Happy Sunday, Pinfolk, or whatever day you're listening. This is NYC Pin Pod, in which a panel talks location pinball in New York City and nearby surrounding areas. My name is Benjamin Furiga. My initials are BCF. And I went to Barcade on Monday for Pinball NYC, but I left on Tuesday. My name is Eric Sweetland. My initials are HIP. And I'm a pinball tournament director in New York City. On this week's pod, we'll run down local competition results in Ball 1 as usual. In Ball 2, we will do venue updates and talk about solid state in Woodside, Queens. And in Ball 3, we will announce the champion of the NYCPPAA tournament. And we'll chat with the bracket challenge champion. Let's get started. Let's talk about competitive pinball results in New York City in the last week. On Saturday, March 28th, 24 players gathered at Rolos to play in South Slope Strikes for March, directed by Jess Warren. Four strikes this time. Thomas Milburn won the day. Three strikes, just beating out Alex Kelly, Gabriel Chazanov, and tied for fourth, Janos Kiss Gonzalez and Zen Zokniak. Tom picked up 7.38 whoppers. I wasn't able to make the tournament, but I swung by Rolos just in time to catch Jess taking the winner's photo. And we have in our script a photo of Jess taking the winner's podium photo, and only Zen appears in the top four. So I'm going to presume that Zen won a tiebreaker for the money for this. On Sunday, March 29th, Quit Talking and Start Chalking the Royale was held at Barcade Brooklyn. 28 players attended. Jonah Slays was the tournament director. They played eight rounds of group match play for qualifying and then broke into an A and B finals. The whole affair was streamed on Pinball NYC Twitch channel, thanks to Matt Grady. At the top of A, the winner, Greg Fertel. Adam Kane got second, Jonah Slays third, and Nitzan Gabai came in fourth. That's 18.92 Whoppers for Greg Frittell. That's a nice big haul. Big Whopper haul for a single-day tournament. Wes Ulfegg took home first place in the B Division, beating out Greg Pavarelli, Steven Perillo, and Courtney Wetzel. On Monday, March 31st, the two-for-oners went to midway. In Pinball NYC's left flipper division. In Pinball NYC's left flipper division, as Eric points out, The two for oners went to Midway to visit Balls of Steel. And man, they're angry, it looks like, at their lack of success so far this year. Balls of Steel picks up a 14 to 2 home win. Pinball Union visited the pin pals at Skylark and the home team picked up an 11 to 5 win. Special when lit, bested the home team in a tiebreaker at the Monroe, where Intermission Dolores was on the wrong side of the equation. Our New York City Flipper Sport Association went to Solid State in Queens to play the Mutants, and we picked up a 12-4 away win. We wound up splitting all the singles rounds, but our association got the doubles rounds against what's looking like a very tough lineup on the Mutants nowadays. You got a couple of nice additions over there. Ian and Michael both had great games against the Colliders. I don't know what happened there exactly. Yeah, Ian and Michael. That's what I was talking about. Yeah, they played well. We Colliders went to Barcade Brooklyn to visit the Deluxe Horses, who handed us a 12-4 loss. It was fun. It was cute. That was mutually true for both teams, although we are the funnest and the cutest teams in the league. It was a cool night. It was a fun night. I stayed way too late. And somehow I am still standing. Daylight savings really fucks with me. Parliament visited the lion persons. They're not the lion persons. They're just lion persons with an exclamation point at Gebhard's Beer Culture. And the lion persons got a 10 to 6 win. the lesser players lost to the aristocrats at rulos 11 to 5 after six weeks of play lion persons lead the left flipper division with a record of five and one with 63 points our new york city flipper sport association right on the heels five and one with 62 points the mutants and special when lit are also at five and one with 56 and 52 points respectively Parliament sits at 4-2 with 55 points, rounding out the top six, the Pin Pals, 3-3 with 52 points. Pinball Union and the Aristocrats also are at 3-3 with 48 and 47 points. Four teams are at a record of 2-4. The Balls of Steel have 53 points. Intermission Dolores have 45. The Deluxe Horses, 43, and the Two-for-One-ers, 38. The lesser players are sitting in 13th place with a record of 1-5 and 38 points. And Benjamin's Colliders, currently winless with 20 points. On Tuesday, April 1st, no fooling. No Quarters for Laundry hosted Harlem Globe Flippers at Solid State. The two farthest-flung venues faced each other. And the home team, unsurprisingly, won 12-4. The Pin Babes went to Barcade Brooklyn to visit Reston Pinball. R.I.P. And Reston Pinball put the Pin Babes to rest 10-6. How was your off week? It was a nice, quiet night. Got nine points. The Trollstery told us that Monica played an auspicious game of John Wick. And unfortunately for the trolls, it was still a 10-6 loss to the schlubs. At Jack Bar. At Jack Bar, yes, quite so. Baldrainers went to Rulo's and bested the replays 10-6. Neptune's Treasure hosted Scrapple's Squad at Milo's Yard and won a tight match 9-7. and pinister six went to buttermilk bar to visit danger danger pinister six used to be at home at boat bar boat and buttermilk are owned by the same people zen sent me a text zen zakniak who is a captain of pinister six that said another close one and some good split flipper score on ghost busters but the home team danger danger could not catch up pinister six wins eight to eight He sends me a screenshot of the Ghostbusters score. And for Split Flipper, this is pretty fucking amazing. 390 million for the first players and 360 million for the second players. For Split Flipper on Ghostbusters, that's pretty good. Somebody was hitting some rivers of slime or some gear awards or something there. Something was going on for real. So what's standing? Benjamin comes slouching from Bethlehem. The center will not hold is probably what that was a reference to. I'm not smart enough to have recognized it exactly. It is. Yeah. I wrote that above the standings because, well, you'll hear. No quarters for Laundrie is 6-0. They have 77 points. At this point, it's not mathematically impossible that they would end up out of the top, but it's really hard to imagine that they would not be the top seed in this division. ball drainers and Neptune's treasure five and one they have 54 and points a piece no quarters for laundry by the way has 77 so like they're so far in front even if they came back to meet everybody they have to lose a number of times to get out of this thing to fall out of it and it's not going to happen Neptune's treasure and ball drainers you would think at five and one they'd be safe for the top, right? But the reason that I wrote the center will not hold is this. There are five teams below those top three at four and two. Six teams will make the right orbit playoffs. Six teams will make that. But there are five tied for positions three through six right now, as well as tied for the first two buys in the in-lane division. The tiebreaker is pretty serious because Danger Danger at 65 points is 10 points in front of the next comer. So as long as they don't lose out, they're probably in good shape. Harlem Globe Flippers have 55. Schlubbs have 52. Scrapple Squad has 51, by the way. Schlubbs at 52 and Scrapple Squad at 51. That's the line between the Orbit playoffs and the in-lane playoffs right there. Pinister Six at 4-2 has 46 points. your butterballers are three and three with 44 trolls are two and four with 32 if the playoffs started today resting pinball at one and five with 40 would be the next to last seed and the replays who have yet to win would be the last seed in the playoffs with the pin babes excluded because the replays have 39 points and the pin babes unfortunately had a forfeit so they have only 17 yates the center will not the poem's called the second coming it's a fantastic poem on wednesday april 2nd the second meeting of the nyc match play pinball league at scrapple lands was held under the direction of greg pavarelli 28 players came out with the goal of adding points to their series total of this league. Five rounds of match play netted Dante Oliva 31 points towards that goal. IFPA scoring. So 35 would have been perfect. 31 is pretty damn good. Only two positions out. Yeah. Alberto Santana came in second with 27. So did Wes Ulfig. Chris Caffaro, Sean Grant, and Greg Pavarelli all picked up 25 points. 12 players joined in the optional side pots. Those $60 were then matched by Scrappoland for a side pot total of $120 distributed to the top four who had opted in. Those were Dante, Alberto, Chris, and Sean. That's nice. Greg was tied. Greg also was in the money. I forgot the label being a slightly different color. They had a tie game I know I saw them do it but I don recall the results Two of those three Two of those three got money Cafaro Grant Pavarelli Two of those three got money Dante definitely moneyed Alberto definitely moneyed. Wes only didn't because he didn't put in the pot. On Thursday, April 3rd, 26 players gathered for No Bro Presents Thursday Night Strikes at Jack Bart. Greg Fertel came out on top with two strikes to his name in a three-strike tournament. Paul Karras came in second. Pac-Man, hum-hum-hum, Ian Leone, and David Patlack tied for third. Also on Thursday, another 19 players showed up at Buttermilk for the first session of the South Slope Pinball League 2025 Season 2. The season one medals were handed out, and I got my third place medal. It's got my name on it next to a little hot dog doing a slam dunk. I really like it. Kate Martin directed The Evening, as usual. We played five rounds of group match play with IFPA scoring. Matthew Carlson was the big points gatherer of The Evening with 29. I'm just going to go with an as usual again there. both rob long and monica whitecamp got 27 points and thomas milburn got 25 what did i 23 i think yeah i think you were right outside of that that's that's an okay night 23 23 is a good night 21 is probably adequate right 84 is probably going to get you in if you have four 21s 21 is where i start to say okay yeah and then you go up from 21 it's like that's That's good. I always want 25. I always want something that looks like second in every match, although hopefully I had some firsts. No, that's not true. I always want 35, but I'm always relatively satisfied with 25. Next week in Pinball, NYC's left flipper division on Monday, April 7th, the Deluxe Horses will visit Pinball Union. it will be the battle of barcade as it will be at both of their home venues but pinball union will make the choices in the second round and the fourth round intermission Dolores will take the G train to Jack bar to visit the lesser players the two for one ers will have their second far flung match going to visit solid state and they're the mutants the aristocrats will go to owl farm just down the block to visit parliament they won't cross an avenue only streets balls of steel will visit special when lit at jack bar they will cross exactly one avenue but no streets we colliders will go from south brooklyn to up state Manhattan to visit the New York City Flipper Sport Association, Eric's New York City Flipper Sports Association. I'm really excited about this match in particular, having the colliders come up to visit. For the rest of the season, our association will not be leaving the island of Manhattan. We've got three home games in a row, and then we're finishing the season at Gebhardt's Beer Culture. Ooh, not leaving a 70-some block radius. 77. 72 to 149. 77. Your math checks out. The Lion Persons will go from that very 72nd Street down to South Slope to visit the Pin Pals at Skylar. On Tuesday, April 8th, the replays will visit the Pin Babes, who are still looking for their first win at Birdies. Pinister Six will have a bye. Harlem Globe Flippers will go from upstate Manhattan to Williamsburg to visit the Schlubbs at Jack Bar. Danger, Danger will visit Scrapple's Squad at Scrapple Land. No Quarters for Laundry will visit Your Butterballers at Buttermilk. The Trolls will host Ball Drainers at Bar Great Harry. And Neptune's Treasure will visit Barcade Brooklyn to visit Rest in Pinball R.I.P. On Wednesday, April 9th, the NYC Match Play Series will continue at Scrapple Land in Greenpoint at Pinball 8 o'clock. I believe it will soon be changed to be called Scrapple League. Oh, that's a very good idea. Yes. Yes, I seem to recall someone saying that on the first night of that. It should be called that, and that was a great idea. Yeah. On Thursday, April 10th, No Bro Presents Thursday Night Strikes will be met at Jack Bar in Williamsburg starting at 8 o'clock sharp. and at pinball eight o'clock down in south slope sspl2 for the year will have its second meeting of the season saturday april 11th the gebhard's second saturday of the month tournament is listed on the match play calendar at 11 30 p.m i have a feeling that it will not be at that time i wonder if it starts at 11 30 a.m i followed a couple of links to try to figure out where it was and I was just going in a circle. On Sunday, April 13th, the monthly Jersey City Open for April 2025 will be convened at Barcade Jersey City. I find it impossible to believe that this will not be the last open competitive pinball event at the venue. At least IFPA endorsed. At 8 p.m. on that same day, there is an event on the matchplay.events calendar that lasts until the 20th that is titled JC Flipper's Farewell Barcade Bash. So this all got negotiated on the Discord. Oh, it did. It's Falzone, I'm pretty sure. It's a best game tournament with qualifying open for the week up until the 20th and then the playoffs will be the evening of the 20th they're not going to start until 8 30 p.m because they specifically want for people to be able to drive back from pin baltimore and make it because there's a lot of people going to pin baltimore who also want to make the jersey city last night as of april 4th 2025 there are 301 pinball machines in new york city at 83 public locations. Thanks to the creators and users of Pinball Map for this data, here are machine updates from the past week. On Sunday, March 30th, user Fox was at the Monroe in Brooklyn and let us know that the flipper is stuck up again on Creature from the Black Lagoon and the Deadpool scoop isn't registering. Also on Sunday, the right flipper was fixed on the Pulp Fiction of Rolos, thanks to Pinball Lizard. And also on Sunday, a Jurassic Park was removed from Franklin Park in Brooklyn. But a Jaws, a Godzilla, a Ghostbusters, and a Game of Thrones were all added to Franklin Park. Are you fucking kidding me? I'm sorry to interrupt, but that is two blocks from my home. It's not that close, but what? This is why I waited. okay gonna have to go check out this franklin park place yeah great burgers too by the way on monday march 31st user it's raj was at the coyote club in brooklyn and said of their mandalorian top right section with the six little panels doesn't work so things like sneaky skill shots or encounters, just straight up don't register. On Wednesday, April 2nd, user MikeDG was at the gutter LES and noted that the Jaws played well and the No Fear was turned off. And on Thursday, April 3rd, user Chamber10 noted that the fishtails at Single Cup Beer Smiths and Queens was off. Let's talk about solid state. I just want to start by contextualizing this as a community thing. The owner of Solid State is Chris Medina, who also runs the Pinball NYC League. So this is a family joint. Solid State is a place that has stories. It almost felt like there were stories in it when they opened because it is a family joint, because it's a neighborhood bar and the neighbors are there, because it's a pinball bar and the pinball people are there. It's a place where there are stories. They're stored there. They're in the games. They're in the wood. They're in the place. It's in Woodside, Queens, which I love that in Queens, we're actually named by the neighborhood, which is to say that its mailing address is in Woodside, New York. It is at, and I love this about Queens too, 53-22, because it's between 53rd, I think, Avenue, maybe Street, whatever. There are too many things. There are streets and roads and avenues and places and whatever the hell in Queens. It's way too confusing if you live in Brooklyn. I'm sure that like Havermeyer is confusing if you live in Queens. You got to take the 7 train to get there. You go to 52nd Street. That's it. It's the it's the only real public transit option if you're coming from anywhere outside the neighborhood. It is a neighborhood bar. I always like taking the 7 train to solid state. It is one of the most reliable lines. The 7 train has CBTC, communications-based train control, allow them to run much closer together at a higher frequency and more reliably. Interesting. The 7 and the L are currently the two trains with CBTC. And I believe the current work on the G involves adding it, which would be great for Brooklyn and Queens trips. If you look at the decor in solid state, it is dark wood. It is a little bit of exposed brick, but there are really cool reclaimed type fixtures. I honestly don't know if they're actually reclaimed, although I assume they are because they're like steel schedule 40 pipes that thin inner diameter. Not big things that you would use for anything more than household plumbing, probably. But that kind of pipe holds up a lot of the fixtures, at least up front and in the back. And then in the middle, there's this homey living room. And they've recently, I think, upgraded the furniture. right i i don't remember there being like lush couches there until when i visited this week would you agree with that yeah that sounds right they've got like a couple of nice like cozy seating areas with warm homey but not particularly bright lighting focused warm color temperature lighting longwood bar up front two non-gendered restrooms in this like hut that just sort of juts out from the right side of the bar but when you walk past that long bar there's that homey little living room area one of the coffee tables is a foosball table sometimes there's a projector that shoots a projection onto the wall but there's a an important sporting event or something or I think they do a lot of Jets games, I think, or they did at a point. It's a Mario Kart tournament, I think, at least once. Oh I forgot that I had seen some Mario Kart up there too Yeah that makes sense They got Crokinole here too I think Is that right They got a Crokinole table or a Crokinole table topper It a Crokinole table Oh, okay. A Crokinole tray. Yeah. They've got really cool art on that bathroom hut and a bunch of photos, old black and white photos of people playing pinball. And also the photo that everybody's seen of Fiorello LaGuardia smashing up a pinball machine with a sledgehammer? I say everyone's seen it because 30 people listening to this have seen it. Of pinball machines. What do you dig about solid state? Or not? If not. I do like the low lighting level and all the wood and metal touches. It is a very comfortable feeling. It's got a concrete floor. Yeah? In the front? I think up front, yeah. Once you get into the back, there's on that a slightly raised platform it is i think wood paneled but the floor but yeah i think you're right that up front it's just poured concrete it's not like bright poured concrete and that helps the dim lighting what do you drink when you're there they don't have food as a matter of course but they have i've found out started to have pop-up kitchens occasionally sometimes there's food available but it's a pot on a pop-up basis so i imagine if you check their website or their Facebook page or something like that. You can find that information. They're also okay with you bringing in food, and they happen to have a fantastic taqueria exactly next door, El Don. Yes, really good, yeah. Really good. Really good. I'll sometimes have their cheap beer, which is Tecate, I think. Oh, in a can. In a can. Okay. Or they might have High Life in a can, too. Yeah, yeah. One or the other. They don't carry Jim Beam, So I will have a Old Overholt. Oh, I like Old Overholt. I do appreciate, though, that they have a fantastic, giant set of taps of all New York breweries. So that's an important point. They are called Solid State. And you might think, oh, they have a bunch of old pinball machines in the back. But that's not exactly true. They have a couple of old pinball machines in the back that fit exactly that category, and another one that appears to fit the category that is not old. Though I think it is hard to call Pulp Fiction exactly a solid-state machine. Except that every machine since the switch from electromechanical is a solid-state pinball machine. The latest machine made is a solid state pinball machine. Yes, you're right. But we're talking about the eras as we use them in pinball talk and not to be pedantic. I'm technically right. No, no, no. Pedantic is where I live. Technically right is the best kind of right. It does reference solid state. the fact that they always have New York. When I talked to Chris about the place the first time that I talked to him on the podcast, that was one of the things that I was like, plug your bar, tell us about it. And he was like, it's called Solid State because of the taps. I need everybody to know these are New York beers we're pouring here. And I don't, look, the way that I eat in my house is I eat New York food. Not because New York is superior to someone else, but because it's where I live, because it has a lower carbon footprint and it tastes better because it didn't come from far away. It didn't spend a long time getting to me. The beer is going to do the same. So the pins are in the back. It's another place that has such a very nice mix. And also a lot. 10 games. Yeah. I went in last night. The first thing i saw chris and the first thing he said to me after you know just like we we caught up for a second was i'm embarrassed because indie isn't working you have 10 games dude if nine games in your venue are working you are still one of the biggest and best like it's cool man i i appreciate that he is humble in that way but like they got 10 games and as you say there's a good mix what do you like about the mixture of the games? What is it in the makeup? Where else do we have a couple solid states like this? Harlem Globetrotters on Tour and Mata Hari, two fantastic games. A couple other places around, maybe Gebhardt's has a couple of solid states. Yeah, Milo's. What, Milo's? Sure. Right, Nelson Brown also at Gebhardt's. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And obviously, Scrappleland, obviously. And it is probably true still at Sunshine because I don't think I've heard in the Ball 2 updates yet that a bunch of games have been removed that like Bad Cats and Comet or whatever are still sitting around there. The mix at Solid State is really good. I'm really digging the current lineup they're rocking right now. Yeah. It's pretty good. Well, look, over the past couple of weeks, I've heard you say really nice things about Indiana Jones, the Pinball Adventure and Tron. and both of those games are in this lineup. They are and Black Knight Sword of Rage is there. Yeah, although I don't mean to throw your words in your face, but I do feel like you said if there isn't an upper play field, then it's not Black Knight. And this one, correct me if I'm wrong, does not have an upper play field. It's true. It's the lesser Black Knight. The least, perhaps, because there are so many? Yeah, the least of the four. How do you play Mata Hari? I shoot for the scoop straight up the center. Over and over again. No matter how many A's and B's you got. I guess I haven't gotten enough A's and B's yet to make it tempting. That builds up the value of that saucer. I was under the impression collecting A and B built the value of collecting A and B. Maybe I got the rules wrong. Maybe I'm interpreting them wrong. certainly i want the saucer at least three times to begin with to get to a 5x bonus right if you know i'm hitting the center spinner on the way up and uh getting some points there and hopefully it stays in the saucer that darn saucer that is so shallow it's it is it is and it's and it's kick out is at least a little scary and it kicks out into at least a little bit of chaos because there are bumpers there. It's something. If you walked in and you knew that every one of the games was working entirely perfectly and you had free reign, there were zero social consequences, there were zero economic consequences for the game that you chose to play right now, which one would you play in this collection? Tron. That's what I thought you would say. I'm going to add this color to it before I ask you to explain why. This Tron is the one that was at Kettle of Fish. Chris told me at some point when I was speaking to him that he really very specifically wanted this Tron. Not a Tron, not some Tron, not to own the pinball game with the title Tron that looked and kind of behaved exactly like this. But this one. Tell me why that's the first one you play. it's a crazy copy of Tron. I can't think... It's different than most of the other Trons I've ever played. Do you find it drastically hard, drastically easy, somewhere in the middle? Is there something weird about feeds? What is it? It feels like it should be extremely easy because it feels as if it's moving slower than other Trons. I'm not sure why. I don't know if it's slope or what. but maybe it is because it just really seems harder to control. It might be set up shallow. Do you play Demoman with the handles? I do. I use the triggers on Demolition Man. Me too. I think that is the correct competitive choice given that you score more points when you use the triggers. It has to be hitting only the triggers in order to score more points? No. Every combo that you make in the game is worth a million points awarded in bonus. If you make a combo using the triggers, you will be awarded an extra million in the bonus. You can mix and match throughout a ball. It'll keep track of which combos you made using the triggers. Got it. However, the copy at solid state has this disabled. You do not receive extra bonus for using the triggers on the copy at solid state. It's an operator setting, I presume, made by Philippe. There is another reason to use the handles, and it is for nudging purposes. Demolition Man, in particular, is an extremely heavy pinball machine. It's from William's Super Pin line. It's the widest playfield design ever put out, excepting Hercules, Demoman, and Judge Dredd, and Indiana Jones, the pinball adventure, is also super pin. But I don't mind it as much, I will tell you, on the Demoman, because of the handles, I think. I don't mind how wide it is, because my fingers are just somewhere else. I'm always going to play with the triggers, because on a copy that does give you the bonus points, you get the bonus points. It's true. And on a copy where you don't get the bonus points, well, this is how I play Demoman. But also, there's a thumb button. And I believe that once a ball, you can score some shot you need by hitting that button. It might specifically be a multiball jackpot. And there's strategic ways to save those for important parts in the multi-balls. Sure. Especially the first multiball, which is scripted, you know, this shot is the jackpot, then that shot is the jackpot. And you can do a clever thumb button thing to coincide with the launching of the second ball into play to score a neat jackpot that would be very hard. Huh. Which ones are your faves, Benjamin? Mata Hari and Harlem Globetrotters. I walked in last night and when I handed Chris a 20 for my beer, he said, do you want some quarters? And I was like, I would like a roll of quarters because I knew I was going to walk back to the games that were only going to take my quarters and stand there for a minute. I was delighted to notice something that I don't remember having noticed before. I feel like I must have noticed it before, but I sent Eric a text as soon as I looked at my score after the first game I played of Mata Hari. Which, by the way, I think I sent him, I think on the photo that I sent him, it was the high score flashing by. It was not my score. I could tell because it was in a four. Yeah, right, right, right, right. There you go. I saw it. I was like, wow, that's really good. Oh, no, it's the high score. Right. But the player one scorecard is slightly occluded from view by the hair of Mata Hari, a spy who was a human being who lived. And also this pinball game I think is themed after a movie I played those two a few times not for my whole And then I went back and I thought I was going to play Demoman. And then I looked and was like, oh, but there's this Tron and I have this story about this Tron. And it's not just that Chris told me his story about this Tron. Pulp Fiction also. So I just, Pulp Fiction, it's really good. You're allowed to not think it's really good, but I keep saying I think it's really good, and you don't keep saying, yeah, sure, it is. So do you not think it's really good? I dig it. It's fine. I get what they're going for. You don't think they achieved it? I don't think it aligns with me competitively. I really would like to trap a lot more than it affords you. Maybe. What I feel is that I'm controlling but not trapping. And you're actually saying, no, but it doesn't stop dead so that I can stop and say, what is the next thing I do? Yes. But that instead what I'm doing is slowing it down enough that I'm making an informed decision on the fly, I guess. Yeah. When I was there on Monday, I noticed up between a couple of the games in the back running across the room to also between a couple of the games on the opposite side is a wire. there used to be a same wire between all of the games running across the room and they hung plastic from them as we were reopening from the pandemic and trying for social distancing they installed some plastic sheets and fans back there to separate people who were playing at adjacent games most of them are taking down but one's still up because they use that to hang the curtain for the drag shows that they have there. Nice. On Sundays. I remember one particular Sunday, I was at Solid State for the drag show. I was there with Mary Rose, and the drag queen came out and did the entirety of Albuquerque by Weird Al Yankovic, an 11-minute nonsensical rambling song that Mary Rose loved that song and yeah it was a good time I love this place since it has opened I have loved this place I have loved the collection as it has changed and evolved I didn't mind when Deadpool was there in the same way that I don't mind that Indiana Jones the pinball adventure is there like it is it doesn't matter when I walk in And there's a game, even two games, that aren't quite working because it's got a lot of games. And it's got a great collection. And as you point out, it's a great mix. It's a great mix. How can you go wrong? My name is Zen Zokniak. My initials are Z-E-N. I'm the original Zen, not to put a damper, Nixon Deas, who we did have a discussion about at one point in time. and we agreed both because his last name starts with Z-E-N, that he also gets those initials. But I was in New York first. And you're both from Colorado, if memory serves, too, right? Yeah, for a short period of time, that is correct. Thank you for joining us. Thanks, Benjamin, for having me. Happy to be here. Because Zen has already won, and let me go ahead and congratulate you. You've won the bracket challenge. You get a Venom Translite and a Harvest pint glass. Hey, thank you very much. I'm so happy to be a winner. I'm happy that you guys set it up for competition for people to have fun. Yeah. Also, we will enshrine you into the NYC Pinpod Awesomeness Archive alongside Joe Shirovino, who won the first one. Sounds great. Joe is a wonderful ambassador for the game. And if you've spent any time around the venues of New York City, Zen is a wonderful ambassador for the game. He does it in a very much more localized way. But man, Zen, you are always the smiley, friendly guy helping the new people out. And I really appreciate that. Yeah, I appreciate it. It's all about the fun for the game. And I like bringing new people into it. More importantly, I like the diversity of the people that I get to meet in this community. And how I can have something in common, And even though they don't have things that are necessarily in common with me other than pinball, because I can grow and learn. And that's great. Totally with it. Thank you for that, too. Here, here. Ask you. So you have the winning bracket. You had a bracket that had in the final four Metallica remastered. And that turns into your champion, if memory serves. Argosy, which also both of those games were in Eric's and my voting final four. Dolly Parton, which I mean, how could you not choose Dolly Parton? It's almost embarrassing for us that we didn't get Dolly Parton through. And Game of Thrones, which reasonable people can disagree. What was your methodology? So each one, one Dolly Parton was probably almost the top selection. Dolly Parton is one, an amazing person. It's an amazing game. It's an interesting thing to have. Like Dolly Parton pinball? Why would you... Who came up with this idea? Who was the person that approached Dolly Parton and said, hey, let's make a pinball machine? So Dolly Parton is just an amazing figure. So it's a great game. And if I were to own a pinball machine and it would sit in my house, and I live in New York, so it would have to sit in a very visible part of my house, that would be one that I would have because I can look at it. It looks cool, right? There's nothing crazy about it. It's a nice piece of artwork. Yeah. So that was the factor with Dolly Parton. Argosy, I got a perfect match medal from Pinberg. Oh! And Argosy was the game that I won it. Cool. And that was the first time I had ever played it. and it's a really crazy weird game with all the little bumps you roll over it was i i didn't even know how to even play it but i ended up getting a perfect match i that was the only time i ever played it but it was important to my life so i put that one up there nice and then uh game of thrones so as much as people like kind of give game of thrones a bunch of crap it's actually it's a fun game if you really sit back and and look at all right these are different ways that i can like set up my houses and make points oh yeah i mean i'm with you it's a fun game i just the the best dmd game of all time is is the uh is why i say reasonable people can disagree i i like it a lot and its rules are maybe so deep that it almost has to be the best considered DMD game of all time. I'm a rules guy. You guys know this. It's about me. If you ever want to play Beat Me and Pinball, play Monster Bash because I want all five monsters. I'm going to lose because I didn't get all five. That's how it works. That's funny. Metallica, I liked it when it first came out. I didn't really like the band all that much, but it's grown on me as I've gotten older. The remake, I was like, holy crap. This is what these people need to be doing because the remake is took the exact same gameplay added up a whole bunch of stuff on it and the visuals on the screen are the best that i've ever seen it's a lot of concert footage right well it's a lot of concert footage but the but the animations are awesome like the the bat tilt thing and everything else is really really powerful i don't like the cartoony stuff, like the cartoony Foo Fighters or the cartoony Aerosmith ones. I don't need cartoons. And I don't know why they're trying to sell cartoons to me. I like the real stuff. And that's what I appreciated about this game too. So the gameplay was already good. They jacked it up, made it good, had a lot of points and they increased the visuals to where it doesn't seem like I'm playing a kid's game because I'm not a kid. So here's what we are going to do Eric and I voted on our final four, and it's the first time that we have had a group. We've had a couple of other groups that have tied, and we have figured out how to broker the ties. But it is the first time that we have voted on a group wherein the very vote totals were 8, 8, 8, and 8 because we had them in exactly the opposite order. so because zen had already won we're going to invite him to break the tie zen you've already got 13 points you there is nothing strategic about giving metallica remastered seven points but if you have seven points to give to one of these machines five to give to another three to give to another and one to give to another with the idea that the one that is your favorite gets seven points. Metallica Remastered, Argosy, Theater of Magic, Harlem Globetrotters on Tour. How do you rank those four games, Sam? First of all, I'd also like to add that I didn't realize how the scoring actually worked. You, Benjamin, and Eric, you guys were scoring these things together, so I didn't pay attention to any of that. I just put the ones that I liked. Yeah, yeah. Okay, good, good, good. I actually think that that's kind of the coolest thing. that's why we had nine different champions in 10 brackets right because people wanted the thing they wanted so let's go through it go through the four again and let me rank them so what are the four from the electromechanical era argosy from the solid state era harlem globetrotters on tour from the dmd era theater of magic and from the flat screen era metallica remastered all right I'm going to have to go Metallica, Argosy, then Theater of Magic last. Then Metallica is, in fact, the NYC double P, double A champion. And Zen has not 13, but 16 points that he has earned in this tournament. He gave himself the last three, but he'd already beaten all of you, so that's why we gave him the option. No offense to the all of you out there. Zen, congratulations, but do you have anything to tell us as the newest, awesomest pinball player of all time, at least for right now? So the way that I play pinball and the way that I play competitive pinball is always to play more pinball. So everybody, do the best that you can. Get to the last round. Get as much pinballing that you can. That's how I play. I don't have to win, but I'd like to have more pinball. That's all for this week's pod. Join us next week when we'll run down local competition results. We'll have venue updates and we'll speak with Miriam Nadler, New Yorker who won the Women's National Championship. Between now and then, whatever you're up to, go get them, pinfolk.