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The Final Battle 24 Hours To Go

This Flippin' Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 17m·analyzed·Nov 6, 2023
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.036

TL;DR

Tommy Skinner returns to podcast to reflect on Final Battle tournament and pinball's resurgence.

Summary

Tommy Skinner of This Flippin' Out Pinball Podcast returns after a year-long hiatus to discuss the Final Battle 24-hour tournament at the Sanctum in Connecticut, where he finished 10th place while watching Bowen Kerins defend his championship title. He reflects on his evolution from competitive player to location operator managing 25+ machines across four Lafayette locations, the growth of the local pinball community, and the broader renaissance of pinball over the past 12 years.

Key Claims

  • Final Battle is a lottery-entry tournament with roughly 100 participants and a significant waitlist

    high confidence · Tommy discusses how he didn't get into the initial lottery but was #1 or #2 on the waitlist and was quickly admitted by Jim Swain

  • Bowen Kerins dominated the Final Battle for his second consecutive victory, mathematically clinching the win by the last rounds

    high confidence · Tommy states 'by the time we got to the last two rounds, it was mathematically impossible for anyone to catch up' and describes Kerins as 'untouchable this weekend'

  • Tommy has built three pinball games from scratch and maintains 30+ machines across four locations in Lafayette

    high confidence · Tommy explicitly states 'I've now built three games from complete scratch using nothing but spare parts. I've restored several others. I maintain 30 plus games across four locations.'

  • The Sanctum venue is located in an old warehouse building with multiple businesses inside

    high confidence · Tommy describes 'The Sanctum's location itself is located in what I assume is an old warehouse of some sort. It's definitely an incredibly large old building.'

  • Final Battle uses a format similar to Pinberg with three-game banks mixing EM, solid state, and modern games across each round

    high confidence · Tommy explains 'The format is very similar to the classic and favorite of much every pinball person you will talk to: Pinberg. Where you play a game from a different era for each game in the three-game bank each round.'

  • Tommy last competed in a major pinball tournament in 2019 at Pen Masters in Colorado

    high confidence · Tommy states 'I think it was 2019. I saw, um, I traveled out to Colorado for Pen Masters. Um, and I think the same year I played in the tournament at Cincinnati.'

  • The first game was placed at North End Pub in Lafayette 7 years ago (March 2019), growing from 1 to 25 machines

    high confidence · Tommy mentions 'this March will be seven years since we put our first game in there, and now we're up to 25'

Notable Quotes

  • “I just had some interactions this weekend that made me really miss doing this, made me miss talking to you Taylor if you listen to this.”

    Tommy Skinner @ early in episode — Explains motivation for returning to podcasting after one year hiatus

  • “how, as small as a thing as this podcast might be, it does mean something to some people out there, myself included, and how much I missed certain aspects of the pinball hobby.”

    Tommy Skinner @ early in episode — Articulates value of community and podcast connection to the hobby

  • “I saw kindness, I saw community, I saw respect. I didn't see very many people getting angry at anything this weekend.”

    Tommy Skinner @ mid-episode, describing tournament atmosphere — Highlights positive community culture at Final Battle event

  • “because even if you tell me how to do something on a machine, that doesn't mean I can actually go up there and do it. So like, why not share that information?”

    Tommy Skinner @ mid-episode — Reflects philosophy of knowledge-sharing in competitive pinball community

  • “You have a wait list for a reason. So Jim, congratulations on everything you have built out there.”

    Tommy Skinner @ mid-episode — Recognition of Jim Swain's tournament organization and reputation

  • “it's just ironic when you look at that now I was just at Pinball Expo two weeks ago new game, Elton John Barnyard Jersey Jack Pinball Pinball, Steve Ritchie Louis Toy Story 4 was from Pat Lawlor”

    Tommy Skinner @ late in episode — Contrasts Special When Lit's pessimism about pinball's future with current renaissance

  • “I went from someone who, when I started this podcast, was all about playing, learning the games, traveling to play in tournaments, but didn't know how to do anything to them.”

    Tommy Skinner @ late in episode — Describes personal evolution from player to operator over 12 years

Entities

Tommy SkinnerpersonTaylorpersonJim SwainpersonBowen KerinspersonEven Steven GentrypersonBraden GentrypersonThe SanctumvenueNorth End PubvenueThis Flippin' Out Pinball Podcastpodcast

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Location-based pinball operations showing healthy growth with operators successfully scaling from single to multiple venues

    high · Tommy has expanded from 1 location (North End Pub with 25 machines after 7 years) to 4 locations total, with planned expansion to fifth location

  • ?

    community_signal: Final Battle demonstrates strong community culture with experienced players mentoring newcomers, sharing food/drinks, and providing gameplay tips without gatekeeping

    high · Tommy describes seeing 'players helping players' and people willingly sharing information about machines despite competitive context, with kindness and respect throughout the event

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Pinball community experiencing renaissance with significant growth in participation, content availability, and player engagement compared to pessimistic period depicted in Special When Lit documentary

    high · Tommy contrasts Special When Lit's depiction of pinball dying with current reality of new releases, active designer involvement, thriving tournaments, and expanded player base over his 12-year involvement

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Rush pinball game recognized as having deep, complex ruleset that rewards study and knowledge over casual play

    medium · Tommy references experiencing disadvantage at Final Battle because he hadn't studied Rush's 'incredibly deep rule set' despite watching RayDayPinball tutorials

  • ?

    event_signal: Final Battle tournament has become highly sought-after event requiring lottery system to manage demand, with significant waitlist

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.233

0:01
Hey everyone, this is Tommy Skinner, one half of this flippin' podcast. We haven't put out an episode in almost a full year. I think it's just a couple weeks shy of when Taylor and I last did a show together. He would be the other half of this flippin' podcast. And I did a December special last year with my good friend Mr. John Hawksby. pertaining to our charity fundraising stream that we've done every December the last three years. And this December will be no different, as we will bring you another charity event, Raising Money for Sleep and Heavenly Peace, down at North End Pub, where we will plan to stream pinball all day, have a silent auction, and basically just take donations in. All the machines will be on free play. Donations can come in person or online. If you want to bid on things in the auction, you should be there in person. but those are the rough plans for the coming months um with all that being said um i am sitting here at 3 27 a.m on monday november 6th and i have literally just gotten home roughly about a half hour ago uh from taking a trip all the way out to harford connecticut uh and then catching an uber to, I believe it is Meridian, Connecticut, to participate in the final battle, the 24-hour pinball tournament at the Sanctum run by my friend, Mr. Jim Swain. And although I am incredibly sleepy, as you may be able to hear in my voice, and if you're watching this on our video feed, which is something new that I'm trying, you could probably see the tiredness in my face. but I had a awesome weekend and I had some flight delays coming home today but even with all of that going on and just the exhaustive format of that tournament I just had some interactions this weekend that made me really miss doing this made me miss talking to you Taylor if you listen to this so I hope I can use this as a recruiting tool to get you back so we can talk pinball from time to time.
2:25
But also, not just the fact that I missed it, but that some other people out there miss hearing some things from us, and how as small as a thing as this podcast might be, it does mean something to some people out there, myself included, and how much I missed certain aspects of the pinball hobby. So literally the whole hour drive at home I just had from the airport in Indianapolis to my home in Lafayette, I was thinking about just stuff I wanted to talk about and put out there. And realizing in doing that, obviously when you don't record for a year, a whole lot of things have happened. So I don't plan to hit all of those here in this episode, but it did give me ideas for things to continue to talk about if we continue to do this. I'm not promising any sort of super regular content. That's never been our thing. You're not going to get a new episode every Monday at 3.30 a.m. But maybe some more semi-regular things because realizing that I've probably missed this more than I wanted to admit myself, it would be good for me to do. I apologize that I keep saying um, but I'm thinking as I do this and I'm thinking on a very exhausted and tired brain. I'm recording from my little office room that I finally kind of got cleaned up.

  • Tommy finished 10th place at Final Battle despite not being as competitive as past years

    high confidence · Tommy states 'I myself came in what I feel like is a very respectable 10th place. I'm honestly very happy with how I played this weekend.'

    • “RayDayPinball, thank you so much for putting those out. Your tutorials are spectacular. I love watching them because I see how much you truly love pinball when you play those games like that.”

    Tommy Skinner @ mid-episode — Acknowledges role of video tutorials and content creators in pinball growth

    Ray Day
    person
    Steve Ritchieperson
    Pat Lawlorperson
    Barrels of Funcompany
    Jersey Jack Pinballcompany
    Conradperson
    Alyssaperson
    Final Battleevent
    Pinball Expoevent
    Texas Pinball Festivalevent
    Pinball at the Zooevent
    Pen Mastersevent
    Special When Litmedia

    high · Tommy notes he didn't get in initial lottery but was #1-2 on waitlist, and mentions 'massive wait list to get into this event' and that Jim Swain said 'they have no problem filling up' because of demand

  • $

    market_signal: Availability of used pinball machines has become more constrained and expensive, requiring active searching and quick decision-making

    medium · Tommy notes 'it's gotten so popular that it's harder to find machines, especially at a reasonable price' and that machines found are 'typically broken' requiring restoration work

  • ?

    community_signal: Ray Day (Oscar H. Ray) continues work at Stern Pinball producing high-quality educational game rule tutorial content

    high · Tommy praises 'RayDayPinball's tutorial' and 'Your tutorials are spectacular' with recognition of Ray's passion and industry role

  • ?

    technology_signal: Online video tutorials and tournament streaming significantly reducing barrier to entry for new players and improving skill development

    high · Tommy emphasizes how newer players learn rules through YouTube tutorials and streams rather than spending quarters, making them more effective players when they play on location

    • 3:46
    That being said, I don't have all my equipment set up properly. I'm holding the microphone in my hand. So hopefully you're getting good audio quality and it's coming through nice and clear. I had it sitting on the desk when I did a little test earlier and it came through pretty clear, but it felt a little bit soft. So I did want to hold it closer to my face. And until I find my microphone stand, this will kind of be what I have to do for this one.
    4:11
    With all that being said, a little bit of a reintroduction for those of you who haven't listened in a while. And it had been really hard to listen since we haven't done one of these. But I'm Tommy Skinner. I'm in Lafayette, Indiana. Taylor and I started doing this show probably seven or eight years ago now. Time just flies by. When we started the show, I didn't have children. And Taylor's daughter seemed incredibly young to me. and now his oldest is getting ready to graduate high school and that's insane and i now have a 16 month old named conrad so um that is part of the reason for our disappearances from the podcasting world of pinball is we've simply been really busy with our families um on top of that i work three jobs and i coach wrestling and i run a pinball location um that's now up to 25 pinball machines and on top of that in recent months I've added on a second and now third and now fourth location that all have smaller amounts of games and I'm supposed to meet with a fifth location this week so I am continuing to spread pinball within our community here in Lafayette to the best of my abilities part of what's led me to being able to do that is our player base has been building up over these past seven years that I've had games on location. I was just discussing that with the owner of my main location, North End Pub, this past week about how long it's been, and we actually looked up to find the Facebook post, and this March will be seven years since we put our first game in there, and now we're up to 25. So that's kind of been a cool experience to really see it grow and build this community, and most importantly see other people get hooked on and passionate about pinball. And some of that has also rubbed off on me from some of those new players. So Lindsey and Tony, Amanda and Wurtz and Donahue and just our whole crew, our league has really, really grown.
    6:26
    Brett, I don't want anyone to feel like left out here, but there's just so many more people that are now playing and seeing how much they've got into it and how much they're enjoying it has made me feel like my hard work has kind of paid off and by paid off I don't mean in any sort of way like financially because we've all seen what's happened with the rising prices of pinball machines but I mean in the fact that pinball is something very special to me I'm very passionate about it truly makes me happy and brings me joy so to be able to share that and see it impacting others in a similar manner is incredibly valuable to me and it means a lot, honestly. So several of them were messaging me this weekend while I competed at the final battle, sending me words of encouragement, just checking out to see how I was doing with the lack of sleep. Although if anyone knows me, they know my sleep schedule is pretty sporadic at best. Anyway, so I wouldn't say that was too great of an impact on me. but those are some of the things this is only the second time I've traveled away from my son and I genuinely missed him so I'm excited to get home him and Alyssa are asleep right now and since I absolutely had to shower after playing pinball for 24 hours and then spending another almost 16 hours traveling home I felt very gross I wanted to shower and they're asleep so I was like man while these thoughts and emotions are fresh on my brain and my heart let's turn on the computer try to find our microphone and talk about our weekend man so um i did not get in to the final battle this year and the initial lottery this is a tournament that's become so popular for those of you that don't know and aren't familiar with it, that you must enter a lottery for a chance to be one of the 100 participants in this event. I actually did get in last year, but with Conrad being essentially a newborn at roughly four months old at the date of the tournament, three and a half months old, I figured it was best for my life and my wife and Conrad that I don't travel across the country to play in a 24-hour pinball tournament.
    8:51
    So I unfortunately had to give up my spot last year, allow somebody else to go, which they have no problem filling up because, again, there's a massive wait list to get into this event. This year, I did not get in, but I believe I was number one or two on the wait list.
    9:06
    And Jim reached out to me right away and was like, dude, you're going to get in. Just be ready. And I think literally within the first week, they knew I was in. So I accepted it, paid my entry fee, booked my flights, and booked an Airbnb. got everything done really early out of the way made sure Alyssa knew I was doing this planned it for months ahead of time hey remember I'm going to be gone this weekend because once you have a kid suddenly something like disappearing for three days to go play pinball takes a lot more planning not quite the same experience I would have had when I first started doing this podcast and I could kind of come and go as I pleased and there's nothing wrong with that it's just the fact that it's just my life situation now got to make sure Conrad's cared for because Alyssa herself has a very busy schedule with both work and coaching travel soccer. Conrad traveled with her to a soccer tournament in Indianapolis this weekend while I was out in Connecticut, and he'll actually be traveling with me to Indianapolis next weekend so I can play in the Fountain Square Classic at La Margarita, one of Indiana's largest pinball tournaments. So he gets to experience our activities with us to the best of our abilities. He's kind of used to hanging out with teenagers a lot more than he is smaller children his age because he goes to a lot of soccer practices and he goes to a lot of wrestling practices and we'll see how that goes in the long run for him but um right now we just try to include him in as much of our activities and lives as we can and it's working for us so that's my experience so far as a young not that i'm young but young into my parenting livelihood hood here. Um, so anyway, been planning this for months. Um, two or three weeks ago, uh, my Airbnb canceled on me. Uh, just got an email saying my reservation was canceled. I was like, that's weird. Uh, and fortunately, um, a good friend who I met thanks to doing this podcast. And I got to spend a lot of time with this weekend, Mr. Steven Gentry, uh, had commented on our discord, which is not a very active discord but if you like to be in there to occasionally discuss pinball or follow along with what some of us are doing uh it's a good place to be but he posted he was going to this um so i said hey you know what hotel are you staying at my airbnb canceled and i plan to just kind of book one where they were at so i'd get to see him um and he just being the kind gentleman he is uh and super hospitable was like dude just stay with us save some money so um that was awesome. I was going to get to go stay with Steven and Braden, his son. They've listened to the podcast for a long time and we've met. Steven's traveled up here with Alberto to play in some pinball events that I've hosted. We've met up at different pinball shows over the years. Braden has won many dollars from me at different shows over the years and very similar to Taylor's children. He was a kid when I met him and now he's a 21 year old junior in college studying to be a sports broadcaster. And while not, you know, I wouldn't look at him and go, oh, that's a full grown adult. The kids growing up on top of that, he's an incredibly good pinball player as I myself got to experience and witness firsthand this weekend. So that was amazing that they were going to allow me to stay with them. And with this event being 24 hours, you really only need to sleep for one night anyway, because the other night you're stuck inside of a really cool pinball location. So I work Friday morning, head to the airport, catch a flight, and then I'm going to catch an Uber over to the Sanctum and meet up with Steven and Brayden there. Because on Friday night, they had a charity pinball tournament. It was a three-starks event. Gives you a little bit of practice. Raises money for a good cause. And that was fun. I literally got to the tournament, I think it started at 6 p.m. I think I pulled up in my Uber at 5.55. And Steven and Brayden had already rented a car. We all played in the tournament.
    13:20
    Brayden played a lot longer than Steven and I did. So we got knocked out. And then we hung around waiting for him to finish. took the the car they'd rented back to our hotel picked up some chinese food on the way there and they passed out pretty quick for the night me with my weird sleep schedule i stayed up till about 3 a.m even though knowing we had to kind of get up at 8 a.m to eat breakfast stop at a store for some supplies and head into the sanctum their doors were going to open at 9 a.m for again another hour practice with the tournament starting at 10 a.m. and as you can see by the cover art in this episode the thumbnail on YouTube you're just greeted with that 24 hour countdown clock upon entry into the event. The format is very similar to the classic and favorite of pretty much every pinball person you will talk to Pinberg where you play a game from a different era for each game in the three-game bank each round.
    14:28
    Specifically here, you're playing an EM, a solid state, and a modern of a DMD or an LCD. Not as many EMS on hand. Sometimes you've got two solid states.
    14:41
    But some sort of balance like that. Very similar to what I tried to do at PubBerg this year, where we actually, because we don't have EMS, split up our categories into solid state, DMD, and LCD games. But again, the same idea is you're playing games across different eras each round, really testing a player's skill of both eras of pinball, as far as the way things are different in physical play, as well as rules. You need to have a ton of knowledge about a variety of pinball machines to succeed in a format like this. And they use the same scoring that Pinberg used, that we used this year at PubBerg, the 3-2-1-0, the dreaded zero. You come in last place, fourth place in a group, you score zero points. So that is what you are trying to avoid. And unfortunately, spoiler alert, I did not avoid nearly enough of them. But even if I had avoided several of the last place finishes that I had this weekend, I don't think it would have made much of a difference, simply because of the fact that nobody was going to be the person who ended up winning the event, Mr. Bowen Cairns, who simply dominated for his second straight victory. As champion last year, he was guaranteed entry to defend his title this year, and he went above and beyond in his defense of his title and simply slaughtered the competition.
    16:08
    I think by the time we got to the last two rounds, it was mathematically impossible for anyone to win at that point, and even before that it would have been incredibly unlikely for Bowen to suddenly start taking all fourth places while other people were going to have to be getting all first places to pass him. So really for about the second half of the tournament, I want to say, definitely the last eight hours, it just appeared that Bowen was going to be untouchable this weekend, and he truly was. He's showed why he's a former world champion.
    16:44
    He's been around pinball for a very long time. He's been heavily involved in pinball with multiple companies in the past several years. Most recently, with something else we hope to discuss here in the near future, Barrels of Fun Labyrinth Pinball Machine, which was just revealed a couple weeks ago right before Pinball Expo.
    17:06
    Hopefully, coming soon, I will discuss my impressions. And hopefully I can get Taylor on here to discuss his impressions. Because I know he is at least curious, if not impressed, with the title himself. But again, we'll save that for a future episode. I'm going to kind of just be spitballing ideas here as we go. But we're going to largely focus again on the Sanctum this weekend. So we are headed there. We've got that hour of practice. And then obviously the clock hits 10. And we've got to go through a little bit of a rules meeting, as you would at most large-scale events.
    17:40
    And you've got 100 people packed into this room. The Sanctum's location itself is located in what I assume is an old warehouse of some sort.
    17:50
    It's definitely an incredibly large old building. Within the building, there's definitely several other businesses.
    17:57
    And suddenly for this weekend, where fortunately I believe most of these businesses are not necessarily weekend businesses, you're invaded by probably 100 plus pinball players. I'm sure some people brought friends, partners, etc. with to help hang out, keep company, make sure we're eating, resting in between rounds. And throughout the hallways of this building, there are lawn chairs everywhere, there are cots, there are sleeping bags, there are coolers.
    18:25
    I felt like a complete noob showing up to this event with nothing. we stopped at the store and I brought a box of gorilla bars, a box of fruit snacks and a six pack of diet coke 20 ounce bottles which was not nearly enough I should have grabbed at least two of those for me and the way I consume diet coke but that was kind of going to be the plan there is at one point a food truck that was supposed to come they unfortunately had to cancel and instead we were just given essentially you just go right round to the next round We were given like an extra 30 minutes at the end of one of the rounds when the last group finished to kind of figure out how to eat. There was some stuff in the area. I personally just used Uber Eats and had some tacos delivered, which were delicious. Other people ordering pizza, sharing pizza. Some people had snacks, drinks, et cetera.
    19:17
    I saw a lot of what I considered to be the best in the hobby just people treating each other kindly and sharing whatever it was that they had available I heard so many people offer beverages to other people So many people would be eating something and someone would say, Oh, what's that? Oh, here, would you like some, would you like a bite? Yeah, etc. I saw kindness, I saw community, I saw respect. I didn't see very many people getting angry at anything this weekend outside of the occasional ah fuck you know when my ball drained or damn you know uh nothing too crazy the machines at the sanctum incredibly well maintained an incredibly diverse selection we will talk about a few of them in particular throughout the episode here um overall a blast i saw players helping players there's when you bring it together a hundred people that entering a tournament on a lottery system you are going to get a large disparity in skill level to the point where you have Bowen Cairns, a former world champion, and you have some people there who seem relatively new or inexperienced to the hobby, and I didn't see anybody not being willing to say, hey, this is what you're trying to shoot on this, or this is your best way to score on this game. Be careful. That game's got a tight tilt.
    20:35
    Flippers are a little extra strong on this one. All sorts of little things like that. Just providing tips to people as we're going through the tournament and through the day. even with people that are in your groups, like for the most part, I didn't see anybody not willing to share some information. Um, because even if you tell me how to do something on a machine, that doesn't mean I can actually go up there and do it. So like, why not share that information? And if I can go up there and do it, like, that's great. You helped me. Um, but that's just going to make me and you better. So that part was very fun for me to see and experience throughout the event. Um, and that comes from, I believe, you know, the top down with Jim running the event, having set expectations at the start of the tournament for us, having run this event for years now, built up its reputation that they're not going to put up with any sort of inappropriate behavior at the event. And that's how you establish something like this that ends up on the Stern Pro Circuit Tour every year, that people are willing to buy a lottery ticket, or not buy, but enter into a lottery system just hoping they can get into it. You have a wait list for a reason. So Jim, congratulations on everything you have built out there. Thank you for letting me know I was so high up on the wait list. And I'm just really glad I finally got to come out and experience the event. So we already gave one spoiler alert. Bowen was the champion. I myself came in what I feel like is a very respectable 10th place.
    22:04
    I'm honestly very happy with how I played this weekend. it was fun um it was stressful i find um this is kind of like what i consider to be a quote unquote serious tournament um that level of competitive pinball where you're playing against you know several players that are ranked in the top 100 that these are people that travel the country regularly to participate in large-scale events um i find that to be stressful because i I know who these people are. I know their skill level. I myself have not played that much pinball in recent years. I have remained probably more active within the hobby than I ever have, but in a variety of new ways, such as operating more and more games, restoring more and more games, fixing more and more games. It takes a lot of time and effort and energy to hunt down games now because it's gotten so popular that it's harder to find machines, especially at a reasonable price. And then when you do find them, they're typically broken. I've recently picked up several new games, which we'll discuss in the coming months, weeks, episodes, however you want to break it down. But it's not easy. You have to actively be searching and then be very quick to get to one of those deals nowadays. So that was all of those things. I'm still heavily, heavily involved with pinball. Just not as much in the competitive side to where I'm playing in a ton of events or traveling to more serious events. Um, I run weekly events at my location, so I'm probably running more events than ever. Um, and I do play in some of them, but I wouldn't say I'm traveling to like these major events very often. Uh, I was kind of curious as to like when the last thing was that I did. And I think it was 2019. I saw, um, I traveled out to Colorado for pen masters. Um, and I think the same year I played in the tournament at Cincinnati, um, in granted, yes, 2020, we have COVID 2021. There's nothing 2022 things start to come back. Uh, so there have been some, uh, you know, obviously delays in everyone's competitive part where they weren't really necessarily traveling to these big events.
    24:25
    I just feel like I particularly ignored that aspect for the last couple years. I haven't studied the new games the way I used to. Particularly this weekend, I experienced that with Rush.
    24:39
    I think Rush shot incredibly well. I'm aware of the fact that it has this incredibly deep rule set to it. I just don't know what it is. I did watch some of Ray Day's tutorial at one point, and Ray Day, thank you so much for putting those out. Your tutorials are spectacular. I love watching them because I see how much you truly love pinball when you play those games like that and how excited you get explaining things. You are absolutely a positive force within pinball, and I'm so happy you get to work within the industry to share your passion and your love for these games. That being said, I just don't know the rules to it. So I felt very at a huge disadvantage compared to some of the other players who did know the rules. There is absolutely always, if it's flashing, shoot it, which I did do, and it did help me one round. And then another round, I just played it terrible and tried to shoot flashing things and brick stuff and it took me out. But again, I just didn't know what I was doing. So that part of it, again, has not been my main focus the last couple years. I've largely been working on fixing up games, getting them on location, trying to build our player base up here locally and get more people involved. So traveling to this tournament was something that I just, you know, I don't experience as much anymore. I still go to the Texas Pinball Festival every year. I don't play in the tournament. I still go to Expo most years. I don't play in the tournament there.
    26:03
    I did play in Pinball at the Zoo this year, actually, too. so that was a that late no that's April so in April I did play in that event I did okay up there too made the finals I don't know for the A division at least I don't remember exactly where I finished I think around 20th or something I think I got knocked out the first round of the playoffs or the finals so I've played in kind of like two bigger events this year with that being said it's just I'm not traveling really far I'm not going to any of the whopper farms that exist now around the country nothing against them they are again spreading pinball in a very positive way and increasing participation getting more people to do tournaments and leagues and events than ever before which is good for all of us that have locations all of us that enjoy competitive pinball it's getting more coverage and content out there I'm so thankful for all the streams the people who run streams. I have streaming equipment. I have streamed in the past. I don't like setting up the stream. I find the technical side of it difficult and annoying to deal with and get set up. And then for the amount of time and effort it takes to get it all set up and the amount of time where I would typically play and stream because I'm not usually streaming a competition myself. I'm just streaming for an hour or two here and there. I don't find it very fun and not worth the effort. so that being said I really enjoy still watching pinball streams especially from tournaments with high level players and getting to watch that coverage is really cool I know for my player base a lot of my newer players they talk about to me they talk to me about how frequently they're watching videos of pinball tutorials and streams etc and I think that's a huge part of what has actually helped with pinball's growth in the last several years is the fact that this information is out there people don't have this high cost this high barrier to entry of having to drop a hundred dollars and quarters to learn a machine you can now watch a couple video tutorials on it you can watch a high level player participate in a game and see what they're doing you still have to go out and like figure out how to do it yourself but you can learn the rules without having to pay up so now at least when you're paying that dollar to play the new stern you have an idea of what you should be doing what you should be shooting for the best ways to maximize your score how to get to a certain mode, etc., without having to just spend quarter after quarter after quarter on that machine. So I think that makes it so that people are more willing to spend money on your machines at location because they have an idea of what they should be doing.
    28:40
    All the companies that put out these video packages when they have a new release or the making of a game, kind of showing us a little bit more of the behind the scenes and the design process and the creative teams that put these games together, I think all of that helps a lot too. So again, thank you to those companies and the video content producers that are out there doing all of that. I think that is all just, again, beneficial to pinball. And I want to see pinball continue to grow, continue to be healthy, continue to exist. That was something I spoke to one of our players, Tony, tonight about.
    29:12
    We were just talking about pinball stuff and movies came up and he's newer to it. And it's, you know, hey, have you seen Special Unlit, Wizard Mode, Things That Go Bump at Night, the spooky pinball story, you know, and specifically when we talk about Special Unlit, he's like, yeah, how crazy is it to think when that's made, you're seeing these people in the industry. and I think in the film, I haven't watched that in years now, but I think it's Steve Ritchie, it might have been Pat Lawler, it might have been both of them, honestly, essentially saying, like, pinball's dead, like, it's dying out, it's just something that, you know, essentially old people are still attached to, and we still have some events for it, but, you know, in general, the hobby was dead, and I'd have to look that movie up to see when it was made, I know it already existed when I got into the hobby roughly 12 years ago so probably at least 15 years ago that's made, somewhere in that range and it's just ironic when you look at that now I was just at Expo two weeks ago new game, Elton John by Jersey Jack Pinball, Steve Ritchie Toy Story 4 was from Pat Lawler just a couple years ago so these guys it's pretty cool to see that they still get to be involved in pinball when they lived through a period of time where they saw it as essentially on its deathbed. Its final leg. And now they're seeing this renaissance. And this renaissance has been going on for a while now. Because I've been in the hobby 12 years now. I went from someone who, when I started this podcast, was all about playing, learning games, traveling to play in tournaments, but didn't know how to do anything to them. I owned them. If anything broke, I took it to the day in St. John. Main Street Amusements in Lafayette. I was very fortunate to have that resource so close to me. I've now built three games from complete scratch using nothing but spare parts. I've restored several others. I maintain 30 plus games across four locations.
    31:20
    I'm helping multiple people fix games currently. And I've got a game sitting here that is actually Tony's grandpa's we just got done fixing it and I've been showing him how to shop out we're going to finish that tomorrow night and then I'm going to be finishing up a Mr. and Ms. Pac-Man in the next coming weeks that I've been working on for our friend Ryan Claytor I'm trying to get that to him here before the holiday season that is his childhood game that he wanted all cleaned up and chopped out so you know and stuff like that like I still don't love working on machines but I love that I have the ability to now and then I love when I'm done with them and I get to see people enjoy them I recently purchased a Torpedo Alley from a local collector who unfortunately passed away his stepson was selling off his games I bought a couple project ones and then this one was supposed to be coming from his working game room and of course, like any pinball machine I always expect even a brand new in-box game it's probably going to need something this one needed a little bit more than i anticipated we had a display out all the flippers needed to rebuild the coin door had been this was this was a unique hack somebody took jb weld and welded over the coin max with liquid jb weld and like shoved it down in the coin slots uh like it was probably all fixable but it was just easier to buy an entire new coin door and rewire it so i did that rebuilt all the max shopped it out leds new rubbers etc and now i'm playing a sweet torpedo alley like just a week later because i've got that ability now to where i could take something and again i was hoping it would be fully working and ready to go it wasn't and i didn't let that get to me anymore instead i'm just boom let's fix this and get it playing so i can get it out on location because again i still love operating really rare stuff and on that note we're going to go back to the main topic of this episode the 24 hour uh pinball tournament the final battle at the sanctum where i got to play a Williams Defender. That is a game that had a run of just over 300 machines. I think there was always one at Penberg, but I'm not for sure. I know I definitely hadn't played it. It's a Williams Solid State from the 80s. It's only a two-player game, which is unique. Very similar era to Cosmic Gunfight, which I owned last year for a bit. and cosmic gunfight definitely wins in the looks department um artwork wise it's relatively rare i think they only made a thousand of them um obviously not nearly as rare as defender but defender was really really fun to shoot had some really cool features on the left side there's two flipper buttons the traditional button that works your flipper and a second button that works a manual kickback which turns out kickback is really hard to do when you have to manually time to hit the ball at the perfect time, which really gives me a lot of respect for all the games that have physical kickbacks and not just a ball save, that they work so efficiently, which tells you they're placing that switch at the exact right location and coding in the delay from when the switch is hit to when the ball is going to be in front of the kicker so that it can actually save it. It's really impressive because trying to do it manually turns out is damn near impossible. I don't know if I saw anyone successfully save the ball this weekend using that button. Then you jump over to the right side, and again, you have two buttons. One, again, works your flipper just like a traditional pinball machine. And the second one is a smart missile, essentially. You get three of them for the game. They will spot you, everything that's lit on the play field. And that was kind of like amazing to me because I had never realized that existed in a game so early. It's something that we take for granted that's in a lot of modern pinball machines. I think Jurassic Park would have been my guess at the first game to include it, the data East Jurassic Park. Um, but obviously I would have been wrong about that. And I think just cause Defender is so rare, you don't hear a lot of people bring that one up as such an innovative feature in such an early game, but it was there and it was really cool. Um, so I enjoyed getting to play that and just amazing that it's on location.
    35:29
    Uh, there was a lot of classic sterns, um, Viper, which is a rare one. Usually people don't talk about nothing but the art. I already messaged my friends and I'm like man I kind of hate how much I enjoyed playing Viper this weekend it was really fun and part of it is I just loved again the rare stuff that you're not going to play in an everyday collection but I just had fun playing that one it's got a unique cannon mech that's kind of cool it's player controlled on which way it's rotating and also when you launch the ball out of this cannon you're aiming at certain targets you're building up not just a bonus multiplier but a playfield multiplier throughout the whole time it was unique I liked it. I don't necessarily want to run out and buy one, but I also hope that Jim keeps the games they're playing amazing. They look amazing. There was a restored Sea Witch, had a play field in it, played a ton of that, played a ton of Stargazer.
    36:26
    Dirty Harry, I would say, is kind of the more modern game that I played a lot of, in between rounds even. One, because I did pretty poorly on it early in the tournament, so I was trying to kind of figure it out more. to Phil, Mr. Phil Grimaldi, one of the members of Barrels of Fun who worked on the Labyrinth Pinball Machine coming up with the rule set, and I hope to talk to Phil in the near future about that game.
    36:49
    I know he owned one at one point when he lived here in Lafayette because he took my car to pick it up in Chicago, I think it was, and I definitely played it before at his house, but that was, it sounds just so weird to say because of how far along my knowledge has come, but that was from a time when I didn't really fully understand pinball rules. Um, so, you know, I was shooting it, I could hit shots, I'm sure, but I didn't know like what I was shooting or why I was shooting it and that sort of thing. So, uh, trying to figure all that out, plus, you know, figure out the shots in this particular machine was kind of fun. And then by the end of the day, I ended up playing it the very last round and I was able to take a second on it. Um, so, you know, I improved, but I played that one quite a bit in between rounds as well uh so that was fun as you know getting to play a game you just don't see all the time uh i think eight ball deluxe might have been my favorite game to play all weekend because i think i got put on the bank with able deluxe three times and i won on able deluxe all three times and i didn't just like win i had like legitimately really good games I don't know why but the ball loved me on that machine I just kept finding in lane after in lane after in lane when the ball would be out of control it would somehow fall down C or somehow fall down D and just come to the in lane back to the flipper the drop targets were falling nice for me I struggled to hit the bonus multipliers but I had such a big bonus build up anyway even without multiplying it it was still valuable I was hitting the left orbit really easily the single 8 ball drop target itself I was taken down from both the lower and the upper flippers. It was just like that game, just the way that one was particularly playing, it just clicked with me, and it gave me a lot of points in the tournament.
    38:33
    Modern game I would say I disliked the most was probably Rick and Morty because I think that was the same bank. I think it was Rick and Morty, Gottlieb Hoops, and 8-Ball Deluxe.
    38:48
    I want to like Rick and Morty I relatively enjoy the show I think the theme is very cool anyone who listened to the show for years knows I just a fan of spooky pinball I cannot control the ball on that game to save my life and I find it just incredibly frustrating how it shoots theirs was very well dialed in it played better than the vast majority, if not any other Rick and Morty that I've ever played, I just cannot get into the game when I play it. Like I, I spend the whole time frustrated by it rather than enjoying it. Um, maybe I just need to be better. That might be the solution. Uh, regardless it was there and I played it. Uh, I think they had a, what I would call a bastardized Congo. Uh, it played great. It was just completely missing out lane posts. And for those of you familiar with Congo, no, it has those really fat late Williams out lane posts that are like the size of a star post. Um, and they were just missing. So your out lanes were like two inches wide and on top of that there's no ball save and tight tilt and that is how you have to set up modern games for a tournament like this you know all the sterns have the ball saves off you can't have elite pinball players walking up to a factory standard machine like that because your round times will go from the hour and a half it was taking us to play three four player games to, one of those players might play one of those games for an hour and a half.
    40:35
    So they do exactly what they have to do for this tournament format. Your solid states, they handle themselves with tight tilts and strong flippers and no ball saves.
    40:47
    And then the EMs, I would honestly say the EMs being five ball and playing as well as they did led to, I legitimately think the longest game times were probably on the EEMs.
    41:06
    I think, it was Bow and Arrow, and I know it was Ron from, oh man, Ron, I'm sorry, Ron Hallett, I think, I can't remember which, thank you Slapsave, I can't remember which content creator you are. I just know who you are as a person. Um, we played bow and arrow and he, I think he got, he double rolled it on ball one. I think he had 217,000 on ball one. And I think he ended up over 350,000 or right around 350,000 for the game. Uh, I did my part by scoring less than 50,000 total across five balls, I believe. But that's some of the skill level of what we're dealing with in this tournament.
    41:57
    So that sort of thing made the EMs seem a little bit slower, I think is what I'm trying to get to. And not by slow in gameplay, just slow as in when you have four players each getting five balls on machines like that, and usually in almost every group, or at least the top groups, with the very high skill level players. Getting put on one of those per round, that would probably be the game that was taking the longest to get through. That's my guess. The modern stuff is just set up so tough that even the really, really good players are not having huge scores. I put up, I think I won a game on Godzilla with right around 50 million. And I honestly don't think anyone was close to me. I think next to the highest score was maybe half of that. And then later I had a game on Godzilla where I put up well over $200 million, and I felt like I just blew that thing up. I'd be putting up like a billion on mine just because of the way it was set up there. So that felt good as well.
    42:56
    Anyway, as we go through the tournament, I am going to kind of grab my phone here so I can take a closer look at some of the results so I can refresh my mind as I'm going through about things that I played, people that I played the overall event itself. Let's see here. All matches. So, I started the day out with Theater of Magic, Stargazer, and Blackjack. A bank I was very excited about because I know at least how to play Theater of Magic. I'm not good at it. I've never been good at it. I've never particularly liked that game. I think it's very pretty. I think it does shoot really well. I just have never been very good at it. I took a third on that. and then that led me to Stargazer where I took first and following that we went to Blackjack was another sleeper hit of the weekend for me I have played Blackjack not a ton I just, again all of their games at the same time played amazing, which always helps you to appreciate any game more when it just plays right but I really did enjoy that one and then Stargazer I said this to somebody I played with I had a really good game on it at one point I was like yeah I have a weirdly intimate relationship with Stargazer and I kind of like saw like the weird expression on their face and then I was like do I even want to try to go into detail with this stranger that I'm meeting at a pinball tournament about what I mean by intimate relationship with this pinball machine and I did not I just said I really like him and I've owned it before so that's how I kind of left it there In reality, what I meant is I like Stargazer so much that I've actually built two of them from scratch using parts. I have sold both of those, one to Patrick and one to John. so I've sent a Stargazer to Buffalo, New York and I've sent another to Reno, Nevada and I still have parts to build a third one for myself that I do plan to keep I love the game, I think it's beautiful I think it's probably one of the best shooters ever made three spinners, so much fun and theirs played great there so what I meant by intimate relationship was I've literally built two of them from scratch at this point in time I am very familiar with the game I am very familiar with the rules of the game. I'm very familiar with the rules to the altered versions, as there's like four different ROM versions for Stargazer now, because people keep updating it and modifying it and trying to improve upon it, making it an even better game. That's what I meant by that. Took first on that one, second on Blackjack. So with that, we have a 3, a 2, and a 1, giving me 6 points for the round. A perfect round is 9 points. A 0 is the worst you can do. so really anything above a 4.5 you are doing above average if you get below 4.5 you're doing below average and that'll kind of give you an idea of where you will rank for the entire tournament if you're just consistently putting up fours and fives you're going to be right in the middle if you're getting below that you're going to be in the bottom half if you're getting above that you're going to be near the top so not a bad way to start uh from there we go to the second round where i did hit Godzilla, Paragon, and Viper.
    46:13
    Took first, first, and first. Really cool thing that they do at the Sanctum is when you have a round like that, a.k.a. a perfect round, three first places, they have cash prizes. It's $50 for anyone who does that in a round. That is the prize pool. It is split if multiple people do it. So that one was split for me. I took $25 there. The other person took $25. that being said if there's any round where someone doesn't get a perfect round that money rolls over into the next round so you could end up with a round with 100, 150, 200 depending on how many rounds consecutively go with nobody with perfect rounds so that was a good way to start the second day and that then pops me up to the next round where I will now face eventual champion, Bowen and we're going to play Weird Al which I believe if memory serves me correct Bowen might have had some input on the rules on that game I can't recall because I know he does for Final Resistance, the newest game from Multimorbic on the P3 platform maybe he didn't with Weird Al I can't remember for sure to be honest but it's possible, he definitely worked for the company and I would think familiar with the game that being said, to be fair I knocked some stuff over I owned a P3 and I owned Weird Al so there's no excuse for me to take the fourth place that I took on it. I just sucked at that game all weekend, so it is what it is. We then went over to big game, where I took second, I believe again, losing to Bowen.
    47:48
    And then we followed that up with Bowen Arrow, where I took fourth. EMs were absolutely my weakest point of play this weekend. I lost on a little bit of everything, but on ems i felt essentially hopeless i i did not i'm not familiar with em rule sets as well i know they're far more basic um but just the style of play to an em is much more physical as far as the nudging goes um the two the tilts were looser on those allowing players to play you know quote unquote so you can be a little more physical with the machine to save it because you need to. That being said, I just sucked at it, except for Old Chicago, because I used to own an Old Chicago. I know the rules. I know how to play it, and I did really well on that one. I also just love that game. So, that next round, with those two fours, and then a second, I now get only two points for a round.
    48:44
    As you can imagine, going from a nine to a two, that puts me at about a 5.5. Again, flying right back into the middle. Next round, I go Rush, Frontier, Old Chicago. I own Frontier. It is my favorite playing ballet. I've talked about that on the show a lot. So, of course, I took third. Rush, I somehow took second on this round. And then I have that Old Chicago, like I said. I took first there. If you're doing a running tally, again, that is three, one, and two. Another six-point round. A little bit of recovery. And then next, while I go to Dirty Harry, Hot Hand, and Hocus Pocus. In this round, I'm going to face Steve Bowden. And Mr. Steve Bowden of FunWithBonus.com. Mr. Steve Bowden, who works for American Pinball. Mr. Steve Bowden, who's a Top 100 ranked world player, along with Alberto Santana. I had never met Alberto before. I have a feeling I would have played with him at some sort of event before. But Alberto ranked Top 100 of the world. And Ted Liebowitz, who I'm unfamiliar with. But that was our group. It was going to be very tough. Dirty Harry, I take a third. Hot Hand, a classic stern.
    49:50
    I'm unfamiliar with the exact rules, but I kind of just, I understand classic sterns and classic ballets and the general stuff to do. I managed to pull off a second. And then what do you know, I get on an EM again, hocus pocus, and I take fourth. And again, when I'm taking fourth here, it's sad and pathetic and not even close. I think everybody else in my group rolled the machine at least once this round, and I again roughly scored like 30,000 to 50,000 points. next round following that I jump back to Rush, Frontier and Old Chicago Rush this time I fall to 4th place, Frontier I stay consistent at 3rd Old Chicago I only take 2nd but could have been worse round after that I put back on Theater of Magic Stargazer and Blackjack Bank and I pull off my 2nd perfect round of the tournament getting 1st, 1st, and 1st again a perfect round netting me what would have been $50, but again, there was a second player this round who also did it, so I split it $25. I'm now up to winning $50 in prize money just throughout the regular tournament. Nothing to do with finalist prize money or anything, just by having perfect rounds. That was really cool.
    51:00
    Now we're going to enter the era where I frequently am going to get stuck on the Rick and Morty Hoops and 8-Ball Deluxe bank. This first round, Rick and Morty gets me a 4th, Hoops gets me a 4th, 8-Ball Deluxe I will take first place on.
    51:16
    Hoops is a weird Gottlieb game. I was very fortunate that Stephen and Braden Jennery, who I was staying with, own one. It's one of Braden's favorite games, so he was filling me in on the rules. I did know what I should be doing. It just didn't click with me at this point in time. On top of that, I was playing with Sanjay Shea and Louis Bevins and Steve Bowden. And again, all, I think, top 100 world ranked players, all very good, all very competitive. And they also knew exactly what they should be doing on hoops. Rick and Morty, I think less so. Again, that game is just so hard to control. I just did even worse. But then, Abel Deluxe. Abel Deluxe is like my savior here at this point in time in the tournament. I do get a first on that. Round after that, we're back to the Weird Al Bank. this time I avenge myself on Weird Al with a first but then I take fourth on big game so I just flip flop and again I have a terrible round getting a first and then two fourths because bow and arrow this is when I played against Ron Hallett and he just destroyed the machine practically with his high score there round after that I get put on Foo Fighters I take a third, Ali I take a second Stars I take a third love Ali still regret that I ever sold that game. I did sell it to someone who owns a boxing gym and they put it in their gym. It's a person I know who has a passion for boxing in Mahabali. They're in Miami, Florida, so that is cool. But man, I miss having that one. A fantastic pinball out of Canada recently reproduced that play field and that is one I would not mind picking up and doing a scratch build with at some point in time either.
    52:59
    Round after that, I played Bride of Pinbot 2.0, which I think I've only played maybe once or twice at a show. Completely unfamiliar with it. I managed to get a second.
    53:10
    Sea Witch. I take a first. This Sea Witch, again, has a playfield swap in it. I just picked up a Project Sea Witch recently, and I was like, I'm just going to get this thing playing and put it out in location. People will play it at Sea Witch.
    53:24
    After playing gems with the new playfield in it, and there being multiple companies that have reproduced that playfield at this point in time, so they're relatively easy to get. oh my god it played so much better than any see which i've ever played before like it was super fun and on top of that i know there's some new code out there for see which was recently been worked on in the last year i think in the last six months adding some things like skill shots and different different things you can achieve so you know now that i've got that project in there i don't know when i'll get to it but i'm probably going to be in the market for a play field for that because i'm already going to go through the work of shopping everything out tearing everything down, I might as well just transfer all those parts over to a new playfield.
    54:04
    And then I played pinball. This is again by the Stern Pinball, the early solid state. That's actually what I made my first Stargazer out of. I converted a Stern Pinball, but I took a third on that one. So that round I'm looking at a 2, a 2, and a 1. I got a 5 point round, staying average. Now I jump back to the Rick and Morty Hoops 8 ball deluxe bank, And this time, I take a first on Rick and Morty, a second on Hoops, and a first on 8-Ball Deluxe, giving me an 8-point round. That's nice. Follow that 8-point round up with Congo, Sea Witch, and Pinball this next round. Congo had gotten pulled out temporarily. That's why we played Bride of Pinball 2.0. Congo got fixed. It comes back. I wish it didn't. I took 4th.
    54:50
    Congo played fine. It just played so drastically different than my Congo. I was just terrible at it.
    54:57
    I made a really nice comeback on Sea Witch. I had a terrible ball one, and then a massive ball two. And I was player four, so by the time it came back to me, I was able to have a plunge off, a walk-off victory on that one. And then pinball, I took fourth again. Not a fan of that one. That one hurts me as I look back at the standings in this thing now.
    55:19
    I get put on Godzilla, Paragon, and Viper again. Godzilla, take first. This is where I had that big 200 million point game. Paragon. Not first the time. Complete opposite. Fourth. This is the second time in the last month where I've played a really nice Paragon. Usually I speak ill of Paragon. I have harsh feelings for Paragon.
    55:40
    A lot of this stems from Texas Pinball Festival years ago, where it was like a game I had to put a score on to get into finals or something, and I just could not do it with my limited attempts. I better understand the rules of Paragon now, and these ones I've played in the last two weeks have been really nice conditioned. One, this playfield was either restored or swapped. It was incredible. I played great at the Sanctum. I also played a really nice one. I believe it was Gavin's that was up at Interium at Expo, and I really enjoyed that one.
    56:07
    And then I got put on Viper. This is where I lost the game by, I believe it was like 1,000 points. Maybe it was 10,000.
    56:16
    A switch hit, a target, a bonus multiplier. Like, so many ways I could have got those points on Viper that I didn't, and I took second there. So, three, two, so it's a five-point round. I now return to Rick and Morty, Hoops, and 8-Ball Deluxe, and I finally am, like, after this many games, I now know what I'm doing on all of them. And I take a first on Rick and Morty, a first on Hoops, and a first on 8-Ball Deluxe for my third perfect round of the tournament. I think I might have been the only one with three perfect rounds or there might have been one more person who did it because I missed the announcements for if there were any perfect rounds in the last round so it's possible because I know some other people had two as well but yeah that one felt good this time I got to play with Brian Dye this round and that was cool to see him again, Brian good to see you this is the second to last round two so that nine points moved me up into i believe eighth place heading into the last round putting me in one of the top two groups and in this last round after playing i think this is round 16 playing for 24 hours playing 15 rounds i have not once been paid up paired up with either brayden or stephen gentry who i'm staying with brayden and i get paired up and we get paired up with Alberto and Stephen Bowden.
    57:45
    I'm on Dirty Harry, the same bank that I played with Alberto and Stephen earlier, and we've just swapped out our fourth player now for Braden. I took third on Dirty Harry earlier, I now take second. I actually had the lead. I had a really good multi-ball on my ball three. I was player one because I was the lowest ranked player in the group. Stephen wasn't terribly far behind me and just did not have a great third ball didn quite catch me and then Alberto had a little bit out of control motion and then he decided no i just teasing i gonna score and he blew the game up i think he put up almost a billion points i had like 350 ish something like that um braden unfortunately i think took fourth on that one next we moved over to hot hand here Alberto had the bad luck he just had like 3 house balls essentially on hot hand I had a pretty decent game but then Steve passed me on ball 3 with his bonus and Braden would finish 3rd here and then we headed to Hocus Pocus if I win the group the way the tournament works the very last round every single group gets a payout. The winner of the group that round gets the money. The higher your group is, as in group one, it's the top four players, group two is the next four, etc. The bigger the payout is. But all the way down to the very bottom, even the very last group, whoever wins that group in the last round is going to get $55. And it goes up by $5 per group. There's 25 groups. So the last group, I think it's like $160 or something playing with that, 165.
    59:29
    It did matter because I did not win. In fact, I took fourth again on Hocus Pocus. Hocus Pocus and Bow and Arrow were just like guaranteed fourth places for me.
    59:38
    With that happening, Alberto and Steve ended up tied, both with six points on the round. I had four points, and Brayden had two points.
    59:50
    Alberto and Steve decided to split that money, and because of where we were at in the standings, they actually finished in tie for fourth place overall in the tournament. So had I managed to somehow win that last game of Hocus Pocus, I would have been up a little bit higher. That all being said, again, my first really big traveling tournament, not something that I just kind of go to every year, that I'm strictly going to to play in a competitive pinball environment, to finish 10th out of 100 players with some really, really heavy hitters there, I was honestly surprised, and it felt really good. my goal was to be in the top half that's what I told my dad when I was driving up to the airport on Friday I called him to let him know what I was doing on the weekend where I was going to be just because I don't know I still feel like when I travel regardless of how old I am I have to let my parents know where I'm going to be in case I go missing or something but yeah I told him you know I know there's a lot of really good players here I don't play as much as I used to I'm hoping I finish in the top half so to finish in the top you know 10 percent right at the bottom of it but 10th place. I was really, really happy. I also did, outside of Bowen. Bowen, by the way, his final point total on the tournament, 110 points.
    61:05
    Next, Louis Bevins, 89 points. That is a 21-point difference. Bowen, if this tournament had more hours, could have sat out the next two rounds completely. Just sat out. I'm going to go to sleep for a couple hours. try to catch me we could not have caught him with perfect rounds even could not have been caught bowen finished with 110 points 27 first place finishes 12 second place finishes the next most first place finishes was 18 that's alberto and paul and then after that it's me was 17. So, you know, the fourth place is that's how badly they hurt me. I was right there in the runnings as far as first places go, but then I had a lot of last places, specifically on those EMs.
    61:58
    Overall, on a fun scale, I would rate the event a 10 out of 10, 100 out of 100, 5 stars, 2 thumbs up, whatever you want to call it. Really, really cool event.
    62:13
    They have, right before the last round, they have like a breakfast buffet come in that is prepared by some of the locals.
    62:20
    In the middle of the night at some point, a couple local league players just pull up with two grills, and they were literally just outside grilling hot dogs and hamburgers for us, like two bucks for a hot dog, and I don't know, a burger was maybe five bucks or something.
    62:34
    Again, that's what I speak of when I said earlier, it was just this great community. Very fun. Obviously, they've built this up. I think there were players from all over the country, I don't know about international, because obviously the way this one works, you don't play with everyone. You kind of play by who you're ranked near in the tournament. Depending on how you're playing, it's going to change. But I saw pinball shirts from just all over the place. Speaking of which, Wedgehead, I know it's Oregon, I think. I want to say Portland, but I'm not 100% sure. Has the coolest shirts ever. It's definitely some sort of an alligator or a crocodile that is doing cosplay of Bret Hart. and I'm going to go online as soon as I'm done recording here and try to buy one because it was an awesome shirt.
    63:20
    I had a blast at the tournament. I got to see people that I haven't seen in a long time. I got to play pinball against some of the best players in the world.
    63:32
    I got to play games that I don't always get to see anywhere. I got to visit a location I've always wanted to see. and I love visiting other locations because as somebody who has games out in public and who has dreams of still one day opening my very own place I love seeing the different culture and community that they build and getting inspiration for things from them uh seeing how what they're doing that is so right that has allowed them to build up to what they have now and so that is just always fun for me on top of that obviously i've been previously inspired in general by the final battle it's 24 hour pinball format if you remember back several years now uh we were actually scheduled to host what we called the pinball marathon it was going to be 26 hours of a pinball competition and then 2020 happened and COVID reared its face and our event was canceled.
    64:39
    This year, finally, three years later, we started to build back towards that. In late July, I did host a 12-hour tournament, PubBerg. We did use the Pinnaberg scoring format, as I explained earlier. We did use the different eras of games, as I explained earlier, Solid State, DMD, and LCD. it went really well for the 12 hours and I've had people asking and I've obviously wanted to get back to the 24-hour thing and now that I've finally been able to go out and participate in the event and see what it is I'm more and more inclined to press forward with planning this event that being said I did talk to Jim at one point about how there have been a lot of other places that have tried to copy his format his idea and most of them haven't been able to stick around they haven't built up the player base the reputation etc I think he said only one place even did it two years in a row and it's because a lot of things that it isn't just having the tournament and the format it's having the community um that makes that format fun and uh entertaining for everybody so with that being said the amount of work that must go into this event i you know i'm only there for a day and a half between the two events seeing how quick they were to fix everything um see how organized everything was and some players did comment that things just ran incredibly smooth this year compared to some of the other years even um but i know that all comes from preparation that isn't just dumb luck that is from jim and his crew putting in a lot of work and a lot of planning to make sure this event runs as smooth as it does it's a beautiful thing beautiful thing that they've built i'm very honored to have gotten to play in it finally after all these years and i'm not gonna 100% commit to saying we're doing this uh this coming year at north end pub um but i really want to so we're gonna do some talks and some planning and see what we can make happen because a couple people have asked about it when are we ever going to do that uh and now that i've kind of participated in and seen it and experienced it, I have a much better idea of what it is. And bottom line was it was a lot of fun. And when it comes to pinball and fun, I am all about that. So we may have to do that soon.
    67:23
    It was great. So, again, thank you to Jim Swain and The Sanctum for hosting this awesome event. um steven and braden thank you so much for allowing me to crash your room and essentially be your roommate for a night and allowing me to ride with you to the tournament getting me back to the airport with you guys and getting to hang out with you in the airport for a few hours before y'all call it your flight um i just really appreciate all of that so much uh i know you guys made it home safe so i'm happy to hear that and if you guys happen to be down in alabama you should go and visit rock and roll pinball that is steven's location i haven't been able to get down there yet as he so kindly reminded me this weekend um i do want to make it down there and check them out but they have a cool location that was one of the things that steven and i talked about um essentially diverse game selection for location play uh nothing against a lot of these new barcades that have opened up and they have a wall of brand new sterns and a couple jersey jacks or something like that um those games are cool and important to have out but it's when it's like the only thing that's there and that's what people think you know pinball is and it's not that that's not pinball but like i think those of us that are truly deeply in love with this hobby we know that you you need variety spices up life spices up the collection um it caters to a wider audience and you got to have that and i know they have that down there at Rock and Roll Pinball. So go and check them out. Steven again, thank you man. I had an awesome weekend hanging out, getting to play pinball. Braden, keep doing good in school.
    69:26
    Can't wait to see you broadcasting some sports in the future and kicking my butt at tournaments. Braden won several more dollars from me this weekend. So I know he's at least got a little bit of food money for food or gas or something at school when he goes back.
    69:43
    to all the people I got to meet while playing this weekend. It was a pleasure. I didn't have a single negative experience playing with anyone.
    69:52
    Just those EMs. That wasn't anything to do with the people. That was to do with me and my lack of skill on them. That was what did me in on those.
    70:02
    I look forward to entering the lottery next year and potentially going back to play. Obviously, there's no guarantee I can make this an annual event just because of the lottery system and the way it's formatted. But I'll do my best to get in and play because I really thoroughly enjoyed it. That being said, wrestling season starts tomorrow for me. It is now up to 4.30 a.m., which I think means I've been talking for at least an hour about this event. And I'm sure I left out a ton of things.
    70:37
    But I think you got my overall impression that I had a really good time. Jim asked me about the podcast this weekend Steven asked me about the podcast this weekend I saw some other people that I know I have only met and talked to because of the podcast this weekend and I've just been having a lot of fun with people who are passionate about pinball again and made me want to put out a podcast episode So that's what I'm doing here in the very late slash very early wee hours of Monday, November 6th, 2023.
    71:16
    I will definitely be back with some more recording in the coming weeks to discuss, again, our charity event at North End Pub in December, our charity bed drive. I will be talking about some of my new locations. I'll be talking about some of my restoration projects and new games that I've picked up. and probably some of the new releases.
    71:40
    And ideally, Taylor, if you hear this and you also miss talking about pinball and you have some time, which I know is our most limited and valuable commodity that we have,
    71:56
    you and I can both jump on these microphones and shoot the shit together, man. I miss you. Thank you for always checking in on me and for making me some reshails for a couple games I'm working on not that long ago as well.
    72:15
    But yeah, man, if you got time, let's get together and talk some pinball to everyone and anyone who listens to this episode. Thank you. Sorry we haven't recorded in a year. We're not dead. We're just busy. That's kind of always been the case with us.
    72:33
    And just know we both still love pinball. I can speak for Taylor on that regard. I won't speak for him on many other things, but I know the dude still loves pinball. I know I love pinball and my ever-changing relationship with this hobby and simply how I experience the hobby is probably worth talking about from time to time with you guys listening, hopefully. So with that being said, I'm going to wrap this episode up. I'm going to get it posted. so maybe when you guys wake up for your morning commute tomorrow you're given a nice little surprise if you're still subscribed to our feed there's a new episode out there and after that I'm going to go sleep with my son for a few hours before we have to get up and go to school and then go to wrestling practice tomorrow while I'm still recovering from a complete lack of sleep from a really awesome and fun weekend again thank you for putting on the tournament Jim I really appreciate it Uh, our show as always is sponsored by nobody financially, but it is sponsored by some of our friends who we think put out really great products. Um, if you're watching on the YouTube channel, which again is a complete experiment, it might not ever be posted. We'll find out. I am rocking one of my favorite pinball shirts. This is the camp crystal lake staff pinball tournament shirt from Robert and Jessica at Double Danger and Soft Plunge Pinball Clothing. Go and check them out. Order some cool stuff.
    74:04
    I got to see them at Pinball Expo two weeks ago as well. Thank you guys for always having such great hospitality. Good to see y'all. And another one of our sponsors, Mr. David Yopp of Flipside Pinball Bar in Memphis, Tennessee. So if you guys are traveling through, go and visit Flipside, play the games. One of the coolest locations I've ever been to. An absolute inspiration for what I would like to one day open on my own. On top of that, David is an amazing friend. And congratulations, David, Mr. Yop. I'm becoming a grandfather.
    74:49
    I'm very happy for you. I have been very fortunate to see David what feels like a handful of times this past year, which doesn't sound like much, but it's actually a lot when we live eight hours apart.
    75:01
    He has seen my son several times. He treats me and my son like true family. David, thanks, man. It's been so great getting to see you this year. And he is also responsible for one of my new favorite games that I have on location, Freefall by Stern Electronics, which we'll talk about. And not only is his location, again, flip side of Memphis, one of our sponsors, but so is his LED lighting company, Yopsicles, available through both Comet Pinball and the man himself, if he's not too busy babysitting that beautiful new grandkid of his. If you need to get some Yopsicles, check out Pinside. Check out Facebook. Mr. David Yop is not a hard man to find.
    75:47
    Proud to have him as an unofficial sponsor to this show. along with Double Danger and Soft Plunge. Again, we have so many friends we've made over the years through both just doing this show and being very active members within this hobby that we try to put out a good word for them when we can because they make not just cool stuff, but they make good quality stuff. And that's why I'm legitimately wearing this shirt right now. It is, again, one of my favorites to wear at all times because it includes pinball and horror movie stuff, which are like two of my favorite things. And then I put Yopsicles in damn near every early ballet solid state and early stern solid state that I work on now. Definitely not all the ones that I restore because it just cleans up the bottom of the play field. And they light up so nice. That's why all my games on location have them in there. Make them very effective when every insert works at a tournament. It's very nice. So thank you guys for being unofficial sponsors of our show. That being said, guys, I hope you listen. I miss doing this. It was fun to talk about pinball. I know I was not most organized as I went through this, but that's never been our thing with this show. We're not one to be organized. We just try to be honest, talk about what's going on in pinball for us and what's going on in our lives. So I'm going to go back to being a dad. I'm sure I got to cook some breakfast here in a couple hours. but just know I had a really good weekend hanging out playing pinball and I hope I got that message through to you guys so this week I recommend you go hang out play some pinball and hopefully I gave you something to listen to again soon bye everybody