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Tucson Pinball Podcast – Episode 70 – I Don’t Belong Here

Tuscon Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 22m·analyzed·Nov 12, 2023
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.030

TL;DR

Host recounts Pinball at the Lab tournament experiences, games played, and encounters with skilled players.

Summary

The host discusses their experience at Pinball at the Lab, a circuit tournament in Riverside, California (September 23-24), featuring 104 players competing in a race-to-30 format across multiple rounds. They detail gameplay experiences on lesser-played games (Revenge from Mars, Excalibur, Wheel of Fortune, Harley-Davidson, Godzilla (Pro)), highlight interactions with notable players like Escher and Tom Graff, and reflect on tournament logistics, game setup quality, and personal moments including their children watching them on the event's live stream.

Key Claims

  • Pinball at the Lab was a circuit event with a 120-player cap; only 104 players registered in results.

    high confidence · Host, discussing tournament logistics and attendance figures.

  • Last year's Pinball at the Lab had approximately 82-84 players in results out of a 100-player cap.

    medium confidence · Host, making retrospective comparison to prior year.

  • Some players had to cancel day-of or day-before due to illness; Karl (from IE Pinball) was sick and absent.

    high confidence · Host, explaining lower-than-expected attendance.

  • Aimless Pinball stepped in as a new streaming team to replace Karl's usual role.

    high confidence · Host, praising the streaming setup.

  • The Game Lab expanded floor space this year by removing the Super Smash Bros. tournament area that had occupied previous years.

    high confidence · Host, describing venue layout changes.

  • The tournament format is race-to-30 points; first place per round awards 3 points, second place 2 points, etc.

    high confidence · Host, explaining scoring system and referencing Escher's 10 consecutive wins equaling 30 points in 10 rounds.

  • Jim Belsito ran game setup for the tournament.

    high confidence · Host, crediting setup quality.

  • The host's best single-game performance was 984 million on Godzilla (Pro), the highest score of the tournament at that point.

    high confidence · Host, reviewing scores and crowd reaction.

  • Freddy (Nightmare on Elm Street) had a plunge tuning issue where full plunging the ball would not enter the furnace; players had to ease off slightly.

    high confidence · Host, describing gameplay and noting it caused confusion among players.

  • During the Godzilla (Pro) round, the host accessed Planet X mode for the first time after doing two cities.

Notable Quotes

  • “I know some of you and you're way better than I am. I should not be here.”

    [name withheld pending review] @ ~mid-episode (Harley-Davidson round) — Self-aware reflection on skill disparity; leads to discussion of 'humble round' concept.

  • “It was very honest. If you made a bad shot, you were done. If you made your shots, you keep playing.”

    [name withheld pending review] @ ~round 8 (Whirlwind) — Articulates the host's appreciation for fair, skill-rewarding game setup.

  • “Karl does an amazing job streaming tournaments... Karl likes to break games and he's good at it... developers of these games, they should be really thankful because he's pointing stuff out.”

    [name withheld pending review] @ Early episode (venue/streaming discussion) — Acknowledges Karl's value to the community despite his absence.

  • “Walk by Toy Story, walk by Toy Story.”

    [name withheld pending review] @ ~round 8 intermission — Personal moment showing his family engagement with the tournament via stream.

  • “So you're, as player one, like your only goal in life is to put up a score that makes the other three players, you know, at least have to put in some work.”

    [name withheld pending review] @ ~round 9 (Godzilla Pro) — Reflection on player-one strategy in multiplayer match play.

Entities

Pinball at the LabeventGame LabvenueIE PinballorganizationAimless PinballorganizationKarlpersonJim BelsitopersonEscherpersonTom GraffpersonNick Steinperson

Signals

  • ?

    event_signal: Pinball at the Lab drew 120-player registration cap with waitlist but only 104 confirmed; indicates strong demand but potential attrition due to illness/COVID concerns.

    high · Host noted last year had ~82-84 players out of 100-cap; this year's lower-than-expected final count attributed to day-of cancellations.

  • ?

    content_signal: Aimless Pinball emerged as new streaming team for circuit event after Karl's IE Pinball was unavailable; indicates growing infrastructure for tournament coverage.

    high · Host praised new team's 'great setup' and described them stepping up 'super last minute' to fill gap.

  • ?

    venue_signal: Game Lab expanded pinball tournament space by reclaiming Super Smash Bros. area, enabling more machines and better flow.

    high · Host detailed layout changes: console area previously occupied by Smash Bros. tournament now incorporated into pinball floor.

  • ?

    operational_signal: Jim Belsito's game setup and calibration praised as reliable and 'honest'; tournament machines perceived as fairly tuned, rewarding skill over luck.

    high · Host repeatedly praised machine setup quality, specifically Whirlwind as 'one of the most honest games in this entire event.'

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Freddy (Nightmare on Elm Street) exhibited plunge tuning problem: full plunge would not enter furnace; required player adjustment. Caused confusion and required comp ball adjustment during tournament.

    high · Host described specific tuning issue; noted confusion from other players and received comp ball due to auto-plunge anomaly.

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.248

0:00
Wayne's World, Wayne's World, party time, excellent! What's up everybody? Welcome to episode 70 of the Tucson Pinball Podcast. Welcome to Wayne's World. Right on time, right on schedule, I'd like to talk about Pinball at the Lab.
0:19
And that is a tournament that happened in Riverside, California, September 23rd and 24th. I kind of would have just let it go because it's been a little while since I've chatted, but There was a couple games that I've played very infrequently or never and I kind of just wanted to chat about that a little bit. I had a few fun experiences. I mean the whole thing was a fun experience but a few standout experiences and you know some good some bad. And yeah so just kind of wanted to chat about that a little bit. So first things first if you're not familiar with it Pinball at the Lab is a actually it's a circuit event which I didn't realize that it was. I don't think it was last year, but since last year, I think last year it was 100 players, and this year it was 120 players, and well that was the cap anyways. And for a while there was a wait list, and then day of, or anyways in the results on IFPA, there's only 104 players in the results. So I think that's a bummer, because I think last year with the 100 player cap, I think we had 82, 84 players or something like that in the results. So, you know, there's a ton of initial interest and I don't know, you know, not that two years is all that much of a streak, but just really wish, I mean, it's such a great event and I'm not sitting here going, oh man, I wish we would have had 120 players because I probably would have done worse than I did, but, you know, instead of the 104. affirmer, I definitely think that the effort that Karl and Jim and everybody puts into that and Jay and I think Bob Matthews is a factor in there as well, you know, like that's a great group of individuals and they do a great job setting these games up and keeping them going the whole time and running the event overall and streaming and, you know, just everything that goes into it. John Popadiuk, Bob Betor, Keith Elwin, Laser Los, Bowen Kerins, Lyman F. Sheats Jr., orbit ramps, Automated Amusements, Python Anghelo, Joe Kaminkow, Tim Kitzrow, Scott Danesi. All of those guys out front. The reason why this year they had a few less players than projected was a couple folks got sick day of or day before or something like that. Karl wasn't even there because he wasn't feeling all that well and there's always that slight concern about COVID going on. John Popadiuk, Bob Betor, Knapp Arcade, Bally Williams, Straight Down the Middle, Bally Williams,

high confidence · Host, reflecting on novel experience with the mode.

Michael Mattson
person
John Schaapelperson
David Greenperson
Raymond Ashbyperson
Rolandperson
Jermaineperson
Laura Stoddardperson
Matt Youngperson
Luca Uvaroliperson
Revenge from Marsgame
Excaliburgame
Wheel of Fortunegame
Harley Davidsongame
Godzilla (Pro)game
Whirlwindgame
Tucson Pinball Podcastorganization
  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Bally Harley-Davidson featured unusual lock shot blinking behavior that visually indicated shot but did not function as expected; caused player confusion and frustration.

    high · Host described: 'the lock will blink which to me it's like hey you should put the ball here but apparently it just blinks for fun.'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Host demonstrated strong competitive pacing (averaging 2 points per round through mid-tournament) in race-to-30 format; peaked at 19 points after 9 rounds.

    high · Detailed round-by-round scoring: 2, 3, 2, 0, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3 points across first 9 rounds.

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Escher established as top-tier player: won 10 consecutive rounds last year; scored well across multiple rounds this tournament; known for game knowledge.

    high · Host referenced Escher's previous 10-round winning streak; Escher paired in multiple rounds and consistently performed well.

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Host's Godzilla Pro performance (984 million, player one) was tournament-high at that point; significantly ahead of other players in group (48M, 11M, 444M); first time accessing Planet X mode.

    high · Host scored 984 million; second-highest tournament score at that point was Raymond Ashby with 551 million.

  • ?

    community_signal: Positive community atmosphere: host received applause from crowd after Godzilla Pro performance; other players courteous and helpful despite tight venue quarters.

    high · Host described crowd standing around watching, 'some of them were clapping a little bit' and felt 'that felt really nice.'

  • ?

    content_signal: Host's children watched tournament live stream on Twitch; engaged by seeing venue details (Toy Story pinball); captured screenshot of host on broadcast.

    high · Host described children watching Twitch stream, texting requests to 'walk by Toy Story,' and oldest capturing screenshot of host on broadcast.

  • ?

    operational_signal: Tournament maintained consistent timing year-over-year; host able to drive home and arrive during or immediately after finals.

    high · Host noted last two years arrived during finals; 'their consistency as far as timing is very, very dead on pretty much year after year.'

    • 3:52
    They were presented with a pretty good show. So, no Karl means no IE Pinball potentially for the stream. And everybody knows that Karl does an amazing job streaming tournaments. Or just streaming games in his house and crashing games because he scores too many points or collects too many points all at once. Karl likes to break games and he's good at it. And, you know, the developers of these games, they should be really thankful because he's pointing stuff out that, you know, they can take a look at. And not many people are going to be in that situation to demonstrate that, quite like Karl does. So, you know, no Karl was definitely felt this time around, but very fortunate for us, a brand new streaming team, Aimless Pinball, stepped up and put a rig together. I don't know how much of it was truly theirs or if they had to borrow anything, if it was super last minute, but they did a great job. They had a great setup and there was even an expanded floor space this year compared to years past because if you're familiar with the Game Lab in previous years, I think the last two years, there's been a Super Smash Bros. tournament going on at least part of the time or most of the time that we were there. So if you're walking in the game lab, the bar is all the way in the back. The right hand side was, you know, the exposed pin wall and that's kind of what's always there. And then there's like a party space in the back and that's where we kind of have some overflow space where more games for the tournament are. And then the Smash Bros. group was all the way on the left hand side of the wall. But this year we got all that console area as well. So we were able John Popadiuk, Bob Betor, Knapp Arcade,
    6:06
    If you're driving home while finals are still going, you know, last two years I've made it home right as either the final round was in progress or just about to wrap up. I think last year I got home in time to watch the entire final, like the last game of the last round of the A finals. And this year, I think the game was going on as I was driving. I had Twitch open and I was listening to the stream, so I could kind of hear, obviously, I could hear what was going on. And they finished up like right when I got home or like right after I got home. It was a very close timing, but it was, you know, their consistency as far as timing is very, very dead on pretty much year after year. Here's your $159,000 win 게이팅! The Valley Company, Subsidiary of Walter Kidde & Co., Inc., Mirco Playfields, Tim Kitzrow, Scott Danesi. I don't remember the specifics because I'm not looking for the first place amount of whoppers in this thing. I'm just kind of there to have a good time and play some games that I don't normally have the opportunity to play. And with Jim Belsito running some of the game setup, you know that's going to be on the table. So anyways, right off the bat, so round one, I went and played Revenge from Mars. And Revenge from Mars is a game that I have played a couple times, I'm sort of familiar with. But, you know, it's a smaller playfield overall, and so things are a little bit kind of closer together, and your timing's a little different, and just kind of the overall experience of that Pin 2000 system is interesting. And I like the game. It's fun. Just don't have a chance to play it all that often. I think the last time I played it was Star Fighters, which I haven't gone up to Phoenix at all this year, and so that would have been last year, late last year. I know they have one at Cobra Arcade in Tucson, but I tend to not be able to get there all that easily just because of what their hours are compared to what my hours are. They open at 4 p.m. I think seven days a week and they close at 2 a.m. because they're a bar. And yeah, that's kind of not really my availability, especially when I live 30 minutes away. So anyways, Revenge from Mars, fun game, enjoyed it. Jim Belsito was top player in my group. Jim got the win with 45 million. I got second place, 40 million, which I was actually really surprised by. I think I did a couple modes. I think I started the multiball on that one.
    9:19
    And not entirely sure how to play the game, so resorted back to the shoot the blinky lights, don't drain strategy, and kinda went from there. So that was fun, that was a cool game. Always nice, kinda feeling like you stole a point I'm going to skip out of that one because I certainly was not expecting to get second on that one. So game two was a game that, or round two for me, was a game that I have seen plenty of pictures of, maybe not even the playfield, just the backglass because it's a cool art situation. And that's Gottlieb Excalibur. And in this game, I was not player one, and that's good because I didn't know what I was doing. But player one most certainly did. That was Nick Stein. And I think on ball one, he put up like 12 million points, or it was above 10, I think. And like that's, that's a lot of chopping wood. Like we were the other three players, we were just kind of sitting there going, he knows what he's doing. John Popadiuk, Bob Betor, Keith Elwin, Laser Los, Bowen Kerins, Lyman F. Sheats Jr., orbit ramps, Automated Amusements, Python Anghelo, Joe Kaminkow, Tim Kitzrow, Scott Danesi. The Valley Company, Subsidiary of Walter Kidde & Co., Inc., Mirco Playfields, Tim Kitzrow, Scott Danesi. You know, it's, you look at a game, you're like, oh, okay, it's got some drop targets, it's got a ramp right in the middle, like, I, center ramps, like, that close should not have been a thing, but they were. And it was really easy to half ramp this thing and come back down.
    11:38
    And not, not saying Nick did anything wrong, but especially when player one sits there and he plays for about 20 minutes on ball one and you step up and it's like, yeah, these, these flippers are already a little, little squishy. But, you know, that's, that's the way it goes. But yeah, so it's a cool game. There's four flippers, like four drop target banks. There's three drops on either side down low, and then the upper two banks are two drop targets. And if it didn't have the ramp, it would kind of resemble countdown a little bit, which makes sense because that's another Gottlieb game. But, you know, obviously differences do it. But if it didn't have that ramp, I think it would be like a really good single level playfield game. It was it was fun. You know, drop targets are fun and it had two mini flippers up top.
    12:24
    They were, you know, they're kind of like the the secondary flippers on like Jungle Queen, Jungle Princess. So the smaller ones with the flat tops on them. And it was, you know, the art's good because Gottlieb, you know, they did the art really well. It was the game has potential, I think, is like a really fun game. But man, that center ramp was just kind of I don't it just felt out of place. You know, and again, that's my very first time playing the game. That was kind of and it wasn't because like, oh, I can't hit this ramp. It shouldn't be here. It sucks. But, you know, it's just it's kind of weird.
    13:00
    And and I kind of laughed a little bit when I when I got my fluke multiball because it's like, oh, OK, I wonder if anybody does that on purpose because, you know, they give up on the ramp or something. But anyways, interesting game. Kudos to Nick for 10x-ing my my next, you know, position score on that. But interesting game. I think I would play that one on location a couple times. I certainly had no feeling of like, I have to buy this. You know, so anyways, so two seconds after two rounds. That's kind of good. You know, I'm very happy with that pacing. So next round played Wheel of Fortune and the notable thing about this round is Escher was in my group. And I know Escher has one of these and I think I've played one of these. I know I've played Wheel of Fortune less than five times ever. And so Escher was not first player and I was, Escher was fourth or Escher was second, I was fourth and we were just kind of standing off in the back. We're in the side room and it's, if you've been there, it's fairly close quarters. Like it's fairly tight, you know, you're everybody's, everybody is in everybody else's way, but everybody understands that and so everything's very courteous, you know, Stephen nehmen reut.
    14:48
    I was kind of like trying to stay out of the way as best I could. And so, Escher just kind of casually is like, what I like to do is I like to see if I can guess what the puzzles are for other players. You know, and he's just, you know, just kind of like randomly threw that out there. And we like, I don't know Escher. Escher doesn't know me necessarily. But Jacob, my friend from New Mexico made Classics Finals in Texas. Tim Kitzrow, Scott Danesi, So like Escher had seen me and I'm sure like I recognize faces really well so I'm sure Escher, you know, sees a lot of pinball players and like he kind of knew that like he probably had the I think I've seen you before but I don't know where type of thing. And so but he was like, Escher's super nice and we were kind of chatting about stuff and like one of the puzzles ended up being Empire Penguin, and then one of them was a phrase that was a little bit longer than we were able to catch with with some of the letters that were getting and theatronetworkman.com Anyway, so like that was one of this is one of the highlights of the weekend is like I got paired up with Escher on a game that he owns and I actually I took first place.
    16:22
    Escher took third. So I got 21 million on there. I was 21, 10, four and a half and three and a half. So like the difference between third and fourth was was pretty close. So that was that was a pretty you know, feel good moment on that on that came right there. And then and then round four happened. So I'm going to go to the Bally Harley-Davidson, was that 1989, something like that? And I'm just doing this all on my phone, so I'm clicking back and forth, so sorry. Just needed to talk a little bit to let that load a little bit. And so in this round, Harley-Davidson is Tom Graff, all the way from Wisconsin, myself, Kyle Smith, which Kyle knew what he was doing. I think he's a California guy. I don't recognize the name or the face, so I don't think we've done much together, but Kyle definitely knew what he was doing. And then player four in the group was Escher again. And I have played this game like twice. I have no idea what to do. And after the game was over, because I didn't, you know, the game had started and I was just like, hmm, I probably should have been like, hey, how do you play this game, guys? You guys, because, you know, everybody, everybody has an Escher tutorial story, you know. But I did not, and so I just kind of took my beating. So everybody had a pretty bad ball one, and then by ball three, Escher was doing just fine. Everybody else had kind of found, found the shots that they were trying to find, and everybody was doing just fine. So I finished up last place, 861K, and I was actually starting to find my shots. I was very thrown off by apparently there's a weird like lock shot blinking scenario where it's like the the lock will blink which to me it's like hey you should put the ball here but apparently it just blinks for fun and I put the ball in that in that little saucer thing a couple times and I was just like it keeps kicking it out I don't know what to do now I guess I'm done with that so everybody seemed to be just kind of going for for orbits to go through the cities and then light the jackpot The Valley Company, Subsidiary of Walter Kidde & Co., Inc., Mirco Playfields, Scott Danesi. I had 861k. So as somebody phrased this once upon a time in Pinburgh when I did above what I was expecting for I think either the first or second, you know, the first or second rounds combined, I got into this group and I'm just looking around like, I know some of you, I'm kind of new to this, but I still know some of you. And it wasn't like, you know, Bowen and Escher and Keith or anything, but it was just like, I know some of you and you're way better than I am. I should not be here. And so one of the guys was like, oh, this is your humble round, huh? I think that phrase is absolutely perfect. So this round on Harley Davidson was absolutely my humble round. And yeah, I did not steal any points on that one. So nice zero on that one. But running total, I got seven points. And I should have probably told you what the goal was. The goal is this is a race two format, and it is a race to 30 points. So when I said Escher went 10 and 0 last year, like he literally won 10 games, 10 rounds in a row, got his three points per round, got his 30 points in 10 rounds. And at that point, yeah, we were kind of locked in as far as IFPA value, but this is a race to the finish line. So you need, everybody needs to get 30 points or not everybody, but if you want to be in finals, you need to get 30 points before they run out of final spots. I forgot to write it down, but I think it was top 24 made A, and then I think it was, oh shoot was it eight or 16 made B I don remember Either way so this is a race to 30 So after 4 rounds I got 7 So like I was saying if you get second each round you get 2 points You know, that's a pretty good pacing. And you know, if you average to 2, looking at... because I can see into the crystal ball because I'm staring at the rounds right here. If you average to 2, you would make it into A finals. We're going to go until round 17. So there's a few more rounds. I'm not going to get super chatty on some of these. But yeah, for the first, what is it, round three and round four, I get to play with Escher and Tom, you know, so some pretty big tournament names and I'm just little old me from Tucson. So playing on games that I don't know and they do and the results speak for themselves. So round five, because you're playing a Jim Velcido tournament, you're going to play some interesting games. So round five we play Freddy Nightmare on Elm Street I think is the full name. So I finished second with that. I got 137. I think the top score, I mean I could look at it, but do I want to click on it? Sure I'll click just so I'm not making up too many numbers here. All right, so let me find Freddy, Freddy, Freddy, Freddy. Okay, so I finished with 137. First place is 163. The plunge was fairly challenging on this. If you full plunged, it would not go into the little furnace thing and start your nightmare thing. So you had to ease off the plunge just a little bit or it would be too strong and it would brick on one of the posts around the side of it. And we actually ran into a scenario where one of the players was like, I knew this was going to happen and I don't know if they were a little grumbly about it or just kind of like why didn't everybody know this or just kind of frustrated with the situation. It wasn't a big deal. It was just kind of like I was not prepared for this. So apparently in multiplayer games on Freddy, one of the nightmares, and I don't know enough about that game to know which one or anything like, I didn't even know because it happened to me and if I knew it was going to happen or a potential, I would have stepped up a lot faster. Not that I took five minutes to step up to the game, but it was pretty easy We need to get dangers on that. And Gottlieb has a really annoying beeper when they get dangers and they stand out from everything else. And you could hear this game beeping like every round. People were getting dangers on it. So it's there. There's tilt potential. So I was going to let it settle down for a minute and it plunged my ball. And I'm like, I haven't even stood up yet. There's a sea of people. I can see my ball. I can see I'm getting points. Instead, there's literally nobody standing at the game, what the heck just happened? And so one of the players was like, yeah, we ran into this in league or tournament or whatever, not too long ago. So I had a feeling it was gonna happen. I was just like, I haven't played this game since D&D sold theirs. Like I don't even know how many years ago that was. Like I have no idea. So I'm certainly not up to snuff on even remembering what the modes are, let alone the intricacies We got Jim, he came over, basically said I'll get a comp ball, which is totally, I mean, it's the right call, obviously, because I lost, you know, my ball was played, my ball plunged and drained, like, by the time I was up to the game, like, I couldn't get there in time. And so, like, that's a comp ball scenario, and unfortunately, that basically hosed everybody patience mach n Love z Our T A ker
    24:50
    And you know, you don't reset the game state, meaning like you don't start off and like go through a couple nightmares and like leave it off where I left off. And so yeah, sometimes that's a benefit and sometimes it's not. And this time it was a benefit. I was already in second. I just needed, I was trying to catch first place and my comp ball was not very impressive. So finished with a second on there and just going to move on to that one. So Indiana Jones, the good one, was next and got a second on that with 135 million. So after round six, I'm at 11 points. Averaging, you know, there's a three in there and there's a zero in there. So we're kind of, you know, there's a one and a half between those two, but everything else so far has been a two. And I'm like, this is, this is cool. This is fun. Next game is Sinbad. And this is round seven. Sinbad, 171 K. Got me two points on there, up to 13. um roland was in that group um there was and oh and also jermaine was in my group on this one um i'm pretty sure and this this was fun like it was it was not all that impressive like and i think there was a set to five ball so it was not all that impressive the first two balls and then um i think roland just got a hold of this game and just tore it up so um actually again you know in In the interest of proper journalism, let me just click on it and look at the scores and I can tell you who probably got a hold of the game. Yeah, so I got 171, Roland with 280, so he was the one for sure. I think he maxed bonus 5x on ball two or three and just found some points. Evan Shire 157 and then Jermaine with 152. So, oh, that's a heartbreak. 5K away from a point. And then, yeah, the difference between me and Roland was 110. So Roland kind of cruised into a win on that one, and he put up big points early on. So that was, you know, that's kind of a little bit of a relief, you know, going into the final balls on that. Round eight, we went over to Whirlwind. I won that with 2.9. Hmm, I don't even remember this game. I don't remember this particular round. Okay, so Laura Stoddard, 1.0, Matt Young, 1.4, Luca Uvaroli, I'm sorry Luca, 1.6, and then I got three points with 2.9. This whirlwind was like dream crusher hard. You could totally play it, but if you missed it all, it was ball ending, catastrophic, like Just absolutely see you later. And I love Whirlwind. Like, Whirlwind's probably my favorite System 11. And oh my gosh, this one was just like, and it wasn't, like Jim didn't take out like a slingshot or something. Like it was just, it was just set up like, I mean it was a perfect tournament set up. It was very honest. I think that's one of my favorite phrases, or favorite adjectives on games is, it was very honest. If you made a bad shot, you were done. If you made your shots, you keep playing. That's all there is to it. So that whirlwind was the most, probably one of the most honest games in this entire event. And it was beating people up. So round nine, so after eight rounds, got a three on that, 16 points. At one point, okay, so let's do a little bit of a sidebar. Okay, so pause after round eight. So this event was streamed and my kids are old enough to be like kind of into, I mean they've been playing Xbox Live for a while, but they're aware of, thanks to YouTube, they're aware of like streaming. And you know so they, my youngest who's 14, like he watches Twitch. Twitch is a streaming platform if you're not aware. It's kind of like, it's kind of like if you watched a YouTube video but it was live. Like if you don't know what streaming is, that's what streaming is. And so my kids know what Twitch is. They have a couple people that they follow that, you know, they play like Minecraft and Roblox and probably some Call of Duty stuff and Rust and Grounded and like all these other Xbox games that they play that I'm like, uh, yeah, I don't know. Thanks. I'll stick to my World of Warships. But yeah, so I told them about it. And so I had them get the iPad that I use and I said, hey, Twitch is on there. Click on Twitch. It's the pinball channels already saved under my profile. Click on that and just find the one. There's probably only a handful of streams on today. It's the one with the most people watching and which was probably between one to 200 people, I think, at any given time. And so they turned it on and they plugged it into the big TV and so they could watch it on that. And they were just kind of standing there watching it. They were like, okay, we can see Toy Story. And it's like, okay, that means that like the commentators, because the commentator table was across the little walkway in these small back rooms from Toy Story. And so my kids are like, they're like texting me. And it's, we're not in a round, like we're in between rounds or they're waiting for a game to finish up somewhere else or something like that. So the commentators had moved the camera back over to them. Totally fine, but Toy Story's in the background. So my kids are like texting me over and over and over, Walk by Toy Story, walk by Toy Story. And so I walked by, and a minute later I get a text because my oldest, he took a picture of the TV screen
    30:39
    and texted it to me, I don't know how he timed it, or maybe he took a video of the TV, and as I was walking by, and so he has a screenshot of me walking by, and he sent it to me. He's like, we saw you, and I was like, so that was fun. John Popadiuk, Bob Betor, Knapp Arcade, And they, you know, dad's not the coolest guy on the planet. And so that was kind of a fun moment for me. So, but yes. So anytime it was, you know, commentary time, Toy Story 4 was on the stream and my kids were just like, yeah. And then, you know, they watched for a little bit and then they walked away. But I think they were watching at the wrong time and we'll get to that in a minute. So back to the tournament. We've got round nine. We're going to go play Godzilla Pro. This is a game that is not too far away from Freddy, and so in an earlier round I had heard somebody try to sign in with Insider Connected, and it gave you the sad beep instead of the happy beep, saying it was offline. So I knew better than to sign in to this one, but it would have been nice on this game to be able to sign in. So this group played with John Schaapel, friend from Phoenix, Michael Mattson, who's a streamer out from California, does a lot of really cool stuff. I think he did California Extreme Stream as well. And then David Green, which again, I think is a California player. I mean, obviously we're in California, so that's the easiest travel for folks is in state. I think California player, not super familiar with David. But anyways, Godzilla Pro. I think my only other experience with a pro is maybe TPF or Expo one time, and then I think we played this game last year, because that was the first time I think I remember seeing a pro. But anyways, so we're in the back room, not too far from Freddy. We're kind of off to the side and I'm player one and we're just going to kind of go for it. And I had a pretty strong ball one. I don't remember the exact score but it was a couple hundred million I think and that was pretty nice. And the rest of the game, the other three players, they kind of struggled on ball one and two. And so, but being player one, you're the rabbit, right? Run, rabbit, run. Everybody else is chasing you down. So you're, as player one, like your only goal in life is to put up a score that makes the other three players, you know, at least have to put in some work. So, um, the reason why I wish I would have been able to, uh, to sign in on this one is because that's the first time I actually got to the, to Planet X. And that was only because, kind of embarrassing, only because I remember that, oh yeah, with the, one of the updates at some point, um, after you do two cities, you can change it to Planet X. I'm a fan of Planet X and I don't think it's as big of a point value if you wait until after you've done three or four cities to go to Planet X. But I've never been to Planet X. I've not studied up on what you're supposed to do. I had no idea what I was doing. And so I'm sure my Planet X score was pretty pathetic because I had no idea what to do. But it's like, hey, you know what, here's an option. Let's do this. So achievement not unlocked, but Planet X played. Probably not done, played. I don't even know what the mode is like. But anyway, so I finished ball three, player one, 984 million. And at that point, nobody was close. So John finished his game with 48 million. Michael just rough... Michael had some rough terrains. 11 million total on a three ball game. David finished up with $444 million. And we're going to click on Godzilla Pro real quick. And at that time, after that game when things got logged in, I clicked on the game because Never Drains is doing all this stuff. And it's a very good resource. K strawberry brandon zill.com
    35:30
    Rocky 바울 The total tournament. So, 984 was top and then second highest score was Raymond Ashby with 551 and then there was several 400s at that point. One of them was in my group. But yeah, so, you know, me as one. Raymond Ashby, Mark Thornton, Kaylee George with 455, I know that name, David Green, 444, Jermaine Marial, 432, I know Jermaine, Jared Garvey, I know that name, Jake Hollins, 212. Cinema For The Better My Man You're holding up the tournament and then the angel on my other shoulder is going, Buddy's player one, we wouldn't want him to be caught now, would we? So, you know, it's, I knew there was all, not all eyes were on me, but like I knew there were several people like in the room, like they were walking around going like, what the heck is taking so long? What game is it? And then they looked and it's like, oh, it's Godzilla. Oh, where's Godzilla? So, you know, eventually people find you and like, so there's just like kind of a crowd standing around in this kind of galley shaped walk, You know, it's not a walkway, it's a room, it's a room, it's a proper room. And so yeah, like I, I did feel kind of bad but you know when I finished my last ball and I kind of turned and I noticed there was a whole bunch of people standing there and you know some of them were clapping a little bit I'm like, that's pretty badass this is a circuit event and I just got a little bit of a round of applause so I'm you know I'm gonna enjoy that, that felt really nice and I definitely appreciate that. So after round nine, two back-to-back wins, so three and three on that. So we're sitting at 19, the goal is 30, and at some point I had sent a message, I had sent a link to my wife, to my mom, to my mother-in-law in a kind of a group text thing because it's always, not always, but it's oftentimes it's like, so what are you, when are you done? Like why don't you call me? And it's like, because I finish at midnight and you're asleep and I'm sorry. It's like sometimes I call when I have a free time and sometimes there's just, you know, you just power through and there is no free time and yeah, sorry, but anyway, so I texted everybody and I called on the lunch break or the dinner break, don't worry about it. So I texted that link out and at some point my wife sends me a screenshot of me being number one overall of the tournament and she is not like, she is a cheerleader, but she's not We're gonna go play hoops. I can tell you right now that Escher was in this group as well. Josh Steyer, Mr. Kears Drywall & explorers, Ira plays. Hey, these folks are damn great. People are. That guy what in the hell is this? You get a menu bar, you know, there goes like 50 bucks and then this, this movie is not wait, we've never seen Goshen before.
    39:17
    Okay. So where am I, Lenny orada Wood, 고기좁ülltом This was back in 마지막 year regarding the cat dance. I'll say, you know, why? This was back when explosive theater was going on in Oregon. How else would you describe it? Like, Ohio State? I'm kidding. Everybody's very friendly. So in this group we had a Dennis Eichhorn, Matt Young, and Escher. I did not, I don't think I recognized, I think one of the guys I played with in a previous year, and we were actually chatting about it. And I was like, is it Radical? Do we play Radical together like two years ago? He's like, yeah! So, you know, that's kind of the level of familiarity The three of us were just kind of standing over, you know, we were reading the rule card, looking at it, and it's like, everybody, I think more people know about Hoops because Dennis Kriesel talks about it on the pinball show than people would have known about it, like, from a tournament level, right? So, like, it's actually a really good tournament game. I say that super unqualified because I hardly know how to play the game, but like, it's a really good, as far as Gottliebs go, like, the chaotic randomness of like, hey, mystery score, you get zero points, oh, mystery score, oh, you get 20 million points. I'm looking at you, Mario Brothers. But like, as far as Gottliebs go, Hoops is a pretty good tournament game. It's a single level, pretty fun, got a multiball, some interesting geometry on some of the shots. And so like we were all just kind of standing around reading the rule card and it's like, okay, we're all going to lose to Escher. And Escher's like, okay, so it looks like most people don't know how to play this. And we're all just like, yeah. He's like, here's what you want to do. And there was actually a note on the game and it said, because there's a, in order In order to qualify your locks, you have to go through the correct upper lane. And what Jim had done because apparently this is like most you know upper lane like for a skill shot Like so Spider or Game of Thrones or Metallica I just trying to list games where like you plunge the skill shot is up top you want to go through a specific lane but you can change the lanes Walking Dead, Attack from Mars, like there's so many games that are like this.
    41:35
    And this is how you qualify or turn on your locks for hoops. And there's a setting and Jim changed it so that you can't toggle which lane is lit. And I think that's great because that's, you know, that's very good in a tournament setting because less people are going to qualify multiball. You're still going to get it a time or two. You know, it's not like it's that hard. You could still send the ball back up there. And it's not, it's not the biggest, biggest of deal. But the fact that you couldn't get it every single time you send it up there, like that affects the game time and in tournaments you don't want games that play all day. Sometimes it happens, Godzilla, but you know ideally that's the goal, right? So there was a note up there, everybody had seen it, nobody knew what it was except for Escher and he's like, okay that's how you turn on your multiballs, you know you put the ball up there whether you plunge or you know you miss it and you send the ball back up there. www.ggo.tv You事情看到 Sus geniuses et cetera. So, we play the game and, you know, Escher has probably built up enough pinball karma giving people these mini tutorials that this should never, ever, ever, ever happen, but Escher took a zero on hoops. So, Dennis got 2.1, I got 1.5, Mac got 1.2, and Escher had 374k. Like that is watching some of the other games on that machine like we all would have taken zeros had this been a different round like there were other games that put up you know five or ten million I think you know it was kind of like that was like the full range of four players and it's like okay so we were all really bad and Escher for his good deed he went severely punished and took a zero so at one point I would sit there going like I've played with Escher a couple times he's he's got a three he's got a I'm just like, man, like, at some point, you know, I would start getting in my head being like, I need a couple threes to kind of stay and secure my way into that pack up top. But have no fear. So, round 11, we went to Deadpool Pro. I know this game fairly well. This particular machine was just killing people left and right. So it was Luca, myself, Adam, Escher's dad, and Gabe. Gabe DeSilveria. I'm sorry. If you gave me like five minutes and a crash course on Hooked on Phonics, I'd nail that. But yeah, I fanatically, I'm not going to do that one. Sorry, Gabe. I'm not going to be successful at doing that one. Not like I'm giving up. I just I know. So anyways, I've played with Luca already once or twice this this this tournament.
    45:28
    Adam, I have not played with. I played with Adam last year. We played Cactus Canyon and I got to the wizard mode and I did not know it. Adam was like, nice job. I was like, I don't know what I did. And then Gabe, I think this was the first time this event played with Gabe. I got absolutely destroyed on this game. So the final scores were Luca had 54 million, I had 17. Adam had a very strong surviving type ball and he put up 215. So he got the three on that. Gabe got one point with 41 million. So there's a zero right there that was kind of discouraging, but I kind of knew watching how that Deadpool had been treating folks that that was another one of the very honest games. The ball save was super short. I think I even screwed up my little Deadpool somehow on that, but that was just not a very good strong showing. So next game, round 12, we're going to Space Station and this one was on stream and everybody saw it. That's some foreshadowing for you. So the name list on this is Wayne, Escher, Nick, and John Tracy. Nick was the dude that absolutely blew up Excalibur in round 2 that I played with. This was like my fourth time playing with Escher. I'm getting some pretty good face time with the pinball royalty over here. So, you know, I'm feeling pretty good. So let's take a pause. Okay, Space Station is just going to destroy me. You know, that's spoiler alert. We all know that happened because it's on stream. And if you're watching, you would know. But my goal, as Ben and I are driving this thing, we chat about it. I was like, Michael, I think I could make B finals. You know, like I, I've flirted with it really close the last couple years and I've gotten a little bit better, you know, just as like kind of the finishing results. Like I'm, it's kind of a grind. Like this is a grindy day. And if you are kind of not mentally prepared, you know, like how nice have you been to your feet the previous couple of days? Like you're going to be on your feet a lot. You're going to be trying to sit down a lot and there's not a whole lot of seating. There's plenty of seating, but there's not a whole lot. And, you know, as long as you're playing the game, you're standing up. So if, you know, at the end of Godzilla, my feet were like, that was a long game, you know? And so it's, there is, there is a physical grind aspect to this type of a format. And I was feeling pretty good, you know, and I was just like, I think I'm, you know, I'm starting to get the nuances of what I have to do. You know, you drink a lot of water and you be nice to your feet when you can. And the pre-paddle, P-A-T-L, Pinball at the Lab, paddle for short, the pre-paddle tournament was in Anaheim at the Captain's Auction Warehouse showroom. And that was, what, 30, 40 minutes away? And we decided not to go. We went and we played a couple games the night before at Pinball at the Lab or at the Riverside Game Lab. And, you know, so we were, we were kind of being very mindful of like the physical side of things like this, if, if you're doing well, like you're gonna play no matter what you're gonna play the rounds till somebody else scores all the 30 points and you know, finally ends the day for you, or you could do that yourself. But like, so you're gonna be there no matter what. So you kind of have to prepare yourself for that the physical side of that. And you know, you have to, you have to be good at these games, you have to have, you know, flipper skills, just like anybody else. But, you know, on some of these, these John Popadiuk, Bob Betor, Keith Elwin, Laser Los, Bowen Kerins, Lyman F. Sheats Jr., orbit ramps, Automated Amusements, Python Anghelo, Joe Kaminkow, Tim Kitzrow, Scott Danesi.
    49:38
    I had this nice giant lunch and I'm tired. I'm ready for a nap. It's like, no, you can't take a nap. You have to go play round 11. So back to Space Station. This was on stream and my kids got to watch me suck. It's and it wasn't even like I just got destroyed by the three other players. Like I was actually kind of in contention. But there was more than one ball where I plunged and it just kind of fed out the right side or at the left side and it kind of caught the left side orbit as it's coming out and it just like snaked its way into the right outline. Like I don't even remember what happened. It happened so fast but I'm just like, well, that was a plunge all right. So I took a zero with 900,000. Escher took a two with 2.3 million. Nick got a one with 1.3 million. So I was, you know, 400K is still like just shy of 50% of my score. But like I was 400K away from stealing a point.
    50:39
    Because if I got a point on this game, I would have absolutely felt like I stole it. John Tracy took a, got a three with 2.3. And wait, wait, wait, hold on. So Escher had 2.3. So, Escher had 2,312,000 and John Tracy got a 3 with 2,334,000. So, he definitely, he got that point in bonus. And so, I remember we were all, you know, like he drained, he's like, oh, we're not there. And then it's like, the bonus, the bonus. And so, we were just kind of watching it go and go and it just barely got over the line. It's like, you know, sometimes, you know, so that's a 20,000 point gap between two and three points on Space Station. So, um, and I'm sure that's archived on, on YouTube somewhere, so, um, if you want to see me not play pinball very well, like lots of my friends were able to, um, yeah, that's, that's available. So, round 12, uh, we're gonna go to Black Rose, which is, um, it's Raymond Davidson's favorite game. I do know that. Um, I don't know a whole lot more about that game, that's for sure, um, and I still can't find it in the, the game list. Why? Okay, hold on. Oh, there we go. Insert Jeopardy music. Okay. So, Nick Demme, or Rick Demme, sorry. Michael Mattson again, Jason Wood, and myself. And I, we all kind of struggled a little bit. There was some points in video modes and some very easy cheat points that several people got a hold of. So, Rick got a three with 16 million. I got a two with 10 million. The Valley Company, Subsidiary of Walter Kidde & Co., Inc., Mirco Playfields, Tim Kitzrow, Scott Danesi. This is a production of the Center for Autism and Related Disorders, LLC. The name run and looking what other players had as far as points and I'm like I'm in this thing I'm totally in this thing. The problem is that two rounds prior to that I was also at twenty one points and I took two zero so that's that's a little bit of a setback right there so uh... that was that was very unfortunate so round fourteen let's go play Toy Story 4 um... it's it's Toy Story that's about all I know about it. I got the video pinball mode thing which was It felt like you were playing like an early app, you know, I don't want to call it a table. So, you know, like what was it called? Pinball Arcade, when it first came out, like on the tablets and stuff, it was, there was a little bit of a delay on some of the things. And yeah, it kind of felt like that a little bit, but I got some points out of that. I got into a multiball. Some other guys just did not, they did not get the chance to play that game very much. I was player three, so players one and two, they drained out with under 200k each, and I stepped up, I think I was already in at least a two point scenario. So I finished that ball with a little over a million points. Player four finished up with 664k. explainer
    55:01
    This is going to be a series of brilliance sometimes, it seems. So then we're going to go to Cyclone, round 15. Don't worry folks, we are almost done. So Cyclone, it's not a complicated game, and the things that I like to do, the things that are fun in Cyclone are the things that you're not supposed to do, right? You're not supposed to shoot down the Dracula target and shoot it in the hole for the wheel to spin for your random award, right? Right? Like you're not supposed to do that, but I find that fun.
    55:33
    And so, like, I haven't played this game in a tournament setting in a while. We used to have one, we had kind of done a little bit of a trade with D&D. So we had one at BlackRock on location for a while. And so we would play it at the monthly tournament that would be there. And it's, I think it shoots just fine. It's fun. You know, there's the skill shot, it's a little overpowered. If that multiplier is on, you know, if it's ball one, it's 1x, ball two, More info on the online and the quella gerade. lev.in 0 He got absolutely hosed. Not like he, not like the game did anything wrong, but just like, it's one of those scenarios where I'm, I'm sure he like brick drained on one and you know, had some just unfortunate drains where you're sitting there going like, I don't really want you to do great because your points are going to determine how much I have to do in order to get points for myself. But you know, you're sitting there like, and you, you watch a person drain, you're like, that was, oh, that was so rude game. Like why? That was not nice. You know? It's one of those like kind of crushing drain scenarios. So he finished with 1.1. Corey got 3.2 and that was enough for a win. I got one and a half, so I got a point out of that. And then Sean Irby was player four and he was coming in close. He finished with 3.1 million and he got two points out of that. So he was looking at this, he's like literally 65K away from getting a point. And we were all standing around there. We were waiting for it to happen too because Sean had, I think he had a little bit more of a marathon game on ball three. So he was doing the things. He, I think he started that ball with about a million and just kind of chugging along and just keeping on going. And you know, I don't even know like how many switches, like what is that? What's 65K on Cyclone? Is that a Ferris wheel? Is that like your first, your first reward for the main ramp shot? Like when it's got its minimum value is like 50K or is it more than that? I don't even remember. But like, seriously, like, that's probably one of any two or three shots on that game, and he's got the difference. So that was a very close finish. It was, I mean, it wasn't stressful for me, because I already had been locked into my one point, but I mean, if I was sitting there, you know, in the hot seat as first place right then, I would have been very, very nervous. So there was, you know, lots of good sportsmanship at the end of that. Like, you know, everybody's high fiving and, you know, saying good game and stuff. So that was, that was, that was a fun experience, even though I only got a one out of it. Like that was, that was a fun game to play. Um, next round, we're going to go play Atlantis and I couldn't tell you much about Atlantis. I think it's like shoot the top hole type of thing. Like hope you're on the 55K and shoot that. Like, I don't know. There's, it didn't really matter. Like at this point, this is when the fatigue like smacked me in the face. Like I was feeling really good. I was not drinking. I was, you know, the cyclone was a little demoralizing because I got one point sitting at 27. I'm like, I need to, I don't need, if I get a win, I've done and I'm through. Like that's kind of my mental state at that point. And we go over to Atlantis and all of a sudden like my my energy meter just ran through the floor like I was like I am so exhausted like everything has just caught up with me I have no idea what's going on and I like and it's not like so on the mental side of things it's not like a I don't want to do this anymore it's a you know like Have you ever watched a tournament that's been going on for like days and like they're in the finals and they've been playing for like the 13th hour that day and like the 30th hour that weekend or something like that? You just get to a point where like these top tier players they're they're making some bad shots and the commentators are just like this is probably pretty heavy fatigue at this point and like I don't know what it's like to be able to make every shot I want to shoot at um because I'm not that Phase합니다 من holiness Custom devolving Lambda L meter Dick Young,
    61:02
    The way he's like holding the game and like he's kind of got this this crouch pose and he's always got these like little micro nudges that he's doing like everything is just like he's again he probably burns more calories than anybody else playing pinball because he's just he's not tense he's just like everything is activated now and now and now like he's just always going so Derek was fighting this game like crazy and he ended up with the win so 10 times my score So 254k for me. I got one point. Miracle I don't know what. Mike had 136k. I think he probably struggled on a few house balls. I think he had bad bounces houses. Like he did not survive as long as he probably should have. Thanks game. But so he got a zero 136k Derek won the round with 2 million and then Gabe got a two with 932k And I was player one and I just like I don know what I really doing here People are going for shots that I don't know, like whatever. I don't know what to do. So probably played poorly. Oh wait, no, Atlantis is not... What's the... No, it's Stingray has the saucer for 55k. See I don't know what to do on Atlantis. I have no freaking clue. Shooting the blinking lights was not working very well for me, but yeah, no, we were not playing Stingray. See? Yeah, so that was not a good round. Still, stole a point, probably didn't earn that, whatever. So round 17, at round 17, I'm kind of, I'm looking at the board and the way things are tallying up, and I'm like, even if I get a three on this, I don't think I'm in. So, and I, about halfway through the day, my mindset changed from like, I'm trying to get into B division to be like, I can make A finals. I can make A finals. So, round 17, we're gonna go to play Cactus Canyon, and, you know, I'm fine enough on this game. Like, I'm comfortable enough, I've done well, I've done bad. You know, it's just kinda, let's see what happens. So, fourth player, so I get to see everybody play, get to know what I'm shooting for. All 3 were placed very recently for a Sakai event. Don't try to meme pre-order theautresepuntmobilesright greetings , video updates, personal interactions and even more alleged attention . If Ya I'm LaChichtana Re ample apoyo e a m intima grativersidad n' esp¡ shout-out blog lldx by LangleyParam floorsloot yr pierwszy I can't hardly concentrate. Not like I didn't want to concentrate. I literally could not concentrate and line up my shots and aim and anything. And I was just like, I was so done that even my recovery skills, which that's, if I'm going to say, what are you best at at pinball? It's like, you know, out of a couple different categories. My recovery skills are better than my other skills because I'm bad at aiming and my accuracy sucks. So it's like in order to be, you know, survive on these games, you better learn how to play defense because you're not very good at shooting the ball where you want it to go. So but at this point, like none of my none of the basic skills were working. I was just totally shot, took a zero on this and I was just like, I looked at everything
    64:31
    and it's like, well, you know, I finished the day with 28 points. And you know what? Honestly, like I, I finished higher than Ben. I finished higher than John. And that hadn't happened in previous years. And I'm just kind of like, you know, I, I should, I should kind of maybe reflect slightly differently on this, like, you know, change the perspective of I didn't make a division. I wasn't even frustrated at that. Like I wasn't, I wasn't upset because that wasn't my initial goal. It was halfway through the day, but you know, things change. And, you know, so like, I kind of took a step back. And I'm like, you know what, like, I'm just absolutely exhausted. But today was a pretty good day. Like this is my best day. President of Skywalker's
    65:40
    Oh, how many players are on here? Matches, standings, so now we're gonna go eight players. Okay, so eight players in B, so that's a pretty thin margin right there. Um, so, but anyways, like I said, I did make B finals. That was gonna be the next morning. It wasn't super early, which was great, um, because that meant that, uh, I could sleep a little bit. And, uh, yeah, so technically made semi-finals of B. Um, got a couple bucks. I don't remember what the payment was. It might have been like 25 or 30 dollars but still that's cool. Yeah, so here we have the four games. So the four games in match play and they were, so they were banks and the top seat got to pick the bank and the order was kind of set in stone but kind of not because we ran into a scenario where you couldn't have any more than two groups on a bank because in A division and B division were going on at the same time so A division got to do all their picks of John Popadiuk, Bob Betor, Keith Elwin, Laser Los, Bowen Kerins, Larry K. Sheats Jr., Knapp Arcade, This is on here anywhere. Nope, not that one. Nope, not that one either. So, okay. I don't remember, but A Division like the James Bond bank. Can't remember what the other games are in that. But anyways, so my bank that I did not pick was Revenge from Mars, Foo Fighters, Stars, and Whirlwind. And there was a little bit of a sequencing issue. The Valley Company, Subsidiary of Walter Kidde & Co., Inc., Mirco Playfields, Tim Kitzrow, Scott Danesi. I did well on Revenge From Mars in qualifying, I thought, and could not really find the shots that I was finding pretty good on the previous day. So that's a bummer. Let's see, so Foo Fighters, I did not play this one in qualifying. I watched a couple players play on it, you know, because Ben has one at Catalina Brewing and so I, like, I've got enough plays on it to be familiar with the layout. Probably not familiar enough with it to, you know, for a tournament setting like this. Like I can do fine in our weekly league and do stuff up there, but, you know, for this This type of a regional tournament, probably not going to do all that great on it unless I can actually find the shots I need and kind of have some survivability on it. Then, yeah, this particular one, I think it pretty much destroyed everybody. Like one player got one good ball and everybody else was just like toast. So I took a one on that, so that's not a very good start. So let's see, how's the best way to do this? So we have a Corey Casella, we have a Mike Welsh, we have a me, and we have Mark Thornton. So after two games, Corey has two points, Mike has three points, I have one, and Mark has six. And we're playing four games. And so Mark is basically through. He's got six after two. Like that's not an automatic through, but that's like worst case scenario is somebody The Valley Company, Subsidiary of Walter Kidde & Co., Inc., Mirco Playfields, Tim Kitzrow, Scott Danesi. All the shots just fine, no complaints whatsoever, but it did have a slightly different feel. And that's not a criticism, that's just a comparison between mine and this one. But it's still stars, right? So play it like stars. I picked up a two on this one. Things did kind of flip around a little bit. So Corey, who had two points at this point, won stars. And then Mark who had the six at this point, he got a one. So like six is really strong, seven you're in, right? I think mathematically there's no way for you to be third place if you have seven points after four games, let alone three. So now we're going to go to Whirlwind and the breakdown, the way it happened was I needed a very, very specific sequence. I can't remember the sequence on this, but I needed to win, and I think it was, I needed to beat Corey by two places in order to trade, you know, who finishes in second overall and then moves on to the next round. Because four player group, top two move on, bottom two are eliminated. And I didn't, I did what I needed to do.
    71:16
    No, I didn't. I needed to win. Those put me right here, or at least one of my sites on the book fair. You're gonna hear the wherewithal of the nickname. They can also understand how long we're finger molding детogiophyskills. So you can follow it closely through air livestreaming. Wally K整 is seemingly a genius. Better than磊べیہ or eccentrikica. Remember that we're gonna let you play 40 seconds. All right this is the link in the description below. I think we were all pretty much clustered around that same point range that we had last time, or that I had in my previous game that I played on it. So it was all in that, you know, one and a half, two, three million range. I don't think anybody got into the five area, you know, maybe the winner had three and a half, I don't even remember. Today's Winner is... It was very close, it was on the table, um, I kind of had it in my own hands. I kind of needed a little help from a couple other folks but I definitely had fate in my own hands. Um, I, um, I did not pull off what I needed to do. I didn't, you know, fulfill my end of the bargain, um, so, that's, but that's okay. So overall, I finished 32nd in Pinball at the Lab and that's 11.39 points, which, you know, that's a big travel and a lot of work for 11.5 points, but for a 32nd finish to get 11.5, like, you can't win an event in Tucson and get 11.5. So you know, just a little comparison, but I'm not going there for the points, I'm not going there for many things. I'm going there because it's fun. And if you have any interest in doing like a race two format, there's for the longest time I think this was the only race two format. There might be a couple others that happen throughout the states at this point. But this is a fun event. It's run by top tier players. They do a very good job. They do a lot of work on the prep side. They have a lot of games. You know, so even if you do experience an issue and they can't fix it, which was uncommon, but we did run into this last year, I think, on Alien Star. There was a couple rounds that Alien Star just refused to cooperate, and so they had to move people to another game, you know, and they had plenty of games, and everything else gets worked on. I mean, I saw Jay Kinney. He was over there... What round was it? I think it was my Deadpool round. I think it was Deadpool. But anyway, so it was kind of later in the day and you know there's a group that's playing Batman Dark Knight and Jay is the fourth player. He's kind of the head tech basically. He's keeping everything running. But everybody that's running this tournament is also playing in it because, and I think that's the way it should be basically. So he's trying to keep games alive. He needs to do, he's working on a repair. He, they're just kind of standing around at Batman and kind of like, where's Jay? We know he's around here somewhere. And I think they were talking like, you know, I don't think the rest of the group is like, oh, well, he's got five minutes, you know, whatever. It's like, he's the head tech. Like he's, he's probably elbows deep in a game. He knows he's got a round to get to. And he's, he's trying his best to keep all the games up and running. The Valley Company, Subsidiary of Walter Kidde & Co., Inc., Mirco Playfields, Tim Kitzrow, Scott Danesi. John Popadiuk, Bob Betor, Knapp Arcade, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I know, I know, I'm sorry. I took a little longer than I was expected to. But he also walked over with a classic Bally power supply board in his hand. So he walked over the thing that's got the giant heat sink on it with all those stupid red connectors that you have to re-pin and for whatever reason they run the 100 volts through that before it goes to the other board and it's like, yeah, that one. So he walked over with that. Just swapped that one out. What game would that have gone into? That was over on the left side of the wall. There was a Star Wars, then it was the Bally Harley Davidson, which was not a classic Bally. I think that's actually a System 11 at that point that Williams owned them. Anyway, so he walked over with this board. He set it down on the table because there's a table right next to Batman, and then he proceeds to put up like a bajillion points on ball one. And like he finishes his ball finally, trains, and like he just, he like turns around to acknowledge like, okay, it said bonus, I'm done, I'm gonna go over here now and work on this board. Like he just turns and walks away and everybody's looking at the display and it's, I can't remember if it was like 40 million or 140 million, but everybody just looks at the display and they're like, you know, let's just say it's 40 million, but it's like 40 million, zero, zero, zero. It's like, and everybody else was in that group was a little bit more on the non top tier like I don't like Ray Day and Escher weren't sitting there waiting for him like it was, you know, a little bit more on my level, let's say.
    77:03
    And I was just like, I was totally third party observer on this. And I was just kind of like, man, like that would be so demoralizing. Like he's, this isn't even really his number one The only thing that's in his brain function right now is to put up points on Batman. And it happens to be his Batman, which that's kind of like an extra little turn of the knife. But his number one thing in the back of his mind is like, I got to fix this board. What the heck is wrong with this stupid board? I got to fix this board. And so he picked up the board and walked away and everything. And it's just like the guys that are running this thing, they're putting up good scores, but they're also working really hard to make a quality event. So, like I said, I'm not going there for the Whoppers. If I were to win, it would be great, because the winner of this thing got 120.81 Whoppers, which I think that's more than like, maybe not my total, but like, certainly more than my active, that's for sure. But yeah, so I'm not going to tell you who wins. You know, go watch the stream. It's a fun, fun little finals. So let's see, I have just a few more notes on here. So I already said I got 32nd place for 11.39. John got 66 for 4.53, which considering this is a 104 player event, like that's not all that bad on the decay side. You know, you can win events in Tucson and not get four and a half points. Ben struggled. Ben and I were hanging out by the bar for the last like one third of this event. Ben finished 74th, very uncommon showing for him, but he got 3.6 out of that. I think last year, John and I tied exactly, or we were one place apart. If you look on the Neverdrains thing, we're literally one name than the other. This is the first time there's a little bit of separation on my end. Overall, like I said, it was a really fun event. Looking forward to going out to it next year. The location is great. We're in Riverside, so you don't have to go through all of LA. So getting in there, the traffic, you know, coming off of I-10, traffic's really not too, too bad. You know, as always, thanks to Ben for driving. He's got a smart Subaru that makes it a little, a little on the nice side. It's not an automatic car or anything, but it's cool. It beeps a lot though, so. But yeah, so that's pinball at the lab. I had a great time and if you want to sign up for that next year, one request, please sign up after I've signed up. No, but there's 120 spots. We only had 104 this year. If that wait list was 100 players deep, I still would show up because you never know. But overall, I'm looking forward to it next year. Again, big shout out to John. Karl, Jay, I think Bob is involved because I see him around. I think Bob was a little under the weather as well this time around, but I think in years past, like Bob is always there, I think he's got an active role in there. So just everybody else that I'm not aware, you know, if you're working on that, appreciate that. Aimless Pinball, thanks for coming out and doing the stream. I'll see you guys next weekend at the bat for their five-year party. TV scope
    80:58
    That was, oh my gosh, that's a wrap. That was episode 70. And the title is I Don't Belong Here. And, um, there's...yeah, so I was gonna try to be clever and put in some song clips and whatever. And I was just like, nah, you know what, I'm not that technically capable. Actually I am, I just don't want to. So that was kind of my, that was like the theme going into kind of like the late rounds of like, I just, I don't belong here. What am I doing in this group? Like I should not, I should not be here. And I kind of got over that and it's like, you know what, next year I'm going for A finals. I can totally do that. You know, I was right on the doorstep and then just hit the brick wall and ran out of gas. And, but I know I was close enough that I know what that feels like. John Popadiuk, Bob Betor, Keith Elwin, Laser Los, Bowen Kerins, Lyman F. Sheats Jr., orbit ramps, Automated Amusements, Python Anghelo, Joe Kaminkow, Tim Kitzrow, Scott Danesi.
    82:21
    And we're clear.