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Ep 2: Pinburgh, TDing, NACS, PinMasters, & ACS Recap

Final Round Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 40m·analyzed·Jun 26, 2020
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.033

TL;DR

Final Round Ep2: Tournament recaps, competitive pinball primer, ACS interview with Rob Miller win.

Summary

Final Round Pinball Podcast Episode 2 features Jeff Teolis and Martin Robbins recapping major pinball tournaments including Pembroke (1,000 players), the Australian Championship Series (ACS), and upcoming Texas Pinball Festival plans. The hosts discuss competitive pinball concepts (Whoppers, TGP, tournament formats) for newcomers, interview Dr. John Cosson about running the ACS, and share gameplay experiences with recent releases like Jurassic Park, Stranger Things, and Rick and Morty pinball machines.

Key Claims

  • Pembroke sold out with 1,000 players in its latest event

    high confidence · Jeff Teolis and Martin Robbins discussing attendance, Martin mentions Tracy Lindbergh joining as guest to discuss Pembroke

  • Raymond Davidson, Johannes Ostermeyer, and Eric Stone are the only three players over 1,000 Whopper points

    high confidence · Martin Robbins explaining WPPR rankings and providing specific point totals for top players

  • Whopper points degrade: 75% after one year, 50% after two years, expire after three years

    high confidence · Martin Robbins explaining WPPR calculation methodology to newcomers

  • Maximum meaningful games for Whopper points is 25 games

    high confidence · Martin Robbins explaining factors that determine Whopper points (number of players, games played, placement)

  • Pembroke's 1,000 players uses top 64 player ratings as a multiplier factor in Whopper calculations

    high confidence · Martin Robbins explaining how large tournaments with elite players affect point calculations

  • Rob Miller won the ACS finals, defeating Peter Watt in a best-of-five final that went to five games

    high confidence · Dr. John Cosson describing ACS Sunday finals results and trophy presentation

  • ACS featured 48 invited top Australian players competing in qualifying rounds

    high confidence · Dr. John Cosson describing tournament structure: 'the top 48 players in Australia that were invited to attend'

  • Ryan C qualified for ACS finals in 9th position after a strong final qualifying round

    high confidence · Dr. John Cosson recounting Ryan C's last-minute qualification: 'he had a blitzing last round' and 'qualifying in, believe it or not, ninth position'

Notable Quotes

  • “The main premise really for this show is that we want to promote competitive pinball... people have got a thirst for more knowledge around what it takes to take that first step into playing in a tournament.”

    Martin Robbins @ ~00:02:00 — Establishes the podcast's core mission to grow competitive pinball participation

  • “A Whopper is your World Pinball Player Ranking... Raymond Davidson at the time of this recording has almost 1150 Whopper points.”

    Martin Robbins @ ~00:25:00 — Key educational moment explaining WPPR terminology for newcomers

  • “The biggest advice is get your software sorted. Now, matchplay.events is indispensable.”

    Dr. John Cosson @ ~end of episode — Practical tournament operations advice for aspiring TDs

  • “Whenever I've come first the previous month, that is when I feel that there's eyes on me and there's expectations. And that is usually when I choke.”

    Martin Robbins @ ~00:35:00 — Vulnerability about competitive pressure that resonates with tournament players

  • “The best player does not always win. That's exactly right... there's still chance for everybody. So you can beat anybody on the day.”

    Jeff Teolis @ ~00:40:00 — Addresses competitive accessibility and the role of chance in pinball

  • “I remember years ago, you know, turning up to a local arcade, and there being a pinball machine, brand new, that I knew nothing about... Those days are gone.”

    Martin Robbins @ ~00:48:00 — Reflects on how streaming/social media has changed the discovery experience for new games

  • “He came up to me prior to the last round and said, so what time do I have to be back for the Sunday comp because I'm not making the finals? But he had a blitzing last round... and ended up making the top 16.”

    Dr. John Cosson @ ~01:05:00 — Illustrates Ryan C's dramatic comeback to secure ACS finals spot

  • “All the rest went to at least four. Most of them went to five games. So that's how even the competition was.”

Entities

Jeff TeolispersonMartin RobbinspersonDr. John CossonpersonTracy LindberghpersonRaymond DavidsonpersonJohannes OstermeyerpersonEric StonepersonKeith Elwinperson

Signals

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Final Round podcast establishing itself as educational resource for tournament newcomers by explaining WPPR, Whoppers, TGP, double elimination, match play, and other competitive terminology

    high · Martin Robbins explains: 'Whoppers is your World Pinball Player Ranking... the best 20 tournaments that you've played over a three-year period'; Kevin Hart email feedback noted newcomers don't understand common tournament acronyms

  • ?

    community_signal: Final Round Pinball Podcast gaining traction as a competitive pinball media platform; strong listener engagement with positive feedback and email submissions from community members

    high · Hosts mention 'swarming the emails' with feedback from first episode; listener Kevin Hart sent educational video; listener Kevin Peterson sent nephew video demonstrating trapping technique discussed on podcast

  • ?

    event_signal: Pembroke tournament continues as major pillar event with 1,000 player attendance; sold out status indicates sustained high demand and capacity management challenges

    high · Tracy Lindbergh guest appearance to discuss 'Pembroke sold out again this past Saturday — 1,000 players'; described as 'summer camp' atmosphere for competitive community

  • ?

    competitive_signal: ACS finals demonstrated highly competitive, balanced field with majority of matches (10+ out of 14) going to 4-5 games; only 4 matches won 3-0, indicating skill parity among top 16 Australian players

    high · Dr. John Cosson: 'All the rest went to at least four. Most of them went to five games. So that's how even the competition was'

  • ?

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.301

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 Hello, my name is Jeff Teolis And I'm Martin Robbins This is final round Is it second round or final round? What do we do? Do we change it every time? That's too confusing Round two? I don't know But it is our second episode And great feedback we got from the first episode Oh my goodness I mean, swarming the emails Actually, we are going to read those emails because we did get some lovely comments too. And you can send us a note as well, finalroundpinball at gmail.com. We're also on Instagram and on Facebook. It was very, very nice. We didn't know how this was going to work. And you and I certainly know each other. Correct. I mean, chemistry and topics and all that other stuff, we put a lot of work into it. Let's be honest. Obviously, we do. but I think what we've really tapped into is and most of the feedback I had was from people that are either just getting into tournaments or had been thinking about getting into tournaments and the main premise really for this show is that we want to promote competitive pinball and as we said before it's home competitions it's competitions at the pub but it's also the likes of Pimberg and people have got a thirst for more knowledge around what it takes to take that first step into playing in a tournament so I think we've done well there If you're trying to complete a mode, get a wizard mode, get a high score, you're competing in pinball. Correct. That's kind of what this show is all about, too. So we've got a big show today. We are going to be recapping what was with the ACS. I know that, Martin, you had a good chance to talk with Dr. John Cosson, so we'll get that as well. Yes. We also have Tracy Lindbergh will be joining us because Pinberg sold out again this past Saturday 1,000 players. and Tracy has some great experience, not only as a player, but also as a TD for the last couple of years. And then we've got another guest. On our second episode. Here in the second month, too, yeah. I wonder who it could be. The second best president of the ISPA.
2:36
And so how did you go? Did you get a ticket to Pembroke? I am in. I'm looking forward to it. And Pembroke's special to me for many reasons. Certainly, I think you and I have talked about it before, being almost like a summer camp. Hey, I haven't seen you in a while. How's it going? Blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, yeah. Great, great, great. And it does actually take me a little while to get in competition mode, which probably stinks for round one or two, you should be thinking. But it's just such a nice social setting that you kind of forget it, and I probably shouldn't. If I was mean and didn't like anyone like Keith Elwin, then maybe I could be.

Dr. John Cosson @ ~01:15:00 — Demonstrates the competitive depth and balance of the ACS finals

Ryan C
person
Rob Millerperson
Peter Wattperson
Jason Lambertperson
Paul Jonesperson
Jacob Paintperson
Nigel Gripsterperson
Richardperson
Bowen Cairnsperson
Texas Pinball Festivalevent
Pembrokeevent
Australian Championship Seriesevent
Jurassic Parkgame
Stranger Thingsgame
Rick and Mortygame
matchplay.eventsproduct

tournament_operations: ACS tournament director faced gray-area malfunction rulings (e.g., Alice Cooper orbits not locking) with limited witness testimony; handled through conservative 'keep play moving' approach rather than game resets

high · Dr. John Cosson describing decision to not allow game change when 'no one saw it... we just got to keep going' despite player complaint

  • ?

    operational_signal: ACS tournament director emphasizes matchplay.events software as critical tool for real-time tournament management, player tracking, and multi-tournament coordination

    high · Dr. John Cosson: 'The biggest advice is get your software sorted. Now, matchplay.events is indispensable... people can look on their phones to keep up with what machine they are'

  • ?

    product_launch: Rick and Morty pinball from Stern sold out immediately upon release; streamed on official channels; features theme integration with audio/video clips from show

    high · Jeff Teolis: 'Rick and Morty... sold out immediately'; Martin notes streaming occurred with Bowen Cairns on rules

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Stranger Things (Stern) early code phase with difficult Demogorgon target mechanic; layout similar to Attack from Mars but different playfield mechanics causing player frustration

    medium · Martin: 'the layout is a bit weird... It's an interesting one. That Demogorgon right up at the top is so hard to get the ball into the Demogorgon's mouth'; 'The code is obviously still very early'

  • ?

    code_update: Jurassic Park 1.0 code release features compelling Escape Nublar wizard mode with dual win conditions (highest score or shortest time); generating positive gameplay feedback

    high · Martin: 'the Escape Nublar wizard mode that you can now get to on Jurassic Park is just so much fun... 1.0 code has just been released'

  • ?

    event_signal: Texas Pinball Festival expected to feature new game reveals from American Pinball and possibly Jersey Jack; potential timing advantage over last year when reveals occurred days after show

    medium · Martin: 'I believe we are going to see the next game from American Pinball... We may see the next game from Jersey Jack, maybe... But Deep Root, obviously, we're going to go through the tour'

  • ?

    content_signal: Hosts reflect on generational shift from serendipitous arcade game discovery to pre-release streaming/social media saturation; even avoiding streams doesn't eliminate familiarity through photos and announcements

    medium · Martin: 'I remember years ago... turning up to a local arcade, and there being a pinball machine, brand new, that I knew nothing about... Those days are gone'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Both hosts acknowledge competitive pressure paradox: elevated expectations after prior success correlates with choking/underperformance; relaxation following poor results leads to better play

    high · Martin: 'whenever I've come first the previous month... that is when I feel that there's eyes on me and there's expectations. And that is usually when I choke. I don't think I've ever been able to come first twice in a row'

    • 3:10
    Well, a lot of people have been reaching out to me, asking whether I'm going to Pimberg this year. The answer is no, I'm not going to Pimberg. So I didn't have to wake up at 4 o'clock in the morning to get a ticket. But I am going to the Texas Pinball Festival. Hooray! That is going to be so great. You know, that's kind of something that came out of nowhere, too, because it didn't look like you were going to be coming to North America anytime soon. But TPF, I know that's a show that means a lot to you. Yeah, well, look, and particularly as you're saying about the social, which Pinball obviously is very social. But, you know, I just wanted to spend probably more time drinking and talking with people And I'm also going to be doing the Deep Root Tour in San Antonio as well. So it's kind of scratching a bit of an itch. But here's the news that you don't know, Jeff Teolas. What? Well, let me guess. You finally got your own hotel room and you're not bunking with me?
    4:04
    Well, I'm happy to if that's a problem. No, no, it's great. No, but... I'll get you a cut. I'm actually now registered for the Classics Tournament at TPF. Oh, that is good because I said, okay, I'm not going to say it on this show. I might have called you a few off-color names for not playing in. Nothing worse than chicken. But anyway. It was along those lines. I know that coming to TPF is going to be exciting because you know how many great people are going to be there. You're going to see your friends from Loser Kid there. You're going to see the pins and everybody at TPF, all the great vendors, the shows, the seminars. It's a wonderful show. I'm glad you're coming. We're going to have a fun six days. My goodness. Stock up the fireball and gin right now. I'm telling you, Texas. Yeah, I've already started researching how much I can bring into the country. So it will be whatever the maximum limit is. Well, think about it. You've got duty free. I've got duty free as well. Yeah, okay. Yeah, well, we'll see what it is. But yeah, obviously, we get to meet all the other fellow podcasters. You know, the ones from the Pinball Network as well. Yeah. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Correct. So. Yeah. It'll be good. For me, this is the real just catch up. And you can spend five minutes talking to somebody, or you can spend two hours talking to somebody because there's not that pressure of getting to the next round. Good point. You're going to enjoy the classics. I think you only have eight games to play and the rest four count. There are three tournaments that are going on at TPF. There's the main event. I think it's 20 entries. You get 20 plays, and it's maybe your best five games. I'll look that up. Yeah. There's the main tournament. there's the classics tournament then there's also the women's tournament and i think there might be kids ones too but i'm not 100 sure on that but the vendors i mean just the shows that you can see uh some memories of tpf for you last year last year was actually my first year as well okay well a couple of things first of all one thing that really stood out was the amount of machines that stone brought i think there was like 14 monsters last year and there was obviously people from the Munsters show. Butch Patrick was there. And as you said, a lot of the vendors there as well. Chris Franchi was there. So I got to meet him for the first time after speaking to him nearly every day for a year. But that's what it's about. Again, like Pinberg, as we were talking about, it's really another form of camp and meeting all these people that you know and certainly enjoy the work that they do. So yeah, Marco's specialties, I know when the Munsters came out, boy, they really lined up all those machines. And it looks like there's going to be a few reveals this year at TPF. Well, that's true. I mean, if you think about... I mean, obviously it was a great show last year, but the thing that was a bit of a stick was that we were expecting reveals and they pretty much happened days after. I think Black Knight Swords of Rage was the day after and then Willy Wonka, I think, might have been a couple of weeks after. But this year, I believe we are going to see the next game from American Pinball. Yep. We may see the next game from Jersey Jack, maybe. Let's, hmm, maybe not. But Deep Root, obviously, we're going to go through the tour. So I'm expecting that there's going to be something there. Damien from Haggis will be there with the Celts. Absolutely. The homebrews are actually something I really enjoy seeing when I go around to these type of shows. You see it at Expo, you see it at TPF, and in the seminars. I mean, I like being in the tournaments. I don't like being handcuffed. but the nice thing about being limited in the number of plays that you can play in this tournament is you play them, and then you've got time off to go and see everything else. You're not chained to the tournament room. You were talking about the feedback that we had. Some good advice, too, from Kevin Hart, who sent in an email. Really enjoyed the podcast. Thanks, Kevin, for the email. And he talked about being new to competition pinball. So we have to, I guess, remember that there are probably a few of those people listening right now. So we have to be maybe a little careful with our acronyms and phrases that might be common to regular competitors of pinball. But, you know, things like whoppers and TGP, concurrent playoffs. These are terms that may not really be understood by a lot of people. Absolutely. And as well as some of the formats of some of the games as well. Like, what does double elimination mean? What is match play? And I know that we're going to probably go through that with Tracy when it's one of the questions I've got for Tracy when she comes on. It can be quite daunting. People don't understand. We've got to remember that just because we've been living and breathing competitive pinball for a long time, a lot of people haven't. Whoppers is a term you'll hear us say a lot on Final Round. So, Marty, what is a whopper? Well, a whopper is your world pinball player ranking. and not to be confused with Whopper points, which are the points that go into your total ranking, I guess. So if you look, Raymond Davidson at the time of this recording has almost 1150 Whopper points, World Pinball Player Ranking points. And what goes into that is your best 20 tournaments that you've played over a three-year period. So whatever points you accumulated in those three years, the top 20 determines your points standings. Correct. And your most recent tournament, so the tournaments in the last 12 months, retain their total value. And the further you go back, the points degrade. So once a tournament is one year old, you only get 75% of those whoppers. After two years, only 50%. So after three years, they're gone. So it's really only in the last three years. So it's incredible to see actually three players over 1,000 whopper points. and Raymond Davidson, Johannes Ostermeyer from Germany, and Florida's Eric Stone. These three people have an average of 50 Whoppers per tournament. Most people don't have 50 in any of their tournaments, so that's how great these players are. Right, so for example, a tournament that someone wins could be worth 70 points, or they could be worth 20 points. What makes up the difference between those points? The number of players, the quality of the players, the number of games that you play. These are all factors. So there are three factors. The number of people in the tournament. And it kind of maxes out at 64. We'll get back to that in a second. The number of games that you play. For the highest whopper-tunity, if we can call it that, the highest opportunity to get whopper points, you need 25 meaningful games played. Okay? So that's the maximum. Sure. And then, obviously, where you finish among all those players. Those are the three factors that determine your Whopper points. So when I talk about 64 players, well, wait a second. Pinnberg has 1,000 players. Well, what it does is it takes the best ratings from the top 64 players, and it uses their ratings as a factor in multiplying the total games played and then, of course, where you finish. So when you have 64 of the best players in the world at Pinnberg, that's going to be worth a lot more. And then certain events like the Open just happened in Indus, like Pinberg, like major events, there's another factor. They multiply those points times an extra 50%. So it's worth 1.5. So those are the tournaments you really want to do well at. So what it's really coming down to is the other question that you asked, which is TGP. So TGP is effectively the amount of points that are on offer. Well, we have that guest coming on, so he can certainly give us a few definitions of what they determine important as far as IFPA standing. So when we get the – do we call him default president? I don't know what the – am I president-elect? I don't know how this works. When Josh comes on, we will ask him some of these questions. Yeah, for sure. And we'll ask him how he gets to obviously explain it to people that have no idea about what it actually means to them. But I guess the thing about it is these are how you earn points. If you go to your first tournament thinking, I'm going to get the most amount of points, it may happen. I mean, it has actually happened. I know somebody that on their first tournament, they won it, and well done. That doesn't happen that often. The point you're really wanting to do is accumulate points over time, and the more you play, the better you play, the more points and greater bounty you're going to receive, and you will just see your ranking increase. Okay. How was your week? My week was really spent working out what I'm going to do with TPF, to be honest. I've streamed as well. I've got to say, well, two things. And Stermalade, the first one is the Escape Nublar wizard mode that you can now get to on Jurassic Park is just so much fun. And 1.0 code has just been released. And there's a whole game there, but I'm just really addicted to this wizard mode. It is just so much fun. and you're competing for two things, either the highest score or the shortest time. And it's just a lot of fun. The other thing I got to play, Stranger Things for the first time. And?
    13:01
    Hmm. It's, it's... I heard Mrs. Pin talk about it. Yeah, she probably said it better than me. I, I think I'm a bit lukewarm on it, is what it is. I think the, the, the layout is a bit weird. I mean, yes, it is Attack from Mars the way things are located. It doesn't play anything like it. It's an interesting one. That Demogorgon right up at the top is so hard to get the ball into the Demogorgon's mouth, and I would have tried it a hundred times and got it once. So, you know, it's an interesting one. It is a tough game. The code is obviously still very early. Yeah, well, I'll wait and see. Wait and see. You know, it's so funny. one of our listeners here on Final Round sent us a video of his eight-year-old nephew playing Stranger Things, but the reason it was a neat video is because Kevin Peterson, thank you very much for sending it in, he was listening to the show and talking about the importance of trapping up to become a better pinball player. We talked last week about slowing the ball down. So he told his eight-year-old to do that, and he did it on Stranger Things, had a clear shot at the Demi Gorgon, and Kevin, tell your nephew, like everyone else, your nephew missed it, we all miss it too. It doesn't go in that thing. It really doesn't. But you did the right thing. I suspect someone's going to create a new mod with a bigger opening to the Demogorgon. It's a bash toy now, let's be honest. It is. How about your week? You know, I'm going to blame the knee surgery. Sure. So I played in a couple of events where one was a really important playoff to me. It was the London Ontario Pinball League, the first league I ever joined. It's a casual league. We play once every three, four weeks. We play five games. It's a best score format. So 30 people play. Whoever has the best score would get 100 points. Whoever has the worst would get 10, and everyone else is in between. You play five games. You add them up. You do four nights. You add those up, and that's where you finish in the league. And luckily, I have finished first a few times. Then comes the playoffs. So the top half make the playoffs. So I'm sitting first. You get an advantage for being first. You get a few extra wins going into the playoffs. I kick butt in the round robin. I do very, very well. Then the wheels fell off. I'm blaming the knee. I just ran out of gas. Yeah, it's certainly not. I ran out of gas. Running out of gas doesn't really indicate anything related to a knee problem. I'm thinking it's more so relating to the fact that you're now 50. Well, so are you there, young fella. But it was Sea Witch. I had to play Sea Witch twice. and I was like, oh. Are you familiar with Sea Witch? Yeah, very much so. I love Sea Witch, but it's a pretty terrifying game. So, what do you do on the plunge on Sea Witch? Me, I full plunge, held up the top left flipper, get a few of those drop targets. There are four there to get your first multiplier. I bashed a couple of those, immediately watched it drain. Stupidly, did it again. You know, I thought, oh, that can't happen twice in a row. Yes, it can. What do you do? I also do the full plunge as well, but maybe I don't do this. That's what I'm saying about it being brutal. It's one of these situations where you really want to try and avoid sideways action on a lot of games. That game is all about the sideways action. So you're always in danger. Look, I just full plunge and hope. You know what it is with me, Marty? I don't know why, but every single time I squeak into a playoff, the pressure is off me. I'm like, okay, anything I do is a bonus. In a case like this league where I was first and maybe expected to do well, well, that's when all I can do is do worse, really. And it's a real mindset problem for me. You know, I think the pressure's on more. Listen, I'll never know what it's like to be Raymond Davidson or Keith Elwin or Johannes Ostermeyer, Eric Stone, all these greats. They probably are expected to win every single tournament they go to. And the reality is it's just not possible. and I'm having trouble with that kind of pressure. Okay, so absolutely agree with you on so many levels because I always play better and this is a tip for those people that are getting into tournaments and they're sort of banging their heads because they can't just do better. It's that moment when you get over the nerves and you stop feeling the pressure and if I've done really poorly in a tournament and I rock up the next month, I'm relaxed because I can probably only do better but whenever I've come first the previous month, that is when I feel that there's eyes on me and there's expectations. And that is usually when I choke. I don't think I've ever been able to come first twice in a row. I've heard people say this when said to them, and I've occasionally had it said to me. And when you play somebody and they go, oh, I got to play you? Yeah. Oh, there's a loss. You know what? That's the kiss of death. That's almost a guaranteed win for you. By the way, everyone's going to say that now that I just admitted it on the podcast. but anybody can win on any given day on any game the best player does not always win that's exactly right i mean we talk about the fact that we're trying to improve our flipper skills and flipper skills for me the better it is the less reliance you have on chance because the game of pinball is still a game of chance because there's so much randomness that can happen but the better you can control the ball the less reliance on chance there is but there's still chance for everybody so you can beat anybody on the day. Marty, did you see Rick and Morty, the stream? That was something that happened this week. I did indeed, and it's an interesting game. I think it's a beautiful-looking game. The best thing I love about it is the integration with the theme. There's so many audio clips and video clips from the show, which obviously I love. But bringing it back to tournaments, it's yet to see whether it's going to be a great tournament game because obviously the co-host is very early, but you've got Bowen Cairns on the rules, and he's a great tournament player. So you're kind of going to have to expect that it's going to be a great tournament game as well. I haven't seen the stream yet. It's funny that you've seen it and I haven't because we were talking about this last week. When Jurassic Park came out, you knew you were getting that game and you got the LE, but you didn't watch any of the streams because you wanted that firsthand experience. I'm not getting a Rick and Morty, but when it comes to streams when they come out, I actually don't watch them. Sometimes I do, but I don't go out of my way to watch them because I like to see it firsthand myself. It's no disrespect to the streams because, listen, there's a lot of information. Let me correct myself. Those streams are great because I go back to them afterwards. Yep, when you're ready. Well, I like playing it the first time by myself as opposed to seeing it on the screen. Sure, I'm a little excited. I'm actually happy for some of my friends in the pinball industry for their games to come out. And so that kind of interest maybe sends me towards the stream. But, and I certainly love Scott Denise. The guy's great, and I'm glad this thing sold out immediately. But I want to see it myself. And I know a few of my friends have them on order. So I'm waiting for that, and then I'll go back to the stream. Yeah, those days are gone. I remember years ago, you know, turning up to a local arcade, and there being a pinball machine, brand new, that I knew nothing about. I didn't know it was coming out. I didn't know the theme. I knew nothing about it. and that wide-eyed experience of, oh, my God, something brand new. Those days are gone. I mean, even though you, obviously, you're not going to watch the video, you've seen photos of Rick and Morty and what it looks like. So there's still some familiarity there when you get to play it for the first time. Yeah, yeah, for sure. One of the other things that happened this week was the ACS, the Australian Championship Series. And, Marty, you had a chance to talk to Dr. John Cosson about the big event. I did, and speaking of streaming, I actually watched the entire stream of this. This was on at Netherworld Arcade, the Twitch channel, so twitch.tv slash netherworldarcade. So the top players from Australia got to compete. I got to speak to Dr. John a day after it, so he was probably a bit tired as well because it was a gruelling event. Let's hear what Dr. John had to say to Marty. All right, so joining the show is Dr. John. How are you, Dr. John? Very good. Thank you, Martin. We're going to talk about the Australian Championship Series, which happened last weekend. How did it go? I think it went quite well. because I ran it.
    21:18
    But I got some good feedback from people. Everyone seemed to have a good time. There was always a controversies of tournament decisions, but everyone who played, and it was the top 48 players in Australia that were invited to attend. So they're all experienced at tournaments and they know decisions sometimes go their way, sometimes don't. And Jeff Teolis mentioned that on a previous podcast that whenever you make a decision, someone's going to be unhappy and someone's going to be happy. But because of the quality of the competitors, Everyone took this in their stride, realised what was going on and said, okay, let's get on with it and keep going. So that was nice of them. What were some of the tough decisions that you had to have to make? Mainly deciding what was a minor malfunction. So, for example, someone was playing Alice Cooper and they said, I was shooting the orbits and the monster wasn't locking on. So I couldn't get into a monster mode. Now, I didn't witness it and the other players didn't witness it. So it's very hard to say, okay, well, you can change games. You can have your ball again. You've really got to take that sort of thing in your stride, watch the next player and see what happens. And of course, it stopped doing it. So the player who was ruled, no, look, no one saw it. We just got to keep going. He was a bit upset, but then again, took it in stride later. That sort of thing. So talk about the overall sort of structure. I know that there was some side tournaments as well. So I think that the first one was like a strikes tournament. Yeah, I ran a seven strike fair strike on the Friday night before qualifying on the Saturday. and I bought 40 machines along and I really used that tournament to see which games were playing particularly long which games weren't going to hold up to the rigours of tournament play because we had some great volunteer machines coming from Brisbane from Netherworld from some locals and I put in 16 machines of my own and I just wanted to see how it all played so we had 71 competitors for that that went very well finished at 2am in the morning and then we started again at 9 the next day. Now that was won by Australia's number one player, Jason Lambert, who did very well. Oh yeah, good old Lambert. He's a very good player. Hard to beat on his day. We had the main qualifying for the top 48 players, of which we had three groups playing five rounds of three games match play. We took the top 16 through to the finals on the Sunday, and I deliberately didn't have a tournament Saturday night so everyone could rest a little. So last episode we had Ryan C on the show, and we were kind of speculating how we'd go. Did he qualify? He qualified very last round. He came up to me prior to the last round and said, so what time do I have to be back for the Sunday comp because I'm not making the finals? But he had a blitzing last round, which was good, and ended up making the top 16, qualifying in, believe it or not, I've got it here, ninth position. And we had pretty much all the top players, definitely the top 10 attended, and then there were some that couldn't because within that group there were some Americans that didn't come over, thank goodness, like Bowen and Colin Urban and Esha Lefkoff couldn't make it. Of the top six players in Australia ranked, all six made it through the finals, apart from our number one, Jason. Now, whether that was because he was tired from the night before or not, I'm not sure, but unfortunately, he didn't qualify for the finals, which opened the door a little bit for some others. Who were the top six, if you can remember them? So, Rob Miller from North Queensland. He's been on the scene for a long time and runs a lot of tournaments in North Queensland in Townsville, which is as far from Brisbane as Melbourne is and the other end of Australia. He came down. He qualified first. He blitzed the field in the qualifying. And then we had Jacob Paint from Queensland. Paul Jones, who's the number two player in Australia from New South Wales. Oh, yeah, good old PJ. Yeah. Nigel Gripster from Victoria. And then Peter Watt, number three player from New South Wales, was number five. And good old Richard RGR from Victoria, qualified sixth. with Rob McCauley, an ex-Australian champion, seventh. So we had Queensland New South Wales Victoria and South Australia all represented in the top seven And so we started the final Sunday morning and that was a head best of five games Sadly, I got drawn in the first round against Peter Watt, and so he knocked me out. I was going to say, I know where he ended up, so I'm pretty sure he would have knocked me out. I took him to five games, so I was proud of that. I got congratulated for actually not losing 3-0. So I took him to five, and we went through the field. Richard got knocked out in the first round, which was a surprise. PJ got knocked out in the first round as well. So the doors were definitely opening. And again, Rob Miller from North Queensland was in such good form. First two rounds, he won 3-0. Third round, he won 4-1. And then he got into the finals against Peter Watt. And Peter and Rob Miller battled it out for first, second, and it went to five, as it should. But yeah, in the final series, there were only four out of the 14 matches that were won in three. And that It was two by Rob and one by Peter. All the rest went to at least four. Most of them went to five games. So that's how even the competition was. So it was good. So Rob ended up coming home with the biscuits. $1,000 first prize, plus the biggest trophy I could possibly find to buy. That trophy is absolutely huge. I was watching that, and I think it came down to Harlem Globetrotters at the end, which I saw, and everyone was saying as well, was playing so brutally. Was that your machine? That was my machine, and I was very nasty earlier in the year. I did a playfield swap with a new CPR playfield, so the thing was playing slick. I deliberately turned holdover bonus off, and I put the top saucer on random for the Harlem letters so that you couldn't sequentially get them easy. And, yeah, people were having a lot of trouble with its slickness. But it's one of Peter's favourite games, but sadly it was not drawn for him the entire day Saturday, and no-one picked it on the Sunday. So it was the first time he played it. And, yeah, got pipped at the post with an unfortunate scissor bounce off the list flippers, and we've all had that. Yeah, so congratulations, Rob Miller. It was, as a viewer, I want it to be exciting. I want it to get to five games, and it was. And no one was, like, even though Rob was kind of ahead on some games, you could never tell right up until the last ball who was actually going to win. That makes a good show. It does. The whole thing streamed and preserved on the Netherworld Twitch stream if anyone wants to see some of the highlights. Yeah, if you go to twitch.tv slash netherworldarcade. And we thank them for that because it's a, as you know, as a streamer, tough job trying to keep up with games and people, but they did a great job and we appreciate that. Yeah, it was awesome to watch. And a special thanks to AMD in Sydney for providing sponsorship for all the prize money for that main event. Couldn't do it without them. Fantastic. Now, you know, with this, the show, what we're trying to do is we're trying to get more and more people into competitive pinball, but we're also trying to get more and more people running tournaments. From your experience running this tournament, what's some of the advice that you would give people and what were some of the lessons learned from running this tournament? The biggest advice is get your software sorted. Now, matchplay.events is indispensable. So I ran three side tournaments on the day all through matchplay, and that's great because people can look on their phones to keep up with what machine they are and where they're going. So I ran a seven strike. On the Saturday, I ran a matchplay for those not qualified, and then on the Sunday afternoon ran a match play flip frenzy and everyone had fun doing that. But if it's a large-ish tournament with more than 20 people, make sure you've got someone experienced there helping you to answer questions and also to help you with stuck balls and decisions and that's how you learn. You wouldn't want to do it on your own the first time. It's easy to do. If you've got two machines and you've got 10 people, you can easily run a match play event, four players or three players per round, do five rounds, get some points, have a result. You don't have to register it with the IPA for WAPA points, but if you want to, you can, as long as you do it 30 days in advance. If you've got more machines, it makes it go quicker, but you don't need a huge volume of machines. You just need software, a bit of knowledge, and people who want to do it. And the other thing that obviously you said you took 16 of your machines, is that right? Yes. So, because that's one of the questions that I know a lot of people sort of talk to me about is whether they would bring their own machines. How did you feel about taking machines from your personal collection out to the public to have people wailing on them for a couple of days? Let me think. How many machines stood up to the entire weekend? Well, it's more just not just what stood up, but you having a personal collection and putting them in public. Did that bother you? Nope. I'm a firm believer machines are made to play. I mean, four of my machines are LEs. So Deadpool LE, Pirates of the Caribbean, Willy Wonka. But I like them being played. I'm happy for people to experience them and play them. I repair my own machines, unlike some other people I'm talking to at the moment. So I don't mind if things go wrong. You repair my machines, apparently.
    29:51
    Thank you. I don't mind things going wrong. I can repair most things, and people enjoy it. So there are a lot of people around, and I did approach them and said, can you put some machines in? And they basically said, no, I don't want them destroyed. But at a top level, people are respectful of the machines. They don't hit them hard. They don't slap the flippers too hard. they will notice a problem with it and let you know quickly, and we encourage that for everybody during the tournament. If you see something odd or you think is at fault, put your hand up and let us know as quickly as possible so you're not getting damage such as a burnt coil or a stuck switch that's going to blow a transistor, and they did that and let us know quite quickly when things are misbehaving. But by the time I get them back, it'll take me a couple of weeks, everything will be back to 100%, and you won't notice any particular wear and tear on the machine above normal. It's the transporting that can damage them, So you've just got to be careful, make sure they're wrapped in blankets and folded, and they can come back and end up in the same state as they left. The final point I'll make as well is, because there are people that listen to this podcast that are thinking about getting into tournaments and wondering whether they're going to be successful or not. And the point I want to make is that there were a couple of people in that actually qualified. We say top 48, but it actually goes down because, obviously, I think I qualified 30th and I couldn't make it. So it goes down the list. We got 62 and I think we got two. Right. So the point I want to make is that there were some people that were in that tournament that had qualified that had only been playing pinball in competitions for just over a year. So for those people that are thinking, oh, well, what's the point? I'm not going to get – I'm just telling you now, particularly in Australia, maybe elsewhere as well with sort of state championships as well, get involved. You'll actually surprise yourself at how well you can do in such a short period of time. Acquire the minor victories. There's nothing better than being in your first big tournament and you lose and you lose. As you said, when you started, you lost for a whole year. Yeah. All those little minor victories that you win one game suddenly and you go, holy rubbish. Can I say crap? Holy crap. I just beat a top 10 Australian player. He's exactly right because it's a year of practice. Correct. One day it's just going to click and bang, there you go, you've got it. And learning. If you come up against someone who is obviously inexperienced and they say, I'm way out of my depth here, I don't know what to do, nearly every top player I know will explain the rules of the machine to the person and say, what you do on this machine is you've got to hit that orbit followed by that ramp and that's what you've got to concentrate on. And so you learn how to play the machines, you watch what the experienced players are doing, you look at their flipper skills and you go, when I go home, this is what I want to practice. And you'll never know that. If you're playing casually and not in tournament, you won't know how to learn tactics like that. So I encourage you. And your local comp, if you've ever played one before, go along, learn. People are friendly. People aren't there to demolish you and make you feel bad. That's right. Some are.
    32:41
    But for the most part, and I've said this before, people really want you to be better. So they will show you the rules. They will show you flipper skills. They will watch you and give you advice. The competitive community just wants you to be better. That's all. They want more competitors to turn up. Correct. That's exactly right. One thing I want to explore in Australia is leagues. We don't have them in Australia. Everywhere I go in America, their leagues are sold out with waiting lists. No, I know. And it's actually on – if we haven't talked about it this episode because we're recording this before we do the other, it's on my topic list is to talk to Jeff about leagues, what they are. Because, yeah, you're right. We don't have them in Australia. And someone in America said to me a great analogy that imagine being asked to come ten-pin bowling one night and you turn up and say, right, you're competing against the Queensland state champion in Tempin bowling. See how you go. You won't come back. You'll never do it again. That's right. And just for Jeff, a reminder, the event was such a success because it was held in Queensland. Yeah, we did talk about that today. He was wondering whether it was really distracting being in such a place. Well, Ryan spent a lot of time at the beach. Yes, he did indeed.
    33:50
    Good stuff. Well, thank you so much, Dr. John. I'm glad you ran a great event. I'm glad it was successful. It was certainly, for me, a successful event to watch. Well done to Rob Miller and to everybody that competed. Well done. Thank you. Marty, as you know, a thousand people and many more were bashing their F5 buttons this weekend to get into Pinberg at ReplayFX, the biggest tournament in the world. We've got a special guest who really knows a lot about that. Well, yeah, and obviously it sold out again, probably in record time. We haven't got the final numbers just yet, but it's obviously the biggest event of the year. Well, our next guest is somebody I met for the first time at Pinball. I think it was three and a half years ago, and we were playing in the first group. And this is a person that embodied what I want in pinball tournaments in the sense that there was all this excitement. It was fun. It didn't matter win or lose. It was just great to be at this pinball tournament. And that person is Tracy Lindberg from Arizona, and she joins us right now. Hello, Tracy. Hello. Happy to be here. I remember that very well like it was yesterday, and you were excited, and I think you took pictures of the groups, in all the groups that you were in, in all your 10 rounds, and just really soaking in that experience. Do you remember what that was like back then? Absolutely, and I actually think I was very lucky that I was in that group with you in the first round because I was very nervous. And I remember looking at the score sheet and thinking, oh my gosh, I don't even know how to fill this out. And it was actually you who initiated taking a picture of the group. and I thought, oh my gosh, this is just as much about meeting amazing other pinball people from around the world as it is competing and trying to play our best, and so you started it off in a very fun way. I think Oli might have been there from Finland, too, if I recall. It was a very good group, lovely people. You know, that first match, Marty, you know this, too, that first match at Pinberg, you're so excited. I mean, you can't ruin your day by having a bad match, but it's just you want to do so well, And I find in that first round of Pinberg, you're not really game face yet. You're just kind of still in that social setting. Do you feel that way, Martin? For me, the first game, I was freaking out because I wasn't sure whether I was at the right bank of machines. Was I in the right group? And I was looking around. The best thing, obviously, is that there are tournament directors everywhere that are just willing to help and guide you to where you want to go. And once I got there, it was game face and I was in a great group. And again, they also helped me acclimatize to this whole big tournament setting. What made you want to go to Pinnberg, Tracy? How did you find out about the biggest tournament in the world? Well, I started playing competitively in 2014 and became obsessed very quickly. And there were a few people from Arizona that went every single year religiously. And if you asked them, hey, what's the best tournament to travel to? They said Pinnberg, hands down. And so we knew we wanted to go. So we'd heard about it in 2014. In 2015, we actually got on the wait list and got an opportunity to play. I remember receiving the email, and I sent it over to my husband, and I'm like, do you want to do this? Do you want to fly to Pittsburgh? And he said, you know what? Let's take that money and buy Star Trek. I said, okay, let's buy Star Trek because let's get a little bit better one more year. And then in 2016, you're like, we're all in, going to Pennburg. So we've been every year since. And for you, why did you think that that was a good introduction for you, that particular tournament? On so many levels. So we weren't playing group match play here in Arizona at the time. Almost everything we did was best game. And every now and then we'd do a double elimination head-to-head, which is a brutally long format. And so I hadn't really been exposed to a whole lot of group match play. And so as an introduction for me to social and competitive, the combination of social and competitive pinball, I feel like Pinberg was sort of the epitome of that. Meeting so many people, chatting with them, trying to play your best, but also recognizing that you can just have a ton of fun while you're doing all of that across the course of the day. There are some people probably listening to Final Round right now that may have never been to Pinberg. They might not have ever been in a competition. We want to invite those people into this podcast. So when you talk about match play, what we're talking about simply is you're in a group of four. One person comes first, the next person comes second, third, fourth, That's kind of how Pinnberg works. So if you come in first, you have three wins against three other people, and that's how the scoring goes. It doesn't really matter what the score is. You were talking about Arizona being a best scorer, so everyone in that group would play Star Trek, and whoever had the highest score would be in first place. That's how that kind of works. So the match play is really unique, and you talked about people always saying, go to Pinnberg, go to Pinnberg. That's exactly what happened to me, almost the same time frame. I think I started playing 2014. I didn't get into Pinnberg until 15, But that was kind of the selling point. You know, I think a lot of people, when they hear about competition pinball, do leagues excite you? Do local tournaments excite you? Sure, maybe. But when someone says, this is the biggest pinball tournament in the world, there's going to be over 400 or 500 games, actually way more than that, when you include replay effects. And now 1,000 people, my eyes came out of my head. I'm like, how do I get in this? We have the same exact path, and I think people listening are probably going to Pinberg for the first time this year. And the reason I wanted Tracy on, Martin, is because she has a little inside information too, in that she not only is a great player, does a lot with bells and chimes in Arizona. For the last two years, you've been a TD at Pinberg. They were looking to expand. They needed some TDs, some techs, and you volunteered. Wow, that's amazing. How come? You know, it's funny. I met Bowen Cairns. He came to Arizona for something for work. And we got together and played some pinball. And, you know, he was kind of getting to know me, learning about I'd been running my league for a little while now and putting a lot of time and energy into becoming a really good tournament director. It was a labor of love for me. It's really important to me to be a well-prepared, well-executed tournament director, to take good care of my pinball community. And so I think Bowen kind of saw that in me. and he said, would you ever consider being a tournament director at Pinberg? And my initial gut reaction was, no, of course not. Yeah, who would give up the opportunity to play in Pinberg? That was my gut reaction. See, my gut reaction would be, this guy's got a finder fee.
    40:14
    He's up to, there's some commission going on here. So the funny thing is, he asked, I said, gosh, I can't imagine, no way. And then we parted ways and then I called him not long after and I said, OK, I can't stop thinking about the fact that you suggested that to me. And I keep thinking to myself, I would become an even better pinball tournament director if I had that level of experience. And I just I kept thinking about it and kept thinking about it. And I talked to my husband and I'm like, do you mind if I don't play? And he said, you know, follow your heart and do what you got to do. And so then I talked to Doug Polka, and he kind of got to know me enough to feel confident in my skills, and they brought me on. Look, the thing I'll say about that as well is because I'm now finding that I'm either streaming or doing TDing in tournaments in Melbourne more than actually playing. And the thing that I realize, and a lot of people think I'm a weird, and probably people think that you're weird, and that's probably why we're asking the question, but you actually can get just as much fulfillment running a tournament than playing in tournament. Oh, absolutely. I mean, I love doing both here in Arizona. I do both. Anything I run, I'm usually always, I've always played in everything I've run. So I love, I love both sides of it. But Pinberg, so Pinberg is the only thing that I've done where I was only a tournament director and I did not play. And absolutely, it was just as fulfilling because the team of tournament directors and techs that work Pinberg are absolutely amazing. And the teamwork, the camaraderie, it's a lot of hard work. And it's stressful because for some people, the stakes are very high at Pinnberg. And so it's stressful to make sure you're getting the rulings right. And, you know, a ruling can make or break somebody's Pinnberg tournament experience. Or maybe not their experience, but their chance of making the finals. When you get into those later rounds and people are getting really high stressed, oh my gosh, I'm a couple of points out of qualifying. And so there's a lot of pressure in being a tournament director. But at the same time, I have absolutely loved it the last two years. Well, you've obviously become a better TD by working the last two years at Pinberg. What was the biggest surprise? And I know they have the big TD playbook and the rulebook. I've seen it. It's fascinating. They make it very, very clear cut for everyone. But what was the biggest surprise and learning curve for you? The games I've never seen before was probably the biggest learning curve. And that's really where the teamwork comes into play, because there's enough people who are super familiar with all of the Papa games that you can ask for backup. But I know my games at my location. There's about 25 games. I know all of them. I know exactly, you know, where their idiosyncrasies opening up a game. Some of them, the coin door is a little sticky. Like I know where the ball usually gets stuck. I know when I can free it with a hit on the side versus I'm going to have to open this game. That ball's not coming out. Like I know my games really well. And if a player claims that a game is malfunctioning, which, you know, it happens, people will call me over and say, oh, this isn't working right. It's broken. And I know my games and I can easily say, nope, that's actually operating as designed and you can just keep on playing or I'll know if something's wrong. But at Pinberg, you know, my first few rulings were, oh, this is easy for you. Stuck ball. Yep, you're DQ'd. OK, you're going to get a comp ball.
    43:21
    Simple stuff like that. But then when people are saying, hey, I think this is malfunctioning and I've never seen the game before. That was a learning curve for me. So but that's where the teamwork comes into play for Pinberg. So for every TD who might not know a game, there's another TD who knows it super well, and so you can just jump on the radio and get some help. Yeah, and certainly one thing I've noticed, I've been to Pinberg twice, is that you push that button at the end of your row, and a TD is there immediately. Yeah, it's something we pride ourselves on. We are standing in the middle and just waiting to see those lights go on. Tracy, were you nervous when you had to make your first ruling? I mean, you were nervous playing in your first Pinberg, but now, Tracy, you're up next. Go, go, go. Absolutely. I was nervous that I was going to get something wrong, but we all prepared pretty well together, too. There's a group on Facebook that we chat about different rulings and quiz each other. And if we see something weird out in the wild, we'll take a picture and say, what would you have done? Is that a stuck ball? And everybody jumps in and chimes in and says, stuck ball, not a stuck ball. I mean, because, you know, if it's not a stuck ball, it's, hey, I can drain it for you or you can drain it yourself. Have you had to read the entire rulebook? Not just read it, but I mean, I read it to think of what question could a player ask me that I need this piece of information for. So both years, I would read it every day, like kind of just read through it again, read through it again. OK, and little things will pop out at you when you're rereading the rulebook that you maybe hadn't thought of. And I need it to be second nature for me so that if somebody something unusual occurs, I can give the answer very confidently. and then if they are confused, I can actually show them in the rulebook. We carry it around so that we can point it out and explain if someone doesn't get it because some of the rules in the rulebook are just unfriendly, you know, because sometimes, you know, like you play out of turn on ball one and a player might think, well, it's no big deal. Let me just switch and I'll be player two now and then player three can play or player two can now play on player three and they think it's no big deal, but that you're not able to be a consistent, you're not able to do consistent rulings when you do something like that. when you play out of turn, you're DQ'd. And my players locally will question me sometimes like, oh, why do we have to be so strict about the DQs? And it's because, hey, as soon as you travel to a bigger tournament, they're going to be strict about those DQs. And I need you checking that back glass before every single plunge to make sure it's your turn. I want my players here locally to know exactly how to make sure that they are going to be safe and play at the right time in a big tournament. Probably a big reason why so many Arizona players are great, in fact, too. because of the drill sergeant that is Tracy Lindbergh.
    45:54
    But Tracy, all right. You know, one thing you talked about was we have a great group of TDs at Pinnberg. And when you have a bunch of TDs to get some support, maybe some help or some clarity on certain issues. But I think that's wonderful. But I think you are pretty strong on your own. So I'm going to throw, I don't know if it's a softball at you. Here's a TD question for you. Tracy, my ball stuck on the in lane, out lane. It's right on the wire form. Now, I need you to get it removed, but my kickback is lit. What do you do, Tracy? Well, so if you're saying that, I assume I've never seen a kickback on the right. So a kickback on the left? And you're saying it's stuck on the left, not on the right? Yes, it's on the dividing wire that is in lane, out lane. And if it goes to the left, the kickback would fire. But if it goes to the right, I'd be in in lane. Tracy, what do you do? Help. Okay, so on an in lane, out lane post. and gosh, you didn't tell me you were going to do this. So in-lane out-lane post would normally not be a stuck ball. So I can drain it for you. So in the case of a lit kickback, if I was going to drain it for you, I can trigger the kickback and put it on your flipper, your left flipper. That is the correct answer. Because I've done a few TD myself, I didn't know the answer to this. This just came up and I thought, oh, okay. Well, I know, like Tracy just said, in-lane out-lane on the right without a kickback, yes, the TD can drain it for you. Piece of cake. You're not getting in the in lane, but when there's a kickback lit, you have to fire the kickback and put it on the flipper. Correct answer. Well done. Yeah, I think the main thing there is that, and this happens a lot, particularly with older machines, is it's not really considered a stuck ball. And really, I think the first option is you say to the player, well, you have the option of trying to nudge this out, or you can have TD intervention. Yeah, and I mean, it happens. It just happened the other night on, we have a Pirates of the Caribbean, and we don't have the interlocks, which is disabled on my games at my primary location, and the player had a stuck ball in multiball. And I said, well, I can give it a hit. If you get a danger, you're going to keep it. If you get a tilt, I'll give you a comp ball. But if I open this game, you're going to lose your multiball. And he chose to hit it, and he tilted. And I said, well, I told you that's on you if you chose to. Sure, yeah. He wanted to try to free it. I said, all I'm going to do is give it one hit because when it was stuck there, where it was stuck, I knew it was tough to get out if a hit didn't, if one hit on the side didn't make it budge. But yeah, so sometimes players have to make that tough choice themselves. But once I open the game, I'm the one in control. So I'm going to do what I have to do based on the rules. So what advice would you give to somebody that's going to Pinberg for the first time, probably to get the most out of the experience? So I say focus on enjoying both playing so many pinball machines that you may or may not have ever seen before, as well as enjoying the people that you get to meet, get to know them. Because when you come back year to year, you're going to see those same people again. And so those relationships that you start to build at Pinberg make all of your pinball travels more fun. But if you focus on that, the enjoyment of the experience, I think you're going to have a much better time. If you just focus on trying to get into the finals, only 200 out of 1,000 players are going to make the finals. And you're in really good company if you make the finals, but you're in amazing company if you don't make the finals because those other 799 people know exactly how you feel. And there are so many pinball machines to play on Saturday, even if you're not in the finals. It's going to be a fun weekend of so much pinball for you. Tracy, I say this to you, I say this to all the volunteers, and everyone should at any tournament when you see volunteers, whether it's scorekeepers, TDs, techs, whomever, always thank the volunteers for their service because that's why we get to enjoy these tournaments. So thank you for what you've done the last two years. And I am equally thrilled and happy for you that you're going to be playing again this year. So I'll look forward to you. Let's make sure we're in the same group at some point, preferably A playoffs. If you could find a way to get me there, that'd be wonderful. But I'm glad you're playing this year and I'm sure everyone in Arizona appreciates all the work that you do with Bells and Chimes and all the other tournaments Thanks very much Tracy Yeah happy to be here Thanks Always good to talk to Tracy You know what I forgot to mention too She actually going to be playing in a huge huge event next weekend She's in the National Women's Finals too. In fact, she's one of the favorites, I would have to say, because she was in the top four at Indisc. Not only this year, she was in the playoffs last year. A great player for sure. And obviously a great person. I've met her a couple of times and was really great to talk to. So thanks for coming on, Tracy. It's nice to have these kind of interviews here on Final Round Pinball Podcast. And one of the benefits, I guess, we've noticed even just after one show, really the huge success of the podcast, Marty, the sponsorship is at an all-time high. I know. Every other email is a request just throwing money at us. I can't keep track of them all. There's only so much time in the day. And nothing keeps better time than the Rolex Platinum Diamond Pearlmaster. This limited edition watch has a dial made of 42 meteorite diamonds and a double quick set made of sapphire crystal. When refinement meets technical excellence, exemplifying a delicate balance of elegance and style. Discover the Pearlmaster, unrivaled prestige, timeless style, worldwide servicing. You know what time it is? Time to get a better job or rob a bank because this watch is worth more than you. The Rolex Platinum Diamond Pearlmaster, the official watch of Final Round. It's available for only $230,000, a mere week's pay for podcasters. Please use the code FINALROUND at checkout. Cha-ching. Big, big tournaments coming up March 5th. The North American Championship Series. All the winners from states and provinces gather in Denver, Colorado. They might as well stick around because they're going to be playing in the Stern Pro Circuit event, the Pin Masters, March 6th through 8th. So to tell us all about this, Martin, don't play up to his huge, huge ego. All right, let's get this interview done with. We'll get it over with, and we'll move on. Okay, we've had a couple of good interviews right now. But joining us right now, the IFPA default president, Joshua Sharp, who's going to be running things. Hey, Josh, how are you, buddy? Is the episode going to be 90 seconds long because it's taken you an hour to get a good 90 seconds so far? Pretty much. That's how we roll. Take seven.
    52:28
    Take nine. Take 11. Sounds like finishes at your major tournaments, those numbers. Anyway. True, man. What did I miss since you had scored without me? Hey, if I can't do a first take, you can't do a first place win, so it goes both ways. Good one. There you go. Good one. Josh, there are people that have never heard you speak. I don't know how. You've been on every single podcast. That's correct. I doubt that very much. Joshua, we want to know about the North American Championship Series and how this has really grown. I know it was the American years ago, but I think Robert Gagneau changed that when he won. Explain the genesis of the North American Championship Series. um i was going to the bathroom while i think there was a bowl game going on some college bowl game and i just had the idea for it was the bcs and i just like had the idea for the scs and that was kind of it ask shepherd if i could find a way to filter some rankings hold on a second shepherd was there while you were going to the washroom he was in the room no i didn't to be able to track standings by state. And, you know, I don't know how to do anything on our site because I'm kind of a moron. So I have to ask Brian, you know, to set stuff up for me and query this and that. And it was pretty easy to put it together. And then Kaylee George was there. I was running it by some people just to see, you know, if they thought it was cool, if it was stupid or whatever. And Kaylee brought up it would be cool to get all the state winners together, you know, for nationals. His pitch was it should be a winner-take-all Nationals. But he likes to pitch winner-take-all everything. But that's kind of how it started. Martin's got a question for you. I just wanted to thank you for the soundbite, I'm kind of a moron. Because I'm kind of a moron. Anyway, go ahead, Martin.
    54:33
    Obviously, it's one of the most watched series, I think. My question about the North American Championship Series is, how do you determine which state you're playing for? You, so we track results by where an event takes place. So the standings are made up of where players have earned the most Whoppers in every state. So players get to choose between those. I mean, it's no different than qualifying for, I don't know if you have like a top 10 of these 10 machines, I'll make it to finals. If you're top 10 and more than one, you get to pick which one you want to be in. Each year, there is a bit of controversy because there's obviously people that can make the finals of each state. Look, I'm probably prefacing a few questions that I want to ask you about being the president of IFPA. These things are really hard to administer, I'd imagine. It's, yeah, I mean, it couldn't exist without state reps, which is kind of how, I mean, when I don't think Tilt Forms was around yet, but RGP2 was. And I can remember just like, hey, if you're interested in running, being running your state championship and being state rep, let me know. Thanks. And it was like, all right, we got four. All right, we got six. All right, we got 11. And it's only because of those people that are willing to help, because I'm one person that can barely handle Illinois these days, that getting something that's happening across the nation and now across Canada as well, all on the same day, and trophies and prize money, it's a pain in the ass for sure. So not only just on, we're probably going to talk about the North American Championship Series, but being the president of IFPA, there's fun as well. The default president, I'm not going to say it every time. Let's just say you're both co-presidents just so it makes it easier for me to ask these questions. some of it's enjoyable but some of it, don't you like scratch your head and think, oh my god, this problem again? Like what problem again? Well, like people sort of up in arms about which state people are going to be playing in and represent. No, because I mean it's one of those things where the actual it's usually the same people that complain every year and it's kind of the same handful of people that even have the option so it's kind of like, I don't know, give me something new and I'll give it a more thought. But it's one of those things where I always look at ways for people to exploit the system, and let's take Jason Werdrick, for example, who has been blamed for being one of those puddle jumpers. If we put a rule in place where he has to play in his home state, forgetting about the fact that we're now creating residency requirements and I'm having people send me their driver's license and whatever, which is never going to happen. But if the rule is, hey, if Jason qualifies in Illinois and he lives in Illinois, he has to play in Illinois. He can't come up to Wisconsin and play for more money or play for an easier path to nationals or whatever. It's within Jason's power to be like, all right, well, then I'm motivated to now not play in Illinois because playing in Illinois is now a disadvantage for me. And any time that playing competitive pinball is a disadvantage, why would we favor people that play less competitive pinball? I'm always, you know, in favor of favoring those that play, play all over the place, play like crazy. Those people, if there's ever an advantage to be given, it's the people that play a shit ton that deserve it, in my mind. Very presidential language there. well done yeah we what is is is the pinball network square friendly how uh where are we it is i i refrain because i uh yeah you're you're decent yeah exactly anyway a couple things that you mentioned josh uh again i'm thinking of some people that are maybe new to competition pinball certainly everybody knows about pin side and the great forums are there you mentioned tilt forums a while ago so tilt forums is kind of where the competitive players really go to talk about different topics. And so what Marty was talking about, like every year people complain about, well, what state are you going to play in? Think of Pinberg and you've got a thousand players there that are probably not from Pennsylvania. They add a lot of points and money to that state championship. The same with Indus in California, TPF in Texas, Expo in Illinois. Yeah. I mean, people do have options. Werdrick certainly does. I think Bob Matthews was in Florida when the championship happened. So he decided to go up against Eric Stone and the Nick Muellers and the great players in Florida. Jermaine was, I think, no state made more money than Washington. You think of all the great players in the Northwest. Jermaine was the number one player, and play in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Less money, but he thought maybe a quicker path to the North American Pinball Championship Series. It didn't happen, but that was his path. And this is all created because of what you did a few years ago when you put in the dollar fee. Now, yes, There are big state and provincial prize pools, but there's even a bigger prize pool with less people in the actual North American Championship Series. This never happened before. No, and back in the day, it was, what, $20 a person, and first place in every state got $100. I think that was it. And we had, I don't know, there were 50 states, and $100 went, like, a modest prize pool of, you know, $5,000, and now it's $25,000 for North America's. It's hard to not say nationals. I'm working on that. Actually, it is nationals. It's just more than one national going on at the same time. Yeah. Yeah, says the Canadian. Just say NACS. Is that so hard? My necks? Yeah, but is NACS actually like the day that all the states and provincials happen, or is that the North American day? Fine. NACS finals? I don't know. Yeah, who knows? Yeah, sure. When you're president, you can decide. Well, can I ask a question because you touched on it? I asked you on head-to-head, I think it was probably let's say 18 months ago, and it was too early to tell, and this is about the dollar fee because obviously it was brought in to be able to generate more prize money to promote the states and then the nationals. And at the time when I asked you, you kind of said, well, I can't really tell the benefit of it now. We're now 18 months later what's been the benefit of introducing the dollar fee and and i say that again because this is australia's first year that we've got the dollar fee yeah i mean for me it's been nice to be able to back in the day like everyone had to pay to enter the state finals so if you were playing in illinois and you were like the 16th seed it's like i mean keith ellen wasn't here but imagine like qualifying for your state championship and your reward is pay 20 to play keith ellen and a best-of-seven match and lose and be done. Like, the ability for us to give away money and truly have, like, 1,000 winners on NACS Day, to me, was a huge positive for the argument of, like, the 1% is getting all this money. And it's like, unless there's 1,000 players in the top 1%, were really paying deeper than any other event in history, really. I mean, if you talk about, like, 1,000 unique players getting played or getting paid, there's people that are outside of the top 1,000 that are getting paid that day as a winner. So that was exciting to me, to be able to give success to people that normally don't see it at a competitive pinball. Yeah, fair enough. And the media aspect has been... Of course. Well, I'm going to give you a specific example, and this only came about in the last week because, you know, the Australian Championship Series just happened, and obviously it was a great event. I was streaming, and someone asked me what was the prize money, and I said it was $1,000. And someone said, well, gee, that's not a lot of money to win the number one tournament effectively in Australia. And I said, boom, that is exactly what the dollar fee aims to change, to actually make it more lucrative. So it's not just self-funded for people that turn up. Totally, totally. And I mean, we see it with, you know, we pay everyone out at nationals and similar to this term pro circuit, like everyone's getting paid. that it becomes one of those things where people are kind of, I mean, for nationals, they're not cash positive, but they're walking out, I think, 300 bucks is the minimum payout if they just show up and lose. And $300 is a pretty decent payout at any normal event that someone would go to for the weekend. I mean, you look at, like, where you'd have to finish in Pinburn to cash out 300 or more, and you have to play pretty well to be one of those people. Also up for grabs in the North American Championship Series. Boy, that's easy to say. I don't know why you have such a difficulty doing that. Anyway, up for grabs, one of the prizes is a spot at IFPA 17, the World Championship. Only 64 players will be in that, and there's an opportunity for one of these players in the North American Championship Series to go to IFPA 17. It's not necessarily the winner, though. So the highest finisher at the NACS final gets that isn't already in the field. So right now there's 62 of the 64 places are locked. Any of those 62 players that have already made it are not eligible for that spot at the NICS final. So there's some subset of those 55 finalists that will be in Denver. The highest finisher that isn't within that group of 62 will earn the right for the spot, which I think last year... Nick Mueller. Nick Mueller went to Italy? Oh, yeah. Nick Mueller went to Italy. He was second to your brother in the NACS finals. And Zach was already in. And isn't it funny because Nick Mueller is the guy who basically got you into the IPA 17 at Freeplay Florida when he unfortunately choked on that, what was it, hot tip? It was, no. It was a Grand Prix? It was Grand Prix. Oh, the extra ball and he couldn't do it. That would have knocked Josh out. I mean, I'm glad that didn't happen, of course. Anyway, so Nick's a great player. And you're in clean, right? No Herbert from Austria this year, baby. You're good. Now, let me explain what that means to Martin and the other people who don't understand. Everybody else, yeah.
    65:25
    A couple years ago, I got into IFPA 15, which happened to be just outside of Toronto at the press start arcade of Adam Becker's, the World Championship. Now, legitimately, I was the first alternate, but 64 people had already committed, so I, unfortunately, was on the outside looking in. They do a call out. Herbert from Austria. Hello, Herbert? Does anybody know Herbert? No, Herbert. Let's go to the alternate. This ginger did cartwheels like Jersey Jack. And I was like, yeah, I'm in, baby. You did say you were showing up. Yep. So this time I got in legit. I think I was 58th at the end of the year, and that was enough to get in. Earned it, man. You earned it. Also, for everybody else that's listening as well, explain what IFPA is. Why is that different to other tournaments? Jeff? Are you asking the president? Okay, I'll tell you.
    66:20
    It is the World Championship, and what they do is they take the top two players from every country that have 50 players that have played in tournaments in that calendar year. So if you have a country that has 50 players, your country qualifies. They take the top two from every country. They're called country exemption spots. They take two country exemption spots from each country, and they go down the list until they fill those two or people say no. And then afterwards, then they go into the top-ranked players to fill out the field of 62. We call those the at-large bids. Okay, great. Fine. You and I are both at-large bids. Anyway, they leave two spots open for the NACS championship, in which the top player that isn't already locked in will go, and also for the European Championship, correct? Which is happening the same weekend. Oh, I didn't know that. Where is it? It's in Fulda, Germany. Isn't everything in Fulda, Germany? I believe the ECS final is one of the 41 events that will be going on. That day? Yeah, pretty much. That is the North American Championship Series, But then the next day, Marty, he's got this thing that I went to last year. It's expanded. It's, in fact, doubled. It's called Pin Masters. It's part of the Stern Pro Circuit. It is pin golf. What do you think of pin golf, Marty? Yeah, I quite like pin golf. I'm not buying that.
    67:56
    It's fun. It's a bit of fun, isn't it? But, yeah. Again, for those people that are just getting into tournaments, It's another format where really how you work through these games is similar to golf in that there's either scores or objectives set on each machine. And if you achieve it, you get par or lower par or, you know, strokes over. It's all about the strokes. So, yeah, it's all score based now. And if you were able to get this score in one ball, you would score a one for that hole, which the lower the score in golf, the better. So if you can't do it, all games are set to five balls. Then, you know, if you do it in three balls, you get a score of three. But if you can't do it in five balls, wherever your score is, falls under either maybe six strokes, seven, eight, or nine. Or is there ten? Let's go up to ten. Yeah, there's a ten if you don't get to 20% of the target score. If you don't get the target score, your score will fall somewhere in between the six, seven, eight, nine, ten range. And it's 18 holes. And here's the tough part about Pym Masters. We've talked about it on Pinball Profile, is that you want the games to be the same for the first group playing and the last group. But that's tough to do. Tilt bobs move. Flippers get weaker. How do you overcome this in Pinmasters or any pin golf tournament, Josh? You just keep going. Okay, great answer. Not really. What else are you going to do? You just keep going. Well, we talked about it on Pinball Profile about what do you do if you have to rebuild a flipper? Well, this year we have the Teolis tilt bob measurement tool. Do you? Well, if you ship it to us in the next week and a half. It's called a ruler. If you can get us an official ruler that can fit within that space and you want to fly out and help us set those plumb bobs to whatever millimeter measurement, I'm in, man. I'm ready. Marty, have you ever been in a pin golf tournament where you're playing in one of the later groups and all of a sudden you're like, hey, what the hell happened to the slipper? Or I sneezed and the thing tilted. Yeah, look, I honestly have, but I still do the whole that's pinball, that's what it is. If you think that that's going to be a problem, start early. Or choose not to play. Well, also true. Also, you were saying before that it's now all points-based, and a lot of the pin golf tournaments that I've been in, they've got objectives and they've got score-based. Is that where it's now going, where people are just really only doing it for score? I'm seeing it both ways. For pin masters, we always do it for score. I think the objective base is a little bit of a novelty and much harder to enforce whether someone got something or not. Fair enough. I'm starting to sense that pin golf tournaments are dying. It's kind of like the three-strike tournaments. I know they're easy to run. They certainly don't qualify a lot for TGP and maximizing your WAP-ortunities because of the way the calculations are done for strikes tournaments. Pin golf, first of all, it's not the easiest to run logistically because of the tee times, if you will. And again, talking about having enough games and how many players can you put through. It is a very long tournament. Yeah. I mean, each round is a good five hours, and you're only playing nine games in five hours. So, yeah, it's a grind. It's a grind. Why do we keep doing it then? Because it's a blast, man. Yeah, it is a bit of fun. But you're right. Time is probably one of the biggest issues with it. And I remember last year at Pinnberg, I did a pin golf tournament beforehand. Oh, yeah. How did you like that, Marty? Yeah, you know I didn't enjoy it because we had two more games to go, And it was end of time. We couldn't actually complete our card. Yeah.
    71:44
    One of our friends that goes to Pinberg uses that as his warm-up every year. And it's tough to not have a set tee time that everyone is going at the same time. When you have sort of this, like, open qualifying, it's a hot mess in terms of, like, you get a run of people showing up at the same time, and then there's a backlog, and that people are like, can I jump holes? That game's open over there. Can I just run over and play that one? And, yeah, logistically it becomes a nightmare when it's open-ended for sure. Adam Becker, who is an IFPA director and one of the best players in the world too, won the Pin Masters tournament a few years ago and hates its guts. It's through the trophy and the garbage. I don't know about that, but I guess that's my point. Like, I don't know, with all the different tournaments that are out there now, and flip frenzies we've talked about just kind of really just becoming very, very popular. I don't know that pin golf will be around in five years. Maybe pin masters will be. It will be with at least what I'm running. Because you can't think of anything new. No, but I'm a huge golfer. and for me the the start of pin masters which god i don't know it was probably 10 years ago we did the first one the whole idea that harnessing when you're playing bad like you play bad on a regular game of pinball the game's just over and there's something to golf if you're having a bad hole you have to go up to your ball and still play. So harnessing sort of like that emotion of you've just had three house balls and you're nowhere. It's like instead of your game being over, it's come on, man, you're up. You've got to get to 50 million on Metallica. And like how do you deal in those situations? It's a very unique situation that only a pin golf format can put a player in. That makes it exciting to me. You get to be put in new situations that other formats don't give you. So if you've never played pin golf before and you want to know what the frustrations are like, imagine playing pinball as Jean Vandevelde in the British Open over and over and over again. All right? Golfers will get that.
    74:03
    Yeah, obviously. I have no idea that he's been. I got it. He had the British Open locked up until he kept hitting the water and hitting the water and hitting the water. and because you have to finish it, he had to endure, and that was the problem with that. And, you know, you can have four hole-in-ones. Right. What's great is, like, in a Pinberg round or a Popper round, it's like the worst you can get is a zero on a game for a group, and the best player can get a four or a three. Like, I didn't advance one year in the Pinmasters finals because I took a nine in Aerosmith, and it was like if I just played an average game, I would have made it, and I just tanked. And five balls of Aerosmith and not getting anywhere was like this insanely frustrating awesomeness that, like, I wish didn't happen to me, but it happened to me, and that's kind of what it's all about. Marty, forget that Josh is on the line. Are you interested in playing a pin golf tournament?
    75:04
    Be honest. No. I hope they go away. I like the variety of tournaments. I actually don mind playing a pin golf tournament I might even run one at the C this August I just think they a dying format because how not because of the joking complaints I made I just think logistically, it's very, very difficult to run. And more so, the timing of it is so incredibly hard. All the best intentions, you leave all the time in the world in between holes for players and everything else. Games just get backed up and it just takes forever. So that, unfortunately, is I think maybe what Adam's thinking about, why he doesn't like those tournaments. It's such a grind, and I want to play pinball, whereas different tournaments you can play. We'll see if I was certainly surprised that we filled up all 144 spots. Let's find a way to... Sorry, I don't buy that. That's because it's a Sturm Pro Circuit, and these are sought-after tournaments. What Sturm Pro Circuit isn't maximizing people? I mean, I guess. Sure, yeah. You know, you could run speed runs. you could run one ball tournaments they'd still sell out. It's the Stern Pro Circuit and there's a big carrot that's being dangled in front of you to make the Stern Pro Circuit finals. So I don't think it's because of pin masters. People are running to this. It's a hot take. Hot take, Jeff. Well, Jeff, speaking of things that are wrong with running tournaments.
    76:32
    What a nice segue that is because a while ago on Pinball Profile, you actually asked a question, what are people not like about pinball tournaments and rules in particular?
    76:44
    372 comments. You had 372 comments, and guess what? I read every single one of them. Josh, did you read any of them?
    76:53
    I don't know if I read that. Did it really get to that? 372. December 10th. I certainly didn't read that many. But admittedly, you could probably narrow it down to three different themes that came out of it. Yeah. Okay. Josh, I think what Marty and I want to do is kind of answer some of the questions that people were concerned about in tournaments. And you're the best person to ask this as someone who makes rules. And I know you do a lot with IFPA, with Papa, and everybody else, kind of that three-headed monster that is the Stern Pro Circuit. So the one big complaint I noticed, and Marty, you probably saw this too, was people don't like that you get penalized for coaching. And a good example was, I think Harry Jackson was a guy who asked the question, hey, I told somebody that the ball save was on while they were leaving a game, and that was considered coaching because they went back and saved their ball. Your thoughts on coaching and why it shouldn't be allowed in tournaments? For like just my own personal thoughts on it? Well, the head of IFPI, I guess, reason. There's no coaching because it was in the rules long before that I came around. I mean, it's one of those legacy rules for sure. Blaming his dad. My concerns with coaching is slowing the game up. Like, I'd love to have Zach hanging out with me the entire time I'm playing and trapping up and talking and having a great time, and he can keep me calm and we can discuss my plan of attack. and the biggest issue I have is I have a Zach. And for people that don't have a Zach, it really sucks for them. And I think you would end up, I mean, I see it at Pinberg when, you know, we have our group text going on and everyone in our group is racing to Bank 48 because someone is still playing. And because of people in my group are friends with Zach and myself, They're getting some great even in-between ball coaching going on. Which is allowed. I think it would be a huge negative or like I don't have faith in humanity that people would be openly helping anyone. And I think that could lead to some really weird situations. So if Dave Ponce is playing in Bank 48 and Zach and I run over there and we're just standing right up next to him and it's like, all right, Dave, trap up. all right, man, here's where we're going. Here's what you're going to do next. Just make this shot, get the ball back. We'll deal with the next shot later. If we're there to be able to coach him through his entire ball, settle him down, and this is like D division, and then next person walks up and they're all alone and they just dealt with this other guy who got help from the Sharp brothers, I mean, that guy may leave competitive pinball if it leaves that negative of a taste in their mouths. What about if a person who didn't have the Sharps dropped up and said, hey what am i supposed to do big question if if it's me i probably help them but i don't have faith enough in humanity that if if someone if another high level player's best friend is playing in that same match like i don't know does that person help any stranger do they turn around like oh man amanda is that you yeah let me tell you know what i'd help you but my wife's calling me and i'm probably in trouble for something like who who knows how that goes down i just don't like the idea of it going down. I think it can go very haves and have-nots, and I think that could be really toxic. So to answer your question, coaching in pinball is the same as the Houston Astros in baseball. Go on. Right. Garbage cans allowed. So the two counterpoints I had to that that I read were, one was the have-and-have-nots, that those people that are already good players are going to have an even more advantage because they're going to have another great player coaching them. The other one, and this is the one that would affect me, I don't care about that kind of stuff, but the thing that would affect me is if you're coaching somebody as they're playing and you've got somebody playing on a machine next door, that's going to be pretty off-putting to them as they're focusing on playing that game when people are sort of yelling advice at each other. What about intentionally yelling wrong advice?
    81:03
    It's coaching. It's just for coaching. So this is what I came back before when I was talking about being president or default president, whatever it is, of IPA, is that it's really hard to police and control a lot of these things. And therefore, you've got to make a rule that tries to do the best to control when there's not a TD around. Yeah. And I mean, you know, people are quick to throw out the like, hey, ball save or whatever. And I think there's obviously there's a difference between sort of that reflex, you know, good citizenship rule that just like people can't help themselves. And, like, I had to deal in Italy with there were people that were actively talking to each other in a foreign language for, like, tips on Ghostbusters while the game was going on. And I had to, like, reprimand the two players from that country who were helping each other out of just, like, come on, guys. Like, is this where we are? Come on. You know better. So it's one of those things where there is that line between simply yelling ball save and telling someone what they need to do to win. Well, another one that's obviously really hard to monitor is extra balls and people playing out of turn. And some people are sort of saying that it's unfair that they get DQ'd when it was just an honest mistake. When they play the game and it's not their turn? Yes. So somebody else got an extra ball. Player one got an extra ball. They walk away. player two goes up, didn't realize player one had an extra ball, and pulls it, and they get DQ'd. Not only did they not realize that player one had an extra ball, they didn't realize that their score wasn't flashing on the display. With a lot of the bigger tournaments, Pinberg is a great example. Those machines are perfect machines. All the lights are working. There are a lot of tournaments where maybe some of the lights aren't working, and maybe some of the TVs don't know that. Uh-oh. I've had a situation at Pinberg where the player lights were not working, and I refused to plunge a ball because I didn't know if I was up or not, and had a TD come over, and they allowed me to plunge, and if it wasn't my ball, I would not be DQ'd. If you're up, play. If you're not up, don't play. If you don't know whether you're up or not, ask a TD. Yeah, people were also giving examples where it could be deliberate that somebody does have an extra ball and walks away hoping that the display is going to come up what do you mean steve baden rule what's that i think didn't he i read something about like he accidentally didn't realize he had an extra ball and because he didn't realize they were on and walked away don't throw steve under the bus he's our guest next week the national treasure he is my goodness the leader in the stern pro circuit just because you didn't make it and he did how dare you let me quote Greta, how dare you? But you know what I mean? Like Steve or anyone walking, like not realizing if you go to a tournament, you assume that extras are off or you know that extras are on and pretend that they're on. It doesn't matter. The next person that's up has the responsibility of checking to make sure they're up before they play. It's not that hard. I've probably plunged In 25 years of competitive pinball, like, I don't know, 1.4 million balls in play. And I've probably played the wrong ball once. That's it. Everybody has done it once. Exactly. I did it at Pinburg or somewhere, and I was like, that will never happen again. It's like when you're golf, going back to golf, you know, you've got to make sure you do the same thing every time, the stance, the grip. Every year of Pinburg top of finals, I would literally ask him if I was up. every ball I played. And because he would just say, like, you know, he'd look at the display and look at the sheet and it's like, I'm player two. And it's like, yeah, you're up. It's like, all right, good. You told me I'm up. Like, I can go play now. And that was just my habit. Okay, Josh, we've got one more question for you. You're really hogging a lot of this time. And I wish it was good quality content, but, you know, it's really just filler. Anyway, one more question about tournaments that came up actually this weekend for me. In a flip frenzy, Let's say it's a three-hour flip frenzy, and you allow players to pull me out of the queue, I have to go to the washroom. And they decide not to come back, but they come back right before the end of the tournament, and their plus-minus was good enough to get them into whatever playoff settings there were. So in flip frenzies, it's wins minus loss. So let's play this person as plus 10. They decide, look, I've got to go pick up my kid, I'll be back in a bit. You let them back in, and they qualify for the playoffs. I think I asked Adam Becker, and he said, yeah, they would qualify. Now, I think what you should do as a TD is not allow that or say you can come out of the queue five minutes maximum or whatever time. Well, so I wouldn't even do that. So what I would do is, like if I've run flip frenzies, people are welcome to go to the map, do whatever they want, but they're in the queue, and if they miss their match, they get the loss, and they go back to the end of the queue. If they want to pull themselves out of the tournament, I will retire them from the tournament. And they'll be ineligible for finals because they have just disqualified themselves from the tournament. I would not be doing the like, hey, I'm going to take the next half an hour off, and then I'll come back and see how my plus minus is. And then like, oh, there's some other really good players in the queue right now. I'm going to pull myself out for right now again and then pull myself back in. Like, that's all Bush League. Flip frenzies are still kind of new, so I think these things are all being ironed out. Well, it's still going to come down to how an individual TD does it. Hey, Josh, good luck at the North American Pinball Championship Series, March 5th in Denver, and also the most exciting tournament in all of pinball, pin golf at Pinmasters. Hey, wait, hold on. Can I ask a question? Marty, how's the Australian dollar going so far? two months in.
    87:08
    It's two months in. Again, it was just my point. I think it's still too early to tell. I think we will know when we see these tournaments next year. In terms of just the reception themselves and the bitching from people. Is there a Wisconsin? Is what you're asking. I don't get that reference.
    87:29
    Look, I followed the feedback when the Dollar Fee first was introduced to North America, and I would say it's been the same. And it comes back to why I asked you 18 months ago what's the benefit of it, because people will really only understand that it's positive when they actually see it in action. Yeah, let's hope. Have you guys seen any events that have dropped out of running IFPA-sanctioned events over it? No, not that I know of. And obviously what's happened in that time is that we've now introduced the state IFPA reps as well. So we've now got state series and we've got a final series next year that's going to draw from the best place, similar to what you have. Yeah, you won't have states that are just donating to Sydney or the big territories that would be having all the finalists anyway if it was still open country. Correct. That's right. So it's now more evenly distributed. And I think the real benefit is for states like Western Australia, which has got a relatively small scene that's trying to grow. and I've seen some more tournaments there. I think Tasmania that hasn't had any competitive scene is now starting to... Oh, awesome. Yeah, I think there's going to be some tournaments there. And the real oddity in Australia is Sydney. Sydney doesn't have a big competitive scene, but I know that people are now pushing for that, and this may be just that thing that gives them the edge. Awesome. And God bless Dan Robar, who is recording all of the payments himself. Holy crap. I know. good on you dan josh best of luck in march good luck thanks boys thanks man yep take care second episode three guests i'd say that's pretty good so far uh are we gonna keep up this pace because it could be uh i don't know fun to edit as the guy who's doing it yeah absolutely i'm so glad i signed up to this without having to do editing um what's really interesting is that you know we We decided in this podcast to talk about getting people into competitive pinball. And two episodes, and we've got all these interviews, and it's just highlighting you do interviews on Pinball Profile. I did a lot of interviews on Head to Head. Why not? Well, we do actually have a guest the next episode. Stephen Bowden will be joining us. He is the top seed in the Stern Pro Circuit, so a little foreshadowing for Episode 3. But you mentioned, yeah, people are getting into competitive pinball, learning a little bit about it. It's not as difficult as it may seem. It is certainly fun. If you like pinball, good chances you'll like competitive pinball. And we're finding that out too. Michael Peterson was a gentleman who sent us an email. He wanted to know about improving pinball skills, any advice we have. And when I read that email, I thought, well, there's, I guess, a couple of ways to look at it. If you're looking for game specific, well, there are a lot of tutorials that can certainly help you. If you have a certain game, just kind of Google that. Papa has great resources. So Marty, what do you think for just some kind of generic improving pinball skills advice? The first thing is it's always good to have access to a machine that you don't have to put money in. So you can just keep practicing and miss your shots. I think it's just repetitive over time. Learn shot accuracy. Learn to hit the shots that you're going for to recover quickly from when you don't get it right. And that's just a thing that happens over time. You've got to be conscious that you're in practice mode and just keep doing things over and over. Other things you've got, obviously, we talked about dead bouncing last week and live catching and drop catching. They are probably more advanced skills to have, but it really is just getting in the mode that you are just trying to get the timing of the machine to improve your shot accuracy. We talked about slowing the game down last week. If you can trap up, always good advice. if you have a shot that you can do by backhanding it, I think that is a much safer shot than going across the playfield. So I'll give an example of ACDC. If you were trapped up on the left-hand side, the left ramp of the rock and roll train ramp, you can backhand up that ramp. You can do that in Star Trek, as you know. Yes. Those kind of shots are certainly safer than going across the playfield because whenever you kind of shoot a shot kind of in the middle of the playfield and miss, or even if you hit it, Stranger Things might be a good example. Seriously, there's drop targets in the middle. You hit those drop targets and a good chance it probably is going to drain. That's like that in any game, not just Stranger Things. Attack from Mars, if you hit the start attack wave and you hit the middle, dangerous. Spider-Man, same thing. So backhanding is a good skill. I mean, we can't give all the skills right now, but that's one I think you should always try to look at. Yeah, and sometimes it sounds a bit counterintuitive. The example I'll give is Metallica, where you've got the graveyard, those inline stand-up targets. People will often try to go for them on the right flipper, but that angle is really dangerous. You are so much better doing it from the left flipper because the rebound is more likely to come back to the left flipper. Good advice. Thanks for the email, Michael Peterson. We had an email from Dylan Smith. By the way, there are no dumb questions. Please email us, finalroundpinball at gmail.com. Dylan asked a very simple question, you know. It's a question that if you don't know, you ask, what is a Vault Edition? Because we heard about Iron Man Vault Edition. Martin? Well, we did actually have a bit of a conversation about this because there have been machines in the past that have had multiple runs. So, for example, Lord of the Rings had, I think, three different runs, but they were pretty much around the same time. The Vault, I think the first time the Vault was used as a term was when Iron Man came out. and I think really what it's saying is that there's a bit of distance of time between the last run and now doing it. So Star Trek was another one where they hadn't made them for a couple of years, I think in 2013, 14, that came out and then last year they did them. So I think if you give it a couple of years in between runs, that's when you can call it a vault. What it also allows the manufacturers, well, Stern really, to do is to update the machine with mechanical things that have improved over time. And magnets, I think, was the first thing that improved with Iron Man Vault. ACDC, when that got vaulted on the Premium and Limited Edition, you know, the cover that goes to the lower playfield was hard to get to, so they changed that to something that can screw out. Sometimes there's slight tweaks to the layout, but really what they're doing is they're just making use of current technology to update a machine without really changing it too much. Spider-Man Vault was probably a different one because they put new art on that, and obviously that had to have new display as well, and some new rules. And change the call-outs and change the magnet on Doc Ock. So, yeah, I mean, Vault is the title you recognize, but maybe some alterations in the artwork or the play field, and usually it's to make it better. Yeah, yep. Matthew S. from Utah asked us about some current pinball tournaments that might be something he can bring into Salt Lake City. And he thinks of things like flip frenzies and maybe some other tournaments. You know, a lot of the tournaments on nightlies would do strikes tournaments. Strikes tournaments are kind of, we joked with Josh about pin golf maybe going the way of the wayside. Strikes tournaments are easy to run, but there's just not a lot of value. There's not a lot of TGP. The tournament grading percentage is not there like it once was for strikes tournaments. Easy to run. You can get in. You can get out. You can do it in a short period of time. But if players want more value, well, I think the flip frenzies are the way to go, Matthew. Flip frenzy is good because it's a good introduction to a lot of pinball. Plus, you put the finals on the end. You've still got the best of the best at the end. It's really up to the balance between time that you want to put into it, the amount of TDing you want to do and how much fun you want people to have and how social you want it to be. It's a hard one really to answer. I would say if you're starting to do a tournament for the first time, strikes is an easy one to manage. And it also allows people to have a number of games because you can have minimum three strikes. So at least there's three games that they can play. If you're doing three strikes or four strikes, I would definitely switch to fair strikes. I don't see a lot of three strikes, four strikes tournaments anymore. They've all converted to airstrikes target match play was another question that they asked about i haven't run a target match play i've played in one in fact just recently at indisc in their classics target match play the idea of that is you need a certain amount of wins let's say so you're playing in a group of four and if you come in first place you get three if you come in second you get two if you come in third you get one fourth you get zero that's an example so maybe it's a score of you need 30 well the earliest you can get 30 points in target match play in groups of four would be 10 rounds, if you were perfect in 10 rounds. It doesn't usually happen that way, as Carl D'Angelo found out. I don't know if that's, I mean, that sounds like a fun tournament. It is a fun tournament. I don't know, having not run one, how logistically you would time that out. When you're running a tournament, you have to think, and you've run a lot of tournaments, Martin, you have to think, how much time do I have? How much time do people want to play? and you have to kind of find a happy medium. Yeah. What is it like for the tournaments you've run? You're absolutely hitting it. You've got to look at the absolutes and the absolutes usually are how much time do you have to play? How many machines do you have? That will really determine what sort of format works for you. If you've only got three or four hours and you've got three or four machines, then you're probably going to be thinking about less games per player, depending on how many you get, whether you get 10, 20, 30, 40 different people. So they're the absolutes that you've got. Get those first, determine time you want, how many players you want, how many machines you've got, and then the actual tournament formats themselves will dictate that. Usually a match play format is not best suited for nightly events. They can work though. I know that Ryan C here in Australia, he runs match play as well, but it can start at about 7 o'clock and finish after midnight. And also, a term we mentioned last week, which was concurrent finals, meaning that all the three games are all playing at the same time simultaneously. That does reduce time. So you've got to work these things out. What makes games play longer? Well, the quality of the player certainly matters. And with certain software, I think of match play. When you run these tournaments, it actually tells you how long those games are playing. So games that have a lot of multiballs, ACDC with jam multiballs, Metallica with Sparky, games with a lot of multiballs take a lot longer because multiballs usually have ball saves on. So those are the kind of factors you'd think, wow, a five-ball EM might take longer. Well, there's a lot of house balls in that too. So it's not about five balls, three balls. It's really about what you can do and modes sometimes. Is there an upper play field that's safe? You know, I think of a game like Grand Lizard or Solar Fire. Upper areas where it's just safe, safe, safe. Black Knight Sword of Rage. You said it. You're right, though. No, the ball stays up there a long time. So I think the other point as well is whether you've got access to the keys. Because sometimes these tournaments are played on location, where you don't get to be able to go into the machine, change the settings to hard, take ball saves off, that kind of stuff, or maybe take some out, the rubbers off the outlines. that is all going to go into how long it's going to take here's a quick tip if you're running a tournament on location or really anywhere and time is a factor when it comes to extra balls if you can't turn them off make a rule that you just plunge them or one flip kind of thing don't play extra balls never a good idea yeah absolutely agreed you know what's a good idea uh i'm looking at my rolex and it's saying that uh it's time to wrap this up here uh well i'm in australia so Obviously, shipping takes a lot longer, so I'm expecting to get mine in the next couple of days. Well, it's hard not to see with all those diamonds on it. Anyway, I don't want to brag. Thank you very much, Rolex. We appreciate the fine sponsorship. Nothing beats experiencing firsthand the meticulous details, the balanced weight, the comfort, and simply the feel of a Rolex watch. Boy, that rolls off the tip of your tongue, doesn't it? It's right there. It is. Okay, Martin, we'll do this again in two weeks. Thank you very much for listening to Final Round here on the Pinball Network. you can find us at a few places. You can find us on Facebook. You can email us at finalroundpinball at gmail.com. Go to our Instagram account and see us at a pinball show. Thanks. We'll always respond to your emails and maybe even read them right here on the next episode of Final Round, which will be featuring Stephen Bowden. We're looking forward to that. Thanks very much, Martin. Thank you very much, Jeff. Thanks, everybody, for listening.