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Ep 1: Enter The Final Round

Final Round Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·38m 47s·analyzed·Jun 26, 2020
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.030

TL;DR

Final Round Pinball Podcast launches with hosts discussing competitive pinball culture and upcoming Australian Championship Series.

Summary

First episode of Final Round Pinball Podcast, hosted by Jeff Teolis and Martin Robbins, launches on the Pinball Network. The hosts discuss the value of competitive pinball for skill development, introduce tournament formats, and interview Ryan C. about Australian Championship Series qualification and competitive growth in Australia. Key focus: how competitive play drives players to improve despite initial reluctance.

Key Claims

  • IFPA membership has grown from 23,000 to approaching 80,000 in roughly six years

    medium confidence · Jeff Teolis, discussing IFPA growth metrics

  • Australian pinball competition players increased 19% year-over-year from 2017-2019 (1000→1290→1532)

    high confidence · Ryan C., citing specific competition statistics from Australian Championships

  • Whoppers needed to qualify for Australian Championship Series increased 51% from 2018 to 2019 (83→125)

    high confidence · Ryan C., providing specific WPPR threshold data

  • Dollar fee tournaments are new to Australia in 2020 and will affect Australian Championship Series format next year

    high confidence · Ryan C., discussing new tournament format changes

  • Australian Championship Series qualification changed from top 48 to top 64 with state championship pathway added

    high confidence · Ryan C., explaining upcoming ACS format restructure

  • Concurrent games format can save approximately one hour off tournament time vs sequential finals

    medium confidence · Ryan C., discussing tournament logistics benefits

  • Martin Robbins qualified 30th for Australian Championship Series; Ryan C. qualified 20th

    high confidence · Ryan C. and Martin Robbins discussing their ACS qualification standings

  • Flipper skills are more important than rules knowledge for improving at pinball

    high confidence · Martin Robbins and Jeff Teolis, consensus opinion from experienced players

  • Dead bounce technique is essential for competitive pinball and one of easiest ways to control the ball

    high confidence · Jeff Teolis, explaining fundamental flipper technique

  • Ryan C. attended last year's ACS, had five chances to make finals (multiple tiebreakers), failed to qualify

Notable Quotes

  • “Competitions kind of drive you to become better and learn more about the games.”

    Martin Robbins @ early — Core thesis about how competitive play accelerates skill development

  • “Your first objective in any pinball machine is to trap the ball, to slow the game down. That is your primary objective. Everything else happens after that.”

    Martin Robbins @ mid — Fundamental teaching point about flipper control and ball management

  • “I don't remember trapping up but again we're talking quite a few years ago but the one thing i definitely know i did not do in my youth was watching live catches or doing live catches or drop catches”

    Jeff Teolis @ mid — Acknowledges how modern tutorial content and technique sharing has evolved competitive play

  • “it was probably more flip it and hope for the best pretty much”

    Martin Robbins @ mid — Contrasts old-school pinball approach with modern competitive technique

  • “not only are we getting more people these comps, just like the Melbourne Civil Ball Championship you ran last year and Brisbane Masters. They're kind of generating so many whoppers that it's quite hard now to get in.”

    Ryan C. @ mid-late — Shows how Australian pinball competition has become more competitive and exclusive

  • “I know I'm good at playing pinball. I'm not anywhere near Australia's best player, but if you're able to play your best game, then you have a chance against the best players.”

    Ryan C. @ late — Reflects psychological approach and confidence-building mindset for competitive play

  • “There's always a resistance to changing the format. I think people like and are used to the pressure of kind of watching people and watching what they're doing”

    Ryan C. @ mid — Explains player psychology and resistance to concurrent games format innovation

  • “The 2020 Porsche Spyder, the official car of the Final Round Pinball Podcast. No compromises, no regrets.”

Entities

Jeff TeolispersonMartin RobbinspersonRyan C.personFinal Round Pinball PodcastorganizationPinball NetworkorganizationIFPAorganizationAustralian Championship Series

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: IFPA membership grew from ~23k to ~80k in roughly 6 years; Australian competition players increased 19% YoY 2017-2019; new dollar fee format introduced to Australia to include smaller states; ACS expanding from 48 to 64 players with state championship pathway

    high · Jeff Teolis cited IFPA growth; Ryan C. provided specific Australian competition statistics and explained format restructuring

  • ?

    content_signal: Final Round Pinball Podcast launched on Pinball Network as successor to Head to Head Pinball; established email and Facebook contact channels; initial episode focuses on competitive pinball culture and skill development

    high · Opening segment and multiple references to show launch, contact information provided, hosts discuss show brainstorming and format

  • ?

    event_signal: Australian Championship Series upcoming on Gold Coast; Ryan C. qualified 20th, Martin Robbins qualified 30th (but staying in Melbourne); top 48 Australian players invited to exclusive championship competition; expanding to 64 with state pathways

    high · Ryan C. and Martin Robbins directly discuss their qualifications and event details; Ryan provides specific WPPR threshold data

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Hosts emphasize ball control (trapping, dead bounce) over rules knowledge; discussed dead bounce as foundational technique; flipper height assessment before play mentioned as standard pre-game ritual

    high · Extended discussion by Jeff Teolis and Martin Robbins about flipper skills priority; multiple technique examples provided

  • ?

    design_innovation: Concurrent games format in tournament finals reduces downtime and saves ~1 hour; gaining adoption in Australia despite initial player resistance; Ryan C. notes format suits some player types better than others

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.116

0:00
The Pinball Network is online. Launching final round pinball podcast. It's player versus player and player versus machine. Welcome to the final round.
0:40
My name is Jeff Teolas. It's great to be here for this first episode of Final Round. And I'm Martin Robbins and also very pleased that we get to do this podcast. Really, because Martin, when I heard Head to Head was going goodbye, I was like, there's no way that guy's not going to be on a podcast. So when the Pinball Network decided to put together shows and we were contacted, it seemed like a nice fit for us to be talking about something we both love. It really did. And obviously, we've spoken many times. You've been on my show a number of times, as Jeff Teolis and other. And I've also been on your show. And we also talk about pinball a lot, even in between those shows. I think we talk daily. And we love pinball. We love promoting pinball. and we like people to be better at playing pinball. So this seems like a really good avenue for us to come together to talk about pinball and how to get better at playing pinball. So, you know, if you're used to the things that we do, whether it be head-to-head, whether it's Martin on Melbourne's Silver Ball, which you can also see on the Pinball Network, great streams twice a week, Pinball Profile, we like talking about competition pinball, and that might turn some people off. It shouldn't because really, we all started the exact same way and we all played pinball and wanted to get better. Competitions kind of drive you to become better and learn more about the games. Absolutely agreed. And the point I'll make there as well is that when people think about competitive pinball, they think about tournaments. And that can be quite daunting for a lot of people. But I think the thing to remember is that pinball is competitive. I mean, even I think the old Gottliebs of the time said it's more fun to compete. and even if we're playing dollar games, which is something that you have in North America, in Australia, I've started seeing those come up recently, but even when you're playing with friends, you're sort of still trying to beat the other player or even if you're playing with yourself, you're trying to get a higher score or to the wizard mode. So it still is always competitive. You are always trying to get better and be number one for many different reasons. Listen, nothing made my Australia trip better than when I put the grand champion on my third game on your Jurassic Park. That made the whole trip. I know Perth and Sydney and Melbourne were fine, but that was maybe one of the highlights of the trip. Yeah, you did really well. And Jurassic Park, we probably can talk about that later, but it's a great game. And already, I think people are waiting for that code to get finalized so it becomes a solid competitive pinball machine that everybody will want as part of the tournament. So do you remember when you first got into competitive pinball? Because I remember first playing pinball. It was at arcades and I was excited about getting the free games, whether it be match or earned by score. And then a few years passed, there's no pinball. I get back into it about six years ago and a friend on Facebook said, we're going to play in a pinball league and I didn't even know these things existed. Went to this guy's collection, 11 of my all-time favorite machines. They're in his basement. I'm playing these games. Oh, and they're keeping score and there's a league. That was secondary. I was just excited to play pinball. And then after that, I noticed, okay, there are scores and there are standings and people would tell you about competitions. And that just made me love pinball even more. Well, I've got a very similar Genesis story in that my first machine that I bought was Roller Games. You know, if you know me, you know I often talk about Roller Games because it's a fast, very brutal game. And I bought that because I wanted to be a better player. but I posted a picture of it on Facebook and a friend of mine reached out and said, hey, there are competitions going on at a place that's 10 minutes away from your house. You should come along and play. And, you know, I was kind of a bit apprehensive at first because I didn't know these people. I didn't know how many people they were going to be and it's a tournament. It's going to be a pressure environment but that's not what it's like. It's actually quite social and everybody wants you to be a good player and be a part of it because I think everybody really wants to grow the pinball scene in whichever way they're involved. There are a lot of different reasons why people play competitively. And it might be leagues. It might be that social aspect. It might be the challenge, as you mentioned, in a dollar match or something like that. It might be a bigger tournament. It's all different levels of competition. And again, helps you enjoy the games a lot more because you want to get better. You want to know how to get a multi-ball. You want to know how to get a jackpot, maybe to a wizard mode. And these competitions, when you're playing better players, it's my favorite thing to play people that I think are some of the best players in the world. I'm not intimidated because I know I'm going to learn from these people, and it will make me enjoy pinball even more. Well, I mean, obviously, you're a top 100 player in the world as well. Top 50. Top 50, if we could just make that better.

high confidence · Ryan C., recounting personal ACS experience

Jeff Teolis @ early-mid — Humorous sponsor announcement reflecting hosts' self-aware comedy style

event
Melbourne Silver Ballevent
Head to Head Pinball Podcastorganization
Jurassic Park Limited Editiongame
Stranger Thingsgame
Wizard of Ozgame
Roller Gamesgame
Gottliebcompany
Sterncompany
pin tips.netorganization
papa.orgorganization
Flip Frenzy formatproduct
Concurrent Games formatproduct
Gold Coastvenue
Pinball Profileorganization

high · Ryan C. detailed explanation of concurrent games benefits, logistics, and player psychology around adoption

  • ?

    code_update: Jurassic Park Limited Edition code awaiting finalization; discussed as blocker for inclusion in competitive tournament play; Jeff Teolis expressed confidence in eventual tournament viability

    medium · Martin Robbins mention: 'people are waiting for that code to get finalized so it becomes a solid competitive pinball machine that everybody will want as part of the tournament'

  • ?

    operational_signal: Australian tournaments achieving near-100% TGP through format innovations (concurrent games, increased game counts); weeknight tournaments may run at 70-80% TGP; administrators balancing attendance with WPPR generation

    high · Ryan C. detailed discussion of TGP strategies and tournament optimization in Australia

  • $

    market_signal: Australian competitive pinball experiencing steady 19% YoY player growth; WPPR threshold rising faster (51% YoY) than player count, indicating increased competitive depth; smaller states gaining inclusion through new format

    high · Ryan C. provided comprehensive statistics on Australian competition growth 2017-2019 and threshold analysis

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Initial resistance to concurrent games format from players who prefer sequential pressure/observation model; adoption increasing as players experience success; acceptance correlates with winning rather than logical understanding

    high · Ryan C.: 'Once someone does well in that format, they're like, oh yeah, I like it now... Once someone qualifies first and they bow out straight away in the eighth, they're like, well, Ryan, this format sucks'

  • ?

    community_signal: Hosts discussing strategies to reduce tournament anxiety for new/reluctant players; emphasis on social aspect, learning opportunity, and inclusive tournament format options; multiple format tiers accommodate different player confidence levels

    high · Extended discussion about beginner-friendly tournaments, anxiety management, and tournament variety (Flip Frenzy, strikes formats, dollar games)

    • 5:29
    Okay, sure. I'm not. We'll get to the differences being overseas to North America. But, you know, you're right. I think that by playing competitive pinball, and I guess it's probably playing more pinball as well, you actually play better and you see more of the game. I remember before starting tournaments, for me, if I got into a multiball, I was happy, and that was the game. It was just about multiball, and then you'd look up and see what score you got. When you go to these tournaments where everybody is talking about rules and how you can get the best out of the game, you unlock so much more in the game because you can do more in the game. So what do you say to people that I'm not interested in competitions at all? It doesn't interest me. I like playing pinball, but maybe I don't want to sit around and wait to play. I just want to go and play or maybe play a friend and maybe not intermingle. There are different types of leagues and tournaments that might actually suit you. And as we look at the growth of IFPA, I mean, when I started, I think there were 23,000 people in the IFPA, and that was just almost six years ago. We're approaching 80,000 people right now. So the growth in all areas has certainly been shown, whether it's the dollar in North America, now in Australia, whether it's the number of tournaments. We're just seeing things like the Stern Pro Circuit and great media highlights show the excitement of competitive pinball. And I try to talk to people that aren't interested and say, well, if you like pinball, you probably would like competitive pinball. I do understand, you know, there are some anxieties that come with that and fear of failure, which is unfortunate because in pinball, you're always going to fail. Your ball is always going to drain. So that's never been a factor for me. I just try to get the enjoyment of things like you said, you know, getting a multi ball. That was my victory. Yeah, agreed. And I think you touched on it. There are different formats of tournaments as well. If someone says, oh, I'm a bit reluctant about going to a tournament, I wouldn't recommend going to Pimberg, for an example, because that is such a high-pressure environment. It's fun and you're going to play a lot of pinball, but it is super competitive. But there are a lot of tournaments and different types that are particularly good for beginners. And in Australia, we've been big advocates of the Flip Frenzy format because it's three hours of non-stop pinball and right at the end you find out where you came and sometimes that's a bit of a laugh at the reveal, but it's very social. It's kind of speed dating for pinball as well. There are others... It's a good analogy. Yeah, I think so too. You're speed dating the pinball machine and the person you're playing against. There's also strikes formats, I think, as well, because there's not that much downtime between rounds. That's quite good. So for people that are sort of on the fence and there's many different ways to sort of tackle that, I think the point of it is you're going to meet new people, you're going to have fun, and you're going to learn. If that's appealing, then go for it. You've got to experience to know whether you're going to like it or not. Really. It's such a simple way of putting it. I don't even remember how well I did in my first competition or league. It didn't actually matter. It was just exciting to find out I'm going to be a member of the International Flipper Pinball Association, and I can see where I rank against my peers. That was the excitement to me. Yeah. as I play more and more, I want to see how good I can get at this. So I'm really going to try my hardest at competitions. You know, when it came to actually playing, certainly concentrate. Learning the rules was something I think you and I both are similar there. Learning the rules, not our strength. You know, I want to come up to a game, tell me three things I have to do. What do I do on this flipper? What do I do on the slipper? And give me some other shot. That's probably all I can retain. But these competitions help me in all these areas to become a better pinball player. Well, I would absolutely agree with you. And I think what's really interesting is that people, when they come to me, they say, oh, I want to play better at this machine. Can you tell me the rules? And my answer to them is you actually need better flipper skills because it doesn't matter how much you know about the rules of a machine. You need to be able to, A, keep the ball alive and B, shoot the shots that you need at precisely the time that you need. So flipper skills is really important And that was the first thing that really did improve when I started playing tournaments was my flipper skills first and foremost I noticed that when you unboxed your Jurassic Park your LE that you have I remember you saying you didn't want to watch any videos. You just wanted to play it, find the shots, which was the most important thing, and then learn the rules. Now, you didn't find the shots, but at least you now know how the game works. And I do agree with you. I just played Stranger Things in Australia for the first time, and I had seen some streams before, but not a lot. I just wanted to flip and find the shots. That's all I cared about, and then learn the game later. So I think you're right. It's not so much about the rules at first. You have to have those skills. You have to have the accuracy. You have to be able to control the ball. It's the most important thing in pinball. That's what I tell any new player. Don't bash the flippers necessarily every single time the ball comes to you. The object is to try to trap up and slow the ball down so that you can take those accurate shots. Absolutely. Almost like words out of my mouth because there's somebody that I stream, as you know, Melbourne Silver, what we talked about before. And I get to stream at a friend of mine's place, Eric, nearly every week, sometimes every fortnight. And I actually did a bit of a tutorial session with him about a week ago. And I said to him, and this is probably the biggest advice I'd give everybody. Obviously, I'm not top 50 like some people. But I would say we are thinking that our objective is to hit a ramp, hit an orbit, hit targets, get a multi-ball, get to the wizard mode. That's what we're thinking in our heads. And I say stop that. Stop that thinking. Your first objective in any pinball machine is to trap the ball, to slow the game down. That is your primary objective. Everything else happens after that. you've got to have control of the ball. Otherwise, you won't get any of that other stuff that you think that you're there to do. Are we going to agree on everything in this show? Nope, we're not. But I think everybody's journey to playing competitive pinball is kind of the same because we have the same experiences where people are very welcoming and people will take the time out to help you become a better player. Very good point. And I know I received a lot of tips. People will go on pin tips.net and get quick user advice. You'll go on papa.org and there's some great pinball tips there. And you can find lots of wonderful tutorials as well, where you can actually see streams of the game plays. But again, those flipper skills are the most important thing to learn in any pinball machine. Another thing too, I always do, do you do this? Whenever I play a game in a tournament, the first thing I do before I plunge the ball is I flip the flippers to see how high up are they going to go. Are they like Gottliebs? And I'm like, okay, I can trap every single time when it comes down an inlaying because it's not going to go up and over those Gottlieb. Or are they pretty flat because they want, you know, it's a pump and dump and they want the games to turn over quickly. So it's going to be probably harder to trap the ball. You might have to transfer it over to the other flipper. These are things I look at just as I kind of try to find the tilt bob. A lot of different things you have to do when you're playing competitive pinball. Yep, I agree. Obviously, you couldn't find the tilt bob in my Jurassic Park in order to be able to get your 1.1 billion score, but, you know, sure.
    12:54
    So, what do you think is the first skill that somebody should learn to be a better player? Now, I would say, besides, don't flip the flippers at the same time. Let's move on from that. But if we're talking about... Hold on a second, I'm writing that down.
    13:12
    That is gold right there. You might be top 30, top 20 within a couple of weeks if you do that. So what do you think that first skill that you learn where you go, oh, wow, I am now a better pinball player because I can do this? Because I'm familiar with most machines, I sometimes forget this. But then when I watch new players and I was playing a pinball game at your place with my wife and she'd never seen this machine before. I thought, oh, what is she seeing? And it was Wizard of Oz. And I was like, she doesn't know where the ball's going to come out because if she full plunges, it's going to go underneath. so finding the ball is the most important thing so i look at the playfield where is that plunger going to go it's easy on the game like say world poker tour where you see okay it's going to go to the up kick it's going to go the upper playfield got that but some games have some unique patterns think of a game like radical and okay that's going to go up a ramp and around and yeah so that's kind of very important that to me is the first thing before i plunge where is this ball going to go Yep, I would agree with you. I think probably for me, where I noticed that I started becoming top 10 in a competition or tournament as opposed to the bottom or the second bottom, which happened for about the first year. So people have obviously done relatively well with my ranking. But for the first year, I was last and second last or bottom five for about a year. And I think it's when you learn, again, it's a whole slowing it down. The dead bounce for me was the first staple that I learned and that I could actually do in a tournament setting because nerves really is the first thing that you've got to be able to get over that really improved my game. It's so funny. I know some great players. I'll casually say, try to dead bounce. And they're like, oh, I'm too nervous. Yeah. Okay. Maybe in a competition. And you know what? I've done that too. Earlier in competitions, I forgot to do things like that because the nerve certainly took over. But practice that for sure. The dead bounce is one of the easiest ways to control the ball. If it's coming straight down and it's not going to hit either end of the flipper, the base or the tip, it will just take a 90 degree angle to the other flipper. And then you can trap up. It is one of the easiest things to do. You can see a lot of tutorials on it, but that is an essential for any player on any machine. I know I certainly didn't. I don't know about you. I never grew up thinking that that was even a thing that was possible. Nobody ever did that back in the 70s and 80s and 90s. So has that been a more recent thing? I mean, you've been playing competitive people more than I have. Has that been a relatively recent thing? I don't recall doing that in my youth. it was probably more flip it and hope for the best pretty much i don't remember trapping up but again we're talking quite a few years ago but the one thing i definitely know i did not do in my youth was watching live catches or doing live catches or drop catches yeah right yeah because that's just i guess you have to see it on a video to go okay i guess that is possible and that definitely gave me the confidence in bounce passes knowing that okay that's going to happen almost every single time. Just make sure, again, it doesn't hit the base or doesn't hit the tip. Yeah, correct. And it's about having faith in the machine and understanding that it is actually a normal thing. And there are actually rubbers on the end of these flippers that have elasticity. So the ball will bounce unless they're super bands. And then that's a bit of trouble. We will probably do an episode on super bands. We're going to cover all kinds of different topics on final round. We've got a whole bunch that we've kind of brainstormed, I mean, to cover our software for quite some time. And again, any suggestions you have, we actually have an email for that. We do indeed. You can contact us at finalroundpinball at gmail.com or you can also go to our Facebook page. We got one of those as well. How fancy are we? Holy cow. High tech. I know. Facebook page, email. I was always so jealous of the sponsors and the big bucks you had at head to head. I mean, you being able to retire from work while cashing in on that huge corporate advertising.
    17:15
    There's just so much money to be made in podcasts, obviously, and sponsors were very important to head-to-head. I don't know whether we had any, but I'm all about sponsors and high-end products, and that's what pinball is all about. Well, let's do it for final round. I'm in sales for a living. Let's say go big or go home. That's why I am proud to announce the first official car sponsor of the final round pinball podcast. Do you mean the 2020 Porsche Spyder? The mid-engine plug-in hybrid sports car that's a firebrand, a go-getter. With its 414 horsepower, the engine delivers more than its predecessors. A car horn that gives the middle finger to public transit. It's the car that says, hey, look, I've got midlife crisis. The 2020 Porsche Spyder, the official car of the Final Round Pinball Podcast. No compromises, no regrets.
    18:09
    All right, so I guess the cars should be rolling in. What color are you going to go with? White. I always go white with my sports cars, except for the fact that I've got a gray one at the moment. But white cars are much better to be able to see when you're taking them out of a ditch. Anyway, inside joke. I always go red for my sports cars. Oh, okay. I can imagine it. Holding on to the hair that I've lost that is now gray. That's all. I can imagine the 2020 Porsche Spyder would be fantastic in red. Speaking of red, you know, that was almost one of the titles that we were going to give this show. We had to come up with a name for this show for the Pinball Network. There were a few that didn't make the cut. Head to Red, I thought, would have been a good idea. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Talking Points was your suggestion I didn't like. Keep going.
    18:56
    Talking Competition Points, I thought it was kind of good. What about 50-50? I have no idea what the hell that meant.
    19:05
    I do know what that means. Yeah. So anyway. By the way, happy birthday. A few days ago, you joined the Half Century Club. I was there a couple of weeks ago, enjoyed spending it at your place in Melbourne, and I hope you had a good one too. Yeah it was fantastic I also had people over for the Melbourne Silver Bowl stream So have a look at that It got a little bit messy A lot of people came over I just on stream I literally said if you know where I live come over Sunday night for my birthday stream And a lot of people turned up and it was a lot of fun. Why do I have a feeling next week's final round sponsor might be a gin company?
    19:44
    Well, we know our gin of choice because you got to experience Australia's finest gin. Four pillars, yes. We'll save that for next week.
    19:53
    It's time to bring on our first guest on Final Round. Someone that I think everybody's familiar with and I think almost like the poster child for somebody that was quite reluctant about playing in tournaments and then embraced the culture and is now a massive ambassador. Joining the show, you know him, you love him, Ryan C. Hello, Ryan. G'day, lads. Is this your first time on a podcast? It's been a while, I think.
    20:19
    Yeah. A whole two weeks, Jeff. So it is a big deal, this Australian Championship. Dr. John was talking about it when I was there in Melbourne, and he's very, very excited. Of course, it's in the greatest part of Australia, as I've been told, in Queensland.
    20:35
    That's all John kept saying. I said, well, I'm going to Perth, I'm going to Sydney, going to Melbourne. He's like, ah, it's got to be Queensland. I'm like, I was pretty happy with the three I went to, but I'm sure Queensland's lovely. Queensland is great. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. But this competition, Marty just said it's the biggest one. Why is it so big? What is it? Well, I guess every single person in Australia that enters an IFBA-sanctioned competition, if they rank in the top 48 players throughout the year, they get invited to play in this exclusive competition. So, Marty, you qualified, I think, 30th or so, so you were definitely in, but I guess you're not going because it's in a different part of the country. Not everyone can make it. True. But you're going. so yeah so i'm i'm sort of staying in melbourne for this it's up in uh on the gold coast i believe and ryan how did you qualify yeah it's um it's up in cool and gatta um i qualify 20 seconds um which is my best finish i guess but i just want to quickly talk about the growth because jeff probably halves on about the growth in australian pinball probably more than we ever did marty but i got some stats here and these are stats about how many people have been playing in australian comps and how hard it's been to get into the australian championship series so in 2017 we had 1000 just over 1000 players and if you wanted to get in you needed 70 whoppers okay the next year we had 1290 people and that's a 19 increase in the amount of players from the previous year and you need 83 whoppers to get in, which is also a 19% increase. Fast forward to last year, Marty and Jeff, 2019, we had 1,532 players. That's also a 19% increase from the previous year, so it's pretty steady. But here's the interesting thing. You needed 125 whoppers to just kind of scrape into the last position, which is a 51% increase on the previous year. So not only are we getting more people these comps, just like the Melbourne Civil Ball Championship you ran last year and Brisbane Masters. They're kind of generating so many whoppers that it's quite hard now to get in. You have to attend these big tournaments, but do pretty well in them as well. Well, a steady increase in number of players, but you told me when I was there that a lot of the competitions aren't always full TGP. So in that sense, people want to play these competitions, maybe it's a weeknight and maybe it comes in at 70% or 80% TGP, whereas if you play a few extra games, if you get to that 25 TGP, that's 100%. That might be the big difference maker. Is that something I know you organize a lot of tournaments. You make sure it's 100% TGP, don't you? Yeah, I guess you don't want to gear your tournament in a way where you're just whopper hunting. I'm not sure who introduced this, but the introduction of co-current games has saved a lot of time in finals. So in previous years, we kind of just did, you know, three games, you know, a top eight, three games and then three games again. And, you know, sending that to four games kind of would make the tournament last until one in the morning. But when you force players to play co-current games, you can get that extra TGP and save an hour off your time. So it's kind of a win-win for everybody. There's always a resistance to changing the format. I think people like and are used to the pressure of kind of watching people and watching what they're doing, and then, you know, it's your shot, and then you have to wait three more turns. But people, I guess, are slowly getting used to just kind of playing four games at once. I obviously, you and I, we've spoken about this. I'm not a fan of it, but I've not actually really played in one, so I'd be keen to give it a go. I guess the feedback people will say is that they kind of forget where they are on a particular game, and they kind of lose, their connection to that game because they are playing three different games and sometimes they're very different styles as well because sometimes you've got solid states as well as a modern Stern. Yeah, 100%. There was a big resistance to it initially. What I kind of found is that once someone does well in that format, they're like, oh yeah, I like it now. I'm used to it. Once someone qualifies first and they bow out straight away in the eighth, they're like, well, Ryan, this format sucks. So I think there's a little bit of ego involved. There's a little bit of getting used to it. But it also suits some people. Some people do really well in flip frenzies because it's this frantic format, and they're really good at concentrating in that frantic format. And Co-Current Games is kind of a frantic version of finals. But there's no time limit. It's actually you can take as long as you want. People just sometimes get into the mindset, well, I have to hurry up and get to the next game. No, you don't. You can take as long as you want. You can let the tilt bob settle. It's just a state of mind. So I think as a second biggest state, we kind of have to do it because our attendance is the second best in Australia, but we don't have 60 people plus coming to our weekly tournaments in Melbourne. We might get 40 if we're lucky. So we kind of have to max out TGP just to kind of keep on the same level. I've played in a few co-current finals, including one recently in Australia, and I was successful in one and not in another, and it didn't bother me. And again, I was probably feeling like Marty was too. I don't know if I'm going to like this or not because I do want to concentrate. What I do like about it is it's the same for everyone. And also too, Marty, the biggest thing is just that time. Three people don't have to stand and wait for a machine, which is really, really important, especially for these midweek competitions. Now, that's not the case with the Australian Championships. Those won't be concurrent. But again, this big, big event is, yes, part of the growth that I talk about. But also the other big growth too is now the dollar fee. That's something that's new to Australia. Yeah, it's been introduced this year. Yeah, so that also affects the way that the Australian Championship Series will be held next year. So currently it's just the top 48 players, whopper-wise, full stop. But because there's some growth states like Western Australia, they would probably never be able to generate enough whoppers to get into the top 48. So it's 64 this year, but there'll be a state championship, just like in the US, at the end of the year, for the top 16 players or 24, depending on the state size, and the top four or six from each state will progress. So we'll have a bigger diversity of people and some up-and-coming players. And I'm sure you've seen that, Jeff, where there's some smaller states in the US that you might not know these players, but they're pretty good. Yeah, OK. So obviously ACS coming up. How do you think you're going to go? And have you been to ACSs before? I have been to one ACS last year, and going into the final round, I was going to qualify for the finals. I just needed to not come last on every single game, and that's what I did, and it was streamed. I just had an absolute... Just came last on all three games, and then because I did so well in previous rounds, I still had a tiebreaker, lost that, had one more tiebreaker for the 16th spot, and lost that. So I had five chances not to mess up. And it's something that I have to work on, is that if I figure out exactly what I need to not do, I will do it. I will manifest that. So it's a psychological thing. I know I'm good at playing pinball. I'm not anywhere near Australia's best player, but if you're able to play your best game, then you have a chance against the best players. So I'm not going up there and playing in all the side tournaments. I know you did that last year, Marty. You just played in the main one. but you were kind of stressed out because you were streaming and you were doing this and you were doing that. Yeah, I won the knockout tournament, which was good. Yeah, I'm going up just for fun. I'm going up for four days. I'm going to learn how to surf. I'm going to muck around and I'm also there for the Australian Championship Series. So I might come last. I might come 10th. I might come whatever. I'm just there to have fun. One of the things that we've spoken about in this episode, because it's our first episode, we talked about how we got into competitive pinball. Now, for those people that didn't listen to the head-to-head pinball, a podcast from the start. We know there was a lot that didn't. You were a collector and you weren't into tournaments. Two parts to this question. How did you get the competitive pinball bug? And what advice would you give to people that are still somewhat on the fence about it? I guess I got the bug by you inviting me to a tournament that was a lot more casual And I guess you held my hand through the process And gave you the bug Oh boy Yeah you explained everything to me I didn't feel the pressure, I guess.
    29:15
    It's a lot more fun when you're with friends versus being there alone. But the whole Melbourne community, and I guess most people communities, everyone's pretty nice, and it's very easy to make friends with people. And there might be competitive people, but they're competitive because they just want to win, but they don't want to beat people in your face. What advice should I give people if they're on the fence? It's that you will play pinball so much better if you play competitive pinball. Playing for fun, I mean, I still do it, you still do it, Marty. But when you play competitive pinball, you learn certain things that you're not meant to do, you know, dangerous shots, things that don't equal any points, that don't progress you through the game. Being around better players will lift your game up and you will eventually enjoy playing pinball more. Because who enjoys, like, sucking at pinball? Nobody. If you play competitive pinball, you will get better. It's a fact, right? You have to. Yeah. I guess one last question then, because you've now become, particularly in Melbourne, the tournament guy. You're the one that promotes tournaments. You've created a Facebook page, Melbourne Pinball Tournaments, and you're the guy. So I often get a lot of messages and emails from people saying, I'm wanting to start a tournament or I'm wanting to start a league. what are some of the resources that you would give people to help them start a pinball tournament? I mean if you're a reader you can just go on the IFPA pinball website and everything is there. If you prefer to talk to someone like I did, I just talked to the country rep and asked him a million questions, Luke Marburg. But now in Australia there's state reps and there's state reps in every state in the US as well I think. So jump on the IFDA website, get in touch with the person. Most of the people are on Facebook. And yeah, it's not hard. It's the easiest tournaments to run. I like strikes tournaments. You load up match play. It's free for up to, I think, 32 players. It's pretty easy, and you can learn as you go. And people that, even if you're not that experienced, like I was running tournaments where I didn't even really know the rules, and people kind of taught me as I went along. As I said, I could have just read on the IFDA website, but that's not my style. I just like to learn as I go. IFPA websites, friends on Facebook. Also check out papa.org. Good luck this weekend, Ryan. I hope you don't come in last. Best of luck at the Australian Championship. Thank you and congratulations, guys, on your newly appointed role on the pinball network. And I just want to accept and say that I'm thrilled that Zach Minney and Ken Cromwell are our new pinball overlords. Thank you.
    31:49
    Thanks, Ryan. So one thing I wanted to talk about with you, Jeff, is that games are going to be coming out. And we've obviously had the release of Stranger Things. We saw some streams and now they're actually in Australia and obviously they're in North America as well and Europe. Everyone's getting their hands on Stranger Things. I'm kind of curious to understand more about what makes a game good for tournaments or good for players to become better. But I just wanted to talk about Stranger Things if I can, because you've played it and I haven't. And even though the code's early, and we know, you and I have talked about this at length, how a code update can just completely transform a game. I'm talking about Deadpool, for example. But I'm curious to get your thoughts. On this early stage, you've played Stranger Things. What did you think about the layout and how it feels in the shots? It's easy to point out that there are a lot of similarities to Attack from Mars in the layout. in similar ways to lock the ball. They're the kind of two stand-ups on the left ramp where you hit those like in Whitewater and then go up the ramp to lock the ball. That was neat. The total annihilation thing that you see in Attack from Mars, there seemed to be some similarities there on Stranger Things. The dropping of the Demi-Gorgon, I guess, was similar to the start attack wave. A little harder to do with spelling run will or whatever it was, the four drop targets there. The one thing I noticed, and again, I only played this game twice, was I was avoiding the middle at all costs. And unfortunately, that's how you drop the Demogorgon. I was just getting some bad center drains with hitting the middle. You'd have one drop target you'd have to aim for and you hit it and drain immediately. That was frustrating to me and that could just be my poor play at the time or a bad choice made. But I did watch a lot of that game being played at InDisc. It was one of the charity games at the Project Pinball booth. And I watched some people put up great scores and I asked how they did that. And they said, again, early code, they were avoiding the upside down hurry up because the points that were there weren't worth the risk. And that's a very, very important thing when you try to blow up a game. You know, what is the risk and the reward? So right now, early code, it wasn't there. And again, like I noticed, they avoided the middle drops at all costs. I saw a guy put up, I think it was the high score. I don't know if he once went into the DemiGorgon. And I thought, okay, that's kind of interesting because that's the main toy and the main feature. But there were some rejects that were happening when people were going there, the difficulty of hitting those drops and recovering. So that's just early thoughts. I think the theme is a good theme for 2020. I think it will sell well. I think it will be popular with people. I don't know early code how it will hold up in tournaments. Okay, but let's talk about that center shot. Because again, I've had a lot of feedback about that. Everyone's saying that it's dangerous. And also, when the ramp comes down, the feed to the Demogorgon's mouth isn't that clean and you can miss it and the rebounds are dangerous. But the parallel everybody's putting out there, obviously, is Attack from Mars. And I've watched a lot of streams and I've seen Attack from Mars in competition as well. If you go for the saucer, you will not get a high score. So that's avoided for the most part. in attack from ours as well. The one thing that's great about that saucer is right before you start a multi-ball, if you have the attack mode ready or attack wave, I guess it's called, you've got it down and you've got a multi-ball started and it could be done through multi-balls or total annihilation. You want to cradle up one, fire away and try to put a ball into that attack wave as you complete the saucer. So actually you're trying to put two in, one to complete it and then fire another one up there. It's kind of, I think they actually call it dirty pool. And you can do that. It's funny because Spider-Man has the same type of attack wave bar, but you can't do that in competitions on Spider-Man. The software and what Lyman has done has allowed that in Attack from Mars. So that's the one time I do kind of go for the saucer. And again, also too, you want to think of a couple of things too. When you're in competitions, in pump and dumps, you're trying to get the highest score possible. But when you're playing match play and maybe it's a group match play a game or you're just playing one person are you really trying to go long game and put up a gc no so maybe a few sauces will be enough to win that match as opposed to trying to get everything in total annihilation or maybe four to six shots to get your locks tough to say yeah we're probably going to be jumping ahead to future episodes but again it comes down to what makes a good tournament game and for me personally it's a game that lets you experience the games and the rules whilst having a good rule set avoiding the the do the thing and with attack for mars the do the thing really is either total annihilation or multi-ball depending on how tight that multi-ball the lock shot is but it still sort of drip feeds you some options so you never feel like you're locked into something. From what I've seen with the rule set of Stranger Things, there are so many different things that you can do. So even if you don't go for the middle targets or the Demogorgon, there's still lots of other things to play for. I have a feeling, and you and I again talked about this, if the shots are good, the code will get there. And I know Lonnie Ropp is working on that. And I think of a game that I love that Lonnie coded is Guardians of the Galaxy. And we've talked about that, where that game, even when the early code came out, people weren't impressed because it was Groot all day and then it became Orb all day. I didn't care because I liked all the shots on that game and I knew code would get there. So I think that'll probably happen with Stranger Things as well. I agree. I always refer to The Walking Dead. Again, another one that I know you and I have spoken about it. When it first came out, the risk-reward element wasn't there. There was too much risk. You didn't get any sort of payoff. You were just in constant danger. And the layout was pretty brutal when it first came out. Code helped that immensely, and now it's one of the best tournament games. Easily, for sure. So we've got a few things to talk about on future episodes. Again, you can email us finalroundpinball at gmail.com. Check out our Facebook page as well. I think we did okay, didn't we, Marty? Oh, we got through it.
    38:16
    But it's good. I love this angle. In my life, I stream, I put on tournaments, I promote pinball because I love pinball. I want people to get into pinball and I want them to be better. And hopefully this helps people in some way. Yeah, that's all great. I'm here for the poor spider.
    38:35
    The 2020 poor spider available now. All right. I think that's it for this episode. We'll do this again in a couple of weeks. Thanks for listening to the Pinball Network and we appreciate it. My name is Jeff Teolis. And I'm Martin Robbins. Thanks, everybody. And goodbye. Bye.