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Episode 2 - SPL

Do or Die Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·33m 39s·analyzed·Apr 15, 2019
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.031

TL;DR

Raymond Davidson covers SPL tournament experience, pinball strategy, and rules minutia.

Summary

Raymond Davidson hosts Episode 2 of Do or Die, a competitive pinball podcast, discussing his experience at the Seattle Pinball League (SPL), a monthly handicapped league tournament. He breaks down gameplay on six machines (Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, 24, Transformers, Munsters LE, Meteor, and High Speed), shares tournament strategy lessons, discusses IFPA rankings and upcoming tournaments, and provides detailed rules knowledge on Walking Dead's Past Mode Bonus mechanic.

Key Claims

  • Seattle Pinball League is a handicapped league held monthly at a collector's house with a specific format: five games in round one (7-5-3-1 scoring), top 16 advance to next round, top 4 play PAPA-style finals

    high confidence · Raymond Davidson describing the league format at the beginning of the episode

  • On Transformers at SPL, the Megatron lock rejected frequently and the Optimus Prime shot was hard to register, requiring strategy adjustment

    high confidence · Raymond Davidson recounting his Transformers game experience during SPL

  • Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (Sega) has a frustrating design where starting the Frankenstein hurry-up and then draining resets progress, requiring the player to do everything the hard way

    high confidence · Raymond Davidson's commentary on Munsters, referencing a player's experience on the game

  • On Meteor, specials set to 130,000 points can be unlimited collects if you max out bonus and light strobing specials

    high confidence · Raymond Davidson's detailed explanation of Meteor rules and settings at SPL

  • IFPA points decay: April 9th marked the date when older PAPA tournament finishes began losing value, affecting rankings like Josh Sharp who dropped off the first page

    high confidence · Raymond Davidson discussing IFPA standings and point decay

  • High Speed in Seattle has lightning flippers, sneeze tilt, and is considered 'the most evil high speed you'll ever see'

    high confidence · Raymond Davidson describing the High Speed machine at SPL

  • On Walking Dead, the Past Mode Bonus awards 500,000 points when shooting previously-played mode shots in the current mode, creating a cascading value system

    high confidence · Raymond Davidson's 'Random Rules Minutia' section on Walking Dead mechanics

  • Portland Pin Brawl uses a double elimination bracket format and is traditionally held, with Raymond defending as previous champion but skipping it for Yagpin in Edmonton

Notable Quotes

  • “The other strategy is Geneva multiball, which is the scoop. And you just shoot either orbit and then shoot the scoop, and you do that five times. Spell Geneva. Or six times. I don't know how many letters are in Geneva.”

    Raymond Davidson @ ~8:00 — Self-aware humor about uncertainty on basic spelling, showing the podcast's casual, conversational tone

  • “If you start the Frankenstein, hurry up, and then you drain, it should just be lit for multi-ball on your next ball. I don't see why you need to punish the player that hard for an unfortunate bounce out.”

    Raymond Davidson @ ~15:00 — Critical design feedback on Munsters LE's Frankenstein mode, highlighting tension between casual fun and competitive difficulty

  • “I always try to, you know, take away something. I think I did the right play on ball three going for multiball because people had like two million or something. And I wasn't really going to get there from freeways the way that thing was playing.”

    Raymond Davidson @ ~32:00 — Illustrates tournament decision-making: when to deviate from standard strategy based on game conditions and competitive position

  • “Sometimes a game that you're really strong on you just fail to perform at and that is what happened to me. I got 15 million. So I didn't actually get, like, a last place. I got third.”

    Raymond Davidson @ ~29:00 — Common tournament experience: overconfidence leading to underperformance on a familiar game

  • “It's this huge risk-reward thing that is present in Walking Dead, and now you know when you're in a mode, sure, the mode shots, they're great, you know, hit the blinky lights, but secretly, all those previous modes with the solid lights are actually helping you as well.”

    Raymond Davidson @ ~57:00 — Deep rules knowledge explanation that reveals sophisticated game design in Walking Dead's mode sequencing

  • “The Portland Pinball Tournament is a single elimination bracket... it is brutal, right? You can be done in two matches just because you got paired up wrong.”

    Raymond Davidson @ ~45:00 — Critical commentary on tournament format volatility and why structure matters for player retention

Entities

Raymond DavidsonpersonSeattle Pinball LeagueeventJosh SharppersonKaylee GeorgepersonZach SharpepersonMary Shelley's Frankensteingame24gameTransformersgameMunsters LEgame

Signals

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Portland Pin Brawl's double elimination format creates high volatility—players can be eliminated in just two matches based on pairing luck rather than skill

    high · Raymond Davidson: 'You can be done in two matches just because you got paired up wrong.'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: April 9th marked the date when older PAPA tournament results began losing point value. Players like Josh Sharp dropped from top rankings as a result

    high · Raymond Davidson discussing IFPA standings changes and Josh Sharp's loss of points from '5th place finish a couple years ago'

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Specific machine instances (like the Seattle Transformers) have persistent mechanical quirks that require tournament players to completely abandon standard strategy

    high · Raymond Davidson: 'Megatron lock rejected like crazy, and the Autobots Optimus dude just didn't register... I just played modes. I just completely ignored both multiballs.'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Designer philosophy tension evident in Munsters LE Frankenstein mode: harsh penalty for unlucky drain creates frustration for casual players but may be intentional competitive design

    high · Raymond Davidson: 'I wish they didn't make Frankenstein... I'm probably more on the I like things that are fun than competitive, I guess. My games I have at home are set up pretty factory just because I like having fun.'

  • ?

    design_innovation: Walking Dead's Past Mode Bonus creates sophisticated cascading value system where previously-played modes boost current mode value, incentivizing specific play sequences

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.101

0:00
Welcome to Do or Die, a podcast about competitive pinball. I'm your host, Raymond Davidson, here to help you stay up to date on the latest strategies, tournaments, and happenings in the competitive pinball world, while also sharing direct stories with me as I go forth on my pinball tournament adventures.
0:30
Welcome to another episode of Do or Die. We are going to talk about an event I attended this weekend. It's not a major event by any means, but I did play some pinball in a competitive setting, so I figured I would talk about my experience and go through each of the games I played and maybe break down the games in depth as we play them. The event was the Seattle Pinball League. Every month we gather together in a collector's house. They provide games and food for the day, and it's super fun. It's a handicapped league, so you're playing against people who do similar to you in the rankings, but anybody can still win each tournament. It all kind of meets together in the Final Four, and it's a really cool dynamic. I highly recommend if you're interested in a league format, the format we do is very cool, and you can ask me about it. I can go more in depth, but I will basically just say the first round is five games, and you play in a group of four, the same group of four. You play your five games, 7-5-3-1. The top 16 move on to the next round, and then it cuts to top four because there's not enough time in the day, and then the final four just play a Papa-style final. Anyway, let's start it off. So, the game that I got to play first was none other than Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Yeah, okay, I was right.
2:37
Yeah, Frankenstein. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Of all games. Did not expect to play this one. If you are not familiar with it, it is a game by Sega. It's got an upper right flipper, a scoop on the lower left of the pop bumper nest, kind of like Stern Indiana Jones, and a ramp on the right. And that's pretty much all you need to know about it, because there are two main things to do. There's the ramp multiball and the scoop multiball. The ramp multiball is your, like, Frankenstein, like, creature multiball. And the scoop multiball is Geneva multiball. now the main multiball the creature multiball is kind of a do or it's it's a do or die strategy really it's uh it's all or nothing you you shoot the ramp like five times and then it lights a two ball lock and you have to shoot this lock and then it starts a two ball multiball but the multiball doesn't really do anything it just lets you relock the two balls now if you can relock the two balls then you start the six ball and then the points really start to fly you start getting you know 80 million jackpots and typical Sega scoring nonsense, where the jackpots dwarf everything. But if you don't do that, you're not going to get very much out of it. So it's definitely an all-or-nothing kind of big strategy. The other strategy is Geneva multiball, which is the scoop. And you just shoot either orbit and then shoot the scoop, and you do that five times. Spell Geneva. Or six times. I don't know how many letters are in Geneva. And then start a multiball. Now this multiball, it's a very cool multiball actually. I wish more multiballs were like this. Every shot is lit for a jackpot, but the jackpots are actually pretty valuable. They're like 20 million-ish. You can raise the jackpots before starting multiball by hitting the scoop more. But when I say all the shots are lit, I mean all of them. like left orbit, inner orbit, right ramp, lock shot. I think those are the four. And if you hit one, then it goes away, and you have to hit all the other jackpots in order to light the scoop to re-enable the jackpots. So if you don't hone in on all those individual jackpots, this multiball can be tough. There's only a few jackpots you can pick off right away, and then things start drying up pretty quick. Well, luckily, in my game, I was going down, you know, going into ball three in, I think, third or fourth place, and I needed something. So I went after Geneva, and I actually just rocked it. I, like, I got through, like, three rounds. It was the most amazing Geneva ever. It was like the equivalent of a cyborg multiball where you get to, like, 8x. It was just, I just kept hitting shots and getting, you know, inner orbits, the left orbit, everything was just on point. So I really like that multiball because it really rewards accuracy.

high confidence · Raymond Davidson discussing upcoming tournament conflicts

  • The next It Never Drains tournament (new PAPA equivalent) is happening in Southern California and will be 'basically new PAPA'

    medium confidence · Raymond Davidson's tournament news section mentioning the It Never Drains tournament

  • Adaball 420 tournament on April 20th offers Wizard of Oz pinball machine as top prize with limited other prizes and no WPPR points

    high confidence · Raymond Davidson discussing his upcoming tournament schedule

  • “I wish Meteor wouldn't have said that in the rules somewhere. Warlock does a really good job of this, but Meteor just doesn't tell you.”

    Raymond Davidson @ ~22:00 — Points out clarity issues in classic pinball rules documentation and contrasts with better design examples

  • “There's some other movement further down and in other areas. So, check your whoppers. You might be unpleasantly surprised based on the Papa points going away.”

    Raymond Davidson @ ~37:00 — Warning to IFPA-ranked players about point decay affecting their standing; uses casual vernacular 'whoppers' for WPPR points

    • Meteor
    game
    High Speedgame
    Walking Deadgame
    Portland Pin Brawlevent
    Yagpinevent
    Adaball 420event
    It Never Drainsevent
    IFPAorganization
    PAPAevent
    Derek Thompsonperson
    Robert Gagneauperson

    high · Raymond Davidson's detailed explanation of how playing Barn first then Riot creates exponential value growth: 'every shot to the left orbit bumps the Riot jackpot by 500k'

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Meteor's WOW collection mechanic is poorly documented—players must hit center target on specific drop target bank, but this isn't communicated in rules

    high · Raymond Davidson: 'I really wish it would have said that in the rules somewhere. Warlock does a really good job of this, but Meteor just doesn't tell you.'

  • ?

    event_signal: Portland Pin Brawl and Yagpin (Edmonton) occur simultaneously in May, forcing top players to choose between defending status and traveling to Canada

    high · Raymond Davidson: 'Unfortunately, that means I'm going to be missing the Portland Pin Brawl... I think I'm the defending champion of Pin Brawl, but I guess I won't be this year.'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Overconfidence on games where player previously performed well often leads to underperformance; requires mental discipline to treat repeat games as fresh

    high · Raymond Davidson on second 24 game: 'I picked it again because, you know, I got 80 million so of course I'll do good on it, right? Well, if anybody, if you know anything about pinball tournaments you know that that's just not how things work.'

  • ?

    operational_signal: Seattle Pinball League uses handicapped league structure with monthly events at private collector's house, offering alternative to traditional tournament formats

    high · Raymond Davidson describing SPL format: 'It's a handicapped league, so you're playing against people who do similar to you in the rankings, but anybody can still win each tournament.'

  • ?

    venue_signal: Tournament results heavily dependent on specific machine instances—High Speed in Seattle is notably more difficult than standard versions due to lightning flippers and sneeze tilt

    high · Raymond Davidson: 'This Transformers before and this is a very valuable tournament lesson that if you know a game's quirks you might want to adjust your strategy.'

  • ?

    community_signal: Do or Die podcast adding direct email contact (doordiepinballpodcast@gmail.com) to solicit listener feedback and questions

    high · Raymond Davidson: 'I have a email now... the email link, if you're listening to this, is doordiepinballpodcast at gmail.com. Send me a mail if you have any thoughts or things you want to hear.'

  • ?

    event_signal: Adaball 420 tournament uses single-prize structure (Wizard of Oz pinball machine) with no additional prizes or WPPR points, limiting appeal

    medium · Raymond Davidson: 'I don't think the tournament has any other prizes, and it doesn't have any Whoppers, and you have to kind of be around a bunch of people doing the 420 thing.'

    • 5:46
    And the shots are pretty safe in that game. You know, if you hit a shot, it's probably not going to die. So that's how I got up to about 500 or 600 million. And then I started creature multiball and did not get the six ball. Bonanza. I just, you know, got the two ball and then failed out. But that gave me enough extra flail points to end around 750 million. The other scores in the game were 1.5 billion, 500 million, and 300 million, roughly. So I got a second on that. Not too bad. That's five match points. Next we got to play 24. 24, if you're not familiar, is a Steve Ritchie game made in sort of the dark ages of Stern. It was, you know, that mid-2000 era where they were cranking out CSIs and NBAs, Wheel of Fortunes, and 24. So this one kind of got lost in the hustle a little bit. I actually like this game. I actually picked it. It was my pick. You get to, you know, each person gets to pick a game and someone gets to pick twice. But I picked 24. And, you know, if you're not familiar with 24, we'll talk about for a second here. You shoot the left ramp to light the right ramp for suitcase locks. And your first multiball is pretty easy. You shoot the left ramp once, and then all your locks are lit. The next multiball, you have to kind of alternate, you know, left ramp, right ramp. And then after that, it just takes more and more left ramps. So suitcase is sort of like the multiball on Elvira's Scared Stiff. It's kind of just the fallback. It's the go-to. You know, when you don't know what to do, just go for suitcase multiball, because it's good points, and you get, it's not too hard to get to, and it's safe, you know. And so I got to a suitcase multi-ball, and during suitcase, if you didn't know, what you're supposed to do is lock two or three balls back in the suitcase. It's sort of like Terminator 2. You have to send the balls back into the suitcase, and once you either lock all three, or you drain a ball and lock two, just like Terminator 2 then it lights your super jackpot up the center ramp and the number of supers that are lit is tied to how many balls you locked so if you only locked two you'll have two supers lit and if you have three balls locked you'll have three supers lit the best thing though is when you get the first super it adds a ball and that is the only way that I know of that you can add a ball in the suitcase multiball Chloe is no help the cell phone you know much as we know her and love slash hate her she doesn give you anything No, no, add a ball there. Just jackpot.
    8:35
    Jackpot. You know, that sort of thing. So I blew up 24. I got like 80 million. It was like just I was in the zone. So got the W on that one. So next we're playing Transformers, and I gotta tell you, this thing, it wasn't really playing that hard but it was killing everybody. You know how that is sometimes? Where everyone just is getting those bad bounces and just not really getting in the groove. It's just sort of ending before anything's starting. So I had played this particular Transformers before and this is a very valuable tournament lesson that if you know a game's quirks you might want to adjust your strategy. And on this particular Transformers, the Megatron lock rejected like crazy, and the Autobots Optimus dude just didn't register. Like, you know, you had to nail it. It was very hard to get him to register. So I just played modes. I just completely ignored both multiballs. I played modes and put up 10 million. You know, not great, but points, right? And it turned out 10 million was good for second place, next to the 11 million first place, the 9 million third place, and 8 million fourth place. So everyone was just super bunched together. So I got pretty lucky to escape with a second there. But, you know, had I gone for multiball like I normally do, I probably would have gotten nothing. I would have gotten a last because I probably wouldn't have started multiball. And based on the scores, I didn't need to start multiball. There was no need for me to get 20 million when everyone else was in the 12 million ballpark. So it's a very important skill to learn is to see sort of what's going on and adapt to your play to meet that. And so that was a good example of that there. So I got a five points there. And then we went on to Munsters. LE, limited edition, in color.
    10:47
    And I don't know. I did the thing, I guess. I did Herman and Lily and then Grandpa into Raven and that sort of stuff. I got six X going at some point. I never collected any supers, unfortunately. As soon as I noticed I had six X lit with a super, I drained all my balls. I just freaked out, tried to hit supers hopelessly, and my ball ended. So I end up with like 40 mil, which is, you know, okay. And I think that I actually ended up winning it. I don't have my notes exactly, but I think the next highest was like 30, and then like, you know, nothing, fives and sixes sort of thing.
    11:29
    And that game, man, I saw a poor guy. he did the Frankenstein to Outland combo twice. Twice in the same game. And there's nothing you can do about that. If you don't get the fortune to start Frankenstein, your whole game is just kind of gone, you know? You miss out on the freebie, and you have to do everything sort of the hard way. And it's just super devastating. So I wish they didn't make Frankenstein... I wish it wouldn't reset your progress. So if you start the Frankenstein, hurry up, and then you drain, it should just be lit for multi-ball on your next ball. I don't see why you need to punish the player that hard for an unfortunate bounce out. But then again, I'm probably more on the I like things that are fun than competitive, I guess. My games I have at home are set up pretty factory just because I like having fun. playing pinball. That's kind of what got me into it. So my opinions might differ a little bit. Some people might think it's great that you get completely screwed for Frankenstein, but I don't seem, I don't like it. Anyway, the next game was Stern's Meteor, Stern Electronics. And Meteor was fun, you know? I just, I actually, so this Meteor was set on extra balls and specials are worth points. Now, let's talk about this, because I think this is some good rules knowledge that most people might not know. If you get three rockets on the same level, so you have your three bonus rockets, ones, twos, and threes, and the corresponding drop targets each raise the corresponding column one rocket. So if you get three of them all to the same level, so if you hit one one drop target, and one two-drop target and one three-drop target, you'll now have, you know, your bonus ladder will show number one has a rocket, number two has a rocket, number three has a rocket. All on the same level. Now, if you can do that, that's like the minimum, right? You could also have four rockets across the board. If you have them all at the same level, it will light wows. And wows are extra balls, or in this case, points, which are 70,000. 70,000 points is nothing to sneeze at. You know, that's like two whole spinner rips. So if you light your wows, the next thing that Meteor is not very good at telling you is the only way to collect the wow is the center target on whatever drop target bank has the wow light. So if the wow light is on the ones bank and you hit the center target on the ones bank, you'll get the wow. Now, if you hit not the center target, like you hit the top target, then you've just boosted your 1's rocket, and it is not aligned anymore, and your wows disappear.
    14:32
    So sometimes you'll have a wow that's lit, but no way to collect it because your center target's already down. I really wish it would have said that in the rules somewhere. Warlock does a really good job of this, but Meteor just doesn't tell you. The other way to get wows is by spelling meteor over and over and over again until you max out your bonus X, and then it will start a strobing wow on the meteor targets. So you have to line up your target hit with the white circle that's kind of dancing around it, and I think you only get one shot at this. If you go through all Meteor targets and never line up your WoW, I'm pretty sure the Meteor targets will just reset and you've missed your WoW opportunity. That opportunity, of course, being 70,000 points. The other thing that was on this game is specials being worth 130,000 points. Unlimited collects. So, if you've played Stars, you've known how powerful unlimited specials can be. Well, Meteor sort of has this secret mode that people don't know about, where if specials are set to points, you really want to max out your bonus, because that is how you light the specials. You get all the rockets all the way to the top, max out your bonus, and now you've got strobing specials dancing around the playfield. And just like the wows, if they're on a target bank, you have to hit the center target. That will, of course, give you the 130,000 points for the special. And then you can keep collecting it. Now, I'm not sure what different possible settings there are, so your mileage may vary on this, but that is how this particular meteor was set up. So I encourage you, next time meteor is in a tournament, give it a shot. Shoot for the rockets. During practice, of course. I don't know if I would do this if I wasn't sure that this was worth it, but if you really want to blow up the game, I think specials are the way to go, honestly. I mean, the spinner is maybe 30k a shot on a good one, but if you get 100k's lit up, you know, you can start rolling it pretty quickly and easily. So that just a little tidbit I don think people were aware of were those specials and wows and meteor And I encourage tournament directors to set up their Meteors this way to allow for different strategies so people aren just constantly hitting the spinner especially in a best game qualifying scenario Unfortunately, any time I've seen Meteor in a best game qualifying scenario, they always have it set up way too hard. They have a sneeze tilt, outlane post gone, and center post rubber removed. And that's just completely unnecessary and takes away the fun. So, anyway, that's a little side rant.
    17:17
    Meteor is best played, you know, the way it is. You don't need to make it any harder. So that got me into the top 16. I think I got first on Meteor, but I don't actually remember, because I had more than enough points to move on at this point, so I was just thinking about the next round. Unfortunately, the next round did not quite go as planned. Spoiler alert. but we'll walk through it game by game and yeah, we'll see what happens. So the first game was 24. I picked it again because, you know, I got 80 million so of course I'll do good on it, right? Well, if anybody, if you know anything about pinball tournaments you know that that's just not how things work.
    18:04
    Sometimes a game that you're really strong on you just fail to perform at and that is what happened to me. I got 15 million. So I didn't actually get, like, a last place. I got third. You know, I started a suitcase multiball, but just didn't really keep it going. And, you know, just nothing. I wasn't focused enough or something. I don't really know what made the difference between the first time I played it and the second time I played it. But I wish I did. I think maybe I was too confident going into it, you know? Maybe I should have pretended like it was the first time again, like the first time I played it. I don't know. Maybe. Maybe that would have helped. So I got third on 24, and then I played High Speed, which is the most evil high speed you'll ever see. It's this one in Seattle here with lightning flippers and, like, a sneeze tilt. It's super mean. and I sort of found myself in kickback jail. So normally on high speed, all I do is shoot the inlanes, using the shats maneuver, and then the freeways over and over again. But my first ball used my kickback. And so now for the rest of the game, I didn't have the kickback safety net, so I couldn't shoot the left inlane safely because it might go into the kickback, or going to the left out lane. So I was kind of in jail. I couldn't get a freeway to light my in lane, to light my kickback. So I basically had to play for multiball, and I unfortunately just fell short and got last place. But regardless, there's still a lesson to be learned here. I always try to, you know, take away something. I think I did the right play on ball three going for multiball because people had like two million or something. And I wasn't really going to get there from freeways the way that thing was playing. I needed a multiball. And I needed to win because I got third on my first game. So in order to move on to the next round, you need to win your group outright. You know, you have to be the best out of your four people. and I knew first was the only way to do that so I basically threw caution to the wind and went straight for multiball and I also tilted the ball which normally I would have been extra careful not to tilt because I think I gave up a point in bonus but it didn't matter, right? I needed to save it because I needed to get win I needed to get first it was the only thing that mattered so I failed but that's just a lesson that you know, sometimes it just doesn't work out.
    21:04
    I don't really know what I could have done differently. I guess I could have just went for my strategy anyway and hoped not to outlane, or I could have shot the right in lane instead of shooting the left in lane, which is my go-to. I could have tried to go for the right in lane and tried to do freeways that way.
    21:23
    Not sure, but anyway, I unfortunately got last place on that, and then Meteor was our third game and oh, before I get to Meteor another thing about high speed that I learned was if the plunge to the ramp fails like if the lock is lit and the diverter misses, you can actually shoot the right eject shot the scoop on the right side and that will actually lock your ball as well. It's sort of like a weird Easter egg that I didn't really know about until that tournament. So don't despair if you feel like you get robbed out of a lock from the plunger. You can still get your three-ball multi-ball by hitting the right eject and then plunging again. So that was kind of cool. Anyway, the last game was... third game was Meteor, and I got second place. The guy that beat me was actually the guy that already won the first two games, so he had a perfect 12. He was just unstoppable. I just couldn't touch him.
    22:37
    Sometimes that's what happens. People get on a roll and they just win everything. So I didn't feel too bad. I got three points for the round, but whatever. It was a fun day. and so that's kind of how that ended I think I finished 14th or 15th or something enough to help my league standings so yeah that was Seattle Pinball League hopefully you learned a little bit about Frankenstein, 24 Munsters all those fun games we played so thanks again to the Seattle Pinball League for hosting that wonderful tournament and I can't wait for the next one moving on to uh tournament news or rather the lack of tournament news uh in the sense that the papa tournaments haven't happened for a while which means that the ifpa points around this time are getting shooken up april 9th actually was when things started happening on the ifpa where previous Papa is now worth reduced value for people. So you saw Josh Sharp, he had like a fifth place finish a couple years ago. He lost a bunch of points. I think he just got bumped off the first page. A bunch of other people, I think, shifted around quite a bit because of this. The standings for the IFPA page now is still Raymond, Daniele, Johannes, Keith, Eric, Stone, Trent Augenstein, Kaylee George, Bo and Karens, Stephen Bowden, Julio, and Zach Sharp. So, not too much movement on the really high end, but, you know, there's some other movement further down and in other areas. So, check your whoppers. You might be unpleasantly surprised based on the Papa points going away. I think there will only be one more year of this decay, right? Because they stopped their tournaments two years ago. So, you know, it's time to start replacing those with the Open that we mentioned last podcast. It never drains in Southern California. Looking forward to that. Cannot wait. That's going to be basically new papa. It's going to be awesome. In the meantime though there are plenty of tournaments in April and May and June and all months of the year so don despair Tournaments are always just around the corner For me my next tournament is going to be the Adaball 420 tournament suspiciously on April 20th, and that is next weekend. So I will be playing in that, trying to win a Wizard of Oz pinball machine as top prize. That'll be exciting. We'll see if I can pull that off. Last year I won it, and I won a meteor. So it seems like they've really doubled, doubled, doubled down on that.
    25:46
    It's a little scary because I don't think the tournament has any other prizes, and it doesn't have any Whoppers, and you have to kind of be around a bunch of people doing the 420 thing, which, whatever, it's 420, right? Don't come if that's not your thing. But, yeah, it's definitely a hoot in some sense of the word. And, yeah, we'll see how I do. I'll probably give you an update on how that tournament went next week.
    26:15
    The next tournament after that for me is Yagpin. I talked about that a little last weekend, last podcast. And Yagpin is the one in Edmonton, Alberta. So I'll be getting my passport ready and flying over to Canada, play some pinball with the nicest guys in the world, you know, Canadians. Derek Thompson, Doug Teal, some other big names up in Canada there. I'm sure Gagneau, Robert Gagneau will be there.
    26:44
    Unfortunately, that means I'm going to be missing the Portland Pin Brawl, which happens in Portland every year, and unfortunately it's the same time as Yegpin. I think I'm the defending champion of Pin Brawl, but I guess I won't be this year. So that'll be fun to see who wins that. I know Kaylee George is going, So if I was a betting man, which I definitely am, I would probably put money on Kaylee winning that tournament. It is a little volatile, though. The Portland Pinball Tournament is a single elimination bracket. I mean, it's two out of three for the games, but the bracket is, or it might be double elim. I think it's double elim. It's a double elim bracket, but it is brutal, right? You can be done in two matches just because you got paired up wrong. so you know that's one way to run a tournament I think they just do it that way because they've always done it that way it's sort of like a tradition at this point which is cool I don't mind a tournament now and then that's like that just to shake things up a bit I think it gets old playing the same types of tournaments all the time so you know if people have a problem with it they don't have to go it's sort of that's what's great about pinball tournaments there's so many different ones available that you can just try them all and see which ones you like and which ones you don't and just go to the ones you like. So that concludes our tournament upcomings section. I thought I'd end with one more little section here that I like to call Random Rules Minutia. So, on Walking Dead, Stern's Walking Dead, there is this thing called the Past Mode Bonus.
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    You may have noticed it accidentally, and it explains why sometimes your riots can be gigantic. But basically, whenever you play a mode in Walking Dead, which you get by shooting the drop targets and then shooting a mode shot, let's say, for example, you play Barn. So you hit down the drop targets, shoot to the left orbit, and now you're in Barn. So you play out the barn mode, and nothing else is special. It's your first mode, so you play barn. But when it ends, this is where things get a little interesting. For the rest of the game, the barn light is solid. Now, that means you've played barn, right? So you can't play it anymore. But it also means, for the rest of the game, any mode you do play, the barn shot is going to help you. It's going to give you a 500,000 past mode bonus award. and bump the value of whatever is running in the current mode you're in. So if you start Riot, normally the only way to increase the Riot value is through switch hits. So, you know, you'll hit bumpers and stuff and your Riot value will go up, but not too fast. However, if you have already played Barn this game and you start Riot, now every shot to the left orbit bumps the Riot jackpot by 500k, which can be huge because the barn sends it into the bumpers to build the Riot jackpot even more. So just by playing the modes in that order, barn and then Riot, you've now opened up this floodgate of points where shooting the left orbit is bumping up your Riot jackpot. So there's this tension in Walking Dead where the later modes you play are worth more because every mode shot that you previously played is helping that current mode. But it gets even more interesting.
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    Terminus, which is the wizard mode for playing all of your modes, is structured in such a way that your fifth mode gets collected five times, your fourth mode gets collected four times, third mode gets collected three times, second mode gets collected twice, and the first mode you play gets collected once. Which means, naturally, your later modes are going to be worth more, and you're going to collect them more times in Terminus. So it's actually, it's a really great game design, where you really don't want to time out the last modes, because they're the most valuable. And it makes it so that if you try to get Riot early on for tournament points, you know, like, oh, I got the riot bloodbath stack. Well, that's great, but did you play that as your first mode? Because if you did, it's not going to be worth as much, and terminus is not going to pay you off as much. So to really kill it, ideally you'd play riot last, because every shot will be adding to the jackpot value, and in terminus you'll be able to collect it five times. So it's this huge risk-reward thing that is present in Walking Dead, and now you know when you're in a mode, sure, the mode shots, they're great, you know, hit the blinky lights, but secretly, all those previous modes with the solid lights are actually helping you as well, and that can be crucial for really, really blowing up Walking Dead.
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    Anyway, that's all I've got for this week. Oh, I do have one more thing. I have a email now. You can find the email at my podcast site, thebonecollector.net slash podcast. It has a link to my email as well as all the latest episodes and RSS feed. But the email link, if you're listening to this, is doordiepinballpodcast at gmail.com. That's doordiepinballpodcast at gmail.com. It might look a little funny when you spell it out because of the do or die part, but trust me, it's simpler. It's just the name of the podcast at gmail.com. So send me a mail if you have any thoughts or things you want to hear, and I'll be checking that. So yeah, that's exciting podcast news. And with that, I think I am out of here. I will talk to you all next time. And remember, until then, make sure you do. Don't die. Have a good one.
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    you