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#19 - The End of an Era

A Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·19m 41s·analyzed·Sep 22, 2020
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.028

TL;DR

Host honors Stephen Bowden's 8-year daily pinball content legacy and mentorship impact before Fun With Bonus transitions to Deep Root focus.

Summary

The host dedicates an entire episode to honoring Stephen Bowden's 8-year run of daily pinball content on Fun With Bonus (3,005 consecutive days from July 2012 to September 2020) and his profound impact on the pinball community. The episode centers on a personal retrospective of how Bowden's competitive gameplay, mentorship, and content curation shaped the host's development as a player, emphasizing Bowden's transition of Fun With Bonus toward Deep Root Pinball content.

Key Claims

  • Stephen Bowden posted pinball content daily from July 1, 2012 to September 21, 2020—3,005 consecutive days

    high confidence · Host states the exact dates and day count: 'Fun With Bonus was a website that Bowden did that basically presented near daily or basically daily content with pinball. I mean, he had ran this from July 1st, 2012, clear up to September 21st, two day, 2020. And that's legitimately 3,005 consecutive days'

  • Stephen Bowden is ranked 18th overall in the world and was the number one ranked player for the Stern Pro Circuit Tournament in 2019

    high confidence · Host provides specific ranking: 'he's ranked 18th overall right now in the world. And he is the number one ranked player for the Stern Pro Circuit Tournament in 2019.'

  • Stephen Bowden is a rules designer for Deep Root Pinball

    high confidence · Host states: 'he is their rules designer and he is on Raza making or doing the rules, designing the rules and all that.'

  • Fun With Bonus provided daily pinball news, a pinball dictionary, podcast content, and spotlighted other content creators

    high confidence · Host describes the site: 'they got pinball dictionary there. I know he's done a podcast before in the past... it leads you to a lot of content creators. And I think that that's an amazing thing that this is somebody that's selflessly spotlighting different content people.'

  • A Monster Bash game from 2012 PAPA Circuit Finals Round 10 featuring Bowden was instrumental in teaching the host about high-level competitive pinball

    high confidence · Host describes watching Bowden's Monster Bash gameplay repeatedly: 'I probably watched this game back, not even joking, maybe about five or six times just right after. I probably watched it for about two and a half hours straight'

Notable Quotes

  • “That's legitimately 3,005 consecutive days of posting pinball related content. That's 3,000 plus days of being a cornerstone of the pinball community, which I find simply amazing.”

    Host (A Pinball Podcast) @ ~2:20 — Core thesis statement about the historical significance of Fun With Bonus legacy

  • “this game had Kaylee George, it had Carl D'Angelo, and it had Daniele. So this was obviously some of the best players in the world at the time.”

    Host @ ~4:00

  • “he stayed calm and he was under control... he knew what he wanted to do, and he just kept grinding away.”

    Host @ ~8:30 — Host identifies Bowden's composure and strategy as the defining lesson from watching his gameplay

  • “This is exactly how you're supposed to play pinball. This makes so much more sense.”

    Host @ ~11:00 — Captures the 'aha moment' when host understood high-level competitive pinball philosophy

  • “don't miss your shots.”

    Stephen Bowden @ ~26:00 — Bowden's simple advice at 2019 Nationals that the host credits with fundamental mentality shift

  • “you could tell that he has an extreme passion for the game. And it shows based on his play. It shows based on his tireless work with Fun With Bonus.”

    Host @ ~39:00 — Host's overall assessment of Bowden's contributions to the community

  • “I know I need to buckle up because I'm losing about the next two and a half hours because I'm just going to go through everything.”

    Host @ ~35:30 — Describes the depth and addictive nature of Fun With Bonus archive content

  • “He didn't have to do that because he was playing in the tournament too. but you could tell that he has an extreme passion for the game.”

    Host @ ~38:00 — Emphasizes Bowden's voluntary mentorship despite competing himself

Entities

Stephen BowdenpersonFun With BonusproductDeep Root PinballcompanyPAPA CircuitorganizationMonster BashgameKaylee GeorgepersonCarl D'AngelopersonDanieleperson

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: Stephen Bowden's 8-year daily content streak on Fun With Bonus (3,005 consecutive days) positioned as a foundational pillar of the modern pinball community

    high · Host dedicates entire episode to honoring the streak and describes it as 'a cornerstone of the pinball community' and 'one of the most valuable resources you will find'

  • ?

    event_signal: 2019 Nationals tournament in Las Vegas was a pivotal moment for host's competitive development, with Stephen Bowden's live mentorship during gameplay being transformative

    high · Host describes detailed interactions during tournament: 'he was basically talking through the games at the same time', providing strategic insight on Star Trek approach

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Host's analysis of Bowden's Monster Bash gameplay emphasizes ABM (Always Be Multiball) philosophy, controlled play with selective risk-taking, and rule set mastery as keys to high-level pinball

    high · Detailed breakdown of Bowden's multiball strategy: 'multi-ball on the fly until he gets down to two balls. And then it's just extreme control, extreme patience'

  • ?

    content_signal: Fun With Bonus functioned as a centralized hub for pinball content discovery, including original dictionary/reference materials and spotlighting of other creators

    high · Host describes getting 'lost in rabbit holes' on the site for 2-3 hours, notes presence of pinball dictionary, podcast content, and links to other creators

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Bowden's willingness to mentor newer players (like the host) at major tournaments, despite being a competing player himself, demonstrates strong community values and knowledge transfer

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.059

0:00
All right, welcome back everybody to another episode of a pinball podcast. I appreciate you guys being here so much. I hope everybody had a great weekend. And yeah, so today is Monday, September 21st. And first and foremost, if I sound a little weird, it's simply because my allergies are just off the charts for about the past week. I've been battling back and forth to the extent that I actually had to go to the doctor and get a steroid and get two inhalers to help me. I haven't had an inhaler since I was in elementary school. It's been easily 20-plus years ago. So this is uncharted territory for me. So if I sound a little nasally, a little sniffly, or if I have to take a pause to mute my mic, that's why, that's my excuse for now. So I thank you so much for bearing with me. I actually need to take a quick pause right now, as a matter of fact.
0:55
But the show must go on. So obviously we had a reveal slash no reveal today with Deep Root. And, you know, I know everybody else is going to be talking about it. I will talk about it in the future. But today I feel like something more important than Deep Root's lack of reveal happened today. And that's Stephen Bowden's decision to transition Fun With Bonus towards more focus on Deep Root content. And I don't know how many people realize that this has happened, but Fun With Bonus was a website that Bowden did that basically presented near daily or basically daily content with pinball. I mean, he had ran this from July 1st, 2012, clear up to September 21st, two day, 2020. And that's legitimately 3,005 consecutive days of posting pinball related content. That's 3,000 plus days of being a cornerstone of the pinball community, which I find simply amazing. And I feel like I want to talk about that. I feel like that is so much more important right now and acknowledging this besides just what happened today with deep root, which, you know, obviously we all know Bowden is part of deep root. He is their rules designer and he is on Raza making or doing the rules, designing the rules and all that. So it's, you know, it's like I said, we'll go over all that in a future podcast for now, totally focused on Bowden's contributions to pinball in general. All right. So, sorry, another sniffle there. Anyhow, you know, what I would like to say, too, is myself, I'm very appreciative about what Bowden has done for this industry. And, you know, I've told this story before in the past, but Bowden, he was actually one of the first players that I ever saw when it came to competitive pinball. You know, the first game that I ever saw was Robocop, Pinberg 2017, McCall and McAlpine. But the second game that I ever saw was from the 2012 Papa Circuit Finals, Round 10, Monster Bash. And I came across this video, and one of the first players that I saw on it was Fowden. And this game had Kaylee George, it had Carl D'Angelo, and it had Daniele. So this was obviously some of the best players in the world at the time. And for those that are listening, I assume everybody knows who Stephen Bowden is. If you don't know, he's ranked 18th overall right now in the world. And he is the number one ranked player for the Stern Pro Circuit Tournament in 2019. And that tournament was supposed to take place in March. Got canceled due to COVID or suspended. it and hopefully they will pick it back up at some point next year because he earned that first place ranking and he'll be able to take advantage of that because it's a ladder system to where the top 20 get in and they'll start out with the bottom four then they'll eliminate one at a time and they'll just keep advancing until they get to the final so I thoroughly look forward to that but he is an excellent pinball player. And so coming back around this game, this Monster Bash game, it was the second game that I had ever watched in terms of seeing what competitive pinball was. Because up to that point, I was in pinball for about a year or so and kind of knew about tournaments, but didn't really know. And this was one of the first things that really clued me in into how tournament pinball can be. And I was seeing it played at a very high level And one of the things I distinctly remember about this is I was watching him play his ball one and he played it really methodical I thought You know, he wasn't extremely accurate with his shots early on, but what I noticed was is he stayed calm and he was under control. He was going for mosh pit, multi-ball, or at least lighting it, which takes six shots right up the middle through the spinner. And so he was really starting to attack it using the right flipper, and he would go up, catch it on the left, post pass over, rinse and repeat. He missed the shot a few times, but again, stayed calm, collected, didn't panic, didn't get off what his roadmap or what his strategy was. He knew what he wanted to do, and he just kept grinding away. And eventually during this ball one, he did get mosh pit lit, but then he proceeded to pick off other shots. He was almost as if, and this pretty much is my guess with what he was doing, he was holding it back, and he ended up starting full moon, and from there, you know, I still remember this too. He started out on the left flipper, tries to hit the right orbit, misses, right, gets back under control, hits it through the left orbit, and then he's off to the races just taking off shots, just nudging, getting under control when he needed to, taking bell-out shots when he needed to. It was really something like a sight to behold, especially for me. It definitely imprinted on me early on in terms of, okay, this is what competitive pinball at a high level really looks like, and this is one of the games that basically made me the player that I am today because I'm sitting here watching this, and I probably watched this game back, not even joking, maybe about five or six times just right after. I probably watched it for about two and a half hours straight just going back and forth.
Texas Pinball Festival
event
Stern Pro Circuitorganization
A Pinball Podcastproduct
Star Trekgame
Game of Thronesgame
Paragongame
Star Warsgame

high · Host recounts multiple mentoring moments: advice at Nationals ('don't miss your shots'), strategic discussion during game wait times, detailed gameplay explanation during Star Trek match

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Stephen Bowden's transition from general pinball community content creator to Deep Root Pinball's primary rules designer represents a significant personnel move in the boutique manufacturer space

    high · Host mentions the Deep Root reveal and Bowden's role: 'obviously we all know Bowden is part of deep root. He is their rules designer'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Fun With Bonus transitioning from daily general pinball content to Deep Root Pinball-focused content signals Bowden's deepening involvement with the manufacturer's rules design and public-facing work

    high · Host explicitly states: 'transition over to more Deep Root-centric content' and notes Bowden's role as 'rules designer' at Deep Root

    • 6:55
    And I was that impressed by what I was seeing. And so, you know, of course, he's picking off orbits and everything, and he's making, you know, his steady progress and taking shots where they came. and eventually he got, I believe it was Bride and Mummy stacked up together and then he started his mosh pit.
    7:15
    So, you know, he was just rocking and rolling from there. I mean, he was hitting shots. He was playing, you know, very active, very active flippers, very active in terms of keeping the balls going. And then he did get his add-a-ball at the last second, But once he was down to two balls, that's when he went under control. Like you could tell he had this general strategy to where he was taking the risk where he needed to. And then as soon as he knew he needed to dial it back a little bit, he did. And I thought when I was watching that and I was seeing multiball played at a very high level, I was so impressed by that. It was like a light bulb went off and it was ding, ding. This is exactly how you're supposed to play pinball. This makes so much more sense. And after Ball 1, he ended up with, like, right around $120 million. It might have been, like, $120, $125, somewhere right around there. But he was just absolutely crushing it. And what's even more nuttier, Daniele comes up, player 3, and he finishes with right around $100 million.
    8:20
    And so these two, you know, they're racing back and forth. And you could tell it's just going to be one of those classic-type games. Well, Ball 2 comes up, and he ends up playing the rest of his monsters, and he gets into Monster Bash. And from there, he does the same thing again, multi-ball on the fly until he gets down to two balls. And then it's just extreme control, extreme patience. And again, this, like all this for me watching it, it played such an integral part to developing my overall game style that I knew right off the bat, I'm like, okay, you have to play under control. You can pick your parts to slam the gas down, go go go but then you have to know when to get under control and that was something that i really took in and then something else that happened was watching this ball too it solidified to me also how important rule set knowledge is and sorry about that i'm trying not to sneeze and cough again but it really it really showed me how important rule set knowledge is and so what happened was is he had the bride mode, which is the ramps winding down. And you basically have, I think it's like a 30 second timer that goes down. You got to hit both ramps three times to complete it. And he's going, he's going missing some shots here and there, which is fine. Nobody can be perfect, but the timer starts going down. Well, then he gets trapped up on I think it was his right flipper and he hits it through the spinner and then lo and behold the timer resets And I like holy cow It something that seemed simple at the time but it enabled him to basically reset the timer and keep pushing forward in this mode. And it really showed the importance of rule set knowledge. There's probably a majority of players out there would not know to do that. Now, obviously, most high-level players would know that, but I'm talking about players like me at the time that was just like a common average player trying to figure out how to get better. And this just really showed me how important it was to understand role knowledge because, of course, you know, he ends up showing that there's different layers to this and that you can take world-class skills and world-class role set knowledge, apply it together, and it's like a beautiful symphony going off. You see the shots coming, you see the nudges coming, you see just him being in total control of everything. And I was just so impressed by that. And, you know, eventually in that game, he ends up, of course, you know, lighting Monsters of Rock, which is completing, you know, all your monsters.
    10:58
    And he just, he played his Monster Bash, of course, and just killed that wizard mode, got to the next one, killed that as well. and to give you an idea when he started the main wizard mode i think he had like 320 million 325 million this is on ball two at a papa circuit tournament which means that pin was probably not set up easy probably not so that was so damn impressive to watch and he ended up finishing that ball two with like 550 million and to give you an idea of how crazy this is daniele had i I think it was 445 million, 448 million. And he's still 100 million behind. He's still 100 million points behind after putting up 400, nearly 450 million points on ball two. Still 100 million points behind. That's how damn impressive this game was from Bowden. I mean, just crazy. And then I watched ball three, and by then it's like he's not satisfied. He's still going in for the kill. Like he's just grinding, grinding, grinding, just hitting spinner, catch, post, spinner, catch. You know, it just keeps repeating itself. And so, like I said, a lot of that showed me exactly how this game can be played at a high level, especially on Monster Bash. It was really, really impressive. And that's really what kind of got me fully into pinball. Like it started out watching, you know, Colin at Pinball 2017 and then just following up that by finding this video because I wanted to find a Monster Bash video. And sure enough, there it was. And it really helped me fully understand what you're supposed to do in pinball if you want to compete at a high level. You know, and I had the pleasure of first meeting him at and I'm talking about Bowden here at Texas Pinball Festival in 2019. and it was when we were in the semifinals of the Texas Pinball League that they had down there. And he was really friendly, cool guy, nice. I even told him, I'm like, hey, I watched your Monster Bash video. That was really cool. That's what fully got me into pinball. You know, it's one of the things that was the catalyst to get me to this point. And, you know, and he was real cool about it. Like I was just fanboying out. I was like, holy cow, I've seen you on YouTube. This makes so much more sense now. and of course you know lo and behold i get my butt kicked but that's okay it was like uh it was it was fun doing it and kind of seeing where i was at at that time so fast forward a week later we're at nationals in las vegas and again this is 2019 and you know i don't know if he remembers this but this part helped me out so much i was in the first round struggled my first two games played paragon did terrible, dropped that, played Star Wars did terrible again, dropped that it's the worst Star Wars game I ever played I think the videos out there of me playing it to where I legitimately end up short plunging to my left flipper and instead of just letting it dead bounce over to my right I just decided to flip away like a raving lunatic with no ball save and I immediately drain it's so bad so bad. So I go back outside and I'm struggling. I go back to the table and I ask about him like, do you have any advice? And this is right before I'm going back in. And he literally just looks at me and just says, don't miss your shots. Like he just starts laughing. Like that's all he says. And it's funny because some people might think like, that's just a throwaway comment. Like okay Yeah of course Just don miss your shots But I remember it fully and the simplicity of the advice that he gave me provided so much more so much momentum for me going back in there to where i legitimately just started relaxing and hitting shots and i know this sounds crazy but when you hit your shots and you do it consistently you tend to do decent at whatever game you're playing. So it really, really helped. And it was that same round, you know, I'm waiting at, this is game six. I'm finally winning games. I'm up three games or two now. And my opponent picked Star Trek. So at that time, both Star Trek and Game of Thrones, they had the longest wait times because they were playing the most favorable. And Star Trek had legitimately like an hour and 45 minute, two hour wait. And so I got to spend that full time out there at this table to where I remember Bowden was watching the stream on his phone or on a phone. It might've been a tablet. I just remember it was in front of us. And he was basically talking through the games at the same time. So it was almost like having a commentator right there. And I was getting so much insight during that time and it it went on to where you know he asked me what game i had next i told him star trek and then we started talking strategy back and forth well i say we started talking back and forth it was more or less him imprinting all types of just knowledge like okay hey look at this and then after you do this look at that and then after that look at this and i was just taking it all in and i mean it that was something like i said he may not even remember but it played such a huge part in helping me develop quickly as a pinball player, helping me see it from the mentality side of a high level player. And it just, it just helped me understood or understand things just so much more efficient. And, you know, it was obviously for me, it was one of the most valuable days I've ever had playing pinball, just simply being there and getting to listen and getting to learn, it helps so much. And I know that obviously he's been to pinball competitions everywhere. Probably had thousands of people talk to him, but something like that for me, he didn't have to do that. You know what I mean? He had just met me, not even like a week ago prior to that. I think this tournament was on a Thursday. So it might've been, yeah, it was about a week ago on a Thursday night the previous week. And so he didn't have to do that because he was playing in the tournament too. but you could tell that he has an extreme passion for the game. And it shows based on his play. It shows based on his tireless work with Fun With Bonus. It shows that he got into the pinball industry doing rules design and all that. And I felt the need that I wanted to personally tell him thank you for taking that time, even if he doesn't remember. I remember it. It has helped me so dang much. And I just want, if you haven't looked at fun with bonus before, I highly recommend going over there. It really gives you a lot of insight on all kinds of different content. Like I'm finding stuff too, that I didn't even realize existed. I, I get lost. It's one of those things where I go down a rabbit hole. If I go to that website, I know I need to buckle up because I'm losing about the next two and a half hours because I'm just going to go through everything. And I mean, they got pinball dictionary there. I know he's done a podcast before in the past. And it just, like I said, it has a lot of content on there. And it leads you to a lot of content creators. And I think that that's an amazing thing that this is somebody that's selflessly spotlighting different content people. I mean, he's a world-class player. He doesn't have to do that. But he chooses to do that. And he did it for years at a time. And, you know, I just want to say hats off. Nothing but respect. I mean, it's an incredible thing. And I hope that anybody that's listening to us now that hasn't checked it out, be sure and go check it out. I mean, even though it's not going to have daily content anymore, even though there's going to be a transition over to more Deep Root-centric content, I mean, it's still, it is by far one of the most valuable resources you will find. If you're a pinball fan or into pinball, highly recommend it. And I just want to tell Bowden, just thank you for that. It's awesome. hats off to you and man I look forward to seeing what happens though and you know I'm just gonna wrap it up there we're not even gonna discuss any of the reveal stuff today I'll discuss that another time for now hats off to Bowden you guys take care I'm gonna try to get better I'm gonna get me some medication if you guys have any questions or anything you guys can contact me at a pinball podcast at gmail.com other than that thank you guys so much for being here I greatly appreciate it and I will talk to you guys later later