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#51 - The Pinball Asylum - The Classic Pinball Podcast

The Classic Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·52m 14s·analyzed·Mar 16, 2021
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.035

TL;DR

Pinball Asylum Fort Myers hosts outdoor tournament; Eric Stone recounts path to IFPA #4; homebrew Dragon Ball Z revealed.

Summary

Classic Pinball Podcast episode featuring David Denholtz (Pinball Asylum host) and Eric Stone (IFPA #4 player) discussing the nonprofit Pinball Asylum venue in Fort Myers, Florida—its 10-year history, selection to host the 2020 IFPA World Championship, a March 7th outdoor tailgating pin golf tournament with 44 registered players, the venue's 120+ machine collection (classic Sterns, Ballys, Gottliebs, rare titles), Eric's competitive trajectory and dominant 2019 Indisc performance, and introduction of Matt Malone's homebrewed Dragon Ball Z pinball machine.

Key Claims

  • Pinball Asylum is a 501c3 nonprofit founded in 2011 with approximately 120+ machines loaned by community members.

    high confidence · David Denholtz, Asylum host and board member, direct statement

  • The Asylum was selected to host the 2020 IFPA World Championship after Josh Sharp (presumed Sharp Pinball/IFPA official) suggested it following Trent Augustine's recommendation.

    high confidence · David Denholtz explaining the selection process that occurred around 2017-2018

  • Eric Stone won the 2019 Indisc World Championship with approximately 320 players, accumulating ~300 IFPA points and rising from 11th to 3rd/2nd world ranking.

    high confidence · Eric Stone describing his Indisc experience and IFPA ranking trajectory

  • Eric Stone is currently ranked between 2nd and 4th in IFPA due to point decay from tournament suspension (nearly one year without sanctioned events as of March 2021).

    high confidence · Eric Stone discussing IFPA ranking mechanics and tournament drought

  • The March 7th outdoor tailgating event will feature 18 machines in a 10-hole pin golf format (with worst hole dropped) and free play; 44 people pre-registered.

    high confidence · David Denholtz describing tournament structure and attendance

  • Matt Malone created a homebrewed Dragon Ball Z pinball machine from scratch over approximately three months using a WPC cabinet, designed completely original rules.

    high confidence · Matt Malone describing his homebrew development process

  • The Asylum's last event before the March 7th tournament was March 11th, 2020, due to COVID-19 shutdowns.

    high confidence · David Denholtz stating the 12-month event hiatus

  • Eric Stone's first pinball tournament was at California Extreme (with George, the podcast co-host), which led to him joining Asylum and competing in IFPA events.

    high confidence · Eric Stone recounting his tournament debut and subsequent involvement

Notable Quotes

  • “The Pinball Asylum is a nonprofit. We're a 501c3. We started in 2011, and we started with a very small space. And over the years, we expanded to our current space, which is about 5,000 square feet. We have about 120 something machines.”

    David Denholtz @ ~3:30-4:00 — Core origin and scale statement of the venue

  • “So what we're doing on Sunday is we're bringing about 18 machines downstairs... We're going to have a pin golf, actually 10-hole pin golf. Each person gets to drop their worst hole, so it's really a nine-hole.”

    David Denholtz @ ~6:30-7:00 — Description of the March 7th outdoor tournament format

  • “You definitely there's tons of money in line you should definitely show up to one of these pop-up events... you can win 10 grand 20 grand you're definitely a contender”

    George (podcast co-host, implied) @ ~25:00-26:00 — Explains George's encouragement that led Eric to competitive pinball

  • “And I wound up emailing him. And, you know, after a couple interviews, I wound up up here and I started playing in tournaments.”

    Eric Stone @ ~27:30 — Describes Eric's vetting process and entry into the Asylum community

  • “I come in second. Classics two, over 215 people... and then you know the world championship i wound up winning that with 320 or so people... boosted me from I think 11th to 3rd and then eventually 2nd in the world.”

    Eric Stone @ ~33:00-34:30 — Eric's major competitive breakthrough at 2019 Indisc

  • “I think when COVID hit, I didn't get slow at work or anything, but I started going out a lot less, so I had the time after work, so I just, I knuckled up, and I ended up on a WPC cabinet, and I decided on my theme, and I just went for it, and I got it completed in about three months, start to finish.”

    Matt Malone @ ~42:00-43:00 — Explains motivation and rapid development timeline for Dragon Ball Z homebrew

  • “I went complete ground up. It's a it's a fully designed game by me. It's not a retheme... I had to decide what the rules were before I even laid it out. So I kind of designed it backwards.”

Entities

Pinball AsylumorganizationDavid DenholtzpersonEric StonepersonMatt MalonepersonJosh SharppersonGeorgepersonDavepersonTrent Augustineperson

Signals

  • ?

    venue_signal: Pinball Asylum expanding operations after COVID closure; transitioning from indoor leagues to outdoor tailgating events to accommodate community demand for pinball play in Florida.

    high · David Denholtz: 'last event was March 11th, almost a year ago, 2020' and 'we decided to do an outdoor event' with 44 registered participants for March 7th tournament.

  • ?

    event_signal: Pinball Asylum hosting outdoor pin golf tournament on March 7, 2021 with 18 machines, 10-hole format, and ~44 pre-registered players.

    high · David Denholtz describing tournament structure: '18 machines downstairs...10-hole pin golf. Each person gets to drop their worst hole.' Weather delayed from Saturday to Sunday due to 70% rain forecast.

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Eric Stone's IFPA ranking (2nd-4th) fluctuating due to nearly one year of tournament suspension; Stone's point decay mechanics favoring him for potential #1 ranking if tournaments remain suspended.

    high · Eric Stone: 'I bounce around from second to fourth. And the longer the IFPA discontinues the points, the point tournaments, the better chance I'm going to have to be number one...the longer in time other people's points will drop off quicker than mine.'

  • ?

    design_innovation: Matt Malone completed original homebrew pinball machine (Dragon Ball Z) from scratch on WPC platform in ~3 months with completely custom rules; designed rules before playfield layout.

    high · Matt Malone: 'I went complete ground up. It's a fully designed game by me. It's not a retheme...I had to decide what the rules were before I even laid it out. So I kind of designed it backwards.'

  • ?

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.157

0:00
Those crazy nights I do remember in my youth I do recall those were the best times most of all You were here with a blue jean girl Burning love From one single lifetime She found me singing How you ever tried Yes, took me home We danced by the moonlight Those summer nights Are calling Stone in love Can't help myself From falling Stone in love
0:58
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Classic Pinball Podcast. My name is George and I'm joined by my co-host Dave. Hello Dave. Hello George. Today we have not one, but two guests. Our first guest is both host and board member of the Pinball Asylum in Fort Myers, Florida, David Denholtz. Hello, David.
1:41
Hello, George. Our second guest is the number four IFPA-ranked pinball player in the world, Eric Stone. Hello, Eric. Hello again, George.
1:57
David, let's start with you. Please tell the audience about the Pinball Asylum and the event scheduled for Sunday, March 7th. Okay. So the Pinball Asylum is a nonprofit. We're a 501c3. We started in 2011, and we started with a very small space. And over the years, we expanded to our current space, which is about 5,000 square feet. We have about 120 something machines. The machines are all loaned by people who we call the asylum inmates. I have machines here and there's about I think about 10 other people that have at least one or two machines. So we pre-COVID, we were open once a month for a pinball league and we had approximately six IFBA sanctioned tournaments a year. And we had people come from all over the state of Florida, Georgia, California, even people came from overseas occasionally for some of our bigger tournaments. COVID kind of knocked us back quite a bit. People didn't want to, you know, crowd in here anymore. We'd have typically on a league night anywhere from 45 to 75 people. We decided to stop having events. And our last event, I think, was March 11th, almost a year ago, 2020. So what we decided to do was try something different because we have so many friends in Florida that are, you know, without pinball now. So we decided to do an outdoor event. And we're lucky that we live in Florida, number one, because, you know, weather permitting, it's a gorgeous time of year to have an outdoor event. So what we're doing on Sunday is we're bringing about 18 machines downstairs. The pinball asylum is actually on the second floor. Luckily, we have an elevator. We're bringing the machines downstairs in the back of our building. We're going to set them up, and we're going to have a pin golf, actually 10-hole pin golf.

Matt Malone @ ~44:00-45:00 — Clarifies that Dragon Ball Z is a fully custom design, not a retheme

  • “The longer the IFPA discontinues the points, the point tournaments, the better chance I'm going to have to be number one, if that makes sense... the longer in time other people's points will drop off quicker than mine.”

    Eric Stone @ ~37:30-38:30 — Explains IFPA ranking decay mechanics and tournament drought implications

  • “Every other year the world championship moves from somewhere in europe to somewhere in north america so every two years i believe it's in canada and every four years you know kind of like the olympics it goes every two every four so every odd number year uh it was in europe and then every even number year it was either in canada or the u.s and it would kind of flip-flop”

    Eric Stone @ ~30:30-31:30 — Explains IFPA World Championship rotation schedule

  • “We just don't let you can't walk in off the street and come to the asylum. You have to email us first. You know, we'll talk to you on the phone more than likely. You have to sign a waiver saying that, you know, if you get hurt here, if you break your finger playing pinball, you're not going to sue us.”

    David Denholtz @ ~19:00-20:00 — Describes the Asylum's exclusive vetting and liability practices

    • Walter Dayperson
    Lee Muscaratoloperson
    DJ Ryleperson
    Sterncompany
    Ballycompany
    Gottliebcompany
    Williamscompany
    WPCproduct
    IFPAorganization
    Indiscevent
    Free Play Floridaevent
    California Extremeevent
    Fun Spotvenue
    Dragon Ball Zproduct
    Pinbotgame
    Quicksilvergame

    personnel_signal: Matt Malone identified as 'resident genius tech' at Pinball Asylum; serves dual role as homebrew designer and technical maintenance expert for venue.

    high · Podcast hosts note: 'The guy that made the EM just showed up. That's Matt. Matt's our resident genius tech.' Context: Matt has homebrewed machine and is Asylum inmate.

  • ?

    business_signal: Pinball Asylum sustained 5,000 sq ft expansion through tournament revenue savings and volunteer labor; received charitable donation for new Stern machine purchase (Munsters Premium, later replaced by Avengers Infinity Quest).

    high · David Denholtz: 'We saved the money that we got from tournaments...we bought our first new in box Stern machine. And that was from a donation. We have one of our members...that is part of a charitable organization that gives to community-based organizations that are nonprofit.'

  • ?

    community_signal: Pinball Asylum maintains exclusive vetting process for new members (phone interviews, email screening, liability waivers) to protect diverse community (families, elderly players) and control access to private venue.

    high · David Denholtz: 'We vet people. Everybody's allowed up here, but we do vet people because we have a lot of families...You can't walk in off the street...You have to email us first. You know, we'll talk to you on the phone more than likely.'

  • ?

    historical_signal: Pinball Asylum founded in 2011 by David Denholtz as 800 sq ft machine workshop in industrial building with elevator access; expanded three times over decade via tournament revenue and volunteer labor; celebrated 10-year anniversary in 2021.

    high · David Denholtz: 'We started in 2011...with a very small space...800 square feet...we went from the 800 square feet to 2,100 or 2,200 square feet...and then two and a half years ago...we put up the final area...the entire 5000 square foot mezzanine.'

  • ?

    collector_signal: Asylum's 120+ machine collection represents mix of classic EM (Gottlieb, Bally, Williams), System 1/80 games, Stern machines, rare titles (Eclipse ~190 produced), and international games (French, Italian, Spanish).

    high · Extensive inventory discussion listing: Meteor, Viper, Freewall, Stingray, Paragon, Space Invaders, Hot Dog, Centaur, Fathom, Kiss, Xenon, Target Alpha, Jungle Queen, Atlantis, Eclipse, TX Sector, and others.

  • ?

    content_signal: Classic Pinball Podcast featuring competitive player (Eric Stone #4 IFPA), venue operator (David Denholtz), and emerging homebrew designer (Matt Malone); coverage of tournament preparation and community history.

    high · Episode structure: George and Dave co-hosts interview David Denholtz, Eric Stone, and Matt Malone; covers Asylum history, tournament logistics, competitive trajectory, and homebrew development.

    • 4:01
    Each person gets to drop their worst hole, so it's really a nine-hole. And the rest of the games will be on free play. People are going to come with their cars. We're calling it a tailgating event. There are grills, there are coolers, you know, whatever. It's going to be like a huge outdoor event, which, you know, hopefully we'll have at this point 40 plus people signed up. And we're really excited about it. And the weather is supposed to be good. So we'll see what happens. It's an experiment. So with the Pinball Asylum, you guys were great. you guys were picked to host the world championship.
    4:39
    Josh Sharp picked you guys. How come, how'd you get the honor to get the world championship to, to there?
    4:48
    You know, it was, it was interesting how that occurred. There's a pretty famous player. I'm sure you guys know of him, Trent Augustine. And he was down here in Florida to meet his girlfriend and move her to Ohio where he lives. maybe I'm giving too much information but um he he was here and he said you know this place would be a great place to hold the world championships and I said really never thought about that he goes yeah you guys could do it here easily so as a matter of uh you know chance uh a month after that it was uh Florida Free Play which is our big um show we had in Florida before COVID hit and I saw Josh Sharp there and I walked up to him and said, hey, Josh, I'm David from the Pinball Asylum. Yeah, I've heard about you guys, heard good things about you. And I said, you know, I was thinking, you know, I'd like to get more exposure for our place. Do you have any ideas? What about having the world championship there? I'm like, I can't believe you just said that. And he said, yeah, he said, you know, we have this form we'll send out to you and you got to answer a bunch of questions. You got to have bathrooms. You got to have so many machines. You got to have techs on site. You got to have enough space for, you know, us to set up our own table. There was a whole list of requirements. And I said, yeah, send me the questionnaire. So he sent it to me. I filled it out. They got it. I guess they discussed it in their board and they said, okay, we're going to have it at your place in 2020. So it was, you know, just fortuitous. I don't know things just came together at the right time I guess I guess it wouldn't hurt to have like uh one of the top three players as an anchor there your place all the time I mean Eric yeah I think he put in a good word for us I'm not sure but I think he did several good words of course that's cool yeah it's great so when did this so when did uh Josh reach out to you again was that a year or so ago you said or this was probably the end of 2018 because i that show was in november typically right eric no no it was i think it was the end of 2017 because was it 2018 i remember i was here i still wasn't working yet and you had said february-ish you're like hey i got a secret okay and and eventually you told me and then it was public i believe uh in the summertime okay i think you're right yeah so 20 i guess 2018 eric's right or 2017 you said 2017 yeah and how did you start this whole pinball assignment in the first place what was your motivation and uh tell me about that about getting this whole thing going in the first place and how long have you been doing it before again yeah so um there were um there was no place for me to work on machines and i had uh you know contact with a couple of people in the Florida scene. And they were also looking for a place to kind of work on machines. So we decided, you know, I had rented this new building. I had just gotten into the building and it had this upper store, upper mezzanine. There was nothing up. It was just a concrete slab, completely open to the downstairs warehouse and didn't know what to do with it. I just kind of stored some, I'm in the medical business, so I stored some parts and stuff. And I said, well, you know, why don't we create a little room, air conditioned room upstairs and we can work on pinball machines. We got an elevator. We can bring them up. And people thought that was a good idea. So we built this room, which was 800 square feet and it was air conditioned.
    8:37
    And basically we started trying to have tournaments. We didn't know anything about it. And I think we had one of the first IFA tournaments in the state, if not the very first one, back in 2011.
    8:53
    And people came. People showed up from all over the state to play. And I think we only had about, I think, 14, 15 machines when we started. So 2011 was your first year of existence, or did it exist before that? That was the first year. Yeah, that was the first year.
    9:11
    So you're at your 10-year anniversary? Correct. That's right. So then what happened was that we started having more tournaments and we said, OK, we need to formalize this. We made it into a 501C3 nonprofit and we just saved the money that we got from tournaments that we had. And we finally had enough money and enough people to build the extension. So we went from the 800 square feet to, I think, 2,100 or 2,200 square feet money that was either given to us or volunteer work sweat equity. And then we built the second room. And then two years ago, I guess, two and a half years ago, again, we saved the money up that we made through tournaments. And we put up the final area. So we now we have the entire 5000 square foot mezzanine. And, you know, people came and painted and put up drywall and we built bathrooms up here. We put down carpet. People donated all the furniture that's in here is all furniture. People came from people's houses. People donated. And then everything else is money that we we raise from doing, you know, doing events. I'm on your mailing list and you had said that you were going to have the latest Stern Avengers. Is that going to be in your pin golf tournament? Yes. Yes. Good question. So one of the things that we did two years ago, we actually bought our first new in box Stern machine. And that was from a donation. We have one of our members, one of our asylum inmates, that is part of a charitable organization that gives to community-based organizations that are nonprofit. And they donated enough money to us for us to purchase our first new in-box turn machine. That was a Munsters Premium. We sold that last year, and we purchased the Avengers Infinity Quest. And that will be in the tournament on Sunday. I get another question about titles in your place there. So off the top of your, do you know the games on the top of your head? Number one, number two. Okay. So list, okay. List off the classic sterns you have. I saw one there. okay so we have um a meteor we have viper we have freefall we have um stingray we have galaxy am i missing one eric i don't think so i think that's oh and uh we have a stern em uh disco did you say freefall i saw a freefall there you said freefall freefall yes freefall and how about I'm sorry, Quicksilver, which is in process. It was supposed to be at the tournament, but it's not going to make it, unfortunately. That's the only one from that list that's not going to make it.
    12:16
    You've got some great Stern titles there. That's great. We love the classic Sterns. We really do. They have great flow, and their drop targets fall like butter. I love them. Sweep them. Absolutely. I own a bunch myself. I've been a fan forever of that stuff.
    12:31
    How about your classic Bally's? Oh, gosh. We got all five of the wide bodies. You know, what is it? Paragon, Future Spa, Embryon, Space Invaders and Hot Dog. We've got Centaur. We've got Fathom. We've got Harlem Globetrotters. We've got 8-Ball Deluxe. we've got what else do we have we have Electra we have Vector Strikes and Spares Mata Hari
    13:09
    What am I missing, Eric? Kiss. Kiss, yep. Captain Fantastic. There you go. Is Hocus Pocus Valley? No. Yeah, that's a valley. Two-player valley. EM, I have one. Great game. Yep. Eric introduced me to that game up in New Hampshire.
    13:23
    Remember you played that game, Eric? That's a good one. That's going to be in the pin golf. on Sunday. Oh, and the latest one is the Star Trek, Valley Star Trek. We just got that up and running. That's going to be in the tournament on Sunday as well. Oh, Flash Gordon. Sorry. Oh, yeah, that's a toughie. That's a great game. I'm sure there's a lot of others that are here that we're not thinking of. We've got the Xenon here that eventually will get going. But, I mean, there's, what, 100 machines in here? Yeah, over 120. Yeah, so I'm sure we missed a couple. How about for your old school Williams games in the same time frame, that late 70s, early 80s Williams stuff, any of that? Like Firepower, that kind of thing? No, we're not as fluent in those. Is Mars Trek Williams? No, that's a Sonic.
    14:16
    We have like the Taxi Diner, you know, the later era Williams. You meant the System 11s? Yep. We've got a Argosy, which is Williams EM. Aztec, another Williams EM. Grand Prix? We did have a Grand Prix. That is no longer here. We have a Time Fantasy and a Warlock, which are pretty rare. That's a rare, yeah. Both are rare. Williams games. I'm trying to think if there's anything else. I'm sure I'm missing one or two. Bad cats. Bad cats. Yep. That's a fun, rare game. It's usually in beat up condition. How's yours?
    15:02
    It plays very good. Not perfectly, but I have an NOS or a, I'm sorry, Merco play field for it. So the plan is to redo that one. That's probably going to happen in the next couple of months. We have an eight ball deluxe too. So you get the you get the 84 swing out door version, I think, on that one. Looks like. Yes, true.
    15:24
    I tell with a black head. Correct. Yeah, I mean, there's a good mix of games. We have a lot of older, you know, Spanish, French and Italian games here that are unusual. you know Sonic, Zakaria we have a couple French games, rally games which are unusual to find in the US. It's great to have all that variety like that that keep people on their toes if they're playing the same title all the time wherever they go they kind of get acclimated so it kind of keeps everybody on their toes a little bit. We have a ton of Gottliebs too. We've got Gottlieb EMs, System 80. I mean we've got a lot of Gottliebs. Yeah, that's true. What kind of house? What EMs do you have? What Gottlieb EMs? Target Alpha. We have a Jungle Queen, right? Jungle Queen. We have Atlantis. We have Abracadabra. We have Eldorado.
    16:24
    Funland. 2001. 2001, yep. That's a Wedgehead. We've got a lot of Wedgeheads. Nice. Those are fun. They're all lined up against one of the walls in the back, which is pretty cool. And System 1s or System 80s you got as well? I think a mix. You know, we got a... I'm kind of bad on the board sets. I forget which are which. So System 1 would be like a Sinbad, a Joker Poker. That's System 1. Yeah, we got a Sinbad. Love that game. That's a fantastic... That's a late night game when we're hanging out here up late at night, some of the guys would play Sinbad. It's a great competitive game. We've got Amazing Spider-Man. We've got Counterforce. Spirit.
    17:13
    Oh, you got a Spirit. That's a rare one. Pretty rare. Probably the rarest of the got me is Eclipse, which is a really cool game. I think they only made 190 of those. We've got TX Sector as well. The guy that made the EM just showed up. That's Matt. Matt's our resident genius tech. You're going to edit that out, right? No. This is going off, what, tomorrow? This tourney? Sunday.
    17:41
    We were going to do it tomorrow, but we got 70% rain, so we changed it to Sunday. I let him know eight days ago it was going to rain. Eric, what do you know about wet, man? I know. You're so good at what you do.
    17:56
    How many people do you have coming to this? I think we have 44 signed up right now. Now, can you walk in as well or you sign up ahead of time?
    18:09
    If we know you and you walk in, we'll let you in. If you walk up and we don't know who you are, then you're going to be told that this is a private event. Because like I said, we vet people. Everybody's allowed up here, but we do vet people because we have a lot of families. We have a lot of, you know, elderly people. So we just don't let you can't walk in off the street and come to the asylum. You have to email us first. You know, we'll talk to you on the phone more than likely.
    18:38
    You have to sign a waiver saying that, you know, if you get hurt here, if you break your finger playing pinball, you're not going to sue us. if you eric stone you and i met years ago at fun spot uh what seems like 15 years but i guess what you're saying is 22 years and there's a tournament we both showed up at that fun spot was having it was a video game slash pinball tournament and we bonded there and i was trying to remember recollect how that happened and do you do you remember how that happened i i just remember that uh we thought there was going to be a pinball tournament it was a classic video game and pinball event walter day was there with twin galaxies and um that's when i first met him and instead of a pinball tournament we just we just uh were trying to get high scores and set world records and i know that somehow you and i met at that point so i think i remember this i remember that i was disillusioned because it seemed like i thought it was me a pinball tournament or equal footing with video and pinball and it was very video game centric about giving awards to them and the pinball side is kind of like oh yeah we have some pinball players here too who played as well but anyway back to video games and here's your awards so i was kind of bummed you were bummed and that's how you know you're both like this isn't right so we both kind of high-fived on that it's like yeah this ain't right so we kind of complained to walter day about it and uh walter day said oh don't worry there's gonna be other pinball there's more pinball centric events coming you know this isn't one of them at least right now anyway it still didn't you know ease the pain of it because it's like you know i wanted we wanted to get equal equal billing on it and get some respect for pinball eventually i remember i talked to you about getting more into um into your i saw you're a great player i said you're you're among the best i play with some of the best in the world i play with the the bones of the world the trents um keith elwyn i played out in california with and i and i played against you and when i played all these people and you i'd say eric you're definitely in their league if not if not better than them on the certain days whatever you know i just saw you had great talent and i said you can definitely there's tons of money in line you should definitely show up to one of these pop-up events and you kept saying no no i said yes you should it's it's worth the the air ticket to go out there you can win 10 grand 20 grand you're definitely a contender and uh then tell me how that how that went how you finally decided to say okay how it went i didn't do anything until uh pretty much uh you and i met over there at California Extreme. And so that was really my first pinball tournament. So people ask why, why is my IFPA number 90, you know, rather than 20,000. So you and I've been out there in California, played, we had a good time, won a little bit of money. And, you know, I went back to Salt Lake City and there really wasn't much to do there. Then I came to Fort Myers and you kept telling me about this place, the pinball asylum. And I didn't really know where it was, how to get to it. And eventually, I think you pulled up a website. And I remember my girlfriend and I were trying to find the place. We didn't realize it was, you know, something private. And I wound up emailing him. And, you know, after a couple interviews, I wound up up here and I started playing in tournaments. So that's pretty much how it got started. I remember that, too. It was almost like double secret probation uh trying to get in there and i you were trying to find it it was hidden and this whole thing and it's like a secret club you had to get into is uh a lot of intrigue and i'm so glad you actually you know got in there and now you're going to be part of this uh you know world championship event there which which is great and this is the first time there was a world championship event this time at asylum oh yeah okay every other year the world championship moves from somewhere in europe to somewhere in north america so every two years i believe it's in canada and every four years you know kind of like the olympics it goes every two every four so every odd number year uh it was in europe and then every even number year it was either in canada or the u.s and it would kind of flip-flop you know this past You know, 2020 has been kind of a weird year, to say the least. But even with all the weird going on, you still won world championship titles at Indisc, which is, I guess, the new Papa now. At least they took over for Papa. Tell us about that. You won some tournaments there and you're kind of keeping your rating pretty high.
    23:34
    Yeah. So, you know, most of the tournaments that I've been to were tournaments that I would drive to. and I drove to Dallas I drove to Austin I drove to Pittsburgh we even drove to Toronto so when when people say oh you know you need to go to California you need to go to Indus and I'm thinking man you know I can't drive that far that that's just too far let's rewind to 2019 back in October there's a guy named Lee Muscaratolo a really good friend of mine and he's a fellow New Englander, he played up at Fun Spot in the tournaments back in the late 70s and 80s. And I guess he was way back in the day in the 80s, he was ranked the best in the world, number one.
    24:20
    It kind of went back and forth, I think, between him and Bob Matthews. He would always tell me, hey, you got to go to InDesk, you know, that's your competition. Don't go to these little tournaments and this and that. I'm like, ah, yeah, that's just like I said with you, Dave. And, you know, I don't know about that. So I said, well, I'm going to be spending a lot of money. I don't know, you know, but inside I just had this this feeling, you know, I call it, you know, just just a feeling from God that I need to go to this. And I said, well, I don't know. I'm not going to spend the money. So Free Play Florida comes up in 2019 and every Free Play Florida event that I've attended, which is three, I've been blessed to win. well in this free play florida back in 2019 i won the classics and won the main event and that paid uh i can't remember how much somewhere around you know 3500 so then after free play florida was over i still had that nagging feeling like okay you know now you've got the money to go to indus you need to go to indus and i'm thinking oh man that's just a long way away i don't know if i get the time off of work and you know it's it's that feeling of pressure kind of like you know something and i call you know god leading me to doing that so i'm like all right you know i asked where can i get these dates off yep looked at plane tickets they were actually relatively inexpensive uh i think three hundred dollars round trip uh my good friend dj ryle who lives in pittsburgh he lets me stay up there every time i go to pittsburgh really nice guy him and i got a room at a place called the Oreo Hotel. And if it sounds shady it is shady And the pool and the hot tub were green And I said oh my gosh what kind of place are we in here I need to interject
    26:13
    I can't believe you stayed there. I can. The price was right, right? The price was right, Eric. I know our audience has heard this before, but I didn't even know Eric was going to be in this. And he came up behind me and said, what the hell are you doing here? But I stayed in, I think, the Holiday Inn Express or whatever the other hotel was, which was quite nice. Eric?
    26:41
    A little bit better than the, well, I'll call it a motel. Either way, it was dirt cheap, and I'm all about saving money as long as I'm safe. And I never thought that somebody else would actually pick a hotel as run down as I would pick a hotel. So, you know, him and I have a lot in common. We're the same age. We're both competitive football players. And, you know, it was only fitting that I stayed at the Oyo Hotel. Anyway, so, you know, I get to end this. Classics won 200 people. I come in second. Classics two, over 215 people. They say it's possibly the biggest classics event ever held with the amount of people. and then you know the world championship i wound up winning that with 320 or so people and you know that was uh that was confirmed by reason that i felt god leading me there i mean it was to put it nicely it was one hell of a weekend best pinball weekend i've ever had by far and i don't know if anything would ever top that i think it was almost 300 um ifpa points it boosted me from I think 11th to 3rd and then eventually 2nd in the world. And, you know, it was a world championship. You know, it was amazing. You know, there's a saying that I say a lot. You know, the praises go up, the blessings come down. So I think that's a case in point here with you. Yeah, definitely. Has the time off with the event or our climate affected your ranking in IFPA? I've been bouncing because there hasn't been an IFPA tournament in almost a year. So we are only losing points. Nobody's gaining points. I bounce around from second to fourth.
    28:40
    And the longer the IFPA discontinues the points, the point tournaments, the better chance I'm going to have to be number one, if that makes sense. Because the last two out of three tournaments, Free Play Florida and the World Championship, those two tournaments, I accumulated something like 425 points.
    29:08
    The National Championship in Denver and the Masters, I think I got about 70 points between those two. So all of those add up to about 500 points. So the longer in time other people's points will drop off quicker than mine. So I have always tried to pinpoint how long it would take before everybody else's points dropped off enough that I would be number one. I don't know if it's this year. I don't know if it would be next year. But I mean, I'd rather play pinball for points. But to answer your question, right now I've been bouncing between second and fourth. You know your math. oh yeah i mean i have a degree in it there you go well um three of the games that i just bought from pinberg are going to be in it um so obviously those three titles uh pinbot jackpot and diner i like valley star trek it's it's mid-condition now that's a really fun game that can be a tough table to play that can be a drainer yes yes definitely um i don't have much time on it because the first time I've ever played it was here. It's kind of like when I went over to your house and I went in your front room and I'm like, wow, I've never seen Star Games. I've never seen this. I've never seen Quicksilver. And, you know, I played one after the other, just happened to get the high scores. But we'll leave that for another time.
    30:34
    Those high scores, Eric, I'm still sore about that. You come in and you take all my high scores down and you say, you got anything else? I thought, that's it for you for now, dude. you know, people still don't believe I got 21 million on a Paul deluxe. Yeah. I think 18 million on my fathom or is it more than 18 million? That sounds about right. Cause I had a run of like 15 million and I called you up right after I got 15 and said, I got you, dude. You said, no, no, no. Look in your book. I have 18. They go get out of here.
    31:04
    Yeah. And I think you had like 2.5 million on Ali and I came in and I, I got three something and you said, did you really roll it three times? You only rolled it twice. No, I yelled at you every time I rolled it.
    31:20
    We had some good times there. Oh, yeah. But, you know, just like the asylum, when I first came in here, there were games I had never seen before. And the first tournament I played in here was a doubles tournament. And, of course, I was in the B division because nobody knew who I was. And I was the last one to be picked. And so I'm playing these games and I'm doing well on them, you know. And I'm like, I've never played this game before. I've never seen this game before. Nobody believes me, you know. And I'm like, no, I really, I've never seen, I've never seen a hot dog before, you know. I've never seen this before. And, yeah, it was kind of interesting when I first started out here. It sounds like you made your home there. It sounds like you've got a nice collection to play and a great bunch of guys to play with. Oh, yeah, definitely. And I've got, you know, I've got 10 out of my 11 games up here. You have 11 games now. That's amazing. we have another person who just entered the asylum one of the inmates person by the name of matt malone he's famous for a homebrew game called dragon ball z welcome matt tell us a little bit about your game oh well thank you guys i'm i'm famous for many more things than just the homebrew But the homebrew, well, that's for another interview.
    32:44
    The homebrew was really just, you know, I kind of started it because I just needed to do it. I needed to finally deliver on all the promises I've been making. Everybody says they're going to make their own game. Everybody says it. And I did it. so I really just kind of pressured myself to do it. I think when COVID hit, I didn't get slow at work or anything, but I started going out a lot less, so I had the time after work,
    33:18
    so I just, I knuckled up, and I ended up on a WPC cabinet, and I decided on my theme, and I just went for it, and I got it completed in about three months, start to finish. as far as a flipping game, I'm always adding stuff to it.
    33:39
    Just little modes and stuff. I'm starting to work on the art real slow right now. It'll be here playing at the tailgate thing. I'm excited for people to see it. There's only a few people that have played it so far. Stone has played it. David has played it. A handful of other people, but by and large, a lot of the folks around here in the pinball scene have not played it yet. So I'm excited for them to get their hands on it. So is it based on a game or did you go complete ground up? I went complete ground up. It's a it's a full it's a it's a fully designed game by me. It's not a retheme. You know, I appreciate rethemes, but this this is a true one of a kind pinball in electromechanical pinball. I had to decide what the rules were before I even laid it out. So I kind of designed it backwards. I actually drew all my circuses up before I screwed anything to a piece of wood. So, you know, I just chose Dragon Ball Z because, I don't know, I just wanted to. I don't really – I like Dragon Ball Z, so that's what I chose. For those of us who might not know, could you tell us what Dragon Ball Z is? All right. Well, it's a Japanimation. It's a mega in Japan. It got popular over here in the States. I would say like maybe 15 years ago was like the height of its popularity. It's been popular ever since over here. They actually just had a, could have been the year before, they had a full featured, you know, movie in the cinema, actually, that you can actually go pay tickets and go watch the movie, Dragon Ball Z. It was the Broly, I forgot the name of it, but it's the Broly fighting movie.
    35:21
    I went and saw it in the theater. Screams to getting more popular over here. In Japan, it is truly a, you know, it's ingrained in the culture over there. People love it. It's a lot of the guys power themselves up, and they fight stronger and stronger enemies, and it's just a formulomatic show. It just keeps following that. So they're always, like, getting more power-ups and fighting even stronger guys.
    35:47
    The main feature in the game is to power up and become a Super Saiyan and get more points. Have you documented this game out online anywhere where people could see the fruits of your labor? Local forum here in Florida, and I have a small thread on Pinside. I haven't shamelessly campaigned like some other folks, but it's out there for people to see. It's on Pinside. I have a couple questions about it. So is it purely an electromechanical pin, or is it circuitry in solid state? There is some solid state in it, all triggered by relays. For instance, like the sounds, they're like little MP3 boards that are triggered by relay pulses. It has some solid state relay timing modules that I use to advance ball sequences and things like that. But there's the heart of the game is 100 relays. I mean, it's all the coils are driven by relays. The switches turn relays on. Those relays turn on coils. And the game runs through relays.
    37:00
    And there's a chime box in it. Everything is relays. I mean, you know, the power supplies are, you know, kind of the same stuff that Stern is using now. It's just switching power supplies. You know, I just did what I could with what I knew how to do. so I've got a mixture of stuff there there is some solid state stuff in it but it's it's not helping the game run at all like I can unplug all that stuff and you can still play the pinball so this is a four player with score reels no it is a single player game um with a an electric counter that they actually use for like concerts they just press a button or people coming into the store they'll press a button and it just counts up so there's relay strokes that pull that in and they count the score it's all one point scoring so the shots are designed to score you more than one point uh for multiple switches so in that sense you know i'm using a solid state cheat you know i looked into doing score reels but it was just took up too much space and it was just too much time. It was a lot easier just to make the game with scoring one point.
    38:18
    Is your background, again, you must have said it already, are you an electrical engineer background? Are you in the EEE? No, I work on elevators and escalators.
    38:33
    I've had some schooling, but it's just all whatever the union decided to send me to nothing formal so there's lots of relays involved with that then with elevators a lot of relays and and so forth that's how you yeah from the old stuff like the early 80s and and prior but it followed the same it followed the same industry style that pinball did i mean as soon as pinball went solid state that's when elevators pretty much went solid state so um in florida elevators boomed in like the 70s so there were a lot of relay logic elevators around here, but they've all been gutted out. Solid stuff put in Nowadays I mean you might find one or two relays in an elevator system so it not it not a whole lot dude how did you do how did you do the artwork for the game i didn't i did it there's no art there's no art on the game yet okay it's just uh it's uh right now it's just whitewood i've got a couple of like instructional things uh painted on it and my plastics right now are still clear. So I got to play with Photoshop and figure that out. But I'm really leaning towards hand painting the play field. It's just easier. Well, if you need an artist, I know a really good one here in the northeast, Joel DeGuzman. I appreciate that, but this game is 100% made by me, so I'm going to try to keep it that way. Gotcha. I don't want any other hands in my game. Sure. I'm really going for, you know, a lot of the homebrews you see, there's a lot of collaboration with other people. And I want to be the person that says, like, this thing is made solely by me.
    40:17
    Matt and I, we go out and eat at least once a week. He's a good friend of mine. He lives about five minutes away. And I've played a lot of games on his homebrew. And it is amazing. you know what he did in three months I don't know how anybody could do period when you lift the play field up and you see all the relays and you see all the wiring it'll it blows your mind even you Dave you know and you have a lot of experience in that sort of thing but one note I did beat his high score so right now I do have a high score on it oh no Or you did. I squashed it.
    40:54
    It's been squashed, but the rules have changed. Okay. You know that. I got to go back to this house. We go back and forth. But we have a good time. I recently put in a track mode on it, actually, too.
    41:06
    So I got this little motor that runs around and just hits these. I use these WPC, normally open EOS switches.
    41:15
    And this motor runs around and just pulls in the lights. So when the game's off, it's just pretty funny. it's funny to open that up and see that what did you choose for uh flipper mix williams everything's yeah everything is uh what is what is black what is black knight system seven it's all like that those are all the coils i used and everything's basically wpc max slingshots flipper max all that kind of stuff the drop targets it's all wpc pretty robust yeah i haven't had a problem with the game yet i mean it's probably got at least five or six hundred plays on it. You know, I was kind of worried, like the relays I chose, the beefiest ice cube relays you can find on Amazon, they, the contacts were, they were only going to handle, you know, 10 amps. So I had to use, like for every coil that drives from a relay, I, you know, paralleled the contacts to give me a 20 amp rating, put a, like a flipper snubber across that and parallel to kind of keep the arcing down. In the beginning, I was thinking I was going to, you know, end up with a locked on coil or something for some contacts arcing together but it hasn't happened yet so one day it will then i'll just pull a relay out put another one in sounds great so did you um do a a youtube video on this yet or anything out there that people can see or i'm pin yeah i did uh i don't know what the link is i did a uh i did a twitch not like i did a twitch style video i never broadcasted at twitch but i used what is it called osb i use some crappy webcams but it's it's out there too I linked it to, I'll have David send you over the link. Sure. But I linked it to our local forum here, but I never put it up inside. It was just us like casually playing it in the garage.
    43:05
    You were talking to me a little bit about Norma Jennings. Yeah. She had a battle with cancer going on and she's a Twitch stream and she's a really good player. Tell me a little bit about her. Yeah, so, you know, Norma Jennings has always been a fan of mine. She's always encouraged me. She's, you know, lifted me with her words. And, you know, when I play competitive pinball and I get passionate about the game and, you know, I get on highs and I get on lows, you know. And Dave probably knows this more than anybody. but I get you know sad and down on myself if you know I get in a slump or whatever normal is always there to kind of lift me out of that and she's a good player here in the state of Florida most of the time she makes the top 16 in the state so she's always playing in the state tournament every year and she came down with terminal metastatic cancer about, I want to say about six months ago. So she chose to start a Twitch stream that was pinball and cancer. And it kind of lets people know that, hey, you know, if you think you have something wrong with you, you might want to get it checked out before it's too late. And she waited possibly a little bit too long. But people like, if you heard Dustin Diamond, the guy's screech from Saved by the Bell, he waited way too long. And unfortunately, you know, he passed away recently. And so she wants to make people aware of cancer and also about pinball and the fun of playing pinball. So her Twitch stream is pinball and cancer. And, you know, she she doesn't ask for anything. No subscriptions, no bits, no nothing. She does it out of the goodness of her heart. And, you know, we all she's a she's a she's a believer and she prays and we pray for that, you know, God will heal her. And we all pray for a miracle in that healing for her because the percentages aren't with her. But, you know, with God, all things are possible. So it's just really cool to watch. Her stream is every Tuesday at seven o'clock at night. She lives on the East Coast. And, you know, with having cancer, she didn't really want to go out in the public and play pinball with COVID. So she just received her two vaccines, her two shots, and she's going to be at the asylum on Sunday. So, yeah, so a lot of us are really, really, really excited to see her after all this. But again, you know, checking out her stream, Pinball and Cancer, every Tuesday evening at seven o'clock. And it's just really cool, you know. and I guess what you were saying she had some success too with this with uh you know there's power and prayer and a lot of people were you know prayer prayer chain and that kind of thing it actually has helped with some of her uh some of her cancer right some recovery right yeah and you know she doesn't she goes on her stream and she does her thing she doesn't go from to from one extreme to the other uh but her and I her and I email each each other you know uh once or twice a week and she has told me that you know the power of prayer is helping out and that she can feel herself you know she has more better days now than she did you know a few months ago so yeah it works well so any any believers out there you know that have that faith uh definitely she could appreciate your prayers and the more the more the merrier to uh hopefully get her out of this yeah definitely i ended up emailing david denholz on sunday evening to find out who had won the pin golf in fort myers at the pinball asylum and i got this reply it went terrific we had 46 players and about 70 people showed up of course eric stone won we were joking after the tournament that we need to start giving out two first place trophies, one for Eric Stone and one for Except for Eric Stone. Thank you.
    47:42
    Do you know if he's had any interface with Josh Sharp about the World Championships in November? I mean, it's been pretty silent out of IFPA headquarters. I'm wondering when things are going to get back to business as usual. Yeah, I mean, we're still scheduled to go in November for the World Championships here. Josh Sharp is just monitoring the situation around the world and if 80% of the world opens up he's still not going to open IFPA tournaments because it wouldn't be fair to the other 20% It's really based on travel restrictions Let's go down that road. If you look at the top 10, Eric you've got Peter Anderson, Johannes Ostermeyer Robert Suter and Daniele Acchiari are they all going to be able to travel to this thing come November? We're not going to have it if they're not able to travel. That's the thing.
    48:53
    The rules are that two people from each country can participate, correct? It is the top two. Basically, you have the national championship. The top two in that tournament. so when i was in 2017 i wasn't ranked in the top 64 but because i won the national championship i was able to go to denmark so if in italy the top two people that win are not in the top 64 they get the first dibs okay and then it goes down from number one number two number three number four like that so in the u.s it's you and ray day no there's a lot more people um colin urban won the national championship in 2020 so he would be able to come but i think he's a top 64 player anyway i'm not sure who came in second but it's basically the top two in every country in that national tournament if they can't go we need to fill up 64 places so you ask raymond david says number one can you go yes number two can you go yes number three no number four yes right i'm not really worried about the u.s being represented i think it's more a question of the rest of the world opening up like you said and if that is the case is everybody going to be able to get into the country come November. I mean, that's going to come real quick. That's the thing. If everybody cannot get in the country by November, then it will be postponed to 2022. If the world opens up and everybody can come in like normal, then we're going to have it November. Nobody's going to be shut out because of COVID restrictions.
    50:54
    Dave! Who? Dave! D-A-V-E! Yeah, Dave! Right. So anyone out there that wants to explore getting their games worked on, getting their games restored, or buying a restored game from me, you can check out my website at pinballdoctor.com. That's pinballdoctor, all spelled out. Or you can reach me at dave at pinballdoctor.com. Or you can reach me at drdavespinball at gmail. And that's D-R-D-A-V-E-S, pinball, at gmail. Hot to trot. Next woman takes me on is going to light up like a pinball machine and pay off in silver dollars.
    51:44
    You take a mortal man. And put him in control. Watch him become a god. Watch people's heads all roll.
    52:10
    Roll.