Easy as pie. The circumference of a circle is about three times its diameter, and pie represents that number. Easy as 3.14159265. It's time for another Pinball Profile. I'm your host, Jeff Teels. You can find everything on pinballprofile.com, past episodes, subscriptions, and more. We're on Facebook. We're also on Twitter and Instagram, at pinballprofile. You can email us, pinballprofile at gmail.com. Episode 314. Math nerds like myself certainly know that number as pi. And, okay, so who am I going to get on for episode 314? Hmm, there's a lot of good math experts in pinball. Sorry, Steven Bowden. Sorry, Bo and Karens. Bob Matthews is up for this episode. Hey, Bob, how are you? Great, Jeff. How are you doing? I'm wonderful, thanks, and it's been a long time since we've seen each other. In fact, the last big tournament I was at was at Indisc in 2020, and one of my favorite pictures is of you with, I don't even know how many lanyards you were wearing. You look like Mr. T with lanyards. Yeah, I was kind of going around as Badge Man that day. I think I had 66. I put the photo up on Instagram, Twitter, and pinballprofile.com, Facebook. It's very funny, and it's only half of what you can see because you had them double-sided. Right. But, yeah, not every show has a lanyard. You had other things where they just didn't have any things like that at all. No membership passes, just little wristbands. But for the ones that had them, I kept them. And I decided, well, it would be fun to wear all of them at once for kicks just sometime. And since I wasn't playing that day at Indus, I was busy tournament directing. It's like, well, having all this extra weight on me that's kind of obstructing my arms a bit isn't going to screw up my playing if I'm not playing. So it would be a great day to wear it. I like those keepsakes like lanyards. I'm a nerd, too. I keep that kind of stuff as well because it's a nice memory of when you were there. And, yeah, it collects dust for the most part, but they're all together. And I do that also for my media things, too, when I go to baseball games. In my son's room, there's just a whole bunch of, like, first game ever at the new Tiger Stadium, last game at Tiger Stadium, World Series things. I love keeping stuff like that. Concert tickets. I guess I'm a hoarder is what I'm trying to say, Bob. I've got stuff like that for most of the science fiction conventions I went to back in the 1980s and 1990s. I may have more of those than I have pinball lanyards. Well, let's talk some pinball because we did mention that the last time I saw you was at InDisc in Banning at the Museum of Pinball. And certainly that has been in the news over the last few months. I'm personally sad to see that go. But I understand as a private collector, you have to do what's best for you. But that was some collection. And a lot of questions are certainly what's going to happen in January of 2022. So your thoughts on the Museum of Pinball and your relationship? We've had a great relationship with John for the last five years. When we heard that he was planning to buy that place in Palm Springs and move the museum there, it was like joy through the roof. It's like, hallelujah, this is going to be awesome. World's largest arcade, open more than just a couple days a year. Basically, the capacity to expand InDisc even beyond what it already was, which was basically the biggest thing in the country since Papa and Pinbird closed up shop. Everybody was psyched for what potential there was to do there. I started thinking about expanding the Thursday target match play for classics. We limited that to, I think, 100 or 120 people last time out. We had the potential to increase how many people we could have for that. Maybe add a couple of little side events here and there. So everybody was really psyched. And then things fell through, and stuff happens like that at times. You know, business and property owning is not the simplest thing in the world. I'm not going to second guess John and play Monday morning quarterback. And as far as woulda, coulda, shoulda, you know, he's got to do what's right for him. We're just very grateful that we actually got to use the museum there for five years that, you know, were really awesome. I'm glad you said that, that we were grateful because we were, whether it was that, whether it was Papa, Pinberg, all these wonderful collections. We just have to be glad for the time that we had there and thankful that they put this out to the public. I mean, there's a lot of money in these collections, and we had some great experiences. And maybe there'll be more down the road, but with the case of John Weeks and the Museum of Pinball in Banning, that was spectacular. And you mentioned expanding things. My goodness, last time you expanded the Thursday night, the Match Play Classics. That was just something to be seen, but it just kept growing and growing and growing. So maybe it takes a step back, but who knows? You know, the greatest thing about the museum was really not just the fact that they had so many games, but that they had such a broad variety of games. It wasn't just a matter of, you know, they had a bunch of one of the kinds. It wasn't just, you know, like Pacific Museum that has, you know, like lots of EMs and such. You know, they had a very high percentage of, you know, all the titles produced for each different vintage of game. You know, EMs, solid states, you know, the moderns and such. and then for a lot of them they had both the Solid State and the EM version like Cleopatra and Sinbad they had both there. Then you had a whole bunch of one of a kind games and it would be interesting to see what happens to those come auction time. I went out there on several of their tech days. They had a tech day once a month where a bunch of people and all volunteers. Kudos to any volunteers that are listening or anybody who knows them. Give them a high five pat on the back whatever because they're what kept the thing going because they basically fixed the games. We on the Indus crew, yeah, we can do a lot, but there's no way we could handle the rest of the building. And so we really appreciate all the volunteers that would go out there on tech days. And I would go out there on some of them, basically kind of combination research for what games we might want to use for Indus in the future, either for classics or target match play. And then I would also go out there and basically do some follow-up research for my classics guide. Yeah, your classics guide is something special. For those that don't know, where can they access your classics, your EM guide, if you will? It's out there as a Google Doc. Basically, if you search for classics pinball guide and my name, Bob Matthews, spelled the regular way, you should be able to find it. If not, there's links to it on Pinside and Tilt Forum. and I think I sent a link to Steven at Fun With Bonus, but there's places you can find it if you need to. You have a great sense of history, Bob, when it comes to pinball, and that's a nice way of saying you've been around for a while, like myself, but you've certainly played in all kinds of different events, and you've seen different formats, and been able to put together this guide of all these EMs. I wonder for someone like you, who's seen the evolution of pinball, go from EMs to solid states to the DMDs, the LCDs, and where we are today. When you think of the events themselves, you certainly have seen better scoring, like your good friend Carl D'Python Anghelo and IE Pinball and the NeverDrains.com software with MatchPlay has done as well with Andreas Peterson. But the formats have certainly changed, and I kind of want to get your sense of, are we utilizing the best formats for points or for fun, or is there a combination of both? It's a combination of both. It also ties in a little bit to individual events because, you know, some events keep the same format and some events change format over time. At InDisc, we originally were using, you know, the Herb style qualifying where, you know, you play a game however many times it takes to, you know, try and get the score you want. The pump and dump. But we changed the pop-up tickets a couple years ago. And, you know, there was some discussion as to whether or not we should do that. And there's also discussion as to which one is harder. Frankly, I think most people agree that the pop-a-ticket style where you have to play, you know, like four or five, however many games, you know, on a ticket and do well for that block of games is harder than, you know, unlimited qualifying where, you know, you can kind of just keep banging at one machine that's giving you trouble until you break through on it. I agree. Besides the fact that formats have changed, events themselves, you know, some keep the same format forever and some change formats. Sometimes you do that because you want to kind of change the degree of difficulty or you have a different player base coming in that would prefer something else. Sometimes you do it for time considerations. Each format has kind of pluses and minuses with all those different things. Sometimes your format is also constrained by your location and how many games you have available and how much time you have available. For instance, when we started InDisc, we were basically at a bar with a limited amount of space and a limited amount of games. So, you know, we couldn't have anything like Pinberg or, you know, like we did later on at the museum. And, you know, and then kind of, you know, organically grew our way to what we are now. But the first events back in like the 70s, basically the formats back then, it was kind of high score qualifying with playoffs. And, you know, whether it was at an individual arcade or something like a state championship or an invitational type thing. It was like in a arcade. You might get unlimited tries for a week or a month, and then they'd take maybe the top 10 scores and give them points. And, you know, whatever your point total was for the week or month, you know, they'd take the top so many people to come back at the end for, you know, some kind of playoff. The current kind of curb style scoring that gives, you know, like 100 for first and 95 for second or whatever, basically it's just an expanded version of that where you're giving points to more places. but a long time ago before people had software and the ability to handle large amounts of entries quickly and easily, if you're just a little arcade operator, you're not going to want to keep track of 100 or 200 different people's scores. You used to see the blackboards with the chalk high scores and paper and pen and those kind of things. It's certainly a lot more easier now with computers and the tablets and your cell phone to be able to access all that. But the formats, too, I think they've changed because there are more tournaments. I mean, back in the 70s, there weren't as many. Now you can find tournaments all over with the IFPAPinball.com. Click under tournaments or leagues, for that matter, and they're happening everywhere. So the point structure kind of had to change a little bit because if you remember years ago, every tournament was worth 25 Whoppers. It didn't matter how many people were in the tournament and how many games you played. They had to kind of scale that back. I think that was a change for the good with the IFPA. Yeah, I helped Josh work on debugging several versions of the point system updates. I think we've got, if not perfect, an extremely good system right now. There might be room for marginal improvement here and there, but it's pretty close to optimal given that it's trying to balance so many different things at once and that you have so many different formats that you have to deal with. The main thing going on was really to kind of evaluate how effective a test of skill is, whatever the format is. And the more games you play against the more people, the more effective a test of skill it is. So some of the earlier formats where, you know, you just had, you know, like, OK, you know, put up your high scores for the week and then we take the top people at the end and, you know, see how they do. So that's really not as effective a test of skill as something like curb or, you know, pop a ticket style scoring or, you know, a match play where you play, you know, like 10, 12 rounds and you get a win-loss record and then you go into a series of playoffs. I think the high score at the end of the month or end of the week or whatever it was, it's a lot like what we saw recently with the selfie league, but there's no real direct play until you get to the playoffs. And I think that direct play is essential when it comes to tournament formats. Yeah I agree that direct play is essential because if you kind of just playing against the machine you really need to have some sense of head pressure and perform against an opponent rather than can you put up a score when there no stress on it And then the number of formats it nice that people have gotten creative with coming up with new formats you know, different versions of playoffs or different versions of qualifying. You know, the whole concept of strikes tournaments, you know, that's, you know, a fairly new concept. But, you know, that's a nice idea. And, you know, in certain circumstances, you know, that plays well because one thing you have to consider as a tournament director is, how many people are going to be playing how many games how long. You need to have people get eliminated eventually, but you also want to make sure that they have a satisfying amount of playing time before they get eliminated. Yeah, with the three-strikes tournament, you're guaranteed going to be playing three games. They've adapted that to the fair strikes, which I much prefer. I think the thing that drove me nuts about the strikes tournament was whether you were in a group of four or whether you were in a group of three, and they decided in that group of three, is it going to be the bottom person or the bottom two people out? That one drove me nuts. It really deterred me from any kind of strikes tournament play. As me being a TD, it's something I avoid. I understand you need to do it because there are time restraints. One of the biggest problems with tournaments and people have concerns are, okay, how well timed is it? And it's easier said than done just to say, well, the goal is two hours or three hours for this set match play or strikes tournament. You can't always do that. You think you're going to have malfunctions. You're going to have great balls. You're going to have who knows what happens. Whereas something like a flip frenzy, you can definitely make that a timed event. You just might not know how many games are going to count towards your TGP, if you will. Right. And then basically, you know, flip frenzy with, you know, a couple rounds of playoffs because you do need to have some kind of playoff after a flip frenzy because, you know, who you play during the frenzy is very unbalanced. Oh, I agree. I absolutely think every flip frenzy should have, even if it's just the top four. You can be at the top of a flip frenzy, and you look at where the standings are, and you may never have played the person who was in second, third, fourth. So did you have an easier run? Who knows? That playoff kind of eliminates that question. Yeah. For instance, I was at a flip frenzy on August 1st when points got turned back on. What? Bob, you were in a tournament as soon as the lights were turned on for IFBA? Come on. Oh, what are the odds of that? Who knew? So was I. Actually, I was in two of them. I would have been in three, but I would have had to have gone up too late and drive back after midnight and gotten home at 2.30 or whatever if I was in the third one. You tried, though. Admit it. You tried. I thought about it, yeah. But, yeah, Jim and Johnny and Carl were in it, and I think I faced Jim once and didn't face Carl at all. Or Johnny, I faced Jim and Derek Price, but not Johnny or Carl. And so it all depends on who you play and on what game. And you really need to have preferably at least two rounds of playoffs, but a minimum of one just to balance it out for basically the unbalanced qualifying session. We talk about the playoffs. For those that don't know, if there's no direct play, which means when you think of trying to put up your score in a pump and dump, you're not actually playing against anyone. You're playing against other scorers. So the reason in a playoff you need to have somewhere between 10% and 50% of the field in a playoff format. So easy round numbers. If you have 20 people, you can have anywhere from 2 to 10 people in the playoffs. And it has to be in that because there has been no direct play. I think that's a wise decision to enforce that. Yeah, and the 50% is clearly because you don't want to have everybody in there. You've got to at least have some standard. standard and so 50 is kind of a good minimum but the 10 rule basically is in fairness to the people who do well that if you're in the top 10 and you don't make the playoffs that really sucks so you know i i agree that you know 10 is kind of a good number to use there and you know there's a couple of events including our own indisc that you know where the number of people who showed up you started wondering you like are we going to have to take more there's actually been a couple events that did have to increase how many people they took at the very end. The high stakes. Yeah, the high stakes did. And a couple years ago, the Intergalactic in Pittsburgh, they were 40 and they had to move it up to 48 or something. But like I say, if you're in the top 10%, I think you've earned being in the playoffs at that point. I agree. So you've played in a lot of tournaments, but just like in disc, you've also been the TD for several. I enjoy TDing a lot. And let's give a shout out to all TDs, because without you giving up your time, we don't get to play in these tournaments. So somebody has to enforce the rules. Somebody has to check on the times. All those kind of things that TDs do. On Tilt Forums recently, and I go to that certainly more than I do Pinside, it's kind of where players come up with topics and rules and this and that, and I just find it a lot more informative and specific. I mean, certainly Pinside is everything in the kitchen sink, but Tilt Forums is a little more focused. And there was kind of a fairness issue topic that came up. The title of the thread was TDs competing in tournaments that they run. Well, I've never had a problem with it, as long as the TDs are not obviously ruling on their own matches. Somebody else, bipartisan, is doing that, and that is when it's fine. But you can't expect people to give up their time for a day, a night, a weekend, who knows, and not participate in some way. Our buddy, Carl D'Python Anghelo, I'm amazed that he doesn't get to play in the biggest tournament in the world now in InDisc because he's got so much going on. Jim Balsito only got to play in high stakes. You hardly get to play. Like you said, you're TDing that final day when playoffs are going on. That's a big sacrifice for TDs. So when people kind of complain that, oh, TDs are playing, I'm like, well, would you do it? And this is where I have a lot of ideas about things that I like, things I don't like, and things that people can do to make it less of a problem. Part of what my goal in pinball is is to make things better for people, just like Carl with his software and Jim with running tournaments and such. I'll mention that those early tournaments back in the 70s and 80s, TDs were not playing because the tournaments were run by the arcade owner or the route operator or sometimes, you know, you know, Bally or some other business would actually sponsor something and they'd hire somebody on their staff or on location to actually run the event for them. And the people that were basically choosing the rules, choosing the games, and running the event were not pinball players. They were business people of one flavor or another. So this was basically not an issue of any consequence back in the day. Nowadays, a very high percentage of people who still own arcade locations have turned into players. Because with a few exceptions, you can't make the kind of money you could back in the 1980s with a pinball arcade. So the people that are more likely to do it are ones who love it, and that's basically the players. Like you say, it's a big sacrifice to put in your time to put together an event and run it. You don't want to know how many hours Jim puts in for Indus. Trust me, you don't. I can only imagine. Yeah, and it's more a matter of weeks. And then a lot of TDs sacrifice time and sometimes money because, okay, they may have to close their location for an event and make less from the event, if anything. Yeah, if you're an operator and you're taking your games out, yeah, that's lost revenue. So I've thought about this a fair amount over many decades because I have my own personal history on it. So let me just kind of break down the fairness issue into its major components. The first thing you have to deal with really is before the event even takes place, who's choosing the machines, who's choosing the event format, and who's choosing the rules? Back in the day, it was whatever games the operator had on hand, and they would set very loosey-goosey rules. We don't have the total encyclopedia of rules that Papa IFPA have put together since then, which, by the way, was partly inherited from Free State in Maryland when Dave Stewart and I were playing there. I think we actually had the first comprehensive pinball rulebook for kind of general use. Yeah. I know Papa put one together around the same time. I don't know for sure which came first. That would take a little research. But we kind of have a somewhat unified set of rules now that it's all come together. But which portion of the rules do you use? Because not everybody follows IFPA rules at all events. for, I mean, there's, you know, constraints based on your personal location situation. And frankly, you know, the TD's taste, you've got, you know, which machines to use, are you going to do three strikes or herb qualifying or frenzy or whatever? And, you know, the TD gets to choose that, you know, ideally, you know, the TD should kind of not choose their personal favorites for everything. If you like really hate strikes, don't not choose strikes just because you hate it, you should kind of, you know, play to your audience and you're like, okay, what's going to work logistically for my event? And what do the people who are likely to attend, you know, what do they like format wise? You're never going to please everyone. Right. So I think you look at the format, you look at the event and say, okay, that sounds interesting to me, or it doesn't. And you choose to play or not to play. Yeah. What I'm saying is, you know, the TD has to kind of go with what works for them. I'm just saying that you shouldn't, you know, like deliberately bias it in favor of what you personally prefer, unless that's really all that works at your location. Okay. Item two is game knowledge. And basically, this is if the games you have available, for whatever reason, are ones that people don't see too often, and you're the TD, and or they're your games, you have kind of a big edge. And it's possible there's nothing you can do about that because, well, that's what the collection is. But there are things you can do so that people feel less taken advantage of. And I'll give kudos to the guy, Gerald, who ran something I was in over the weekend. He had a couple games that you don't see too often from the late 80s, early 90s. What ones? I know Strange Science was in there. And he had a bunch of Data East or System 11 things that were titles you don't see too often. A lot of people have never played Safecracker. He had Safecracker in there. And so basically he kind of made some suggestions and says, you know, okay, so here's three or four games that you might not have seen before, and here's kind of a basic thing you can try and do on that game, kind of the 60-second quickie version of some tips. And I thought that was, you know, a nice, generous thing to do for the people who hadn't played in too many events and hadn't seen as many machines so that you, you know, at least were somewhat less than clueless. dealing with those games. But you can also go on things like pin tips.net. You can also maybe watch some videos. Right. There are things you can do to help. There are things you can do. However, a lot of those are more effective if you give people the opportunity to do them before the event takes place. Let them know the lineup is what you're saying. Right. So wherever possible, if you're going to have events, you know, if you're going to have an event with a bunch of games that people may be unfamiliar with for whatever reason, It's a good idea to provide a list of games. People will know better than to hold you to it because, you know, things break down or you buy a new one or whatever. But at least, you know, here are some likely games to see. And that way they can consult my classics guide or Bowen's tutorials or pen tips or whatever else. And one of the reasons I put out my classics guide is basically fairness. because I was going to tournaments and they had the more modern Bally Williams games in the 90s in particular and then starting with the Stearns after that. And they'd have side events and classics. And you'd have a lot of people who had gotten into pinball and had never seen a free fall or a sky jump or a Captain Fantastic or some of these older games and had no clue what to do And they were kind of not happy about the whole thing So one way that I could address some of the fairness issue is okay, I'll put my guide out there so that people actually have a clue what to do on these games. Same thing with Bowen and his tutorials. It's like, okay, here's a new machine that you may not have seen because your location hasn't got one yet. Or because it's not a common game. We have one here at Pittsburgh, but you don't have one where you are. So here's a tutorial to give you some clue what to do on it. Those guides are absolutely gold. The videos, the guides, the tips, going on Pinside, going on Tilt Forums. It's kind of the prep work for me going into a tournament. And a lot of the bigger tournaments, certainly the Stern Pro Circuit events, you get a good sense of what games are going to be there. You know if you're going to go to Expo in October, you're going to see all the new Sterns because they're right there. And you probably don't have a lot of experience on something new that comes out. There might even be a new game between now and then. Right. And that's where the tournament director can do something about it to some degree by giving you, you know, like here's our probable list of games that we're going to be using. And that way people, you know, the further ahead you do that, the more people have a chance to do their research. Research alone is not enough, though. And that kind of brings me to the next item, which is knowledge of this particular unit. Okay. Because if you haven't actually played the game until you actually put your fingers on the flippers and get used to the timing and everything, you still are missing something from people who've actually played the game before. And the second half of that is what I call the this unit knowledge. And this is something that I and a lot of the other high level players will jump into when there's a practice session at a tournament. it. There's a lot of games where how you do, you really have to know the settings, the software version, the plunges, the key feeds, and the kickouts. That's kind of how I categorize it. Basically, how is this Attack from Mars or Freefall or Theater of Magic or Banzai Run or whatever, how is it going to play compared to other ones I've played? A classic example of this, okay, the kick out on Adam's family from the chair. What do you do when the ball kicks out? On most Adam's families, you let it dead bounce from the left over to the right, but not all Adam's families is that a good idea. And there's a lot of little subtleties on games where unless you've actually played that unit as opposed to just that title, you don't know for sure what your optimal strategy is when the ball is going from point A to point B. and that's where it's really useful to let people basically test play or practice on a game before the real thing starts i love when you go to big events and i think of the ifpa world championships i think they do it in pin masters too i know that's a big thing for josh and i think even stern pro circuit finals they do let you test for a little bit and and have some flips i use that time to try to find some key shots, find how the plunge is, find how the bounces are. And again, you've only got 30 seconds to do this, so good luck on that. But the last thing I do is try to find where the tilt bob is and what kind of nudges I'll be allowed. Right. And ideally, if time permits, I think people should be able to play basically a full game if they want on every machine if possible. I know there's a lot of events where that's not practical, but if you're having an event at an arcade or a local location that starts at noon, open the place up at 11 o'clock and let people practice for an hour before you actually start the tournament. Or go the day before. I know with Pinberg it was tough. And another thing, too, you have to be careful about is if you do too much practice time, you might actually knock a game out from damaging it for some reason. And, you know, you want the games to be there. So there's that factor as well. Right. Been there, done that. More than once I can tell you. But, yeah, okay. I mean, let's say you're playing in a classics event and you're playing free fall. Okay. Okay. Where is that skill shot? That could decide the game. You know, there's a lot of little things that, you know, you need to know. Plunges, kickouts, you know, where does the ball come down, you know, out of the bumpers on some of the, you know, the solid state games. So that's something where it's always good if you're directing a tournament and you have the ability to fit it in time-wise, let people actually test play the games they're going to play in the tournament at least once before the event starts. And this is more important to my mind when you've got a format like match play or strikes rather than something like Papa Ticket or Herb Style. Because in Papa Ticket or Herb Style qualifying, most people are going to end up playing games more than once. So they'll have opportunities during the qualifying period to kind of learn where things are as they go. But if you're in a match play or strikes tournament or something where you may only play a game once during the qualifying, then you're at a bigger disadvantage if you haven't actually had a chance to practice on that particular machine. And so I think it's more important to have practice in those circumstances where you may only play the game once, the whole event, than where you're going to have an opportunity to play it more than once and kind of learn all those little subtleties you need to as you go. Any other tips for TDs, Bob? Yeah, I've got a couple of things I'd like to mention, kind of last items here, although less sequentially but possibly more important in some ways. We haven't discussed rulings, and one issue that some players have is if somebody they're playing against is the one making a ruling in an event. And the easiest way out of that, of course, is to not have the TD playing. But if the TD is playing, if possible, they should have someone else make rulings, either someone who's not playing or someone not involved in whatever match that is. And it's also, I mean, the TD has the option, even before the event starts, to say, okay, you know, I'm going to run the tournament, but as far as rulings go, I'm going to designate player X who's, you know, like maybe considered more impartial or more rules knowledgeable than I as the tournament director am. I'm going to have them in charge of rulings. And, you know, something like that is more likely to minimize the issue. And, of course, you always want to make sure that whoever's making rulings is not involved in whatever the match is where you're making the ruling on. And I also kind of suggest that TDs kind of stick to what I call tournament directing 101. Always rule the same way for the same infraction or the same malfunction. Rule the way your rules say, not what you or the players would like the ruling to be. The reason for that is that players kind of need to learn to accept correct rulings even when they don't like them, even at casual events, because that way they're going to have more respect for the rules when they're at a serious event where they really matter. The thing about, well, we don't like the answer, you should only get into tweaking your result. If you've got a case where you don't actually address the situation in the rules, then you can kind of consider, okay, what's the consensus? But that's really the only time you should do kind of what you like is if it's actually not covered by whatever your rules are. If people don't like the correct ruling, tell the players, okay we'll look at changing the rule for future events but to be fair we need to abide by the rule as written for now i'll give you the world's most famous example of that okay 2012 ifpa9 you probably heard about it kaylee george and daniele acciari were battling for the title kaylee was down three games to one they were playing old chicago it was the tilt through the tilt through basically yeah kaylee had to win the next three games you know to take the title one loss and he's out and on ball one he tilted through nobody there liked that result kaylee didn't want to lose that way daniele didn't want to win that way josh's tournament director didn't want it to end that way and the rest of us as players didn't want it to end that way so what they now do on ems is right if it's a four-player em they'll play player one and player three so that that tilt through can't possibly happen right and that that's that that exact game is why that new rule exists. This was a case of maintaining the integrity of the existing rules. It's like, we don't like the way it turned out, but that's how it's written right now, so we will abide by that right now. And because we think, you know, that it sucked in this case, we're going to change the rule for future events. And that's exactly what's happened is, you know, future events, basically since then, you now have the player one and three rule. But the integrity of maintaining rules, you know, was what drove us to accept that result, even though we didn't really like it. There is certainly a lot to consider. You should know your rules. You should let the players know which rules you are using, whether it's the IFPA, POP rules, or any kind of things you have laid out there, because things can happen. Game malfunctions, for example. That's a tough one for TDs, figuring out whether it's catastrophic or it's just a minor malfunction. Exactly. And it really, in some cases, depends on who's there and what their repair capabilities are. So one standard doesn't fit all because it really depends on what happened and the technical capability of the people on site and also how long you're willing to wait to get it fixed. You can look at the diner example from the last InDisc. So you have to decide how long it's going to take and are we willing to wait that long and how confident are we we can actually fix it that fast to begin with. So what happened there? A ball got lost. I remember Eric Stone was playing it, and I was shocked. It was finally repaired, but it did take some time, and they had to really get into it to remove. I don't even remember what happened. If it was a piece of plastic that fell. There was a piece of plastic that got jammed in there, and Jim and I, and I forget who the other person were, were spending, it was like 15 minutes to fix the thing, which was longer than we anticipated and really longer than we wanted to take to fix the thing, but it didn't look like it would take that long when we first started. Just a perfect example of things that can happen. Yeah. The other thing I'll throw out is if you know a machine is kind of wonky at the start of an event, let's say you don't have enough machines, though. Okay. Just basically tell them, okay, Machine X has a sticky flipper, and as long as it doesn't fail totally, you just play it as it is. If it fails totally, we'll take it out, but otherwise we're going to leave it in. Something like that. I've played in tournaments where all of a sudden the three bank of drop targets in Space Shuttle that obviously changed the value of the spinner, stopped working. Once they went down, they didn't come up again. And would you consider that major or minor? I would consider that major in that particular case because the scoring on that machine is so skewed toward success with those targets that I think it would be too much of an unfair advantage to people who played with an active to anyone who had to play with it not active. Well, you're talking about a pump-and-dump tournament, but if it was a match play and the both of you were playing, if it's the same state for both of you if it's the same state for both of you and you've played the same number of balls in the same state yes okay lots to consider yep i think of indisc and that huge bank in the main and for that matter in the classics as well and maybe i have my five six games that i love and i have let's say 10 i i don't really want to play those i don't think i can be strong on them once i have a something i feel is a secure ticket i actually go out of my way to play the other machines that I haven't played just for that reason, to have that experience in case I make the playoffs and in case somebody picks that game. So you're right. Being familiar is very important. Okay. Yeah. I'll just second your comment there about if you're in an event, play all the other games at least once. I'll throw a personal situation in here. For about 20 years, I did not go to Expo. And that was kind of a combination of all these issues because I went there in 1990, and the game that they had was the Data East Simpsons, the original one. Please, please, please. Yeah. Anyway, when I got there, okay, I had never played a Data East machine before because they didn't have them, you know, in my part of the country yet. But when I got there okay it like I was thinking well it you know the idea is it a new machine everyone is you know like totally inexperienced It a level playing field And then what I found out was that the people you know from the Chicago area and a few other places actually had a chance to play it for you know like a couple of months and already knew what to do We didn't have any chance to practice on the game before we played it. We only got like one, maybe two tries on it. You got assigned to whichever one of the 10 games they had there, you know, you got. and if yours played funky or was a little tight on the tilt, that was just too bad. And so that's one other aspect of the fairness is, you know, like what portion of the games in the tournament are ones where there's a fairness issue? And in this case, it was like 100% because, you know, there were people who had an edge on the only game that you were playing. And I just thought that that was, you know, like so unfair to people who hadn't had a chance to play the game before. It's like, well, if that's the format they used for the tournament at Expo, screw that. So I didn't go back there for a long time. Luckily, that's changed. Yeah. But, you know, that's the other thing, you know, as far as the fairness is, you know, the fewer games have issues that, you know, like people aren't used to them or they need to get the feel for the kickouts or whatever, the easier it is to deal with that. But, yeah, there was one other issue that I wanted to get to. I've got a beef with all the manufacturers going back to about the late 1980s. Okay. Switching from quarters to dollars, what is it? Well, this happened to me on August 1st, but it also happened to me in a different way, oh, about 15 or whatever years ago when I was playing Keyfield Northwest in a different situation. when I first started playing and for about the first oh 15 20 whatever years thereafter at all times when I was playing I could tell whether or not I had won the game on all the EMs you could see the score up there in the backless no problem on all the solid states you could see the score up there in the backless no problem if there was an end of ball bonus it was clearly displayed on the surface of the play field you could do a little mental math okay I'm behind by 20,000 but I have 32,000 in bonus with my 2x multiplier, so I'm good as long as I don't tilt. So I basically, you know, I knew as I was playing if I had enough to win. And then they came out with DMDs and all these nice glitzy graphics. And it's like, oh, our graphics are more important than knowing what your score is at any given moment. We don't even want to have a little corner of the screen that shows them. We want to have all the screen be our nice glitzy graphics. And so suddenly you were in a situation where, let's say, you're player four, and you're behind, and you start making your comeback, and you get into multiball or whatever, and the machine is going nuts, giving you all these fancy graphic displays, which, frankly, you don't have time to look at because you're busy, you know, dealing with making shots and stuff. You might be able to glance at, you know, up at the screen a little bit, but basically, when you do, it's showing explosions or things, you know, driving or, you know, whatever. So you basically have no idea as you're playing if you have caught up yet. And on occasion, you know, you will drain out a multiball and, you know, it'll still be doing its thing. And you may have to make a split-second decision at some point as to, okay, ball A drained, ball B is about to drain. Do I tilt? Do I not tilt? Or basically, you know, like, do I make a desperation attempt to save the ball or not? Do I need to do this or can I just let it drain and I'm okay. I get your point. I mean, people listening that haven't been in this experience are like, just play better, man. Just keep playing. What do you mean stop? But I see your point. It's about the, do I risk a tilt here? Because if I don't, I'm not going to win anyway. So I see your point. Yeah. And I had one blatant example happen to me at the Northwest show. The first time I played Keith Elwin there, we were playing World Poker Tour and I would have won the game if I hadn't tilted because I came out of multiball and I didn't know if I'd caught him yet and I wasn't sure. So I made a hard save and it tilted and my bonus would have been enough to win the game. Now, I've heard people say, on the other hand, never count on your bonus. The thing is, if I knew what my bonus was, I would have made an informed decision as to whether or not to try and make that save. Yeah. Yeah. So I guess this really matters if you're borderline. Am I there or am I not. And obviously, we're talking about someone who's going last, because if you're going first, this doesn't really matter because you have to just put up the best score you possibly can. Right. Now, in a particular case, you know, I would have moved on to the next round and eliminated Keith, which is, you know, not inconsequential for both me and everybody else there. So, you know, that was a disappointment when I discovered that, you know, I would have eliminated him and moved on if I had not tilted. On the flip side, that, you know, first day I played August 1st. I was basically one shot away from winning the tournament instead of coming in third. I was just a couple million from passing Derek on Creature. But I came out on multiball and it was still doing its thing. One ball drained one way and the other was about to drain the other way. And okay, did I catch him or not? Do I make a hard save to try and save the ball? And I thought I had caught him, so I did not make the hard save to save the ball. And it turned out that I was just short. The short answer to this diatribe is really just give more information and less animation. Maybe it's on the play field. Yeah. Now, that being said, when I know I'm close and I'm not in a multiball and I'm not in a hurry up or a mode, I will cradle up. I know you can't always do that. I will cradle up and scroll through the bonus. OK, where I'm at? Looks like I need another million, two million. I know that's not always the case, but. Yeah, and basically in each of these cases, you know, I would have cradled up if I had had a chance to do so, to basically find out, okay, I just played multiball, did I catch them? And in one case I had, and in the other case I hadn't. But, you know, sometimes, you know, you can only kind of cradle up when it's safe to do so. Bob, in no case whatsoever were you playing poorly than the other person, and that may be why you lost. I mean, obviously, that does not come into play, does it, buddy? there's there's always the play better but like i said you know the player deserves to have full information i agree you know what i just talked to Keith Elwin who's an incredible designer incredible player he likes having that information on the playfield because we all agree we don't look up the backbox is beautiful i've been playing the heck out of my led zeppelin game i have no idea what the animations are because i've never looked up while i'm playing i'm playing by myself. Yeah. So I like that it's on the play field and sometimes there'll be maybe an LCD or some kind of screen. Kudos to the people that do that. The inserts, those kinds of things are there, but you're right. We're not going to see the old days of bonus on the play field. Bonus to me is an absolute mystery how they come up with these things. I guess just hit stuff and it adds to your bonus. But that's another show is how end of ball bonuses evolve because that's a whole another long story compared to what it, you know, what it is now versus what it was 40 years ago. Oh, and we're out of time. Bob, darn it. Look at that. I'm running out of tape here. I'm just kidding. It's funny because, for those that don't know, when I see Bob, this is kind of how we talk all the time. And just great information. And you're like that with a lot of players. Yeah, and I miss seeing you in person and vice versa, I'm sure. Absolutely. But like I say, you know, this is something that, you know, should not be a hard fix. You know, just put it on the screen. Or for them, you could color code it. You know, like green is your head. and even if you tilt, yellow is you're behind, but you would win with the bonus, and red is you're still losing or something. There's got to be lots of different ways you could indicate to the player what their situation is with all that space you have on the screen and all the different options you have for lighting and software. If any pinball company out there is looking for some coding advice, Bob Matthews is available. We'll give his contact information. Just reach out to Pinball Profile. Bob's there to help you out. I joke on all this kind of stuff. How are things going out in Thousand Oaks? I mean, we've seen each other a lot at tournaments. I mentioned Indus, but even before that, I think it was, I'm pretty sure, I don't know if it was the last time or the time before, when I saw you in Florida, and here you are in Florida, and just hell was breaking out in Thousand Oaks because of, sadly, shootings, but the fires and everything. So how are things in your neck of the woods? Because I do actually care. Well, interesting you should say that, because Replay Florida, I think it was 2018. you know i flew out to the event on you know thursday night so i'd be there you know friday for beginning of qualifying you know whatever time they started and i'm in my hotel room at you know four in the morning florida time and i get a phone call from my wife 1 a.m or 1 30 or whatever california time saying um i have to evacuate because we had the thomas fire come through like a mile from where our house is uh you know that's a real hazard you know you know jim Belzito is in an area where, you know, he's at risk right now, you know, not from any current fire, just, you know, like where he is, is adjacent to some areas that are, you know, have fire potential, you know, so there are some of us out here, you know, who are occasionally at risk from that, and my wife and I were on a camping trip just a couple weeks ago, and we went north to, among other places, you know, Lassen National Park, which, oh, by the way, is totally closed now because of the Dixie Fire, and way there, we went through a bunch of towns, Then we had the dash cam going, you know, to kind of take video of, you know, where we went as we went there. So, yeah, I have dash cam village of what had been Greenville. Oh, I'm sorry to hear. From about a week before the fire went through, you know, because we went, basically the fire had started when we were up there on our camping trip. It just hadn't gotten, you know, as big and severe as it was, as it is now. We were up there just a couple days after it started, you know, when you could see the smoke, But, you know, it hadn't burned any towns and they hadn't had to evacuate a lot of people yet. So we kind of did our camping trip just in time. Yeah, no kidding. But please, I mean, that's scary to hear about Jim Valcido's area and yours, of course. And I hope you stay safe. I know you'll do everything that you can. And I know I'll see you soon. You got your pie episode. There you go. For those that don't know your love of math, why did you want the pie episode? Well, I came up with the whole Bob Matthews with the M-A-T-H-U-S-E. Yep. About 40 years ago, CompuServe was kind of a combination of the science fiction conventions and CompuServe. Because the science fiction conventions, a lot of people like to have nicknames. Yep. And CompuServe, my first ID was all numbers, but at some point they let you choose characters for your ID. And so I thought, well, I'm a mathematician by trade, and my last name is Matthews, Matthews, which phonetically is the same as M-A-T-H-U-S-E. So I thought, well, I'm also a punster and a wise guy. I mean, why else would I have come up with It Never Drains in Southern California based on the song? Brilliant. Our spoof tournament name. So kind of the Bob Matthews came naturally to me as kind of an alter ego for both my online ID, because there's lots of Bob Matthews's in the country, hundreds if not thousands. but that way I could be, you know, like have a unique idea and not have to be like Bob Matthews, you know, two, seven, seven or whatever. Perfect. You're a trendsetter. Yeah. So I tell people I am it and I do it. That's great, Bob. Good to hear from you again. I hope to see you soon. And thanks for sharing the time here. Okay. And yeah, you know, if possible at a future episode, you know, we can do more on, you know, classics games or other historical things, or maybe a little bit about, you know, my own history, if someone would have any interest in that. I would love that. Thanks, Bob. Talk to you soon. Thanks a lot, Jeff. Take care. This has been your Pinball Profile. You can find everything on pinballprofile.com, all past episodes, subscriptions, and more. We're on Twitter and Instagram at pinballprofile. Email us pinballprofile at gmail.com. I'm Jeff Keolis. Seems it never rains in Southern California Seems I've often heard that kind of talk before It never rains in California But girls don't they want