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Episode 52 – STOMPing Our Way to ReplayFX

Slam Tilt Podcast·podcast_episode·analyzed·Jul 20, 2017
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.032

TL;DR

Pinburgh head TD Doug Polka details tournament ops, game strategy, and upcoming 328-game lineup.

Summary

Doug Polka, head tournament director for Pinburgh (800 players, 328 games), discusses tournament operations, game selection philosophy, staging logistics at PAPA, tech support infrastructure, his personal pinball route business, and upcoming game selections for Pinburgh. The conversation covers tournament fairness issues (lock stealing, progressive jackpots), the shift toward including classic games in main banks, and equipment loan partnerships with Stern and Jersey Jack for new title testing.

Key Claims

  • Pinburgh 2024 will feature 328 games total, with a backup bank of 40 games

    high confidence · Doug Polka stated this directly during the episode when asked about game counts

  • Pinburgh has 5 tournament directors handling ~160 players each (Doug, Bowen Kerins, Eitan Goldman, Brett Berkman, Pete Hendrickson)

    high confidence · Doug listed all five TDs by name and explained the division of labor

  • PAPA facility will move to a new location but games remain on-site until relocation; currently in staging/bank setup mode post-PAPA 20

    high confidence · Doug clarified misconception about PAPA facility sale and current operational status

  • Two dedicated pinball techs at Replay Brewing Foundation (Steve Eckert and Dan Hall) plus six arcade techs, totaling 8 techs for Replay Brewing FX event

    high confidence · Doug enumerated tech staff names and roles explicitly

  • Doug and Justin Brooks manage ~30 pinball games on route across Pittsburgh locations (up from initial 2-game shortage on south side ~5-6 years ago)

    high confidence · Doug described his personal pinball route business growth trajectory

  • Star Wars Pro and Aerosmith will be in Pinburgh 2024, obtained via loans from Stern, Jersey Jack, and Trent at RLM Amusements

    high confidence · Doug confirmed both games and thanked manufacturers for loaning equipment

  • PAPA 20 introduced more classic games to main banks in response to years of player requests, initially receiving negative online feedback that reversed post-event

    high confidence · Doug described the decision rationale and player reception reversal

  • Tournament directors are not permitted to play in PAPA or Pinburgh events they direct

    high confidence · Doug stated this as tournament rule

  • Pittsburgh convention center (David O. Lawrence Convention Center) is a union shop requiring union labor to move games from dock to tournament floor

Notable Quotes

  • “I've never personally had to throw anybody out of an actual tournament, either at PAPA or at Pinburgh. I've had to tell people I'm not going to listen to your argument anymore and walk away.”

    Doug Polka @ ~11:00 — Reflects positive community behavior and Doug's measured approach to conflict resolution in large tournaments

  • “Pinball players are awesome. They're the best people.”

    Doug Polka @ ~11:30 — Characterizes the broader pinball community ethos according to a major tournament administrator

  • “There's a misconception that we've already sold it, which isn't true. The announcement we put out was basically just to brace people because it was going for sale... until we sell it, we're not actually going to move out of the building.”

    Doug Polka @ ~15:00 — Clarifies PAPA facility status and addresses community speculation about relocation timing

  • “We move them on the legs. Some games get the heads put down depending on what the game is, like a Banzai Run where it has a super heavy playfield head.”

    Doug Polka @ ~19:30 — Details technical logistics of transporting machines safely during large-scale tournament setup

  • “It's not the pinball world championships of modern games.”

    Unknown (cited by Doug) @ ~44:00 — Justifies the decision to include classic games in main tournament banks, emphasizing legitimacy of all eras

  • “I would love to get a hold of one of those [Hot Dog machines]... Best $150 I ever spent.”

    Doug Polka @ ~38:00 — Highlights Doug's enthusiasm for oddball/classic machines and spontaneous opportunity in the collector market

  • “Without them loaning us games, we would not have them in Pinburgh, so it's very nice of them to give us a game.”

    Doug Polka @ ~56:00 — Acknowledges critical partnership with manufacturers (Stern, JJP, RLM) for testing new releases at tournament scale

  • “When you're using 300-plus games in a tournament, they're not all perfect tournament games.”

Entities

Doug PolkapersonRon HallettpersonBruce NightingalepersonPinburgheventPAPAeventReplay Brewing FXeventMark SteinmanpersonBowen Kerinsperson

Signals

  • ?

    event_signal: Pinburgh 2024 will field 328 games across 800 players with 5 tournament directors, representing significant operational scale

    high · Doug stated '328 games' and detailed division of 800 players across 5 TDs at ~160 each

  • ?

    operational_signal: Replay Brewing FX deployed 8 dedicated technicians (2 pinball specialists + 6 arcade techs) to maintain tournament equipment

    high · Doug enumerated 8 tech staff by name and role, noted 4-6 dedicated to Pinburgh at any moment

  • ?

    venue_signal: PAPA facility listing for sale but no immediate relocation; games remain staged on-site and will return post-Replay Brewing FX

    high · Doug clarified: 'listing it and looking for new home. However, until we sell it, we're not moving out'

  • ?

    business_signal: Stern Pinball and Jersey Jack Pinball loan new releases (Star Wars Pro, Aerosmith) to Pinburgh for competitive testing and rule refinement

    high · Doug: 'Without them loaning us games, we would not have them in Pinburgh. Both companies have been great.'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Tournament organizers actively scout and select 'cult classic' games (Doodlebug, Super Orbit, Alien Star) to drive secondary market demand and player interest

    high · Doug described 'PAPA effect' where finals game selection drives collector demand post-tournament

  • ?

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.307

0:00
Uh, hello? Two cheeseburgers, two large fries, and a chocolate shake. Uh, just a minute. Dammit, leave us, put that away. You're not supposed to have your penis out when you're cooking. Oh, are ya?
0:20
Uh, so like, uh, may I take your order? Coming to you from beautiful upstate New York, this is the Slam Tilt Podcast, the show about all things pinball. I'm your host, Ron Hallett, here with my co-host, Bruce Nightingale. 43 people played. One was victorious. Who was it? And you won't find that out until later. And this is episode 52, History of the World Part 1. This is my favorite freaking movie. You're probably in the minority there. I've never seen it. Gregory Hines, Dom DeLuise. Oh, just. So you recommend it? Oh, definitely. You were telling me before we went on you might recommend it over Spaceballs. I would. Wow. Because I grew up with it. I grew up with it every week. So every week I watched it. Okay. It was a great movie. So definitely high on the pick list. But we have a guest. We have a guest, and it really ties into what's coming up next week. Yes. The Mecca. We're going to go and talk to one of the Mecca people. He is the tournament director of the biggest pinball tournament in the world. He gets to babysit 800 screaming, crying people. Oh, my game didn't play well, and I got this game broken, and what are you going to rule like this? We have right now on Doug Polka. Hey, guys. Welcome, Doug. Excellent. I just want to make a real quick correction on my introduction there. I am one of quite a few tournament directors for Pinnberg. I would never take all the credit for it. There's a lot of people that put in a lot of work to make that happen. Aren't you the head tournament director, though? I am the head tournament director. Okay. See? So we officially, you know, we have the leader of the gang. Yes. How many tournament directors do you actually do have? There's myself. There is, of course, Bo and Karen's, Eitan Goldman, Brett Berkman, and Pete Hendricks. There's five of us. And we're vastly outnumbered by players. Very vastly outnumbered. So how much is that per? So if you have 800 players, divide that by five.
2:49

high confidence · Doug explained union logistics handling during game setup

  • Doug acquired a brand-new NOS (New Old Stock) playfield for Hot Dog at Allentown vendor show for $150, purchased just 20 minutes after buying the machine itself for $700

    high confidence · Doug recounted specific transaction details and timing

    • Doug Polka @ ~48:00 — Acknowledges inherent trade-off in Pinburgh's scale: uniqueness over perfect fairness

  • “We try and turn on virtual locks where we can, but they're just games you can't do it.”

    Doug Polka @ ~50:00 — Reflects on technical limitations when balancing tournament fairness with game authenticity

  • “I remember Stern putting out all these incomplete games, and now they're putting out games that are good right out of the box. And so lots of credit to them for turning that around.”

    Doug Polka @ ~59:00 — Praises Stern's recent quality improvement in rule set delivery, contrasting with historical criticism

    • Steve Eckert
    person
    Dan Hallperson
    Justin Brooksperson
    Al Tomkaperson
    Stern Pinballcompany
    Jersey Jack Pinballcompany
    Trent at RLM Amusementsperson
    Eitan Goldmanperson
    Brett Berkmanperson
    Pete Hendricksonperson
    Pittsburgh Pinball Leagueorganization
    David O. Lawrence Convention Centervenue
    Star Wars Progame
    Aerosmithgame
    Hot Doggame

    design_philosophy: Tournament accepts inherent unfairness (lock stealing, progressive jackpots) in exchange for game diversity and authentic arcade experience over perfect fairness

    high · Doug: 'When you're using 300-plus games, they're not all perfect tournament games' and 'part of the fun' of lock-stealing mechanics

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: PAPA 20 experienced initial negative player feedback on including classic games in main banks, which reversed after tournament completion

    high · Doug: 'received a lot of not nice mail' but 'a few of those people apologized by end of PAPA 20, saying it was a lot of fun'

  • ?

    community_signal: Pinburgh/PAPA player base demonstrates high behavioral standards; head TD reports no ejections, only rare escalations requiring intervention

    high · Doug: 'Pinball players are awesome. They're the best people. I've never had to throw anybody out.'

  • $

    market_signal: Pinball vendors (Allentown show) maintain access to NOS playfields and parts; secondary market transactions occur within collector events at negotiated prices ($150-$700 range for machines/parts)

    medium · Doug's Hot Dog transaction: $700 machine, $150 NOS playfield from vendor with hour turnaround

  • ?

    operational_signal: Pinball route operators pull machines from seasonal-dead locations (bowling alleys) during summer to redeploy at major events (Replay Brewing FX), then rotate fresh lineups back

    high · Doug: 'agreement with the owner... we pull the games because they're dead in the summertime... take them to Replay Brewing, then bring new lineup after'

  • ?

    industry_signal: Stern Pinball reputation shifted from releasing incomplete rule sets 2-3 years ago to delivering polished games out-of-box in 2024

    high · Doug: 'not even 2-3 years ago debate about Stern putting out incomplete games, now putting out games good right out of box. Lots of credit for turning that around.'

  • ?

    content_signal: Slam Tilt Podcast next episode (following this one) will feature top-15 and top-50 IFPA players (identified as Bowen Kerins and Tim Sexton) discussing 328-game Pinburgh lineup; game list to be published prior

    high · Doug: 'Tonight I will probably be filtering our internal information out of our game list and possibly publishing it tonight or tomorrow'

    • Let me bust out my calculator. Yeah, I can't do that. We each get 160 players. There you go. Wow. Yeah. And how many are crying to you? You know what? A lot of people ask that. They're like, oh, you must get tired of having people come and complain about stuff. And it's really not that bad. Like, every once in a while you'll get somebody who gets a little bit out of line with their complaints or their insistence to make a scene. But, like, it's few and far between. Like, the pinball group is fantastic. I've never personally had to throw anybody out of an actual tournament. either at Papa or at Pemberg. I've had to tell people I'm not going to listen to your argument anymore and walk away. But beyond that, I've never really had a major issue. No yellow cards, as Bone would say? I've done some yellow cards, mostly for profanity, because we tend to frown on that because, you know, young ears are around sometimes.
    3:47
    But I've never given anyone a yellow card for behavior beyond that. So pinball players are pretty cool overall? Pinball players are awesome. They're the best people. All right. So, Doug, we're going to ask you a little history about yourself. How did you get into pinball?
    4:05
    So I used to play. I got addicted kind of in the 90s heyday, the second heyday, if you will, of Williams, Adam's Family, Jackpot. You know, there was a bunch of games in there that were local to me where I grew up. And then I grew away from it because, well, pinball machines kind of disappeared. at arcades closed, and it's funny because I was playing poker with a gentleman, Al Tomka. You guys may or may not know him. Oh, we both know Al. He's one of the best players in the world. I think he's top 100 still. And we were, I met at his house to go play cards, and he had four games in his basement.
    4:45
    And I said, wow, pinball machines. I remember, you know, one of them was Getaway, and I'm like, I remember that game. I love that game. And he's like, oh, yeah, I collect games. and I was like well how much does one of those cost if you don't mind me asking and of course back then the number was a lot lower than it is now so uh he said you can buy one for you know between 500 and a thousand bucks so I said well find me one and I'll buy it and I remember he found me my first one was at a um a local kind of what would be considered a family entertainment center nowadays but it was like a party place for kids it was Jurassic Park it didn't work and we picked it up for 700 bucks and that was the first game I ever had and then it's uh you can never have just one uh so they've continually grown and grown and grown and along with that I got into competitive pinball was one of the people that helped start the Pittsburgh Pinball League which we're now usually between 150 and 170 players each season so our scene has really grown and It's awesome. I love it. I love being a part of it. That's very cool. So how did you get into Papa?
    5:54
    Basically, Mark Steinman, who is the director at Papa right now and the director for Replay FX and on the board of the Replay Foundation, he joined the Pittsburgh Pinball League and basically met me through that. And then when the time came that they needed somebody else to start helping down there, they asked me, and I came down, and I volunteered a bunch and did a bunch of work down there. and then basically I just worked my way in through there and accomplished my nefarious goal of finally getting a key to that building. So now I can go in whenever I want. Oh my. Yeah. All right. We got her in now.
    6:30
    So are the games still at the building? Everything's still there? Everything is still at the building. There's a misconception that we've already sold it, which isn't true. The announcement we put out was basically just to brace people because it was going for sale. And rather than have people come to us and go, oh, my God, I saw it's for sale and we don't know anything about it. The announcement, what it says is basically we're listing it and we're looking for a new home. However, until we sell it, we're not actually going to move out of the building. So we're still there. That's our staging place for replay. As of right now, when we come back from replay, we're going to be moving right back into that building. Quick question. What's involved with the staging, for those who don't know? I kind of have an idea how it works, but it's something like you actually get the banks together just the way they're going to be at Pinberg, but like in that building, something like that. Yeah, so pretty much the day, well, a couple days after Papa 20, one of our employees, Fred, couldn't think of the right word there, he started putting the games into their actual banks. So right now they're all sitting in their banks. we run some tournaments between the end of Papa and the couple weeks out from the end of replay where we invite some players down to play the games. And that's basically we work out a time how long the four-player games take so we have an idea of how long the banks play. And we also, of course, look for all kinds of tech issues. And we submit sheets and sheets of tech issues as far as, you know, everything from, you know, the right flipper is sticking to this light bulb is out to our tech so that they can get all the machines up and running for Pinberg. How many techs do you have? How many techs are permanently at Papa, and how many techs actually are at Replay FX? So we have two techs employed at the Replay Foundation. Steve Eckert, which Steve's been there for a while. If you guys have had a chance to meet Steve, he's kind of the glue that holds that place together. my personal story I talk to Steve at least 2-3 hours every papa and at least 5 hours at Pemberg we just sit and BS the whole time so I love Steve yeah Steve is a magician with those machines it's amazing to me how well he knows those games you know you can walk up to him and say hey this game is doing this and he'll tell you exactly what it is he'll be like it's this chip needs reseated on the board and it'll go up and it'll receive the chip and the game works. Steve is fantastic. We recently, as of last year, another gentleman, Dan Hall, joined us. He was working at a local arcade. Dan is also fantastic. And, I mean, it's basically two people that get all the games up and running for Pinnberg. And then in addition to that, we have Ted Garner, who's one of our arcade technicians. Adam Earhart is one of our arcade technicians for replay. We also have Brian Stahl. I know I'm going to probably forget a name in here. Brian Stahl, Nick Jacquet, Justin Brooks. There's six of them. Lee Clevens.
    9:41
    I'm drawing a blank on a couple names here. If I'm forgetting your name, I apologize if you're actually listening to this. But there's going to be eight techs at replay altogether to get everything in the entire show going. at any time there's between four and six texts dedicated to pinberg by itself it just kind of depends on how things are going at any moment sometimes everything breaks at once and sometimes it's not so hectic props to the text props yes the whole thing doesn't happen without them i always tell everybody at pinberg or whatever when they come up and they say hey great job organizing this um go find the people in red because uh the people with the red tech shirts are the ones that actually keep it all running.
    10:23
    Yeah, I just wanted to give a shout-out just from the tournament we just ran. Just all the... And that was just 20 games. I can't imagine how much it is to have that many games. So our backup bank for Pinnberg is 40 games.
    10:39
    Yeah. Pass. Yeah, this year in Pinnberg we're using 328 games. Aye, aye, aye. To repeat, folks, that's 328 games. There's a lot that goes into it. I'm sure people come up to me at Pembergly, do every year, and say how great everything runs, and it's due a lot to the people behind the scenes that don't generally get any credit for doing the work, like the techs.
    11:10
    I mean, it doesn't run the way it does without them. And I believe after you're done with the staging, the games are just kind of taken. And I believe they're still on the legs, right, when they're loaded?
    11:22
    Yeah, we move them on the legs. Some games get the heads put down depending on what the game is, like a Banzai run where it has a super heavy head. We don't want to topple over in the truck. So we put the heads down on those. And generally, some of the admin stuff comes over to the convention center first, but the first games that actually arrive at the convention center are all the Pinbird games because they take the longest to set up. Obviously, you have to go through and level everything and play test it. In the past, that's taken us about two days to get everything there, and then usually late Wednesday we'll be there finalizing the setups on everything. I'm curious, when you bring it all in, is it like a – I know you have a moving company, does it? Are they the ones that actually bring them all in, or do, like, the convention center employees have to do it because of union things or something? Exactly. Our convention center in Pittsburgh that we use, the David O. Lawrence Convention Center, is a union shop. So what happens is the moving guys load up the trucks at Papa. they bring them to the dock and then the union people bring them over to wherever we need them to go and drop them in place and then repeat that, you know, 800 times. And don't move the chairs. They've become more flexible on the chairs over the last few years, though. So, yeah, oh my God. So we have not seen a list of the games yet. Tonight I will probably, tonight being the 17th of July, I will probably be filtering our internal information out of our game list and possibly publishing it tonight or tomorrow. Ooh, so we get a juicy nugget that no one's going to hear until Thursday. Damn.
    13:01
    Damn it. No, but that's cool. Good. Because the next episode we're going to have two guests on talking over some of the groups. Yeah, so 328 games, Bruce. That's going to be a long episode. Yeah. I got time. I got time? No. They have a lot of time. That's a lot of time. Jesus. But we will have a top 15 player and a top 50 player helping us go through this list. So people out there, you can figure it out. Are they a secret? No, they've been on before. They've been on before. It's Steve. It's Steve Bowden and it's Tim Sexton. We call them our regulars. Part of the Slam crew. Steve's been on twice and Tim's been on five times. So, yeah. They're both awesome. Yes, yes, very good assets in the community.
    13:49
    So we know you do your normal Papa duties both shows, and you also have your own pinball hobby route. Tell us a little bit about that. So probably about five or six years ago, me and a friend of mine, Justin Brooks, who's also involved with the Kickback Venture, He came to me because there was not a lot of games on the south side, which is where our league was playing then in Pittsburgh. And it became an issue because, you know, we had a league that was about 40 or 50 people, and we were meeting in a place that had two games. So it became an issue, and it was hampering the size and the ability for our league to grow. And there's a gentleman down there by the name of Steve Zumoff, who was a big part of Papa in the early days and still a big supporter of pinball. He came to us and he wanted some games in his locations down there. So because I live about an hour outside of the city, Justin lives a lot closer. He said, hey, let's get together and let's do this. You have the games. You know, I can help fix them. So we put a few games on the south side, and at this point I think we're up to about 30 games on location throughout the city. we're at a point where we either have to hire somebody to help us out or stop taking locations, which I guess is a good place to be.
    15:13
    For, like, for replay, for example, like, there's a bowling alley that we usually have about a dozen games at, but when replay rolls around, we pull all the games because they're dead in the summertime anyway, so I have an agreement with the owner there that we pull the games and we place them, you know, We take them down to replay, and then we bring them a whole new lineup after replay's over. Oh, that's cool. It goes up and down just depending on what time of year it is. That's really cool.
    15:40
    Now, you don't play in either Pinnberg or Papa. No. Tournament directors are not permitted to play. Yes. So what's your favorite tournament that you actually like to play in? Besides, of course, the league that you're in, the pinball. Unless maybe that is your most favorite. I do love to play in the league when I have time because that's more of a social thing. It's not super hyper-competitive. We have a lot of really good players in Pittsburgh.
    16:07
    I haven't traveled and played in a tournament. I think the last tournament I traveled and actually played in was the Buffalo Open last year. Yes, yes, you did. Just because with all the stuff that I'm involved with with replay and the route and my regular daily job, There's not a lot of free time, and I don't have many vacation days outside of Papa and Replay to use. So I don't get as much of an opportunity to travel and play in other events as I would like to. Are you going to Buffalo this year, or are you going to... The plan is to go to Buffalo currently. Right after Replay, I'm going to see if we can muster together some troops to bring up there and invade Buffalo to see if Pittsburgh can bring all the money back to Pittsburgh. Ooh.
    16:51
    As an upstater, I don't like that. No, Kevin and Nick run a great event up there. It was a lot of fun last year. We had a really good time. Me and John Rapogo actually snuck away and took the Papa Belt to Niagara Falls and took some interesting pictures up there with it. Nick, I've actually known Nick for a while. I think one of the first tournaments he ever competed in was like eight years ago. He came down to Pittsburgh for the Pittsburgh Pinball Open. And I remember, I think he won B Division in that event, actually.
    17:23
    But that's a different podcast. Yeah, I'll have to make my games a little harder for those Pittsburgh guys then, since I'm bringing two. I'm bringing two classics this year, so. You going to give up what they are? Nope. Okay.
    17:37
    But last year I did bring the Paragon, and I did bring Blackjack, so. Paragon's a perennial tournament favorite. Yeah, this year, the ones I'm bringing, you don't see in tournaments. so it's even better. Not in Pinburg?
    17:52
    No, you won't see one in Pinburg. Maybe you will see one of the two. We got some new games this year. Oh!
    17:59
    There's some stuff in there. Okay, I'm going to then leak out one. I'm going to leak out one so I want to see Doug's opinion.
    18:07
    Hot dogging. Nice. I like it. We don't have that game. I would love to get a hold of one of those. Yeah, I got a brand new NOS playfield of mine. Cleared. Oh man, where'd you even find that? Funny story, I bought the machine two years ago at Allentown from one of the vendors I know there for a long time.
    18:26
    Twenty minutes later, another guy comes up to me and he goes, hey, I heard you bought the hot dog and the playfield was wasted. I said, yeah, you know, I'm just going to see what I can do with it. He goes, you want an NOS playfield for it? Like, okay, where is it? He goes, oh, it's home. He goes, it's home. I'm like, oh, well. He goes, but I can have my wife bring it up here in an hour, hour and a half. Okay, how much do you want for it? $150.
    18:49
    Okay. Sold. An hour and a half later, it was in my booth. He goes, come pay me a little later on. I pay him. Here you go. Here's the money. Best $150 I ever spent. That's fantastic. I know. So it looks great. It plays fast. It plays nice and nasty, which is good.
    19:08
    I'd love to see those oddball games and tournaments. That's exactly why. Just because, you know, it's funny. Like last year for Papa 20, we kind of changed up how we did the games, which created a little bit of consternation for some people. We put more classic games in the banks. The banks were bigger, but we put some more classic games in there because it was something that had been requested for years, and we just hadn't done it, and we decided to move forward with it. And I received a lot of not nice mail about it. I won't call it hate mail, but, you know, as IFPA and Papa are fond to say, you know, we do our best to try and destroy pinball as much as possible every day. So there were quite a few people that were insisting on the fact that we were ruining pinball by putting classics machines into the actual main banks. and were like, no, I think it'll work out. I think we'll be okay. And a few of those people by the end of Papa 20 had come up to me and actually apologized for things they had said online about the decisions to do that. They're like, actually, this was a lot of fun, and you guys had enough modern games that we could play just moderns if we wanted to, and the classic games added another element to it. So I love to see stuff like that. we love it when we can create kind of like a cult classic game. For example, last year in Pinbird Finals, we used Doodlebug. Dang. I wasn't even aware of the existence of two years before that, but someone in our league had one, and I said, we have to get one of those games because it's amazing. And after it was in finals, everyone came up to me and was like, oh, that's such an awesome game, and then all of a sudden online on all the forums you see people looking to buy Doodlebug. so it's kind of neat that every once in a while there can be like the Papa effect where you put a game in a finals and everybody wants it. I call it like the Alien Star effect. Super Orbit. That was another one. The greatest game of Super Orbit ever played. Every year we'll go around Papa before like our big events and we'll play games that we don't normally play to try and figure out, is this a fun game? Will people like this game if we like stick it in a finals? And we've got a couple of options for Pembroke this year. I think we might create a new classic possibly this year. Nice. I would like to thank you, though, for all the classics at Papa. That's probably the only reason I qualify. So I'd like to thank you for them being in there. I thought it created an interesting mix. And like I said, it was something that people had been requesting for years, and we've just kind of avoided it because, you know, we had all these, you know, we've got classics bags just full of classics. Why would we put them in the main? But I forget who it was, but we were sitting around talking about it, and someone said, you know, it's not the pinball world championships of modern games. And that just kind of, like, we all went, hey, right. We'll put whatever we want in there. Yeah, I agree. Put classics games in all the banks, and a lot of people really liked it. Yeah, because it has changed quite a bit, because I remember years ago, you would have, like, the classic. You'd have, like, B Division would have all these new games and a Paragon. Right That's how it was done back then But we tried it We split it up this year We kind of did the bags half and half There was always enough games where you could play All moderns if you wanted to And there was enough games you could play all classics if you wanted to But most people's tickets Their qualifying scores Had a mixture Yeah I tell you I was so sad when Heavy Metal Meltdown Broke down It broke down after The finals were over But I wanted to play some more That's a fantastic game. Yeah. It's bad and good at the same time. Oh, it's one of those so bad it's good games. Yep. It was one of my, I think, game I liked and hated at the same time. That's a game you'll frequently, every once in a while, you know, just some game will become, like, the thing we do when we're at Papa. Like, we'll be working, and we'll leave a game on, and we'll go, hey, let's go play a game of Heavy Metal Meltdown. And once we got that and we got it working, just, like, the cheesy sounds and stuff, Like, we would turn that thing all the way up. You would hear it echoing throughout the building. We'd be playing games on it. It's a fantastic game. Really underrated.
    23:40
    Now, don't forget, when you go to a pop-up or a pinberg, some games are modified. Do we agree on that one? Like, extra rubbers, wide rubbers for some? I don't know what you're talking about.
    23:54
    Yeah, okay. You have to hit the box. Yeah, just out of the box. So mousing around, ramp never works from the box, right? We bought that from a guy in New York, and that's how it came to us. I don't know what's going on.
    24:11
    It's so different than all those progressive jackpot games that at Papa's somehow don't have progressive jackpots. Yeah, I wonder how that happened. It's amazing. I don't know how that happens. Well, when you're using 300-plus games in a tournament, they're not – I will be the first to admit they're all not perfect tournament games. That's feedback we receive every year is that, like, oh, I got, you know, I didn't win that game because there was a progressive jackpot or whatever that built up. And we try and minimize the impact of that stuff as much as possible. But, I mean, one of the allures of Pinnberg is all these games. Like, there's 300-and-some games, and most of them are unique. Most of them are not duplicated elsewhere in the tournament. There's a couple duplicates, but usually by the end of the tournament, There's a few more duplicates because some of the games have given up. But for the most part, they're all unique when you look at that initial game list.
    25:07
    And in order to do that, you know, sometimes you have to use games where there's lock stealing or where there might be a feature that isn't quite exactly perfectly fair for everybody. But I kind of like that aspect because, I mean, like most people that are into pinball nowadays, I think, although there's a lot younger crowd coming in, And that's how I played. Like you pulled somebody and you sat there and you went to the arcade or you went to the corner store or whatever and you sat there and you played you know you played games with lock stealing because they had lock stealing and that was part of the fun of the game Oh, you lock those two balls, then you drain, I'm taking your locks. You know, that's part of the risk-reward of it. Yeah, that was a major change from, I remember the first year of Pinberg. The lock stealing games, they had them as, like, play one player at a time on there, and I remember that changed the next year. yeah that was um I'm not sure if that was the first year or second year but at one point we did have all those games play single player and then the feedback we got was that you know I joined this giant match play tournament because I want to play head to head against people not because I want to play endless single player games so we thought the benefits of playing it multiplayer and having that little bit of extra strategy in there outweighed the let's have everyone play single player and then we're all playing the exact same game Yeah. No, I like the lock ceiling for System 11s especially, you know. That's part of the allure of System 11. Yeah, we try and turn on virtual locks where we can, but they're just games you can't do it. Quick question. So what are some of the newer games? Are you going to have, like, Aerosmith? Is that going to be there? Maybe Star Wars? Is that going to be there? Or is that not really totally tournament ready yet? Both of those games are going to be in the tournament. I'm actually glad you brought that up. I'd like to give a shout-out to both Stern Pinball and Jersey Jack Pinball and Trent at Tilt Amusements. They've enabled us to get a copy of all of those games and dialed in so that we can use them in Pinberg. Without them loaning us games, we would not have them in Pinberg, so it's very nice of them to give us a game. And we usually have to get the games at least a week or two out so we can play through it and test it and everything. and both of those companies and Trent and getting us those games have been great. And we, you know, I can't thank them enough because people love to come and play the new games in the tournaments and it's interesting to see in a competitive environment what people know about the games and what they don't know about the games. And is it going to be the Star Wars? Is it going to be a pro?
    27:47
    Yes. Okay. That's totally fine by me. Fun game. Really fun game. Yeah, Bruce is liking it. He likes the speed. Yeah. It's pretty faster.
    27:57
    The kind of metagame you have with hitting that button and moving the multiplier around is just like, when you see people who are really into it and really understand the rules, it is quite entertaining to watch someone play that game.
    28:11
    Way over my head. Bruce just likes the flashing lights. I like pretty flashing lights and super stuff. Yep, I'm in that boat. I don't care. I was confused instantly. I saw some of those multipliers and just some of the bonuses that it's like, okay, I'm lost. I have no idea what's going on. It's great, and a lot of credit to Stern because recently they've, I mean, I think they've been hitting it out of the park with some of their new rule sets. And games are coming out. I remember, you know, not even two or three years ago, the whole debate about Stern putting out all these incomplete games, and now they're putting out games that are good right out of the box. and so lots of credit to them for turning that around so we have a little fun thing at the Slamtail Podcast we go game you like, game you hate and when I asked Doug for a game you like, game you hate, he goes I can't hate a game, and I brought up one I thought he could hate but we'll see if he's changed his mind now so we each pick a game we like and we each pick a game we hate now Doug, would you like to go first or would you like us to go first, and we'll show you the ropes.
    29:23
    It's your show, so take the lead. Okay. Ron, it's your show. Take the lead. Alright. Game I like. I'm going to pick another Sonic. Mars Trek.
    29:34
    Good game. And why do you like it? I just like those Sonic games. I do. I do too. They're very unique in their layouts. It's not just the same old stuff. Plus, they all use old Williams parts, so that's always a good thing. And their play fields are always in good shape. Just the cabinets suck.
    29:54
    Game I hate. Now this one is, I think I had this as a game I liked before, but after playing it at Pintastic, I just it kind of wore on me. And you'll like this one, Bruce.
    30:06
    Scorpion. Yes! But Algar still sucks, Bruce, sorry. Oh, Algar is better. Which one was worse, Scorpion or Algar? And Bruce likes Algar. I like Algar. Yeah, Bruce is high. The funny thing about Algar, we used it in, I can't remember if it was the Pop or Pinberg finals, a few years ago at the Pop HQ, and it was one of Mark's selections. Mark was like, ah, we need to put this in. So I think it was in Pinberg, and we used it, and I didn't know the rules to the game, to be honest with you. And after the tournament, Mark's like, all those people kept picking the bank with Algar in it, and nobody played it right. That's kind of amusing.
    30:51
    That is kind of amusing, definitely. But I love Algar. I think it's a fun game. So how do you play it right, Bruce? Spinner, spinner, spinner. You ignore that freaking right-hand side. The right-hand side is the side of death. Don't hit the captive balls. Never. Ignore them. So it's a one-shot game, but it's great? Is that what you're telling me? It is. Because when you get those multipliers up and you get the spinner going, you can't deny a spinner. And that incredible art. I don't care about art because, you know, scorpions isn't bad. No, the scorpion looks better. Come on. No, it doesn't. You can't look at that, whatever that thing is on the back. It's Lion Man early. Yeah, it's early Lion Man. It's Lion Man early. You can't look at that thing and tell me it's better than scorpion. Sorry. Oh, God. A big Loch Ness monster coming out of the ocean? That's better than a Lion Man. Sorry. Lion Man. Nope, you'll never hear that from me. Lion Man rules. I never thought about that. Why does a game called Scorpion have, like, some sea monster on it? Thank you. Should it have a scorpion on it? Thank you.
    31:53
    It's like a Japanese monster thing, somehow. Aye, aye, aye. Okay, so for me, I'm picking two games from Ron's collection that we had to play this weekend in his tournament.
    32:05
    Game I did well at and I like, Flash. Had a fun time with his Flash, enjoyed it very much. Game I hate at his house. World Cup soccer.
    32:18
    Ron's was set up brutal. No, brutal. He had that soccer ball on hard, so it was spinning the opposite way, so it was beating it all the way down to your flippers. But the good thing about Ron's is you can heat the ramp easily. His flippers are nice and strong, so that was a nice part of it. But that soccer ball just kicks you in the nuts once in a while. Hold on. What? Is that an actual setting for the soccer ball? Yes. I don't recall that in the software anywhere. All I did was make multi-ball hard so it doesn't spot you. It spins it the other way. I don't think so. Yes, it does. What do you think, Doug? I thought it spun it back towards you, and then when you got into the World Cup final, it spun the other way. I honestly don't know, but if there's a way I can make it harder, I'm going to go do that.
    33:07
    Steve Bowden said that, too. And I just don't recall changing anything in the studies to make the soccer ball spin a different way. Maybe your motor's just wired backwards.
    33:18
    Actually, it does spin both ways, like in the diagnostics. Yeah, so it spun it down. Every time that ball, like normally the ball would hit up and maybe go up into the goal once in a while. Nope, it was spinning as fast as it could downward, just like it was like a rocket ship sometimes. Okay, Bruce, how many World Cup soccers have you owned? No, three. Yeah. So how is this on your list? Because I sold them real fast, too. Didn't you own two of them at once? I owned three at once. That's pretty weird, Bruce. Yes, it was. It was a package deal. That's always the game I pull out when people ask about how much theme means, because I always tell them I love that game. I love World Cup Soccer. It's a great theme integration. I could give a crap less about the theme, but it's just such a fun game to play, and they integrated everything so well with that. It's one of my favorite games. Exactly. You tell them. See, Bruce, you're wrong. It's the best Papadook. Let's just go there. It's fair. Bruce only hates your game, so. Yes, exactly. That's true. Ah, boo.
    34:25
    It's the best Papadook. Let's just go there. Well, here's a question I'll ask of Doug here. I remember one time there were tons of duplicates at Papa. They had like nine No Fears and like seven World Cup Soccers. Yep. And I noticed there's been a lot of weeding out of that through the years. So when Mark took over, we sold a lot of the duplicates to expand the collection with other things. Like there didn't used to be any like Gottlieb solid state games at all in that building. Like there were very, very few. You had Haunted House. You had Two Black Holes. and very few, and now we have a bunch of those. And that may be an upgrade. It may not be, depending on your point of view, but we sold off a lot of the games we had more than three of just so that we could expand the collection and make it more varied so that when you come in, you know, while it was an impressive sight to see nine World Cup soccers there,
    35:28
    we probably really didn't need nine World Cup soccers. Yeah, no. And there was that many no-fears, too. It was weird. There was a ton of no-fears. There was a ton of Twilight Zones. So wait a minute. So there was a time when they hardly had any godly solid states? Bruce would call that the golden years. That was the golden years.
    35:46
    Well, once again, we've followed the correct path to ruin pinball. Yes. Ruining pinball for years. Okay.
    35:54
    One step at a time. It's taking a really long time. I just want to point that out. So can you tell us what you've gotten this year, possibly? You know, could you basically say, like, what's been new down the pipe that we haven't seen ever, Papa?
    36:10
    Or is that going to give away one of the bags? The most recent game we picked up was a spot pool. Oh, cool. EM. Yep. What else? We picked up a hee-haw.
    36:22
    Cool. Try not to give anything away. No, no, no. I'm going to wait until I release the list, and then everyone can yell at me. Oh, that doesn't bother me. I just like to see something different. That's the good thing. I want to see something different. I want to see new stuff. There are going to be games you have not seen used in the competitive environment before. Cool. Ooh. Nice.
    36:43
    As long as it's not like Viper or something. No comment. Yeah. Ooh. Uh-oh. Or you could say Iron Maiden's going to be in, and everyone will think it'll be the old Stern Iron Maiden. It'll actually be the new one. See, that'll be the ultimate surprise.
    36:56
    I wish we had a Stern Iron Maiden. I don't know. It's one of the games I've been looking for to add to the collection. but they tend to be pricey when you can find them. It's not that good, trust me. It's not a great game. It looks great. It looks fantastic, but it doesn't play that good. We did get a Popeye recently, too. Popeye, all right. Williams Popeye. Actually, if I can't get these games, I can tell Doug the games I want, and he can probably get them. You need a Dragonfish? The only game that we don't have from the Williams DMD era actually right now is Gilligan's Island. That's not a problem.
    37:38
    That's not a problem. That game is terrible. I've been trying to find one, but it's tough, especially when people know you're looking for Papa. They think we have, like, billions of dollars. So they're like, oh, I got a Gilligan's, $4,000. And you're like, yeah, I'm not that interested in one. Pass. Yeah. I'll wait until we. If you just get it for the board set. No, you get your part out. Get the part out. Use the parts for other good games. I just want to get it so I can say we have the whole set. That would be kind of cool. That would be cool. But, yes, you need a Dragon Fist. You need a Stargazer. You've got to get those games in there. And a Cheetah. They have a Cheetah, don't they? Yeah, they have a Cheetah. We do have a Cheetah, yep. One of only two I've ever played is one of Papa's. The Tim Timberg. Excellent. That's the plate there. Excellent. Let's put it over here. So, Doug, game you like, game you hate. So, game I dislike, because hate's a strong word. Boy. Currently, boy.
    38:40
    Currently, it's Black Belt, because that's been giving us some tech issues, and that makes me sad, because I actually like playing that game a lot. I don't know if either of you guys have ever played it. Is it for Fallon? It's got the cool reverse ramp shot at the top, where you can shoot it up the ramp kind of backwards. If you can do that, if it's powerful enough to get up the ramp on those mid-80s Ballys. Well, ours is when it works. But as of last week, it wasn't fully up to spec. The techs tell me it's in good shape now, so it will be in Pinberg, and then we'll see how long it holds out. It holds out. But usually, the more I thought about that question, the game that I dislike at any given time is the one that's causing me grief in a tournament. There you go. That's a good answer. It could even be a game that I actually like, but at any given moment, I'm like, ah, screw that game. I call that the Gary Stern response. Like, Gary, what's your favorite game? Whichever one we're making. Whichever one's on the line. Which now they always have like 15 games on the line. Yeah. If you ask Gary that question now, will his head like explode? That's interesting, yeah, because they used to only have one. Now they make so many damn games. What would he say?
    39:58
    Next time you see him, ask him that question. I'll ask him that question. Game I love, this will be no surprise to anybody that knows me, but it's Target Pull. Gottlieb game, single-player wedgehead, probably the greatest game ever made.
    40:13
    And I don't say that with any type of joking. I would play that game. That would be my desert island game. Very simple. It incorporates so many skills as far as nudging and accuracy with your shots. It's brutally hard.
    40:33
    You will not play that game for a super long time, which means it's one I can go to, you know, like I said, we'll be in the middle of working on something with Papa, and I can walk by Target Pool and play a game on that and be done in three minutes. I just recently got one. Actually, John Rapogle went on a warehouse raid somewhere, and him and a bunch of other people tripped in, and they purchased me my very own target pool because they know how much I love that game. And I am hopefully going to be restoring it soon, and then I will have my very own target pool to love. I would like to thank you for having that in B Division. Yes. I think I was top three in that game. That might have been my highest scoring game or whatever. Here's the bad thing. So, like, I started really enjoying Target Pool when I started working at Pop-Up, because, like I said, I used to play it. I played against Bowen when he was in town. And it was one of the games that we initially, when we would take games to shows, we would always take Target Pool, because we got to pick the games. And if I'm picking the game, I'm picking that, because it's awesome. So we would drag it around everywhere. And then the cabinet kind of started to fall apart from pulling it in and out of vehicles. So now, unfortunately, TargetPool does not travel to events anymore unless it's just to replay. So, sadly, we can't bring it to any tournaments we go to. One of the few two-flipper games, two-inch flipper games, I've seen actually as in-lanes. Yeah, it does. That's what stands out to me. There ain't that many of those. Like standard, basically a standard in-lane, out-lane setup with too much flippers. yeah I mean even with the two inch flippers that game you know values accuracy with your shooting above everything because generally you don't want to hit those targets in the middle but you know one of them is lit for 500 points well when you're close to your opponent's score you might want to roll the bones and take a shot at those and see what happens such a great game it is a good game that's why it's always in Seems like that one's almost always in the finals for one of these banks.
    42:42
    Yeah, because I get to pick the games. Yeah. There you go. You heard it here. That's why it's there, folks. Collusion. It's all collusion. I don't get to play it in finals. No, no.
    42:56
    Classic. I love it. It's fantastic. It's such a great game. Well, actually, speaking of ruining pinball, Well, why don't you tell us about your guys' end of the whole new Stern circuit? Because you had the Papa Pro Circuit, and now it's going to be the Stern Pro Circuit. And everyone was like, oh, my God, this is what is it? And then Papa was like, oh, no, we're on board with this. Yeah, yeah. Initially, the feedback was, oh, my God, I can't believe IFPA is like, and Stern is stepping all over your thing. And we're like, no, no, no, we're like part of this. Yeah. Yeah, so Josh basically came to us and said that he had pitched the idea to Stern and said, hey, let's, you know, these guys have done all the legwork. You know, they've spent the money to build it up. They've gone and, you know, built the audience. They've built the people that follow it. They've built the people that will go travel to it. Let's, you know, it's an easy win to bring them in and basically just pick up where our circuit's going to leave off. So, you know, and I agree with Josh 100%. The reason to do it is you get Stern's name on it, and you hope that attracts other sponsorship. Getting sponsorship in pinball is extremely difficult. One of the things we did with the pinberg when we took it to the convention center and 700 people, it's a $100,000 prize pool, which, granted, with some of the esports, that pales in comparison to what some of those Dota tournaments and stuff have for them, but we're also a lot smaller audience. But one of the reasons we did such a huge prize pool is we wanted to get attention. Based on the stuff that we've done in the past, I can tell you large prize pools don't necessarily guarantee media attention.
    44:38
    Titles do, but not large prize pools. So the idea is that we brought Stern on board. They're going to help us promote it. It's a big name. And then they can go out and maybe recruit sponsorship for this. And we'll be able to grow it beyond, you know. So pinball is entirely player funded for the most part. All the prize pools are basically built out of, you know, show funds when you go to a show or the entry fees that you pay. And there's nothing wrong with that. But it would be nice if, you know, we could charge less for pinball, for example, and let more people into it and have a big entity come in and fully sponsor our prize pool. And the same goes for stuff like, you know, the Papa World Championships. We would have someone come in and sponsor our prize pool for that. And we think lining all these tournaments up and kind of putting the Stern name forefront, because you'll notice on the logo there's no IFPA logo, there's no Papa logo, it's just Stern. We're hoping to draw attention to it through that. and basically grow the sport of pinball and grow the awareness of pinball through advertising by drawing in big advertisers to help us spread the word. Excellent. Excellent as is. Continuing to ruin pinball. Yes, one day at a time. One day at a time. You wouldn't believe how much work it is, too. I mean, you would think you could ruin it without lifting a finger. I've been doing this for 10 years and still have not succeeded.
    46:16
    Wow. It just keeps getting bigger. I don't understand. So we got replay effects coming up. Pinberg, biggest tournament in the universe. We still have this stage, right? The stage is going to return. The stage is returning. It is a new stage. What's interesting is right after the show last year when we were doing the loadout, we were talking to me and Mark. We're standing there talking to our representative from the convention center. and we're like, yeah, you know, we like the stage, we like the presentation, because it draws people over. It's a big focal point for the pinball area. But, like, the stage wasn't the best.
    46:58
    It was, you know, when you walked on it, it moved a little bit. A little bit, yes. It moved a little bit. And if Todd McCulloch was next to you, it moved a lot.
    47:10
    So they, and she took us next door. So there's a bunch of halls there, and we have two of the three halls. We don't use the smallest hall. And there was a stage set up over there, and she's like, what if you guys use this one? This is the one they do gymnastics competitions on. And there's, like, this heavy-duty stage that, like, doesn't move at all. And we're like, why didn't we get this one? And she's like, well, we really didn't understand your needs. So this year, stage is returned, but it's going to be their best stage. So hopefully there won't be any issues with people feeling uncomfortable playing on the stage. Based on my experience last year, the stage did not cost anybody to tilt. The stage did not cost anybody to lose a ball. People just didn't like the vibration that was caused when people were walking around on the stage. However, it looked fantastic. It did. But the stage will be returning this year. Are we going to have bigger TV screens, I hope? Not necessarily bigger, but here's something I noticed last year, was that the screens were all dedicated to whatever game. So if they were on a game, say, all the way on the left side of the stage, you had to look at the TV all the way on the left side. Right. So we looked into getting a better AV setup, like a more professional one, you know, like you would see at, like, an outdoor sporting event or something like that. But it was extremely cost prohibitive, in the tune of, like, you know, tens of thousands of dollars to get something set up, which, you know, we're not quite there yet. so in lieu of doing that one of the things we're doing this year is we're actually going to space TVs throughout the seating area so for the finals like when we're streaming the TVs will be showing the feed from the stream perfect it's not quite where we want to be we'll eventually get to the point where we're going to have hopefully a 30 foot screen above the stage that everybody can watch but once we hit a thousand players we'll try and go for that No, it was just hard to see when you were, you know, you're like, and then you're trying to use your own Wi-Fi on your own phone. Oh, yeah, so much on your phone when you're sitting right in front of it, which is funny. Yeah, the problem is the stage is 24 feet deep. The TVs are back at the stage, so the first row of seats were, like, 35 feet from the TV, which even when you're using a 55-inch TV, sitting 35 feet from it isn't the best place to sit. Yeah, totally agree. So any other new enhancements, or is it going to be a secret?
    49:38
    We changed the layout a little bit. We think it will be a little bit easier to navigate. We moved, like, the little player lounge area. There's one behind the stage, but there's also one in front of the stage now because we just had chairs lined up before, but there will be tables. More chairs than there were last year, a couple more couches than there were last year. But we were pretty happy with how the layout worked last year. so it's not going to change all that much. It'll be pretty familiar when you walk in. Right. Cool. Well, I look forward to seeing you in one week and a half. I look forward to seeing everybody. There's nothing better. One of my favorite moments of replay last year was because we had gotten the stage, and we gathered everybody in front of the stage for the announcements, and just to look out and see, like, that sea of 600-plus people there listening to the announcements, that was just, it was really, really a sight to see. And we're really thankful that, you know, the pinball players support us. I mean, because when you think about, you know, people say, oh, your end of running an event that big is difficult in logistics. I am thankful that the people come out and play in the tournament because for a lot of the people, I mean, when you're talking about a tournament that's 800 people in size and will definitely have over 700 for sure, people take their vacations. People spend a lot of money to come to this event you know to come to Pittsburgh on a weekend in July And you know there a lot of places you could spend your entertainment dollar And it you know I very flattered that people choose to come out to our event and play in, you know, play in our event and that we can put on something that's very entertaining for everybody and they feel that it's a good value.
    51:25
    That's what we like to hear. Definitely. That was kick-ass, actually. If we had anything else to say to the listeners, and I missed my cue. That should have been it right there. Appreciate it when people come out to our events. We definitely don't take it lightly. One of the lessons I learned early on when we were, we had initial discussions about running a big show, like bigger than what we'd done before, because there's a lot of ways you can screw that up, trust me. We were talking about it, and I was talking to somebody who,
    52:00
    I forget which state it was, but we were at a show, and this gentleman just happened to be there at the bar, and he was in charge of, like, the state fair for some state, and they get, like, a couple million people into the state fair. And so I was just kind of picking his brain, like, general, like, the scale of what we're doing and what they're doing, completely different, but there's probably some lessons to be learned there. And one of the things he said, and it's absolutely true, and it's something that's overlooked a lot, is that you've got to remember, in order for people to have a good time at your event, their good or bad time starts when they get to your city. So if you're flying, when they get off the plane, they judge you based on everything at that point. So, you know, if they had a crappy car ride to their hotel, you might get judged for that. So it really, and while a lot of that stuff is out of your control, it does provide a different perspective. A lot of people get really focused on, okay, I got to make sure that this tournament is an awesome tournament, and I'm going to go over the game 100 times, and everything's going to be laid out, and it's going to be perfect. But sometimes you forget about the little things. And that's one of the reasons that we moved the convention center in Pittsburgh, not just for the size of it, but it's an experience for people. They come into the city, and when you're staying at one of the hotels there, to be able to just walk out your door, and you walk down Penn Avenue, and there's 40 different restaurants you can pick from. As you guys know, when you come to the facility in Carnegie, you're in an industrial park. It is not the best location in the world. A lot of people eat the food that we have on site from one vendor, the Harris Grill, and they do a great job. But it's just one aspect. And there we don't have a lot of control over it because of where the building is situated. But when we were looking for places to hold replay, actually holding it in the city was one of our goals just because there's just so much more you can do. I mean, you're right across the street from the Pirates. If there's a Pirate game in, you can walk over there. There's tons of restaurants and bars, and there's just so much you can do in addition to the festival that I think it really makes it a great location. So come on, come all to ReplayFX.
    54:17
    Yeah, and even if you're not in Pinnberg, we also have what I believe is the third largest tournament in the world, the Intergalactic Championship, which is open to anybody. It used to be the Constellation Tournament. Not a Constellation Tournament anymore. Anybody can enter it. That runs on Saturday with finals on Sunday. So if you just want to come out and participate in something that's not quite as daunting as Pinberg and costs way less, then you're welcome to join us for that. The hard chorus of the hardcore. That's what I call that. and also there's a whole show going on with like 800 video games there's all kinds of stuff beyond pinball replay we have all kinds of stuff is the best way to put it it's the most eloquent phrase I could use so Doug we'd like to thank you for coming on thanks for inviting me no you're always welcome we've both known you for a long time so it was very nice when I asked you a couple weeks ago and you said yeah no problem We're just going to figure out when you made time for us, and we're very grateful. And you're always welcome on the Slam Tilt Podcast. I need to have more appearances than Tim Sexton. Oh, come on. There you go. Come on, anytime. You're more than welcome. He's done it for you, Tim.
    55:36
    More than that, I'm always amazed at how many podcasts Josh Sharp can appear on. He's been on ours twice. Every other podcast I listen to has Josh Sharp on it. I know. He's the voice of pinball. He is. Literally the voice of pinball.
    55:53
    Josh is great, and you really can't have a much better ambassador for competitive pinball than Josh. They do a great job with everything they do, and for all the flack they take for destroying pinball as well, I think the Whopper system, whether you care about it or don't care about it, I think it's undeniable that it encourages people to get out and play.
    56:16
    All right. I'd like to thank you, myself, Doug, for coming on the show. And I'd like to throw it out there, everybody, Replay FX is coming up. It's going to be, when does it officially start? Is it Thursday? It is Thursday. Runs through Sunday. You can come in, you can get a day pass. Thursday and Sundays are cheaper passes than the weekend passes. Also, it tends to be less people there, so we can move around the hall. It's quite different than probably what a lot of people have seen when they think of a pinball show in that we have more space, I think, than anybody else does. So there usually isn't the same kind of crowded atmosphere, because I've talked to some people that don't necessarily like going to some shows because it's, you know, you're elbow to elbow all the time. There's a lot of space in the convention center, and we try not to pack the games too close together. We really spread it out so that nobody gets that claustrophobic feel. So if that's one of the reasons that has kept you from experiencing a pinball or an arcade show, come out to replay. I think you'll be surprised. Do we have new – wait a second. I have one question. Do we have new Olympic games? I honestly don't know. Oh, my God. Coming back this year. I don't know.
    57:28
    My portion of the show is pinball. Yeah. And pinball is super focused and requires a lot of work from quite a few people. But, you know, one of the things I always talk about is I barely get to see the show when I'm there. And after the show, we'll get together and we'll talk about stuff at the show, and people will be like, hey, did you see so-and-so or this display or whatever? And I'm like, no, I didn't even know they were there. Did you know Billy Mitchell was there?
    57:58
    I don't know how you could miss him. Yeah, no, you can't. That's true. I thought I heard that the Olympic Games were there. You mean all the things with the weird modifications on them? Yes, yes. Those were awesome, and those guys helped in for us last year. I honestly don't know because generally the free-to-play area is handled by Mark, so I'm not super involved. I know we're going to have a bunch of Japanese rhythm games and import games this year that we didn't have last year, and a lot of those are a blast to play, and you just don't see them anywhere.
    58:31
    So as someone who's been to a ridiculous amount of different shows, I can say that there is more room at the ReplayFX show than any other show I've been to. By far. And don't you guys even have more rooms this year? We're using more of the space that we were last year. We kind of, we didn't use some of the meeting rooms and stuff. And I think this year we are. Because unfortunately, the seminar rooms are far away from the main hall. It's just the way the convention center is laid out. But I think this year Mark actually scheduled some of the seminars in the seminar rooms. and I fully expect for us to expand in the coming years. So coming soon, more replay. Nice. Like we said, death of pinball. It's imminent. Yes, you can tell.
    59:18
    Well, thank you, Doug, very much. Thank you very much. Thank you, guys. I appreciate the opportunity to come on your show.
    59:26
    News of the week. The news is there is none. Just a couple things. AFM Chicago Gaming put out a big picture with all these AFMs ready to ship. A ton of them. They're actually making games. They're actually making games, yes. And not asking for big deposits or prepay.
    59:49
    That's all I'm going to say on that. You're angering some of our listeners, Bruce. Oh, poor baby. They say you're not giving the vendors a chance. They're not vendors. They're supposed to pinball. Manufacturers. You're not giving him a chance. I mean, certain ones have had, I don't know, four years to make a game. Four years. Rock stars. Yeah, rock stars, being cool and everything like that. Yeah. But you're being mean. Very mean. That's me. You should apologize right now. Go scratch. Okay. So, other than that, Ron, you moved up in some rankings a little bit, some standings in the past couple weeks. I wonder how that happened. Well, as I said before, 43 people played and only one won. And as JT said, I thought Ron wasn't going to play. I wasn't going to play. I wasn't going to play, but Scott was getting on my case. There were other people getting on my case. And when I said I was going to play, everyone's telling me, good, you should play. Like, okay, so I guess I didn't piss anyone off. Nope. except for one person said there should be an investigation. There should be an investigation because who won, Bruce? Who was the winner? I don't want to brag, but it was me. You won? Yeah, do you believe this? No, I don't. Wait, who said, what were the finals two weeks ago? Who I said was going to win?
    61:19
    Who did you say was going to win? You. Oh, you did? Yeah. So, once again, your prediction was correct. I was the victor on my own games. But it bonded to a classy thing.
    61:35
    He won $225. He took $100 out of that $225 and split the rest of the money to $125 with the three other players in the four-bank group that he played against. So that was very classy. And, yes, the final four was it was me. Sanjay.
    61:56
    Sanjay, he wasn't on the prepay, right? No, he showed up. He just showed up. And he usually is a guy that shows up like 10 minutes after the tournament starts or is like always late. Him and JT are two known late people. He was early. He got there before he started. And it's like, Sanjay, what are you doing here? Yep. Howard Levine.
    62:17
    And our own Zach. So three out of the four were upstaters. Now, the funny thing is, I will say this. When my first, I made, I qualified, we took top 16 out of 43 people.
    62:32
    43 people? That's a lot of people, Bruce. How many prepaid did we have? 27, so 16 showed up at the door. Yeah, which was insane. It was insane.
    62:43
    We had 43 people show up, and 16 made it to the, if we got five more, we would have went to 24. So next time we need to get 48 at Ron's house. Oh, dear God. The playoffs would go on forever. There's only one more extra round. That's all. I made top 16. I qualified seventh. I finished 11th. But I got beaten by Ron Hallett and Sanjay, the two people who were in the top four. So I don't feel so bad. That's our very own Steve Bowden. Final bonus. He qualified. Yes, he did. Surprisingly, our own Tim Sexton. Tim balls. Did not qualify. No, there was a lot of great players who did not qualify. It was weird. It was very weird, actually. Very weird. I want to give a shout-out to Tim first. Tim streamed the whole event. He busted his ass. Busted his ass. Moving his video rate from game to game. He got a lot of followers. He got a lot of followers from that. And his Twitch channel is Tim Balls. Again, it's Tim Balls. Please check him out. him. And there was only, like a lot of times when he does these feats, depending on the internet connection, you may get disconnected a lot. So when you look in the archives, there'll be like ten different files for like the same tournament. For Stomp, there's only two. And that's only because I think someone walked by and pulled one of his cables out and killed his PC. And he had to fire it back up. So if you go to the archives for Stomp, which are online, you can actually see the whole tournament.
    64:16
    There's just two files. Very nice. So that, I couldn't believe, see, I'm obviously playing in it, so I don't see the screen. And what you see on the screen that we had up, because you could see these cameras, but you don't know what's actually playing out to the Internet, whether it looks that good or not. And I don't have the greatest upload speed in the world, but it streamed pretty much flawlessly. I was very surprised on how that worked. and I may have to consult with Tim about getting my own brig. There you go. Maybe I'll start streaming because I always thought of doing that, but I just did not think I had the bandwidth to be able to do that. But now you do. But now I do. So we had four top 50 players in that tournament. Yes, we did. We had 12 top 200 players. So I would like to thank everyone who came out. I thanked everyone, of course, on the Stomp page. and pictures from the tournament are all on the Stomp page, the Slam, Tilt, Oh My Pinball tournament page on Facebook. You check them out. We had a star side tournament that no one could beat the top score even of me. Yeah, there's a lot of takeaways from the tournament of things that we could improve upon. And I must say, that 400K was too high. No, it wasn't. It was too high. Wait a sec. Guess what the top score was in the tournament. Yeah, what was the top score in the tournament, Bruce? 196. Yeah, exactly. 196. And it wasn't like there wasn't a ton of entries in that. Almost $250 for the prize money. That's one. So it should have been lower. Should have been lower. Here's the funny thing. Big game. It had the million point challenge in there. Yep, for $20. For $20. Somebody got it in pre-qualifying, in pre-practice. Pre-practice? It's practice before you practice? Yep, practice before you practice. Pre-practice. I love that. So in pre-practice, someone got it, and it was like, I got it. And it's like, oh, it doesn't count. It's practice. Oh. Oh, it's like, oh. And we figured, like, since somebody got it, that definitely someone would get it during the tournament. It was fall, but it did not. It did not. No. So Ron kept $120 in his pocket also. Which I'm not happy about. I wanted to give that away. But we did give away, we had our two other challenges, which we had. The Quicksilver 1 million challenge and the Stargazer 1 million challenge. First game, Brian Estes. Flying Brian, he won. Well, he was playing against Eric Russell. They both got a million, but Brian got first. Brian got it first, yep. Eric was at $998. on his ball before Brian came back and got it. So he picked the... Glare Guard. He had a choice of Glare Guard or vodka. He picked the Glare Guard. And then Frank, the towel, even though it's retired, I'm still calling him the towel. The towel. Well, he got a million in Stargazer on ball two. And he took the vodka. Yes, he did. A lot of things I learned. turn the AC on at 6 o'clock in the morning at 6. It was too hot. Turn on the AC now. It's like, oh, it always stays cold down here. And usually Ron's does. Yeah, but not when you have 43 people and you have all the games on. No, it doesn't.
    67:54
    In the last tournament I had there, there was like 16 people and it was in January. So it really wasn't a problem.
    68:01
    But yeah, lesson learned there. so I mean it got better as obviously as fewer people when we got the final started but still it was way too hot thank you to your parents mom and dad they brought a shit load of food they did lots of sandwiches people ate them all they ate them all props to anyone who came out it was four states people from four different states Yes, and it was just so crazy. I was rethinking the whole playing in it once it started, and, like, every round something would go down or have an issue. But luckily it helped. Yeah. Some games did not make it. Some games, I guess, would help you, the repairs section. Yeah, we'll go over that. I'm still questioning some of them. Some questioning what? Whether they went down? No, no. Why they went down and why we couldn't figure it out. That's what always bothers me. It's okay. Let it go, Bruce. Let it go. Nope. Nope. We had some casualties, but overall, pretty much most of the stuff held up. It's funny. Some of the stuff you figured would definitely hold up has failed, and things like the Quicksilver, which we were tweaking and getting ready right up to the point of the tournament, was flawless. Never had a problem.
    69:22
    But it was a great tournament. 43 for Ron's really first tournament was incredible. and I got 32 Whopper points. Yes, you did. I'm looking at that. I don't want to shit when I saw that. Like, holy crap. All of a sudden, I'm like, I'm going to be an upstater. Yeah, I went from like 390-something to 270-something in my rank. I've got to make sure that doesn't get too high. And also, they posted the points from Pentastic, which I finished seventh. I got 24 points for that. So I'm getting entirely too many points here. I got to make sure we got to keep got to keep at least above 200. I got four points out of it for being 11, which is not bad. I thought I was thinking about three, so I did better.
    70:06
    But a good tournament overall. We had a we had a lot of fun, I think. Yes, we did. I could give like the old play by play and all that. But honestly, go to Tim Ball's channel. Watch it. It's all there. Watch it. It's actually more. It's a lot more entertaining with the announcing and everything that I could ever give. And you get to see me dance again. Oh, God. Yeah, you get to see Bruce dance. Yeah, that's always the best. Yes. Another thing I learned, Bruce, that cake thing you brought, you know, the thing that was the last thing to get eaten, don't bring that again. Well, no, it's the messiest thing when you give it to Levy. Yeah, well, it doesn't, not just him. When that stuff gets on the floor, it doesn't come off. I had to scrape it off. It's just tar. That's all it is. Yeah, yeah, it's like tar. Yeah, don't bring that again. And don't give Levy Jack Daniels in the booth. and don't buy a pizza for your group and then leave it unattended because Levy will figure it's just for him and take a piece. Yeah.
    71:02
    Or leave water in the refrigerator and be gone when you go get it. Oh, that happened? Oh, yes, it did. Yep, and we had, let's see, we had someone left their Ray-Bans, which I still don't know who it is. I posted it on the event page, and no one has answered yet. But Ron's father did give away a ton of T-shirts, hats. Hats.
    71:24
    Cozies. He wanted them all gone. He was pissed when they weren't all taken. But we have my tournament coming up soon, and there'll be more people there, so we can do that too. Yep.
    71:33
    So, repairs. Ha, ha, ha, ha. Dun, dun, dun. Dun. So, luckily, both of us were doing repairs the whole time we were in there. And we were into all three sterns within 15 minutes before the tournament started in the practice time. We were in Stargazer. The flipper stuck on the right flipper. It was too tight. Yes, binding flipper on Stargazer. Quicksilver was what? Oh, the ball wouldn't kick out. The ball wouldn't kick out. The ball wouldn't kick. No, that was on Cheetah. No, you don't have a Cheetah. No, not Cheetah. Jesus Christ, big game. No, it also didn't do it on that once.
    72:17
    Yeah, that's not really. It was a switch. I had to adjust the switch, and it went fine. Okay, so when I said Quicksilver didn't have a single issue, I was wrong, obviously. No, no, no. It was before the tournament. After that, it worked perfectly. Okay.
    72:29
    We had to switch display four from nine ball because it started flaking out when I was playing with it. That was the display that was kind of flaking out and then decided to start working. And I figured it would die, but I would just leave it there until it actually died, which it did. Which it did. And Sars had also a binding right flipper. Yep, same flipper on the same side. What else? We had firepower locked up hard. Yeah, with the... With the new, it had the Scott Special ROMs in it. Which Scott said it did not cause the problem. No, that did not cause the problem, and then he was able to duplicate it twice. I don't know if he figured out exactly what was causing it. Yeah, then he thought it was something with a bonus ladder, like you had to have something. But basically, it is not tournament ready currently, so he took it out because we didn't want it locking up on people. We had a fortunate flash, flash which has the co-op, you know, the just rock-style co-op boards in it for some reason. Stock ROMs. Yeah, Sock Roms in the middle of a game where Steve Bowden was coming back on his last fall. The entire thing just locked up. Splays went dead. Lights went off. Just died. Dead Jim. Yep. And then when you turn it off and turn it on, it came right back up like nothing happened. So. And then Spider-Man. That was, oh God. Spider-Man. Upper right flipper. Upper right flipper was sticking. Thought it was. Why was it sticking? Thought it was. No. Well, the thing is, I thought it was, I had like a aftermarket little spider web thing over it, which I thought it was catching on. So it turns out it was not catching on that. It was actually just, it was binding. It wasn't binding, but it was, there wasn't enough space. It was actually catching on the bracket underneath the play field, one of the brackets on the flipper plate. It was slightly catching on, which was, it took me a while to figure that out. So I just lowered it a little bit underneath, and then it was fine. But I got to experience the ridiculous stern single-coil, single-wound flipper bullshit where the coil is so frigging hot. It's ridiculous, and the plunger is just burning hot. It's a terrible design.
    74:54
    Do they still use that on their current system? Yep. They do? Yep. No wonder their flippers get weak after a while. It is just so hot. Sorry, head event there. So that was Spider-Man. And Metallica. Your rock-solid Metallica. Never failed ever. Never failed. The newest game down there.
    75:13
    You know, so you figure that one will be okay. Nope. First, the ball eject on the right, the mystery slash crank it up hole. First, what, the switch wasn't working. Then it started just kicking it out in all kinds of different directions, including down the middle. and then it started just like kicking it and it couldn't make it out. It would kick, you'd see the ball come half up and go down. And it would do it a bunch of times. So that got eliminated. I haven't looked at that one yet.
    75:43
    No fear. No fear, just fucking totally tanked. The watchdog kept on resetting. Yeah, it kept resetting.
    75:53
    And I put one of the carboards in there thinking it was the 5 volts. Nope. But, yeah, didn't you, the last time we turned it on, didn't it, like, it booted, but, like, none of the lights were in track mode or anything? No, it booted. It got to the testing 2.3X for the ROM and just stayed there. So that one is, um, that one's pretty awesome. I'd restate everything on it. I'd restate everything on that one. So, well, I haven't looked at any of these because when I was done with the tournament, the last thing I, I don't even want to go in the basement.
    76:24
    The cleanup took so long. I was like after I won the tournament this is the sickness of pinball people I win the tournament and you have we had like Steph was still there a lot of the slam crew was still there Steph was there Tim was there Steve was there you know Sanjay Sanjay was there and they just like oh tournament over time to play some pinball Like are you people crazy And they just playing more pinball. Yeah, and you too. It's like, what's wrong with you people? So while they're all playing, I'm like picking up crap.
    76:58
    So what else? Anything else, Guy? Uh, your next gen. Oh, next gen had its, and this happens every once in a while, it gets its deal where the Optos, like it doesn't know where the balls are and it goes into a ball search and it doesn't matter how many balls it kicks out back into the trough it will never end. You reboot it and then it's fine. It does that every once in a while. It's just the balls that never end and it goes on and on my friends. Yes.
    77:29
    Other than that I think that was it. Yeah and the Stars went off without a hitch the tournament Paul Bashi. He won that.
    77:41
    Paul was second. Tally was third. And Brian Estes was fourth. I think Paul is the one. He, when the New York City contingent arrived, for whatever reason, they arrived at the house next to mine. Yeah. Thinking it was my house. Even though my house, I had a, we had a stop poster up that was very visible from the road. Nope. They went right into, they walked right into Ron's neighbor's house. Right into my neighbor's house, just because he is, the kind of neighborhood I live in, people just have their doors unlocked because nothing happens. And they just walked in. They didn't run into anybody. They just walked right out like, oh, I don't think this is right.
    78:21
    Classic. Oh, that was classic. That was very good. Oh, that was so funny. It was great. It was a great time. Thank you again for. Yeah, that was a great time. There will be Stomp 2. Yes. Or Stomp West, I guess. Stomp West will be in, I'm thinking, probably December. Because everyone wants to go to Western New York during the winter. It'll be cool in my basement. That's for sure. It'll be cool, all right. So Bruce is going to have two tournaments in the fall. Because Bruce is insane.
    78:56
    My prices are insane. You are insane. You are absolutely insane. Thank you. I'm totally, I'm done. I will not play, I will probably not play another pinball machine until I am at ReplayFX. Wow. That's a shoot. I mean, I have no desire to play anything downstairs. None.
    79:19
    Oh my. Oh my. Yes, it was truly an oh my experience. Everyone signed George. I got to hoist the Jack Daniels Fire Hydrant. Only one other person has done that. That's Bruce. And actually, yeah, you should have signed it.
    79:36
    I could? You should have signed it like... I'll sign it next time. Yeah, I'll sign it next time. I think that's it for Stop.
    79:44
    It was a good time. Once again, thanks to everybody. And, yeah, we will have Stop West, and we will have another Stop next summer. Next summer. If anything, I might just try to do the same thing, have it the weekend after Pentastic. That seemed to work.
    79:58
    Yeah. Just make it a regular thing, man. Or maybe a couple weeks before so it's a little cooler. No, no. We'll just turn the air conditioning on sooner, Bruce.
    80:10
    And we can also institute after practice has gone and the tournament actually starts that the games that aren't being played turn off. Yeah. And when you're done, you're going to turn it off. Except for next gen. Except for next gen, yes. Never turn that off.
    80:22
    Paying me ass that game. So, it's time for... The Mail Ball Bag. got quite a number of items. Yeah, we got a ton of email this week. A ton of email this week.
    80:38
    Let's see. Oh, there's one thing I didn't mention. Because I think we pre-recorded this and then we didn't use it. Is, I got an email. Yes, you did. You got an email this week. It's appropriate I mention it now. I got an email actually just today from Poonball Star Amusements. So you know what that means. We've canceled your order, Ron Hallett, because you've made too much fun of this pinball machine. Thank you, and have a nice day. I've never made fun of that pinball machine, you liar.
    81:10
    Yes, it says, we do not have enough dialed-ins. Yours will not be ready until next year. We are sorry.
    81:17
    Actually, no. It says, congrats. Your dialed-in game is headed to production. We are told our next batch of games will be ready in August. payments are requested to be here by July 28th. I have dialed in LE number 550.
    81:37
    I see. I didn't even remember that. It's awesome. I can't wait. It's going to be great. Hey, Bruce, did you get your email? Nope.
    81:47
    I'll get more updates on mine and better light boards and everything else. Yep. Bruce will get the one with all like the extra protectors on it that aren't on the earlier models, all the fixes that were not on the earlier models, kind of like your ACDC. Yeah, you have the Cloudy Playfield. I have the Collector's Edition Cloudy Playfield. Yeah, that's got to be it. So, all right, going to the email ball bag. Yes, sir.
    82:13
    We have Rob Zombie Pinball is the subject from Bill. It says, hi, guys. Listening to episode 49 and your feelings on Rob Zombie. Not sure if you guys are aware or not, but a new code dropped, and it's a giant update. I think we mentioned it on the last one. We did on 50. Yes. Yeah, the new version came out, so now I can't say I hate it, and I'll have to play it again. It fixes many of the issues with the center ramp jackpot and also shows more scoring on the display. I agree that the old cold was blah. Now seeing the new code, or where this code is gone, is moving towards, has made this game very exciting.
    82:55
    Nah. Bruce hasn't even played it. He's, nah, screw you. I'm doing my best, Pinsider. Oh, yep, you're a Pinsider. Haven't played it, so it sucks. Yep. And then we got an email from Ryan C. Good job, you lads. Pinball princess.
    83:14
    Okay. Look, if Pinball Princess wants to know what I think of the Ghostbusters stream, I have two young kids. Once they go to sleep, I'll get to play pinball on the other side of the house. The coils can barely be heard. But if I pump the volume up too loud, it'll wake them up. So why does Dwight auto-adjust the volume to the loudest fucking setting in that mode when I have the volume turned way down? Does Dwight hate my kids? Does he want to cause marital issues between me and my wife? Think of the children, Dwight. Think of the bloody children.
    83:49
    So to answer the question. So to answer the question, I think it sucks. Even on location, I have seen people playing pinball get upset by it. I agree. We heard it a lot at Pentastic. You just hear this.
    84:03
    What do you guys think of Midnight Madness? I don't mind it, but I actually, when I had whodunit, I had the time set for a weird time. So I didn't know when Midnight Madness was going to hit. So one time it actually hit during a tournament. Oh, God. This seems to me another thing that Twight is trying to bring back for the 90s. I looked through the Star Wars ROM, and it's in there as well. Oh, boy. With the video mode, it is the 90s. It is the 90s. It said, do you make lots of friends with the Tim Tams? I like the Tim Tams. Tim Tams are good. They're gone. Well, they're gone now. Everyone ate them. Yeah, no, they were gone when I worked on them. And how is the Vegemite? I haven't tried it yet. I will. I promise. But he loves your LEDs. I love the LEDs.
    84:47
    Let's see. Next email. You do the next one. That's Ryan K. Ryan from Wisconsin. Yep. He goes, here's a link to a Craigslist ad that's been posted on and off for months here in Wisconsin. Such a unique custom coin door. And he's sending us a link to a Madison Craigslist ad. And I'm waiting for it. It's a Funhaus machine. Yep. 4,600. Of course it is. Yes, it is. With a wood front door with a credit button in the middle and a handle for the door and a lock. So it's almost like a vault door.
    85:25
    It looks like fucking ass. No, it is ass. It looks terrible. Absolutely terrible. So if you want to go to the Madison Craigslist and look up Funhouse, you can see this monstrosity. Pretty bad. Yeah.
    85:41
    But it says, if you want a new Coindor, they run around $175, and its price reflects that. So he's taking $175 off. A flaming piece of crap to make it a cheaper flaming piece of crap because of a bad Coindor. Yeah.
    85:56
    So the next one is Scott Charles, our own Scott C. He came to the tournament with his lovely girlfriend.
    86:04
    Where did Scott end up? I didn't even remember seeing. Oh, yeah. I don't know. I don't think he was in the playoffs. I don't think so. Oh, he wasn't in the playoffs. No, he wasn't. He wasn't. He didn't make the playoffs. But, you know, he's retired. Oh, yeah, he's retired. He is out of practice, so we really can't get on him. Scott Charles finished 26th. He was ahead of Levy.
    86:27
    He was ahead of Jason Plourd. Oh, and I should have mentioned this during the repair section, but I've got to give a shout-out to Scott, who figured out an issue that we've mentioned with my big game, where the top pop bumper just keeps firing for no apparent reason and the switch isn't gapped too close or anything like that.
    86:46
    And he looked at it and was like, yeah, I know what that is. It's like, what is it? It's the EMF coming off of the flippers. Like, what? It says when you have the flipper up, when you release the flipper button, the flippers go down, EMF comes off of that and goes through the air. And if you have a flaky capacitor on the switch for the pop-offer, it may fire.
    87:12
    I'm like, really? Huh? Sure enough, I started watching people playing it, and almost every other time someone, like when the flippers went down, fire the pop-offer. So there's one of two fixes for that. Yeah, either replace the capacitor with a new one or just cut it off. Yep. So, but, you know, I looked up this issue. I would have never found that. I would have never figured that out, ever.
    87:39
    It would have drove me nuts. So, Scott busted my balls and Ron's balls, as he will? I don't know if he's busting balls. I think he's commending us. The challenge. You two are the kings of adjusting to shitty show playing games. That's for sure. I'd say so. Yeah, I'd say so, too. Scott also commented about the artwork he says Black Knight is his favorite he's saying Black Knight was the last Steve Ritchie game with good art he's answering our question on there but maybe Black Knight 2K but it's not imaginative with the lightning wheel pretty much what I said the back glass is good but the play field is meh and then Scott also makes a comment about one of these manufacturers and it says a pre-ordered fool and his deposit money are forever parted yeah and that's all I'm going to say about that my name is Forrest Gump and then the winner of our pinball helper from episode 50 realized today that he won he missed my email and then he finally listened to episode 50 and heard his name and emailed me saying oh my god so his exact comments were hey guys I can't believe it apparently somehow I missed this email and didn't realize that I had won until I was listening to the tail end of the 50th show in my car this morning. I'm really excited to have won the PB Helper. It will come in very handy and save my knee and hand when breaking down and setting up games, which happens pretty often. Thanks again for doing the show. I really enjoy it, even though Bruce and my taste in machines seem to follow along in parallel lines that rarely intersect.
    89:18
    Parallel lines that rarely intersect. I love that line. I don't see how you can hate Jackbot and love Pinbot. because pinball is so basic and easy and so much fun, and jackpot is just the fucking pig-in-a-poke game luck. No, pig-in-a-poke game. It's all about the rules ruining a game. He thinks jackpot is a much faster and more exciting game, and I agree. Oh, it is, but it's not. The only goal that most people go for is casino royale, or casino run, I mean. And that's it. Done. That's it. That's pinball, though, to each his own. I do agree, however, with multi-morphic. I just can't seem to get excited about their products. I've seen it at numerous shows, and I just can't get into it at all, no matter how hard I try. I wish them the best, but it's not for me. Anyway, congratulations on 50 shows, and I hope there's 50 more and beyond.
    90:08
    Thanks, Stephen. Thank you, sir. And congratulations on winning. Your prize will be going out later in the week.
    90:16
    So now you get the last one, sir. This one, the pinball princess? It is. Another short one? What's the title? It's called, thank you so, so much, smiley face, dear slam and tilt,
    90:33
    because there is no chance that you will mention it at all during the podcast. Roll the dice here. I wanted to bring up one of the best tournaments I've been to in a long time. Stomp. This tournament was led by two gracious, wonderfully kind hosts. Who the fuck was that? I don't know. Did you ever meet them? I think I met them on the way out. run by a dedicated tournament director who busted his Tim Balls simultaneously working at TwitchStream and playing in the tournament himself, and even had an amazing food spread fit for a horde of hungry pinball players, which was fortunate because there was a horde of hungry pinball players. That's the one thing I don't understand. People know they're going to a tournament. Some people, like Eric, bring always a cooler. Even I do. or I bring a sandwich and throw it in the person's refrigerator.
    91:24
    So many people walking in are going like an hour in like, hey, do you got anything to drink? Yeah, there's tap water upstairs. And I'm just like, oh, Jesus.
    91:33
    I've been in the pinball community for a little over two years now, and this has to be one of my favorite tournaments.
    91:41
    The games were immaculate, clean, well-maintained, quick, and challenging. If something went awry, as they always do, someone was on the case faster than the next ball and whodunit. Which I guess is an awful metric to go by in retrospect.
    91:58
    Continuing on. Yes. George Takei smiled serenely as he presided over 43 or so people competing. It was a challenging tournament, but a friendly one. A passerby could almost mistake it as a party of people hanging out with pinball machines. Almost. Probably. I had a lot of fun despite playing poorly in competition. You kind of can't go wrong with a situation wherein you can install yourself on a star for any extended period of time. Plus, there was a Harlem Globetrotters on which I could try a tap pass, a Quicksilver on which I could realize that the upside-down R was an obnoxiously styled K, and a Stargazer on which I could discover that, holy crap, this game is awesome. Yes, it is. Of course it is. Besides, I was surrounded by friends, also a situation where things seldom go wrong. Stop was one of the highlights of my year, and I can't thank the people who put it together enough. Coming to you from beautiful, not-that-upstate New York, player 31915. P.S. Listen to your last episode while I was en route to this tournament. It was the perfect accompaniment. Thank you. And we had a lot of people coming up to us actually saying they listened to the show, and then, of course, you have a couple people that say, never listen to one. What's the Slam Chill Podcast? What the hell is that? I don't listen to podcasts. I don't listen to the podcast. We did have an interesting rule for the finals. Yeah, we wanted to avoid the discernment, which in retrospect, really, the fact that you couldn't repeat any picks would have kind of made that not happen as often. But it did make sure of it. Yeah, we had a rule that... What was the rule? Yeah, refresh me on the rule again. One was sterns. You could pick three games. We had three games in each round of the finals. first, you know, the bus driver could pick either three games or defer. The second rule was you could pick one Stern, one Bally Williams, or you could pick two Bally Williams because there's more Bally Williams than Sterns, but you could not pick the same game after you picked it once you were done. And three, you had to pick one solid state early Bally or Stern or alphanumeric, a.k.a. F-14 Tomcat or roller games. Basically like a Pinberg-style set-up. You had to play like an older game, like a D&D game and a Stern game. But you didn't have to play the Stern game. You could play two D&D games if you wanted to. Yes. We're just trying to, because you would run into a situation where you're going to see Spider-Man and Star Trek and ACDC, like every round. Every round. It would not have been fun. It would have been a long playing games, and we didn't want that. We didn't end until 1030. Well, no. No. It was more like 11.30, Bruce. No, it was 10.30. No, it was 11.30. It was close to midnight when we finished.
    94:51
    I know, because the finals, I think the final match started around 10.30. No, Tim posted the final match at 7.45.
    94:59
    Finals, 7.45. That's when the finals started. Was it? Yes. Oh, 7.30, that's right. Yeah, okay, yeah, you're right. I know it was a full, like, I don't know, two days ago, and your memory is failing, but yeah. What's your name again? Yeah, exactly. That's another thing I think we could do. We could start it at 1 instead of 2. I would have loved to have done that. 1 or maybe even noon. I wonder if we made it later just so the NYC people could get there. Yeah. Give them more time. But I think if we started it at 1 or maybe even noon, it would have been if we finished an hour earlier. It still finished a little bit late. That's why when you're talking about making 24 players, 24-person fun, that would be ridiculous. Oh, we'd do it for that. We'd finish at 1 in the morning. No one wants that. And this is what relatively hard-playing games.
    95:49
    So I'm going to look through the numbers and see what games we're playing particularly long, and maybe we'll make some adjustments. Oh, whodunit. It's tough to make. Whodunit already has the rubber completely removed, and the post is all the way back. It's like a gaping hole, and it still does not typically drain. So I don't know what I'd really do other than lightning flippers. No, no, no, easy. Oh, easy. What do I do? Take the ball gate blocker out. The what blocker? For the loop, you know, for the elevator.
    96:22
    Take that flap. So if you even get a somewhat missed shot, it doesn't, like, deflect it. It just goes straight down.
    96:30
    There's a middle bar there. Second, lightning flippers. That'd be my pick. Yeah. So let's see. Is that it for the slam ball bag, mail ball bag? Do you have anything from the site?
    96:44
    Let me check real fast since I'm so prepared. Yeah, as you can tell, we're very prepared. Jeff Deolis, say congratulations to you also. Thanks, Jeff. Very cool.
    96:59
    We had somebody said the name of the band, the band Blur. Song 2 Woohoo Now Kevin Manning had a response to your Oh yeah we had our question which basically only two responses one from Scott and one from Kevin on the last Steve Ritchie game with good artwork I said So I said no fear you said what did you say or That's S-T-L-E.
    97:32
    That's right. All right.
    97:36
    Kevin brought up and said, last Steve Ritchie game with good artwork, Spider-Man Vault. Now, my response to him three minutes later was, no second chances. He goes, admit it, I win, fail. I said, maybe, maybe, but Ron rules with me. No. You can't. Steve Ritchie had no involvement whatsoever in that game.
    97:58
    All he did was design it from the past. Yeah, they took his design, and he was busy working on Star Wars, man. He had nothing to do with that, nothing.
    98:07
    So I don't consider that. It's a game using a Steve Ritchie design, but it's not a Steve Ritchie game, if that makes any sense. It does.
    98:17
    Thank you for all the likes we've had on Facebook. We've had 10 new likes in the past week. Thank you. Thank you, guys. Keep up the good work. If you like the show, tell us. So what was the third one? You said there was three.
    98:29
    looking right now. Please hold. We got Scott. We got Kevin. I know there's listeners like me that are going to be like, hey, they said three. They only said two.
    98:40
    Did you know George... Oh, no, that's the one. Sorry. I'm looking for the last one. Trying to find it.
    98:45
    I can't find it right now. Too many messages. Bruce cannot find the third one, so fail. Too many messages. I failed. So to that listener, we are terribly sorry. Lame Bruce. I suck. He sucks. come to Replay FX and beat his ass in Pinbur. Yes, that's all I ask. That's all I ask. When we were at Stomp, and people we didn't know, like, we were introducing, you know, people like Tim Peters and a couple of other people, like, oh, by the way, this is Eric Russell. And Eric's like,
    99:17
    hi. Like, very unsure of himself. Oh, and there's Zach. And they're like, oh, I'm sure Zach loves being recognized. Well, it was now. Zach was like, oh, hi, How you doing? You know, so it's kind of funny. Like, I'm introducing all these people that they didn't know, and then they've heard on the podcast, and it worked out really well. Oh, there's Jason Floyd.
    99:35
    He's like, oh, wow. You know, so it was kind of cool. I just got to be with Pinball Princess. I think it's time to pay the bills before Bruce falls asleep. Yep. www.pinballlifter.com. How many W's was that? That was four, but I'm tired. So come check us out for all the lifters, pinball helpers, tilters, mods for pinball machines that I don't like but we still sell, and other things.
    100:06
    Very good. Pinball Star, the one selling us both of our dialed-ins. Flipper Fidelity. Say hi to him. He's got the best speakers on the market. Make your sound system better. And he also sells stern pinball machines, and he sells mods for sterns. I think that's it. Look for us out on the Internet, Slamto Podcast. Just Google us. You'll find us there. Google it. Google it, Google it. We're on Facebook. Again, just search for Slamto Podcast. Again, we keep it easy for you. We're on iTunes. We're on Stitcher. Again, Slamto Podcast. We're on YouTube. Hopefully, Twitch soon. Maybe I'll actually start putting stuff out there if I can get it rigged together now that I see that. My speed is sufficient to at least have a nice smooth stream. It might not be the most highest of highest def, but it'll be adequate. Again, check out Tim Ball's stream. You can watch the entire action-packed Stomp Tournament.
    101:06
    And I think that's about it. This has been Episode 52, History of the World, Part 1. And there was no Part 2. No, there was never Part 2. but what it was supposed to be in part two was Jews in space.
    101:23
    We're Jews at the race, and we're going to join out in space. That is a line, though, you know. That is a line. Hate mail can be directed to Bruce Nightingale at, this is perfect, slamtiltpodcast at gmail.com. Again, slamtiltpodcast at gmail.com. I'm just telling you what was supposed to be in the movie. Okay, shut up. Say goodbye, Bruce. Goodbye, Molly Atkinson.
    101:58
    Oh, my. you