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YaKnow... Pinball

NYC PinPod·podcast_episode·1h 7m·analyzed·Nov 25, 2024
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.028

TL;DR

NYC PinPod covers November 2024 tournament results, The Harvest experience, and local league standings.

Summary

NYC PinPod episode covering local pinball tournament results in New York City and Western New York for November 2024, including League play standings, playoff brackets, and detailed discussion of The Harvest Classic tournament experience at Gebhardt's BeerCulture. Hosts Benjamin Furiga and Madeline Lin discuss tournament formats, strategy, machine conditions at venues, and upcoming competitive events.

Key Claims

  • As of November 22nd, 2024, there are 280 pinball machines in NYC at 84 public locations.

    high confidence · Benjamin Furiga citing Pinball Mag data on machine inventory

  • Superpower, the Brooklyn tiki bar, permanently closed on November 9th with no word on where the pinball machine went.

    high confidence · Benjamin Furiga reporting Pinball Mag update on venue closures

  • The Harvest Classic Finals used linear scoring (100, 99, 98, 97... points) rather than the previously advertised scoring system.

    high confidence · Benjamin Furiga explaining scoring discrepancy at The Harvest tournament

  • 61 players qualified for the Harvest Classics Finals and 61 players qualified for the Harvest Main division.

    high confidence · Benjamin Furiga reporting tournament participation numbers

  • The Harvest tournament was held as a partial buyout where the bar operated normally while tournaments ran simultaneously, with extra games added downstairs.

    high confidence · Benjamin Furiga and Madeline Lin discussing venue logistics and event setup

Notable Quotes

  • “It almost felt like they were on a sprung floor together that like was feeling the vibration of each other... I felt like when someone was nudging machine next to me I was feeling the vibration on the machine even though the back boxes weren't touching”

    Madeline Lin @ ~58:00 — Describes machine placement and environmental interference issues at The Harvest venue, highlighting venue logistics challenges

  • “Usually at pump and dump you have to go and it's just who has the most money who wins because it's someone who's just throwing in credits. And you can do that in this instance, but you don't have a better chance than someone else.”

    Benjamin Furiga or Eric (discussing Gabriel Chasanov's tournament design) @ ~45:00 — Explains how The Harvest tournament format reduced pay-to-win dynamics compared to traditional pump-and-dump tournaments

  • “I had stuff in there the 40s... I was able to rule out a couple of machines where like, I had played Pulp Fiction once. It went great. I got 2 million points. It was 75 points, which was far my best score.”

    Madeline Lin @ ~52:00 — Illustrates strategic decision-making in pump-and-dump tournament play—identifying machines to abandon vs. pursue

  • “The best attempt was the third. The first one was medium. The second one was terrible. The third one was great. And then the fourth and ongoing all are extremely close to one another.”

    Madeline Lin @ ~65:00 — Data-driven analysis of tournament play showing improvement after mid-tournament adjustment to playing style

Entities

Benjamin FurigapersonMadeline LinpersonZach SharpepersonGabriel ChasanovpersonChristopher LandrypersonCourtney WetzelpersonChristine VarneypersonDante OlivapersonSteenpersonFrancesco La RoccapersonKate Martinperson

Signals

  • ?

    event_signal: The Harvest tournament held Nov 14-17 at Gebhardt's BeerCulture with 61 qualifying players each in Classics and Main divisions using pump-and-dump format with linear scoring in Classics

    high · Multiple detailed tournament result reports with final standings, qualifying information, and host participation discussion

  • ?

    venue_signal: Superpower tiki bar in Brooklyn permanently closed November 9, 2024; NYC has 280 pinball machines at 84 public locations as of Nov 22, 2024

    high · Benjamin Furiga citing Pinball Mag data and closure notice with specific date

  • ?

    venue_signal: Multiple machine condition reports from NYC venues: Stranger Things (saucer registration issues at Barcade Chelsea), Ghostbusters (no tilt sensor, switch issues at Break Bar; left flipper stick at Barcade), Cactus Canyon remake (weak flippers at Gutter Bar LIC, then improved after cleaning), Dirty Harriet (dark/visibility issues), Star Trek (coin slot detection issues at Barcade)

    high · User-submitted machine condition reports tracked in Pinball Mag

  • ?

    community_signal: The Harvest tournament incorporated design improvements (no per-entry cost on top of entry fee, linear scoring in Classics to reduce pay-to-win dynamics) appreciated by players and hosts

    high · Hosts Benjamin Furiga and Madeline Lin praising Gabriel Chasanov's tournament format design choices

  • ?

    operational_signal: The Harvest operated as partial buyout with simultaneous bar operations, two tournaments, two streams, and machine spacing causing vibration interference between playfields

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.203

0:00
This Week in Pinball programs Maoriotti Harall and Nick Sports It's the day. Happy Sunday, Pinfolk, or whatever day you're listening. This is NYC PinPod, in which a panel talks location pinball in New York City, and this week, also in Western New York. My name is Benjamin Furiga. My initials are BCF, and I've just signed up to play in a tournament we're going to talk about shortly. I'm a pinball tournament director in New York City. Madeline Lin, SheHerHers, RMXL, and this week I'll be going back to my hometown of Ithaca to defend my high scores. Zach Fry, ZAC, one of the main TDs, operators, and techs at Rochester Pinball Collective. On this week's pod, we'll run down local competition results in Ball 1 as ever. In Ball 2, Eric and I will talk about our experiences at The Harvest. And in Ball 3, we'll talk with Zach, whose voice you just heard, about the Royal Rumble at the Rochester Pinball Collective, December 12th through 15th. Let's get started. Ball 1, let's talk about last week's competition results. On Saturday, November 16th, 12 players met under Christopher Landry's steady hand at Barcade Jersey City. For the Jersey City Flippers Fall 2024 Open, it was a three strike knockout and AshAsh won the day with only one strike to their name. Dang. Scott Overall came in second. C. Landry themselves came in third, tied with Aaron Mosser. Also on Saturday, November 16th, the culminating Classics Finals. The Harvest Classic Edition was held at Gebhard's BeerCulture. 61 players in total qualified in the Harvest Classics. There was linear scoring I should point out. I think it had been advertised as a different type of scoring but there was linear scoring so top result was 100 points, next best score overall was 99 points etc. Instead of the 19085 or 195 when then linear, it was harder to make a move in that paradigm because getting first place didn't knock someone else down five points or 10 points. Christopher C.J. Smith came in first, denizen of the pinball community for all these years. Alex Kelly, en route to 250 came in second. Adam Kane earned the third place finish and Alberto Santana came in fourth.
3:22
There were a bunch of whoppers for that and I think Eric and I will talk at length about our experience at the harvest in fall two. On Sunday, November 17th, the main division of the harvest tournament had its finals. There's 61 players in total qualified for the Harvest Maine division after 24 of them got their heads together and plenty of carnage was dealt out. Dante Oliva came out on top. Alberto Santana came in second. That's a fourth in Classics and a second in Maine. Nice. Alex Kelly came in third, that's a second in Classics and third in Maine. Oh my. And Adam Robinson came in fourth. There was also a B-Finals at the Harvest. The top 16 players after the top 24 qualified, but 12 showed up. Obey Garcia was the winner of the B-Finals with Wes Ulfig in second, Mike Pantino in third, and Jeff Anderson in fourth. Nice. I had no idea that that many people qualified for B. That's why they don't show up. Oh, I was going to ask. I was like, I didn't see you. I must be busy editing the podcast. I was. Dedication, Benjamin. I was, but I also did, I thought eight would have made it. I finished tied for 41st in the main standings because so many people didn't show up, you know, was in the B finals. Nice. How'd it go? It was pretty fun. Had a nice game of pulp there after a couple of, you know, like hotdog and felt like all house balls and I was frustrated but then got a hold of pulping. Fun. Good. Also on Sunday, Go for the Wall, a max match play tournament in the women's division was held at a private location in Brooklyn. 15 players gathered and Christine Varney won the day. I looked at Steen's scorecard. I know that this was Steen's first place. I also think that it's interesting if you're looking at the state championships, Steen was nowhere in the conversation until now. And now she's only got 14 of the 20 tournaments on her scorecard right now. So if she goes and grinds, she could make And we're going to maybe get into those top eight and be playing in this women's states because of this result. Miriam Nadler came in second, Kate Martin third, and Courtney Wetzel fourth. Nice job everyone. On Monday, November 18th, in Pinball NYC's Left Flipper, last week, round 10, the two-for-oners went to Commonwealth Eric, what happened at Midway? Our association went to visit Balls of Steel and boy that was a tough match. They handed us our first loss of the season, 11-5. Played very strong. Greg failed to get less than $2 billion every time he played Game of Thrones. Jesus. Sounds like how Greg plays that Game of Thrones. I'm going to go to the next one. Parliament came to Buttermilk Bar where we colliders just got beat up. I played a simply awful game of Metallica. I set my plate. I was ready. I had all three of my icons set up on my inline drop targets, which is almost everything that I want on that game to start with. And then I did nothing else. For two balls, I did nothing else and got just beat up on the game. We lost 13 to 3 and Parliament, I think, got themselves a virtual home match with this win. The Pin Pals went to Gebhard's Beer Culture and lost 14 to 2 to the home team and I believe In a tiebreaker, 8-8. It's the second time. It's a NYCFSA also tiebreak win at Solid State earlier in the season. The aristocrats, last week, I think we were talking about the standings and we might have pointed out that boy, they're going to go face the mutants at home. They might not be in this top division. There might be someone else overtaking them by, you know, getting a win while they get a loss. They showed up, they wanted to play in the orbit playoffs and not the in lane playoffs. The battle of Barcade Brooklyn was convened at BarcadeBrooklyn. Oh really? The deluxe horses who were the actual home team beat Pinball Union who were the virtual away team 9-7. The lesser players went to Rulos to face Special When Lit. And the lesser players who had only one win so far this season beat Special WhenLit at their new home. Oh my. 12 to 4. Nice job. Now that it's all said and done and we'll review what the actual playoffs look like in a moment. But the standings look like this at the end of the left flipper season. The LionPersons lead the pack with a 9-1 record and 110 points. Eric's association among the rest of the team are in second at 9-1 with 105 points. Balls of Steel and Parliament are both 7-3. Balls of Steel had 91 points. Parliament had 87 points. The Mutants and the Aristocrats were 6-4. The Mutants had 103 points and six wins. That's crazy. They had two fewer points than NYC FSA who were nine and one. They were six and three. The aristocrats squeak in with their win with their eight eight win with a six and four record and 86 points on the season. It wasn't exactly squeaking in because they had 10 more points than the deluxe horses with those eight. The Deluxe Horses finished at 5-5 and they'll be at the top of the second level of playoffs, the in-lane playoffs. The Two for Oners were 4-6 with 78. Special When Lit was 4-6 with 72. The Pin Pals were 4-6 with...oh. What is it Benjamin? It could look the same no matter which way you flipped it. It must be 69. Nice! Intermission Dolores. And Pinball Union were both 3-7 to round out the playoffs. Intermission Dolores had 67 points. Pinball Union a meager 59. The lesser players with their big win ended up 2-8 with 62 points. And Wee Colliders 1-9 with 55. On Tuesday, November 19th, Pinister Six went to Bar Great Harry to face The Trolls. And they picked up a very big 14 to 2 win. The trolls were hanging on. They could have with a big win or a win, more likely a win and a pin babes loss. They could have got themselves into the playoffs. But with this loss, they'll be out. Pinister six, on the other hand, is looking good in the orbit playoffs. Harlem Globe Flippers went to Milo's yard and handed Neptune's Treasure their second home loss this season by 11 To five margin. Kettle's hand grenade went to Barcade Brooklyn and faced Rest in Pinball parenthetically RIP and the home team picked up a nine to seven win. Scrapple Squad came down south, probably took the G train from Sunshine down to Rulos to face the replays and the replays won nine to seven. Shlubbs went to solid state to visit no quarters for laundry, whose 14-2 win was a massive boost in the standings for them. Danger Danger went, went, I say, to buttermilk to face the Butterballers. Eric, what happened? It was the butter brawl. Or seemingly only I like to call it the battle of the butts. We're very happy to have our buttermilk home bar compatriots. The butterballers picked up a 10-6 win there, which was great. Personally, I had a nice moment in the first round playing Metallica. I got to put my initials in for the for whom the bell tolls crank it up mode with a big 90 million there. Woo!
NYC PinPod
organization
Pinball Magorganization
The Harvestevent
Gebhardt's BeerCulturevenue
Rochester Pinball Collectivevenue
Superpowervenue
New York City Flipper Sport Associationorganization
Godzillagame
Game of Thrones (Premium)game
Jawsgame

high · Madeline Lin describing vibration issues between front-room machines; Benjamin discussing dual tournament/bar operations

  • ?

    competitive_signal: NYC NYCFSA Left Flipper League and Orbit Playoffs structure completed Nov 20-25 with multiple teams competing across two playoff brackets; Pinister Six, Harlem Globe Flippers Arcade, and others advancing to playoffs

    high · Detailed league standings, match results, and playoff bracket information provided for multiple weeks of play

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Madeline Lin documented and analyzed tournament play strategy across 14 attempts on Indianapolis 500, showing improvement after mid-tournament adjustment to trap-up playing style; early best game (attempt 3) not replicated but settling into consistent medium-good range

    high · Detailed discussion of recorded score data, strategic machine selection, and mid-tournament playing style adjustment with quantified results

  • ?

    event_signal: Multiple upcoming tournaments announced: Royal Rumble at Rochester Pinball Collective Dec 12-15, NYCFSA playoffs Nov 25-26, various local league events, Kate Martin birthday tournament Nov 30

    high · Detailed schedule provided by Benjamin Furiga for upcoming week of competition

  • ?

    community_signal: Go for the Wall women's division tournament held with 15 players; Steen's first tournament win opening path to state championship contention; multiple women players mentioned in high placements across tournaments

    high · Christine Varney, Steen, Miriam Nadler, Kate Martin, Courtney Wetzel, and others highlighted in tournament results

    • 13:28
    After we recorded, Lauren Berner Lawrence reached out to Eric and I and asked that we ensure that we highlighted that Courtney Wetzel's 384 million pointer on Jaws is what won the night for the Butterballers. The pinbabes went to face the ball drainers and they gave the trolls an opportunity because they also had a 14 to 2 loss. At Jack Bar against the world famous Brooklyn ball drainers. Now that all is said and done.
    14:04
    No quarters for laundry won this division with an eight and two record and 110 points. Ball drainers came in second with the same eight and two record, but only 102 points for their efforts. Danger, danger. Also eight and two, but 96. So they are not going to get a bye this week, even though they have the same record as the top two teams. Harlem Globe Flippers, Pinister Six, and Neptune's Treasure are all 7 and 3. That'll round out the orbit playoffs. Harlem Globe Flippers have 99 points scored Pinister Six, 97. Neptune's Treasure, 95. In the bottom half, the Butterballers were 5 and 5 with 84. The shlubs, the replays, rest in pinball were all 4 and 6 with 77, 68 and 57 points respectively. Scrapple Squad and the Pinbabes squeak into the playoffs. ScrappleSquad was 3 and 7 with 68 points and the Pinbabes were 2 and 8 with 58. Trolls are just out of the picture looking in at 2 and 8 with 51. And Kettle's Hand Grenades had a 1-9 record and 46 points. I feel a certain camaraderie with Kettle's Handgrenades for their 1-9 record. Hehehehe. On Wednesday, November 20th, the Sunshine Winter League 2024 No.1 was hosted by Francesco La Rocca at Sunshine Laundromat. Six players gathered for five rounds of IFPA scoring Matchplay and Allison Bissett won the day. On Thursday, November 21st, NoBro Presents Thursday Night Strikes gathered 16 players at Jack Bar. This is a loose collection of tournament directors and Gabriel Chasanov is the tournament director of record, But Gabe also was directing The Harvest over the weekend and I sure hope he took Thursday off. Yep, Jose helped out. The results for this one interestingly aren't exactly complete on match play. It appears that Travis Rosenberg and Connor Callista are still playing their last match. But I feel fairly certain that Travis Rosenberg won the night with just one strike to his name. Connor Callista came in second. Adam Robinson and Eda Kreutzer tied for third. They had a tiebreak for third and Adam won. Also on Thursday night at Buttermilk SSPL7 fourth meeting that South Slope Pinball League the seventh iteration of it 17 players showed up under Kate Martin organization And Gus Gonzalez won the night with 29 points after five rounds of IFPA match play scoring GG. AJ Gould took second place. Billy Vazine third. And Jenna Altamirano, who was in the top group all night and played great News cam flopравляiscaljorgen, Bllait demonstrationserel forgive me Elvingo for my H forgotten www. välgeart 그런데 i frodo Aristocrats vs. Balls of Steel at Bar Great Hairy with the New York City Flipper Sport Association with not a pan week but a bye week playing the winner of Aristocrats vs. Balls of Steel. Left in lane playoffs Monday November 25 Intermission Dolores vs. Pin Pals at Owl Farm Deluxe Horses with not a hello week but a bye week playing the winner of Intermission Dolores vs. Pin Pals Pinball Union vs. Special Unlit at Solid State The winner of that match will play against the Two for Oners who don't have a hello week but a goodbye week. On Tuesday, November 26th, we have the Right Orbit Playoffs, folks. The Right Orbit. We have the Pinister Six vs. the Harlem Globe Flippers at Rulos. The winner of that match will play against No Quarters for Laundry, Nor Quarters for Laundry. Does not have a sell week but a buy week. Buy and hold, folks. Diamond hands. Over then we have at the Wallace, Napsudans Treasure vs. Danger Danger. And the winner of that match will play against the Ball Drainers. They don't have a quad week but a bi-week against the winner of Neptune's Treasure vs. Danger Danger. Then we move over to the right in lane, the right in lane Tuesday November 26. We have Scrapple Squad vs. Rest in Pinball at the Buttermilk Bar. The winner of Scrapple Squad vs. Rest in Pinball will play against the Butterballers. They don't have a butt week but a bi-week. Finally we have the Pinbabes vs. the Replayaves over at Skylark and the winner of that match will play against the Shlubs who don't have a Paul McCartley week but they say a You Say Goodbye week. And that concludes the right in lane playoffs. Good luck to all folks on Monday and Tuesday. On Wednesday November 27th, we have the Stern Army Sunshine League Winter 2024 number two on Wednesday November 27th from 7.30pm to also seemingly 7.30pm listed on the calendar. It's an instantaneous matchup or it lasts 24 hours. Good luck to all competing in either the femtosecond or 24 This takes place at 860 Manhattan Avenue in Brooklyn, New York, 11222. So even if we don't have the temporal coordinates, we do have the spatial coordinates directed by FLR and Ali. On Thursday, November 28, we have Thanksgiving. Celebrate colonialism folks with NoBo Presents Thursday Night Strikes. NoBro is not sponsored by colonialism. At 143 Havenmeyer Street in Brooklyn, New York. This is a match play event, folks, on Thursday, November 28. Saturday, November 30, everybody wish Kate a happy birthday. We have Bells NYC, thanks flipping and Kate's B-Day Party on Saturday, November 30 in Brooklyn. Private location directed by Kate Martin starting at 1pm with 16 rounds of max matchplay then ladder finals. As of November 22nd, 2024, there are 280 pinball machines in NYC at 84 public locations. Thanks to the creators and users of Pinball Map for this data, here are machine updates from the past week. The Pinball Map just recently picked up the fact that Superpower, the Brooklyn tiki bar, permanently closed on November 9th. No word on where that pin went. On Saturday the 16th, user BlueKaufman played the Dirty Harriet high dive and said, Machine functions fine but it's dark and visibility can sometimes be tricky. Also on Saturday, user PinAsh went to the gutter bar LIC and played the Cactus Canyon remake, commenting, Flippers are weak, difficult to make it up the center shot, in good shape otherwise. Couple days later on Tuesday, a user Hitchhiker commented on the same machine cleaned and flippers rebuilt, plays nice and as it should. On Monday the 18th, user Chambertin played the Stranger Things at Barcade and Chelsea and said, interleft saucer doesn't always register and won't hold the ball. On Wednesday, user JNS commented on the Ghostbusters at Break Bar and Billiards. Keep hoping I'll show up and somebody will have decided this old tank is worth looking after. Not this time. $2 for three plays, no tilt sensor as far as I could tell. Switches out all over the place. And on Thursday, user chamber10 was at Barcade St. Mark's. The Halloween right coin slot won't always detect coin drop, they let us know. And the Ghostbusters left flipper occasionally sticks. Let's talk about the harvest. Over the course of last Thursday through Sunday, The Harvest was held at Gebhardt's BeerCulture on the Upper West Side and I attended as much as I could, pumping and dumping and striving to get into either the Classics Finals or the Main Finals. Spoiler alert, I made it into B-Finals in Maine. Nice. And along the way, made sure I recorded all of my scores so that I could later Download them which I have done and have been taking a look at them and Seeing if I can find a story in the weekend. I think I sort of have. Story in the numbers. Exactly. Because I imagine you just had a story in being there for the weekend, right? Absolutely.
    22:55
    Yeah, every pinball tournament's a story. Yeah. I mean it was an Some of hisit's I'm a part of the pinball industry. In like, in like event spaces, what we would talk about is a full buyout if you just like have the complete space for just your thing, or other people might be able to access parts of it. This was not anywhere close to that. This was the bar operating as normally as it could, while there were 60 pinball players running around trying to play, not just the normal number of games. But I think really the only thing that was probably somewhat The two games that were disruptive for them were the extra two games in the back downstairs. Does that seem right to you, Eric? Yeah, mostly. And, you know, the upstairs being completely occupied all the time. There were, you know, people coming up and down the stairs who were thinking, oh, there's all these extra seating up here. How many times did you see someone come up and look like they had made an archaeological discovery of a strange subculture because they were just looking for a fucking place to sit down? More than once. Yeah, more than five times, personally. And I didn't spend as much time upstairs because I was trying to play the classics a little bit more. But I, whew, more than five times for me. I think it was remarkably done. There were a massive chunk of my pinball New York City friends there hanging out the whole weekend. They had two big tournaments going on at the same time that a busy bar is operating its weekend nights. They also had two different streams happening. There was a lot going on. I had a really fun time. Pumped, dumped, played a B finals and sat in the commentary booth for the stream of the main finals. You were there for most of Sunday in the booth? I started the day in the B finals. Right, right, right. And then once I dropped out of that, I sort of hung around and did various things. I joined the commentary booth a couple times briefly, but then finally for the final round of the finals, What's the top four group? Follow that through. I heard what I imagine was maybe your first time joining wherein you introduced yourself as you would have on the podcast as David Patlack was sort of calling you up or calling you in. I appreciated that. It occurred to me in the moment. I was like, oh yeah, I should say it like this. Actually, I think I did it once at one of our arcade streams. Oh, cool. It occurred to me. Can I ask, I've heard the pump and dump phrase twice now. To me, that just sounds Sounds like an Achillean euphemism. What does that mean in the pinball context? Absolutely. It's, you know, one of a few names pinballers use for this type of tournament. I think the most generic term would be best game tournament, also known as a herb tournament or a pump and dump. A bank of machines are available for the players to play. Everyone plays a game by themselves. They record their score. That score is compared to everyone a you got a total in this instance it was seven of the ten machines that were in John Papadiuk, Black Water, Kaneda's Pinball Podcast, Twippies Awards, translite*) What was the score? Was it 19085? Maine was 19085. Whereas Classics was linear 199, 98, 97. So in this instance Madeline, getting that top score really pumps you up. And it also means that if it's 190 points for second place, 85 points for third place, and then 84, 83, 82, you know, down the line, linear after that, you're going to be in the top spot. So I think that's a good thing. italiano식ìn And. Math that totally disagrees with that. I'm saying that the way that it feels to me is that when it's 190, 85, that it just, you know, there's a little bit more ability to move up because. Lim Min output b identじゃ МAC, So you pump money into it and you dump your bad scores. Uh huh. You pump as much, in this instance, you're just paying coin drop. In a lot of tournaments that use this format, you pay an entry fee to walk into the building and there are a small number of entries that you get, and the games are set on free play, For every entry that you place, you pay an additional amount that would be more than coin drop in a New York City bar to play in this tournament. Some of the money goes into the prize pool, which is one of the reasons that this is a popular format. You can really get a massive prize pool if you have people paying in every time at $2, $3, $4 or $5 per entry. You can really pump up to thousands of dollars for the top earner at the end of the weekend. You can also... Specifically, you know, in this case, there wasn't... There was none of that. There wasn't. There was an entry fee and then... That's it. But there wasn't a cost for playing an entry that built up a prize pot, which I thought was a welcome change. Yeah, that's one of the things that Gabe was so excited about when we talked to him about the tournament was like usually at pump and dump you have to go and it's just who has the most money who wins because it's someone who's just throwing in credits. And you can do that in this instance, but you don't have a better chance than someone else. Unless coin drop is really a question for you unless you know, dropping coin for an entire day is an economic JEIS START G stratég coverage Intend Dings envisioned 面 molta홍 naszych�häng 나서ilty товcho diction거� systematic OR cepeseciesz SE rado SEO SOB właśnie 번역 WPPR 사람이
    31:28
    I was in a location. That's it. All right. So then across your 12 or your 7 hours of time, you could choose how you spent your money and time across your banks. And you just went for the highest scores you could on each of the machines. And as long as you sort of manage your time and planned out your strategies for each of the games, and got a high score for your highest possible You start by putting in your first, you know, in this instance, right, there are seven games you put in the main, you put in your seven. Well, actually, you know what, Eric, how did you approach your cards this weekend? Let's talk about it the way you and I did it. And then maybe we'll talk about the later, you know, the deeper strategy on it. But how did you approach your main and classics cards this weekend? You and I both started on Thursday. I think I got the first entry in probably because several of us started playing at the same time and my game was the shortest. Well, still first entry. I spent as much time as I could there that weekend. I think for someone who didn't volunteer or TD or run the whole thing, I was there pretty often. I mean, what? We went Thursday, we hung out for a bit and then we left to make it to South Slope League. Right. We both went to SSPL that night. Yeah. You, me and Zenzachniak. Friday we recorded the podcast and went, I went over right after that. I spent the entire day there Saturday.
    33:06
    I guess it started at noon, but I couldn't wake up that early. I didn't get there till two. And then I went Sunday for the finals. My first strat going in or idea was to, you know, concentrate on the classics because that finals happened. The qualifying in the Classics Tournament in a weekend like this Madeline almost always ends like Saturday afternoon so that you can do Classics Finals on Saturday night and then have a different time for main finals It is often true that if there is a women component there will be a similar scattered time availability for these finals So Eric you were saying you did your Classics Yeah I did my Classics and I did my Classics again and I kept doing my Classics and I did classics right up until classics qualifyingifying closed Did you not do a single main not one entry in a main I threw in, no I did do, I started, that very first entry was a main, Shadow. And then yeah, I threw them in when I saw them empty and I got a little frustrated on my classics machine looking at hotdogging and fell several, just a few places short of 어제까지통전 공 user chưa
    34:28
    좀 Head & Look outrage viel multimedia rubbish X At midnight it actually wound up ending around 1.30 AM. Right. But I spent that entire time concentrating on a couple of my main scores that were both terrible and I thought could improve. So, you had roughly 50 points on these games out of 100 if you had the top score of everyone for the weekend. Is that about right? Is that about the shape of it? And you were trying to improve something in the 50s to get it up into the 60s or something like that? Is that about? I had I had stuff in the 40s. Okay. I got a couple of them into the 50s. A real quick I was able to rule out a couple of machines where like, I had played Pulp Fiction once. It went great. I got 2 million points. It was 75 points, which was by far my best score. I'm not gonna I've got two million on it. I rarely get two million on it. So this is part of the art, Madeline, is the... I scored well on that machine. I don't have to touch it again until someone starts knocking me down, until that score starts bleeding because other people are doing much better. I don't touch that again. So there were a few of those I could rule out. A couple had some decent upper 50s that were also personal bests. Nice. And I was like, okay, well, I, you know, but then also, you know, then I got these ones in the 40s and it's like, concentrate on the low ones. Was Transporter on your card? No, I gave up on it. Yeah. Um. Ditto. Yeah. It, I mean, it was on my card while I was working on my lowest ones. I'm a fan of the And once I eventually moved them up, you know, I wasn't going to go back to Transporter to try to move that one up. No, I spent a long time then on Deadpool Just not really accomplishing anything. Uh-huh. I played it 12 times. Oh on the 12th one. It was something Just over 50. Probably I spent a lot of time in this in getting single-digit million games. Oh
    36:58
    those games Down front, the three in the sort of front room were all... It almost felt like they were on a sprung floor together that like was feeling the vibration of each other I like I felt like when someone was nudging machine next to me I was feeling the vibration on the machine even though the back boxes weren't touching or anything like they were adequately spaced to not do that I'm not sure about the title, but I'm not sure how I got that. But I felt like I was feeling that. And I also felt like the tilts were relatively tight, at least on the two moderns. And so that was the geographic location in the bar that I was least happy to be in because I was playing, I was frustrated with the way that I was playing pinball in that geographic location. Then the bulk of the rest of my time, I moved to Indianapolis 500. David Van Es, Knapp Arcade.
    38:23
    I was like, yeah, that's that's good enough. So you banged on that for 14 times entirely on Saturday evening. Wow. That is a lot of times and a short amount of time. There's two stories in it. Yeah. One is that very early on. I got my best game of it and then spent the rest of the time not getting that. Yeah. I think I didn't recognize that that was the best I was going to get. Right. Because I looked, I mean, you know, it was in the forties, a score. It was not, you know, Didn't feel good on the, in terms of where it sat in relationship to everyone else. I felt like that's, oh, you know, there's a lot more points in it. I should keep going on this one because it's lowest. Whereas something else I had early ruled out Congo because I got a personal best on it. It was a mid fifties, but looking later at the Congo scores is like, oh, that one, I could have really gotten a lot more points on it. That personal best was probably just actually a mediocre game. Right. And it's just that particular copy was very I'm a fan of the Congo. Yes, it is very playable, that Congo. I like that Congo. I mean, I probably should have switched over there and tried to move up some other score rather than continuing to bang my head on Indianapolis 500. Sure. The other part though is then, as I had every single one of my attempts scores recorded. Yes. I never voided an entry. Right. So that I could download the data later and look at it. And looking at that 14 game run on Indianapolis 500 is pretty interesting. The best attempt was the third. The first one was medium. The second one was terrible. The third one was great. And then the fourth and ongoing all are extremely close to one another. And where do they fall in the terrible medium great continuum? They fall into the medium good. So better than the medium score, not nearly as good as the great score. And that timing, the switch coincides with a change that I made in how I was playing. I was talking with a friend and they mentioned to me noticing my playing style had changed Maybe in the last year or so, I wasn't trapping up as much as I used to.
    41:07
    I was like, I still feel like I am, but I'm going to make a conscious effort to really just trap everything. Stop the ball at every given moment. And I went back to Indianapolis 500 and just started doing that. And that is when I settled into a medium good, almost the exact same score across about eight or nine games, 11 games. I'm going to give you, just one, one quick. One of my most valuable projects. And I'm going to provide you a wonderful data set. I so often hear from players who are graduating from kind of new to kind of good. When I say like no really your next job is to trap up. You hit the shot and if you did not then hit the combination that you wanted to hit or whatever, then your next job is to trap up so that you can hit the next shot that you want to hit. I so often hear that like, no, it doesn't work. I it's not, it's too, I just get frustrated when I do it. And I think that's probably, it is probably true that as Eric points out, you actually may be just like, turn up what medium is and keep it there. Do something consistent after that, as opposed to having wide fluctuations and maybe one awesome score. But I think there's even more data there than my mains because I put a lot more into the classics. And also the interesting style of machines. And I'm eager to figure out if I can tease something out of that data. I will say I've been taking these notes and charts and I'm preparing a writeup that I'll be putting out on my blog. And I'm going to end this episode with a little bit of a plug at noonewancetotalkaboutcompetitivepinball.com. Nice. Heck yeah. You better make some graphs. So I made no graphs and I definitely voided some entries. But my entry count for Maine, I probably voided, I'm going to say 10 to 12 entries in total because I didn't put that many in for Maine. But my entry count on MatchPlay I think was 38 or 40 at the end of the night. And so like I feel pretty good about that for where I finished in the main division. As I said, I was socially exhausted on Saturday night. I do not begrudge the bar remaining open to the public while it happened. The bar has to make their money. It's what they do and if you're closed on Friday and Saturday nights when there are shows at the Beacon on Friday and Saturday nights or shows at Lincoln Center on Friday and Saturday nights or shows John Papadiuk, Black Water, KC, The Closed on Friday and Saturday nights and they're not going to come back. I understand that you have to be open. I also it was a hard situation for me to be in. It was very, very tight. I often felt fight or flight responses that were not reasonable, they were not logical, that were totally emotional. That said, I did qualify for the Classics Finals and I was able to win. I was able to win the Totally emotional. That said, I did qualify for the classics finals and finished 10th, picked up a pretty big uptick in my state qualifying which might also be why I will be going to the tournament in Rochester that we'll talk about in the next segment. I came in 10th after having played a tiebreaker to get into the final eight. I enjoyed qualifying in classics and I think in general, despite the fact that It feels like it is damning people with faint praise to say that they are classics specialists. I don't mind being a classicspecialist and I don't mind going to a tournament like this and knowing myself enough to know that I have enough to put in a main card and maybe not show up on Sunday, but play classics and really try for classics. And that's what I did in this one. I took the tack that I was going to first put in a classics card and then see where I was in the standings. I had two of each of four games I think when we walked out on Thursday night so that I only needed to play two mouse and arounds to complete my classics card when I came in on Friday after we recorded the podcast. I filled up that card and felt good enough to throw a main game or two in. And I ended up chasing classics to make sure that I was in until later in the day that I probably had to. I was doing some main qualifying, I don't know, 3.30, 4 o'clock on Saturday and the scorekeeper I was talking to while I was waiting in line was like, I was like, ooh, I don't know, you're not too far above the line. And I was like, you're right, but I also am 30 points above the cut line and I'm three or four people above the line, which means that four of the people who are 30 points below me all have to come roaring past me in this last like hour and a half, two hours. And I don't think when you don't have that ability to get 10 points because you just Jason Taka, I'm going to play my last game, maybe one more after that if this game doesn't go well on Godzilla. I'm out of here. I'll be home for a late dinner. And at 11 o'clock, I sent her another text that said, I'm a fucking addict. I don't know why I'm still here. It was great fun. It like, please don't let me, you know, let this turn dark in that way. It was great fun. I cannot thank enough the people who kept score the people, Gabe and Sam and Uh, Glenn and Jeff who kept the wheels spinning, who kept the machines running, who were responsive when there were strange conditions on machines that had just been moved in. They were also competing in the tournament and I hope that they all had the opportunity to have a lot of fun doing that while they put so much of this into this. That said, also, my goodness, all of the scorekeepers who and some much. Yeah, thank you. There was I saw at least one scorekeeper who was not playing in any of the tournaments at all. I presume that Monica Whitecamp was not the only volunteer who was not also competing. But I really appreciated that as like, as like, I'm gonna come out and hang out with my friends. And even though I can't do this, you know, the thing that they're doing, I'll be here and help. Yeah, that's awesome. But also just everyone who competed. And I met, how many times have I mispronounced Ian Leone's last name on this podcast when he's finished in the top four of some local event? Ian Leone, not Leone. It was cool to clock some of the new folks and also to enjoy this, what is now a staple of our community, this venue that is now a real staple of competitive pinball. I think it's awesome to have a tournament like this. This will be, this is surely the biggest output of Whoppers over a weekend in New York City. Certainly if you combine the two tournaments. And it was not incredibly expensive. It was for the Pinfolk by the Pinfolk. Yeah, three cheers to all the organizers. Yeah. Yeah, it was fun. It was a great amount of fun. Well, I very much enjoyed hearing about the harvest. I hope we all go home to our families with full hearts and full bellies next Thursday as we celebrate Thanksgiving or lack thereof. Let's talk about the RPC Royal Rumble with Zach Frye, a cooperator, and I believe you will be the tournament director of record for both of the events at the Royal Rumble. Is that true? Yep, they're both submitted by me and architected by me, I guess, although we'll have a few other people helping out with the actual TD process. Yeah, of course, of course. And I hope, you know, scorekeeping and whatnot as well. Yep. Very good. What are these? I think is there are there two events? Is that right? There's a herb and something else? Yeah we got a just unlimited herb pump and dump on you know bank at 1012 12 games We select an exact Lizar later but and then we got 40 game max match play frenzy type tournament which we split up into three or four separate sessions of 10 15 games each with breaks in between to do the pumping and dumping Cool. So you can play in both of these things. And if you are playing in both of these things, there will just be times that you're not in the queue Wall What? Are they all in good working condition or is part of the floor also like dedicated to, you know, the games that need a little love? They're all playing. There's two or three we don't use in tournaments just because they have like some weird malfunction. But they're all up and playing pretty much all the time and we'll probably be adding or removing one or two between then and now because we always got new games coming in. But yeah, around 80 games all playable. That's awesome. How many cooperators are there, roughly? We have five owners that, between all the games, they all do tech. We all run some shifts, you know, keep it all going. Very cool. And does it open as a public arcade at some hours? I know not every collective does. Yeah, we are fully public. It's Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays we open. The rest of the week is closed. In this case, we'll be open on Sunday just for tournament players. Timing and Subtitles by the Amara.org community
    53:04
    Danny Pneumotzdem, J.M.: That's right. � iamo IDK Ketan vicious IDK First round or first session of the day, you'll be playing 10 games. And once you play 10 games, you're free to go back to pumping and dumping. Gotcha. So there's there's no like waiting for the rest of the round to finish like to be in a more regular match play tournament. It's just as soon as the more people available to play against, you just go
    53:53
    play face immediately. Right. Just go to whatever game is open of the bank and get to get the game in as quickly as possible.
    54:00
    Yeah, but we'll be doing some sessions as classic, some sessions as modern. m. 624 bns. And Bunanya чего kurist and Branch Longchiquetzed ladsn躮 식 плинку Dobeε seja áf netsintână І עלmile not the tale of the Let's get some purchase in a game there or in a match. Yeah, I really, I like head to head finals. I find it really fun just to actually play a full battle against one other person, you know, and get a good chance against them. I don't think we have yet said the dates of this tournament. It is December 12th through 15th, right? Yep. And starting afternoons, most days, all days, is that right? Yep, it's starting around 4 or 5 on weekdays and then full days on the weekends. December 12th, Thursday, that's just Herb qualifying. No max match play, so you don't have to come for that part if you don't want to. It's more bonus time. But Friday and Saturday are all the max play sessions. Sunday is finals. And then we've also got Herb running Thursday through Saturday and then finals on Sunday. You've got it set up, I presume, in such a way that you could easily play in both the max match play and the Herb finals or no? Yeah, well, we've tried to align it so that there's not much overlap between them. We'll do a few rounds late Saturday night, you know, to get stuff going and then whoever's left. But if you're in both at the same time, then we wait for you to play whichever finals you're in. You definitely won't be forced to hurry or anything or drop games to or get eliminated because you're in two files at once. That's great. But hopefully that won't come up at all because we scheduled it perfectly. We'll see. And all of the machines worked perfectly throughout the weekend. And everybody down. Yeah, there'll be no rulings. Right, right, yeah, exactly. Everyone showed up at the time they were supposed to show up at the game they were supposed to show up. No one yelled. Every round will start on time and every round will end on time. You'll be in bed by 9pm. See? Now that's, now you're really speaking my language there. I like being in bed by 9pm. It is nice. What's your favorite game at the collective, if I may? Ooh, favorite game at the collective. Uh, that's, there's so many games. I was going to say is no longer on the floor, so I can't say that one. Because usually I would say far out. So EM I just love, but it's been having score real issues. We had to take it off the floor for a while.
    56:39
    I mean, currently I'd probably just say Godzilla. I was like Godzilla. It's a good one. You guys, you all have the premium or like we have an L.E. Oh, an L.E. Cool. And I personally own a pro because I played the L.E. that we got as like, this is so good. I can't only play it three days a week when I'm at the collective. So I'm going to get one for home too. Right. Yeah. Gotta spend the money so you got it the other four days also. Yep. Cool.
    57:03
    Very cool. Can you tell us more about how a cooperative for a pinball works? I mean, there's a lot of different ones I know of throughout the country and they all work a bit differently. But the main thing was we got four or five people together who all had too many pinball machines to fit in their houses and We found a spot that had really cheap rent and not the worst location possible. And then we set up all the pinball machines in there and we each have a certain portion. I have the most in there just because I have an uncontrollable need to buy pinball machines. But and then we all work on whatever is broken and we all come in on days off. We have a scheduling system, you know, so we usually keep two people in anytime while we're open is the goal. Quote, one to work the desk and one to go fix things. Mm hmm. And then in our case, it's open to the public, like we said. So we just run in the public for those hours and we either let people come in flat fee twenty bucks for a day or do memberships. That's right. A whole month of unlimited play. But I also know there are ones like you mentioned that are private only. So like only if you have a membership, can you come in when they're open? Stuff like that. Right. Or or like they do, you know, open hours, but not nearly to the degree that you're doing a weekly hours. Yeah, we used to have a barcade in town that shut down during COVID and we're like, we really need just some location, you know, where we could just put a bunch of games and run tournaments, you know, because we want to have a tournament scene. We've got a big one down here. We talked a little bit before we started recording about how there's just a lot of little Whopper tournaments, at least compared, you know, comparatively down here. But is there any motivation to that for the Royal Rumble? I mean, we have a lot of bars with two or three pins around here too. But they're basically all just monosterns, you know, because that's what operates best on a per quarter drop basis. Sure. It's not that different in New York City either, to be fair. Yeah, I would assume it's not or there'd be a lot of Valley Williams pins. But right at RPC, we have a lot of people who like other things like I like EMS a lot. So of the 80 games there, there's probably like 2025 EMS that I keep running. Hopefully, I am upholdcanuleonlines and Katie haha Yeah, yeah, well plus I mean 80 games. Yeah, you can't do that at a bar. Yeah, can't do that pretty much anywhere in New York City unless you're an investment banker. Can I ask when you were looking for a venue, how did you figure out things like humidity or electricity or space for desk versus tournaments? I feel like having a lot of older tables that are prone to issues you would want like good security and make sure things didn't warp or leak. How do How did you decide where to put things and how did you manage such a large space for all of your tables? We mostly just crossed our fingers on a lot of that to be honest. We made sure there's a certain amount of electricity to getting in because we've got like hundreds of amps of service. But luckily the place that we rent from, the electricity is included in the rent. So we don't pay per ounce or anything and the heating and cooling is also included in the rent too. So we can blast the AC all summer and we don't have to pay for it. Feel Less Like I'm Still großes! We're in the upper story of above a strip mall. So they've they got some level of commercial, you know, responsibility that they have to keep. So we weren't too worried about most of that stuff. But in the end it was mostly then just how do we pack as many pinball machines in here as possible while still not looking like it's just a warehouse for pinball machines. Right, right. Well, and look, if it used to be a place where where they made pianos, like it probably already had, you know, You sure hope so. I just looked up some pictures on the internet. This is a nice place!
    61:28
    Yeah. Again, we really didn't want it to just be like oh we're in a warehouse somewhere you know or we bought a random part of a strip mall and there's just top ceilings and whatever wall have to be there, so we finished it all up. We put new flooring down. We paint all the walls and everything and put molding in and tried to make it look nice enough that people will bring their kids there. This is gorgeous. Holy cow. Our income is children, parents, we want them to not feel like it's just some dump. Right. That's great. Even though I like a lot of those pinball places out there that aren't like that, but many people would not feel like that's a place they want to spend their money. Yeah. No, this looks very friendly. I got to ask, I see all the carpet. How does nudging and sliding and such work? Do you have to adjust the tilt bulbs or what do you do with that? We've got everything on rubber beat so they won't really slide much. Uh-huh. We run enough tournaments there and all the owners are tournament players that we hopefully just get all the tilts in a place where they're not too bad. You know, if you're doing a big tournament in a place that everyone has to bring games, you always have problems with the tilts not being accurate or being too tighter. Because people always, when you're setting up a tournament, you want to not put the tilt crazy loose, but then you go too far the other way. But like because the games are all here, they don't move much. Usually the tilts are all reasonable. You're not gonna just get screwed suddenly on something like that. Nice. I'm excited to get up there. I saw some of the Stomp West stream. We always run those and it's been getting bigger and bigger. It used to be one tournament. Now it was four tournaments. Wow. This year, three in a women's. That's four, you know. Yeah. We really like to do two big tournaments a year. Actually get people traveling in from places because obviously New York City people aren't going to come to a 15, 20 point monthly tournament or anything. So we both wanted to run the two big tournaments, but also, You know, Stomp was like solid pinball for 48 hours straight, you know, 56 hours. We're basically like, and I was TDing it. I was like, I got there at 4pm, ran it till midnight, went home, slept till 7am, went back, ran tournaments from 7am to midnight. Right. You know, got another six hours of sleep and ran tournaments all Sunday. Like it was a marathon to just fit as much pinball as we could in. So this one I wanted to just not do that. I'm not going to do all match play. There's going to be some herb, some frenzy. There's going to be breaks. Yeah. It's going to be ample time to just do whatever else you want to do so everyone else can just relax a bit but still hopefully pack two certified tournaments into one weekend. I totally support the idea that the tournament director deserves the dignity of sleep and the dignity of a life outside of this tournament. You know, if I could get 100 people to come twice a year to a tournament, and they all would enjoy it, I'd be willing to do five hours of sleep. But if I could do it and also get eight hours of sleep, that's even better. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. And you deserve it. You deserve the eight hours. Well, Zach, thank you so much for taking the time to do this. I look forward to being there in December and trying out all of these games and I'm going to come I'm going to try to play I'm a fan of your games, I love them. Yeah, we have a lot of games. I like to say all of our games play really good. I don't actually know any location that has as many tournament ready games that play as good as ours do because we just are all players who like to tinker and we all know tech stuff like, right? There's probably places out there. I haven't been everywhere, of course, but like, I feel like we have a really good lineup of games that all play good, work good. Hopefully don't break down that much. But even if they break down, they'll still be good. I'm going to be playing good till I break down. And hopefully when people come and play that then they'll be like, oh yeah, I want to actually go there again because the game just played good. And also, as we said earlier, there is still space available. So if you're hearing this in New York City and you're thinking, hey, you know what, I could go to Rochester on December 12th, then... This is not a this has got to be like the largest whopper opportunities left in the state this year. I mean if we get like 60 70 people for some of this stuff then like it would be in the top five opportunities for the whole year even right Oh my yeah, you know it won't beat the beast obviously, but oh, yeah, the beast was huge, but yeah, yeah, but it'll be close
    65:50
    So if you want to suddenly get a giant boost in your ranking then that's good for that, too Sp hasht
    66:17
    IDSacter of Bagsy Sp)! That pinball keeps going on. You and me both. Hear hear. Hey, Zach. That's all for this week's pod. I'd like to thank Zach Fry for joining us from the Rochester Pinball Collective. I would like to thank everyone who was involved with the harvest. Again, I'm certain that I did not say nearly enough names to recognize everyone who contributed in a meaningful way. I'm very thankful to you. That was a great time last weekend and a great representation of our community. So thanks to everyone who came out and played, but in particular if you volunteered, if you organized, if you operated, thank you. I appreciate you. Join us next week when we'll run down the first week of Pinball NYC Playoffs, both the Orbits and the in lanes. I'm not too sure what we'll talk about in balls two or three But we will have something in at least one of those two segments. Between now and then, pinfolk, whatever you're up to, go get them.