it's time now for another pinball profile i'm your host jeff teals you can find everything on pinballprofile.com past episodes subscriptions it's all right there don't forget to join our facebook group we're also on twitter and instagram at pinball profile and you can email us pinball profile at gmail.com time to introduce many of you to somebody that i've known for many years and he's a guy that is liked by every single person I know. So you've got some big shoes to live up to right now. His name is Kevin Chow. He's from Bluffs Pinball. How are you doing, Kevin? I'm doing good, Jeff. Thanks. How are you? Oh, I didn't like that intro. I didn't like that intro. Sorry, you've just tuned everybody out. You've just pissed everybody off. I'm just kidding. You know, we're doing fine as far as we can with the current situation in the world, And I bring you up because you, like many people I've noticed, have been kind of keeping people together, albeit online. And I mentioned that you're part of Bluffs Pinball, which we will definitely talk a lot about. But you have decided and have been doing this for quite some time, I guess six plus months, in fact, of keeping the league together online, playing games, pinball trivia and more. And it's a big, big hit with your league. Yeah, I mean, when all this started, I was like, well, how can we keep together? I mean, we've always done everything on a Thursday night. And so I thought, well, you know, we can take this online, do something simple. We started out with just doing trivia using Jackbox Party. And then after a few games of that, I was like, I think I can make up some pinball trivia that would be kind of similar how they do the questions and the answers and make it kind of fun. so that at least we could do something that's pinball and learn something on the way. It's been a real hit. It's not just questions, too, and it's of all eras. But one thing I like about it is you've got video in there and you've got some audio. You hear a sound and you're like, okay, what's that game from? Where's that sound from? What game is that? And I have to admit, it's fun to play. It goes by really quick, but it can't be that quick to put it together. You put a lot of effort in. Yeah, it takes a lot of work to try to think up new questions every week. Sometimes I stump myself and I'm like, well, you know, what can I do differently? Or sometimes I'll go back to the same game and just kind of change the question a bit. But it didn't it started out just with questions. And as COVID was going along, the company that I used, which was Kahoot, you know, they started implementing being able to use YouTube videos. And then I thought, okay, that's great. You know, how can I utilize using videos? And then I was like, well, I always have fun, you know, going to the pin spotting Facebook groups to say, hey, who knows what game this is? And I thought, well, you know, I could do that using music videos. And, you know, I've actually found a lot of different music videos that actually, you know, are in arcades or they're using pinball machines. So it's been a lot of fun trying to find that. I played recently on a Thursday night in your trivia, and one of the questions that came up was this video and name the location. I had never seen the video before, but instantly I knew it was Sunshine Laundromat in New York City as they kind of walk through all the washers and dryers, get back into the big room there. And it was a video I never saw before, but a nice little promo piece for Sunshine. Who was the video for that? I don't even know, actually. It's a rap video, but they rented out the arcade spot, and they were using it in their music video. I obviously assume they didn't get the license to use the likenesses in the pinball machine, so I don't know how big budget it was. The video looked great, but it was kind of nice to see you do that, and you found other locations as well. Yes. Not too many other ones, but, I mean, we had ones where I found a pinball museum somewhere in Europe. and a lot of these music videos, they have all these pinball museums and it's nice to actually see it. Speaking of videos, we know our friend Ed Ed Robertson of Barenaked Ladies did his silver ball video a few years ago. You could see his playroom in his basement there and I know you and your brother-in-law Scott Clark have been over there as well, even fixing some of the older games, kind of expertise on some of the EMs. Yeah, my brother-in-law is really good at fixing the older machines. In fact, if I recall, you and Scott came over to my house to pick up an embryon, and I don't think there were any issues, but I remember we had trouble getting the head down, and you guys just cut all the wires instead of us trying to figure out how to fold this thing down for whatever problem was with the bolt. And like, you're cutting the wires, and you're like, ah, yeah, we're going to redo those anyway. I was like, wow. Yeah, you know, I remember that as well because, you know, we saw your ad posted, and we're like, hey, that's a really good price for a pinball machine. And when he called you, he's like, hey, I know you. And it's like, what? Who is this? And when we found out it was you, we're like, oh, okay, perfect. It's always nice to purchase a game when you know the seller. And, yeah, basically it wasn't made so that you could remove the head, but in order for us to get it into the basement, it's easier for us to remove the head. So what we did was we cut off the wires and then we just recapped it so that it had a quick connect for the wires. Brave. I would never do that. But, you know, if we think about wires, I mean, that is kind of your expertise. You, by trade, are a piano tuner. It's been a family business for 40 years in the greater Toronto area. And what similarities are there to piano tuning and fixing pinball machines? You know, mostly it's just about getting your hands dirty and fine motor skills. So, I mean, it's very similar in that respect. And, you know, just like a pinball machine and a piano, you know, they both have mechanisms that are always moving. So, you know, it's very similar. Someone like me, I don't really know where to start. You know, I know what's wrong with the game. I know what's not working. Troubleshooting, I really don't have any idea. I have to go online or call people like yourself and I just wonder how do you get over that fear I asking for a friend of course certainly not me Yeah I remember the first time you know looking at my game and thinking, oh, I have to repair this. How do I do it? And I was so worried and scared to touch anything. And, you know, that's when I actually hired someone to come over to help me fix the game. You know, it was Doug Chappell. And, you know, he showed me how to do things properly, how to open it up. And, you know, he's like, you have to be comfortable doing it. And he just showed me that, you know, it can take a lot of beating and a wear and tear so you don't have to touch it so delicately. And, you know, that's what I always worried about was, you know, just opening it up and breaking something. Well, opening it up, you know, you want to make sure a certain power is off. That's for sure, because say you open up a solid state and you want to mess around with the digital score display. That might give you a bit of a shock. Oh, yeah, I've gotten a shock before from a game, especially if a game hasn't been grounded before and you touch two games and you get this really quick jolt. Gets the blood pumping, I guess. For sure. So for you, I mentioned I met you at Bluffs. What got you into joining a league or what was the fascination for pinball? Was that kind of your first experience just going into a league or was pinball kind of always around? So as a kid, I went to the arcades a lot, but I never actually paid attention to playing pinball. Usually I'd go to the arcade with my uncle, but really the person that got me playing pinball was actually my aunt because she loved playing pinball. and if we were anywhere where there was a pinball machine, she would play and she would get all these extra balls and she would let me play the extra ball since it doesn't cost any money and she's like, okay, you can do whatever you want with it. It wasn't until later on when I'm an adult and I have money and I thought, well, I want to get an arcade machine and after I got my arcade machine, I thought, well, what would go great with an arcade machine? A pinball machine. and I bought my first pinball machine in around 2015 and that's when me and my brother-in-law, Scott, we would just play the pinball machine, just the two of us, and we thought, wow, this is great. And I didn't know anything at the time and so my first game that I purchased was a Gottlieb Gold Wings. That's a good game. That's one where there's like 10 different lights and when you hit the lit one, it's I think 5,000. Is that the one? No. Oh, that's Golden Arrow. Yeah, this is an SS, and it's kind of supposed to be like Top Gun. Ah, okay, I do know that one, yes, yeah. There's no side drains, and there is a 500,000 shot, and you can get the multiplier up to get it to be a couple million. But it's not like the most asymmetric game that you could really learn off of. But we enjoyed that for a full year, And then that's when I heard on the pinball forums that Bluffs was opening up a league. I got to meet Walt because I actually went to tune his piano because he put a message on the forums asking, does anyone know a piano tuner? And I said, well, I'm a piano tuner and I can come help you. And he said, sure. You know, he's like, you can come check out my games. So that's how I first met Walt. And then that's when Walt introduced me to Bluffs. He's saying, well, we're going to start this league in a few months. You know, you should come out and join. And I thought, well, sure, you know, it's great. I want to meet other people that enjoy the hobby. And that's when I first started going to Bluffs. And, you know, that's where I met you first and all the other great people. And slowly, you know, from then I just enjoyed the hobby so much that, you know, I wanted to help. You are a big help, and Bluffs was one of the sites, too, that a lot of international players got to see for the first time when, in 2018, the IFPA 15 was held at Adam Becker's Press Start Arcade. But there were pre-events, including at Eddie D'Orazio's Durham League location, home base, if you will, and, of course, Bluffs. A neat location. So think of a kind of a storage warehouse and really a museum. There are, I think, stacks of three different levels of pinball machines. It kind of looks like a pinball graveyard when you start looking up because, you know, you might see four fire powers in a row or something like that. But obviously they're capable of working and maybe they're used for parts or this and that, or they get swapped in, swapped out. But it's a nice little collection they've got there just east of Toronto. Yeah, the owner, you know, he really loves all eras of games. and he appreciates the ones that other people don't. So, I mean, he's got all kinds of rare games that you can see there. It helps the league, right? We get to experience all these different kinds of pinballs that you would never get to experience in other places or on location. Scott McDowell definitely has a great collection there, and you're always, when you go there, you see different games. And here's the thing, too. Bluffs has a lot of action. You mentioned Thursday nights was our regular league night. Every Thursday night. So there's that. There's also the Women's League. And then there's side tournaments, too, almost every other month. There's a lot going on. We heard Maya Moroz do a lot of her Pinball for Change charity events there. Bluffs has really, really grown in the Ontario scene. Yeah, it has. And it's grown in a really great and positive way. Like, it's a very friendly place where anyone can go to enjoy the games. But also if you want that competitive edge, there's a lot of really high caliber players that go there to play. That's one thing about going to a Bluffs tournament. You see so many people, whether they're just Bluffs League regulars or people come from all around. Phil Birnbaum's played there, Jack Tadman, myself. We've seen Nick Lane and Kevin Manny from Buffalo show up there as well too. Other great players and a great contingent from Ottawa, the Castlemans and Megan Sprigg. and there's just so many good players that show up there, you just never know who's going to win on any given night. And if you do well at bluffs in a tournament boy you got to pat yourself on the back because the competition is always tough there And one of the unique things I like about Bluffs is how they do their playoffs with this I don't know what you call it, the wheel of death? Yeah, I would call it that for sure. So let's just pretend the top 16 make the playoffs after certain qualifying. You go into a bracket, you know, 1 versus 16, 2 versus 15, that kind of thing, bracketology. But the games that are selected in this best two out of three match are done on this wheel of death. They take all the games, they rotate the wheel, and that's what you're playing. The higher seed will certainly have choice of order, but yeah, you have to be good at all eras. Yeah, and I mean, that's the great thing about being able to play at Bluffs is you get to learn all the different eras. You know, it's not just the newer games, it's a lot of older games, and it's given me a lot of appreciation to games that I've never played before or even thought of playing. I was always attracted to playing those newer DMD games, and I thought, well, why would I waste my time on these older SS and EMS? But once I got used to them, I'm like, they're actually really fun games that I would enjoy playing. I find that true with a lot of players that have just begun playing in the last five years, like yourself, really, in the competitive sense, if you will. You know, they're certainly drawn to the attraction of the newer games, the LCDs and the DMD games. But when they get their hands on a solid state or an EM, they really appreciate, you know, different aspects of pinball. So that being said, since Bluffs has all three, do you have a preference? Like if you had one game on the line, you don't have to say what the game is, but what era would you like to put your championship on the line? To play against? Phil Birnbaum and you are going toe to toe. You get to pick one era of games. That's really tough, and I've played Phil quite a bit of times, and mostly he's beaten me. But not every time. Not every time, but I would have to go with an EM just because of the more randomness to me, I feel, that it's anybody's game. In an EM, okay. It's interesting because one thing I like about playing EMs with everything on the line is a house ball doesn't upset me as much because you're probably going to get five balls. So you have another crack at it. Whereas if you have a quote-unquote house ball on a modern game, okay, now you've only got two balls left. It makes it a little difficult. And especially if it's a game where progression is important or, you know, how well you do on your first ball carries over to the other balls, well, an EM might be a little more of an equalizer. For sure. And also just seeing those points, you know, in a modern game, you see those millions and billions of points, At least in an EM, you're always like, well, at least it's not that much more than what you got. Only a few thousand. I'm not surprised you said EMs because I can think of many, many times in which you've politely kicked my butt at bluffs, and I think of a game like Joker Poker. Now, I have the solid state game, but the EM is there, which is kind of rare, too. I don't see a lot of those. Same layout, slightly different rules. and whenever I have to play you, Kevin, or anybody else there and the wheel of death gives me Joker Poker, I'm like, okay, let's move on to the next game because it's just pain. And I think I've been schooled by you on that game more than any other game. That's actually one of my favorite games to play there. I know. Because it's a rare EM game and it plays a little differently. And the scoring, you know, when you play that SS version and you get that five times bonus and your opponent can't get it, you feel like you're pretty much defeated. But in the EM one, it's only double bonus, and so you're not really taking it that far away from your opponent. So to me, it feels like it's more of a challenge. Well, whatever it is, you do very well at that. As we talk about the Bluffs Thursday Night League and also Blufferellas, we see different people in pinball, And people listening to Pinball Profile right now are in at least one of these three categories. I don't imagine anybody is outside of any of these three listings. I'd be shocked because why would you be listening to a pinball podcast? So you have people that are definitely collectors. You have people that are competitors. And then people who just like leagues because of the social aspect. Where do you fall? Or are you in more than one category? I would have to say I'm part of each of those categories. and I wouldn't lean more towards one. Like, I enjoy all aspects of being a collector, playing competitively, and the social aspect of, you know, just socializing. For a lot of people that really talk to me about pinball, you know, I would tell them pinball is something that probably, I would say, saved my life, as in, you know, I was at a certain point in my life before I started pinball, you know, I hit a rough patch and I just needed something to get me more driven and to do something. And, you know, I found that with pinball, you know, I was able to join a hobby that I liked, meet other people that enjoyed the hobby and that were actually genuine people that wanted to make new friends. They wanted to talk with other people that enjoyed the hobby. And it really helped me in that aspect of getting out of the slump that I was in. I never really thought of it that way. I've always looked at it as, wow, this is a great opportunity for me to meet people I never would have had a chance to meet. And I think you feel this way. I know I feel this way. And I'm a lot older than you are, Kevin. But I think of some of my best friends in life now I've met through pinball over the last five, six, seven, eight years. And it's interesting that this one hobby has connected us together, even though we come from all different parts of the world, all different walks of life. But that's what I like about leagues. So when I asked you about being a collector or a competitor or leagues during this pandemic, that is the one thing I'm missing the most is that, you know, we're not able to gather together and just shoot the breeze or see your friends. The game is almost secondary now We can still play games at home and hopefully that the case for most people are on location with some safety and all that kind of good stuff But it still different when there no one there to play against For sure. That's what I miss most. Like, you know, people are like, oh, like how they, you know, created this new way to play competitive pinball. Like, I like that they created a way for us to, you know, still be able to enjoy the game and play with others. But to me, I'm still missing that aspect of having somebody there to actually play with and to talk to and just enjoy each other's company. That's what I miss most. Not really about the competitiveness about pinball, but just being able to hang out and enjoy something. The collectors are the one category I appreciate. It's the one I don't understand the most because it's all about modding up the game. It's all about how they look. It's making sure they're pristine. There's not a mark on it. They lose their crap when there's dimpling or any kind of things like that. And I'm like, okay, for those people and not me, pinball is in a way art or an investment or part of a grand collection. Whereas to me, I want to play the machine. So when I buy games, if they're beat up or whatever, do they play it well? Great. That's all I care about. So I've always had difficulty talking to some of these collectors who obviously appreciate pinball to see the big benefits of joining a social league. Even if there's no IFPA points, just if it's just to gather with friends, maybe it's split flipper, it's couples, it's co-op, it's whatever you want. Just some sort of gathering to see other people. And I think it really enhances this hobby. And that's what I love about Bluffs. And obviously, you feel the value in that as well. For sure. I mean, you know, for me, just like you, I would rather a machine that plays properly than if it looks spectacular. I just want to be able to play the game and enjoy it for what it is and not have to worry about how it looks or adding different modifications to it. Just as long as I'm able to play it, I'm happy with the machine. That certainly brings the enjoyment for me, too. I mean, yes, it's great to see something that looks spectacular, but I don't want to just look at it. I want to play it, and I want to share it with others, too. So that's where these leagues come together. And again, with what we said right off the top about what you're doing on Thursday nights with the Bluffs Trivia Night. We're not competing, but one of the great benefits of these leagues that we all participate in is the social aspect. And, yeah, we're missing the competitive pinball part, but, boy, we're still maintaining those friendships. And I think that's one of the reasons I wanted to call you because I really appreciate the hard work you do to put these together, the creative efforts, and the time and dedication to bring so many others joy. Thank you. You know, I really appreciate that. But, I mean, again, it's because of the connection that I have with everybody at the league. You know, I wanted to make sure that there's something that we can do together. And lucky for me, I'm not the only one that actually writes some of the quizzes. I have help from, you know, my best and good friend, Joe Chervino, you know. Joe did a whole trivia thing based on Roger Sharp trivia. I was so bummed when I missed that one because Joe's a great pinball historian, too. He knows his stuff better than I can ever imagine, and I think I'm pretty connected to pinball. But just in these trivia nights, being on the chat line and talking with Joe, Joe knows his stuff, and you certainly do too. So, yeah, you guys have really put something together that's fantastic on Thursdays. Yeah, and, you know, it helps me so that I don't always have to make up trivia because, you know, sometimes I get into a slump, and I'm like, oh, man, I can't think of anything new. And also, I've also had another friend help me make some trivia, Chris Ben, and he made a couple of the trivia for us. He made a Gottlieb one, all the Gottlieb questions and other hard, very hard questions that no one would really know about pinball. And he called it You Don't Know Pinball. Wow. Well, I tell you what I'm going to do. Looking at the calendar, you're doing these trivia on Thursday nights. So on October 1st, if you'd like, I will write a bunch of trivia questions for you, and you and your league can play them and have some fun, because that will be my way of giving back to you for providing this enjoyment for, like I said, six-plus months now of doing this on every single Thursday night and investing into Jackbox or some of the other cahoots or whatever else you've purchased. I know you're a big gamer, too. We've seen a lot of stuff you've done with Path of Play with Mike Primo. But, I mean, that's a big commitment. And, again, you're doing this with enjoyment of others. So I would like to give you a trivia night where I come up with all the questions and you and your friends can all play them. Thank you. That sounds great. I'd love that. And, I mean, just touching on Path of Play, you know, that's something that, again, opened up through pinball, you know, just meeting somebody else that enjoys pinball and then learning about, you know, the initiatives that he's taking and starting up his charity group, Path of Play, to help children and families living with autism. And it was something that, you know, I was lucky to be a part of and happy to help out. Just another example of why you're a great guy, Kevin. And I wanted to introduce a lot of the Pinball Profile audience to you. And I appreciate you coming on the show today. Thank you. You take care and I'll send those trivia questions over to you. And good luck on October 1st. And maybe you might have some people requesting on Facebook. Hey, can I jump in on that? Of course. We're always happy to have other people join us. Charge them 20 bucks. Make some money off this thing. I'm kidding. Thanks very much, Kevin. All the best to you, buddy. No problem. Thank you, Jeff. This has been your Pinball Profile. You can find everything on pinballprofile.com, including your subscriptions and past episodes. Please join our Facebook group. Also, check us out on Instagram and Twitter at pinballprofile. If you like what we're doing, maybe throw a review on This Week in Pinball. And you can email us pinballprofile at gmail.com. I'm Jeff Teolas.