Episode 333: Neil Graf

Pinball Profile·podcast_episode·14m 17s·analyzed·Feb 1, 2022

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.028

TL;DR

Interview with rising star Neil Graff, 17, ranked #21 globally, on competitive pinball journey and District 82's impact.

Summary

Travis Murray interviews Neil Graff, a 17-year-old competitive pinball player from Wisconsin ranked #21 in the world. Neil discusses his journey from casual player to top competitor, his mentorship from his father Tom, his success at District 82 and national tournaments, and his upcoming trip to Indisc. The episode highlights how District 82's unique venue ecosystem and balanced game selection has developed multiple top-100 players.

Key Claims

Neil Graff is currently ranked #21 in the world among pinball players
high confidence · Travis states this directly in the introduction as established fact
Neil has been playing competitively since age 9
high confidence · Travis explicitly states this; Neil confirms his tournament experience began around 2018 when he was approximately 9 years old
District 82 has multiple top-100 ranked players who play regularly there without competing outside the venue
high confidence · Travis states 'there's a lot of regular players out there that have cracked the top 100 in the world and some of them without ever playing outside of district 82'
Neil and his father Tom are finalists for best player of the year in the Twippies awards
high confidence · Travis congratulates them on receiving enough votes to be finalists in the Twippies best player category
Neil won the classics tournament at Freeplay Florida
high confidence · Travis states 'you actually won the classics event' at Freeplay Florida; Neil confirms
The District 82 super series had over 100 signups with significant out-of-state participation
high confidence · Travis notes 'I think there's a little over 100 that showed up to that and I think the Whopper points in general were going either right at 70 or over 70'
Neil beat Kaylee George in a Police Force match during the super series
high confidence · Neil confirms winning against Kaylee George on Police Force, who was his favorite player to compete against
Neil was notified about Indisc only 2 weeks before the event
high confidence · Neil states 'I got notified like two weeks before Indisc pretty recently'
Neil has missed approximately 10 days of school for pinball competitions, near Wisconsin's attendance cutoff
high confidence · Neil states 'I'm about I'm reaching like 10 days of missing school' and Travis confirms 'I'm guessing that 10 days is just the cutoff for wisconsin'

Notable Quotes

“I actually didn't like playing pinball so much until I played one tournament at District 82, and I just loved it ever since.”
Neil Graff @ early in interview — Explains how a single tournament experience at District 82 transformed Neil into a dedicated competitive player
“I feel like it did, yeah. It definitely motivated me a little bit.”
Neil Graff @ mid-interview — Acknowledges his father's role as motivational factor in his competitive drive
“We just play so much pinball it's crazy it's kind of creating its own ecosystem almost”
Neil Graff @ discussing District 82 — Identifies District 82's self-reinforcing competitive ecosystem as key to its success
“District 82 definitely helped for that. It's just a lot of classics there.”
Neil Graff @ discussing classics training — Credits District 82's balanced game selection for enabling him to develop skills across both modern and classic games
“you seem to be able to adapt very quickly to any one of these games and obviously just like you alluded to district 82 has really helped you out there”
Travis Murray @ analysis segment — Summarizes Neil's unique adaptability across game eras and attributes it to District 82's training environment
“I can't believe how many people signed up for that and how many people out of state signed up for it. It was just crazy.”
Neil Graff @ discussing super series — Expresses surprise at the scale and national draw of the District 82 super series event
“That's just surreal. I just can't believe that.”
Neil Graff @ responding to Twippies finalist news — Shows genuine surprise and emotion at being recognized alongside his father for player of the year consideration
“Definitely, I'd say so. Especially, yeah, Indisc is a big one. And you got Florida. I want to try to travel to a few tournaments a year.”

Entities

Neil GraffpersonTom GraffpersonTravis MurraypersonDistrict 82organization Keith ElwinpersonKaylee GeorgepersonIron Maidengame

Signals

?
community_signal: District 82 generates significant volunteer participation and streamed content via Fox City's Pinball Twitch channel, extending venue influence beyond physical location
medium · Tom Graff regularly streams District 82 pinball on Fox City's Twitch; multiple events documented online
?
event_signal: District 82 super series attracted 100+ players with significant out-of-state participation, generating 70+ Whopper points across six consecutive events
high · Travis states 'there's a little over 100 that showed up to that and I think the Whopper points in general were going either right at 70 or over 70 for six straight events'
?
competitive_signal: Younger players demonstrably competitive on classics despite conventional belief that only older players excel at vintage machines; Neil won Freeplay Florida classics event
high · Travis notes 'There's this common conception that younger players, they just dominate moderns and us old farts...but you flipped that on its head and you just blew up classics down at Freeplay Florida'
?
personnel_signal: Familial competitive partnerships (father-son) serve as effective mentorship model and mutual motivation driver for rising players
high · Neil on father's mentorship: 'You would definitely explain the games to me early on...I just learned a lot of the rule sets from him'; Travis: 'he's also a great player. So how did it help you having someone like your dad there'
?
competitive_signal: Young players like Neil (age 17) now explicitly targeting marquee international events (Indisc) as career development milestone, signaling maturation of youth competitive circuit

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.043

0:00

it's time for another pinball profile i'm your guest host travis murray from a pinball podcast and the triple drain pinball podcast you can find everything on pinballprofile.com past episodes subscriptions and more we're also on twitter and instagram at pinball profile check out the facebook group and you can email pinballprofile at gmail.com All righty. In a long list of up and coming young players, our next guest has risen up the ranks in the past six months, including cracking the top 25, where I believe he is the 21st ranked player in the world currently. He's 17 year old Neil Graff from Wisconsin. Neil, how are you doing today? I'm good. How about you, Travis? You know what? I'm doing excellent just after seeing the Green Bay Packers lose. Now I can give your dad, Neil's dad, a lot of crap. Yep. Are you a Packers fan or not a Packers fan? I'm a 49ers fan, actually. We'll see. Then you should be joining in then, right? Yeah, I'm happy the 49ers beat them. And yeah, my family's pretty sad that they lost. So you're the one that's just going around and gloating everywhere then today, right? Exactly. Well, there you go. So, Neil, you've been playing competitively since you were nine years old. So, what made you fall in love with pinball when so many other kids are usually more active with video games? Actually, District 82. I actually didn't like playing pinball so much until I played one tournament at District 82, and I just loved it ever since. Really? So, what about that experience made you really fall in love with pinball in general? I feel like I'm just a competitive player. I like competitive sports and stuff. I don't know. I did pretty decent in the tournament and I just liked it. Do you remember about when this was?

1:52

Like three years ago, 2018, around there. I don't know. Really? So you've been playing sanctioned tournaments since you were basically nine years old. And it was just recently as of 14, 15 years old that you really started becoming more interested in it then. Yeah. Then do you remember after that time, what was the first pinball machine that really made you say, you know what, I love this one particular game?

2:18

Probably Iron Maiden, honestly. Oh, yeah, that's a great game by the now I would go ahead and say the now legendary designer, Keith Elwin. So what about that game just really drew you in compared to every other game that you played up until that point? Layout, the rule set, just everything. I love it. Now, have you made it to run to the hills yet? I have not. No. So I assume you guys have an Iron Maiden at your house, correct? Yep. All right. So there's your homework assignment for the rest of the month, Neil. Leading up the end disc, you got to start playing Iron Maiden and get to run to the hills. Can you do that for us? I got you. All right. Perfect. So your dad, Tom, who's also kindly known as Neil's dad around, he's also a great player. So how did it help you having someone like your dad there to explain the games, the rules, and the shots? Did that drive you to be better and want to beat your dad? I feel like it did, yeah. It definitely motivated me a little bit. Now, is it one of those situations to where you came up to him explaining the games, or was he very proactive in trying to explain the games to you early on? You would definitely explain the games to me early on and like before I would go up to a game He would explain it to me before I played it and everything And I just learned a lot of the rule sets from him telling me Now I got to ask you since obviously right now you ranked higher than your dad so has the tables turned to where you're now the one explaining the rules to your old man? A little bit, yeah. We give each other some rules and tips and stuff, yeah. Now, you guys just got done playing in your state championship, though, against each other, right? Right. And how did that end up going? We made it to the finals, game five, and he ended up picking a game that we own, Fishtails, and he ended up just blowing it up and couldn't do much. So did you make sure to come back to the house and unplug Fishtails to make sure it can never be played again? No, I really like Fishtails. It's a good tournament game. Well, there you go. So then did he explain the rules to you, to that one, before? No. He got a little competitive there. We know how to play the games at this time. It's just, yeah. Well, then let it be known that Neil's dad is holding off some information for a competitive advantage. We learned that here today. All right. So many of us, we can watch you and your dad on Fox City's pinball on Twitch in which your dad streams a lot of pinball on there, mainly from District 82. So I would imagine that streaming helps take away the nerves that you might have in competition because you're used to a bunch of eyes watching you, correct? I'd say so. now what about playing in front of an audience and on a stream what's the big difference for players that haven't done that before and they might do that in the future what's the big difference between doing that and just playing off to the side when you're not on the stream in front of a large audience i don't know i just you just got to play the same it shouldn't matter so it doesn't bother you at all that there's multiple cameras on you a light on you or anything like that you're perfectly in tune with the game you got to be in the zone yep well there There you go. Well, you have definitely been in the zone seeing how your ranking is just shot way up. So I want to say also, too, to you, Neil, that congrats because you and your dad have also received enough votes to be finalists in the Twippies for the best player of the year category. What do you think about that? Yeah, that's crazy. That's just surreal. I just can't believe that. So I got to ask, how many people did you and your dad have to bribe to vote for you up there? No, we didn't mention it at all. And people just kept coming up to us at District 82 and telling us that they voted for us and stuff. Yeah, that is excellent. Because just from hanging out with you guys, you guys are incredible people, incredible pinball players. And I'm very happy for you guys to be able to be finalists for the best player of the year. Now, that being said, are you wanting it more or is your dad wanting it more? I really want it, but I don't know. we haven't really been talking about it. So I bet he really like wants it too. So I don't know. Well, I'll put it on the record. If I put down a vote, I would vote for Neil. I'd vote for you over your old man. I appreciate that. Well, I mean, you gave me a ride from the airport, so I got to pay it back, right? Yeah, that's true. All right. So because of the incredible lineup of games and the volume of events that happens at District 82, there's a lot of regular players out there that have cracked the top 100 in the world and some of them without ever playing outside of district 82 so what makes that venue so unique and now a destination for so many pinball players uh we just play so much pinball it's crazy it's kind of creating its own ecosystem almost you know no that's a very good point i think one of the unique things about that place is there an extreme balance between modern and early games classic games So what do you like best there at District 82 You got to play both because you got to like he switches it from round to round. So you got to know your classics and your modern. But of course, I lean towards the moderns. And that being said, even though you lean towards the moderns, you've proven that you can win anywhere. So you were able to get outside of District 82 and you had strong finishes at the Pinball Expo in Chicago with both main and classics. And then again at Freeplay Florida, where you actually won the classics event. So now that we know that you prefer the moderns, how is it that you still play the classics so well at your age? Because there's this common conception that younger players, they just dominate moderns and us old farts. We don't have any chance whatsoever, but you flipped that on its head and you just blew up classics down at Freeplay Florida. So how was that for you approaching a classics game and how was that winning that event? Yeah, District 82 definitely helped for that. It's just a lot of classics there. I know in our house, we mostly have moderns, like two classics. We just have two classics and District 82 really helps for training for all these classics events and stuff. So yeah. So that means that you're the type of player that when you go to these different events that you feel just as confident on classics as you do moderns i'd say so yeah and that makes for a pretty dangerous player because i know that there's a lot of us that we have different gaps in our skill set that we might lean more towards a modern because we play it better or we might lean towards a classic because we play it better but you seem to be able to adapt very quickly to any one of these games and obviously just like you alluded to district 82 has really helped you out there so then we can expect you at every tournament that we see you at, you're going to be playing both classics and main division. Yeah, I'll try. Yep. Well, you'll try and you'll probably win a few in your future. I'd imagine so. So what was it like seeing so many players from outside of Wisconsin play in the district 82 super series? I can't believe how many people signed up for that and how many people out of state signed up for it. It was just crazy. Now there was a lot of top tier players and I believe there's a little over 100 that showed up to that and I think the Whopper points in general were going either right at 70 or over 70 for six straight events. And you, Neil, you basically dominated, I think, what, at least four out of those six tournaments that were there? Yeah, I placed pretty high in four out of six. I think top ten, four out of six, yeah. And that's, regardless of where it was played at, that's quite the feat at your age against that competition because I would think that was probably one of the first times you've seen that type of competition for that length amount of time right who was your favorite player to play against during that during that super series event uh I gotta say that's tough I'd say Kaylee George he just kind of just repeats these shots and it's it's just interesting watching him play it's yes and the thing about Kaylee, it seems like he is so calm when he plays too. You almost don't see any emotion out of him whatsoever for the majority amount of time. And what game did you guys end up playing against each other on? I remember Police Force and he just kept looping that center ramp and yeah. Now, did you manage to get as many loops as he did? Yeah, I actually ended up winning that game Really Yeah yeah Well no wonder Kaylee is your favorite player to play against because you beat one of the best players of all time No he a very excellent player And so now that you managed to dip your toes into playing against world players and now that you know where your skills stack up, is traveling to different events around the country, is that now the goal for you? Definitely, I'd say so. Especially, yeah, Indisc is a big one. And you got Florida. I want to try to travel to a few tournaments a year. Now, is there any other tournament that you can think of that you've had your eye on? Definitely, Indisc. So that being said, we know that you obviously begged your parents to go to Indisc. So how excited are you to be headed to one of the biggest tournaments in the world? I'm excited. I got notified like two weeks before Indisc pretty recently. So I'm super excited. that means that tom was just holding on to that then in his back pocket and just wanted to surprise you and say you know what kiddo i'm going to take you along with me to end disc basically i know what it is tom realized and i told him this before that hey if you want a graph to finish high at end disc you need to bring your kid that's the way to do it neil will take care of it for you now was it tough to get time off for end disc uh it's just school you know and the act is coming up and yeah it's i'm it's kind of i'm almost at that point where like i'm about i'm reaching like 10 days of missing school it's it's like it's quite a it's a lot it's a lot oh so i'm guessing that 10 days is just the cutoff for wisconsin right yes oh well i'm glad you said that because we actually have a caller here that would like to talk to you right now is that okay it's uh it's mark evans who is your truant officer go ahead mark yeah what's this i'm hearing about but you miss in school for some pinball. What's that all about?