it's time for another pinball profile you can find everything on pinballprofile.com including subscribing to this podcast go to our facebook group also check out twitter and instagram at pinball profile email us pinballprofile at gmail.com let's go to san diego right now boy that would be nice and talk to a very impressive player derrick price joins us hi derrick how you doing I'm wonderful, Jeff. How are you tonight? Good, buddy. I'm looking forward to seeing you very soon, and I know it'll probably be in some sort of playoff fashion because your game over the last year just accelerated. At the end of 2018, you were in the top 150, let's say top 200, but that's all behind you now. You're a guy that we look at, okay, that guy's probably top 50 guy, and you're always around there. What happened in 2019 that took your game to a whole new level? I traveled a lot. It was a goal of mine for the year to get top 100. I didn't expect it to happen. I took third in Classics at InDisc, had some success. I still feel like it's big imposter syndrome, like I shouldn't be here. I watch all these amazing players play, and I don't feel like I'm in their caliber. You can't say that. I'm the big imposter. You beat me at Expo. You beat me at Classics at Expo, and that was a great match. I think you took me to what was the best of three? It was the best of three. And you beat me handily. That must have been the only time I won, because here's what you did in 2019. All right, Free Play Florida. You came second to a guy named Eric Stone, only one of the best players in the country. That's pretty impressive with the lineup that was there for Free Play Florida. Northwest Pinball Championships, another classics great run. You were third there. And Pinberg, you had to be pretty thrilled. Top 20. You were 18th. Pinberg was amazing. I still can't believe that that happened. I actually lost in a tiebreaker to get into the top 16 against Kaylee George. He beat me on the old Jurassic Park. That was just a run. I was way far down going into the last day. Ended up winning 11 in my last match. And my last group snuck into A and ran it all the way to 18th. Who was in your last group when you got on 11? Because at that point, you're playing some tough players. It was Zach Sharp. And I don't remember the other two. But he said to me, I don't know how you can stand there and watch everyone play and be so jittery the entire time and still have enough energy to play your own ball. That was the most memorable part of that entire round. But that must work for you. I mean, to get that kind of pumped up. I've seen you wear headphones, too. So maybe the music gets you pumped. But, yeah, you're pretty excitable. I am. Jittery is definitely the right word. I feel like I'm the worst person to watch play pinball because I never look comfortable. I never look like I'm in control. But somehow it still works. I've made plenty of A finals. I'm usually up there barring pin masters, and in-disc was a bad run too. But somehow it just works for me. And I tried the headphones to keep myself calm. I gave it a go, and then I realized I need to hear the mechs of the machine for me to feel comfortable dead bouncing and post-passing and just feeling comfortable. I felt like I needed to hear the machine. So I actually have stopped with the headphones and gone back to just playing without them. And I don't know if that's working either. I get too distracted. I can tell everything that's going around me. So it's tough to concentrate sometimes. I get people ask me about headphones. Should I? Should I not? And it really depends on you. So the times that I put on headphones are when I find myself in a little bit of a funk and I want to bring myself up. Bo and Karen's once mentioned that to me on a podcast and said, you know, he's got some kind of upper type music, if you will. And so I'll be cranking the disco. Dawn of Summer, boom, it's on. Bee Gees, you got it. And that just kind of gets my toe tap, and I'm like, all right, I'm ready to go here. And then the other times that I put the headphones on are when you're playing around people that might be, quote, unquote, extremely distracting. And that's something that's all on me, not on them. That's something that I can't block out. So I cheat and use headphones. And that's actually what started me doing it. Around San Diego and the entire SoCal era, we have some personalities. And they can get loud, they love pinball, and they enjoy it. But for me, I need to drown certain characters out. So I started wearing them, and I had success at first. And to Beau and Karen's point, you can focus. When you put those on, nothing else around you matters. so your ability to just look at a game and play it without any other distractions is the biggest benefit but the biggest downside is and this is what i realized i don't have the decades of experience playing pinball so if i'm on a machine that i might not know if you put me on deadpool and i put on earphones i know everything that's going on i don't have to look up at the screen i don't have to listen to call outs i don't even have to look at the little flashing blinker before it kicks out of the scoop right at my flipper. But there's games that I don't know. Or there's games where, let's take Star Trek, where if you get a danger, it's just a very subtle call-out. Quit shaking the game or whatever the call-out may be, and then all of a sudden you find yourself tilted. So if I know the game very, very well and I put on the headphones, that's where I really dominated them and I'm at my best form. But I only got three years experience and so there plenty of games that I do not know and that I need to hear everything and know what going on and see either the audio cues or the visual cues One of the other things that I found that I was distracted by and this is the dumbest thing ever, was hearing other people say, oh, he just needs to do this, or talking about my game. That would drive me nuts, and now that I said that, it's going to happen all the time. I guess I'm wearing headphones all the time, but you're right. You have to hear the call-outs, especially when it comes to things like dangers. Yeah, dangers, and to your point about people talking behind you or getting excited as you approach a goal, it's the strangest thing. You could be millions down on a player on ball three, and all you have to do is pass them to win that game. And the entire time that you're playing, it's the easiest thing until you're within a couple hundred thousand points. Once you're within striking distance, then the nerves come on, and then you can feel the tension in the room. You know that everyone's watching you, and especially if someone whispers, They might say something that takes your attention towards another part of the game that you weren't even paying attention to. It might be a strategy. It might be something about the outlanes being drainy. It could be anything that sneaks in your head, and that can totally throw off your game. I do remember I played at Stern Circuit Finals, and I was on Ali. It was actually the game that I got eliminated on. and you could hear the commentators over the speaker and they mentioned that the spinner was juiced. The top spinner in the, I believe it's the uppercut or wherever that is, the roundabout at the top, 3,000 a spin and all you had to do was not come in last. And it actually changed my strategy because I overheard a commentator talk about the spinner. And it had been one of the guys from the pop-up facility so they actually knew the game more than I did, at least that version of it. So I started trying to rip that spinner. Now, I still lost the game, so I didn't get any advantage of it. But hearing other people talk, it can either help you if they know a little bit more about the game, or it can really get into your head and distract you. I've always wondered about that, and I know we're focusing a lot on headphones here, but it's an interesting topic. I've always wondered when you have headphones on, what if you were in your pocket actually listening to the live stream? I know it's delayed a little bit, but you cradle up and then you get the information there. I mean, who could tell whether or not you're doing it? By the way, it's illegal to do that, but how are you going to police that? Completely agree. And I think the best part about pinball is that we trust each other. And I feel that everyone that's within the top 250, 200, they're honest people. I don't know of any person that I would doubt their intent. We had the, at your tournament in Florida, we had the problem with Junkyard, where there was a ball sitting in the plunger lane, and I didn't realize it was there. I should have plunged it and I should have come out of that unlimited multiball that I was in. But it's this integrity thing. That's the best part about pinball is people are honest people. They like to play and they like to compete, but they like to do it the right way. So absolutely, there's plenty of ways to take advantage of the system. Between balls, I'm sitting there on all of the pinball websites looking up strats. I've looked at Bob Matthews' guide endlessly. And Pinberg had all, what, 800 games or whatever, a guide at your fingertips that you could look at. So it's kind of this gray area, but if you want to learn a game or know what's going on, you have time in between your ball to go and do so for the most part. That's a good point. Corey's Pinball Spinner was a great website, a nice collective of videos, pin tips, all those kind of things you want. And again, check it out, pinballspinner.com. And just to finish up what you were talking about there, at my tournament in Florida, That was part of the Pinball Profile World Tour. Yeah, there was a problem with Junkyard, but that's a tournament you actually went on to win. You're only one of 10 Pinball Profile World Tour winners. I assume your biggest win ever. It was one of the most fantastic, memorable wins. I still have the trophy in my case. I actually do have a case now, which is the weirdest thing. I started this three or four years ago, and I won like one launch party, and I'd have a little plaque or whatever, a small little trophy. trophy and now I have an entire case of trophies and I look at it and my roommate shares the space with mine too and it's wonderful as we play and we keep on putting up newer and bigger trophies there it's just miraculous to see where we've come in such a short span of time yeah but do any of the other trophies light up like the one you got for me from ULIC store Ace Kogi has some pretty legit But I know Shane and his crew do a wonderful job. He does do a good job. But anyway, you've got some good trophies and well-earned. You mentioned the biggest surge in your game was the experience at bigger events. You travel to a lot of these events. I also do that as well. That's something I know I found. Playing with better players actually made me a better player. And also, the more you play them, the less intimidated you became. Absolutely. I finally feel like I can hang with the bigger players. It was a huge intimidation factor. For the most part, the first year or two that I was traveling, I would make a division, but I was definitely a one-and-done type of guy. I would always finish 17th through 24th, and it was nerves. It was being in a group with these people that you've seen on Twitch or on YouTube. The biggest thing that I can tell people who actually want to learn pinball and get better at it, I watched every archive video of tournaments from 2013 onwards There were hours of tournaments out there I learned every game So I could step up to games that I never even seen in my life and I could play them or at least know a little bit about them. But here you are playing with the people that you admire the most, the people that you mimic and emulate every day as you try and make your game better. And you're in their group, and you feel that there's no way to beat them. And if you scrape through a group of four and you come in second, it's the best feeling. If you have to win that group, man, that's a confidence booster. But it's definitely not the expectation. And now when I travel, because of the Stern Circuit, the competition has become very, very stiff. It is the most difficult to qualify for tournaments ever. The first year that I started playing was the year before the circuit started. And you'd go to events, and let's say it was a tournament with 24 people going to A Division. You could probably lock up 10 to 12 of those positions. Raymond and Keith and all these names and Bowden and all these folks that you know are going to take up at least a few of those spots. So you knew you were fighting for the other spots. Now, if you look at InDisc, they even expanded the people that made A Division. but you could already name 40 people that deserve that spot over you. Well, not maybe deserve, but you know that they play better than you. They're just better players. And so I think the competition is way more difficult now. It is funny that you said something like Indisc, which is now a major, and they had so many players there. And I looked at that and I thought, okay, you know what my goal is going into this tournament? I know I'm going to be playing in four different tournaments, actually five if you count the high stakes. There's the main, there's the two classics, there's the match play classics, and then the high stakes. My goal going there with the competition that's going to be there, if I can make the playoffs in one of them, I would be happy. And I've done well in other tournaments and events and made playoffs, but the caliber and using the pop a ticket style, I was like, okay, can I do one of these? And that would be a victory to me. And luckily that just happened on the last day. Which one did you end up making? Was it high stakes? I thought it would be one of the classics. I thought, okay, that's the one that's probably going to happen. I made the main event. Congratulations. That was a crazy field. So just to make it, that's quite the accomplishment. And your game has become much better, too. You never give yourself enough credit. Well, we are very similar in the same way. We've only been playing. You've been playing for just, this is now your fourth year. This is now my sixth year playing. So I have a few more years on you. And then I also played a lot when I was younger, too. It was the travel that did it for me, too. And it was the familiarity of playing these people and just obviously a lot of games knowledge. You have a great games knowledge when it comes to that and reading these resources. I probably should do that as well, too. But, you know, I'm a simple guy. Give me a spinner. I got to hit that. Got it. All right. That's what I usually rely on. And it's not enough when you play these great caliber players. But it's certainly when you get to go to these different events and this means a lot. And I encourage anybody, even just to go to some of these shows, these events, when they come up again, check these out because they're fun. And you might just surprise yourself. If you're playing in a league, if you're a casual player, it's fun. It was nervous for me the first time doing it, and probably you too, Derek, but it is so much fun and a great experience. I wholeheartedly agree. I think the most fun that I had was going to a mid-tier show or event, not a circuit one. And if you're just getting into it, if you're interested in higher competitive play, our local tournaments, they're really difficult. The level of competition that we have is phenomenal. So what we did was we traveled to ZapCon, which was a mid-tier tournament to us. It was 80 people, and they have some local people, Adam McKinney, some other folks like that, and it's a wonderful show. And that's where I learned competitive pinball. Because if you throw yourself into a big thing like a stern circuit, you might get discouraged. But playing in the show's pentagogo was another wonderful one when that was around. So that was my entryway. That was my gateway into the larger competitive scene. You know, you just kind of dodged a bullet there in a sense. You're playing in San Diego, and now you're in your fourth year. Well, a guy from San Diego, or nearby anyway, was playing there for quite some time before he moved to Chicago. but I'm sure you get to see Keith Owen once in a while but yeah, that would have been something locally to see. I do get to see him. He comes down here. He will play at some of the local haunts. He actually joined us in one of our tournaments and great guy. I got to play split flipper with him on Iron Maiden and we blew it up on ball one. I think we had something over 100 million. I gave him the right flipper because that's the one with all the loops and all the important shots. So all I had to do was hit the pyramid up the middle and all he had to do was score 99% of the rest of the points. So San Diego has some great players. I know Luca very well, a wonderful player there. You do more tournaments than leagues. Leagues are sometimes tougher to commit on a weekly or a monthly basis, whereas tournaments you're one and done. First of all, explain some of these tournaments and maybe just see some major events coming to San Diego because I know you organize a lot, Derek. Yeah our scene in San Diego is really blowing up So every week we play three of the weeks on Tuesdays we play at a local bar A couple of them are kid friendly So we do have some minors and which is fantastic for the scene We like bringing in diversity. We like getting a lot of people into our tournaments. Again, they're a dollar to play gift cards for everybody. The formats will change. We like to mix it up. We do one week of head to head, two weeks of group knockout. And then every weekend, the last weekend of the month we throw kind of a random tournament. We might do fair strikes, which I think is one of the best formats to come out in the last two years, or we'll do some sort of ladder format or some sort of match play. We like to mix it up. Just recently there was the North American Championship Series. You've had some experience there, and I think of California too, and I know how that state runs their championship series. It goes in the north one year, it goes to the south the other year because of the travel. It's such a huge state. You won it a year ago, and that's a tough field to knock off. So I know you didn't make it this year, but it really makes you appreciate what you did a year ago. That was the first time that I actually thought, man, I belong. I can do this pinball thing. I'm actually pretty decent at this. And I faced both the O'Neills in the in the first and second round, Brian and Allison. Sorry to both of them, but they played amazing. I think they both took me to seven games. Yeah, look what you did. You had to make the move to the East Coast. He did. He ran away from me, although he did play in states locally too. But Brian, he's a wonderful guy. And everything they're doing with score bid, I'm not going to get off topic, but that is a phenomenal little tool there too. But yeah, another local guy, Mark Schultz, ended up taking out Karl DeAngelo. So I got to play against a local San Diegan for first and second place. So that was an amazing year and a phenomenal finish for our local pinball guys. And after that, one of the most, it was an amazing accomplishment, but also a very stressful thing. Because every time I went and played at a local tournament, I'd go up to L.A. or other places, and they're like, oh, hey, it's the California State Championship. And it puts this pressure on you to perform. You know, when you have a bad ball, all of a sudden, you know, everyone's like, wow, you know, state champion's not really that good. How is he representing California without any skills? But it was a fun year. And then this year I had to face Jim Belzito in the first round. And, you know, you're thinking you're the number one seed. You're probably, you know, maybe the first round you might be able to not face someone who's won a couple of world championships or however many titles that he has. And he took me out in seven. I did have a million-point comeback on Viking, so that made me feel a little bit better. But Jim ended up taking me out and then went on to win it all. So congratulations to him. Yeah, you know what? I wouldn't worry about that pressure to perform. My wife says, don't worry about it. I'm not disappointed. Oh, wait a minute. We're talking pinball here, right? Sorry, I got off topic here. Anyway, yeah, when you lose to Belcedo and you've got Carl D'Python Anghelo and all these other greats in California, yeah, you mentioned Brian even came back for that tough, tough, tough, tough field. But you probably qualified, I'm imagining, in maybe other states. Has that ever crossed your mind? I know if it's in Southern California, okay, that's pretty easy to do. But have you ever given that any thought? I was thinking about it, and it's not about the money. California, I think our winner got $1,400, which is a lot to play for. But to me, I want to play the best field. If I'm going to deserve to go to nationals, I want to play the best field. But I've been vocal about this too. I don't mind if people play in other states. I think if you've played well in other places, it's your prerogative. You do what you want. And I could have played in Florida. I could have played in Arizona. I could have played in Chicago even because of Stern Circuit and a couple other places. So I had probably five or six states that I was able to play in. But I wanted to play in California. I qualified top seed with 350 points over the year, which even qualifying for states now, you came to Indus and you played in all, what, five events. I think after that, the top person had 180 points in California alone, possibly even more. So I wanted to prove myself. And I want to play against Carl, and I want to play against Jim and all the other talent that came down from San Diego, sorry, from San Francisco and other places. But maybe next year I'll change it. I don't know. After that round one beating, possibly we might go someplace else. But you're going to run into competition no matter where you go. Well, hopefully, fingers crossed, we'll be playing across the country very, very soon as we get past this. And I hope to see you again, maybe in the finals someday, you and I going at it. All right? You can get revenge on me for Expo. Looking forward to it. Derek, thanks very much. Thank you very much, Jeff. I appreciate it. This has been your Pinball Profile. Go to pinballprofile.com for everything you need, including past shows, how to subscribe to this podcast, and so much more. Join our Facebook group. Also, we're on Twitter and Instagram at pinballprofile. Email us, pinballprofile, at gmail.com. I'm Jeff Teolas. We got to play. And all the games we got to play. Makes me wonder if it's worth it to carry on. Cause it's a game.