It was kind of bizarre. Yeah, it was really snappy, real zippy. Yeah, but it was really cool. That sounds like a dream collection. Yeah, it was really, really cool to experience that. And one of my goals for this year is to just have more fun with playing pinball and be less, you know, I'm always competitive. But, you know, the league, it's not going to be worth it. It's not going to go on my IFPA resume. And, you know, it might even hurt my rating or whatever if I do bad. But I'm just kind of like, you know what, I'm going to go back to what made pinball fun and just hanging out with people and enjoying that aspect of it. So I'm really happy I got into the league. And so now once a month I can kind of just visit all these really cool collections. So I'm pretty excited about that. I love that so much. I am also, and I would call it a house league in the Fox Cities Pinball League, and I absolutely love that, going to somebody else's host every single month. You get to see their collection, what really trips their trigger in pinball. It's such a social thing, just so much fun. And I might be with you. That's what my goal is also for 2023 is to just have more fun. I am competitive. Absolutely. But the fun factor and it's really the people in pinball that keeps me coming back. Yes, I want to win and play better. I want to have a good game. But man, I sure do like to get to know the other people I'm playing pinball with as well. Yeah. And so after that was on Saturday and then Sunday, the day after was it's called the O.R.D. Club, which is this um just like a a club basically where people have their games and it's in elk grove village and they run a tournament last sunday of every month and somehow this is the first one i've i've actually made it to in my two years and i i'm such a bozo it's literally down the street from my apartment like like four minutes down the road like i can't believe i I hadn't visited this place. And, you know, I kind of got my butt whooped a little bit. But that's, you know, I actually was able to stay pretty calm and get through it. I got like 17th out of 29th, which for me feels like, oh, man. Like I was slapping the face a little bit. Because I started off with like, you know, last, last, third, like that sort of thing. Oh, yeah. But I tried to just stay fun, stay happy. And it was cool because I got to talk with a lot of the same people that some of them were at the league on Saturday. A lot of them were at Interium for the Interium Monthly. So it's kind of cool just kind of integrating yourself with the scene and seeing the same faces and talking to them and stuff. Yeah, so that's what I've been up to. And then, of course, States was the week before, which we will get into. Yeah, absolutely. So what else do you have coming down the road for you in terms of pinball tournaments? yeah so uh looking pretty busy as always the uh i think the next uh event is actually the district 82 3x winter 3x yes and it's a circuit event that'll be that'll be good and there's i think there's some like 200 you know there's like a main tournament and then there's like the the nightly knockout sort of thing so you get a little bit of everything i'm really looking forward to that it's just really nice to be so close to district 82 just zip on up there and you know get the cheap super eight hotel is always good for me yep yeah i know that he is working with a hotel in the area there if you check out district 82 page two that uh i can throw some love that way uh in terms of if you're looking for a place to stay finally got a local hotel in on the gig oh wow yeah i will be there for that event i will be playing it and i'm excited is always to hop in the booth as well. Because I do sure love being in the booth. I think that's my favorite place to be in all of District 82. Well, it's the best seat in the house. I think so, too. Well, that'll be a lot of fun. Yeah, so after that, I think the next thing is actually back at District 82, which is I'll be playing in the Nationals. Spoiler alert. And the Pinmasters. So that'll be the next couple weeks later. Lots of things coming up this spring. Oh, actually, I forgot one right before that. I'm actually in Delaware. I'm going to check out the Delaware Pinball Collective for the first time. Oh, I can't wait to hear about that. Yeah, it's the first time they're doing a non-match play tournament. So it's a pump and dump style where you qualify for a day or two and then you have finals. And I was really excited because sometimes that's my preferred format just because there's less pressure, I feel. You can play the games over and over again. And then, you know, if you're making a trip out somewhere, if you're only playing like, you know, 10 rounds and you have a couple of stinkers, it can get kind of, you know, you can get upset and it's kind of stressful. And so if we're checking out a new place, I'm really happy that they're doing an open unlimited qualifying so I can kind of just check it out that way. It's my most comfortable format, I would say. Right. And you also get to play all three balls in one game at your leisure. Yes. You don't have to wait in between players. Yes, I think that is a huge advantage when you're trying to qualify. I just don't know about a pump-and-dump style, though, for me. I haven't really played a big one yet, so we'll see. We'll cross the road when we come to it. Yeah, they're easy to kind of ease yourself into because you can kind of set your budget and then work your way up each year, depending on how you're feeling. That's not to say I still like match play tournaments, too. It's good to do both. You do a little this, a little that. So that'll be cool. That's the first one. doing in that style so that'll be fun. Nice. And then I think it's like Texas is after that for me. TPS. Good stuff up ahead. Very exciting. Well I recently had an opportunity to check out the Asheville pinball scene. I traveled out to North Carolina to spend time with a friend in the middle of the mountains with no phone reception because I thought that would be a great way to reset and relax and it was. I encourage everybody to go out you know take a trip in nature when you're feeling that way. But what was great is that even though the weather was bad, what was great is that there is quite a happening pinball scene in the Asheville area, including two pinball museums. I was able to hit up the Appalachian Pinball Museum in Hendersonville, which was in a renovated movie theater, I believe. I was really excited to get there to play specifically a creature from a Black Lagoon. Some people might laugh, but I really dig that game, and that's nowhere here in Wisconsin on location. I only think there's maybe one person that has it in their collection. So I was excited to play that, and I also got a chance to go to the Asheville Pinball Museum. Again, this is crazy to have, like, two different types of pinball museums in this very, you know, close radius. That just blew my mind. Asheville Pinball Museum? Is that the same as Level 256? Or is there yet another giant pinball hub in Asheville? It sounds like a pretty pinball populous area. It sure is. There's the two different pinball museums and then there's Retrocade as well as Level 256 which is a whole other separate place with really amazing machines there as well. It's also a place called Silver Ball Subs. So if you wanted to go eat there and play a bunch of pinball, you could do that as well. Several pinball machines on location throughout the Asheville area. So that is really neat. So if you're a person that's going there for the mountains and for the nature that's there or for the craft breweries, there's a whole bunch of them in the area, or for whatever else, the hiking, you can definitely find pinball on a rainy day because I certainly did. That's awesome. That sounds like the perfect place to vacation as someone who likes pinball. For sure. And a person that likes nature. Yeah. It was such a great way to reset because the weather turned kind of south for part of the time that we were there. We ended up being able to play a little bit more pinball, which was, hey, fine by me. I had the opportunity to go there because of a friend of mine named Mike Tallmarks. It's great. He's kind of a newer player to pinball, to competitive pinball. But he's been playing competitive pinball for almost a year. So it's fun to see his growth as a player. And it was nice to have someone, you know, drive me around to all these different tournaments too. It was great. Anyways, I wanted to highlight not just the different places I played, but about his journey to winning his very first tournament. On the Wednesday night retro cave, which was a weekly match with 19 players, we played on a Wednesday night. it was a lot of fun he ended up tying in or he ended up coming in first place but they take the top eight in the playoff for finals and he ended up coming in second so he was a little bummed out that he didn't like actually win win even though like in my mind he did win the tournament but you know when there's finals that's a hard thing to have to go through you know what i mean oh so he qualified first yes correct he qualified first for and then they take the top eight and play off for finals. Second is still pretty darn good. Still pretty darn good, right. But it's not the first place, first place. You really want that. I think that's cool when you're able to get that in your very first IFPA on your card, on your profile. Well, that was his first IFPA event? No, it wasn't his first IFPA event. He's been playing almost a year. To get a first on your IFPA card, yes. Yeah. Well, yeah, let's try that again. It's nice getting your first first place. There we go. Yeah, absolutely. So he didn't quite get there. Pretty darn close. But it was fun. The people there were so warm and welcoming. The TD, Sean Scott Smith, he, you know, I think went above and beyond to make sure that I felt comfortable there and that I got to know other people. I ran into him several times with other things that I have the opportunity to play. I also skipped the border and I went down to South Carolina and I played at the Fellowship of the Silver Ball. Now, have you heard of this place, Raymond? No, I think the only place I've played in South Carolina is Bang Back in Columbia. Is this near Columbia? I think it was in Woodruff. And actually, it's not a place. Let's actually rephrase that. It's actually a house league. I believe that it travels through three different collections. And it just happened to be fairly close to Asheville. It was less than two hours. It was kind of a long ride on a Saturday night back, but it was definitely 100% the ride down the mountain back up to go play there. That was, I believe the collection belonged to, if I get it wrong, I apologize, belonged to Don Featheringill, and the tournament director was Brian Merritt. It's like a Saturday night house league. They had 55 players. It was entertaining because I ran into people that I had seen earlier in the week in Asheville that also made the trek up there to play or down there to play. I ran into Nate and Ken Grant, who are North Carolina, South Carolina players. They'd come up to play at District 82, and I bumped into them. So it was neat, you know, like getting to run into people that I've met before that come up to my area. I got to meet Kim Martinez for the first time, which was awesome to meet another cool pinball chick. The coolest thing, Raymond, that happened there is that, remember we talked about Free Play Florida, and there was a poor fellow that disqualified himself. Do you remember that? And our friend Harold Van Patten. Well, Harold, he was so excited to meet me, and he thanked us for chit-chatting about him. So I want to give Harold a second shout out because he was just, I don't know. Yeah, that's right. That was in Florida, right? Yeah, that was at Freeplay Florida. Yeah. And even though we talked about his unfortunate event, he was just so happy to hear us chit chat. So anyways, I just thought that was so cute. Anyways, the Fellowship of the Silver Ball, that was really a fun time. It was a match play style event, and then finals was a knockout. and it was interesting because they have their own set a very specific set of rules a code of conduct as well as dress dress conduct and behavior which i think is good because it really promotes definitely a family-friendly and a kid-forward environment cool yeah i thought it was really cool i played got leaves genesis uh for the first time i love these really weird got leave games and That one was like you're going around shooting different places, trying to collect different body parts. Oh, yeah. I don't know. Yeah, I've played that game. It seems to show up in a lot of tournaments. There's a weird Gottlieb game. It's probably Genesis. My friend Andy Bagwell, who's a Chicago shark, he crushes a lot of local events. He sent me a picture last night of him getting 48X scoring on Genesis at the club last night. I was like, holy moly. That's like going through all the body parts like three or four times. Yeah. I think I collected. I was really close. I was close to collecting them all. I was like one or two shots away. But I did really well for beginner's luck. And the interesting thing there, too, at that house league is that you weren't permitted to play any games in between. Oh, weird. Yeah, which is different for most house leagues I've played in, which was fine to each their own, their own rules. but it made it harder for games that I've never played before or hadn't played in a really long time but it was but I kind of liked that challenge it was still really fun uh what did end up happening is I think they take the top 16 to play off for finals and I think they had it was a seven way I was looking for my notes I couldn't find it but I believe it was a seven way tie a seven way tie for like two spots or four spots or whatever whatever the case was and but the game it was just interesting to note that the game was Phoenix. I don't know if you've played that game probably. Yeah, that game is kind of, I don't know. But it was Phoenix with the Powerball. Oh, okay. That might make it a little more fun. Yes, it was, but it was, man, if you're not used to playing games like that, I feel like maybe I've got to stick a Powerball in an old Eon that I have at home and play it that way and see what happens. I don't know. It's just a whole different feel. All the games I played at that league basically played like they had power balls, but they were metal balls. That's how strong and powerful everything was. Oh, wow. So anyways, my friend Mike, he played really well. Out of 55 players, he came in fifth. And that was pretty amazing, I thought. You know? Yeah. I have to tell the story because I think it's so great. And he's playing a couple games he's never played before, and we're talking strategy and stuff. and I'm trying to coach him through the games that I know a little bit of or whatever. So we're having fun. I flew out on Monday, and on Sunday we are back in Asheville, and we played one last tournament. Now, here's where level 2, 5, 6 comes into play. Adam and Anna Gates, great people. They have an alien there, a Pinball Brothers alien. This game, I don't know if you played it, Raymond. I want to mention that game. I think it just was a lot of fun. they had like some extra lighting in the back of the cab which helped to see that game but man what flow once i got into playing that game i really got into it never seen the movie you can all laugh at that i think i've only seen maybe the first one yeah see but it was uh that was really cool to play but this the games there at level 256 were in immaculate condition adam does such a great job taking care of those games especially since it's a place that's open to the public i think it's 15 or 20 bucks at the door you can come and go all day to play but they also it's a it's a bar but they also have i think some stand-up arcades but who pays any attention to that but all i really want to look at there are the pinball machines right yeah that tournament was a four strike knockout and that one actually played the best of the entire time that i was there I had to play a I guess a murder match I don't know what else to call it when you're in a three player group the winner is going to send everybody home oh like everyone has strikes yes a murder match what do you call it I don't know yeah it's a death match there we go the same difference you know you're trying to like get you trying to get rid of your opponents so I survived two or three of those I was really happy with how I played but it was fine I had a friend that came down from Tennessee to play because I was there we're gonna have a great time socializing and so I'm watching my friend Mike right I'm just watching him he's cruising along with one strike no problem he's cruising along cruising along and he goes he went seven rounds with no strikes seven wow and i'm like what is going on and you can just see like his you know if you've ever witnessed somebody just put all their effort and energy forth into themselves playing it was amazing he had this great game on godzilla wow it was pretty amazing he finally lost in star wars premium i didn't get a chance to coach him on the game but he ended up winning the game with a little help from his friend, and he would admit that too, on Batman 66. So he took the tournament and won his very first tournament with only one strike. Oh, my goodness. He had strikes to spare. Yes, he had plenty of strikes to spare. So it was really an incredible thing to watch. And I think the reason I wanted to spend a little bit of time talking about that is because he would admit too that it's really instrumental when you have another person in your corner cheering you on to that success, boosting you. And, you know, and he was grateful to me, but I was just so grateful for him to, like, take me all these cool places. Like, let's, you know, I wanted him to win more than anybody else there. It was just a really cool experience just to see that progression of someone that all weekend he continued to play better and better and better. So I feel like, you know, man, I'm excited to see, you know, what his pinball future is going to look like too when he's got an opportunity to play a bunch of pinball like that so anyways that's awesome that that's really cool is the uh has a happy ending right like every tournament getting better and better right i didn't even care how i played and i'm sure you're like that too where like you you've run across people and you watch them when their first big title oh yeah watch them and yeah and it's just this amazing energy to see that because it's like it takes, we play a lot of pinball, but everybody wants to come in first, right? Yep. And it is hard. It is a hard road for a lot of people to get there. And so I cheer just as loudly when, I don't want to say the underdog necessarily, but when someone that's new to pinball is able to win, I've got to cheer big and loud. So that's a little bit different maybe for the Ray Ray Show to chit-chat about all that, but I thought it would be fun to just bring up a little bit about the Asheville pinball scene. Well, I guess we could tie it in. He needed help on Batman. Were you the one that gave him the tips? I did, and the thing is I showed him how to get his lock and encouraged him to collect all the character. I haven't played Batman 66 in a while, but I think really there, all he needed to know was how to get his multi-ball started and also where oh i should say in which tv mode uh which chapter or episode that he he should pick to guarantee this multi ball i also told him about the game how it gives you the opportunity to like either save your points or you can you know always be going or yeah keep going keep going right as keep going so that's always the option so yeah because otherwise it basically unlights your locks which can be devastating. Yes. So, like, yeah, he just went and blew up the game. So it was a really cool thing to see. The other thing I wanted to mention about level 256, then we'll move on to the other stuff that Riesling did that was so cool. But at level 256, he's hosting a James Bond Pro High States Knockout Tournament. I saw that. Yeah. Did you see that? Holy moly. Oh, my goodness. $200 entry or something? Yes. It is Sunday, April 9, 2023 at Level 256 Classic Arcade Bar in Asheville, North Carolina. It is a 10-strike fair strikes tournament. The last person standing goes home with a James Bond Pro. Wow, that's tempting. I might have to see what I'm doing that weekend. Right? And it's a maximum of 40 players. Doors open at noon and warm-ups and the tournament will start at 1. So get your high-stakes tournament money out and go travel to Asheville. And I told you all about the other places in Asheville to go play and the museums and stuff. And tell Rachel sent you or something like that. But you can build a trip there. That's what's so cool about Pinball Raymond is that you can build these fun trips around different pockets of pinball in different communities in our country and in the world. Yeah. So let's jump right in to the 2022 IFPA North American Pinball Championship. Basically, the qualifier event for that, which is we can refer to it as the 2022 IFPA State Pinball Championship. The word state here also refers to province or district. Raymond, you got to play one. Yeah. Tell me about that. Yeah. Yeah, so the Illinois, you know, I had basically had to pick where to play because they let you, you know, play anywhere you're qualified. And since I had been zipping around the country last year, a whole bunch, basically you have to pick any of the states I went to. But I was just going to stay here since it was at the Antarium which is in Schaumburg which is just down across the way for me in Elk Grove Village So I was like well I not I not giving that up I just going to go to that Well it makes sense And I do want to submit for the record that you played in 11 states last year and you qualified in six for sure, perhaps seven, to play in. That's pretty impressive. Well, thank you, Rachel. You're welcome, Raymond. Yeah, it was a busy year. Yeah. It makes sense why you chose to stay in Illinois to play. Absolutely. But if I was you, that was a smart choice, even despite knowing that you had some heavy competition. Yeah, we had Andy Bagwell, who I mentioned earlier in the podcast, and Steve Bowden and Dave Heggie were kind of the three. And then I guess myself were kind of the big four names everyone was kind of like scared of. And I think we ended up finishing the top four. So it ended up coming to fruition. But you can't put other people out, too. Everyone's good. especially because it was at interium which is where a lot of the monthlies were so people kind of knew those games pretty well um so you were if you didn't play there very much you know you're at a bit of a disadvantage in that regard but luckily for me it's pretty uh modern stern heavy so i i got to pick not just modern stern but just modern in general they didn't i don't think they had any game older than um funhouse i think that was the oldest game that you could play and And that worked out for me because I definitely leaned towards the moderns in sort of a do or die situation. Just because I feel like you have a little more control over what happens. You know, I don't mind classics as well as long as you get enough chances at them. But yeah, it started out, I had a buy. And luckily I was, I actually volunteered to do the streaming at the last minute. So I had to be there early anyway. So I was fine because I was there. On Ray Day's pinball. Yeah, so you can actually watch it on my Twitch or YouTube. The entire 16-hour Illinois finals is up there. That's crazy. And Illinois, I do want to mention that Illinois is a super state, correct? Right. So top 24. That's why I had a buy. And like I said, I might have been in trouble because it was it started at 1130 sharp, which, you know, 1130 a.m. A lot of people are like, that seems kind of late. Like most people were starting at, you know, nine or 10. but well interium opens at noon so you know we had to kind of work with them to to get there a little earlier and i didn't realize that even if you have a buy he was doing a full roll call at 11 30 and someone with a buy uh stanley i think his name he's a local player and he's you know he had a buy and he was on his way there he even messaged um and showed up at like 11 34 and they had already called his name and he basically wasn't going to be able to play but he uh kind of persuaded you know called josh sharp and like hey i i was i said i was on my way i i you know blah blah blah and so andy bagwell the tournament director ended up saying okay you can play but you're gonna tell the 25th person that they're not playing anymore because I'm not telling him that. Right. But the 25th person was super kind about it. He was super chill. It all worked out. But, yeah, I was lucky that I was there early because knowing me, I probably would have rolled in around noon.