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Ep 3: NACS, Women’s World, ECS, deeproot, & MORE!

Final Round Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 52m·analyzed·Jun 26, 2020
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.031

TL;DR

ECS coverage, game design preferences, and COVID-19 impact on pinball tournaments.

Summary

Final Round Pinball Podcast Episode 3 covers the European Championship Series (ECS) in Fulda, Germany, featuring interviews with JDL Pinball streamers Jim and Dina Lindsey about tournament format, venue details, and results (Levente Tregova won). The hosts discuss recent gameplay on Star Trek, Game of Thrones, The Addams Family, and Theatre of Magic, debate Pro vs. Premium/LE editions of Stern games, and address coronavirus concerns affecting tournaments and travel to upcoming events like TPS and IFPA 17.

Key Claims

  • Levente Tregova from Switzerland won the European Championship Series, defeating Marco Stix from Austria in the final on game four

    high confidence · Dina Lindsey (JDL Pinball), tournament report

  • Game of Thrones recent code updates (from a couple months ago) made it phenomenal and better than Star Trek ruleset-wise

    medium confidence · Martin Robbins, opinion based on recent play

  • Star Trek Pro is better than Premium/LE because the Vuk (left-side toy) creates constant danger vs. safe shots in other versions

    medium confidence · Martin Robbins and Jeff Teolis, gameplay observation

  • Tournament players prefer Pro models over Premium/LE because the additions (upper playfields, etc.) slow down fast-flowing gameplay

    medium confidence · Martin Robbins and Jeff Teolis, tournament player preference observation

  • Stranger Things machine at ECS showed that tournament players will completely avoid center shots due to the scary Demi-Gorgon toy

    medium confidence · Dina Lindsey, ECS observation

  • The ECS allowed best-of-five matches with no game waiting (unlike NACS best-of-seven with extended queues), but both tournaments ran extremely long

    high confidence · Jim and Dina Lindsey, tournament format comparison

  • Raymond Davidson recently purchased Star Trek to enjoy and improve at the game

    medium confidence · Martin Robbins, anecdotal reference to player validation

  • Paul Englert, a 13-year-old German player, is ranked 22nd in the world and was in the ECS commentary booth

    high confidence · Jeff Teolis, observation from ECS stream

Notable Quotes

  • “I think why the better players might like it [Addams Family] is because if you can figure out what the kickouts are on the chair... you can bounce it over to the left flipper to backhand the chair”

    Martin Robbins @ ~16:00 — Explains the skill-based appeal of Addams Family to tournament players despite casual accessibility

  • “To have that nice, safe shot does feel good. Otherwise, it really is cosmetics.”

    Martin Robbins @ ~11:30 — Summarizes why Star Trek Pro's Vuk mechanism is mechanically significant despite appearing cosmetic

  • “If you want pinball to grow, and you want it to be something that's watchable visually on the stream, I don't know how this is that attractive to have people sit and wait and wait and wait and wait.”

    Jeff Teolis @ ~35:00 — Critiques tournament format impact on streaming entertainment value and viewer retention

  • “The Demi-Gorgon won't have any fade or any wear on it because no one's going for it. I mean, you know, it's a very scary thing... To put something that scary on a pinball machine could be actually taking people away from wanting to play pinball.”

    Dina Lindsey @ ~43:00 — Commentary on the risk of fear-inducing toy design affecting casual player appeal

  • “I will not shake anyone's hand at TPS and I'm not a fist bump guy but not doing it, sorry. I might even wear gloves in the tournament.”

    Jeff Teolis @ ~58:00 — Illustrates serious COVID-19 precautions being considered for upcoming tournaments

  • “When you're playing pinball, you are effectively touching flippers that somebody else has touched. So I don't know whether that's really something that, at the moment, people are really worried about with the pinball community and tournaments.”

    Martin Robbins @ ~54:00 — Identifies unique transmission risk in pinball vs. other social activities

Entities

Jeff TeolispersonMartin RobbinspersonJim LindseypersonDina LindseypersonSteve BowdenpersonLevente TregovapersonMarco StixpersonFlavio BadariapersonRobert SoutapersonPaul Englertperson

Signals

  • ?

    event_signal: European Championship Series successfully completed in Fulda, Germany despite COVID-19 concerns; Levente Tregova won in best-of-five format against Marco Stix; 64-player round-robin bracket format with top 24 advancing

    high · Jim and Dina Lindsey detailed tournament format and results; tournament ran until 3 AM Saturday night

  • ?

    code_update: Game of Thrones received significant code updates from Stern (credited to Tim Saxton and staff) a couple months prior to podcast; updates made Premium and LE versions much better

    medium · Martin Robbins: 'they updated the code only a couple of months ago, and it's just now a phenomenal game'

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Tournament players systematically avoid center shots on Stranger Things due to fear of the Demi-Gorgon toy; playfield toy design directly impacts tournament strategy

    high · Dina Lindsey: 'tournament player will completely avoid the centre shots... The Demi-Gorgon won't have any fade or any wear on it because no one's going for it'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Martin Robbins reconsidered his long-standing negative view of Addams Family after recent streaming, though final opinion unchanged; shows openness to revisiting game assessment

    medium · Martin: 'I've always been really hard on Addams Family. And last night made me...' and 'It's already removed, is what I'm saying' regarding his negative bias

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Paul Englert, 13-year-old German player, ranked 22nd in world; notable young talent participating in ECS commentary booth

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.339

0:00
The Pinball Network is online. Launching final round pinball podcast. It's player versus player and player versus machine. Welcome to the final round.
0:40
Welcome to another edition of Final Round Pinball Podcast. My name is Jeff Teolas. And I'm Martin Robbins. How are you, Jeff? I'm good, Marty. Boy, do we have a big, big show today. In fact, several guests are going to be joined by Dina and Jim Lindsay of JBL Pinball. They were at the European Championship Series. And then we've also got Steve Bowden from Deep Root and Livvy Naiman from the NYC PC. It's going to be a big show for sure. How was your week before we get to it? Look, my week was actually really good. I mean, speaking of always trying to get better and improve our skills, this week I streamed Star Trek, which is going to be no surprise to everybody. I pretty much stream it every week, but I did get to enterprise a mock for the second time. Last time it took me 45 minutes. This time it took me 20 minutes. I like seeing improvements like that, and it's just such a good achievement to get, and such a fun mode as well. I'm going to ask this for the listeners because, of course, I've made it to a mock. I've never made it. But just describe for those people what it is in Star Trek. Well, what it is, is actually the second, let's call it the mini wizard mode. Five year mission is the final one. Effectively, finish six modes, you get to Kobayashi Maru. Finish the level two, there's six of them. Level two modes, you then get to Enterprise and Mok, which is this mini wizard mode. And effectively, it's switch hits, hit a jackpot, switch hits, jackpot. It's a lot of fun. And then you've obviously then got to do the level three missions to get to five year mission, which I've never got to. And I'd be kind of interested to know how many people have actually got to it, because it just seems so far away from the start button. I bet one of our guests has done it, because Steve Bowden loves that game, and he's obviously a great player. But I've been to Kobayashi Maru, but I have not been to Enterprise Amok, let alone the five-year mission. It is a great game, boy. A friend here just recently bought one. I mean, I was glad to see them vault that game and bring it back. It's just such a great layout. To a lot of people, it's Steve Ritchie's best game. I would agree, and nothing gives me more validation about the game when, I think a couple of months ago, Raymond Davidson decided to buy one. He just wanted to enjoy it, get better at it, and enjoy that experience. So there you go, there's validation. Lots of satisfying shots. I like the away team shot. I certainly like the warp ramp. And the spinner, boy, when that's lit, that's a lot of fun. Yeah, absolutely. It's just one of these games, everyone knows it's my favorite game. I think it's just, it doesn't have the best rule set. I think that's probably it's Achilles' heel. But I think the way that they've really integrated the layout, the callouts, the sounds, and the modes, I mean, effectively, it is just hit the flashing shot. But when you've got a layout that is so fast and so slowy, you don't really want anything more complicated than that. Otherwise, you've got something like Star Wars.
Raymond Davidson
person
Brian O'Neillperson
Sunshine Bondperson
Tobias Wagermannperson
Matthias Klubaperson
Steve Ritchieperson
Tim Saxtonperson
Josh Sharpperson
Star Trek Progame
Game of Thrones Premiumgame
Stranger Thingsgame
Addams Familygame
Theatre of Magicgame
Final Round Pinball Podcastorganization
JDL Pinballorganization
Deep Root Pinballorganization
Bolzen Ballvenue

high · Jeff Teolis: 'the now 22nd player in the world who just happens to be 13 years old from Germany, young Paul Englert'

  • ?

    event_signal: PU Battle at Pinball Universe and Freddy's Pinball Paradise Spring Cup cancelled; other European events facing COVID-19 uncertainty

    high · Jim Lindsey: 'PU Battle at Pinball Universe and Freddy's Pinball Paradise Spring Cup, also in April... have obviously now been removed'

  • ?

    regulatory_signal: European tournaments implementing COVID-19 precautions: no handshakes, fist bumps, or hand contact; hygiene rules in effect

    high · Jim Lindsey: 'we did opt the hygiene rules a little bit and we agreed not to have a handshake before the game and after the game. So it was a teeth pump'

  • ?

    product_concern: Stranger Things Demi-Gorgon toy design potentially risky for casual player appeal; hosts concerned the scary toy could deter new players

    medium · Dina: 'To put something that scary on a pinball machine... could be actually taking people away from wanting to play pinball'

  • ?

    operational_signal: NACS best-of-seven format with unlimited game waiting created long queues and extended tournament duration (inconsistent with streaming entertainment value); ECS best-of-five with no waiting still ran very long but provided better stream experience

    high · Jeff Teolis and hosts extensively discussed queue problems at NACS vs. ECS format differences

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Tournament players and analysts prefer Pro editions over Premium/LE for fast-flowing games because upper playfields and added toys slow down gameplay and break competitive focus/mental flow

    high · Martin Robbins: 'a lot of tournament players do prefer the Pros... because a lot of the additions... slow down the game'

  • ?

    venue_signal: Bolzen Ball in Fulda, Germany is a major commercial pinball venue hosting 50 modern and 15 classic machines; hosts 5-6 tournaments per year including ECS and German Olympics

    high · Jim/Dina: 'Bolzen Ball is one of the very few commercial pinball clubs in Germany... 50 modern machines and 15 classic machines and a thousand square meter worth of venue'

  • $

    market_signal: Pinball players reconsidering travel to IFPA 17 and TPS due to COVID-19 concerns; uncertainty about event continuity but currently still planned as CDC and IFPA not issuing cancellations

    high · Jeff: 'Josh Sharp... right now he said it was a wait-and-see thing for something as big as IFPA 17'; Marty: 'in the last few days, people have been messaging me saying, am I still going to North America?'

    • 3:32
    Well, Steve Ritchie has had some great games in the past. Yes, Star Wars might not be everyone's favorite, but I was playing Game of Thrones during the week. And with the exception of, and I forget what shot it is, the dragon shot. Tarkarian. That's not a great shot because you never know how it's going to come back. But I certainly enjoy the Grey Joy Spinner. I like the Stark shot. I like getting your swords. That's just a fun game, good flowing game. You know, it's not quite the Star Trek game because, again, the warp and the away team, those things really make it stand out more than Game of Thrones. But again, I love these type of fast-flowing games that Steve Rich is known for. I think probably the only negative that really people do say about Star Trek is that the shots are probably a bit too easy. The ramps are quite wide. The orbits are quite wide. So it is relatively easy as far as picking shots and nailing your shots. But because it's so fast, it's death if you miss them. But I would argue that Game of Thrones is probably Steve Rich's best game. Oh, really? Okay. Yeah, I would say, even though Star Trek's my favourite game, I'm a bit of a Trekkie and I love it, but really, as I said before, what lets it down is the rules. But when it comes to Game of Thrones, what really shines with that game is its rules. And obviously they updated the code only a couple of months ago, and it's just now a phenomenal game. And it's one of those ones where I would say the Pro is better than the Premium and LE. I'm glad you said that. I totally agree. Because, you know, when I look at the Star Trek Pro versus the LE or the Premium, it's really just the Vuk, isn't it, on the left-hand side? Yeah, it is the Vuk, which it seems such a small thing, but when it does come out of that scoop on the Pro, it can go anywhere and it's constant danger. To have that nice, safe shot does feel good. Otherwise, it really is cosmetics. Yeah, and I mean, it's obviously very nice. You want the LE for sure, I get that. But it's not like adding an upper playfield. like in Game of Thrones, which kind of slows it down a little bit. Yeah, I'm much more a fan of the Pro for sure, and there are a few games like that. I think we've talked about Black Knight, another Steve Ritchie game, when we talk about Sword of Rage. Give me the Pro over the Premium or the LE. Not that there's anything wrong with it, and the rules are much better now. In fact, with the recent code updates with the Premium and the LE, they saw what happened at Expo, and they're kind of revisiting that and how they can fix things, and it's a lot better. So kudos on Tim Saxton and the staff at CERN there for fixing that. But I still prefer the Pro. I think a lot of tournament players do prefer the Pros for the most part, mainly because a lot of the additions that they do put on with premiums and LEs, as you said, slow down the game. Another one is Aerosmith. It's got that upper sort of playfield to give you the playfield multiplier. And that's fun and it's interesting. And fortunately, you're not up there too long. But when you want a nice, fast, slow game and you're mentally in the game, That kind of stuff could really sort of take you out of the zone. I'll give you that on Aerosmith. The one thing I do like about the Aerosmith Premium is if it's tough to hit the lock shot, which is just to the left of the right ramp, you can go for the elevator shot, and that'll drop it into the elevator if you get the right shot up on the upper level. So, again, some neat things. The Star Wars, another Steve Ritchie game. Let's do his Premium versus his Pro. Well, the Premium has the lovely, I call it the getaway, you know, multi-loops that you see in Getaway High Speed 2. Yeah, the hyperspace, yep. That's just cosmetic. That doesn't do anything for me. And in fact, it makes it harder to hit the Death Star shot. You're absolutely right. That shot is much harder on the Premium and Early because of the mechanics of the little forks that come up to do that. So, yeah, agreed. I do really like that hyperspace, though. I think even though, yes, it's cosmetic, it is so good to see it whizzing all around the playfield. And it always reminded me of Grand Prix or NASCAR, which is the Pat Lawler Stern as well which let's call it cosmetic has the ball that goes all the way around the outside of the play field that is really cool and sort of just gives you those moments where you feel good about playing pinball this is you going back to roller games when they would fire in the top crate that's what you like when the balls move around alright we get it more games and balls just unnecessarily flying around and so also what I streamed and it's really interesting to bring up these games because one of them is so beloved and I know You were there, you were watching me stream this. So I streamed last night Adam's Family and Theatre of Magic. And I've always been really hard on Adam's Family. And last night made me... I don't think you've ever had a hard on for Adam's Family.
    8:07
    Never is the answer there, ever. And it really didn't change my mind last week. But I just know, not only, obviously, Adam's Family rates very high in everybody's collection, but particularly with tournament players. tournament players really like Adam's Family, and I'm wanting to get your thoughts as to why, because I really didn't really get into it last night. Again, went to Theatre of Magic, and this Theatre of Magic played like a mint Theatre of Magic, so it was just so much fun, and it was just a very stark contrast, but keen to know why tournament players like Adam's Family. I don't know if that's universally true or not, because of seance. You know, any time that power can screw up the ball, and of course, Lawler has some weird outlanes, But the reason that might be popular is it's very simple. Hit the chair, hit the ramp. Yeah, there are modes going on in between. Just keep doing that. You throw the mansion, boom, there you go. And you're probably going to have multi-ball lit because it's not too hard to hit greed with the shots that are available to do that. So I think why the better players might like it is because if you can figure out what the kickouts are on the chair, which is usually just let it bounce off the left flipper and bounce over to the right flipper, trap up, take a shot at the ramp, and then it'll feed back to the right flipper. You can bounce it over to the left flipper to backhand the chair, or you can, if you're brave, take a shot at the chair. I've seen great players do that. Brian O'Neill comes to mind in San Francisco. I saw him do that in a tournament. I was like, oh, I'm going to try that. Oh, I'm not that good.
    9:39
    Anyway, so you want to find out that kick out from the chair. You want to find out the kick out from the graveyard, I guess it is, on the right-hand side. If those are nice feeds, good players are going to shine because of their accuracy, because of just following through. But that's something anybody can do. It's just a skill set that has to be learned. Yeah. Oh, great. If anyone wants to write in to us at followingaroundpinball at gmail.com and tell us why you think Adam's Family is the best game or great game, please do. Write in to us. Help remove Martin's hard-on for Adam's Family.
    10:10
    It's already removed, is what I'm saying. in Fulda, Germany a big tournament this weekend and we're going to be joined right now by Jim and Dina Lindsey, you know them from JDL Pinball, great streams my goodness, we talk about the stream that everyone watched in IFPA 16 with Johannes and Daniele well, these are the people that brought it to us and they join us right now, hi Jim, hi Dina hi Jeff, hi everybody you must be tired because I was watching the stream and like these types of tournaments, they go long but it was all worth it to find out who was going to win the ECS. But let's back up a little bit. How do you qualify for the European Championship Series? Okay, so there are Open Championships organized in all the major European countries, Italy, Germany, France, Belgium, etc. The main tournament of each one of those Open events, not the side tournament, not the Classic, is counted as points, which are then totaled to give you an ECS ranking. The top 64 players then go forward to this event that we have had this weekend. In addition... Yes, in addition to this, the winner of the National Championship Series, which is similar to the North American, because you count all of the tournaments that happened on your soil throughout the year, and the winner of that final of that championship series gets a free spot in the ECS unless it qualified already throughout an Open event and then the second qualifier for the national goes through. That makes sense to have those type of exemptions, especially for a big, big tournament like, let's say, the German Open or whatever the final would be. By the way, Jim, I really enjoyed watching the stream on JDL Pinball when I saw the now 22nd player in the world who just happens to be 13 years old from Germany, young Paul Englert. He was on the stream with you, and we are all watching his progress. So that was kind of fun to have him join you in the booth. Absolutely. And I've had him in the commentary booth a couple of times before. His English is phenomenal. Finding very good English-speaking German people is not that easy. He has an almost perfect natural voice. He does. He's very intelligent. He's very mature for his 13 years. Very small, but makes up for it in character by all means. Character and skills. Okay, so we've got 64 players eligible for the ECS. It wasn't quite a full field. I do have to ask you about that with the travel in Europe. I did see some of the Italians there. Was that an issue for this tournament at all? Was there ever any touch and go, this might not happen because of the coronavirus? No. The tournament director, Tobias Wagermann, decided to play the tournament unless German government shoots down the country. Which hasn't happened, fortunately, so therefore the tournament went ahead and everybody turned up. There were some exceptions, some people felt it a bit unsafe to come, but in general, yeah, the turnout has been great. and we did opt the hygiene rules a little bit and we agreed not to have a handshake before the game and after the game. So it was a teeth pump and yeah, it all went very well.
    13:38
    Some cheering going on in the background there. I guess that's a precaution you have to take with these type of events and we're probably going to see that move forward, not just there in Europe but here probably in North America and Australia as well. I guess it's just that time where we have to be safe, and certainly these precautions, certainly the cleaning of the hands, maybe no handshakes, and also, too, just keeping up with what the news and what the government is telling us to do for this difficult time. Indeed. I mean, there are events that have been cancelled. There are some pinball events that have been cancelled, and I think every tournament director, every organisation has to seriously consider the position. but we felt it was so close to this event and there was no real solid direction that the best thing to do was to go ahead. People had the option not to come, of course. All right, let's get a recap then of how this tournament went. I know the games were, it's a bracket and also a best of five series unlike the North American Championship series which is a best of seven, it is a best of five. How did it go and tell us about the top four players. Okay, I'll pick up the first part. The 64 players, first of all, go into a round-robin tournament. So they are divided by IFPA numbers into four groups of 16 players. The 16 players then all play each other, so it's 15 rounds. And the top six players qualify through to the next bracket. And the top two go through with a bye to the second round. And the remaining four play the next stage. So I'll let Dana pick up on the next stage, which is what you're referring to on the bracket. So we go from 64 down to 24, correct? Yes. Okay. And then the 24 play a best of five game, best of five match on the machines of their choice. So we can send you, if you want, Jeff, a link to a Google spreadsheet that gives you the bracket format and the results. Sure, we'll put that on our Facebook page. That's a good idea. Now, when players get to pick their games, are they allowed to wait for games if there's a game being used already? No. Since last year, we stopped doing that. So it is the game that is available, needs to be played, and if the game is busy, then they have to pick another one. It's interesting because North America doesn't do that, yet both tournaments were extremely long in time-wise, because obviously you've got great players that are playing longer games. but in North America they had a best of seven games. Yeah, yeah. And the queues, sometimes you'd be waiting four or five deep on a game. And that really doesn't quite make sense. We have plenty of machines here, and I think you just have to limit what the player choice is. I think it's reasonable that the players choose, but I don't think it's reasonable that they wait an hour and a half for a game that extends the tournament by that length of time. There are different camps, and there are certainly the people that think, you know, why should I be punished because the game's unavailable, because someone else is using it. Jim, I'm on your side. I can't stand that in certain tournaments you have to wait and wait, and it could be hours and hours. Sunshine Bond, who won the women's championship, a little foreshadowing there, but she had to wait hours and hours for the bracket to catch up. And really, if you want pinball to grow, and you want it to be something that's, you can watch maybe visual on the stream, I don't know how this is that attractive to have people sit and wait and wait and wait and wait. And they do that at this North American Championship Series. They do this at the Pinball Expo show. And I just think with a lot of different machines, you know what? Maybe the queue line can only be one deep or maybe, you know what I mean? Like something in between. You know, you have to play a game within 30 minutes, let's say. Yeah, I mean, we had one. we gave one exception on Saturday during the tournament because the game was about to finish they were on player 2 or 3 and it was on Stranger Things and so we allowed that game to finish but I absolutely 100% agree we are about here providing an entertainment service, what we do with the streaming of tournaments is not really for the benefit of players, it's for the benefits of people at home watching. And they are very, very patient. They will sit with the computers, with the stream in the corner, all day watching the qualification rounds, which are not very exciting. When we get to the finals, we need them to be very consecutive.
    18:16
    And if not, you just lose people. I think so too, but even from a competitor's standpoint, it's not the most fun waiting and waiting. as you want to play. That's what I love about a tournament like Pinberg, is their timing is perfect. You know, it's match play rounds. You go, you go, you go. You're always kind of playing. Even the 24-hour sanctum, as grueling as that is to play pinball for 24 hours, at least you're doing something. You know, you could be in a tournament like this that's almost 24 hours, but have lulls of hours on end. So anyway, let's get to the winners of the ECS. Dina. The final was the best two players, which were Marco Stix from Austria and Levente Tregova from Switzerland.
    18:59
    And a photo of absolutely amazing battle with Levente Tregova winning on game four. All the games were absolutely highest quality and absolutely amazing to watch. Well, since Levente was already going to IFPA 17, somebody gets an exemption to the World Championship. Who would that have been? Yes, that's going to be Flavio Badaria from Italy, who finished fourth in the battle for the third and fourth place against Robert Souta, who also qualifies already to go to the FBA. I watched Robert kind of get to that match and put up a monster game on Stranger Things. How did Stranger Things play in the tournament? It was nice. It's the first time I'd seen one for real, and the first time a lot of the players have played one. I was learning a lot through the weekend, watching the players and taking advice from co-commentators. So I think generally good. I think every tournament player will completely avoid the centre shots. And so the wonderful toy that Stern have created Will be just completely shot round It will be Rambus and Orvis There's absolutely nothing up the middle The Demi-Gorgon won't have any fade or any wear on it Because no one's going for it I mean, you know, it's a very scary thing, you know To put something that scary on a pinball machine We could be actually taking people away from wanting to play pinball Just purely from being terrified Excellent, there was a comment saying that on location, Stranger Things proves to be very popular with kids and teenagers. So it probably does have an appeal to the younger generation, which I think was the idea behind creating that theme. Sure. I mean, the kids are the stars on the Netflix series, so it only probably attracts kids, and then adults who are nostalgic like myself really enjoy the series as well. Okay, so the venue itself, Bulls and Balls, that is home to the IFPA German Olympics. They also have the Ho Ho Ho, I believe, there. It's a very popular place, too. Tell us about the venue. Yes. Bolzen Ball is one of the very few commercial pinball clubs in Germany.
    21:20
    They host Dart League, the billiards, and pinballs, hence the name Bolzen Ball. It's located in Fulda, not far from Frankfurt, which is Bangon in the middle of the country. It's the geographical middle of the country. and a combination of Toby, our country director and the tournament director, Tobias Waggerman, and the owner of Balls and Balls, Matthias Kluba, we organize five to six tournaments a year, with two of them being big events over four and a half days. And, yeah, due to having 50 modern machines and 15 classic machines and a thousand square meter worth of venue and a nice bar area and lounge area and everything to wish for. It's very popular with not only German players but also European players who've been coming for years now. Oh, it looked good to me. I want to get there for sure. And, of course, the stream looked great. What's next for JBL Pinball? Well, next is actually going to be the Olympics in May. Now, I pause there deliberately because the ones that have been cancelled are the PU Battle at Pimble Universe and Freddy's Pinball Paradise Spring Cup, also in April. So they were on our schedule. They've obviously now been removed. We've a couple of smaller streams that we do locally at our own pinball club. But the next major one is the Olympics in May. Jim, Dina, you did a great job on the stream, as always. Thank you very much for the hard work and the long, long hours. And thank you for joining us on Final Round Pinball Podcast. Much appreciated. Thank you for calling us in. And we love your show.
    23:09
    Thank you very much. Take care. And you're welcome to fold at any time. Just let us know. All right. Auf Wiedersehen.
    23:18
    So some interesting things, as you heard there, Marty. The one thing that is certainly on the top of a lot of people's mind right now, the coronavirus. It is very serious. People are taking precautions. The event did happen. We have seen other events in Europe be cancelled. And now Northern Italy has got a bit of a, not only a travel ban, but really a quarantine, if you will. Is this going to affect other tournaments? Do you think we're going to see some tournaments kind of just wait and see, be postponed, be cancelled? What do you think about the coronavirus as it relates to pinball? I think personally, for me, it affects me because in the last few days, people have been messaging me saying, am I still going to North America? and that's in two weeks' time. So I think it's still a bit of a wait and see. We don't know how spreadable, I guess it is, because people are saying that it is spreading exponentially. Some people are saying, well, it's actually sort of tapered off a bit. It depends on where you're going, where you're coming from, who you're coming in contact with. And this is a virus that's spread through touch. And I will say, when you're playing pinball, you are effectively touching slippers that somebody else has touched. So I don't know. I don't know whether that's really something that, at the moment, people are really worried about with the Pimor community and tournaments. Certainly North America at this stage isn't on any warning list. Sure, there have been some people that have obviously got the virus and there have been some deaths. So I've been reading up a lot on travel warnings and travel advice and nothing to worry about at this stage. but I think a lot of people are being precautious. The tough thing for an airplane ride, especially you coming from Australia, is that you're in that confined area. And I know when I'm going to be flying to TPS, don't you dare think I'm going to be bringing a ton of wipes, lots of Purell. I will not shake anyone's hand at TPS and I'm not a fist bump guy but not doing it, sorry. I might even wear gloves in the tournament. I think we can take precautions and even though I'm not carrying it, What if I get it and then spread it to somebody else? So I'm thinking of things like that. I don't know. I mean, we have to be safe. They talk about being in the airports. I mean, even forget the airplane itself, just confined areas when you're waiting at that gate to go on that plane. Those are things to think about. And, yeah, they canceled a couple of tournaments in Europe already. And I asked Josh Sharp, and I hope he doesn't mind me saying, but right now he said it was a wait-and-see thing for something as big as IFPA 17. That's where the world comes to Florida. for the world championship. Right now, you know, the CDC in America is saying it's okay. Some schools have been canceled for a few weeks in certain parts of the world. We've talked about northern Italy. Hopefully it won't spread, like you said, exponentially. But right now, these tournaments are still going on here in North America anyway. Yeah. So as far as I'm concerned, TPS will stay in the head. It is for me too. And, you know, my wife said, my company's got a travel ban. My friend who works for Google, their travel ban.
    26:26
    I guess pinball players are desperate? I don't know. Well, I'm going to take precautions, right? I mean, are you? Yeah, of course. I'm going to be taking hand sanitizer. I don't know whether I'm going to do the face mask, because you don't want to cover up that face. I get it. Okay. Exactly. I've spent a lot of time working on it. Yeah, this face you've got to hide, but not the Marty Robbins face. Yeah, well, because it's not an airborne virus. It is, well, it is via liquids and touch. So if somebody sneezes and that lands on you, that's a problem. So, I don't know. I think, yeah, have some sensible precautions. I would say you don't need to stockpile on the essential items and put them in your bunker just in case there is a world epidemic, which, please, you think I'm joking, is going on at the moment. I don't know whether that's happening in North America. But certainly in Australia, people are stockpiling the essentials. So you go to a supermarket and there are shelves that are just completely empty of all the essentials. So it's kind of crazy. Well, I'm hearing that about toiletries and stuff. And even when I was in Australia, it was kind of just happening too. And again, more closer to that side of the world than my side of the world. So my wife and I went to several different drugstores to try to find, you know, face masks. And they were out everywhere. And this is early February, late January. We did find one. He had it behind the counter. I said, we can't find any anywhere. He goes, oh, I've got them here. And I said, oh, you don't keep them? He goes, are you kidding? They get gobbled up right away. I'm like, oh, okay. So that was almost two months ago. And it's gotten worse. So, I don't know. It's really hard to find the right information because, as you said before, and everyone's saying, it's a bit of a wait and see. There so much information that coming through that people still don know whether this is going to just go absolutely crazy And yes there have been a lot of people that have actually died from this which is just so terrible to hear. As far as it compared to other viruses, it's still on par. It is still just another virus. But people are really sort of concerned about the fact that there's a 14-day incubation period. So people are walking around not knowing that they've got it. Yeah, good point. And here, just outside of Toronto, in the early 2000s, we went through the SARS epidemic. So it's kind of history repeating itself. You know, you just take the precautions. You do what you have to do. You don't do what you don't have to do. Correct. We're going to switch gears here on the Final Round Medical Pinball Podcast and focus a little more on the pinball side of it, too. But one of the things Jim and Dina were talking about, too, is just the length of that tournament. We were actually supposed to record Saturday night right after the tournament. That tournament didn't get done until 3 in the morning. And that is a very similar tournament to the North American Pinball Championship Series. A little different in the sense that they both had 64 players, a bracket of 64. There were less than that in both sides, but the bracket was set up as there were 64. They ran a best of five series, the NACS a best of seven. and what they did in Europe was not allow people to wait for games. And in North America, best of seven game, they had 22 games at that incredible game exchange in Denver, Colorado. They allowed people to wait as long as they wanted to play that game. I think that was a big mistake. Yeah, and we did see, I was watching a lot of the stream and you did see that it was sort of, there were some logjams, I guess, is probably the best way to say it, where people were waiting. And the reason why I know that is because we were waiting, watching the commentary booth, and they were sort of like saying, well, we're waiting for this next game because we're waiting for this game to finish before the next group can get on. So, yeah, it does really, I would say, unnecessarily. But I'm saying unnecessarily sort of lengthen the tournament. But what's the remedy for it? You're saying that people shouldn't be able to absolutely say, right, I'm going on Iron Maiden and I'm going to wait as long as it takes? Are you saying there needs to be a certain period of time that says well, if it's not available within this, you've got to pick something else? I like that angle. Maybe it's a half an hour. You have to play a game a half an hour after your last game because there were people that were waiting well over an hour to play their next game. There were some parts of the bracket that weren't done because they were waiting so deep on games or they were playing long and that obviously wrecked the rest of the bracket. Whatever kind of went to the right of that bracket. They have to wait for that matchup to get done. So maybe it is a half an hour. Like in Europe, they said, no, you've got to play one that's available. But here, I mean, maybe it's only one person allowed in the queue. Maybe it is a half an hour wait. I know Josh, when I've talked to him about it, he said, you know, why should somebody not get to play the game they want for such a massive title like the North American Pinball Championship? And I say to Josh and anyone who says that, really? Because the Stern Pro Circuit, the way it used to be, last two years, You weren't allowed to wait. You had to play what was available. So how is it good for one and not the other? Very contradictory. Okay, well, my question to you is this. Who is negatively affected by having to wait? I will say two parties. One, some of the participants, and they are probably the most important ones because it's their title on the line that they're trying to win. I watch Sunshine Bond, who we'll talk about in just a second, have to wait and wait and wait and wait for that bracket to catch up to her. And I'm talking hours of waiting. Yeah, a couple of hours, I think it was. And other players, too. So, one, it affects those people. And if you want to make this bigger and in a media sense, I mean, first of all, Colorado Pinball Collective and Snow Galvin and everybody that participated in that stream, bravo to you. Well done. What a great quality stream that was. The scrolls were fantastic. The commentators did a great job. The videos were fantastic. A variety of games. By the way, I loved, loved, loved that they didn't stay with a group. They went to significant games. Very, very smart. Yeah, very cool. I also liked the scoreboard integration, so you could actually see the scores. That was just top-notch, guys. Well done. But to answer your question, the people watching on the stream are kind of like, okay, we want to watch a game. They had a lot of variety. They had 22 games there. Are you telling me you can't come up with something where you have to, maybe you can't pick the same game two rounds in a row? So there's a strategy there? You're still picking your game. You just can't keep going to the same four games. Well, I guess that's what I come back. I'm not saying that I'm siding with Josh. I would never do that in front of you. Oh, shit. The show would be over right now. Right now. Goodbye, goodnight, see you later. But what he's pointy is that this is, certainly North America, the number one tournament as far as, you know, you've got all the yearly events, it all leads into the States, it all leads into this. So it is an incredibly important pinball tournament. So what's most important? The person playing and their experience getting to pick their machine or the other people waiting and the viewers of a stream? He's in a difficult position where he's saying, well, I want to preserve the experience of the person playing so they get to play exactly what they want to play versus all these other people that are watching. Now, admittedly, there was 500 people when I was watching the finals. So that's a big audience as far as streaming goes for pinball. So there's a lot of people there, and they were just chatting amongst themselves. There were some long periods of time where the commentators were sort of twiddling their thumbs, not knowing what to say. But at what cost is what I'm saying. What's more important, the person playing, get to pick their machine and play the best that they can play, or everybody else's experience? You know, I'd love to do a show where you and I talk about what commentators can do, should do, some strengths and weaknesses that commentators sometimes fall into when it comes to big competitions because you've got great experience doing it. I might have a little experience doing it. Yeah, somewhat.
    34:36
    Oh, Marty. Well, it'd actually be good. One of our major topics in a future show is to actually just talk about streaming in general, how to set it up, what are the do's and don'ts, and as you said, what makes good commentary. And we do our best here. It's Jeff Teolis, and sorry I couldn't get Ryan. Marty Robbins here on Final Round.
    34:55
    I'm sure you'll get me back on a pre-recorded interview. Length of tournaments aside, you know what? It was a great tournament, great competitions. I love seeing the best players in the world play, and that's what you got. So let's talk about the Women's Championship. 24 amazing women came together for the Women's World Championship, and it came down to a Final Four, and it was very, very exciting. Louise Wagonsonner and Leslie Ruckman played for third place. They couldn't quite make it to the finals. Two fantastic players. Leslie took third. Louise was fourth. Into the finals, right there from Denver, Heliana Walter-Higgins and Sunshine Vaughn. We talked about Sunshine, how she had to wait and wait and wait. Well, patience is a virtue because she wound up winning in a back-and-forth match. She finally won game five and six to go over the edge, win a brand-new Stern pinball machine, and is now the fifth-ever Women's World Champion. It's neat that they've had five different winners. So well done to Sunshine, to Heliana, and all the competitors in the women's. Well done. And I remember really early on, somebody actually called out in chat when I was watching that Sunshine Bond's going to win it. And I went, it's a bit too early to call. and then she won and I went, okay, well that was a good call. Both great players. I played against Heliana at Pinberg last year. She's a fierce player, no doubt. Oh, she's a great player. What was neat on the final game was 24 and Heliana needed 10 million. She was player one. She needed 10 million just to catch Sunshine. She did that and then some, so that made Sunshine kind of need 6 million roughly and Sunshine, cool as a cucumber, did it and became the grand champ. So very nice for all the competitors in the women's side. And then also there was the North American Championship Series. So these are all the province and state winners and the District of Columbia joining together. Just, I think there were 53, 54 players, a bracket style that we had talked about. And the final four, incredible. And it came down to Raymond Davidson playing Cullen Urban. Cullen won four games to two against Raymond. and Keith Elwin, the greatest of all time, who almost got knocked out earlier to a guy who played. This guy, and I hope I say his name correctly, his last name is Dutch, from Manitoba. This guy has played in 25 tournaments ever, wins Manitoba, knocks Adam Becker out four straight games, takes Keith Elwin. He's up 3-1 on Keith. He's got his foot right on his neck, and Keith came back like Keith does, won 4-3, then beat Velsito, then got to the semifinals. Don't know if he was out of gas or whatever. I think it's a matter of Jason Zoller playing lights out. The kid from New Jersey, he beat Keith four games to two, and that took us to the finals. And the finals was Colin Urban and Jason Zoller, and it went the full seven games. Colin Urban, the winner of your North American Championship Series. But Jason, a nice little sidebar for him, he gets an invite now to IFPA 17. Yeah, so not all bad coming second. Again, just, I mean, we as viewers want these things to go to seven games. It really does provide those nail-biting experiences, and this was no exception. It was just so good to watch. Again, two amazing young players, and that trend continued as we went to pinmasters. Pinmasters, 144 players, double the size of the field of last year, 18 holes of pin golf, and what pin golf is, for those listening, they have an objective score. So on World Cup soccer, you have to get 400 million. And if you can do that in one ball, you score a one. In golf, the lower the score, the better. If you can do it in three balls, you score a three. All games are set to five balls. Five balls, you would get a five. But if you didn't quite get 400, there were certain increments too. So let's say you got to 360, they'd give you a six. Things like that. And that's how it worked for pin golf. And it came down to that final four. Raymond Davidson also in the top four there. He finished fourth. There was a tiebreaker for second. We'll get to that in a second. After Escher Lefkoff in Denver, right there, you know, he's a Colorado boy. He wins it all, and he does it in great fashion. Did you see how he did it? Yes, I did see that. It was a hole-in-one on Star Wars playing the layer strat, which is, you know, if you want some quick early points, there it is. And the goal is $250 million, and he got it, and it just walked off. So nice hole-in-one for Escher there. and then the tiebreaker for second place, another two all-time greats, Bowen Cairns beat Keith Elwin for second place. On World Cup soccer. On World Cup soccer, yes. Bowen did it with a hole-in-one. Hey, Marty, I got a joke for you. What's that? What do you get when you cross an Australian, a Canadian, and a guy from New Jersey who lives in Texas who just happens to be the best player in the Stern Pro Circuit? I don't know. What do you get? Not a good joke, but just our next guest. Stephen Bowden joins us right now. That's the best I can do. All right, it's late here. Hello, gentlemen. How are you, man? I'm doing well. How are you? Very, very good. I'm surprised we got a hold of you because March is a crazy month. This is Stephen's March month for you, okay? He just played in Pinmasters last weekend. Coming up, oh, I don't know, something might be happening at Deep Root where they're releasing Raza. There's the TPF, and what's happening very, very soon for him, the Stern Pro Circuit. We're going to talk about that right off the bat where Steven is the number one seed. Now, what is the Stern Pro Circuit? Who are these 20 people? How did you get there? And what's at stake? Well, for the winners, $5,000 and a new in-box Stern Pro pinball machine, which we'll get into that. But, yeah, there are going to be 20 competitors into this ladder. And basically, we start off with players ranked number 17th, 18th, 19th, and 20th. They're going to play one game And whoever's in last place Is out Last place means you're fired So at that point they're out And then number 16 will come in And then number 15 and number 14 And so on and so on up And I get to wait to be the last person To come in So I can do no worse than fourth Which is just good So Something to look forward to there All I have to do is Not finish last and that's worth a couple hundred. And then if I don't finish last again, that's worth 500. And then if I don't finish last again, that's worth $8,000.
    41:26
    So as a person comes in, they get to pick the machine. But obviously, I think they come first as well. Then when it comes to you, you're obviously the top four. You're coming in cold. There's people that have actually played along the way. How do you feel about coming in cold? Or does it not matter because at least you're fourth? It doesn't matter to me because at least I'm fourth. I'm fine. I'm not playing that means I'm virtually winning So that's good I am fine with me That's fine I can just jump in And no matter how cold I am I just go in and hope I don't finish last and move on I mean there will be enough games there At the tournament venue To really get warmed up To play beforehand So that's going to be fine I am fine with that And I just can't wait to see what happens I have to agree with Steven I'd love to be in that position where I had a 1 in 4 chance of winning it all But let's point out that Daniele from Italy was in that 20th spot, and he just squeaked into the Stern Pro Circuit years ago when it was this 20-person ladder and went all the way to the top to win it all. Yeah, that was amazing, seeing him go all the way. I mean, I remember him meeting when I finally jumped in at some point, and I played him on an epic game of Monster Bash when, I mean, I won it, but I won it with like 600, and he had like 500 million. and it was a ridiculous game there. And then he just blew everybody away. He just kept going. I think he didn't even eat throughout it. He just was going on fumes and will, and he made it all the way. It was an amazing performance. And so you said that the winner wins cash as well as a new inbox. I've got to ask this question, because I asked it last time you were on Head to Head. You have a new inbox that you've won from a previous tournament. Have you opened it yet? That is correct, Your Honor. What was the question, Your Honor? Have you opened it yet? Unboxed it? No, I have not opened it. It is still in the box. In a nice temperature-controlled environment. So, nice and safe. And, nope, I still haven't opened it yet. So, the new Game of Thrones Premium is still sitting there. And I hope to add another new in-box game.
    43:34
    That I may or may not open. You need to get a seller so you can start putting them at the right room temperature so they can age nicely over time. Yeah, that'll work. Beachwood age pinball. What's the machine that's up for grabs this year? I believe it is a Monsters Pro. So we've passed the WWE era. And now... Finally got rid of all of those, yep. We've finally done that. So now we've gotten to the Monsters Pro era, which is just fine with me. I mean, that's a decent game. So that's all right. Any new and past games, I'm fine with winning that. That's what makes that last game so big because second place gets $2,000 and then the winner gets $5,000 plus the game, which is basically a $10,000 win. So that final game, one game between two players is worth $8,000. So I guess that's the purpose of that is really to raise the drama of that one game. So I really hope the game that's chosen has some decent tilt settings so that you can actually play it. As opposed to, I remember the game of RoboCop that happened where you could barely breathe on it from last year. I really think that was an interesting game. But, yeah, we will see what happens. So the money that goes into the Stern Pro Circuit comes from all the Stern Pro Circuit events. There are 20 events, and each player is paying $5 towards this finals with a maximum up to $1,000. So Pinbird, which had 1,000 players, isn't doing $5,000. It caps at $1,000, but that's where a lot of this comes. And, of course, the generous donation from Stern, too. So this is why it's so exciting. To get it down to $20,000, every person is going to get $600 just for showing up. So you think in one hand, oh, I'm going to go all this way to Chicago and play, and I could be out after one game. Yeah, but. Exactly. It works for me. That's a very fine rebate. If I'm out after one game, that's $1,300. That paid for the flight there, and it also contributes to the next tournament that I'm already registered for. So that's always trying to at least get enough to pay it forward to the next event. So that's why I say always be cashing, so I can just forward it on to the next event. I'm just trying to break even. And speaking of events, you played in a few, obviously, and you're the number one seed. Volume certainly helps, but you did well in them too. I think a pin-tastic where you won that event. But the real key is try to get to as many as you can. That's right. I mean, yes, I am the number one seed because I did reasonably well in most of the events, but I also participated in the most events. So go to as many as you can. I mean, I sort of traded in going to the IFPA World Championships abroad for three additional circuit events until I sort of moved that budget money over, and so that helped me secure the number one seed this time. So, yeah, it is really like putting a whole lot of fish bait in the water and catching as many fish as you can. So it worked. I caught enough, and so even though my average is not as good as some of the other players, because I went to more of the events, it worked out for me. So really, try to go to as many events as you can. It helps. So especially to counteract some of the big point events like your InDesk or your Pinberg, some of those big jackpot events, you have to really bring up your volume in order to bring, if you don't do well in those events, to really help there. Well, I've also seen that on your profile that you've got to pretty much to advance your ranking, you've got to earn about 30 points. So that's pretty much, for any of your local tournaments, you've pretty much got to win them as well. So it's not just about going to all of them. You've actually got to win them as well. Yeah, I've got to win a local and at a regional or a major that's like a top 16 or a top 8 at least to get on the card. So once you're on the front page and once you're at that level, it really takes a lot to stay up there. I mean, just think, I'm 14 now. Last month and a half I was 10. And why did I drop four spots? In-disc. That's the reason. I didn't qualify for the finals by a poor decision I made to play one game instead of another game, which I should have played, and not qualifying for the finals meant I lost four spots because of other people who did qualify, and those points make the difference. It's that sort of volatility, even in the top spots, that can really affect your ranking. You talk about in-disc in the open. It's now the fifth major. So for those that have never been to Indisc, it's a different type of format, too. It's not something we see in a lot of places. It is what they call the old papa ticket. And that is, in my humble estimation, the hardest tournament to get to the playoffs. It's the hardest one to qualify because you have to be consistent on, in this case, five consecutive games. Not only five consecutive games in a set, five consecutive games from different eras that you probably wouldn't even think were tournament games. but all of a sudden are because they're here at N-Disc and they try not to use repeat games ever. So you'll see games that you'll think, why is this a tournament game? And you play it and you'll say, oh, yes, it is a tournament game. You set it up this way. So that, you can tell from like last year they had Safecracker. They made that a tournament game. I remember one year Party Zone became a tournament game because they cut off part of the ramp. That's why they did that.
    48:43
    So they do what they can to make that happen. And so, yeah, that is the toughest test of consistency and efficiency because if you screw up game one or game two, that's $20 gone. I mean, you're not qualifying with that. So you've got to get another entry. And one thing that really, even though it's unlimited, it's not really because it's time limited. You have to have a good enough time management to really manage your time in addition. I mean, barring the fact if you're a player who just come in, do it in two entries and leave. I mean, that's a different thing. That's something that I've only done once ever, and it feels good to play a one entry and then be done with it. I've only done that once, and I was at a Pittsburgh pinball open a couple years ago, and I was totally surprised, and I didn't even realize it was that good until the entry just stayed up there all weekend.
    49:34
    But barring that, you have to have the time management and make sure you pick the right games, and you realize you're going to have to wait, and when you get up there after waiting a half an hour, don't go on a game and totally bomb it because that's $20 gone. So you've got to start over, avoid it, and try again. And also make sure that you do simple basic things like eating and drinking properly so you don't fall out from just trying to qualify all day. Because you've also got the classics running at the same time, is that right? That's right. And if you have events running simultaneously, that's another thing that eats into your time. And I didn't really get an opportunity to play the classics because I didn't do well in open. So I was concentrating on open, trying to get as well as I could. And if I did well enough, then I'd be able to go into classics. But I never was able to do that. So, which means not only did I didn't get an open, I didn't really do much in classics. And there were a lot of points in classics because of the amount of people there. I mean, you could basically just show up, breathe properly, and you'll get double-digit whoppers. Well, yeah, in the first classics, you came 14th, and that was nearly 26 points for 14th. So, hey, whatever. a couple more up, you would have actually started impacting your ratings as well. Right. So it's really, so I just, I know from next year since, I mean, Indus is obviously going to remain a major hopefully forever because it deserves to be. So I know next year if I find that I'm not doing well in the main event I might just say forget it. Let's go in classes to see if I can fit some entries in, which is still going to be difficult because the amount of people, again, the time. It takes some time to really get those entries in and you don't want to wait half an hour to play some mini-flipper-till-ends-game game and score absolutely nothing and destroy your set and have to start over because you might just run out of time. Same thing as in Maine, what happens in Classics? You don't have to worry about that at the Stern Pro Circuit, and all you have to worry about is the one game in hand and not even win it until it comes down to the final two, should that be the case. So, are you looking at the first game being a game that you love, or are you looking at your opponents and going, they're not very good at that game. It's got to be a game you love. It has to be a game I want to play. That doesn't make any other sense to do it that way because the people are there. It doesn't matter.
    51:46
    Everyone knows all the games. So it has to be a game that I think I can play well enough. And as far as which game that will be, I don't know what it will be. I mean, there's that stipulation in the rules where you can't pick the same game twice in a row. So one of the games will be unavailable for me, whichever one that will be, I will see. So I probably won't know what I'll pick until I'm there. Well, we have the list out there, but I don't know what I'm going to choose. So forgive my ignorance here, but it's a Stern Pro Circuit. Does that mean that there's Stern machines, or is it actually just still a mix of machines of all eras? Not only is it Stern machines, unlike the previous years, it's all new Stern machines. Because remember, the previous years, they had, like, Catacomb and Freefall. No, now it's all the new machines. You're talking about Deadpool. You're talking about Black Knight. You're talking about Star Wars, things like Monsters, probably Elvira. Where's the list? Let me see where the list is. You know what? I get it. Stern has been very generous, extremely generous, to donate huge prizes, not only to this with the new in-box Stern machine. You look at what they did last weekend at NACS and the Women's Championship. I get it. That's great. I'm sorry. I like the mix. That's why I love Pinnberg so much. You have to be great in all eras, not just one era. But really, the Stern Pro Circuit, they're footing the bill. It is a marketing tool for them. They want to show off the new games. I just, I'm not a fan. Hey, I'm trying to play some of the older Sterns, too. I mean, you know, give me a few issues.
    53:17
    I love that game. But, hey, that's what's on the table. So I will pick one of them and roll with it and see what happens. Well, I'm not going to ask you what your favorite games are because, you know, we don't want to give, you know, your secrets away before you get there. But what would you say are some of the better tournament games from recent Stern? Oh, let's see. Black Knight Pro. With the LE rules change, we'll see what happens there. See, I'm not sure. Well, LE was basically almost eliminated on Pinball Expo when the game took two hours. Yes, we saw that. So that gave some well-deserved rules changes. So that might be back in. So I'm not sure. but, yeah, so what, I mean, I don't know what I would pick there. Certainly Deadpool is going to be a good choice for people. That's what I imagine would be a good choice. I mean, I don't know if that might be possible. Well, that's right. I remember just picked the same game twice in a row. It was like last year, no Batman all day. Right, okay. Right? Jeff and I talk about Deadpool all the time because we were so cool on it when it first came out. It has just evolved into such a great game. Right, well, code updates will do that for you. Right, I mean, it's definitely more balanced, and I have more fun with it, and it's certainly more dangerous. Any side-to-side action is basically death without those rubbers on the side by default. Yeah. You know, but, yeah, but if you control things right, you can have some good fun and at least get the mech suit multi-ball and, you know, just really put up a good score from that, and you can get further, then the game really starts to blow up. or if you can, like, luck up and get that play Felix, some people can actually shoot that shot on purpose, which I still don't get. I mean, every time I try to shoot it off the target to get the play Felix, it never goes up there until I do it by accident. And also, we said before that Munsters, obviously, is the machine that you're going to potentially win. How do you rate that as a tournament game? Well, it's basic. I mean, it's like the Iron Man of the era, right? It's basically, that's what it feels like to me. It's like, do your basic objectives, do them right, Hopefully do them right the first time And you won't get strangled by the ruleset So make sure you get your Herman done Bring that into your Lily Do that right And make sure you have enough So you bring Raven in And if you do all that right You'll flow to Monster Madness Or whatever the end mode is But if at any point you stumble You might find yourself behind a rock in a hard place And catching up to people who have done it correctly So, and that's fine in the tournament game, it's just a different type of tournament game. It's a game where you have to do everything right, as opposed to another game where you might do things wrong in the first ball, but then you might be able to set up a big cash-in to catch up, like an Iron Maiden or something like that. So, it'll be fun in the tournament game. I'm just wondering how many people will pick it. I mean, we'll see. But I expect Deadpool to be a popular choice. Maiden, obviously, that's going to be a choice. So, we'll see what gets selected there. and at least I'll be able to see what people pick. I'll be paying attention. I'll be paying attention to see what people pick and why. But really at that point it really won matter I still going to pick what I want to play Steven you might be able to find out some information on those new Stern Pro Circuit trading cards where they talk about what their favorite Stern game is So you might be able to get a little intel there Those cards are cool. Yeah, I really like those cards. I see number 20 and number 19 have come out. So I saw Zach Sharper and I saw Jason Wojcik. So I guess which means I'm going to have to wait for mine if they're going backwards with the ranking. So once I see that, I'm definitely going to save it and, you know, put it on my profile. and they're really cool and really nice looking and really professional. So really well done. It's really cool to have a trading card, isn't it, Steve? Yeah.
    57:05
    I have had a trading card before. I've got one. Have you got yours, Jeff? When I coached my son in baseball, they had a coach's card that we did. We had to pay for them.
    57:18
    Does that count? Walter Day is getting me one. I thought that was very nice. I did an interview with him, and I was going to end the interview if he said I wasn't getting one, but he said we'll get one, so the interview continued. Anyway, it's coming, you jackass.
    57:35
    All right. Well, listen, Marty, have you ever been on mybookie.net and lost people thousands of dollars like I have? I have been to mybookie. I find it really curious just to see how they rank the odds for the different players, But I believe there is. MyBookie, you can bet on the Stem Pro Circuit. Is that right? Yeah, I got the MyBookie odds up right here. Yeah, I'm at 3-1. I got Escher at 3-1, Raymer at 3-1. Yeah, so which makes sense because I have the shortest path to victory. But yeah, it really does. I guess I can say as far as like how I feel about it. Bet with your head, not over it. That's the classic setting. Call 1-800-GAMBLER. they always have in tiny text on the bottom of every one of those advertisers for some reason. But anyway, I mean, it doesn't affect me at all. It's fun. It's a fun thing to see. It's nice to be able to, nice to see that someone can actually place a bet on me. Yeah, some people will put some money on there, but not me. I'm saving my money. In fact, I sold a game last week to make room for a brand new game that I'll be seeing two weeks from today. Yes. In Raza at Deep Root. So, Steve, give everybody a sneak peek. Tell everybody what they're going to see in two weeks. Go. You saw it. You saw what happened at Houston, right? I mean, you saw that. You remember that video, right? It was a prototype. Right? That was the prototype. And you'll see some other things there. You'll see some additional Raza there. And I'll probably be able to expand my vocabulary in certain ways that I haven't been able to yet. We'll be able to slide the window of things I can talk about one slot over. And finally I can talk about Raza as much as I want to. I so look forward to that So look forward to seeing as many pinball friends As possible You two will be there right? Yeah we're both going to be there So that's good because I do not have a guest list So I don't know who's going to be there I'm not in charge of that I don't know so it's going to be a surprise to me Who is going to be there And so yeah I just look forward to You know my little part of the program Where I get to explain the game And you know a little bit of tips and tricks and maybe come out with, you know, a little bit of a strategy guide sheet or get Tilt Forum started off on what they're going to figure out about the game. And, yeah, I can't wait to show everybody and get everything rolling and, like I said, just finally be able to talk at least fully about one game.
    60:02
    And I assume that you guys now actually paid for a proper voiceover talent instead of that placeholder voiceover that you had in the demo. Oh, what placeholder? This isn't Pinball Profile, right? So, Marty, I can give you a big fuck off right about now?
    60:18
    We need that as like a 1% call out. Can we take that again? Let's record that. Let's get a take of that.
    60:28
    Yeah, I get to play the game, and it sounds good to me. Let me add a couple of call outs in there just to get them in. Fuck you, Marty. gotta put a special code in order to hear that slipper code yeah right but yeah I get to play the game and it's nice to see things go in and things happen the way I want them to happen one thing that I'm really looking forward to is the criticism and by that I mean being able to ask people what they think about the game and the rules and the lights and, you know, do they guide you on things well? Do you notice these things? Can you understand what I'm trying to do with this? What do you like about it? What do you hate about it? I mean, not that I'm going to maybe do anything about that, but I might. You know, but, I mean, I haven't been able to ask anyone because it's just been, you know, I haven't been able to ask anyone outside of the company, of course. Yeah, fair enough. How did you and the staff feel about the feedback you got from the prototype at the Houston Arcade Expo? Oh, we took a, I mean, that was, it was great feedback that we got. I mean, we got feedback on a lot of stuff. I mean, it was a lot of statistics, a lot of talk from conversations and things that we took into account. And, you know, it was, it was definitely glad to get it. I was glad to get it out there and get it amongst the other games. That's just, it just looked good out there as opposed to being, you know, at the office. It just looks better amongst the other games in an arcade setting. But the good thing, I guess, for you personally was back then, because it had early code, people would say, don't criticize the code because it's early code. Now, this is what you're looking forward to because it's now so much more advanced. People are going to be ready to talk about it. Right. So we're ready to talk about it. So I can't wait to hear what people like about it and what people don't like about it. Because that's how I'll learn. And that's how I'll... As long as the criticism is constructive. but if it isn't then I don't hear you not at all I don't hear you I guess you're probably just really happy to not have to keep a secret after you've been doing it for so long right I'll be happy to not have to keep one secret so it'll be secrets minus one equal secrets remaining right the window moves over only one spot and that's it but it's a big slot so once I get started and everybody comes in and checks it out I'm just really I'm really looking forward to it it's a wait but it's like a good wait by wait I mean wait off your shoulders and wait to show it both forms of the word nicely done Steven I think of a woman when she becomes pregnant the first time it's like the longest nine months ever so for Deep Root and their baby here. This has been a long, quote-unquote, nine months, and now the delivery date is being induced on the 25th, so we're going to get to see. Yeah, everybody come see, and then bust it up to TPF and come see.
    63:37
    TPF is going to be ridiculous this year. It's going to be fantastic. Never mind the tournaments, and everybody's going to be there, and the games, and we're going to be there, and more announcements. And that's going to be a serious one this year. But, yeah, can't wait for that 25th. Come down here. Come down here and visit and see the presentation and eat the food and play and linger longer and play more games and talk to us. And I finally get to introduce more people to the pinball community. And, yeah, I'll be glad to see them get to say some stuff about what they're doing and how they're helping this game really come together. And, yeah, I can't wait to see people get on it and just start to figure things out. Like, it's just one of the things that, I mean, this was just a personal moment at Houston. And just really, Jeff, seeing you figure it out. Remember when you figured something out? Oh, I know what you're talking about, yeah. Right? And I said, yep, I didn't want to say anything.
    64:40
    But to see you figure this out and the reason why this was that. Now, that was the Houston version of figuring it out. It's going to be slightly different now. But just seeing that was a good moment. And, you know, I did have to back away a bit where I was like, you know what? Yeah, I think this worked. You know, this is something that's happening. Because one thing about rule sets that I found is that it's more than just the rule set itself. is what other things does that rule set produce that people figure out? So, some of that might not even have been intended. You know, like, yeah, that's a ticket. Yeah, let's keep that. Yeah, that works.
    65:20
    But there will be Raza at the Texas Pinball Festival. Oh, yeah. Excellent. Absolutely. So, everyone, you'll be able to play it there. Yep. So, and please, I will be there. And it's back and forth going between the tournament and the booth and all that. So, you know, just say hi and tell me what you think. And, you know, yeah, you can be nice. And if you're not, whatever.
    65:46
    I can take it. Steven, I can't thank you enough for taking time out of this incredibly busy month for you. Best of luck at the Stern Pro Circuit. We're rooting for you. And we're rooting for Deep Root, too, because that's going to be something to see in two weeks and also at TPF. So thank you very much, Steven. Thank you so much for having me, and I'm looking forward to showing off, looking forward to see you two there, and to see as many pinball friends that I know from back east, back from, you know, east coast, and all the people that I've met traveling around the country, all these circuit events. And like I said, I don't know who's going to be there, so it's going to be a surprise to me. So I hope to see as many pinball friends as possible, and I am looking forward to it. Good stuff. Thanks, man. Thank you. There you go. There was Steve, and we've mentioned it before, and we're going to get to catch up with him in a couple of weeks. to vote for coronavirus, sparing us, of course. So it'd be really good to continue that conversation. Always a great person to speak to and always just very knowledgeable. Good to hear from Stephen Bowden. Looking forward to seeing him, like you said, in two weeks. And thanks very much for coming on Final Round Pinball Podcast, which, by the way, we've only got two shows under our belt. And my goodness, our first two sponsors, we've heard back from them, right? Sales have gone through the roof. Well, I mean, that makes sense. I mean, once you get the final round Pinball Podcast seal of approval, you know the brand will be at an all-time high. And in fact, I'm sure our latest sponsor will be flying off the shelves. Well, in these trying times, basic needs have become hot commodities. A wealthy person used to hoard gold, silver, cash, or bonds. Now there's a new currency, a new stock, and it's bigger than the height of Bitcoin. Cheap-ass toilet paper. Sure, it's only one ply and made from recycled highway pinball flyers. But at 50 cents a roll, these shit tickets go for 10 times as much on the brown market. There's no worse feeling than running out of pooper razors. Feel confident when Mother Nature calls and grab a handle of our wafer-thin TP. There are better bowel towels than cheap-ass toilet paper, but good luck finding them. Remember the days when you would only settle for Charmin or Cottonelle?
    67:47
    You'll be begging for a bumwad. Cheap-ass toilet paper. We're behind you all the way. I don't know how you segue from toilet paper to our next guest. You might need to have a little distance, but it's all about sponsorship, and that's something that's very important when you're running a tournament, correct? Absolutely. It certainly helps providing funding for the venue in a lot of cases. A lot of times, these places that these people tournament are held at, there's actually money that needs to be paid to hire out these spaces. So sponsorship money helps with that. also helps with prizes, with money that you can give out as well. And obviously, we've seen with some tournaments, Stern pretty much gives out a machine these days for every tournament that they're sponsoring. So yeah, sponsorship goes a long way. We certainly like to talk about big tournaments, big events here on Final Round. And one of them coming up in a couple of months is one that is now in its third year. It gets bigger and better every year. It is the New York City Pinball Championships. You can find out more on nycpinballchamps.com. And you can even find out more when you bring on the guy from Never Beef Productions. Levy Naiman joins us right now. Hey, Levy, how are you? Good. How are you guys doing? Very good. I'm just going to get this out of the way. Boo!
    68:59
    There might be a few of those. Especially if you're in Hell's Kitchen at the Skyline Hotel. That is something that is unique about this tournament. It is a normal tournament in the sense that you've got things like the main open event, the B Division, the Classics, the Dahlia Rowan Memorial Women's Tournament, and also the Tribeca Pinball VIP pre-party and tourney. So lots going on in New York, but it really is a different atmosphere. That boom was a good example. Explain the atmosphere, Levy, and even things like the commentating that you would see on stream. Well, you know, you've been there, Jeff. Basically, we like to keep it light. We're trying to have a good time. A lot of these tournaments, you know, they're great for players, but, you know, the atmosphere is a little dry, I would say. You know, we like to try to have a good time, right? You know, we're going to have music playing. We're going to have live music. We're going to have, of course, energetic commentary. We really like to have a diverse group of people in there, people who get excited. And I kind of found that, you know, people, they kind of loosen up when they get in there. They put on the red Never Beef Productions jackets, the signature burgundy blazers. I'm sorry. You know, they just kind of get into the spirit of it. We're just trying to have fun, and we're trying to make sure everybody at the tournament has fun. Even if you're maybe not doing that well in the tournament, maybe if you're not in the tournament, you can still find something to, you know, wrap your head around and have a good time with. Will there be a storm warning again this year? I don't know. You know, you can never really predict these weather patterns in New York. But, you know, when you have talent like that just in your social circle, in your professional circle, in your neighborhood, you have to take advantage of it. So I'm not going to make any promises, but I'm also going to tell you you might want to bring your windbreaker.
    70:44
    Thanks for asking. My pleasure. So you said, how is it that you have decided that this will be different to others? Because you said, obviously, tournaments are dry, and they can be, and there's a lot of focus there, but is it because you've got people that are less serious about tournaments as well, or is it just the way that you present the tournament? You know, Martin, I'll tell you, if you've been to our tournament, and I know you haven't, but maybe you'll make it this year, it's dead serious. I mean, this is high world-class level, top-level competition. The best of the best. I mean, we have, in any given tournament, we'll have, you know, five of the top ten in the world, top 15. So it is a very serious pinball tournament. But to your point, we've all been to a lot of tournaments. We're trying to throw the kind of tournament that we would like to attend, something that's a little less scuffy, a little more atmosphere, you know, and I love all the other tournaments. People are doing a great job with them. But we're just trying to kind of add a little, we're just trying to throw some more stuff into the mix. Music, excitement with the commentary and the stream. And, you know, just not a rigid atmosphere. Something where if something looks like it's happening on another game, we can just roll the rig over there and we can cover it. You know, we're not locked into one thing for the entire two-hour round or whatever. and we just want people to kind of bring a little bit of themselves into it and not feel so shackled by the constraints of the pinball patriarchy. My question really goes to if there's somebody that's listening to this podcast and they're thinking, oh, do I want to go into a tournament or not? Let's just say it's their first tournament. What sort of suggestion would you give to them how they're going to get the best out of this? Well, I would say we have a lot of first-timers and I think you just show up and you start playing and you see how it shakes out. We've got a beach tournament. We've got a women's tournament. We've got classics. So, you know, I've had a lot of first-timers come to this thing and say, oh, I didn't really know what to expect. I kind of was a little intimidated, but then when I started playing, I just kind of saw what everybody else was doing. Everybody was having a good time. Everybody was pumping. Everybody was dumping. And it just kind of they get into the spirit pretty quickly. And keep in mind, we have a very large local player base here, But I'd say the vast majority of these people never really make it beyond Jack Bar or Sunshine, you know, these leagues. And, you know, we're throwing this big tournament right in their backyard. And for a lot of good New York City players who just don't really travel, this is kind of their first and their only exposure to real big-time tournaments. You know, I think it's just good for people to get into it. And, you know, every year there's thousands more IFPA-registered players. And the reason is because people are throwing tournaments. You know, locals are coming out and experiencing it, and if they get into it, you know, they go to the next one somewhere else. So, you know, we're just trying to do our bit there. Levy, do you know what the New York City Pinball Championships brought to me as far as a first-time experience? I'm afraid to ask, but go ahead. Don't be afraid. It would be G Fuel. I had never heard of G Fuel before, and now, hooked. Good sponsor. Yeah, good sponsor.
    73:49
    Terrifyingly addictive. But, yeah, we are putting together our sponsors for this year. we'll probably be putting out a full list in a couple weeks. If anybody out there is interested in joining the team as a sponsor or if they think they have anything to bring to Neverbeef, we have a lot of guys who have really helped out. Chad Hastings over at First State Pinball in Delaware, he's doing our sound, and he's bringing us a bunch of his pro lighting and all that stuff. We've had other people help out with making signs and stuff like that. So, you know, if anybody wants to come on board the team, like I said, as a sponsor, if they have any other talents that maybe I haven't even thought of, bring it to me. This might be how we end up with like a snake charmer or something for entertainment. You never know. But it's a big production and we're a small team. So, you know, we're always on the lookout for talent and assistance. So thinking about, as Jeff said, you've been going for three years. Have there been significant changes to the tournament over that time and things that you would be looking forward to for the future? Yeah, you know, the first year we kind of wanted to keep it small or smaller just so we didn't kind of dig ourselves in anything too deep. I think unlike most tournaments, it's just not cheap to do anything in New York. So we wanted to make sure we didn't go too broke the first year. And it worked out. The response was really good. The attendance was good. So we expanded about two times for last year. And that's the model we're going to stick with. We really like the big ballroom downstairs. I miss the beautiful view, but the grand ballroom is really something. I'm sure Jeff can tell you. They've got the cool LED lighting. They've got a stage for us. This new Israeli nightclub opened up on the floor, which is kind of cool. So we're going to refine what we did last year rather than completely change it, which is what we did between the first two years. I think we're going to work on the production a little bit. We have some surprises there. We're going to move the layout a little bit. So anybody who's run these things knows it's just all about kind of refining what you're doing. kind of needing the stuff that works and maybe stuff that doesn't work, maybe getting rid of it or changing it. You know, we've got about two and a half months to go, so we've got a lot of meetings ahead of us. I can tell you it's going to be a lot of fun, and if you liked it last year, you're going to like it this year. And if you didn't like it last year, we probably won't see you, but somebody will take your place and they'll have an awesome time. And so if somebody does want to participate, how do they get in touch to sign up? I would go to our redesigned website. Right. We had a not going to lie. We had a pretty crappy amateur Wix website the first year or so. We have moved on to a much better amateur Squarespace site this year. And it looks great. Go to NYCPinballChamps.com. You can register there. There's a link there to register. We're going to have information about other things you can do. I think everybody loves the Ninth Avenue Street Festival. I kind of forgot that that was the same weekend. But every weekend, it's the same as our and that's a coincidence. It's the same as our tournament, and that's about, you know, 30 blocks of food a block away from the tournament, and it's always beautiful. We've been blessed with great weather the last few years, and I can only assume it's going to be beautiful this year. That street festival is amazing, too, and I'm so glad that it's going on at the same time. And also, too, it's a Canadian long weekend, so you get a lot of us Canucks. Yeah, you know, the Canadians are well represented at NYCPC. We would have it no other way. So bring it on. Come on down. You know, we also have, we've had some Brits, we've had some Swedes, some Finns. So, you know, we really like to keep it international. So come on down. Here's the thing that a lot of people are wondering. We just had the Pin Masters Sturm Pro Circuit event this past weekend in Denver, and this will be your third year. So next year, looking at the points, and you talked about some of the greatest players playing this tournament, my guess is you will qualify, if you want, for the Sturm Pro Circuit next year after three years. So the question has to be asked. Is that something that you want to do with Never Beef Productions and the NYCPC? Well, you know, we really like to focus on this on a year-by-year basis, so I don't want to get ahead of ourselves. Sounds like he's avoiding the question, but... No, no, no, no. We don't want to get ahead of ourselves. We want to put on the best year three tournament we can. But that certainly is out there, and I'm sure we'll be eligible. I mean, I think we were, of U.S. tournaments, we were in the top three or four Whopper Halls last year. It was really incredible. I think first place was around 70, and I think first place for classics was around 60. So, you know, I certainly think we've got the credentials to be a Stern Pro Circuit event if they'll have us and if we want to do it. But I would say that's a conversation for four or five months from now after this is another smashing success, I'm sure. You know what? Fair enough. I agree. What do you think? I mean, what do you think the Stern Pro Circuit stuff brings to the table? For me, I think a Stern Pro Circuit has to be certainly a well-run tournament. That is definitely the case with the New York City Pinball Championships. I think it has to be inviting to as many people as possible. And even though yours is capped, it's a large capped number, like many of the capped tournaments. I think that's a factor, too, because you don't want to exclude anyone. I know there are limitations and things, but it's unfortunate when you have a huge waiting list of things and people can't get in and they want to get in, especially since there's a huge dollar now attached to the Stern Pro Circuit from all the $5 funds that go in. I mean, those people are going to get $600 just for showing up in a couple of weeks in Chicago. So that's the worst you can do. I think it's really up to you. I mean, that money has to come from somewhere. So that's a factor too, right? So if you're paying $5 per person to go to the Stern Pro Circuit times 200 players, that's $1,000 out of the purse. You really have to think about it, and it's not my call. So you're right when you say we'll figure it out in about four or five months. Like you said, there's a lot of things to think about there. And, you know, we are just trying to do the best tournament we can and make it work for everybody. But thanks for bringing it up. Well, you know, because it hadn't crossed my mind. Yeah, right. Do you sell out? Does all the spots get filled, actually? We sold out the first year, and I think last year we sold out legit, but then we found some more room. So I think we had around 250 people last year. We could probably cram a little more than that in there, but so far it hasn't been an issue. And it did kind of suck the first year, turning some people away at the door. Yeah. That was a much smaller room, and we've got a really great grand ballroom to work with right now. But I would encourage people to buy their tickets because you never know. Well, that's a good point, Levy, and I do want to bring that up. The preregistration is important to do online, get that all done. It also helps tournaments, not just this one but others, to have that information beforehand so you're not waiting in line, waiting to pump, waiting to dump. You have that done before the tournament's all set and ready to go, and then, you know, you can get your ID number, and you just go, and you don't have to wait. You don't have to go straight to the machine. Yeah, and that was the first year. Again, you know, first-time tournament, that was probably the worst aspect of our first year. There was, I don't know, it might have been a 90-minute wait for some people to get started. But you fixed it. Last year. What's that? But you fixed it. Yeah, we did fix it. Yeah, last year we were able to have everybody pre-registered, and people were coming right in and playing. I know, I was there. I was on the stage welcoming people to the tournament, to the strains of starting me up by the Rolling Stones. God, I remember it was like it was yesterday. You know, I'm only two blocks away from there. Actually, my apartment's about two blocks from the venue. So it's funny, I pass that place all the time, and it fills me with warmth and good feeling and excitement for the New York City Pinball Championships, and for tournament pinball in particular. That's kind of the worst thing about it is that, you know, I don't really get to play in this thing. I do the classics. We don't get to play in the main tournament because we are dedicated to putting on the best tournament we can. And, you know, anybody who runs a tournament and doesn't play in it knows what that sacrifice is like. But we're doing it all for you, Jeff. Thank you. Besides your own tournament, which obviously you're there, what are the other must-go-to tournaments in North America for you? That's a good question. I really like MAGFest. It's a really fun tournament. I don't think it was a circuit this year. I've been probably three or four years. I tend to do very well in that environment. It's dark. There's lasers. There's loud music. There's, like, half-naked people walking all over the place doing cosplay. And I've done really well in that tournament. I think I won it one year, and I've come in second three times in that tournament. And I just really like the atmosphere of it. I mean, it's a huge, like, con, you know, and it's not like what we're doing, But it's definitely kind of – that's kind of the way I'd like to see more pinball tournaments go. And I've seen, you know, a lot of people have struggled for the soul of MAGFest. I remember after the first year I went, these people were complaining, and they wanted it moved back into the Magic the Gathering room, which is, like, the only quiet place in the entire convention. But fortunately, good sense prevailed, and they have kept it high profile where people can see it and exciting. and we're actually thinking of working with them a little bit next year on getting a stream going. They've never done that before and doing some other exciting things. So I would say MAGFest is one of the ones I really like to go to. Of course, there's Pinberg, but I don't need to tell anybody about that. You know, that's where everybody is. It's exciting. I don't know. Pintastic always has a nice vibe. You ever been to that one, Jeff? I was in the top four last year.
    83:12
    That's right. I remember commentating on it. Congratulations. Thanks. You finished third, right? No, I finished fourth. I had to play Bowen for third place. he might have won.
    83:21
    Yeah, I really like Fantastic. They got a cool vibe. They bring all those oddball games down from the sanctum. You never know what you're going to get, but I like the general vibe of that tournament. I had a good time at Indisc. Of course, you know, that's a huge tournament. You were there as well. I like the tournaments that go a little bit beyond hotel breakout room and not a lot of atmosphere. I don't want to name any in particular, but I just think you need to try to make it a little something where if somebody just walked into it, they wouldn't be like back out of the room slowly in what they're seeing. It's just something inviting, something entertaining, something with a little bit of spirit and enthusiasm. Those are the kind of tournaments I like. We know that there are a lot of people from North America coming out to the Brisbane Masters this year, or BPAC, because it's actually a 10-day pinball festival and arcade. Is that something that you would consider for the future? We would love to do a show-type thing. It's just tough in New York because it's, you know, we've come up with this a lot, you know, and bringing in sponsors and trying to get people to help us out with games. There's not really loading zones. There's nowhere to leave your truck if you have, like, a semi or a 24-foot box truck. So my question actually was, is that something that you would want to come out to Australia for, that tournament? Oh, hell yeah. Yeah, I would love to go to Australia. You know, another one, one tournament that I left out is the European Pinball Championships. Have you ever been to that one, Martin? No, I haven't. That a lot of fun I mean again it the same kind of thing It somewhere else with a lot of people you don see if you an American tournament player And I went two years ago in Finland Yunus invited me, and I'm really glad he did because it was awesome when the Finns were putting on. And last year, a bunch of us, some more Americans, I would say, and New Yorkers in particular, went out to the one in Copenhagen. And that's a really, really cool tournament. They had pyro, which I've always wanted to do pyro, you know. It's not easy, you know. I'm always pushing the pyro, and they're like, oh, we're going to do that next year. We're going to talk about it later. And we show up, and these guys do pyro, and it was awesome. So, yeah, I would definitely love to come out to Australia for a 10-day tournament and arcade show. What are you guys doing over there? So, as I said, this is part of the Brisbane Pinball and Arcade Collective. So it is a mix of, obviously, things like pinball tournaments. There's flip frenzies, there's kids' tournaments, there's women's tournaments, there's classic tournaments. There's also Donkey Kong, like the Kong-Off. That's sort of one of the big, major Donkey Kong sort of tournaments throughout the world happens here as well. But it's also in different locations as well. So there is a new venue that they're at. It's like a brewery, I believe. But then there's also other tournaments around the Brisbane and surrounding areas as well. So it's like a tournament crawl. It actually is. But it's not just pinball. I think there is pinball every day, but there's also arcade every day. There's strikes tournaments. There's pump and dumps as well. As I said, it's just become, because it's 10 days, it's really appealing for people to spend the money to fly all the way over here because you're actually getting a really good return on your money. Hey, who's plugging what here? When is it?
    86:28
    No, but... When is it, Sir Dan Martin? So this is 31st of July to August 9th. The only reason why I'm asking you, and I'll probably ask a lot of people, because what I'm trying to really understand is what makes something appealing for you to go to locally and what makes something appealing for you to travel halfway around the world? That's a really interesting question. You know, locally, I mean, if you mean really locally, I would say your standards are a lot lower. It's like, am I doing anything that day and how local is it? I'll go. Travel? So definitely I want it to be something in preferably an exotic place or an interesting place I've never been before and something that offers a lot of bang for your buck. You know, you don't want to – for instance, you know, I'm not eligible this year, but last year I believe I was eligible for the Pro Circuit event, and I just, you know, I had a lot of other stuff going on. I just wasn't in the mood to fly out to Chicago for that tournament, knowing that I probably wouldn't do too well and that, you know, that might be the end of it. it's cool to go somewhere where there's several tournaments, you know. So, for instance, if you're throwing 15 events in Brisbane, that might be worth making the trip for. You know, definitely in format as well, you know, there's some tournaments people like more than others. You know, Trent refuses to come to our tournament because he says he doesn't like Papa style.
    87:47
    Really? Well, that's what he said, you know. I keep trying to get him to come out here. But he really, really prefers head-to-head. If we went head-to-head, maybe he'd pull the trigger. But, you know, I like Papa's style because, you know, you can maybe not play that well and still advance the next round. Levy, I agree with you. I like looking when I'm traveling, are there more than one tournament that I can play in? Because one tournament, you know, you have to look at the cost factor and something like that. And heaven forbid you have a bad tournament. Well, okay. At least with a couple of tournaments or maybe more than two, you've got a couple of chances. That's what was exciting for me about Indisc with all those different tournaments. Maybe one of them I can do well. We are looking forward to it again. It is May 14th to 17th, nycpinballchamps.com. You can register for that. And, again, they're looking for sponsors for some help. But, really, the players are going to make it fantastic in year three. Well done to you, Levy, and everyone at Never Beef Productions. Thanks, Jeff. Thanks, Martin. Thanks, man. Thanks, Levy. Appreciate you coming on the program. That's going to be a big tournament. And, you know, we talked about pinmasters and North American Championship Series, ECS. There's another pretty cool tournament going on. Well, there is indeed. This is in New Zealand, so my neck of the woods. Good to see it. And this is Pinkade that happens every year. It's a tournament. I think it's run over four days. The first couple of days in Wellington, then everybody drives up to Auckland for the remainder. And there's strikes tournaments. There's classics tournaments. There's the World System 11 Championship, because David Peck, who runs a lot of these tournaments, he owns every single System 11 machine that exists. So they battle it out. on all those machines. What was really interesting, one of the tournaments, they called it the Fishtails Symphony, and this tournament had 10 fishtails machines, 10 of them. That's amazing. Side by side, I know, and there's video footage of it showing the line-up, and how this particular tournament ran was, you know, at 10 at a time, people on these machines, and it was kind of a bit like Ping Golf, where there was certain objectives that needed to be met, like getting to Monsterfish and whoever got to Monsterfish first got, I think, 10 points and then whoever got second got 9 points. There was Start Video Mode, Start Multiball, Fast Casts or Start Rock the Boat. 45 competitors and Jochen, I think his name is, from Sweden came second and Dave Peck came first. So, well done, Dave. I would just like to see the 10 fishtails together. But he also had the System 11 tournament that you mentioned. Yeah, we did. And this one, it was won by Dave Peck Maybe a home field advantage Because they are his machines But he's not won it before So good luck to him for that I think Joachim came second on that as well Dave's a great player Let's not cut him short here I mean, yes, it was in his place But Dave, I've seen him play He's very, very good He is very good I would like to see his Led Zeppelin game Well, yeah I don't know whether that was in any tournaments But yeah, it looks amazing It sounds amazing I think I saw a video of him hooking it up to a Marshall amp stack, whatever you call it. It's amazing. If only somebody would make a Led Zeppelin game.
    90:53
    One day. We can talk about that later. I just don't want to see a Led Zeppelin game. What? Yeah, I don't... I don't know. Maybe it's just a personal thing. I just don't really dig them that much. But I know it's such a popular title and people will be screaming for it. Whatever. Anyway. Putting the final in final round pinball podcast. Watch your mouth there, kid. What's your dream game? My dream game? I just need to know so I can shit all over it. Go ahead. Harry Potter. What are you, five years old? Yep. Do you got your toy wands? Yep. I actually do.
    91:31
    I can't slag it because I think it's a good idea. That is the license for sure. That is very, very attractive. You know, I'm just making fun of you, not Harry Potter, because you called my baby ugly. Sure. Well, the fact that I am a 50-year-old that did happen to buy a wand at Universal Studios when I went to Harry Potter World. Sure. Okay, fine. Oh, by the way, how long was the lineup to get into the wand store? Because I've seen some of those lineups. Yeah, it was, I think, by the time it took me to actually pick the wand, it was Bellatrix Lestrange's wand, for those people that want to know. I think it was about 45 minutes just waiting in the queue to pay for it. Gosh. I know. It's crazy. But there you go. So do you use it a lot? These are adults. No, it's a box away and I've just got it there. I was at your house. I didn't see it. I mean, I assumed it would have been front and center. Maybe it was behind all the gin bottles. I don't know. You will never see my wand, Jeff. Just putting that out there. So, I know. Oh, the point of it is I was in that queue for 45 minutes. And there were adults in that queue for 45 minutes. It is a really popular theme for adults and kids, and a really good crossover. If you did release it as a game, you would get younger people in, and you would get the adults satisfied as well. I mean, it's the dream theme for a lot of people. Yes, yes, we know it's the greatest theme ever, yeah.
    92:55
    Listen, everything you say is right, and 45 minutes for a queue? That's nothing to a pinball player.
    93:02
    Certainly isn't it, Hugh? He was playing in one of Josh's tournaments I said it, there Anyway, look So, we're going back to all those events that happened in New Zealand over the weekend So, the Wellington, the three strikes Dave Peck won, of course But Danny came second, so well done Danny The Auckland three strikes Joachim, am I saying that right? Joachim Sundberg from Sweden, he won Danny second again The World System 11, we talked about Dave Peck won Simon Haxton from New Zealand I know Simon. How are you, Simon? And then the Pincaid Classics, Danny Peck won with Rob McCauley from South Australia. He won. So there you go. A lot of tournaments. We were going to talk about some tournament rules and some concerns. We did this last week. We had Josh on. It was fun. The show still survived. And let's just kind of focus in. We've had a long show so far, so let's maybe focus in on one thing. You've got a tournament. You've got to think about the enjoyment of the players. What about how you set machines? That's very, very important. and really it matters on what kind of tournament you're running. Yeah, you know what, it really does matter. And I'll give you my first-hand experience when I was running the Melbourne Silver Bowl Championship, I think in 2018. We had limited time to set up the machines because whilst all the machines were going in, the event, which is Flipout, which is happening again this year, that was also being set up as well. So I think we had maybe an hour to set up all the machines, set up the stream, and then get the machines ready. And we thought we had everything done, but there was one game which we just didn't really tighten up enough and that was Terminator 3. Don't bag me for putting Terminator 3 in there. I put it in there just for bittershoots and giggles, just something that was a bit different. Turned out it was the real logjam of the entire tournament. Everything else probably had about a half an hour to 45 minute wait. That one had about an hour and a half to two hours. So a lot of people didn't get their eight machines in because of that one machine and it really is important to know how you can set up your machines so they are evenly distributed as far as time goes, but to avoid situations like I did where it was causing such a long queue. But also, what's really interesting about setting up machines is you've got to know them really well to know the rules, that sometimes a particular rule is going to be so simple that people just go for it and it just makes the game go very long. and in the instance of Terminator 3, it was multiball. Everyone just quickly got into multiball and it just became a long game. Did you turn off the ball saves on multiball? No. No, I personally believe I know where we're going with this. I turn ball saves off and I turn extra balls off, obviously, but I keep ball save on in multiball and I keep it as default. I don't even turn it down to a couple of seconds, which I know some have because I think that if you've done enough, you've obviously gotten past there being no ball save, you've done enough to get to multi-ball, that's a reward in itself. So, you know, enjoy multi-ball. I agree. I think that's good. It's really a matter of the type of format of the tournament because if you're in a pump and dump, you don't want that to be a long playing game. So maybe toning down the ball saves, turning them off, maybe on the plunge, those are all options. On pin golf, and Raymond Davidson finally agreed with me, I'd mentioned it last year and I saw him make a comment to our little chat line, that having ball saves off in pin golf actually makes the games go longer because you're not getting to that objective score. Now, I realized that they picked the objective scores roughly based on the medians of those same games that were played in the North American Championship Series. So they took all the scores from those and said, okay, the median for World Cup soccer is about 400,000. I looked at something like Star Wars, and I saw that there was no ball save on the plunge. How many times have you played Star Wars and not been able to get it on a flipper? Too often. Too often, just the angle of that where it hits those stand-up targets and then angles to the outline, too many times. Now, that being said, you do have a plunger, so you can maybe try to soft plunge it, do whatever you can, as opposed to hitting the tie fighters. So it is in your hands. I'll give you that. Josh, I know you're listening. The same can be said for Iron Maiden. Iron Maiden didn't have a ball save, so I saw Jim Belsito take a shot, and it went right to the outlane, and he's like, oh, it was kind of halfway up. It looked like it was going to hit super loops. Didn't go all the way around. Came down, bounce, out lane. No ball save. See you later. On to the next ball. It depends on the format of the tournament too, right? And pin golf is the one thing I don't think ball saves need to be turned off for. But the idea of a pump and dump is to put more money into the tournament. So faster playing games kind of makes sense. Well, again, coming back to what I was saying, is it's a bit of an art to know exactly how to set up the objectives, the scores, obviously, and based on the machines that you've got. I think it's interesting, and I now totally get what Raymond was saying, is that because the objectives are so much harder, everybody's going to their fifth ball, therefore the tournament's actually taking longer. It seems counterintuitive, but that's what's happened. And I don't think that was the intention of setting it up. That was just a by-product of what happened. Well, when you run a pin golf tournament, which is available on Match Play Events. By the way, a little foreshadowing, Andreas Peterson will be joining us next episode of Final Round Pinball Podcast. But when you play pin golf, you have to make sure the average of each hole is three balls. If it's not, that's not full TGP, which, again, makes the tournaments more valuable. But here's the thing with pin golf. You've got 18 holes, and then you've got playoffs. You're going to get full TGP. You know what I mean? So why make them go so long? but they just don't adapt. And then, by the way, unfortunately, there's nothing you can do. When a game goes down, what are you going to do? Half the groups have played? This is the problem with pin golf. The format is once it's set from the start, you can't change. You can't fine-tune. You can't alter it. And if a machine breaks down, well, that was one of the machines. You can't replace it, really. So it's a hard format. When you go to a pump-and-dump tournament, sometimes there'll be a bank of, let's say, 10 games. and a game might go down early, they can replace it with another game and credit everyone who played that game so they get their money back. Or if it has been in the tournament for more than half the time, that game is then shut down and the scores stand as such. So that's one of the nice things about that type of tournament that you're not able to do in pin golf. So I think what you're really highlighting is that it's a problem when it comes to the pin golf format. Do you see that being too much of a problem? Let's say match play, for example. if you didn't have ball save on the plunge or multi-ball. Do you think that's a problem with that format? Again, on a pump and dump, you might lose that game, but you can go back to that game, and now you know, okay, all right, there's no ball save, now I have to plunge better. Well, I wasn't saying pump and dump. I'm saying, like, full match play. Well, hopefully you're watching other players do it, or they're watching you when you do it. That's a good question, and it brings us up, actually, to one of our emails that we got, and we appreciate all emails at finalroundpinball at gmail.com. Let me pull this up because it was a good question about tournament settings. Glenn Watcher writes, I'm loving the show. I have a question that may be a little advanced for some, but this has hurt me in the past. Types of tournament settings. How do you know what the game is set to? Example, I'm playing in a split flipper tournament. I was in the final match. Over $300 for the winning team. Considerably less for the loser. Down by just $4 million on Iron Maiden. I short plunge to the right flipper. Drill the bullseye. No skill shot awarded. I think he was expecting that $6 million. He loses focus as quickly. Fumbles, drain, lose. Later found out it was a setting. How do you know about these types of settings? Love the show, Glenn Watcher. Thanks, Glenn. That's a good point. So I would like to see in tournaments, and most tournaments I've been to, I've been fortunate enough where they kind of give you the settings. They'll explain any kind of changes. But that's a big, that's a whole other beef for me about super skill shots and secret skill shots, that they're not on the card. That's something that I wish it was available to everyone, especially in a tournament setting. Hmm. I have probably a differing view on that, because I think that the cards that are on the machines are there to give the novice player something to do. Because usually it says, hit this, this, and this, and you'll get multi-ball. Or hit that, and you might get this. It doesn't really give you the intricacies of the rules, Because it's a really interesting point, because it does obviously favour those people that have researched rules to the nth degree. In a way, I would argue that's part of what makes an elite player elite, because not only do they have good flipper skills, they also have incredibly deep rules knowledge. And Escher Lefkoff is a prime example. If that's a setting, how can you be a... I don't care if you're the greatest player in the world. How can you be a mind reader and know how the tournament game has been set up? Well, I mean, I guess that's a... There's two different points here. One is, how do you know the rules of a game beyond the card that's on the machine itself? And I would argue that that card is there just to give you basic information for anybody to know something to do. I think when you've got things like that skill shot that you're talking about in Iron Maiden, That's where there are certain settings in the game. I don't know whether you can go into that and turn that off or whether you set the machine to hard settings that turns that off. I have been told previously that I need to be better at this. And so this was on dialed in. I remember when that first came out, we put that in a tournament and I changed the settings to hard, very hard. And I put on the notes, changed it to hard. But it really didn't spell out what hard means. And someone came up to me and said, well, I couldn't like my kit back. And I'm like, oh, it's on hard settings. I'm like, well, you've probably got to spell out what hard means. That means three lots of lights to do your kickback. It means multiples are hard. I'm like, okay, I probably now need to just list down what that means. Interesting. But if you do that, how long is that list going to be? But if you change the game from what people are used to, then, yeah, I think you do have to list that because, again, you're not a mind reader. Yes, you have to know the rules, and those that know the rules should have an advantage over those that just read a card. I'll give you that for sure. But when you absolutely change the game completely and those secret skill shots, I saw you on stream, by the way, the other day on Melbourne Silver Bowl, and it was when the new code went in for Jurassic Park, and you went for the, I don't know what it's called, is it the double secret super skill shot? Yeah, it is a secret skill shot, yeah. So here's what you did. You hit the H ramp, which is the first shot. Then you went up the A ramp, which is the next shot. Then you did the side ramp, and then you found it. And don't listen if you don't want to know what it is. The next shot you hit was the O-lane, and I think it was 40 million. I can't remember the score, but yeah. I knew that this secret skill shot was in there. I didn't know what it was, but it's not really that secret when the fourth shot is lit with a red light. I'm like, okay, that obviously must be the super skill shot. I got it, and I was obviously very excited and went, there you go. There was a secret skill shot. I didn't know I was going for it. I knew it was in there somehow. Okay, I'm fine with that because, you know what, it's not on a card, but the playfield told you, shoot here. Look at that light. Wait a minute, I've never seen that red light. That's something, and you went for it. You need some sort of something that tells the player, do this, and you did it. Right, okay. Well, you know, another example in that vein is the super secret skill shot or whatever it is on Iron Maiden, which is the left out lane. Let's forget about the fact that there's no ball save at this stage. But if you're in a tournament and it's that left, which gives you 20 million or whatever it is, and more of a ball save, not everyone's going to know that unless they know. Because nothing's going to tell you that that's the secret skill shot. Glenn, I know Marty doesn't have your back, but I'm all for you.
    105:12
    That's not true. What I'm saying is, I think that as a tournament director, you need to put little cards up on the machine that tell people what has been changed. Like you did for Daldin. Well, I did eventually do for Darlene, but what I'm saying is, if you change something to hard settings, it's up to then the person to know what hard setting is and research it, rather than list down the changes that hard setting makes. Thank you very much, Glenn, for the email. Good question. Let's get to some other fan mail. We had, again, a few more. Robert Frost wrote in. He said, you were speaking on backhanding. And we're not talking about me slapping you for hating Led Zeppelin. We're talking about in pinball. This week it dawned on me, stranger things, once the lock is lit, it feels easier to get into multiball, trapping with the left flipper, and hitting the left ramp that way consecutively. If I miss the shot, it's most likely to come back to the left flipper, or I let it dead bounce and trap it up and backhand again. I saw Robert Sutter do this, in fact, in the ECS. He blew up Stranger Things and he was backhanding that left ramp. So, Marty, backhanding is the way to go. Yeah, it is. And I have done that on Stranger Things as well. And it is a much, it's not just a much safer shot, it's actually a much easier shot. And, you know, the first game that I really started doing that consecutive backhand up to a ramp was ACDC. and a lot of people know it and it really depends on the power of the flippers and obviously newer machines are going to have that advantage but ACDC, if you want to get into jam multi-ball and that left flipper is really powerful and that ramp is quite feedable, just consecutive backhand that left ramp then right ramp into starting multi-ball. Thanks Robert for the email. It brings us into our next email that you mentioned ACDC because it's kind of a point I want to bring up. It came from Michael Peterson. Great show fellas, keep up the good work. Can you explain the concept of stacking multiballs? Can you give a few examples of games where you can do that and how? Thanks again. I bring up ACDC because that is something certainly you can stack with jam multiball, with album multiball, and tour multiball. I personally, on that game, don't like to stack. I'd rather have more multiballs at different times and always have multiballs going as opposed to stacking and having to redo them. Now, that being said, a game like The Walking Dead, Listen, if you can get Bloodbath and Prison and Riot, I mean, that's the perfect stack, isn't it? Yeah. So he's asking, you know, what's the concept? Well, really, it's as simple as bringing two multiballs in at the same time. Or in some games, you can start a multiball and then bring another one in. Sometimes there's no real advantage to doing it, like we said with ACDC, because effectively, if you start two multiballs together, it might start as a three ball and you're probably doubling up some of your shots, but you're not really getting any gain to it. Whereas there's games like Wizard of Oz, I'll give you an example where if you stack some multiballs together and then you get, let's say, the perfect stack that I've got for Wizard of Oz is Rescue Multiball with Emerald City Multiball, whatever it is, and then Crystal Ball Multiball. Those have got multipliers on them as well. So you're actually getting a greater benefit by having those two together or three together. Yeah, there are great stacks for sure. And there are some that kind of save your multiball in a way. I was playing Spider-Man on Friday night, got into Doc Ock multiball, and I had a couple of locks lit. And I thought, okay, now I'm down two balls in Doc Ock, but I just lit my lock. Boy, if I get it up there, I can start black suit multiball or whatever it was, keep it going, and it keeps Doc Ock going. So, yeah, that just made more shots available for jackpots. So there are games you want to do that for sure. Absolutely. again, Ironman is another example for you Michael it is sometimes harder to stack because in some games some multiballs aren't stackable with others Ironman's a good one if you start Whiplash you can then get War Machine because I think Whiplash starts with a two ball you can bring another one it adds ball also gives you ball save as well another game where you can stack some multiballs and you can't is Matuck for example Grave, whatever it is graveyard multi-ball can't be stacked with sparky if you start coffin multi-ball you can stack that with other multi-balls as well to me the stack is interesting but when it comes to multi-balls the first thing i'm looking for is how to add a ball which also isn't on a card you should mention that and it is one of those things that you need to know how to add a ball and one of the ones that really is, I'll use Metallica as an example, but really people don't know because people see that, okay, I mean, let's say I'm in Sparky and all of a sudden the snake is flashing green, stick the ball in there and there you go, it captures the ball for like 30 seconds but adds a ball. But you have to hit the four picks? You have to hit the four picks and people don't know that you have to hit the four picks. I mean, obviously a lot of us do because we've been playing it for a while and in tournaments, you know, people tell each other, but a lot of people don't know that that's how you get out of ball. Out of ball is more important. I just played Spider-Man on Friday. I played that game. That game and ACDC are the two games that got me back into pinball after 15 years of not playing. So I've been playing Spider-Man for quite some time. Love, love, love that game. I never knew how to add a ball until Friday night. Do you know how to do it? I really haven't played Spider-Man all that much. So off the top of my head, no. How do you get out of it? Okay. It's basically like your Star Trek away team. It's the Spidey sense shot under the upper right flipper. Yeah. Okay. Don't ask me how you like that. I can't remember. I saw it lit. I'm like, I'm going to go for that. Anyway, I'm sure I'll figure it out between now and the next time. Marty, enough gabbing already. I know we're only on every two weeks, but enough is enough, all right? Some of us have to work. Some of us have other podcasts like Pinball Profile. Some of us have other streams like Melbourne Silver Ball. We're busy guys. We are very busy. But you can also always contact us whenever you want. We'll reply back to you. Yeah. FinalRoundPinball at gmail.com. We're on Facebook. We're on Instagram. Please make sure you check us out. Big show when we're on again in two weeks. We mentioned Andreas Peterson from Match Play Events and Pintips.net, but also a former Pinberg champion, and he's also running things at TPF for the Wizards Tournament. Colin McAlpine will be joining us. Fantastic. Colin's always great to speak to. I think he's a big Led Zeppelin fan. I'm not sure. We'll ask him, though.
    111:45
    Oh, there's two people. Great. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I wonder if he's waited in line for a wand. Anyway.
    111:53
    Probably has. 50 plus. Oh, boy. I'm not judging. Of course you're not. All right, Marty, I will see you in a couple of weeks. Yes, you will. By the way, another sneak peek. It might be out later in the afternoon. I know you're used to it coming out kind of early Wednesday. The reason it might be later Wednesday is you and I are going to be at Deep Root on Wednesday morning. We are. We might record something to add to that podcast. So be patient for episode four. It will come out Wednesday. It just might be later in the day. It'll be worth it. And just on that as well, even if TPF doesn't happen, I'm still coming. I would go to Deep Root and then just enjoy Texas anyway. Marty, I'm looking forward to it. See you in a couple of weeks. We'll talk to you in a couple of weeks right here on Final Round Pinball Podcast. My name is Geoff Teolis. And I'm Martin Robbins. Thank you, everybody, for listening.
    112:46
    Not a chance.