it's time for another pinball profile i'm your host jeff teals you can find everything on pinballprofile.com all your subscriptions past episodes and more we're also on facebook you can find us on twitter and instagram at pinball profile and email us pinball profile at gmail.com been watching a lot of streams lately and no one i mean no one streams more than our special guest Carlos de la Cerda, you know him better as Laserlos. He joins us right now from Columbus, Ohio. Hello, Carlos. How's it going? Good to talk to you. We've been, I guess, chatting for a year plus, but it's all been through text and on Twitch and things like that. Yeah. It's nice to get to talk to you once again. We've certainly played each other once or twice at Kleepin, but again, the streams. How many hours do you think you put in a week? I think it varies, but it's been like in the last six months, it's been like five days a week i'd say uh ranging you know eight hours sometimes 12 yeah there are other people that do five days a week but no one does the eight 12 hour sessions like you do so people who haven't seen you before they're gonna ask okay where are you streaming what are you streaming give us the 411 on that uh i stream from arcade super awesome it's uh like the secondary space, more like the Annex, like, warehouse, second, where all the games are that aren't on location. Used to be a bit of a semi-private location in the before times. There'd be, like, you know, weekly tournaments. So there's a bunch of games already set up. And once lockdown happened, you know, a little over a year ago, the idea of coming here and playing and streaming during lockdown kind of popped up and kind of just started doing that just to pass time and just keep playing and provide some sort of pinball entertainment for those that can't play and kind of just started taking off a little bit. Support kind of grew. More people started watching. I was able to do it more and it's kind of just turned into a whole thing. So I know arcades around me, but I mean, if I were going in, I'd probably be arrested for trespassing. So what did you just, did you just break in? What is it? No, the owner, John, brought up the idea of just giving me a key and allowing me to come in and out and stream. We do have a stream rig that we would use. We used to stream like maybe once a week, once every couple times a month maybe over at the arcade. So the streaming computer, all the stuff was already here. Space, there's already games set up. So he's kind of just like, you know, whenever an opportunity for me to keep playing during lockdown when things are closed, but then also might as well stream and kind of provide entertainment. So it was sort of his idea, and he brought it up, and I kind of took it and went with it. So that's kind of how it came to be, really. And it's great because the variety of games are unreal. Some classics, earlier today you were playing Popeye. Okay, so it is what it is. I mean, there's obviously a charitable bone in your body, but you've played newer games like Led Zeppelin and Stranger Things. He has a pretty wide range, wide variety of games. And then with the arcade space, one of the main locations, needing to downsize temporarily for distancing purposes, there were a lot of games, a lot of, you know, Sterns and the Jersey Jacks and the Spookies, a lot of the moderns were over here as well. So I figured, might as well. I knew they weren't going to be here all the time, so that kind of incentivized me coming here more often and playing. And it was more just like showing off all the games that I could. And then it kind of went through like, OK, now let's try and beat all the games. And I was finding ways to keep myself entertained as well as showing off the games themselves to everybody. Carlos, would you say you're playing more now than before? It's definitely close. I may probably probably more consistently. I used to play in leagues and tournaments and would travel like within the state, within the city at events and days that there weren't organized pinball, I would still be on location playing games, you know, got to keep, get all the GCs I can. So going to like random locations with a couple pinball and bouncing around. So I was already playing a lot, I guess is what I mean. But probably, you know, especially in the last six months, doing the five days, yeah, definitely grinding more than I was, I'd say. Because of the variety of games, I mean, you've really got some expertise on all these different ones, which you're going to come across in tournaments and just playing in general. I've learned a lot. I've been playing High Speed 2 Getaway for years and years and years, but watching you play that and kind of plunging and then letting it get to the bottom flipper and draining and then doing it again, I was like, why are you doing that? Yeah, free RPM. Free RPM. I didn't realize that. So that's one of the good things about your streams. They're very entertaining, but they're also very educational, too. And when I say entertaining, you always take the time to talk to the people in chat, which are lovingly known as the Chungus Army. Hell, yeah. Yeah, that's honestly what keeps me going, I guess, or engaged. It doesn't feel like I'm just here playing by myself. There's a sense of community there. It's a lot of recurring faces. the usual names in chat, I should say. And that's the sense of bringing everybody together, a common space for everybody to be hanging out. Sometimes we might not be even talking about pinball, something completely random. And then meanwhile, I'm still playing. So being able to multitask, that my ability has definitely increased while playing pinball, reading chats, doing things, trying to keep a narrative or a conversation going instead of only focusing on the game. And that has been very much part of a huge aspect of the stream, for sure. Well, there is one time when you don't pay attention to the stream, and that's when you get a little crazy and decide to play blindfolded. And then people can bet their channel points whether or not you can hit a target score. But I've seen some of your blindfolded flips, and you're just kind of like hitting the flippers at the same time over and over every second. And some of those scores beat previous scores when you weren't blindfolded. Yeah, you never know. It's all about that beats per minute, you know, how often you flip. I feel like each game has its own unique beats per minute that are sort of more likely to keep the ball alive than others. You know, some ball moves faster on some games. Flippers might be shorter and stuff like that. It's definitely been a little bit of a science going along because people really do enjoy, or at least they keep redeeming it. You know the blindfold games it seems like every game there at least one And it kind of become its own little thing If you haven checked out LazerLos on Twitch you should because you going to learn a lot about pinball You're going to be able to communicate with one of the best players. I mean, we'll talk about some of his success in just a second, but also you'll get the munchies. Here in Canada, we don't have gripples, or if we do, I don't know where they are, but I am looking forward to your stream just to find out, okay, what's the flavor of the night? and instantly I get the munchies. But it's not just the grippos, especially with the cheese nibs. You can't eat cheese nibs. You can't just throw your hand into a bag. Carlos has got the absolute down-packed, perfect way of eating cheese nibs. You've got to get the patented nib fork. They are fork tender, so it's perfect for the fork, and it keeps the dust off your fingers when you're playing. It's perfect. May the fork be with you. It's amazing to watch you do that. But again, has anybody from Griffles contacted you for sponsorship or at least to get a few free bags? Because nobody promotes them better than you. So far, nothing. But I haven't really reached out to them. I do enjoy kind of showing them off, but I haven't tried to incorporate it in that level with them at all. Missed opportunity. Maybe one day. but I do like being an enthusiast, supporting local. I go and I stop at the store and I'll be like, okay, what's the group of the day? What game am I playing? What haven't I tried to match it with the game maybe or try to rotate? It's similar with what game do I want to play? It's like, okay, well, what day is it? Is there a holiday? It's more of just a mix and match. You definitely support local. You and I have the same shirt. I saw you wearing it one time and I was like, I've got one of those too. And it is one of the finest record shops you'll find ever in Columbus, Ohio, with Amy Kesting, the Spoonful Records shirt, which is a gorgeous shirt, and I know you like to support that as well. Absolutely, yeah, and it's one of the few pastel purple shirts that I own. So it's nice to mix in some color into the all-black T-shirt selection that I have. I mentioned Amy Kesting, great player in Ohio who you can catch at any tournament. whether it's locally or on a national scale, because she certainly travels when we do travel and play pinball. But she was in the Ohio finals a few years ago and probably a few times. But in 2019, you were the Ohio State champ. And it wasn't just like you rolled over a bunch of nobodies. There was Amy. There was Don Johnson. There was James Scott, who won it in 2020, Evan Bingham, and John DelZoppo, a top 50 player in the world. And even Trent Augenstein and Deborah Tallman were there too. So you knocked off some real incredible pinball players to win that championship. Thank you. Yeah, it was a good bracket order, if you will. Like my order, my routing felt good, and I was just feeling confident that day. I don't know. Just all the stars were aligned, if you will, and it just seemed to just go my way. When it comes to playing competitive pinball, do you know when, okay, I can't do anything wrong, or conversely, I just don't have it today? A little bit. If I don't have it today, I really try and figure out what's wrong and try to address it before it's too late. You know, if you've got to go to the bathroom, if you're hungry, if you need a moment of silence or do something, you know what I mean? Like whatever it is you can do before it's too late to try to salvage a day. But definitely on the positive side, definitely know when it's like feeling good, in the zone, everything's working out. It's just you just can't miss. You can't drain. It's a good feeling. And it doesn't happen all the time. But, yeah, you can definitely know when that is actually happening. Like so many pinball tournaments or competitions or leagues, sometimes your eyes light up when you see, okay, your next game is this. And you're like, great, I know the rules inside and out. Maybe I own one of those or I've had a lot of time on that machine. And conversely, you see a game where you're like, I have never played that game. You almost lose before you start because you're like, oh, I don't like this game. Yeah. That's hard to get rid of that mindset. Absolutely. If it's a location, I will try to get there at least a little bit early and try and find the game that I like the least, one that I'm dreading, and make sure I at least get a practice on it and assume that I'm going to have to play it at the worst possible time. Like if I start to expect the worst possible combination of players and machine, then nothing can be worse than my expectations, right? So not that it sometimes, you know, like the outcome, it's like not that it was the worst game, but it was kind of a joke locally that finals was always on rock that Gottlieb game. So like it was the one game that people were like kind of avoiding or not wanting to play in the collection. And it would always pop up in the finals. It's like the most high stakes game comes down to some game that you've been like trying to avoid this whole time. so uh being prepared for those kinds of situations i feel is or not putting yourself in the pre-defeated mindset just almost expecting it but not necessarily wanting it right but so that way you at least try to salvage the mental game just a little bit otherwise those are nice it's nice being on the other side when you see somebody else be like oh man i don't know all you have to do is anything and then the other person just like falls apart sort of it's interesting to hear you say that because with me, there are a handful of games I look at and I'm like, I really never want to play those games again. And that is a huge weakness because guess what? Murphy's Law, you're going to play them. Exactly. So it's funny because you know this every time you play on Laser Los, when you play this certain game, I always give you the what for. Do you know which one? I'm going to get Stranger Things. Stranger Things. Now, that being said, I've only played that game a handful of times and each time couldn't stand playing the game yeah but i watch you play in stream and i watch others my good friend marty melbourne silver ball oz eric plays it and some of the other people and i'm trying to really enjoy the game more i certainly like the rules i love the call outs i love the theme it was always the shots that bothered me i can see that but now that the demogorgon is a bash toy okay that's fine and you can still get it in the mouth and get the extra points or advance further. Yeah. I'm admitting this. I'm starting to like it a little more. Oh, boy. And I know I'm going to play the heck out of it once tournaments start again because there are a lot of those machines. Absolutely. So here I am admitting that. Now, what about you? If you have some games that you do not like, like you say, you go into a tournament, you go to an arcade, you go to those first to get some warm-ups on that so that you're not as defeated when you go up there and maybe have a better mindset. have any games since streaming or in tournaments that you kind of turned around like I have with Stranger Things where you like okay I really didn like that game but now okay I starting to get it I feel like Whitewater, I really didn't like it at first. Not that, like, I thought it was just upper flipper all day, which it kind of is. And I'm like, oh, man, this sounds fun. Shoot the center, shoot the upper flipper. But then, like, once I actually started getting longer sessions on it and kind of looking at it more, there's a lot more to do, and it's pretty entertaining. It feels good when you combo the shots, and the rules aren't like crazy complicated, but satisfying to pull off, you know, getting to wet wheelies or the vacation jackpot or the triple multiball jackpots or the 5X aligned with anything cool, you know. I just never really looked at it on that other level of inspection, But since playing it on stream, I've been able to get a few sessions, and I've definitely come around to really enjoy that game. Rayday and I were chatting about something that you did recently, and it was on Led Zeppelin, where you got the 100 times Icarus. Your score went to, I don't know, 10 billion or something ridiculous. Yeah, it was like 30 seconds and went from like 200 million to like just over 10 billion. So for those that don't know with Led Zeppelin, If you complete the four symbols, that lights your Icarus. And if you keep hitting those targets over and over again, we're talking about combos into those targets, that will add to your multiplier. That's the basic way of how that works. Yeah. You avoid the Icarus as long as possible to build up that multiplier over and over again. And it carries over ball to ball if you haven't cashed it in. And then every time you go up the left ramp, the upper flipper ramp, I should say, on the premium and the LE, you can add time to your Icarus multiplier, correct? Yeah. So I think the base is 15 seconds, then you add another five seconds. So when you said you had 30 seconds of 100 times play field, it sounds like, oh, that's just a stupid scoring exploit. But you really had to grind to get there, and there's a huge risk reward if you don't get it, if you don't hit any jackpots. But that was kind of the endgame. Now, that's exciting to see, and I'm sure you'll do it again. I hope so. And people with Led Zeppelins will be trying it. Does it make everything else irrelevant if you just get to that point? Like, don't worry about anything else. Just do that. I'm not sure yet. I think you would be able to get to that. Like, if you play just like normal, like try to play for advancement in terms of the songs and the tours and try to play for endgame in terms of wizard modes and then cash in the Icaruses naturally. sort of, like small, medium ones, and eventually get to the end. I think you'd get to that point. Ray described it as like a, I found like a warp pipe, if you will, to the high scores. But it is a very stressful risk-reward because all it takes is one rogue ball to that Icarus target to start this timed thing. It's a one-time use. So once it starts, it's going to end at some point, and it's going to be back to 1x. So it was very, very stressful, but very exciting to chase this seemingly unlimited. I guess there is a limit to it. It's like 6,500 or something. But to chase this outlandishly large timed multiplier and then set up the whatever it is on like the back to the surface level flashing lights, like get your mode in a good spot or be in a multiball with good things happening and then let it rip and then just hit as many shots as possible and cash it in. It really gets the heart pumping, I'll say that. Whether it's going to be fun to play in a tournament, like when all four people really know how to play, and it's like, I don't know if it's going to be like build this huge multiplier up and then cash it in, but you could never actually cash it in, so now you just are buried with your riches. You know what I mean? You never actually get to spend it. You've been saving up and then drain three times, and then it's like, well, there goes that. or you get the rogue hit and now you've got to restart back from square one. But fortunately, the newest code added in the action button, which helps, it basically assigns a combo. Instead of having to hit a target, the button will automatically, it will use your button, but it will assign the combo value to your lowest target, lowest symbol. Which I thought was interesting because you had once told me on stream, on Twitch, on LaserLos, that you will not hit Icarus until all four of those symbols have some sort of value because it's useless to hit it when one of them is at 1.0 multiplier. You're right. Right. Yeah, I think of it like, you know, because the colors change as the values increase. They go from like a dark orange all pretty much through the whole spectrum up to like a bright pink. And to me, it's like you're doing this slow watering of this garden, right, a multiplier garden, and you have to feed these symbols with combos and then eventually build them up to these flowering multiplier values, and then you finally cash it in. You harvest the crop, if you will. But it's a slow... But then, like, so if you don't need to do that, right? Like, I'm infinitely trying to chase this just because, you know, why not? In terms of I'm going to be playing a lot of games back-to-back. might as well try and do something crazy. But if it's a league or a tournament, something, a match play situation, then you might not need to do something crazy. You just need to beat the other people. So maybe it's like kind of like Walking Dead style of thinking or like ACDC, like the Lyman, I'm going to put all my efforts into making this one shot and it's going to jump my score. All my effort was worth it for this one collect. it's a similar but once you start it it's starting the multiplier it's timed but then you still have to hit a bunch of shots you could easily start it and then miss and then do nothing and now it's gone so there's no really guarantee but i'm not really sure when i don't need to blow it up blow it up just do enough what the cutoff point is right like what like a good medium is to get a win but not needing to overdo it and accidentally mess it up and not collect i'm sorry i asked you that question sounds like you have zero thought put into it it's fresh on the brain because uh there's been i feel like some discussion since that happened and so i've been thinking about it uh recently i think you were the first person i ever saw do the 900 million death blow on iron Maiden. Yeah. I think, I'm sure, somebody clipped it and I was like, okay, I've seen him before at tournaments, but that was kind of the wow moment. I like oh yeah that guy can play And now he streaming Very entertaining Although you and I have a disagreement on one game It one of my all favorite games just because of the novelty of it Is it a great game Eh Is it fun? Absolutely. Champion Pub. That's what I thought it was going to be. Carlos, I'm telling you, you keep wanting those smart punches. Forget about it. 2x purse every time. Yeah, I feel like if I could knock out more consistently, I mean, that's a good, you know, build those up. But I feel like if... Are you losing that many fights that you need smart punches? I don't know. It's good to have, right? You never know. Maybe one. Well, I can't do the knockout. So the headshots never register. So I feel like if I get the knockout combo, I can just button. Or it's like a good, like, safety net if I'm about to drain to, like, button my way out. but I do see the logic in the increasing the purse because then, you know, especially if you don't make it to the end game, you at least maximize your points on the way. It is fun to watch you play that. And there are so many games. I mean, I always look forward to find out when you're going to play. And because I'm kind of a late night vampire myself, that's kind of your prime time. I mean, you might be the only guy streaming at many times. Yeah, sometimes it's just me and surrogate. But one thing I love about you, and I'll say this to anybody who's streaming. I love that you rate other streamers because just as I do a podcast, I have no problem mentioning every other podcast because there are tons. Go listen to them. There's all kinds of great variety out there. With streamers, there's a lot of streamers out there. We've talked a lot about them on Pinball Profile. I don't just watch one television show. I don't just listen to one music band. There are several. And by rating them, you get samples of other people. Absolutely. It's kind of a small community to begin with in pinball, but it's great to kind of welcome other people. And I think that's wonderful that you and others raid all the time. Yeah, it's honestly one of my favorite parts about streaming, like sharing, especially receiving raids. The timing, like you said, usually works out. People are ending their streams from the evening. And the phrase is, all roads lead to laser lows, because the pinball streams kind of funnel. And like you said, I'm usually the only one. So then they'll if they want to keep their viewers going on the raid train, they'll end up on my stream. And then I'll try to. Well, I mean, pretty much every time, even if my Internet goes out, I'll raid from my phone and I'll host from my phone. But it's nice to share that moment of like, oh, everybody's here, like as the streamer who gets rated. Like it's awesome. A bunch of people pop in. The chat goes crazy. They yell at you to do a tap pass and, you know, people follow or the crossover of communities is really that's like what it's all about. Right. Like kind of growing all the communities and getting some crossover. and you might find a streamer you like that you might not ever have watched otherwise or you get an idea of who I follow, whether it be pinball or not. Like we said, sometimes I am the only one, so then it's like, well, let's go raid something else. Maybe we can bring another community into pinball or kind of cross over there. But when there are pinball streams on, yeah, it's great to keep that raid train because most likely it'll keep going and kind of make it hopefully full circle again. I've seen that before. Or like if someone just sat in the pinball chats, they would eventually make their way back around at the end of the day. By the way, if you raid Laser Los, good chance you're going to see quite the dance number. Yeah, you know, you got to get hype for the raid. And the notification is the classic laser please, the dancing emote. The other thing I love about the stream is that it has introduced me to a ton of different styles of music. And I'm a total music junkie. I listen to more music than I do watch anything on a screen. Nice. When I hear songs I've never heard before, and a lot of the times it's on your stream, okay, I'm going to have to add that to my playlist. Yeah, same, honestly. There's 10, 15 since I've been watching you that I've added? Awesome, yeah. I will regularly look up the saved playlist that I have from the song requests just because I know the music's stuff that I enjoy. Like, that's the beauty of having the open song request in the chat. So anybody that's in chat can add a song to the playlist that plays on stream. So we get people from all around the world, people of different music interests and whatever. Sometimes it's topical suggestions, whether it's, you know, conversation or a holiday or a game that I'm playing or whatever. Some of it's there are some troll songs or whatever, you know, the classics. But overall, it's been really nice. It's been a very cool way to get introduced to music because I definitely agree. There are a lot of songs that I probably would never have heard otherwise that are now in my regular rotation of songs. Carlos, I know you've got to get to a tournament. Are you going to level one, or where are you going? I'm going to Arcade Super Awesome. Okay. And they're doing a weekly head-to-head three-strikes knockout. Nice, nice, nice. All the best. I'm sure you'll do well. And catch him on LaserLos on Twitch. It's so much fun and a great community. The Chungus Army. By the way, for those that don't know, what is the Chungus Army? The Chungus Army is the dedicated group of community Twitch viewers that's basically my Twitch subscriber group. But we are a unit, and we are taking over Twitch one Chungus at a time. What is a Chungus? It's a bit of a lifestyle, but it's a reoccurring meme throughout the channel. It's big Chungus energy, if you will. Okay. You're talking to an old guy here. Just trying to learn. Just trying to stay hip with the kids. Yeah, it's like there's a meme about Fat Bugs Bunny, and it kind of stuck. And now we embrace the Chungus. You let the Chungus flow through you, and it will provide you great success. That's so awesome. I think it's great. And please, please, please check out Laser Los on Twitch because it's a lot of fun. All the best, Carlos. Thank you. You as well. This has been your Pinball Profile. You can find everything on pinballprofile.com. Join our Facebook group. We're also on Twitter and Instagram at pinball profile. You can email us pinball profile at gmail.com. I'm Chungus army member. What's my rank? Uh, Sergeant maybe. I'm Sergeant Jeff. He'll also the Chungus army.