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Episode 13 - Pinburgh Part 2

Do or Die Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·57m 25s·analyzed·Aug 18, 2019
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.030

TL;DR

Raymond Davidson narrates competitive pinball tournament rounds at Pinburgh with detailed machine strategies.

Summary

Raymond Davidson recounts his experience playing in rounds 6-10 of Pinburgh, a major pinball tournament. He details his gameplay strategies, recovery from poor rounds, and interactions with notable competitive players. The episode focuses on specific machine strategies (Johnny Mnemonic, Corvette, Tron, etc.) and the mental/mechanical challenges of tournament play.

Key Claims

  • Raymond's record after round 6 was 47 and 25

    high confidence · Raymond Davidson, self-report of his tournament standing

  • On Johnny Mnemonic, locking balls and timing the third orbit shot to start both Spinner Millions and multiball simultaneously is an effective strategy

    high confidence · Raymond Davidson explaining Johnny Mnemonic strategy based on personal gameplay experience

  • On Tales from the Crypt, the Electric Chair mode is a six-ball multiball and the most valuable mode to lock in

    high confidence · Raymond Davidson describing Tales from the Crypt rules and strategy

  • Corvette has only one ball save per game, not per ball

    high confidence · Raymond Davidson explaining Corvette mechanics: 'Corvette is set up so you get one ball save per game'

  • George Gomez designed both Johnny Mnemonic and Corvette, and both feature a 'light kickback' target mechanic

    high confidence · Raymond Davidson: 'Johnny Mnemonic and Corvette were both designed by George Gomez'

  • On Tron, a full plunge can bounce backward through the spinner to count as a right orbit shot if the up post is disabled

    high confidence · Raymond Davidson describing advanced Tron plunge technique discovered during tournament play

  • Raymond finished round 10 needing only a 3 or 4 to secure Finals/A Division

    high confidence · Raymond Davidson: 'Actually, I don't even need a six. I think I just needed like a three or a four'

  • Nick Delahenty demonstrated exceptional flipper skills but lacked knowledge of optimal Tron shot sequences

    high confidence · Raymond Davidson's observation during Tron match: 'such great flipper skills, but just not quite knowing what to shoot at'

Notable Quotes

  • “A five is a whole lot better than a four or a three or a two or a one or a zero.”

    Raymond Davidson @ early in episode — Philosophy on tournament scoring—even mediocre results beat worse ones

  • “You can only focus on what you're doing right. And in my case, you know, I was doing the right things. I shot the spinner. I shot the hole. you know, I can't control what happens when the ball comes back from the pop bumpers.”

    Raymond Davidson @ Old Chicago discussion — Mental resilience lesson for tournament play—focus on controllable factors

  • “The worst that'll happen is you drain. And guess what? That's everything in pinball, right?”

    Raymond Davidson @ Cosmic Gunfight discussion — Philosophy on risk-taking in pinball—drain is the baseline outcome anyway

  • “So your points will just skyrocket the longer and longer you play a ball on a Corvette. So just keep hitting shots really and you'll just get tons of points.”

    Raymond Davidson @ Corvette strategy section — Core Corvette strategy—combo scoring escalates with playtime

  • “It was kind of funny because I don't think he knew how to play Tron, so he was watching me for clues.”

    Raymond Davidson @ Tron match discussion — Observation of how player knowledge transmission and mimicry occurs in head-to-head play

Entities

Raymond DavidsonpersonZach SharppersonAaron GrabowskipersonMark MeservepersonRichie TerrypersonNick DelahentypersonDerek PricepersonZach WoolenspersonGeorge Gomezperson

Signals

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Raymond's record nosedived to 51-33 (rank 65-70) after round 7, requiring a 9-10 point round to recover. He achieved exactly that in round 8 with a 10-point performance, demonstrating tournament resilience.

    high · Raymond's explicit statement: 'my standings plummeted after that round... my record was only 51 and 33 after seven rounds. So going into round eight, I need to shake it off. I need a 9 or a 10 to get back on course... I ended up with 10 points total'

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Raymond discovered and adapted to Tron's disabled up-post, switching from a plunge-based light cycle strategy to executing a catch and side ramp shot instead—demonstrating in-game problem solving.

    high · Raymond's detailed account: 'I just had this weird feeling like, I wonder if that up post is disabled. And sure enough it was... And so I was kind of ready for that in case that would happen'

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Raymond demonstrated deep knowledge of complex machines (Johnny Mnemonic three-in-a-row grid strategy, Corvette one-save-per-game rule, Tales from the Crypt multiball lock-in mechanics), indicating high competitive preparation.

    high · Multiple detailed rule explanations with strategic implications; e.g., 'in multiplayer, it actually keeps track of where you put each of the balls. So as long as the one spot you need isn't blocked by a physical ball, you can actually go for that three in a row'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Raymond's shot selection on Tron (pursuing Gem during Disc multiball) was observed and mimicked by opponent Nick Delahenty, affecting the match outcome—highlighting the role of information asymmetry in competitive pinball.

    high · Raymond's observation: 'I don't think he knew how to play Tron, so he was watching me for clues... when he got to disc multiball, instead of going after the disc jackpots, which would have got him really close to me, he was actually shooting Cora'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.172

0:00
Welcome to Do or Die, a podcast about competitive pinball. I'm your host, Raymond Davidson, here to help you stay up to date on the latest strategies, tournaments, and happenings in the competitive pinball world, but also sharing direct stories with me as I go forth on my pinball tournament adventures.
0:30
And we're back with part two of the Pinberg episode of Do or Die. Let's just jump right in where we left off, which was after round six. So starting after the end of round six, I had a record of 42 and 18. Oh, just kidding, 47 and 25. So my five I got last round, you know, hurt me a little bit, but I was still in pretty good shape. A five is a whole lot better than a four or a three or a two or a one or a zero. So I was ready to get back in the game, and I got to play against Aaron Grabowski, Mark Meserve, and Zach Sharp. All very, very, very good players.
1:37
And it was, well, we started off on Slick Chick, which was this old EM, you know, with two flippers and a gobble hole, where if you shot it in the gobble hole, it would end your ball. So depending on your situation, you usually wanted to avoid that. But there were times where, you know, 100 points is 100 points. But I basically just sort of observed and was like, okay, the skill shot looks pretty valuable, so try to go for that.
2:04
And I basically just sort of was playing, and I was doing pretty good. And then on ball two, the game just decided to tilt. It was like, yep, you're done. I guess I was flipping a little too hard, which, fair. I mean, I wasn't not flipping hard. I was flipping as I would on an EM, giving it some good action. But I never did any intentional big, like, bump it, bump it, bump it. It was just me flipping. And it tilted on ball two, which ended my game. So I was pretty salty about that. and got to last place without even really me having much of a say in it.
Pinburgh
event
Do or Die Pinball Podcastorganization
Johnny Mnemonicgame
Corvettegame
Trongame
Tales from the Cryptgame
Godzillagame
Banzai Rungame
Slick Chickgame
Mataharigame
Sinbadgame
Monacogame
Old Chicagogame
Cosmic Gunfightgame
High Handgame
Cactus Jacksgame
  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Raymond articulates a philosophy of accepting baseline outcomes (drain) to justify aggressive shot attempts ('The worst that'll happen is you drain. And guess what? That's everything in pinball, right?').

    high · Direct quote during Cosmic Gunfight discussion; demonstrates mental framework for risk tolerance

  • ?

    design_philosophy: George Gomez's light kickback target appears in both Johnny Mnemonic and Corvette, suggesting a recurring design signature across his work.

    high · Raymond's explicit connection: 'Johnny Mnemonic and Corvette were both designed by George Gomez. So it's kind of fun to see him put that same sort of light kickback target there'

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: On Cactus Jacks, multiball actually reduces score relative to optimal single-ball play (1/10th multiplier on fruit value), creating a counter-intuitive risk where multiball should be avoided.

    high · Raymond's analysis: 'the multiball didn't seem to do really anything... you almost can never raise the fruit value past a million, which is what you get for just shooting the ramp in single ball play. So multi-ball was actually bad'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Raymond frames uncontrollable game outcomes (drains, tilts, unfriendly feeds) as outside his control, focusing instead on optimizing his own shot selection—a mental strategy for maintaining composure.

    high · On Old Chicago: 'You can only focus on what you're doing right... I can't control what happens when the ball comes back from the pop bumpers. So luckily, you know, because I was able to make those couple of shots, I got some more points'

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: On both Godzilla and Cosmic Gunfight, Raymond identified that alley passes were more successful than post-passes due to machine sensitivity, suggesting alternative technique selection is crucial for certain machines.

    high · Raymond's analysis of both games: 'I actually did have some success doing an alley pass... I should have stuck with that alley pass instead of trying the post-pass' and 'I actually started doing shots like alley passes to get the ball from the right to the left flipper'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Raymond needed a 6-point round to secure A Division/Finals, but discovered after round 9 that only a 3-4 was needed, indicating he had overestimated the threshold.

    high · Raymond's realization: 'I just need a six. And I'm in A Division... Actually, I don't even need a six. I think I just needed like a three or a four'

    • 2:50
    So I just kind of had to sit there and watch everyone else beat me with that on my mind. And it was kind of hard, but I was like, okay, whatever. At least Bonsai Run, you know, I'm not going to tilt End's Game on Bonsai Run. So we play our Bonsai Run, and oh my goodness, this thing was set up mean. It was super, super steep, super squirrely. The kickback started off, and I think balls 1 and 2 basically found its way to the left out lane pretty darn quickly. It wasn't until ball 3 when I finally got in a groove and I was able to cliff jump my way over and over again, purposely avoiding the multiball characters, because basically if you complete the characters on the upper playfield, then you need to complete a character on the lower playfield in order to qualify the upper playfield. But if you just qualify the upper playfield and never collect anything up there, you can keep cliff jumping over and over again. And I managed to do that to get up to second place with two million. So at least I got two points in hand. And that was like a really hard two points, because I was coming into last place on that game, ball three, and I had to just grind and grind and grind. and if I just shot a couple more shots, I could have got first. But, you know, I was happy with a second.
    4:16
    It was weird. Oh, now I remember. I remember how I drained balls one and two. It was actually handling the feed from the upper play field. There was no right answer. If you dead passed, sometimes it bounced into the sling and then outlaned. If you dropped caught and did it wrong, it would just dump it into the drain. If you held the flipper up, I think it – I don't know if anybody had held the flipper up. I think it would just go under the flipper if you held the flipper up.
    4:41
    And so that was the tricky part about that game. But, you know, you just have to react to it and pick a move and stick with it. And I think I ended up sticking with the not flipping, because that was the least drainy of the three, of the different ways to handle it.
    5:02
    Anyway, going on to the next game was Matahari, where all you do is shoot the hole to try to get your bonus X.
    5:09
    And it did the classic Metahari of never going in the hole, and when it does go in the hole, it would kick it down the middle. And I couldn't get any love. It just never went in the hole. It just kept swirling around it, and I got last. It was really annoying.
    5:29
    It was one of those solid states that just is super punishing and just drains you, and you don't want to tilt because bonus is everything in that game. So maybe I should have nudged it a little harder is what I'm sort of thinking just because I didn't have much bonus that mattered. So I should have been maybe nudging it a little harder. But anyway, I got last on Metahari. So I got two points going into game four yet again, just like in the last round. But instead of World Poker Tour, it's Johnny Mnemonic. And I actually really like Johnny Mnemonic. I usually do pretty well on it whenever I play it because it's a very shot-based game, very controllable. You can do important flipper skills like drop catches, dead passes, live catches, loop passes.
    6:15
    And I managed to get to do the strategy I like to do is you lock ball one, lock ball two, and then before you lock ball three, or as you're working towards those locks, you get your two throwing spikes. So the way you get a throwing spike is by hitting the left ramp and then the right ramp or the right orbit. And what I like to do is I like to get two of those because the third one is Spinner Millions, which is huge. And I like to time it so that my third shot to the right orbit will start Spinner Millions and start Multiball. It's very similar to the strategy I did on World Poker Tour, actually. It's almost identical, where you want to set it up so that the shot that starts your high-value mode also starts a multiball, so that you're guaranteed to not screw up. Like, you get a multiball with your mode. Unfortunately, my multiball was kind of poor, and I didn't get a whole lot of spinner millions, and then I also drained right after, which was really annoying, because quick multiball is the next throwing spike award, so usually you can get that and keep getting spinner millions. but I know I got a few billion. I played a couple of Yakuza's and one of the little known things is if you get all the throwing spikes awards, you have to play Yakuza in order to reset them on your next ball. So luckily I had played Yakuza. So ball three, I go in, all my throwing spikes will reset. So it's very obvious what I need to do. I just need to get my throwing spikes, get Sprinter Millions and get a couple billion to pass Zach and try to win the game.
    8:00
    And I did not quite do that. I ended up getting 3.6 billion instead of the 4.8 or 5 point something that Zach had. So second place, 3.6 billion. Not too bad.
    8:15
    I learned that the three in a row bonus... Actually, Aaron Grabowski, I was super impressed. He played the most valuable multiball I'd ever seen on that game. Normally multiballs just kind of throw away, But he got the perfect three in a row on the grid to get, you know, the two ramps in an orbit as the jackpot. And they were all in a row. And so they were all tripled. He was getting like 200 million jackpots left, right, and center, literally. And I learned that you can actually go for that even in a multiplayer game. I didn't realize. I thought that the balls in the grid were how you got three in a row. But in multiplayer, it actually keeps track of where you put each of the balls. So as long as the one spot you need isn't blocked by a physical ball, you can actually go for that three in a row. So I learned that super valuable. Go for the three in a row because it triples all of your jackpots. And pay attention to where you put the locks because that determines which jackpots. So I got second place, and I ended up with a four for that round. I felt like it was a hard-earned four, but oh my goodness, my standings plummeted after that round. If you look at my graph, it's just a giant nosedive all the way down to rank 65 or 70.
    9:33
    And my record was only 51 and 33 after seven rounds. So going into round eight, I need to shake it off. I need a 9 or a 10 to get back on course. and I got to play with Jake, Kolojick, John Shupple and Richie Terry from the Seattle area. So me and Richie are both in the same boat. We're both like, oh crap, we need points. Like we shouldn't be down here. Like get us out. We need out. Help us. And so we got to play on a really fun bank actually. It was kind of like one of my favorite banks, starting with Monaco, which is an EM from Segasa, where you basically shoot the spinner to build your bonus, shoot the right hole to collect your bonus. And you just kind of do that, alternating back and forth over and over again. There's also a double bonus available, but you have to hit the dangerous swingy target in the center to get your double bonus. And when you collect bonus on the right, it doesn't actually give you double bonus. So you kind of have to decide, like, do I want double bonus? Do I want to collect my double bonus at single value, hoping that I build it back up again?
    10:55
    I actually just noticed that I saw someone shooting the right scoop over and over again, and I just kind of did that, because you'd shoot the scoop, it'd give you 10,000, it would kick out, and then it would sort of hit the right flipper and go to the left flipper, and you could shoot the scoop again. So I did that a bunch, got some points on the board, and then kind of got comfortable and was able to start hitting spinners, start getting bonus collects, and I managed to hang on to first barely. Richie, he must have flipped like half as much as I did, but he got the double bonus almost every ball. And so he was right on my tail, and he managed to flub his last ball, and I got to hang on to first. So I got a first on Monaco, and then I got to play Tales from the Crypt.
    11:46
    And, well, let's see. So on Tales from the Crypt, one of the things to know about it is the modes change from the spinner, and you can use the door handle to lock in the mode. and the one you always want to lock in is Electric Chair because it's a six ball multiball, it's the green one and so anytime you shoot a spinner, make sure to watch that wheel in the middle and try to hit the door handle to try to lock in Electric Chair and, you know, ball two I started multiball but got, like, no jackpots, nothing and then it sort of phantom tilted, which was weird I mean, I had done a move earlier but it seemed really tight, like, it was really sensitive So I kind of knew going into ball three, all right, you're not going to be able to really save anything, so be careful.
    12:36
    But I went into ball three, and I was like, okay, I think I already had maybe a point in the bag just from starting multiball, and someone else didn't start multiball. So in order to get first, I needed to either play another multiball or just have a really good electric chair. and I managed to do exactly that. Well, I locked in the electric chair from the door handle and I started it and I basically flailed around and got like 100 million from it. But before I could start another multiball, I drained and ended up getting 130 million for second place.
    13:16
    And so then the multiball in that game is pretty valuable. You have to spell Crypt from hitting the little tombstone target.
    13:28
    And it's easier to hit it from the upper flipper, but you can hit it from the lower flipper as well. Your start shot is in the Crypt, but to hit it in the Crypt, you have to hit from the upper flipper. You can't get it in the Crypt from the lower right flipper. But there's a nice diverter, so if you shoot the right orbit, it will divert it to your upper flipper, and then you can shoot it into the Crypt to start multiball. And then in multiball, I think ramps are jackpots. Left ramp, single jackpot. Right ramp's a double jackpot. And then there's multiple phases, just like a lot of Data East multiballs of the time. But usually if you get to those phases, you've already won.
    14:04
    So anyway, I got five points after two games. Feeling pretty good. We get to go to Sinbad which is this game with four flippers that you can scissor yourself pretty easily on and you have to hit the drop targets in order So there a 2x target there two 3x targets there three 4x targets and five 5x targets And you have to basically hit them in order and build up your bonus. But if you don't hit them in order, you won't get your bonus multiplier until you do complete the lowest one on the chain. So if you hit all the 3x targets down, you won't get 3x until you hit the 2x target down as well. And so you really have to focus on those early ones. It's actually a really good game where it really focuses on control and dead passing, drop catching, trying to hit the right things. Because if you just flail around, you won't get nearly as many points. You'll have an order of magnitude less points as someone who's picking off the right targets. So I ended up getting 170k for first just by, you know, hitting a few targets in order. I definitely left some on the table, but, you know, just hitting a couple of bonus Xs was enough compared to somebody who doesn't hit any bonus Xs. All right, so I got eight after three games going into the final game of Godzilla. Now, Godzilla, there's multiballs everywhere. pretty much, you know, there's a taxi multiball, a ramp multiball, the left orbit multiball, the captive ball multiball, and the combo helicopter multiball. But I noticed there was a ball save so during ball save I would shoot taxi and I actually managed to spell taxi. Those are the targets in the middle. But I hit the last target and drained because of it. But it was ball one so it was actually, I thought it was a fine plan. get that multi-ball lit on ball one so you don't have risky shots on later balls.
    16:13
    I noticed something funny where the left orbit always went all the way around. Normally every couple of shots it stops it in the pop bumpers but on this one you could just keep looping it over and over and over again. I could not loop it over and over and over again. I just couldn't find the shot to begin with. So I kind of gave up on that early on and just focused on getting some multiball started. So I had my taxi lit. So on ball two or ball three, I think ball two, I started taxi just to make sure, you know, always start a multiball because somebody in the group of four is probably not going to start a multiball. So if you can start one, you'll probably beat at least one person. So I didn't try to light any other multiballs. I just went straight for taxi once I had it lit. And I managed to, you know, get some points on the board. and then during that taxi multiball, I was trying to shoot ramps, trying to shoot captive balls. You can work on your other multiballs once you start one of them, and they'll sort of just start automatically, keep adding themselves in. So I ended up roping in three multiballs, and I actually had a second taxi lit on ball three, which I didn't realize you can actually, you don't have to play all five different multiballs. If you play all five different ones, you can save New York, which is worth a few hundred million. But if you just really like shooting the right ramp, you can just play right ramp multiballs all day. Or in my case, I really like the taxi targets, and so I had my second taxi multiball lit on ball three, but I was unable to post-pass and drained. The post-pass was really hard on that game, so I don't know what I would recommend, how to get the ball from the left to the right flipper because it was really tough. And I drained because the slings were super sensitive and as soon as you post-pass too high, the ball was in the slings and then it was gone.
    18:11
    I wonder, I actually did have some success doing an alley pass, which is kind of weird on a modern game, but I should have stuck with that alley pass instead of trying the post-pass. But luckily, I got $82 million because I played a multiball. So that beat two people.
    18:29
    Richie dominated. He got like 300-something million, and so he got first. He was able to start all of his multiballs and just kept going and going and going. And so I ended up with 10 points total, and that was the round I needed. I didn't need all firsts, so getting a second on Tails and a second on Godzilla was fine. I didn't need to play those for first or nothing. A second on that was just fine.
    18:58
    You know, he was trying to pick up points, but I knew I was sort of behind a little bit, so getting a 10 was really helpful. So I ended up bouncing back, and so now my record was 61 and 35.
    19:13
    And group nine, I got to play against Zach Woolens, Derek Price, and Nick Delahanty. I had never met Nick before, but he was very good. His flipper skills were pretty dang amazing.
    19:29
    And Derek and Zach, of course, very well-known San Francisco players. So I got to play the first game was Old Chicago. I actually kind of like this game, but it's all about getting your skill shot to give you that 3,000 advance. So really try to focus on the skill shot, and maybe even nudge it a little bit, or soft plunge, because a skill shot can be huge, especially on ball three and five where bonus is doubled.
    19:58
    I noticed that I nailed the spinner shot, and it gave me one bonus advance, which was super annoying, because normally the spinner gives you a bunch of bonus advances, but it only gave me one. I must have had it on the lowest switch thing, because every five switches it gives you a bonus advance, And so it must have started at one, and then I racked it up to nine. And so then the next person who get one would kind of steal that from you and get a free bonus advance. So that's kind of a fun little give and take how that works. But either way, I was able to, you know, shoot the center hole when the ball was on the left flipper and shoot the spinner when the ball was on the right flipper. That's pretty much how that game works, because the hole is just always worth points, and the spinner is how you build up the hole. So just keep alternating between the spinner and the hole.
    20:50
    And I managed to work. I feel like I was getting pretty shafted, like pretty badly. And so every ball, I felt like I was just fighting for my life, trying to scrape up points. Because as soon as I would make one beautiful spinner shot, and then the ball would not come back to the flipper. Like, it was one of those games where you do everything right and you would just drain. But luckily, because I was able to make the few spinner shots I did and the couple of center shots I did, I managed to get second with 76,000. So don't feel too discouraged if a game is, you know, hosing you left and right. You can only focus on what you're doing right. And in my case, you know, I was doing the right things. I shot the spinner. I shot the hole. you know, I can't control what happens when the ball comes back from the pop bumpers. So luckily, you know, because I was able to make those couple of shots, I got some more points and I was able to get second. So I felt like that was a hard-earned second just because it was draining me so badly.
    22:00
    But then we got to play Corvette. Now, I love Corvette. It's a game, a Williams game that's all about combos. You want to shoot the... It's basically like the motor thing on the left that feeds to the upper left flipper, and then you shoot the inner loop as a combo, or you shoot the side ramp as a combo. It's kind of like a Tron, like, you know, Cora side shot combo. And every time you do a combo, it scores more and more for the rest of the ball. So pretty soon you start getting combos worth, you know, 50, 80 million, 100 million combo. But it's funny because even though the combos or where you get the majority of your points, you actually don't really focus on them directly. You more just try to light multiball and play multiball. So you shoot the left orbit to light your locks, and then you shoot the lock three times to start multiball.
    22:53
    During multiball, the jackpot is the inner loop and the side ramp. And I think you get a bonus if you combo inner loop and then the ramp. Like if you get the inner jackpot and then the outer jackpot, you get a bonus. and then you just keep doing that. You just keep hitting those side shot jackpots over and over again and meanwhile you'll be picking up combos without even really noticing it. And so your points will just skyrocket the longer and longer you play a ball on a Corvette. So just keep hitting shots really and you'll just get tons of points. So other things about Corvette to notice is I choose to go for the regular skill shot. There's a super skill shot if you hit left, right, left, or some combination of flippers. It'll say super skill shot activated, and then you can full plunge, and it'll go to the upper left flipper. But I like the regular skill shot because it's easier, and it goes up each time, even after a ball lock. So you'll get like 10 million, 20 million, 30 million. And you also get one ball save. So Corvette is set up so you get one ball save per game. So as long as you haven't used your ball save, you get that ball save. But once you use a ball save, even if it's on ball one, note that for ball two and three and for the rest of the game, you're not going to get any more ball saved. So that's sort of a weird quirk about Corvette, how you just get one ball save per game.
    24:21
    I also noticed that modes that you start from the scoop or from the right ramp, Those modes sometimes cancel out your locks. So if you have multiball lit, you should go for it, because you might unlight it, similar to Baywatch.
    24:39
    The other thing about Corvette is the right ramp starts modes. The first one is Catch Me If You Can, which is a mode where you have to hit four different shots in order, and it's pretty difficult. But if you manage to do it, you get a multiball. The second mode is much easier. It's just like a switch frenzy. you basically start it and as long as you don't drain immediately you'll probably beat it and once you beat the second mode you get a two ball multi-ball so that those are kind of the nice little side things to do in the game just shoot the right ramp a few times and you'll get some other side modes but primarily you should be going for multi-ball and i ended up getting a like two billion uh for a first place uh all on one ball where i just played multi-ball and got I think I got probably nine jackpots on that multiball. It was awesome. The other thing about Corvette, and I took advantage of this even during my multiball, is shoot the right target. There's a target on the right that says light kickback, similar to Johnny Mnemonic, except on Johnny Mnemonic, the right target, you have to hit like three times. But on Corvette, you only ever have to hit it once. So always hit it. It's funny. Johnny Mnemonic and Corvette were both designed by George Gomez. So it's kind of fun to see him put that same sort of light kickback target there. So always be lighting your kickback. So I got five points after two games going into Cosmic Gunfight.
    26:05
    And Cosmic Gunfight, man, this thing was playing really mean. Everyone just kept draining. And, like, nobody really had anything. And then on ball three, I finally, because I couldn't figure out how to post pass, so I actually started doing shots like alley passes to get the ball from the right to the left flipper. Because what you want to do, of course, is just shoot that right orbit as many times as possible. Because the right orbit gives you an increasing amount of points and gives you some goodies up in the lanes. And yeah, you just keep hitting that right orbit. So I ended up getting to 250,000 for second place. probably the most interesting decision I made, like I said, was how do I get the ball from the right to the left flipper? Because the post pass just didn't do anything. It just wouldn't work. So alley pass. Don't be afraid to try an alley pass. The worst that'll happen is you drain. And guess what? That's everything in pinball, right? So I was happy I managed to get second on that, and so now I got to go play Tron, which is one of my all-time favorite games to play. I was sort of watching to see how it was playing, and it looked like the scoop feed was pretty friendly. You were able to just sort of hold up the flipper, and it was generally pretty safe feed to your flipper. So, you know, I short plunge for the skill shot because that's 500,000 for the skill shot plus 500,000 mystery award. So that's a quick million points.
    27:37
    You know, some people get cute and they full plunge and try to get that side ramp skill shot, But I don't know. It's hard to hit that on the fly. And I'd rather take a million points than the 300,000 points for the super skill shot.
    27:52
    But anyway, I managed to get most of my light cycles on ball one. Ball two, all I needed was one more light cycle. And so normally on Tron, what you can do is you can full plunge without using the left flipper. and it will hit the up post and the pop bumpers and then kind of bounce backwards on the spinner on the right side. And so you can actually plunge the right orbit spinner and it will give you that light cycle. Just by full plunging, it'll kind of bounce backward through the spinner and count a right orbit shot. But on this one, which I actually kind of anticipated, I just had this weird feeling like, I wonder if that up post is disabled. And sure enough it was it wasn labeled anywhere but it did it was not working so when you full plunged it went all the way around to your upper left flipper And so I was kind of ready for that in case that would happen And it did happen, and I was able to catch it on the upper left flipper and hit the side ramp to get my last light cycle that way instead of the easier way and managed to start light cycle. And then I got pretty comfy, and I was able to parlay that into coras and light cycles and discs and got to see a simulation and, you know, just did the whole Tron thing that we're all familiar with. So got $60 million or so on that game for a pretty, what I thought was a definite first. But then, as I mentioned, Nick, Nick Delahenty, he showed me his boss. He was like, no, I can get $60 million too. And so he was just going and going, and I was starting to get a little nervous because he was just grinding his way through multi-ball after multi-ball. But it was kind of funny because I don't think he knew how to play Tron, so he was watching me for clues. And during one of my disc multiballs, I actually had Follow Gem running. And so I was focused on trying to hit the gem shot during disc to try to beat Follow Gem. And so during my disc multiball, I was shooting Korra trying to hit the gem shot. And so when he got to disc multiball, instead of going after the disc jackpots, which would have got him really close to me, he was actually shooting Cora because he thought, or I'm presuming he thought that he could bring Cora into disc, but you can't. So it was kind of funny. And then also when he finally did get Cora multiball, he didn't shoot the center bank at all to add balls. So it was kind of sad a little bit to watch such great flipper skills, but just not quite knowing what to shoot at. And that was the difference between him beating me and getting second. If he would have known what to shoot at, he would have passed me, no question. So that was kind of interesting. It was also interesting that I sort of, without knowing, influenced his decisions. You know, by me going after Jem and Disc, he ended up going after Cora and Disc. Or maybe he just thought you could like Cora and Disc, I don't know. But very fun match between me and Nick. So very nice flippant, Nick. That was a great match. I ended up coming out there with 10 points. So now I'm in the basically, I just need a six. And I'm in A Division, or I'm in Finals. Actually, I don't even need a six. I think I just needed like a three or a four. So going into round 10, first game we played was high hand. Round 10, I got to play against Jason Werdrick, Robert Hooten, and Steven Bowden. So we played high hand first, and I just needed the out lane to secure a point. And so I was actually kind of aiming at the out lane. I would be shooting at slingshots, and I don't know. I was definitely hoping that it would out lane.
    31:51
    And I ended up getting that point and got third. But I noticed I could have gotten first or second if I had just cleared a couple more targets. and also shooting the pop bumper. The pop bumper's worth a thousand a hit. So if you're ever down by just a little bit on high hand, just shoot the pop bumper. It's like, boom, thousand points, boom, thousand points. And every once in a while, it'll go in the hole and collect. So I did that and got third place on high hand. Next, we played Cactus Jacks, which I had never seen before in my life, but it looked like a Gottlieb class of 1812 because I saw a ramp that had the word million on it. And so I shot that ramp over and over and over and over and over again. And I got a multiball here and there, but the multiball didn't seem to do really anything. I guess the whole thing about multiball is you're supposed to shoot shots to throw fruit, and your fruit value is determined by what you do in single ball play, you can raise the fruit value. But you almost can never raise the fruit value past a million, which is what you get for just shooting the ramp in single ball play. So multi-ball was actually bad, as Steve Bowden found out, because he got in multi-ball and trapped one on the left and shot the ramp over and over and over again and was only getting $100,000 a shot instead of a million a shot. So he had a, you know, a one-tenth multiplier applied to his score. So I, you know, I just, in single ball play, just shot the ramp over and over again. Got, I don't know, nine, eight million or something. I got ten million. It wasn't like a huge score, but relative to everyone else in the group who didn't really get too many millions, you know, I got first. So that was cool. I recommend shooting the ramp on that game. and not getting multiball. The next game we played was this El Dorado City of Gold. I had never seen it before, don't really know what to do.
    33:56
    Looks like you just hit targets and get bonus points. And at balls one and two, I kind of drained pretty quickly, but then ball three, I finally got the hang of it. It was a super floaty, weird game. So balls one and two, I just did these sort of flipper moves that, you know, like you'd hold up the flipper to try to tip it over, or you'd try to expect it to dead pass a certain way, or have certain return angles and stuff. But it was just throwing me off, just because the game was set up different than what I expected. So I had to adjust to that on ball three, and I was doing a lot more see ball, hit ball sort of thing until I finally got comfortable, like, oh, okay, I can dead pass this. Okay, I can drop catch this. So sometimes it's okay to transition, Like, start off with, like, see ball, hit ball, and then once you sort of get a feel for the physics of the game, then you can start, like, okay, I think this dead pass will work. I think this drop catch will work.
    34:54
    And I managed to rack up $500,000 on ball three for second place. If I would have hit, I guess, the last target I had, it would have given me hold bonus, which is huge. Steve Bowden showed me that, how huge a hold bonus was. So you really want to try to complete all those drop targets. And then I think the drop targets on the right give you bonus X, which is even bigger. So it's just all about bonus on that game and shooting those drop targets down. So our final game of the qualifying was Dialed In. And I love me a Dialed In, and I was pretty comfortable on it. I started Alien Invasion. I almost beat it, but didn't quite beat it. But then I started Meteor Storm right before Multiball and was able to beat Meteor Storm in Multiball. I think I got a sim card because I was in multiball. I got like 600,000, and that was enough by a long shot for first place. I think the next highest score was like 100,000 or something.
    35:52
    So dialed in really helps to get some time on it and sort of learn how that game works, because if you don't know how it works, you're going to have a bad time. That's pretty much all I have to say about dialed in. Start your modes, beat the modes, get the sim cards. Rinse, repeat. So I ended up getting a 9 for that round. I got to 80 points and finished in 8th seed. So I got myself a nice bye into the finals on Saturday. And it was, yeah, it was a nice end to qualifying because there was that rocky point where I got a 5 and then a 4. And earlier in the day I had gotten another 4. So I actually got two 4s and a 5 and managed to come back and get 80 points. So you're never out of it at Pinberg, I mean, until you're actually mathematically out of it, but you basically, because there's so many games, a few bad ones is not going to determine whether you advance or not. It's the sum of the parts. So as long as you just keep going at it and control, you know, do well in the aspects of the game that you have direct control over, the rest will just happen and hopefully will come out in the wash. You know, you'll have your good luck and your bad luck, and those will cancel out. And then what determines whether you move on or not is your playing skill, the chances that you have to influence the game outcomes. Yeah. So that was qualifying. So I guess we'll go into the final rounds now.
    37:27
    You have to pick a finals bank. And I picked the F-14 Tomcat Flash Gordon Pro Football Metallica Bank. I had never played pro football before, but I looked at the game. That game looks awesome. And I also, I love F-14 Tomcat, and I love Metallica, and Flash Gordon is, eh, okay. I don't hate it. It's pretty controllable. It's draining as hell, but at least you feel like you have some say in it most of the time. But, yeah, I chose that bank because I was most familiar with most of the games in it. and they also seem to reward controlled play the most compared to the other banks. And so the first game I played was F-14 Tomcat, and it did this weird thing where I was watching some players, they were bopping it, bumping it, doing crazy moves, not tilting or anything, and then I try to do a move and it goes straight to tilt with no warnings. And I'm like, what the heck is going on? so I call like a tech over and ask like hey can you check to make sure there's nothing funky with this tilt bob and they look and they're like it looks fine I'm like okay and so they kindly watched my whole game so that was very nice basically you know they had heard something was funny so they sat there and watched the whole game and after the game we found out that it actually does give you warnings, but it doesn't say the word danger or warning at all. It just, it dims the GI a little bit. And so they actually, they turned up the volume as to help us out so that future people would not, that you'd know if you got a tilt warning because it dims the GI and it actually makes a sound when you get a tilt warning. So I had actually gotten a couple of tilt warnings throughout my ball, which is why it looked like it went straight to tilt, but actually it was just I was out of warnings. So that's what games do, right? When you use all your warnings, it goes to tilt. So I learned a valuable lesson on F14 that pay attention because you might be picking up warnings without really realizing it.
    39:45
    And I just could never get anything going on that game. I could not hit the shot you need to hit, which is the right scoop, that spots Tomcat letters and locks balls. I kept shooting early on it. Like, I shot it like three times, and I was early every time. And I never made the shot, and I got last place. So it was not how I wanted to start off my Pinberg finals. Not at all. But, you know, everyone else was putting up good scores. So even though I got the pitiful, like, 60,000 or whatever I got, you know, at least I didn't miss any easy points. It's not like, oh, if I didn't tilt, I would have gotten a point. It was like, no, everyone else got multiball. Everyone else got, like, millions of points. I was just, I was in a different dimension on that game. So, took last place. It's like, alright, now we get to play Flash Gordon.
    40:35
    And I just sort of was focusing on my usual strategy of shooting the inline drop targets. Because it gives you bonus X, gives you some bonus, and then eventually you can get 25k extra balls from it. And my third drop target went straight down the middle. And I was like, well, that sucks. what do I do? I guess I'll keep going for that strategy because I saw someone else hit it and it didn't go straight down the middle so my next ball I was able to get through the inlines without draining so it was just a weird quirky drain and then at some point I was also shooting, the flippers were pretty strong on that game so at some point I switched to shooting those drops on the left to try to light my spinners to get some nice spinner points. And then at one point I realized, oh, I only have one target left for super bonus, which is 100,000 points. And as soon as I noticed that I had one target left, I drained. And I was like, oh no, I missed my super bonus. But I ended up taking first with like 700,000 just because I basically played the longest of anyone else. I was doing a lot of shatzing to get the ball from right to left flipper, Although I noticed if you shat too perfectly, it actually went up the in lane and out the out lane. So I was a little cautious of that.
    41:58
    What you want to do when you shat is you want to shoot as late as humanly possible because you actually want to hit the flipper. You want to shoot it from the right flipper into the left flipper so that the rubber on the flipper slows the ball down. If you shoot it directly into the in lane, it'll go too fast and drain you. But I managed to get first on Flash Gordon, and so now I'm like, I bounced back. I'm like, okay, Tomcat didn't happen. We're good. We got first. We got three points after two games. Now we get to play Metallica. And on Metallica, ball one, I just kind of, I did all the stuff like I did, well, not all the stuff, but I did a Sparky, and I think I did a crank, or maybe I didn't do a crank it up. I think I just played like a really long Sparky. but I got like 50 million on ball one and then ball two and three I drained trying to hit the scoop to start cranking up so luckily I had a good ball one and a good Sparky there was also some I noticed there was good ramp piston action so you could shoot the right ramp and then shoot the piston combo to just build up points And so I think that what I was doing after I played Sparky I was just shooting ramp to get some points And I ended up getting first on that game
    43:16
    Not sure how nobody... I mean, it was close. Everyone had like 45 million. I had like 50 million. There was like 30 million, 25 million. So I definitely was not locked in by any means, which is why I was pretty upset that I couldn't start that crank it up mode. But hey, I'll take it. Six points after three games going into pro football. And as I said, never played it before so I had no idea what a good score was. And so I got to go first because I had won Metallica and it's a single player game. And I heard that you're supposed to shoot the spinner and I noticed every time I shot the spinner the score just went way up. And so I was slowly piecing together in my head, oh, it's all about touchdowns. Touchdowns give you 6,000 points, and when you hit the spinner, it marches towards the end zone to get you the touchdown. I also noticed that the outlanes actually gave you an instant touchdown. So I actually didn't really try to save it if it ever went near an outlane. I was just kind of like perfectly fine with it going over there. And so I ended up getting about 76,000, which, like I said, I had no idea if that was a good score or not. and it turned out that it was a good score because nobody else got above 30,000. So I had moved on to the top eight, no, top 16. Moved on to the top 16 of Pinberg finals. So in the quarterfinals, I got to be with Keith Elwin,
    44:44
    Chris Stevens, and Alexander Kazmarchik. So two Pittsburghers and a GOAT. and well, you know, I was like, okay, I mean, I guess I came here to play pinball at the highest level, so let's do it. We got to play jackpot first, which I thought was awesome. I love jackpot, but I plunged a little bit too hard on ball one, and it went straight to the out lane, so didn't get any feel for the game on ball one. I reinforced to myself that, yes, you should take as long as it takes to short plunge. Don't rush. Just keep short plunging until you get the ball on a flipper, because you'd rather get a nasty look from a tournament director than the ball instantly draining you right off the bat. So that was my bad. Drained ball one without touching it. And then ball two, I tried to shoot the orange target to instantly lower the visor, but it seemed like the orange and green targets were switched or something, because it happened to Keith as well, where we nailed the orange target, and it gave us credit for the green target. So I need to go back and watch the video, but I'm pretty sure something was amiss there. But that threw me off. And so on ball three, I basically had to hit the visor manually to start multiball, and I managed to do it. I shot the eye hole, shot the eye hole, started multiball, and then got a couple of jackpots, but nothing too exciting. And so then I'm out of multiball, and I was faced with a decision of what to do next.
    46:21
    And this is where, in hindsight, I believe I made a mistake. And I started going for casino modes to try to give me some points on the board because Keith was player four. He was right behind me, and I was ahead of him by a little bit, So I wanted to just put a little more, try to get more points ahead of Keith to try to give myself that out that I could get third if Keith, you know, has a really bad ball. But what I didn't take into account is it was Keith Elwin. He wasn't going to have a bad ball. I should have been shooting for the fences. I should have tried to go for a multi-ball because starting all the casino games in the world isn't going to save you from Keith Elwin stepping up to the plate and hitting a home run. So I should have been going after the players 1, 2, and 3 instead of trying to leave space for player 4, because in this particular instance, that player was Keith Elwin.
    47:17
    So yeah, I should have went for another multi-ball. But regardless, I didn't get very many points. Keith ended up passing me on his ball 3, but he didn't pass anyone else, which was super frustrating because I was like, come on, Keith, if you're going to beat me, beat other people too, because that's how me and you move on to the finals.
    47:37
    We beat everyone else together. Let's do this. Come on. Don't do me dirty like this. So it was kind of annoying getting last place and not having Keith win. Because if you get last place on a game but Keith wins, you're like, okay, that's fine. That's kind of expected.
    47:55
    But Keith didn't win. He just beat me. He got third. So now we have to play Spanish Eyes. and this game is interesting because well, the layout is really weird but you can either shoot the loops which are harder to hit but worth 5,000 or you can hit the center scoop which is worth an increasing number of thousands based on how many lights you have. There's also a skill shot at the beginning of the ball that will turn all your pop bumpers into hundreds instead of tens so that was very important.
    48:27
    And I only got third on Spanish Eyes but I could have got second or first if I just, you know, a couple of, I had one drain that I didn't even know was possible. So watch out on Spanish eyes. The ball can go under your flipper, and there's a nice little escape hatch for the ball to go down. So that's how I drained one of my balls. If not for that, I wonder maybe I would have gotten second or first, but I ended up getting third. So I technically, you know, I kept myself alive. I had one point after two games. So now we get to play Funhouse. And, oh my goodness, this funhouse was eating people up. I think I stepped up on ball three, and I only had 1.8 million, and I had already gotten third place. And second place was only, like, 2.5 million. So I step up to ball three, and I'm just like, okay, well, make sure you get second place first. And so I was basically just shooting ramps, trying to shoot trap doors, trying to shoot anything to give me some points. And I actually, I started Frenzy, which was good because Frenzy was going to guarantee that I get second place. But then I found out once you're in Frenzy, you can't advance the clock anymore to past 1125. And so I was in Frenzy and I was like, OK, time to lock a ball. and lock would not light, and I was just like, oh no, what's going on? So I had to trap up, wait for frenzy to end. Then I was able to post pass or do whatever to shoot the lock, and I was able to lock the two balls, start the multi-ball, and able to get the two jackpots I needed plus my frenzy bonus, and that was enough to get first. It was a great ball three comeback. I needed it. I needed something, and it was fun house, which I love, just because you're never out of it. If you have a multi-ball ready, you can just rack up those jackpots and your score can skyrocket pretty quickly. It was kind of funny on Funhaus. The scoop kickout was pretty mean. And so after I had already secured second place and I was chasing the $8 million for first place, I was like, you know what? I'm going to dead pass. I'm not going to flip when the ball kicks out of that scoop because if that dead pass works, this is going to be so much easier. And if it doesn't work, eh, oh well, right? Like I drain, it's the worst thing that can happen. And I already have second place. So it's going to be a lot easier for me to get to first if I can handle that kick out. So I dead pass, and it works beautifully. It does a perfect dead pass to the left flipper. And so I'm playing the ball, playing the ball. And then right at the end, after I get that final jackpot to get first, for kicks and giggles, I dead pass again. And this time it just shoots straight down the middle. So if that was in the other order, I would not have had that awesome comeback.
    51:21
    So anyway, after a nice hard-fought first place on Funhaus, I'm still in it, and now I just need to beat Keith. Right? That's all I have to do. If I can beat Keith, I move on to the semifinals, and we're on Solar Ride. And I got to go first because I had won Funhaus, and I had never really played this game all weekend, and I didn't know how to plunge, but it looked like plunging was critical because they disabled the right in lane, which I strongly disagree with because that was the only actual skill in the game and they decided to remove that element. So now you have to plunge into the bonus X lane. And so I did a full plunge, as I usually do, to kind of get a feel as a baseline, right? And the full plunge was okay, but it didn't actually go where I wanted it to go. And so I watched Keith, and Keith did a power plunge, and it went perfectly into the bonus X. So I mimicked that on ball two. I was able to power plunge on balls two and three and was able to get the bonus X. When it actually came time to use the flippers, though, I did a couple of fumbles just because I was trying to over-control it. Like on ball one, I did a dead pass that did a perfect arch down the middle where if I would have just flipped, it would have been fine. And so ball two and three, you know, I learned, okay, power plunge and then just flail. And that's what I did. On balls two and three, I power plunged, got my bonus X, and then just C ball, hit ball, tried to get points because it was draining people like crazy, which is why, like I said, I disagree with them disabling the right in lane because if you have the right in lane, then there's actually incentive to actually try to get control and shoot that in lane. Whereas without that shot, it's just the wild, wild west. Like you're just, you know, shooting random stuff. There's not really any shots on the game. So anyway, I just C-ball, hit ball, and I managed to get like 124,000 after three balls. Keith steps up on ball three with about 76,000 or so. So he needs, you know, 20, 30, 40,000, which Alexander's full game was under 10,000 points. So I was actually, I was like, I have hope. Keith just needs to just drain, just drain Keith, and then I get to go into the semifinals, and it's going to be great, and you're not going to be in the tournament anymore, and I have a much higher chance of winning. But instead, what Keith did was he did his power plunge, and he perfectly shot the bonus X, pop bumper it up into another bonus X, and then back down into another bonus lane, and just basically beat me before the ball even went to his flippers. And, however, I will say I was extra salty because when Keith plunged, he did this big nudge, like a big nudge to try to get it into the bonus X lane. And that ended up winning him the game because he got it in the bonus X lane. But later on in the tournament, I was seeing players like Jermaine Mariot told me he did a nudge and tilted with zero points. Like the same nudge. So, Keith, you got away with something there. I don't know if I would have been nudging it like that. It was really, really sensitive. So good on you, though. You found the exact amount that you needed to and came in clutch on Solar Ride. So Keith Elwin eliminated me from Pinberg, and then Keith Elwin went on to pretty handedly win Pinberg. So you can thank me for that by, you know, letting him beat me on Solar Ride.
    54:55
    So you're welcome, Keith. and good job for getting that plunge down because that's really all that game was, was can you plunge? And yes, yes, he can.
    55:07
    Yeah, there was not really any exciting flipper moves or anything on that game. It was just so deadly and random.
    55:15
    But, you know, it goes to show that the better players sort of pick up on the things that they can control. In this case, the plunger, right? You know, Keith had a way to plunge so that he would always get a bonus X. And I saw him do that, so then I started doing that, so then I always got a bonus X.
    55:35
    And, you know, those sort of things, even if you feel helpless, there's usually something somewhere you can do differently to try to influence the game in your favor. And that's it. That was it. That was my Pinberg. I got to watch my pinberg fall apart before my eyes as Keith Owen plunged the perfect super-duper skill shot on Solar Ride and knocked me out. But that was fun. I had a great weekend. I actually didn't even play in the Intergalactic tournament because I was fulfilled. I had made top 16 in A-Finals. I didn't really need to prove anything or play any more pinball. I was good. So I went back to my room, chilled out, watched the finals on stream. It was just a real good time. So really happy for Pinberg and had a pretty up and down, pretty exciting weekend of pinball.
    56:31
    And hopefully the stories of me and some of the adventures I had will help everyone out and hopefully you found it entertaining.
    56:43
    And yeah, thanks for listening, everybody. this has been your pinball profile this has been do or die so remember next time you're at Pinberg it's pretty simple really you just gotta do and don't die alright see ya
    57:15
    We'll see you next time.