Alright guys, welcome back to another episode of A Pinball Podcast. Thank you guys so much for being here. And before I go on, I have to plug a couple of shows real quick. I am on a new podcast over on TPN called the triple drain pinball podcast. At least I think that's what it is. Maybe it's just triple drain podcast. Oh, I don't know. I didn't pick out the name, but we're going with it, but I'm doing that over there with Joel and with Tom graph. And yeah, if you guys want to check it out, I'm over there. I think we have two episodes out currently. And it's funny. The feedback on it has ranged from it is now my favorite podcast to hear to wow i could not get through five minutes on it it was really bad so needless to say your mileage may vary it is very different than this podcast it's just a few friends getting together with a guest every couple of weeks and we just basically shoot the shit and we just talk about some pinball in between it so if that's something you guys would wouldn't mind listening to just head over to tpn and you'll hear it over there somewhere somewhere with all their podcasts that they have out right now so getting right to all the news and everything that's happening ifpa pinball is officially back i'm pretty sure all you guys know this already but sanctioned pinball is coming back effective august 1st so currently as of this recording is june 22nd 2021 and i'm thoroughly excited of course we've all been playing a little bit here and there as much as we can and it's a very exciting just the fact that Sanctioned Pinball is coming back because the main thing about it is it's not just the points. And yeah, I would love the Whopper points because I do want to make a big push towards Iffo Worlds. I want to be able to play in that eventually. But I'm so happy that Sanctioned Pinball is back just because that means more events will be happening. And because more events are happening, that means I'll get to see more people. I'll get to see friends I haven't seen in well over a year now. And so I'm very excited about that. And it just means that basically a lot of leagues that might have been defunct are coming back. A lot of tournaments that weren't happening are probably coming back. And you guys can go over to ifpapinball.com and check out the calendar, as I'm sure there's plenty of tournaments being posted up right now. And I'm sure Adam Becker is losing a lot of sleep trying to get all caught up on all the submissions. Or maybe Josh Sharp is actually doing some work. Are you, Josh? I don't know. I know he's a busy man as well, but I am excited about all the events coming up. I have decided that I am going to go to Expo this year in Chicago. So originally I wasn't going to go, but my schedule worked itself out and we will be going here pretty soon. And I'm also going to the pinball super series, which is going to be held at district 82 in Wisconsin. I believe that is going to be October 13th or 14th through the 17th, 18th. I don't have the dates right in front to be, but I know it's a Thursday through a Sunday, and that's going to be six events held. So all of it's 100% TGP, and if you want to get your points up, if you want to get your rankings going, if you just want to dive right back in the tournament pinball, that's where to go. There's going to be a lot of exceptional players there. Several world-class players will be there. I won't reveal the names just yet. I'll wait for District 82 to do that whenever they do start posting up the player list. But I know that signups for that is not happening right now, but it will happen on July 3rd at 10 a.m. Central Time. So look forward to that, to signing up. I know that they got prices off in terms of playing all six tournaments, or you can just choose to play one tournament. Whatever you want to do. But the cool part to it is, is that they're going to have their own point system built into these six events, and some of the cash prize is going to go to somebody who does the best overall after six tournaments. You'll get a badass trophy and you'll get a little bit cash on top of that. So that's pretty cool. So that's a new event that's kind of like a big giant Whopper series going on. And I'm really excited to be able to participate in that. Then I also plan on going to the Houston Arcade Expo that's happening in November, I believe. And I'm also booked to go play down at Freeplay Florida. Now, unfortunately, with Freeplay, there's no tournaments that have been announced just yet. So I'm just making an assumption that there is going to be a tournament. I just wanted to make sure that I had my hotel booked because I loved it down there the last time I played in 2019 just because the people are great, the hotel pretty nice. I love the pool. I love the lounge. And I like the tournament format with the Herb, with Classics, and with Main. So hopefully that is coming back. If not, obviously probably not going to go down there, but I have everything booked to go down as of right now. So if you're looking at playing sanctioned tournament pinball, now's your chance. August 1st. I know I got several listeners out there that have not had the opportunity to play sanctioned pinball and it's coming up. So that's pretty exciting for everybody and pinball is going to come back roaring, I hope, and hopefully everybody will have a great time with that. All right, so Pin Clash happened. If you did not watch Pin Clash, it was just a couple weeks ago, ran by Carl D'Angelo. And thank you, Carl, for running such a great event. And thank you to all the volunteers for running such a great event, from commentators, from people working behind the scenes on Discord, getting things set up. I mean, it was a really well-run event and probably one of the most well-run events I've ever participated in. And what's amazing about it is the fact that it was all done online. And there's so many things that could have gone wrong. And I'm sure there was some things that went wrong that we didn't necessarily see. And that just goes to show you how well it was actually run, that nothing was really noticeable that could have gone wrong. I think maybe one of my events, the timer got stuck maybe or started early, but they had a backup timer. So it wasn't even an issue. So amazing job by everybody associated with that event. I had a lot of fun and I'll talk about that right now. A little bit about my experiences, including my giant, just train wreck, just like a crash, just an epic disaster that happened. That was just, it was funny at the time, frustrating afterwards, and then it got to be funny again. So that's kind of where I was at with that evening. But anyhow, so I forget exactly what I qualified at. I can't remember my seed. I think I was 14th or 15th. I was somewhere right around there. But anyhow, I didn't have a buy. So my first round opponent was Nick DiStefano, who's an excellent player out of Massachusetts, I believe, or at least one of the New England states up there. And with this, if you're not familiar with Penn Clash, all it is is just timed rounds. You play three rounds or time challenges built into three rounds total. And it's just tier challenges to where the challenges get progressively more difficult as you move on or as you get further in your own round or as you get further in the tournament itself. And these time challenges also have points associated if you finish it in X amount of time. So that's the easiest way to put it without going too deep into the rabbit hole. But anyhow, With my first match, my tier one match was collect a 3x Hawkeye. Now, this was a tier that, or a challenge that I was actually dreading. This one and the shield bonus were the two ones that I was a little bit iffy on because I felt like it was funny. With shield bonus, which is basically to where you have to hit a Hawkeye combo, which is the upper loop, and then that would light the shield bonus between the pop bumpers, and you'd have to hit it between the pop bumpers to collect. that was one of those that could either be finished very fast or it could be a complete disaster. The 3x Hawkeye challenge was one that I felt like was going to be difficult no matter what. Like you had to play it perfect to really get a solid run in because there's so much that could go wrong. And in order to finish this challenge, you have to hit the gauntlet ramp three times in a row and then complete the Hawkeye loop. So it's not too easy at all. You've got to have several things go right for you in order to complete this particular challenge. Now, for myself, it took me a few to get the gauntlet going. I think I hit it once, and then I promptly missed the shot, and I kind of missed the shot itself a few times. And finally, eventually, right around the 45-second time frame, or maybe it might have been the 30, I'm not sure. It was sometime right around there, I finally started dialing in the gauntlet. And I mean, I basically got lucky, to be honest with you, because I got it three times in a row. And then I just had some nasty spin come off that wire form to my upper flipper. And that ball was trying to get away and trying to spin away from my upper flipper. And luckily, I was able to get enough juice on the shot that it completed around the Hawkeye loop. And it completed my challenge. And I believe I had 55 points after round one. And we moved to tier two. Again, I'm not sure where my opponent was at. I think Nick might have finished it with either 50 or 45 points, somewhere right around there. And so we moved on to Tier 2, and that tier was to, or the challenge was to start an Ironman multiball. Now, in order to start Ironman multiball on Avengers, you have to spell iron with the outlane and inlane. So it's I-R-O-N, right? So left outlane, left inlane, right inlane, right outlane. You just have to spell that, and then that will light your Avengers tower. And then from there, we had to hit the Avengers Tower three times to start the Iron Man multiball. So the challenge would not be done until that animation showed up. And my initial plan was to just auto plunge, which would lead it all the way back to the right end lane. That would spot my O. From there, I was going to ski jump over to my left flipper and let the ball just come to a stop. And then I was going to hit the Black Widow ramp, and it was going to come back around to the left end lane to collect my R. So that's two letters right there. And from there, I was gonna actually ski jump from left to right let the ball settle in if I could and then take a clean shot at the sanctum target because that would spot the letter And unfortunately I ended up totally missing that and hitting the disc instead even though I had the disc set away. My wife, Monica, was helping me preset the Dr. Strange disc, which you're allowed to do, and I had certain spots that I needed to set it at in order to help me through the challenges a little bit more. But I accidentally spun the disc, and by doing that, it actually is beneficial, a little bit just because it will move your in lanes for you. But unfortunately, the way that I hit it, the in lanes did rotate around, but then they came right back to the O and the R. So I didn't get any progress with that either. And it just, it was a bummer doing that. And eventually I actually ended up draining out the right side and I was prepared to even nudge it to the right side just because that's where the N was at. And so from there, I was able to have three letters at this point. I had the O, R, and N. And all I needed was the I. And from here, the disc was actually smack dab in the way of the sanctum target. And it was in such a spot, when it's like that, it was in such a spot that it was actually, it was going to take me like a precise shot to actually move that disc out of the way and be able to even spin that disc at all to hope that my letters would kind of settle into a spot to where I could get a clean shot at one of the in lanes or at one of the returns for the in lane and luckily i was able to move the disc with one of the hits and then i just grazed the sanctum target just barely to spot my last letter which was i and from there the avengers tower is lit although i did proceed to miss the shot three or four times before i finally settled in and from there i got a couple of locks finally and i was just my main goal was just to take drop catches just nudge it whenever the ball started coming back down the Avengers Tower after it stayed up there for a lock for a few, and I was just going to nudge it back to my right flipper and then send it right back up there. And I did that a couple of times, although one of the times it kind of, it didn't stick, it kind of rejected. Then other times I just flat out missed it. And so at some point, I finally just decided to let the ball just automatically drain after I tried to post pass and that wasn't working. And by automatically draining or draining on purpose, I guaranteed that I would at least have a chance for that ball to get on the right flipper. So the automatic plunge came back around, luckily, and it made it all the way through to the right flipper. And then I was able to get a clean shot to the Avengers Tower, and I completed the task at right around a minute and 55 seconds. So that was enough to bring me to, I believe, as a 100 to 80 lead going into Tier 2, which is about two minutes worth. And this tier, in our final challenge, which was a Tier 2 challenge, was to collect a level 1 Black Panther. and from here it's basically just hitting the right orbit until you're until you have it complete now you can't just spam it all the time you have to activate a few other switches and just keep going back and forth and so i had a couple early successful shots at it but i also accidentally hit the thor captive ball a few times as well and finally i accidentally started multi-ball and i didn't mean to do that but it really wasn't so bad either because i kind of anticipated that something like this might happen. So I was just strategically draining and letting the ball clear out and then just hit the right orbit shot. And then anytime there was an auto plunge, maybe I was just ski jumping over or trying to activate another switch to get that right orbit shot ready to go again. And luckily I was able to work around it and secure a win from there. And so that put me to the second round, which was against the reigning champion Escher Lefkoff, who's also one of the best pinball players in the world. Now, this was actually one of the people that I wanted to face early. And just because one, to me, it's when you're dealing with timed events and I am horrible at timed events because it doesn't really suit my play style. Although I'm trying to trying to change my play style a little bit because of that. And I'm finding out some things about how I'm playing that I can try to fix. And this was one of the situations in which I definitely found some of the things that I could fix when I look back at decision making, when I look back at shot selection. But I was happy to face Escher in that next round because I do want to face the best competition I can possibly face. And he obviously is just excellent at pinball, just world class. And a lot of games, he's an amazing player. And we got our three tiers at the very beginning. It was start a gym quest, collect a combo jackpot, and collect a level two Hulk. Now, to be perfectly honest with everybody, these were the three tiers that were my favorite tiers, or these were the three challenges that were my favorite challenges. So I was very excited to hear that the stars were aligning. I was facing somebody as good as Escher, but I was getting the challenges that I felt like I could handle and I was excited about because all these challenges, I knew exactly what to do and I felt comfortable doing them. So with the first challenge, it was start a gym quest, which quite frankly was pretty easy. It was just a matter of placing the disc at the right spot, which I placed it at basically a 3 p.m. spot. And from there, you could just plunge it to your right flipper, hit the disc, spin it, get it back to a left flipper or even a right flipper, and just hit the gauntlet to start your mode. And that's what I did, and I was able to do it fairly quickly. I think I got in about seven or eight seconds, so we just cruised through that. And that was mainly because we got a pretty good bounce. But my plan with that either way was to spin the disc first. if the bounce got crazy i was just going to let it just automatically drain let the ball come back to right flipper ski jump to the left and then finish it so i had had a general plan of action and contingency plans as well if something just went haywire so we ended up completing that i believe we were tied 60 60 going into tier two which is or round two which was collect a combo a jackpot. And this is where tactical errors came like crazy. I just, for one, I was missing my shots completely, like full stop. I got nobody to blame but myself. I was missing my shots, which was frustrating in itself because I'm fairly accurate with this game. I'm not the most accurate, but I'm not the least accurate either. But you would not know that watching this. And I can promise you guys, it wasn't nerves. I wasn't nervous at all playing. It was just all of a sudden my shot just completely left me. And I found myself trying to rush. I found myself thinking, okay, if I'm missing these shots, Escher's probably hitting his shots and I need to hurry things up a little bit. When in hindsight, probably what I should have done is just play my game. Because once I started rushing shots, my initial game plan, my first game plan and my second game plan went completely out the window. And so my initial strategy was to use the Black Widow, Captain Marvel combo in which I would just go Black Widow, Captain Marvel, Black Widow, Captain Marvel. And I would just keep doing that over and over and over again. And I'm usually pretty good at that. And in practice runs, I was finishing things up fairly quick by doing that. And if that wasn't there, my other strategy was just to go Black Widow, Gauntlet, Hawkeye. But I also, for whatever reason, abandoned that too. And even though I had some clean shots. Now, I do remember going back to it once I was just missing shots galore. But long story short, I missed a bunch of shots when they mattered and I just got beat. And not only did I get beat, I got beat down. Because I did not even get my combo jackpot collect until like 5 minutes and 50 seconds. nearly the full amount of time, which effectively led me to just having five points and being all but eliminated. I would basically need Escher just to turn off his game for round three for me to even have a chance to win. So it was very, very bad. And I did beat myself up a little bit afterwards. I played it probably five times in a row, all five times. I got it in less than two and a half minutes. Then the next day I played it, I decided I was going to do this 10 times in a row, just cold. I was going to see how, what I should have did. And of course, all 10 times got it again below two and a half minutes. And I just kicking myself for ditching my initial strategies. And I guess in hindsight, what I need to remember is play the way that you can and do the things that brought you to the dance in the first place. And it was just kind of a game time decision. and it's just one of those things that I've learned straight off the bat and I'm glad it happened because I've learned stay confident in what brought you here and keep plugging away and even if it doesn't work try try again and then make a pivot I feel like I pivoted way too early and then once I start missing shots on there I went through all my strategies way too quick and I abandoned things way too quick and it was just just an implosion if you ever seen Tommy Boy I It was just like him, just with the ambulance and everything, with setting everything, all the cars on fire, and just making all the sounds. That was me. That was essentially me. So going on to challenge three, it was collect a level two Hulk, which, again, I was very comfortable in that. But knowing that I had about a four and a half minute disadvantage, I had to basically just rip through it. And unfortunately, I didn't really do that too much. I had a couple of good rips. But the funny part with this, and even though it was basically academic at this point, a funny part was, is I heard my wife Monica in the background say, and I could have swore she said, he's got it. And so I stopped playing in the middle of it after ripping the spinner, and I just kind of like looked off to the side. And then I realized once I was looking at the screen, Escher's timer is still going. So then I went back to playing and we were kind of talking back and forth during, I think even during the game, but even afterwards I found out that she had actually said to me, you got this. And it was funny because I interpreted that he said he's got it. And so that's why I stopped. But even then, even when she said, you got this, if I feel like even if I would have heard her say that, I might have actually stopped by accident, too, because it wasn't in like a you completed it type of way. But it in a bless your heart You really trying type of way So I have to thank my wife for giving me support here And she basically like the Vanna White of Avengers for me helping me adjust the disc and all that. So I really do appreciate that. And plus she let me play pinball for nearly an entire day at our house while she was trying to take care of four kids at the same time. So I definitely do appreciate that. But yeah, getting back to it, I just got just beat down. I think I might have gained 10 points on Escher during that. But at the same time, he wasn't really playing too much for speed with his. I'd have to imagine he was just playing for safety because all he had to basically do was just complete it. And there was no way he was not going to complete it. And I believe Zach McCarthy was the one who ended up coming up with the victory. If you haven't watched it before, sorry. Sorry about that. Spoiler alerts. But he played really well. He is, I haven't got a chance too much to see him play, but I've heard good things about him. and obviously he was able to deliver in spades as he defeated Luke Nahorniak in the finals, who is no slouch himself. Luke is a tremendous player, and he's really good at the pin clash format as well. And so I do hope that pin clash is somehow still, even with sanctioned tournaments coming back, I hope that pin clash is still a part of overall tournaments, whether it's before big tournaments or whether it's online. I feel like that this is a format that's a lot of fun, and I actually plan on trying to bring this format a little bit for the locals here in Oklahoma City just because I think it's something different. It teaches you a game also. It achieves so many different goals. It teaches you a game. It gives you that heads up feeling that you can't necessarily get in match play. There's a lot of sense of urgency and it kind of forces you out of your comfort zone as well. And those are the parts that I really enjoyed. And I wasn't so sure how I would like playing in it because I know that I'm one of the weaker players at that particular format, but I'm happy I did it. I learned a lot, and I learned some of the adjustments that I can make in my own gameplay when I need to moving forward. So I was very happy about that, and I had a great time playing in it. All right, so moving forward, I did go to Wisconsin this past weekend to play in a bunch of tournaments, and we will talk about those tournaments during the next podcast where I'll give a full breakdown of my gameplay, of my thoughts and round by round a little bit of those three tournaments. But I did have the opportunity to play a Mandalorian pinball machine. Now, obviously, it was the pro version, and I forgot what place it was at, but it was at one of the local locations or one of the locations up there in Wisconsin. And, you know, it's the game. It's funny. I didn't really know too much what to expect in terms of how I would enjoy it. I basically went in with a clear mind. I had some thoughts, obviously, from previous podcasts and from previous videos I've done in terms of what I believe the shots would be, what I believe the experience would be. But at the same time, you never truly know until you're actually in that environment and you're rocking and rolling.