiple approaches and I'm really enjoying the game now. So I was like, you know, I could, I got obsessed with it and this is me, this is my personality type. I'll get obsessed with something and then I execute. Like, that's just me. I execute the plan. Like I get the idea in my head and I do it. Like if I say I'm rebottling the garage, I'm selling all my arcade games and I'm, and I'm going all in on pinball. I will do it. Like I'll just go execute. It's just how I've always been. If it's something that's important to me or it, and I want to, I want to achieve that goal. I, I, I set that goal and I go do it. So anyways, I, I left the bat that night and I was like, man, I had so much fun playing uncanny X-Men. I wish I didn't sell it now. So I took, I called up Zach. I was like, well, not called up. I DM them. That's how we usually talk. I said, Zach, man, I got to get rid of this avatar. are, could you take it in for an Uncanny X-Men premium? And we worked out a deal that I felt good about and that he felt good about. And that's the thing, Zach will work with you. You know what I mean? And obviously, you can't make miracles happen. But if you have something of decent value, he can figure out how to make it work for him because he's got to make money when he resells it. But make it work for you where you don't feel like it's a bad deal. And so far, I've worked many of these deals with Zach. And I think Zach probably thinks I'm absolutely insane sometimes, but he does get me because he understands the content creation side of it. You guys need to understand like when I, I don't, I don't probably, if you're, if you're someone that listens to this and you're a pinball collector, you probably look at me and go, oh my gosh, he's all over the place. But the thing is I'm, I'm a player and a content creator. I can't really be a collector because if I'm a collector, then my, you know, well, first of all, I'll run out of space. I can't collect everything. The one thing that is different though is yes, I cycle through games quickly because I want to get that like experience with it in my house not in a bar setting and I unfortunately can't go to like electric bat during the day when it's dead you know not dead but there's less people there during the day and then I would be able to hear the games and get a better perspective of the game I go every Tuesday night for tournament night so when it's loud in there you're not getting that like one-to-one connection with that game so sometimes I like to bring a game in for a short period of time see if it's something I mean I'm into and also I'm allowed, I'm not allowed, I'm able to better intelligently talk to you guys about it because I've actually experienced the game. That's a big thing for me. I don't, I, sure I have done things where I've talked about games I don't own, but I feel like it's much more interesting conversation if I actually play the game because then I understand the modes, the shots, the layout, like all that stuff. The audio package, I can kind of get a good perspective on everything. So anyway, so I was obsessed about it. I couldn't forget it. I couldn't, I couldn't get it out of my head so i traded my avatar but i i just want to let you guys know and i'm not trying to defend avatar i know it doesn't have the biggest fan base i found that game really fun i think they did the theme integration really well too like if you're if you're a fan of the movies you'll really like it so anyways i i wish i could keep it like i wish i could have kept it but i just don't have the room to keep everything so i just have to you know you have to let stuff go and this is going to be the the biggest issue i have moving forward because the problem i'm gonna have is that i really want spooky's next game whatever that is because you know you know uh but anyways i really want spooky's next game i don't even care what it is they've sold me so much on evil dead they really raised the bar with evil dead guys like they really really did and right now if you said what's my favorite games of 2025 it's going to be hard for me to to decide between evil dead and Harry Potter. Those are my two. Those games I love. I could keep playing them. And it's funny because ever since I got those, you know, Rudy comes over and plays with me quite a bit. You know, like probably like once every, like bi-weekly or so. He's like every two weeks he comes over. I would have him over more often, but it's just hard with my schedule and stuff. So anyways, and we haven't even touched Kong. Like we haven't even touched it. Like we have not touched it since those two games came into the collection. Haven't touched it. And those two, now I know I'm going to retract a little bit of what I said before. There are certain games that I don't want to say bolted to the ground, but they're ones I can't imagine getting rid of because they're so much fun. Those two right now are those two games. Like, I cannot imagine getting rid of those, just like Jaws would be in that category. Like, right now, if you said there's three games that you can't get rid of, like, you know, we're getting rid of your whole collection. The games I have now, what ones? Like, Jaws would come to mind immediately. Evil Dead would come to mind immediately. and Harry Potter would like those would be like really hard like you'd have to grab them from my cold dead hands right so anyway so what we're gonna do is so yeah I got the uncanny x-men so I'm gonna try to I'm gonna learn a little bit more about the new code and then maybe I'll wait for like the next code because they're doing another code release maybe I'll wait for the next one and then I'll do a live stream of it and uh and you guys will see but but they made some things real quick before we get into the main topic they did make some things easier like before I think it was two ramp shots it was like two or three ramp shots to start a mode and i keep in mind i got rid of this a little while ago so the code might have changed between then and now but i'm outside of the latest update you hit the shot on the left side of the sentinel head and that starts a mode so it's really easy to start a mode one shot one shot start a mode which is cool the modes it seems like they've gotten a little bit more intricate which i think is good because they were kind of lacking and it they were it was almost easy like i could tear through a bunch of the modes and and for me to say it's easy as like maybe a slightly above average player that's that's that's not good right because you want the game in your collection and you want to be able to you know feel like it's got longevity right um i don't want a game that's so incredibly hard that it's like impossible but i do want a game that i feel like okay as i get better or i keep playing my skills are going to improve and i'm going to progress further through it so anyway so i'm really enjoying it but i'll end up streaming it at some point maybe uh maybe soon but yeah so that's back so that's back in the lineup and i'm pretty stoked about it the one thing though damn i'm just not even starting the main topic and i'm like 10 minutes into this episode the one thing though that's interesting is there was this music i don't know if you guys remember when uncanny x-men came out people were complaining about the start button music so if you want to call it the lobby right like when you press start and you haven't really like plunged yet there was a song that i actually really liked it was i i know in a podcast i said i didn't like it but it grew on me and they used to have an option in the software where you could change that lobby song back and i don't see that so if you guys have worked on the latest code and you're listening to this tell me if that option's still there i looked in the game features and i looked in like the normal settings and i could not find it anywhere so i was kind of like oh that's a bummer i really ended up liking that song that like lobby song it's kind of quiet like it's sort of chill but it's i don't know i don't want to call it whimsical it doesn't really sound right but it like set this different tone and it wasn't like a pumped up tone, but then you got pumped up as you got into the modes. So the music like escalated as you went into the modes. And at first I didn't like that, but then I was like, oh, I actually kind of do like this because not always do I need to plunge the ball and it need to, it need to be like, oh yeah, let's go. You know, it doesn't need to be all aggressive. So anyways, what we're going to talk about today is tournament play. So I have been playing tournaments. I was going to go to IFPA and see how long, I think my IFPA profile is like four years old, I think. But I haven't consistently been playing. I'm going to look real quick because I can't remember. I haven't been consistently playing tournaments that long. My tournament plays probably maybe like, it's probably like two years now, I think. Maybe. Let me just look real quick because I really don't remember. All right. So it says I've been active for three, but I think the the earliest let's see the the the tournament that I played that's the oldest tournament on here the problem is is it's one of those like it's a they don't do tournaments there anymore so I'm trying to figure out if I can pull that up okay so the first tournament I ever played in was December 4th 2021 but I haven't been really active on in IFPA tournaments until the last like The oldest one on here. Let's see. So I'd say the, where I started really playing tournaments probably would have been August, August of 2024. I think, let's see, does that make sense? No, I don't know. Somewhere around there. It's been, it's, it's been like, it's been at least close to a couple of years of, of consistent, maybe not a couple. I don't know. Maybe it's like a year and a half. Let's call it about a year and a half. I'd say where I was like, really taking it seriously and everything. And I'm ranked in the United States or in the world, I guess I'm ranked 8,107 or something like that. That's not the, you know, that's not the greatest feeling. And in Arizona, I'm 249th, which I, I feel like my skills are better than 249th, but that's just where I'm at, you know, and this is what we're going to talk about. So what's weird is I wasn't going to do this podcast about this topic, but then I got this voice message and it was so weird because this voice message came in the same night I got home from electric bat so I got home from a tournament and this voice message came in and at least that's when I saw it so this is from Sterling at the pinball studio down in Atlanta Georgia so let's listen to what he has to say and then I'm gonna I'm gonna comment on his on his voicemail but then we're gonna dive deep into this topic of tournaments because I hope that my experience can make it so that you are encouraged to go play tournaments or at least go experience it because it's a very cool social activity you can do and if you love pinball already and you probably do because you're listening to this show i think you will enjoy it you just have to not not do it like me okay so or not be like me don't be like me all right here's the voicemail from sterling hey ralph it's sterling with the pinball studio i just wanted to uh leave you a voicemail man and let you know I really enjoy all the material you've put out so far. I also like that you touch on tournament stuff from time to time. I really like to hear the player side of things from tournaments. I'm a tournament director here in South Georgia for the Pinball Studio and one message I want to give to all your viewers out there is go out and give a tournament a try. You don't have to win your first tournament. That's not what it's about. Just go out and meet some people within the hobby and just have a good time playing some games with each other. And don't take things too seriously. So anyway keep up the great work man And I really enjoyed everything so far Later Well that was really nice That was a nice message from Sterling and honestly I wish I had really so if you're down in South Georgia, check out the Pinball Studio. I'll put a link in the description of this video or the audio version of the podcast so you can go check out the Pinball Studio. So thank you, Sterling. That was nice. And thank you for listening to the content. So here's the thing. Sterling brings up a lot of good points. just get out there go experience a tournament and and don't take it too seriously just try to have fun well that's the problem with me i'm a super competitive person by nature it's just how i've been like and i know i get it from like my uncle i remember my uncle we would play like family board games i remember there was a game and i i don't remember what game we were playing he got so mad that he lost. I mean, this isn't like as a kid, you just, you just remember these weird things, but I remember him like taking the pencil and like snapping it in half and like throwing it and being like, oh, and then he just left. So, you know, some could say that's being a sore loser, but I think when you, here's, here's where I'm going to start. I'm going to start with what makes sense for everybody. Damn, my eye, something in my eye. You probably have, if you're, you know, if you're someone that's listening to this, you probably have a pinball machine at home or a collection of pinball machines, and you play them often, and you start to get confident with your skills, right? You start to feel like, hey, I'm pretty good at this game, or I'm pretty good at these games, or maybe, like, you just, you have your friends over, and you feel like your skill levels together are starting to rise. But you have to remember, like, that's a controlled environment, right? Like, I look at my, I laugh because I was like, why am I struggling with tournament play? And then I go home and I'm like, I have Invisiglass. I'm, you know, I have Invisiglass on all my games. So you can see them crystal clear, right? It's like, it's like, there's, I can see every minute detail of my pinball machine. I have, you know, I have it pitched a certain way. Now keep in mind, my, I did, I did, when I started more aggressively doing the tournament play, or at least doing it more frequently, I raised the pitch of a lot of my games. If it was a stern, I usually kept it at six, five, because that was what, you know, that's the manufacturer recommendation. The problem is you start playing in tournament play, and usually these games are pitched slightly higher than that. And so they're usually somewhere around 7 or 7.5. And games play differently that way, right? Sometimes the lower pitch, you'll get a lot of East-West. You'll get a lot of – if they hit the slings, you'll get a lot of that sling activity. You raise it up a little bit, you get a little less of that. But the ball does roll down the play field a bit faster. So if you think about it, right, if I let's let's say I'm playing Bond, for instance, and we're gonna get back to Bond because I'm gonna mention it here, but I'm gonna get back to it too. You hold the left flipper for the super skill shot, you go and you go and plunge the ball and you guys know there's that there's that shot that's you take that left flipper. And it's like right at the top of the it's like where the Bond girls shot is so around there. And when you hit that shot, you get a good good little good little amount of points there for that. Well, I can do that pretty consistently at home, right? And you guys probably are like that too. You get comfortable with your games, but the thing is too, the other thing we got, you have to factor into this and I'm not trying to make excuses, but all these games are hand built. They're hand built games. There's no like robot building these pinball machines. So every game has slight variance. You might hear people say this copy plays different than that copy. And that's true. It's very, very true. Even between trim levels, I'll compare Uncanny X-Men Pro to Uncanny X-Men Premium. The Pro at the bat, I seem to be able to just nail that left ramp shot over and over and over. I was in a zone. I was like, right, left, right, left. And it was flowing. And I was stoked, right? And now I just got the Premium. I had the LE prior to that, before I had traded it in. I got the Premium. And I'm struggling a little bit with that left ramp shot. the one I have set up at home. So now I'm just making sure, is it leveled? Is it pitched right? Blah, blah, blah. Like, but the thing is like, I'm trying to dial it in and you know, games on location are getting really played, especially at electric bat, you know, and something I have to remind myself of is like, don't get discouraged. You're walking into a place that has a lot of really good players. And I don't know, maybe some of these regional, uh, tournaments and other locations they don't get these top tier players i would think they do but but they're really good at electric bat and a lot of those people end up always at the cutoff line they always end up in that top 20 something percent all the time right and that's just how it goes but this last week i get to turn i'm playing a tournament and i'm like you know kale says this thing don't play the you know play the game don't play the player or something like that i can't remember like it's basically trying to say like you're not don't think of the player as your competition just play the game my problem is i'm so damn competitive i can't get out of my head and this is the problem is like i went into last week and i played pretty good at first and i'm trying to think of what games i had let me just i'm going to try to do this so i don't have to edit this after the fact but i did take pictures of my games i was i meant i did it with the intention i was going to post it and i never did okay so i do have them so the first game i got was Bally's Knight Rider. It's an older game. It's a five ball game. Actually, what was funny is it was malfunctioning. And so we actually had to reset the game and then start over again. And that game, I think I ended in second. And I was like, okay, I'm pretty happy with that. Like these older games, you have to kind of, it's different, right? If you start with an older game, it's actually not that bad because it's slower paced, right? The ball's rolling slower. where it's more floaty and stuff. The problem is, one of the other things I struggle with is if I go from a stern that's a fast, modern stern to something like Bally Knight Rider, it throws me all off. And I also don't go in, and this is another thing that people should do. If you, actually, sorry, I'm gonna go back to that in a minute. I'm jumping all over the place. So anyway, so I played that Knight Rider game and second place. Then the next game I got was Batman 66. I got first place. So I was like, oh, man. So to start with second place and first place, I was feeling pretty good, right? I was even texting Jamie. I'm riding high. And Jamie and I talk a lot about tournament play because him and I struggle with a lot of the same things that I'm going to talk about here in a minute. So I'm good. I'm like second place and first place. That's good. And then every tournament place usually has a monitor on the wall or you can use the Match Play app, right? If you're not familiar, Match Play is the system that a lot of these on-location places use to, like, organize the tournament. They put the games into the system, and then it randomizes and puts people into groups, or it puts the games into arenas, and then it puts you on whatever game, right? So it's all, like, automated, right? They just click a button, and it – I mean, they do have to input everything, but for the most part, what game you're going to play next is all, like, automated by the system. So I felt pretty good about this. I was like, Knight Rider, Batman, all right, we're good. Batman 66, riding high. Texting Jamie, life is good. I'm happy because you're always happy when you're winning. That's the thing. So for me, I'm always stoked when I'm winning. But there are certain people that mentally can go into a tournament and not care. They just don't care and they're just having fun. Unfortunately, that's not me. Unfortunately, that's not me. I can't be losing and having fun, unfortunately. but we're gonna we're gonna we're gonna table that because i do think i need to get myself to a place where i'm okay with that but right now it's like i'm a fire breathing dragon when things are not going well yeah yeah and we're gonna get that in a second so all right so now we're two games in at life is good and i i go up to the leaderboard ralph is in first place i'm tied in first place i'm gonna i'm like shit i wish this was i wish this was the last game because uh that's not very often that I'm in first place, but I'm taking it for now. I'm like, yeah. And when I see that, I get excited. Next game, Hot Doggin'. For those of you that haven't played Hot Doggin', it's this wide body game and you have to like, your arms are like on the other side of the planet. Your arms are in different zip codes to play Hot Doggin'. You're like, it looks like you're hugging a refrigerator when you're with the doors open. I mean, it's like gigantic, okay? And this game is like my arch nemesis. Every time I play this damn game, and I know this isn't true, it's completely irrational, but I've lied to myself in my head that if someone is good at this game, it's sheer luck. You're lucky. You're not skilled. You're lucky. That's my, that's my, that's, I've convinced myself of that because every time I play this damn game, I plunge the ball and it like, I don't know, it just, it just like forces itself on the right out lane and it like drains. And I'm like, dude, are you serious? And the thing is this other guy's up there. He's up there. Like it's hot dog. And it's a game about skiing. You'd think he was like taking his, his little, what do you call those things? I don't know his sticks. I don't know what you even call the fricking things you ski with. He's like, he's like, yeah, he's having a great time. And like, and like then the bonus, it's like, and I could just see myself, my body temperature, one ball, one, my body temperature. I'm like, I'm like getting hot. Like my body, it's not even hot in electric bat. They got this new AC upgrades. It's beautiful in there. So I can't say like, oh, the AC is broken, but I'm like hot. I can, I can feel my armpits are sweating. I'm getting pissed. And then I had a bad ball one. So I'm like, oh, things are going to get better. It's going to get better at ball two. It's going to get better. I'm good. I'm going to get it out of your head. You're good. But then the guy, the funny thing is I was last, the guy before me was having the same experience as me, but I was so pissed. I didn't even want to, you know, the misery loves company thing. I didn't even want to talk to him because I'm like, I don't want to talk to anybody. I don't want to look at anybody. I don't want to talk to anybody right now. Cause I'm pissed. Fall two. Same goddamn thing. I think I might've like hit a couple things. Like maybe I hit the spinner once, which in that game, that's like the only thing I know what to do. I'm like, just like rip the spinners. Usually on some of these old games, you like rip the spinners. And that's, that's usually at least a basic strategy. It's not a good strategy, but it's, it's a strategy. It's it's, if you don't know the game, you're like, all right, cool. I'm just going to rip the spinners. So ball two doesn't go good. And I'm now I'm like, I'm in my head so bad and I'm so mad that I feel like I look like a lunatic. Like, I feel like, like, it's not that bad because I don't have this game at home. And it's like, I don't play hot dog. And so I'm like, all right, it's one game out of like the five we're going to play. So I'm like trying to calm myself down. But ball three happens. It's dog shit. So now I'm like hot dog shit. And it just sucks like it just sucks so now i'm like i went from i had a second and a first and now i have a freaking fourth and if you guys don't know the scoring it's seven five three one so first place is seven uh second place is five uh third place is three and last place is one so you you don't want to get last place you only get one point but again i'm trying to encourage you to go out and play tournaments so i know i know how this sounds but trust me just keep listening we're We're going to come. We're going to take it around. We're going to come full circle because right now I'm just sharing this experience. Sorry, we're off hot dog. And I go in the room. I look at the board and I'm ass. I'm ass. I'm like somewhere. I totally screwed myself. I'm not quite in the middle of the pack, but I'm close. And I'm like, cool, man. You just totally screwed up your whole night in one game. Now, keep in mind, I care too much. We're going to get back to that, too. I care too much. Clearly. All right. We're on hot dog and whatever. Now we're done. We're done with hot dog. and the way the app works, if you register with the app, it'll text you when your next game comes on. I would encourage you to do that. If you do play in tournaments, it's very convenient. Just go set up your, I think you do have to pay a small fee, but it's not that expensive, and it's worth it if you're going to play tournaments on a regular basis. So I'm on Match Play, and you can set up notifications for that tournament, so then you get texted. You get a text of what game you're on and then the order you're even on. It's actually really cool. So if you've never done that, go do that. And so like a lot of arcades or barcades or whatever will have – sorry, bar arcades. I think barcade is a trademark term. So arcade bar. Sorry, I'll say arcade bar. The company barcade, like trademarked barcade. It's weird. But okay, so the alert comes up, and it's Bram Stoker's Dracula. I might as well have been, but no, it was Bran Stokers? Stokers? Not Stokers. That's a whole different movie. That's something that is not. This is a PG podcast. I don't even know what that is. It's not PG. Maybe it's PG-13, but it's not. Yeah. Okay. So, all right. Compose yourself, Ralph. Okay. So we're playing Dracula. Now, Dracula, if you've ever played Dracula, it's got this cool thing where, like, the magnet drags the ball, like, across the play field. It's cool. so anyways, I'm thinking, all right, this isn't going to go well, but it actually did. So now I'm like, okay, I'm redeeming myself because Dracula, I came in second. So now I have a second, a first, a fourth and a second. So I'm like, dude, this night isn't that bad after all, but that fourth is just going to hang with me because the problem is so many good players at the bat. I'm never going to make the cutoff if I, if I don't, if I don't have a good last game. Right. So I'm like, I'm pretty stoked because I was like okay like I'm feeling good you know like you can have one dip down but if you if you jump right back up it kind of boosts your confidence and everything okay so this is where it all went to shit so so so so this is also there's the owners there's this thing that pinball players on tournaments the people that are really hardcore about it call it the owner curse usually if you get a game you own you feel oh man i gonna kill it so i get it and it and it uh james bond so i on there with uh i can i can forget his i always forget his first name i'm so sorry the guy from over from atomic age arcade is a super nice guy so now i'm like feeling pressure because I was like, okay, he's a decent, he's a pretty good player and I don't want to look stupid, but I'm having a decent night outside of that one game. And no one gives a shit if you're bad at hot dog. And because it's kind of like, even though hot dog and not a game, it's a game of, of, of chance. It's not a game of skill. I know I'm lying. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not being truthful there, but whatever it is. I just, I have to tell myself that because I see people go up to hot dog and it makes no sense. So anyways, so now we're up at, we're up at that. We're, we're up at Bond. Not the 60th, but the Bond. It's a Bond premium. So we get up there, and it's me, it's Atomic Age, it's one other guy, and someone else that plays tournaments pretty regularly at the bat. So I'm already feeling like, the problem is I get in my own head, and now I'm feeling the pressure like, oh man, you gotta, number one, it's a game you own, Ralph, so you have to, you're gonna do good you you play bond all the time and you just got it back in your collection you've been playing it and my games are pretty good on bond at home and i have my game at my bond at home pitched up pretty high but you know it's got the invisiglass it's it's all pristine it has you know it's not and by the way the games at the bat are very well maintained but it but but you know like i said every game's slightly different and i have a premium and they have a premium like this is gonna go great first ball it was like it hit the slings well here's my problem i was trying to get the super skill shot which i do at home consistently i should have after the first time been like hey look it's not working tonight you're not it's not working on this copy of the game don't keep doing that the thing is i did it the first ball bricked it off the like little tower with all the shots and it like came down it hit the slings it was like and then it just like left out lane drained like super fast it was like the ball shot the ball could have shot through the cabinet in my opinion it was so hard it could have shot like a bullet boom through the cabinet so so i'm like oh so i'm like i i did the thing that that like professional athletes do where you like hold put your hands on your head you're like no so i i know i said rant some some words and shit but now i'm getting pissed like i'm so pissed because this is ball one and then I do the thing. I shouldn't have done this. I do the thing that makes me seem like a complete and absolute lunatic. So it's one of these kids who plays all the time. He's like a younger kid. He's super good. And I was like, man, I own this game. Like what the hell? Like I own it. Like this is stupid. Like what's going on? But I'm talking like this. Not my normal way I talk. I'm usually just a chill guy, but I seem like a lunatic. I'm like, I own this game. I own this game. Like what's going on? Like what the hell? I'm so pissed right now. I own this game and I'm saying this so he's probably looking at me like this dude is cuckoo this guy is crazy like what is up with him he was cool like a minute ago what is up with him so i'm like i own this game like and i'm acting like that like i'm doing that in person with someone so he's probably gone home that night like dude that retro ralph guy's freaking nuts he's nuts but it gets worse so now I'm like okay compose yourself because ball two you can't you own the game dude like this is what I'm saying in my head you own the game you play it in the garage all the time and you're good at it so shut up stop saying crazy things to this random kid who now thinks your nuts and play the damn game so atomic age goes up he has a killer ball not killer but good but good you know that's the thing with tournament games sometimes in tournament play no one's having their best game but it's a good enough game and that's and we're gonna get to all the strategy stuff in a minute and i'm not saying i'm some tournament strategy expert so all right so now i'm at ball two i'm like i'm and this was the this was my fatal flaw why would i try the super skill shot again after I screwed it up because, well, I can tell you why. Because I was so confident that, oh, that was just a fluke. I do this all the time at my house, so I should be able to do it. I go up, hold the left flipper, boom, bricks off the thing. And I'm like, why? Why? Why are you doing this to me? Like, why are the pinball gods pissing me off? So, okay. it hits the sling no joke no joke it hits the ball shoots through the side of the cabinet knocks out five people i mean you would have thought the ball the ball rocket shipped to that left out lane i mean it was like there's nothing i could have done i would have had to move the game into his different zip code just to save that there's no way there's no possible human way I could have done that. I don't know how I would have saved that ball. No nudge was going to save me. It was a rocket ship, dude. This thing took off like crazy. I was like, what is going on? So now I'm two balls in and I go back and this poor kid has to hear me complain again. I'm texting Jamie, Jamie, what the hell? It's all going downhill. What do I do? I don't, I don't know what to do. Like I'm like, Jamie help. And he's trying to help, but he's the same way. if he's down in the dumps like this he doesn't know what to do he he spirals like me so now i'm just going further down the spiral i'm talking to this poor kid i'm like i own this game i own this game i'm keep i just keep saying the same thing like i'm a complete and utter lunatic and i feel bad because i think that people probably thought i was crazy so anyways let's just fast forward through the conversation we get to ball three it's total dog shit two and i'm fourth place so i ruined the night. I could have made the cutoff if I got first place. Nope. Nope. And this happens every time. I just, I get in my, this is the problem. Number one, I care too much. I need to just be able to go to tournament night and have fun, right? I'm not, I'm not Walt Wood. I'm not Ray Day. You know what I mean? I'm not Zach Sharp. Like I'm not that good, but I, but I not even close. But the thing is I want to be like, everyone wants to play to their best abilities. And I think that's the thing with me is I am really competitive and I just want to play well. And it bothers me because I'm like, why can't I translate what I do at home to the tournament play? And there's a lot of variables as to why. But number one, if you go to tournaments, they are super fun. I've met so many cool people there. Now, I don't know. They're probably going to think I'm a total weirdo because I can't control myself. But I mean, I don't like freak out and punch things and act violent or anything like that but my reactions are very like oh dude what the hell i mean i get upset the thing is normally i'm playing okay and i'll have a couple of bad games but this night particularly bothered me because i went in with a lot of confidence but if you're gonna play tournaments i don't want you to be discouraged by this i'm trying to have fun with my i'm trying to have fun with you guys so you know like number one i take it too seriously i need to pipe down because i think if i were able to come into it and just be like i'm having a fun night i probably wouldn't get discouraged and make these mistakes, right? Like I'd think more clearly. Kale says he does like breathing exercises and stuff. I don't even know if I know how to do that. Like I'm going to have to, he'll have to like show me on a podcast. Like I don't even know what that means. Like, am I like, like, I don't even know, but I'm high strung. Like that's the problem. And then when I'm high strung, I start like, I get flip happy and I do weird stuff. Like I make basic stupid mistakes. So don't like go into this. If you're going to go, go into it and just have fun. Like, don't take it so seriously and think you're going to be the grand champion, you know, when, when you walk through the doors, because more likely than not, depending on where you play in the world, there's probably players that have been playing pinball for 20 years and they're really good, right? Or they've been playing competitively for a long time. The other thing, the other factor is I don't go to electric bat outside of every Tuesday night. I try to go every Tuesday night. I don't go always, but I try to go every Tuesday night. I don't go because it's far from my house. I wish it was close. So I don't go there and play their games regularly. So the thing is, like, I don't know all the nuances of the games. A lot of the people, you start talking to them that play tournaments regularly there. They play all the time there. So they know all the nuances of, oh, excuse me, every game. And that does help, right? That does help because you know, like, oh, this game's got a – this game, the tilt bob's tight or the tilt bob's loose. You know what I mean? And so for me, sometimes I don't nudge these games as aggressively too because I don't know – I don't know how every single one is set up. And because I really only play there during tournament night, I don't get a chance to feel out all the different games. So there's that. That's a variable. But, you know, I just got to be able to relax. I just got to be able to relax. And there are nights – don't get me wrong. There are nights there. I've met so many cool people there. I've made so many friends through Electric Bat and some of the other places, Player One over in Surprise, Arizona. They're really nice people. And a lot of the people, it's funny, you start playing more tournament games, and you'll find a lot of the people go to all the tournaments. I can't do that with work and family and things like that. But I try to go once a week. It's a nice – usually it's something I look forward to on Tuesday because you're not even at hump day yet. And it's just a fun – it's a fun escape. And it's usually fun. So anyways, I was really discouraged this particular night, though. But it got a little worse. And if he watches this or listens to this, I know he'll probably laugh. So there's this guy who used to watch my YouTube videos when I was doing arcade stuff way back, like almost six years ago. He was like one of those first viewers, right? I never knew he lived in Arizona. But he commented on a Facebook post one time. He's like, hey, like we should meet up sometime. And I was like, well, I go to the bat every Tuesday. Like I never met him. I never met him. I don't even know really much about him other than he was always in the live chat and always sort of like engaging with the content. I was like, yeah, go Tuesday. So now he goes all the time. Like he goes every Tuesday. But keep in mind, he doesn't play tournaments regularly. And this is where I know I'm a psychopath and I need to be better at this. so it's the end of the night and usually at the end of the night his name's christian usually at the end of the night we all like get together maybe play a couple games before we leave like for for me and rudy rudy usually comes most of the time we live pretty far from the bat so we can't like stay there all night because usually the tournament ends it's like 9 9 30 so to stay you know to stay longer it's tough because i'm not i'm not getting home till kind of late and i'm kind of one of these people i need to like settle down when i get home i can't just go home and go to bed. I just, I'm just not that person. I need, and there's like the adrenaline of the tournaments kick in and you're like all amped up. So he comes over, I'm already sulking, I'm sulking over Bond and he's like this happy guy all the time. And I, I, I would, I would argue he's very similar to me, but he's, but when he drinks, it's like amplified. So he's 10 times more happy. So he comes over like, Hey bud, what's up dude, baby. Like he's all happy and I should be happy that he's happy, but it's making me 10 times more pissed. So, so now I'm ranting on him. I'm like, Oh my God, I was just on bond. He's like, what's wrong? He's like, you look all pissed off. I was like, what's wrong? I was like, I'll tell you what's wrong. And I'm talking like this. I'll tell you what's wrong. I was on a game that I own. And he's like, okay. I was like, and I got fourth place. He's like, you need to chill, dude. You need to chill. Like, just chill out. And I'm like, I don't know how to chill. Stop telling me to chill. Cause him telling me to chill is making me more mad. Now, this is where I was like, okay, now I'm being, I was like, do you want to play bond? I need to play it. Cause I need to get, cause to me, I can jump on my bond and usually an average game for me on bonds, a hundred million, right? Like I at least can get that every time. Most of the time, of course, everyone has bad games from time to time because pinball is a variable thing right sometimes the ball does things whatever you know it's it's it's that's what's cool it's a game that there's so much variability that even a even an amazing player can have a bad game sometimes although the really truly amazing ones have probably less bad games but anyway so we're playing and now i'm playing bond with him who's mr happy right and and and the reason i was getting upset is because like he doesn't he just started playing tournaments So, like, you know, I kind of, you know, maybe I'm a little bit of ego going on. I'm like, I should be able to whoop his ass. So I'm like, this is going to be great because I'm going to whoop this guy's ass, and then I'm going to feel better about myself. Yeah, but it doesn't happen that way. It doesn't happen that way because the pinball gods wanted to further drive me into the ground. Let's make Ralph as pissed off as we can because I was having one of those moments. It wasn't good. It's not my finest moment. So now I'm bitching and complaining to him, and I'm, like, mad at him for being happy. That's so bad. See what I mean? This is bad. I'm mad at my friend. I'm like friends with this guy now. But now he thinks I'm a lunatic because – and so after the game, I was so pissed. And I go, Christian. He's like, why are you so mad, dude? You need to chill out. I was like, Christian, you need to understand something. And I said it just like this. I go, you need to understand something. He's like, what? And I get serious. I get serious face like – I'm like serious. I'm like, Christian, you need to understand something, dude. I have three things. I have my family. That's priority one. I have my job, which is priority two, family, including kids and everything. Family, wife, kids. Number one. Number two, I have my job. It's my second top priority. I was like, number three, I have pinball. It's the only other thing I have. I was like so for me to come in here on something I play every damn day he like what do you mean I was like I go into my garage and play pinball every day I was like so when I come in here and suck ass like this especially on a game that I have, it pisses me off. I was like, does that make sense? And he's like, he's like, this guy's a fucking lunatic. I mean, sorry, I have to swear. He's like, this guy's a lunatic. I mean, I realize now I looked like a lunatic And the only other lunatic I know that could actually make sense of me is Jamie. Jamie's like, whoa. But Jamie and I, we do this. We spiral. The only difference between Jamie, Jamie's smart. Jamie goes and sulks in the corner. I sulk with everybody when this happens. And those people, see, I'm afraid that those people are going to have this impression of me that isn't very good because I can't control it. So, all right, come in full circle. I'm being serious now. Like, I mean, this was all serious. This was me. It's embarrassing. But it was also embarrassing. I got to get over this. I was embarrassed. And trust me, the players don't care. The people I'm playing with at that game are glad I had a bad game because they won the game. But, like, I get embarrassed because I'm like, they're going to think I'm a bad player. You know what I mean? So that's a weird thing. That's just a weird – that's a whole other psychological thing. But you could, like, have – we should have a pinball therapist on site to be like, guys, okay. Like people at the end of the night that are feeling like I am, they need a therapist to get you back to normal reality. But it's hard, man. You know, just like anybody that's competitive with something, you want to win. It's like any professional athlete wants to win. And I'm not comparing professional athletes to pinball players, but it's similar. If that's the thing that you're into and you feel like you're good at it or at least decent at it, you want to have a good performance. And so it just was bad. It just was bad all around. And I regret being, I'm going to do better. I'm going to try not to be that way because I think if I could just temper myself and figure out how to take it less seriously, know that I'm playing with some people that are in the top ten in Arizona. And some of them actually have won championships. So you got someone like Faye. She's amazing. And you got John Schoppel. These guys are really good at pinball. So it's like, you know, how can I think that playing competitively for two years, I'm going to be even close to them? You know, but I was having weird thoughts. I was like, maybe I'm just done with competitive. But then I was like, dude, come back to life or come back to reality. I really love going there every Tuesday. And I really, truly enjoy hanging out with everybody. I've met so many interesting people. And it's people from every like that's a cool thing about tournament play. It's everyone. It could be like the business guy, the tattoo artist, the guy, the white collar job guy, the blue collar job guy. It's everyone. It's all walks of life, all enjoying something together. And by the way, I'm not like this every night we go. It was just one of those nights where I was I hadn't played. So I lost a bunch of weeks because of work travel. And again, that's me getting in my own head. I was like, I have to play good tonight. I have to play good tonight. And it just didn't work that way. And I just need to be okay with being like, hey, you know what I mean? It happens. I didn't have a good night. And don't like let it get me that upset because I really do love – because even me when I went back and thought about it at my house, I was like once I finally calmed down, I was like I love going to tournament night. Like just stop taking it so seriously. And Rudy's told me this before too. and I should be able to be happy for the people that are doing better than me and not feel like I want to like literally Christian I wanted to tombstone pile drive you through the glass of the James Bond if I could have like you know how the rock does the rock bottom that move where you grab I wanted to rock bottom him I wanted to line up the pinball machines and in my mind I did in my mind, I rock-bottomed Christian right through the glass of multiple pinball machines. Now, luckily for Christian, in this fictitious world in my head, it's tempered glass, so he probably wouldn't get that hurt, and we just get up and move along our day, and I'd feel better for Tombstone Pilot driving him or potentially rock-bottoming him, or Stone Cold stunning him. Any one of those moves, I would have been totally fine doing to him in that moment, and that's what's crazy. I was like, why am I thinking this? Like, why do I want to hurt him? I don't want to I like him. He's a nice guy. Oh, my God. Dude, I have problems. So don't be like that. And so that's why this pinball studio voicemail Sterling over pinball studio is so relevant because he's like, just go out and have fun and don't take it so seriously and all that. And so I would encourage you to do that as well. It's good advice. And the nights that I do go there with more of a clear head and I don't go in thinking I got to be number one, I have a lot more fun. So you just got to do that. But definitely go out and play tournaments. So you will have such a fun time. So you can go to the IFPA website. I'll put it in the link below. And that's how I find all tournaments in my area. So you go to IFPA, and then there's a calendar on there. So if you go to tournaments, it's like on the top next to about to the right. It says tournaments, and you can go to the IFPA calendar, and then you can put in your location. And if you don't live in a pinball desert, you'll probably find that there's a lot of tournaments around, right? Especially if you live somewhere near some kind of like metropolitan area, there's a lot of tournaments in most major cities, right? Even small places, small towns have people running IFPA tournaments, which are great. I'd encourage you to go create an IFPA profile beforehand if you want to track everything. If you don't care, then don't do that. But I like being able to see it. And if I'm using it for good, I can see that it's a way for me to, in a healthy way, motivate myself to get better. Now, the problem is, you know, I play with a lot of great players out here. So usually I'm middle of the pack. I'm like, the Electric Bat has 100 people plus that play every tournament, every one of their monthly – yeah, it's multiple weeks, right? Their normal Tuesday night tournament, there's a lot of good players, usually about 100 plus, which is amazing. They have such an amazing turnout. That's not common everywhere. Usually you'd end up in the 20 to 40 range, so the fact they have that many is totally amazing. And I usually end up in the middle of the pack. So I end up like 50 out of 100 at the end of that tournament. Some of them I've missed too many weeks, so I end up like all the way at the bottom, like hundredth or something, you know, because I missed too much. Or I went to one and then I missed the other five. And that happens, whatever. The only thing that sucks is it sucks having to log in and see that because, you know, I know I didn't play the whole time, so whatever. But again, this is the stuff. I need to not take it seriously. I should not even look at that. I shouldn't look at my ranking. I shouldn't look at anything. I should just go and have fun and play because I'm not going to be a professional pinball player. You know what I mean? But I do want us to continue to get better. And I know there are skills that I could improve upon that would make pinball more enjoyable for me in a tournament setting. At home, I think, you know, it's just much more casual at home. But there is definitely a fun aspect to playing with other people and being able to interact with them. Because I don't know about you guys, but my job, I do work from home, but I do travel. But my physical face-to-face interaction with people is lesser these days. So this is a nice, you know, outside of like, of course, my family, but it's nice to interact with other people, especially people that enjoy pinball, because you start talking to them about the latest games and stuff like that. And you also get like a different perspective. If you listen to a lot of pinball content, you know, whether or you go to like Pinside, sometimes it's sometimes the the people that complain are louder than the people that are kind of talking rationally about something. And it kind of it jades your perspectives. But then you go go play. You go play on location with people that play pinball and enjoy pinball and not just complain about it. That gives to me a better player perspective of how people feel about a game. right? Because it's crazy how much foot traffic the electric bat has. And so like, I might like, let's say they do a code update on a game and I haven't played it yet. There's this guy, Ty, that plays there. I'm like, oh, Ty, did you play blah, blah, blah. He's like, yeah. And he knows like the rule sets a lot better than I do. So like, it's fun to get his perspective on a game because he, I don't think he owns pinball machines at all. He just goes and plays at the bat. He's there all the time. And it's, it's fun to get their perspective versus someone like online, and be like, this game sucks, with no data as to why they say it sucks. It's just a terrible game. It's a terrible layout, blah, blah, blah. But then you talk to someone that's been playing it, and they give you a lot of the little things they don't like. But it's very rarely with modern machines do I hear someone say, when I play on location of the bat, that they hate a game. It's pretty rare. I mean, like the games that the one that comes to mind that people didn't like that the bat had for a short period of time would have been Galactic Tank Force. And the reason why they didn't like it is because it was always broken. Like they were always having to fix it. So like you think about it, right? You run a bar. Someone's paying a dollar for entertainment to play that. Or sorry, I just want to be clear. Electric Bat doesn't own the bar. They run the arcade. The bar is Yucca Taproom. But yeah, you run this arcade. You know, Rachel and Kale run this arcade. And the first experience means a lot. So they don't have a lot of tolerance when a game doesn't hold up on location. They will get rid of it. They'll fix it. They're very, very good at fixing games. But think about it. As an operator, if you're having to spend all your time, if you've got a lineup of – let's say you've got – I'm just going to make this up. You've got an Evil Dead, and you have a James Bond, and you have whatever, a Toy Story 4 and whatever. And if the Toy Story 4 and the Galactic Tank Force are not working and they're spending hours trying to fix them all the time, it makes sense. You're trying to make money, number one, and you're trying to please the people coming in so they have a good experience. It's the same with arcade games. When I was deep in the arcade hobby, people need to pull broken arcade games off the floor. Because if I walk through an arcade and it's got a bunch of those sad face, this game's out of order, you start to go like, especially if it's like, let's say there's like five games I really want to play and all of them are out of order, you probably leave. You probably don't spend that much time and you kind of get this impression in your head that they don't take care of their games. So what Cale and Rachel do is they just pull that thing off the floor. If a game is not working and they need to really deep dive fix the thing, they pull it off, they put something else in its place. And that's smart because it's very rare. I don't think I've ever walked an electric bat and seen a game down on the floor. They don't do it. They pull it out. And I think that's genius because I've always had good experiences there. And most of the other places do the same. Like most of the good properly run arcades or arcade bars do the same thing. They pull the game off because they don't want someone to go there and have a bad experience. So anyways, to sum it all up. Oh, man. And I really can't wait to have the next roundtable because Jamie and I together are quite lunatics when it comes to how we look at competitive pinball. And hopefully you guys, you know I'm sharing this with you because I trust everybody that listens to this and you're all adults. And you know I'm having fun. I'm also being really honest about my reaction. I know it was very irrational. and I hope if some of those people that played with me that night listen to this, they know I'm not really proud of that, the way I acted last week. I mean, I've seen people like physically, not very often, but I've seen people like physically nudge a game like into the wall. That's not cool because now you're destroying, you're like literally damaging someone else's property, right? Like that's not cool. I never slam the game or like punch the side of the game or whatever it's more just like me vocalizing that i'm upset and i need to i just need to do better and and and and i think i would enjoy tournament play more if i just took it down a notch and didn't take it maybe as seriously so anyways i hope you guys enjoyed uh shoot i pressed the wrong button i hope you guys enjoyed the podcast today i i'm having so much fun talking to you guys about this i could talk for hours we're probably gonna bring it up on um on the round table a little bit. We don't like the round table to go too long. And I don't like this podcast to go too long. I think an hour is kind of the sweet spot because I notice myself with other content I consume and hours be like really my sweet spot. So we try to keep it to an hour. We always go over it because it's like we have the gift of gab, me and those two. So anyways, guys, thanks so much for joining. Thanks so much for supporting the podcast. I really appreciate, I really appreciate you guys. It's been really fun. It's been such a fun, like it's been a fun like this podcast is probably over probably close to a year old now it's got to be i don't remember when i started it but it's got to be about a year old and uh seeing seeing the people could you know seeing you guys consume it comment it's just awesome it's just cool because this is something i'm super passionate about look i wouldn't have gone and sold my arcade collection to move into pinball if i wasn't passionate about it because i i loved a lot of those games but i let them go because I was really, I just felt bad that I had this collection of games I wasn't playing as much as, you know, maybe someone else would and my pinball machines I play every day. So it's just awesome. It's just, it's a great hobby. Still love arcade games, but I don't need to own them in my home. So anyways, that's it. That's it. That's it for now, guys. Comment, like, subscribe, do all that. And we will see you on the flip side. Thanks guys. Thank you.