[Music] welcome everybody to episode six the full version director's cut as my man Joe says of episode six of wizards and warriors we are back this is the full indisk supersized give it all to me now episode we're going to go over um everything inis related we've got four tournaments to cover we gave you a really good sneak peek uh first look with Zack McCarthy your 2025 spoiler alert inis main Open champ I was really really good to talk to him I had a blast um I know Joe did we are finishing we just finished up uh January middle of February and now we are headed to the next Stern pro circuit event I will see jayen there star Fighters uh pinball Festival in Mesa Arizona I went last year it was a really good time um it's uh match play for the main and then um unlimited entry for the classics and then they also have two other separate uh certified tournaments uh Max match play and then a fair strikes I think as well plus a women's of course um so it's going to be a lot of fun Joe uh it was great to see you at indisk a lot of fun um congratulations obviously in order uh you got your uh top 250 ranking a really nice performance in the classics Target match play how do you feel what's going on and uh what are you thinking about yeah no thank you hottie um no it's been great it's uh it's been one of my goals for um you know since I started playing competitively and since they introduced the uh the top 250 Pro uh designation so it's it's a definitely a milestone that I'm proud of and um hope to continue to go up you know find that you should be it was NAU easy especially that um target match play and we'll we'll get into the format and what it is but uh when we get to that section um so the way this episode is going to work is we're going to go through our normal uh format where we you know talk a little bit news not too much um review some recent tournes we got uh listener email so again if you have questions for us that we can or can't answer um but we know people that may be able to uh please reach out to us at wizards andw warriors podcast gmail.com that is uh with an and uh spelled out not the Amper sand symbol so wizards andw warriors podcast gmail.com again it was great to see everyone at indisk we saw all our friends um I had a really good time I know it was a grind I'm sure you'll agree uh we'll talk about it in the pros and cons of indis when we get there uh we we'll talk about that before Classics Target match play we did a little bit with zmac already um so maybe we'll we'll we'll talk about a little bit uh uh there as well so um with top 250 now what's your goal for for uh the rest of the year yeah um I'm thinking uh top 100 is the next kind of big milestone you know that's uh yeah uh on the horizon and then um just I think getting a Podium at a big event like a mega match play or like a even a Stern pro circuit would be um incredible to do so uh that's that's the that's the plan hotti we'll see if it works out it's not a bad plan at all um I know it was a lot of fun to uh to go there and see like I said see all the folks but also to compete in that big of a grind I mean we had 360 plus people in the main 340 Plus in the classics and then obviously the um maxed out 120 at Target match play it was cool to see uh pin Slash and the the different setup for high stakes uh just an overall all great time so right now we're just going to go into some quick news uh if you got any opinions on any of these chime in uh just really all this is stuff we've heard stuff from nap arcade stuff from discords we're in uh nothing too secret out there but we got American pinball putting out gtf classic I think that's retailing for about 8K uh stripped down version of their gtf Galactic tank force I did play this at indisk and I got a top 10 score and I was pissed because it on a dead card and I was like no so I got like 366 million and they did a good job of keeping it um up and running for indisk so yeah kudos to Steve Bowen and all the people at American pinball I know David fix has been talking about what they did with it on some other podcasts uh it I'm glad it was there it was you know the banks were wild or the the pins were wild at inis so we're not going to go through that we'll go over it later a little bit how do you have a gtf on location around you that you can well really so I feel like there's one maybe somewhere but I haven't ventured that far out I know down south in like Houston or um San Antonio I think the Wormhole has one uh but I don't remember ever seeing one near which is funny because it debuted at tpf and it was the pin I thought I was going to come home with at tpf I wanted to buy one and I was really looking to diversify my lineup and I thought okay let me get something that's not a Stern it's either an older one and there's a lot of cool like uh re REM not remastered um restored ones someone snatched a harlem out of hands that was really nice it's at Cactus Jacks now so uh but yeah I that was the pin I was come going to come home with and then they revealed it and I played it I was like I can't do it it's too much for an unknown and I I don't know I I enjoy it but the the first taste was not not a good one you have one near you though right we we did have one I think it would be great as a a home game um to explore and you know it's uh it's got a lot of uh you know mechs in there that are really cool and interesting um we did have one on location unfortunately did not last very long um just from lack of interest and there were I think there was kind of some scoring bugs early on the code uh and then just kind of a lot of unfortunately mechanical errors that um kept popping up so was a bit of a a struggle to keep operational but uh but I mean it's it's a cool game um and very fun and obviously you know you're able to blow it up so that's you know that's pretty cool not even having played it very much the scoring bug mention I remember there was a stream who was it somebody was scoring I think it was Carl at like Ace GOI Ace GOI or somewhere and it was like in the billion or the trillions or something I know they did that with Guns and Roses from jjp but there was something crazy that I remember seeing but you know uh I wish American pinball the best i i i the more the more companies out there the better they gave it a shot I think they went too far into the uh cheesy sort of camp it just was it didn't hit for me I feel like I got what they were trying to do and they you know they hired actors and actresses for it and they put a lot of effort I really hope they're able to round it out eventually you know I think I agree with you 100% home pin perfect I don't think it can hold up to the rigor of uh on location so you know we'll go from there um jjp big news uh people saying Eric Minor minor I don't know how to say his last name apologize he was wearing Harry Potter Garb at pinball on the beach which we'll talk talk about uh so that's probably coming soon next from jjp it's going to sell out completely in my mind probably not by tpf if I had to guess they'll probably have a teaser um but I don't think they need to be in a rush because it's going to sell out it's going to be a yeah it's just an insane theme to have for a pinball yeah no the license is is absurd and everybody's waiting as long as they don't go crazy on the pricing if if they kept the pricing as it is now I think they'll sell out 1,000 CES 5,000 L it's just one that there's hardly if I could think of a license that's bigger I would only imagine maybe Pokemon um even like Back to the Future isn't bigger than Harry Potter for me I mean not for me for for just trying to speak objectively for me I would much rather Back to the Future but um then we got Stern we got Kong up next most likely uh from Keith elwin probably the debut of Spike 3 if I had to guess um I know they were all again everybody down at pinball the beach uh but previously from Stern we had DND D which is wowing everybody uh the dragon head does seem to be fixed Pros are arriving everywhere I just saw two of the locations near me get one I can't wait to go take my little tripod and and play some I really have you played it yet hottie I haven't I haven't played it yet oh man it's it's good yeah it's really good yeah I got a few games in uh we got one or we got a few on location nearby and everyone so far has had very positive things to say about it so what do you think of the flow I think it flows great a lot of those um upper right shots kind of feed either feeded the upper flipper or even that left scoop that kicks out to that magnet the cube magnet it's really cool that's awesome yeah I think I think you'll enjoy it especially being a a Venom fan you know Brian Edie kind of Dwight combo um it's good it's like a I know Carlos was saying it's it's kind of a mashup of like you know Mando and Venom um and stranger things even like it's it's really good I think all the things they were sort of working towards like starting with you know him starting with obviously not the stuff pre-art but starting with stranger things getting to Mando getting to Venom and then those two teaming up and saying okay you know what can we do and Dwight on TMNT code and him being such a big DND fan I think this is like their Magnus Opa whatever it's called Magnus Opa magnopus magnopus that's it I got I got it mixed up of my German needs to be or Latin uh so yeah so I think I think what I hear from everybody especially on the flow that's why I asked you cuz they're like you know you expect the fan layout is the joke with you know the recent Eddie releases but man it looks really cool especially that upper flipper shot I was watching um a stream earlier and they said the upper flipper is so satisfying the only one they can think right now that's better is Foo which is saying a lot cuz that one was crazy crazy nice um yeah I'm I'm excited I'm glad to hear you have uh good things to say about it because it looks like it's a great home pin and for attorneys we'll we'll see what happens because it's very very deep yeah they they just released a Cod update I think today that um seemed to kind of balance a lot of the scoring too so they're they're already hard at work at you know getting that done yeah we should see it in in Arizona either at the bat or at starf fighter so that'll be fun to play especially during our free play time while we're not trying to figure out uh what's going to kill us in the banks I'm looking at you Sedona with alvra what was it alvra Walking Dead and then I forgot the star no not Stars maybe stars um we'll see no stars isn't Classics I think uh anyways uh next cuphead by tpf probably not probably not going to happen it'll come out I guarantee they have contracts that require them with the license holder to get this out so in lie of being sued uh I would imagine they get it out sometime this year uh hearing different thoughts some say it's amaz their best pin some say it's uh not as great a shooter I hope it's awesome I love the art aesthetic on cuphead I still I bought it when it uh was on sale like last year and I still have yet to play it I do want to play that incredible game yeah right yeah it's really really good it's very difficult but like one of those kind of bullet hell games but was the DLC good um I only played I actually didn't beat the first game the original so but it was it was very hard awesome like you said the art art package is great to work off of so yeah it's such a unique idea even though it you know hearkens back to the old animation but such a such a good choice for me personally I think it's a great if you're not going to get this giant license I think that's a that's a solid yeah I don't know how big it is with the demographic for pinball people older older males but I think it's a great uh great great grab uh barrels of fun they posted today you can check it out all on again all this on nap arcade.com or uh any pinside threads that you sift through uh barrels of fun probably going to tease its next title they've got everybody down for the tppy this weekend um if you did vote for us I do appreciate it it was under Frisco pinball I asked them to please just put Wizards in Warrior separate but if you did vote for us uh we thank you we don't expect it um we're still getting the used to this getting the hang of it and uh very nice of you thank you so but they did say post a picture of a door with a special secret uh sign on it that said hey authorize people only so the factory tour attendees at the tippies will probably get to see a glimpse of what their next pin is and I would guess that that's going to happen because tpf is in literally just three weeks so uh good luck to barrels of fun on their next release um they did really well with Labyrinth and uh moving on now we are going to um segue into our next section which normally is turning Recaps but we do have a question from A View a viewer so again if you would like to uh email us wizards andw warriors podcast gmail.com if you want to highlight a local attorney you want to highlight a player you can come on promote it or if you just have questions about ifpa uh the ifpa rules any attorneys that we've been to or that uh you have questions on some sort of TD decision maybe we can get it to the right right folks so the question is from Glenn W um he just played in a longer format than normal for Middle Tennessee it's no quarter uh in Nashville they hosted their 200% winner X tournament 13 Rounds of match play followed by a finals that included 16 players and four games in each round the top two advance so that made 25 total games played in about 11 hours uh we will show the winners of that what are our thoughts on these type of events I will let you go first and then I'll I'll respond yeah um I I'm a big fan of match play um I think it's uh it's great uh I know there's different kind of pairings that you can do like as far as like Swiss I know for the upcoming uh starf Fighters I believe it's tiered Swiss which um kind of you know just pairs you with similarly ranked players uh towards the end of the tournament um so it's not quite like pure swiss but um yeah I think it's great uh you know you get to play a wide variety of players um you're constantly playing uh I know that's it can be very draining um I know it's it's a bit of a marathon I know they mentioned 11 hours of play it's a long time to be kind of on your feet and playing pinball um so it's it's a bit of a different format than like you know card or unlimited herb where you can kind of play at your own pace but um at in this uh specific type of format you know you're always playing against other people which I know some people prefer um and I'm I think I'm finding out that I myself prefer playing against other people rather than kind of playing by yourself for qualifying um so I think it's a great great format what about you howdy yeah I I tend to agree so it reminds me of pincinnati where we had uh I forgot how many rounds it was um 20 maybe and we did 12 in the first day and 8 the next day uh and you know pinberry you know this year it'll be a and C divisions but I think I like it too I think think competing against yourself is fine um for uh I don't know I I I find myself enjoying it when it's not solely cards you know if it's mixed like I said about the UK open and indis my favorite one of my favorite tournaments so far has been Papa because last year because I had the option to do card but I also had unlimited entries for the classic so I could kind of get a break break and same with penberg they had bash at the burg I just need something to get the either bad mojo out that I'm feeling or stay warm or something like that so I like match play I think it's a really good format uh I again I've I've always said it I respect card the most but it's it's not becoming my favorite uh but if I do well in it I know I've earned it so I think that uh 11 hours for one day and he does mention it's not a whole week in a tournament it's like a convention but it does provide more Whoppers than a weekly tournament if enough people attend I could do it because I could you know take a happy pill and last the whole day but man the mental grind of 11 hours is tough and I think I agree with kind of your opinion on it um I'm gravitating more towards match play because there are times when you will learn from your opponents versus playing against yourself and you don't always pick up some of the tips and tricks with match play I can see what somebody does and say okay when it's feeding down right in Lane I can easily ski pass over without a a bump move or they're solely going for this because this Macer drop isn't isn't uh activating as nicely so um I think I I agree with you there uh the question they had was could youe explain how the tgp gets to 100% how it gets boosted Beyond what's the limit so I don't have um the rule book in front of me I feel like maybe you know is 200% am I wrong yeah I can chime in um I believe it does cap at 200% value um and I guess we can the easiest way to to get the answer I guess would be to give a wrong answer and then we would immediately get Corrections in in the comments but um but just from running a few tournaments like in the last uh year um I know for match play qualifying um I think it's something like seven or eight rounds uh will get you over or get you to that 100% and then when you have a finals component separate from that is when you get above that 100% value um and then as far as like providing more points than a weekly tournament that also kind of depends on like like they mentioned the attendance but also like the quality of player that attends um so if you have like a higher ranked player they can contribute more points to the value of the tournament gotcha okay that makes sense yeah so 200% makes sense because I I haven't seen anything go above it unless it's a major and that's where you get the 300 right yeah I mean you can also get a certified boost right so you can get the what is it 250% um if you get like 128 players or that's right you something like that but um yeah I think it's uh and then I think even card format gets a boost as well that's right um so that's where kind of you see events like you know nwpc or like ypin even um can get up to a really high value based on the number of players that show up you know they get you know in the hundreds um and then obviously very high level players are there contributing points as well that makes that makes perfect sense from everything I've seen in the last year so Glenn uh I hope that helped answer your question if not please reach out to us um we hope to have uh I talked with Josh at indis we hope to have him on for an episode just kind of get a overview of the ifpa how it was founded some of the stuff that he's seen some of the new formats that we're going to see like at the Whopper chopper with hybrid and I think nwp is going to be hybrid too um but hope that helps thank you Joe or Jay land appreciate appreciate your answer there um yeah right now we're going to go over our recent turns so let me just switch us over here and so this is the section of the podcast where we go over kind of some of the tournaments that have happened since our last episode usually these are the bigger ones but if you have one again that you want us to highlight please reach out to us Wizards and warriors podcast gmail.com you can come talk to us about it and help promote it to get some more eyes on it so I'll start us off with the No Quarter Winter X Games that was the one from Glenn and that was 200% in Nashville Tennessee at No Quarter it looks like we had a solid Whopper output here on January 25th 2005 Austin carrian is your winner with 5154 points Jason Wilson in second with 36.568104 in third and Phil zerman in fourth with 23.5 for Whoppers that's a really good output uh your yeah director there Tyler Campbell so you are up next yeah we've got the um I believe it's Southwest Bell pinball radio 2025 ho down throw down what a name love um I believe this was uh over in your part of the woods San Antonio Texas um we've got for the podium here we've got Valencia Kelly winning with 41.9 points uh Stephanie coutavas with 33.79 Meredith dubos with 2934 and then Holly cinan rounding out the top four with 25.9 nice congratulations yeah congrats ladies this was the a huge women's event they had and you'll see as we go through them they had a bunch of tournaments and looks like they had a lot of fun I saw some of the pictures and they had you know prizes for best costume uh I don't want to I don't know if there was one for most demure but it was something Sim IL like that some sort of funny silly award so congrats to all the competitors there so after that they had the rodeo Roundup on February 2nd your winner was Alice young with 122.2mi 98.37 congrats Stephanie Valencia Kelly in third with 85.29% those are some good points as you can see all the rest of the winners right there on your screen I want to remind everybody if you're listening to this this is in video and audio format I strongly recommend you check out the pinball Network video feed or Frisco pinball on YouTube uh so you can watch and go along with us I believe that was the main event for that weekend as well so that's why those points were very high for that one that makes sense a lot of competitors yeah 77 rated players nice job and there's the tgp of 84% uh plus your booster nice nice nice cool uh up next we've got the Southwest Bell pinball Rodeo doy Doo um so we've got Cindy Gro winning with 52 points uh Sunshine bond in second with 4.36 Sammy bacon name again in third place with 3411 and then Marissa Ferman in fourth with 29.3 s points awesome awesome job and then I think yeah this one is the last one so we have the Magnificent 7 uh Alice young another another dub for you good job 67.0 6 points Deborah tman second with 54.3 n Ariel Dutton in third 4742 and sunshine bond with 42.0 in fourth uh some really good Whoppers congrats Alice for uh picking up two gold gold medals there and almost 200 Whoppers looks like came out to about 190 so for the women's rankings really good tournament for uh every uh eligible participant to attend I would strongly recommend checking it out if they do it again next year I have a feeling they will looks like it was a huge success and congratulations to um Christina Cheesman the director for putting on a great uh great tournament so what do we have after that it was the inaugural you can go on this one oh yeah pinball at the beach this is down in St Petersburg Florida I believe um so yeah this one looked like a really fun event uh I know a few of my local buddies attended and had good things to say about it um I I understand the the qualifying format is very similar to what they are going to be running at tpf this year exactly so um they had two SE two different qualifying sessions each with um I believe it was 64 players and then the top 16 players from each qualifying group it was a match play format moved on to the finals which um happened on the last day of the event um so here we've got Shannon Stafford taking first place with 86.4 points uh David Deluga in second with 70.99 uh debber Talman uh in third with 62.4 three and then Eric leyon in fourth place with 55.74 points yeah we had Phil Grimaldi and I know Colin MacAlpine helping to get it set up and you're exactly right for tpf it's going to be just like this and this was a good um test run for it because tpf is changing formats from limited entry on a Classics in Maine to a match play of an early and late group and I know I think Carl's coming but I think for like Stern pro circuit um uh participants I think he's like one of the few that is coming to this new tpf form which is uh interesting cuz it'll be it'll be I'm curious to see how it how it um plays out so we'll see if we have more locals there or if we have more people flying in I know it sells out quickly so so we'll see what's going there um the next one I have to read off just a small tournament I want to give a shout out to the Cactus Jacks people in Oklahoma they've always been very welcoming of me whenever I go um I didn't get to attend this but I do like when they they have their own uh fun events silver ball showdowns coming up as well later on uh but they had their winner tea off pin Golf Classic on February 8th they had Alistair Kent in first with 13.4 one Whoppers Adam Nickel in second with 7.63 Austin Trent in third with 5.12 and John Stewart in fourth with 3.55 pin golf I've played it um actually no I played Amazing Race there but pin golf really really fun format and yeah so congrats to your winners there we are going to talk about the upcoming tournaments right now um upcoming tournaments for the the stern pro circuit you can see on your screen uh we've got indisk that just finished up star Fighters SPF February 21st in a couple days ifpa pin Masters as long as well as it's not a pro circuit event but Nationals happening at the lovely RPC up in Rochester New York uh March 7th through the 9th and then tpf March 21st through the 23rd um but star Fighters has uh increased in size it'll be interesting to see what people uh think of it I know lot of positive opinions last year I've got my Decay already hit so I've got to get some points out of that that was one of my big ones uh the rest of my big ones were in the summer and fall so I got to do something between now and then to saave off Decay but then Cactus Jack silver ball Showdown uh April 4th through the 6th in OKC Oklahoma I'm on the wait list for that and then pentastic and then you can see the rest of them here on your screen on the left hand side uh pinball at the zoo ypin amazing pinball race and Brisbane Masters are you going to any of these other than star Fighters uh I don't think so I think uh next up on my calendar right now is um it's going to be penberg okay so I'm gonna be kind of just hanging out I I made we have a couple kind of Mega Match play events uh cooking up in Virginia that um I think I'm going to be helping run so got L to look forward to um getting some you know Virginia SCS points there got those yeah I mean they reset so it's time for everybody to start earning again uh congrats on getting in pin I'll see you there I know it's I know you don't have much to worry about right you you got your your code you're good oh yeah yeah yeah yeah F5 it was still fun uh it was fun watching everyone kind of uh freak out yeah yeah yeah I was freaking out because I uh I had um you were like at a conference or something yeah I was at a work conference I was like I got to I found a spot I was like in a seminar I left the seminar and I was like I found a spot the Wi-Fi wasn't reliable so I used my phone hotspot holy cow that was uh that one's for you Los holy cow uh that was a that was a great uh event in its in of its own right because as soon as I went back to the Discord I was people were like it sold out I was like oh my God that is it doubled in size and it was still sold out but first it's the first part of qualifying yeah it really is I should get some Whoppers for I should get some Whoppers like on the SATs how you get 50 points for signing your name you should get Whoppers for that uh but cool I'll see you that those I'm Pro I'm on the wait list for ypin I convinced my wife that if I don't do UK I should be able to do ypin so if I can get off that I I might do that and we'll go from there but yeah are you gonna do the Beast after penberg um yeah I'm thinking about it because it's in August and that's usually our slow month for work so um it's definitely on the radar um there is also a uh Delaware I put I just mentioned shout out to Chad and the you know Delaware pinball Collective they are running a tournament the same weekend as um Texas pinball Festival they're doing their Mid-Atlantic pinball open um which they run uh annually so that one's also going to be on my radar since I'm not going to be unfortunately won't make it to tpf this year that's awesome yeah I I love what they do over there at the DPC they have some really really cool tournaments I hope to get up there uh soon so um with that uh as I always say during a transition we are going to now uh put in the first look part of the episode that we did with Zach McCarthy if you haven't had a chance to watch it this will be your chance uh it was almost two hours so this episode will be a long one but we got to speak with him about his strategies his thoughts how he uh grew up on pinball I didn't even realize that um all these all these uh prodigies and and amazing players I noticing a trend of them getting to grow up with pinball so but it was an awesome time talking to him and hearing his thoughts on the main finals um his back-to-back win which is no easy feat so congratulations again Zach thank you for coming on and um that's going to happen right now uh welcome everybody this is the portion of wizards and warriors where we go in depth on the finals for whatever May major tournament uh even smaller tournaments um that we are going through on this episode obviously the beginning of January the beginning of the 2025 season has a lot of attention on it never drains in Southern California in disk for those in the noo uh IE pinball Jim bedo all the great uh staff and volunteers that put on the world's largest uh open I think this year it was like 354 300 um 50 plus players minimum and it was a lot of fun the banks were interesting uh it was good to see all our pinball friends and uh we have a special episode this time because we are joined by the winner of the 2025 spoiler alert uh Maine division a playoffs and finals uh Zach McCarthy and I'm very very happy to have him here so uh with that uh thank you Zach for joining us Joe do you want to say anything to start yeah no Joe and here um no it's a great tournament uh happy to be back uh and yeah I'm really excited to get into this thanks thanks CAC for joining us yeah welcome zmac um thank you as we as we get into this um we're just gonna ask you a couple questions before we got get into the analysis uh of the finals and the three games which had a amazing amazing finish so uh first just tell us a little bit about yourself where you're from how you got introduced to pinball and we'll go from there yeah well I'm uh from Colorado Conifer Colorado um and as far as getting into pinball uh my I was I feel like I was I was born into it right so my uh my parents uh had games when I was growing up so there was never a time when my basement wasn't filled with pinball machines really um you I can't even imagine I I it's it's it's literally it's always been part of my life uh pinball was your dad the main player or did you have brothers and sisters do you have siblings that played or was it just uh your parents um I mean yeah I feel like my my whole family played I have a brother um Jack and he he played too uh growing up but he didn't really love the competitive side of things so got you know he doesn't play play competitions or anything nice um but but yeah you know my parents play they still play they're playing in Colorado my my dad was an arcade um and you know my mom is a big big part of the bells and shimes league in Colorado so yeah that's awesome so what age do you think you got really focused on uh deciding you wanted to compete uman my first tournament ever was when I think I was four maybe five that's awesome um yeah so did you get a little did you get a stool to step on oh better believe I had a stool yeah for the first couple of years you know carrying that thing around um you know in like these grungy bar areas right you know playing pinball um yeah I feel like I was always interested in playing pinball competitively um you know there was never never a time where I really wasn't and it was only like when I was able to start traveling and you know I I was actually good enough to you know do well in those tournaments that like you know was really took off and really started having a good time dude that's awesome um I I can't imagine what it would have been like I I when I got into this I and into the competitive side I keep kicking myself I'm like man give me like 30 years ago when I had better reflexes I wish I got into this when I was younger but uh it must have been a trip going to these competitions and you know places normally kids don't go to but barcades you know by and large at least you have the shiny lights in it it makes it safe so great that is that is really cool to hear I'm not going to go into too much of your background I know you probably answered a lot of those questions but I want to get to your thoughts on this year's indisk um last year's finals congrats again on the the backto back um what do you think about the bank from last year to this year I know there was a lot of uh chatter when we were doing trivia in the Discord trying to figure out uh what was going to be uh revealed once we saw Kingpin it was like okay what's really going on um we're going to get Big Bang Bar next so what are your thoughts on last year's Bank versus this one yeah I mean this year's Bank was definitely a lot wackier than last year's right like there's no Kingpin last year um you know I feel like there was maybe four or five balet Williams titles and there was like four Sterns or whatever and this year there was two Sterns like yeah three balet Williams you know it was definitely like Jim Unleashed right all the go Lees all the Seas right everything everything he could want um but even with that I feel like this year compared to last year um the games were overall like safer maybe the setups were maybe a little bit easier and like it was easier to find consistent games compared to last year do you think that I don't remember if you go ahead go ahead I'm just gonna I don't remember if you two were there or not last year um yeah go ahead yeah no last year was my first inis so this year I was like all right I got it down I you know he's got four Sterns I'm going to put one on my card and then this year there were two and it was like a 80 minute wait for Jaws and I was like okay uh I learned a lesson each year at indisk last year was don't volunteer for like eight hours and then do commentary because you won't have enough time this year don't pick a game when you're tired for your game five that you have no idea how to play and get a zero on it and ruin the card so that was my that was my lesson this year um uh I did better than last year but it would it would have been nice to you know get a little a couple more Whoppers but yeah for sure this year's Bank um I was going to ask you if you felt the T the tilts were tighter this year or last year I felt like they were kind of fair this year we were I was watching the footage on um Grand lizard and Johnny and monic seemed a little tight but I didn't think that the first two games you guys played were too obscene you know with Rush um Jeff tas's you know joke was oh no the rocks are coming but you guys were able to make some decent moves this year so what are your thoughts yeah I definitely agree I I feel like the first thing I noticed in my like initial games that I was playing was that the the tilts were way looser than in previous years I mean kind of pretty much across the board I remember Jaws was super loose Elton was super loose um you know a bunch of them were super loose you know there were there were some like Johnny was a little bit on the tighter side um you know and I think Grand wizard was slightly on the tighter side but not bad definitely like super playable and that's something I really like about gym setups normally um is that he will give you pretty loose tilts um you know his games are set up hard but he still lets you show off your skill by you know moving the game show off your nudging so yeah I mean you need it and and that's a good transition um uh to kind of the strategy that you take because I was thinking about the worlds and I don't remember when I was watching it and like watching Zer on CarHop versus I think it was Arvid just some of the moves they were making and it didn't seem like they weren't they weren't being punished for making a movie you should be allowed one I know everybody jokes about the Beast last year where you were flip tilting uh it was I it was a lot of fun um but but I just I think that's the way to go so um I think one of the questions I have when watching these tournaments and sort of figuring out the mindset of people that are there and what they're doing like do you have a go go-to strategy when you're trailing and you need to make a comeback I think it obviously depends on the pin what's available but are you going the safer routes or the riskier routes and the reason I bring that up is because your ball three on Grand lizard there was a moment where Kaye mentions hey I think this is the route you should go on the center spinner because it's lit and you're only down x amount of points versus trying to backhand uh the cave lock which was not always guaranteed because of the fat rubber on the on the the post and so you're trying to you're trying to manage that do you have sort of a mindset where you're going and you're you're pacing around the arena of what you're going to do do you like the safer routes or do you like the riskier routes um I mean I think I think there's a lot of like Dynamics in play that decide like what what your strategy is going to be where I mean for example indisk um the scoring in finals is 4210 so it's much more rewarding for first place versus you know second or third compared to like pimber style or whatever so that's definitely like it rewards riskier play in that in order to normally Advance around um you need to win one of the three games at least and then do mediocre on the other two and then in finals you really need to win two of the three games to win the tournament so in that sense I think you definitely are going for riskier strategies maybe you're taking more multiballs rather than shooting center Spinners to boost up the value or whatever yeah but on the other hand I was just gonna say on the other hand in finals um I think it's super easy to just you know it's it's way more stressful and people have a tendency to blow it and you kind of just want to be able to put something on the board and just be like ahead going into ball three um and so you're just you're just point pressing initially and maybe yeah it doesn't give you an unbeatable score but it gives you a challenging score to catch and that that added pressure can be a lot yeah that phrase Point pressing was something I learned this uh this um finals at indisk because Kaylee mentioned and I was like yeah he's trying to separate himself I think it was a ball two of grand lizard because you know who knows who's is going to leave you a lock and if you're going up the center spinner you don't want to you know again leave anything for the next person on ball three so um Switching gears just a little uh if pinball didn't exist would you have another competitive hobby are you a tinker do you like video games what's what's your other thing do you have you know do you as the kids say do you touch grass and go outside um yeah if I if I didn't play Pinball I mean obviously that's that's a lot of my time right um feel like I would I don't I don't do anything else super competitively at least right now like in in high school obviously I did I did robotics stuff like that and had a great time with that um and I imagine I would do similar things but I feel like if I didn't do pinball there would definitely have to be something else you know super competitive in my life just I I feel like I I got to have that thing you know like that did you ever have a point where you could have like when I was a kid the thing that brought me into this you know sci-fi Arena if you will we'll just call it something overarching like that was you know I got my first NES with uh Mario brother so that put me on the video video game path so I didn't really get into pinball till I worked at Chuck-E-Cheese when I was a teenager and they had a whirlwind um but I've always been on the video game path and you know two since three years ago I've decided to I I found this hobby again so have have you ever had sort of that fork in the path where you could choose or was it always just pinball um I mean I feel like yeah I mean I was I was born into it and that's definitely play a large part of like oh this is this is the path I stayed on so I'm gonna keep staying on it but you know of course I I do enjoy it a lot and I think pinball has shaped a lot of what I enjoy just because it's always been there yeah it's a great hobby but yeah for sure for sure but yeah I don't know if I if I grew up and instead of having pinballs I had like a a bowling alley in my basement or something I I imagine I would be bowling right now probably listen you could just have one hobby for yourself leave the bowlers alone right right that's awesome so uh the next question I'm actually really interested because you've done it for so long and you met you've met so many people and the thing I love about this Hobby and I was telling Josh Sharpe at indisk because he asked me you know what do you think about this this is now your your First Years done of serious competitive pinball I said honestly this is my endgame like I love the competitive scene uh at my age it's nice to be able to still like be able to improve and compete on a level I'm not going down to the you know the local why and trying to um be LeBron so this is a really good hobby for me um is what is the best piece of advice you've received from somebody about uh competitive pinball um it's probably I mean growing up right like definitely I I think my my pinball coach you know Adam Adam leov of course and of course my own family right um but so I mean he gave me so much advice you know as far as like oh here's how you do these basic flipper skills and things like that but I feel like the most important thing that I got is you know focusing on your mental game and that you know pinball looks like it's mostly just flipper skills and you know maybe some rules knowledge and all that it largely is but there's also a huge component of um your mental game and I think that's really like the decider of your consistency probably the biggest decider is like you're able to stay calm Under Pressure right and always be performing at your um you know near your best so I think I'm I'm sure Adam had that discussion with me when I was young right like you know not not raging all the time and keeping a cool head and the importance of that in performing so that's that's probably what I would say it's the most valuable piece we got to part that to Sterling I saw his escape from Lost World rage tilt and it was deserved I get it but uh it's just it's funny because I remember being that age and like you know you're we've all been young yeah your horor are going up you're you're like why didn't I I used to get so mad not winning an excite bike but I think the the details about handling pressure and nerves I think that's a good transition I know Joe has a a question about that that he was going to ask you go ahead yeah yeah no I think that's awesome um I when you get to this like the highest level like you're at um there are those other factors that you kind of have to consider like you know the mental game where it's like I feel like you know especially for these finals that we're about to review like any four of you I think you know have obviously have a chance to win but and and the skills you know needed to get there but um but it's those other factors like the mental game that really kind of stand out and um push you up there to to succeed so that's uh that's good to hear yeah uh What uh do you have any like goals or like a singular goal for yourself this year or um um I mean I think like winning IFA I think would be the number one goal let's all do that right uh you know I've never I've never won IFA obviously I've never I've never really come top four in it so you know if I could do well in Austria that would be awesome um and then I guess also I'd love to close the gap and IFA between me aser and and Jason you know get in there for 2026 and you know throw my throw my name in the ring so yeah nice um do you have any kind of pregame rituals or like meals or anything or like when did you start kind of I know you you Pace a lot you know during uh during finals or during competition like did you start doing that recently or is that a kind of a newer thing yeah um yeah as far as like meals and stuff I not I don't think I really have any like I don't have any like specific meal you know it's not like I I eat spaghetti every you know every tournament finals and that makes me win um I I try not to eat much during finals um kind of just like snacking throughout the day like getting some constant energy but I'm never feel full right I feel like that's kind of key you don't want to feel full and tired and whatever sluggish um and then yeah definitely definitely the pacing uh as it's far as um as far as like when I started doing it I mean I feel like I've almost always paced just like in my life I've always paced it's like whenever I need to like think about something or you know plan something I'm I'm pacing you know um just helps me helps helps get the blood flowing I guess I don't know you know helps me think um and then for pinball you know I think I really started doing it after like Expo 20122 I remember I had like really tough match against Dalton and I started pacing like crazy then ever since then I think I really started facing during uh tournaments I think that was the start of it oh denim light yeah I feel like it's one of those things where it's like along the same lines of like you know chewing gum or like just kind of doing something mundane to just help you focus on you know whatever you're trying to do you have an Apple Watch do you keep track I do I was gonna say do keep track of your steps yes so after indisk if I remember correctly on on Sunday I walked I had 23,000 steps I think on so that telling youing fall back on all that pacing I'm you you've got the Olympic medals in your site for walking competition absolutely cool um so I know indisk is a very uh it's on the card format of tournaments um last year was also the first time I've attended indisk so and and that was my first card format tournament um how do you as a player decide which games to play like in what order on like a five game card um for example like do you kind of pick your strongest game first do you save that for last um do you kind of throw an entries to find games that you like I know it was a pretty big bank this year it's like 21 games total or do you kind of try to focus on like the same five games and just kind of stick to that and try to you know get the best out of those five yeah um I definitely I mostly stick with the same games there's definitely like if this game's burned me five times in a row I'm probably I'm gonna move to something else and give it a shot but yeah I mean like after after qualifying at indis this year I mean I maybe played a third of the bank going into finals whatever you know hadn't played um you know hadn't played Grand lizard hadn't played time fantasy right like I did I played time fantasy once um uh Lost World the lost lost of the games I hadn't played much going into the finals and you know having to kind of sight read it which I don't know I don't know how good or bad that is of an idea um but so no one strict with the same ones and I think I learned um when I started playing card formats right that you should always start with the most dangerous Games first that way if they go bad then you can you know easily back in line void the card right you're not wasting all this time on your easy and long and safe consistent games to them throw it away on the you know more risky games but I also think like for for for me to have a successful game on a card like it makes it it's easier to have a successful game when I have like good good meat on the card right I need like a good foundation and then I'll then I'll do my risky games and go from there so you know end this this year I was starting with Elon mostly um and that was one of my better games just to like get a good score something strong to work on um and then I would move on to you know some of the some of the less consistent ones like Kingpin and um Labyrinth for me and then finish up on some one of the more consistent ones like Jaws um so so yeah that's that's my Approach at least I was gonna say what did Elton John do to you I know you had a really good game on it were you getting revenge on it or no no no I I actually I found that Elton John to be like my favorite game at indisk I thought it played pretty pretty solid did you hear any different opinions about that because I know some people were scared I was watching people sort of approach it and say no it's not it it's playing too fast or it's just the outlanes are hungry but I was interested to see what your thoughts or maybe you heard differently I mean it's it's like a it's a total accuracy test right you never really have to shoot anything dangerous so if you're able to make your shots like it's super good game you know I remember I watched Jason play it he didn't really know the game very well in his first game he got you know like a top five for the weekend or whatever just because he's accurac he's accurate and that game rewards accuracy um so I think if you're if you were accurate and you were able to make all your shots and get to your first signature stage multiball you were it was pretty set and not too bad to get there but as far as like schmeg points go that game has pretty much nothing so nice nice um I know we talked about pacing a little bit um and like handling kind of pressure and like nerves do you think that there's kind of added pressure to defend a title as you know as being the reigning indust Champion or does that kind of help you fuel you to you know play better knowing that you've already been there um I definitely think I don't know if there's added pressure to like win again and that like know when I made final four if I didn't win I was at least satisfied with my position in that I I got to top four um you know that's that's I feel like it's kind of a goal is to always do at least reach top four um in a tournament um but as far as the earlier rounds for sure right like I it would have sucked going out in quarters or round two just like not not reaching what I think I should reach um in that and and I feel like it almost makes those earlier rounds harder with like that added pressure of man I just really don't want to go out in quarters or whatever um but yeah I mean in later rounds I think it definitely is helpful it can it can fuel you give you some uh some good momentum you know help you help you get through some potentially tough moments so going back to your goals for this year what is the difference between you and the top three right now less events or less major wins because I know you're you're like 200 300 behind one and two right or is it decay that's hit you or are you um I I haven't checked I didn't look at the complete 20 20 games um I think efficiency is a little bit worse than es and Jason's okay by about 10% or something so that that I think helps hurts a lot and so just have to play more I guess and boost that efficiency up um and then yeah I mean do doing better in Majors I guess know I mean all all three of us are doing well in Majors so it's it's I feel like it's pretty tough it's like after indis for for main it's like difference between me and Jason was 30 Whoppers that then gets multiplied by your efficiency you know like it's like when when you all do well it's there's really no movement so it's tough for sure it's hard because you imagine back to back inis champ you're going to jump but you're also you know in this upper echelon where no one it's very rare air you're you're kind of sitting up there um and then if you're always finishing close to each other it's hard to make that move uh so yeah obviously congratulations on your big win what was the prize for winning indis 2025 so yeah the prize was 500 bucks and a new unboxed Stern Pro and your choice is so I was able to send uh Zach Sharpe at Stern my top three choices of games and uh he sent me back uh a D and D Pro so very thankful for that nice um nice yeah so get that in a couple or my parents will get that in a couple of weeks uh you know sending it back to Colorado so yeah so how many pins do you guys own now back in Colorado yeah my parents own 40ish oh think yeah yeah it's big arcade right lot of games that's awesome yeah well congrats again that's I I know you were going to say you pick Venom Pro for all three but that's okay I I don't take any offense I don't get offense to that um I was going to ask what's the most intense moment of the 2025 indisk finals for you I think I know what it is so we're going to skip that question um so again congratulations for me and Joe uh really really great performance at this time right now we're going to go to our uh tournament footage analysis we'll go over the three games Rush Grand lizard and Johnny neonic with Zach uh about you know some of the strategies some of the just review of what happened um so Zach if you want to follow along on the uh outline you can and let me go ahead and put this here it's going to be loud for a second let me turn off the audio there we go all right so um again indisk 2025 brought to you by iie pinball thank you iie pinball for all the coverage um your finals commentators for the first two games were Jeff Tois Kaylee George and Stephen Bowen uh really great to hear them on the uh on the mic and this in casee you just need a quick recap of the format in disk is card format there's a main classics classics Target match play um which is the Thursday tournament a high stakes which was non- Whopper they had a pin Slash this year on two jaws machines which was a great addition I thought that was a lot of fun and a really great break from uh the traditional sort of grinding on the cards um there was also a women's tournament um congrats to the winners there I believe Kaylee Campbell won the women's there and so uh what we're going to do now is go over each game uh this is the part where a lot of you have come up to me and said hey uh this is great uh I skipped this part so if you are going to skip this part that's okay maybe you'll listen to zMAX here so the first game Rush a borg Design This was not in the main bank this was in the women's Bank correct gentlemen yes that's correct yeah so um why was this chosen for the main bake because eer hadn't picked it in the prior round yeah so that that was the only modern available for him to pick so he I think he was forced to kind of pick this in the last round right sorry to catch you off Zack oh yeah that's that's correct yeah he had to play it in the finals because um there you have to pick the monor that you bring in or the game that you bring in at some point in the tournament he hadn't picked Rush yet and so he was forced to pick it and was that a direct result of the fact that there were only uh I'm trying to figure out what the moderns were available in in the main bank it was Jaws Guardians and what else was considered a modern Labyrinth um yeah so Labyrinth um Godzilla Elton John oh the Sega Godzilla was considered a modern that's right interesting what are your thoughts on that because I'm I'm wondering like I don't know when that was made but I'm trying to think of the other DMD titles that were available like Lost World it was there uh Jurassic Park lost world was that considered a mid so Jurassic Park L world was considered a mid um I think circus voler was considered a new which was really interesting and then jackpot was in mid um everything everything older than jackpot was in mid as well or up until like about Grand lizard or Cyclone all right so rush rush is the first game um to come up on the uh the finals format your player order was eer zmac in vgo ball one uh I am not a rush expert I the first time I played it I asked rid in the Discord the tpn Discord hey how do I play this he was like uh just [ __ ] shoot things that are flashing I was like everything's flashing I don't know what what I'm doing here I couldn't figure out I learned a trick from UAC at the UK open about the um sort of slow ski pass to bump over to get it on the flipper to hit the time machine a lot more directly cuz I don't know if I was having trouble with the backhand or the forehand uh at the UK open so thank you for that so uh zmac why don't you tell us you know what your thoughts are on Rush maybe this I mean you guys didn't play it so you couldn't really have any hey this is you know the backhand is not there for me uh what are your thoughts on Rush itself and how to approach it yeah so I actually did get an opportunity to play it because in my quarterfinal group uh Timber our bus driver chose Rush Oh I got a full game of practice on it um and I thought it played super fast um a little little squirely but like outlanes were not terrible the you could definitely move it a decent amount so it wasn't it wasn't awful um but you know my my plan going in was to focus more on the uh uh Far Cry multiball you know getting your locks there stack it with a multiball and get you know 100 million plus through there just like get some initial value on the table is that the most valuable multiball like if you had a bare naked multiball is that the one you're going for yeah Far Cry is definitely the most valuable of the um or headlong flight is probably technically the most valuable but it's very very deep into the game so you're mostly focusing on Far Cry if you want good value I think with how this this particular Rush copy was set up the um Far Cry locks are set to medium but also it took eight time machine shots instead of the kind of normal three to start that first time machine multiball um so yeah I noticed a lot of players were going for that Far Cry locks instead yeah so this was definitely yeah go ahead go ahead yeah definitely they messed around with the settings on this one um and you know I learned I learned the previous game that uh medium Far Cry locks um so it it does two things and I I only didn't know it did the second thing but the first thing it does is when you hit complete the light lock targets um I guess the light light light lock targets um it allows the right ramp to light the lock um on and it times out after about 15 seconds so that's the first thing you have to hit the right ramp within 15 seconds or else you're back to the Target phase um but the second thing is that normally with Far Cry you can lock you have to lock the first ball in the upper scoop and then lock the second ball in either scoop um but on this one that was not you had to lock both in the upper scoop oh wow you know it was definitely a a little bit more challenging of you know having to hit an extra one of those side shots did you find your upper flipper shots uh more consistent or just tough to dial in um tough to dial in I guess I both of my games on it were were not very good so did I feel like almost the entire game I was gonna say how' you do in the quarterfinals with it so I got I got second on it but I got 20 million so it was not a it was not a good second either it thank God I got second I don't know how this happened sort of thing I like I like Bowen's quote from Joe that he put in the notes it says I like Rush when I pretend to play X-Men that's pretty fun yeah that's pretty funny I noticed the um shooting the left orbit sometimes on Rush you can just hold that upper flipper up and then it'll just go into the scoop but it looked like a lot of the times it would just hit right above it so it wasn't really even a free like left orbit shot you know like you'd have to still kind of shoot that deliberately I think that's the super tough thing with these um with rushes that are so fast is that those orbits it never goes in on almost any of the ones that are you know at larger tournaments just because it's it's waxed it's clean it's it's playing faster than it was designed to really on um if you had Choice uh would this be a game you would have picked as a modern or would uh if you if you I mean I guess maybe Elton John would have been there instead I'm trying to think of the moderns again uh is this your is this not your first choice I guess I should ask that I think going into this tournament right not playing this Rush beforehand absolutely like Russ's probably my favorite modern um LCD Stern it's I think it's a super good pick for me um but with this rush it was so squirly and you know not having much practice on it that I I definitely think uh Elton would have been more fortuitous I guess gotcha yeah there's a ton of good code on this I know raid and Company have worked really hard to to make this uh special if you've ever watched Dalton pinball um he's put up some amazing streams on it some of the stuff got affected by his own play on it uh this is one I I just don't have I will say I don't have a lot of uh experience on but it is fun to watch uh and it was fun to watch this final so you know we have the footage playing now um if you are listening to the podcast just know there's a video format as well and I would strongly suggest watching that so you can kind of see what we're looking at as well so ball one comes up um what do you think of the tilt on this rush I know each of you were able to make a decent move and get to the two rocks uh two dangers but it felt it felt like they were earned like we were talking about earlier yeah I think compared two other games at indisk this was on the tighter side but had less to do with this game being especially tight and moreon uh other games were pretty darn loose but um I thought the Tilt was was very fair you know one good move and I think Rush is a game that should have a tighter tilt you know it's it's a real accuracy test every shot pretty much returns safely to the flippers and so if you miss shots on it you should be punished for that yeah shooting through the Pops I mean it's just it reminds me of um uh White Water I think uh is the Congo one through the pops no the Congo one has the hippo on the on the right it's just those tight little uh avenues that you have that you just are trying to trying to make sure you squeeze through and then if you're holding up the upper flipper you're hoping that it falls right into that that upper scoop so Asher Ball one makes one danger move or one big move for a danger starts big money can't can't find the s shot left out lane drain 3 million ball one zmac yourself you light the Far Cry lock uh you get your right ramp standups right ramp to qualify at the side scoop you get a double danger you hit the right sling washer to the left outlan this was funny because Jeff was like uh Jeff was like I think he hit the washer he didn't even hit the sling and so B was like it's so quick I don't even remember it uh and you ended up with around three million or so too do you remember that yeah there's I feel like there's a lot of um it's like these outlanes that where it hits the side and you like it has makes this sound like this funk against it you know it's like metallic Funk against the wall and as soon as you hear it you just know the ball is gone it's straight down there's no momentum on the ball um and I I remember that was one of those uh one of those drains yeah I noticed um mode wise are you I was trying to figure out what people were going for so it looks like La laa is the common preference uh on um on Rush Maybe I'm Wrong there do you have any thoughts on that because they were getting uh some decent points out of it I know Zer ended up with 16 million only on it but ended up with 40 million he had um good shots on his time machine hitting those accurately he had two weapons uh and they were explaining how one of the weapons spots the shots which could be hu huge if you have maybe a combo ready um or the obviously the other weapon is uh the adall I think when it turns green it's for the adal do you have preference on modes to start or or what are you choosing yeah you know I think lva is like a that's a All or Nothing it's ball three I got I got nothing else let's let's run it and see what happens sort of uh in my opinion um so I I generally don't include it as like a starting mode it's super inconsistent as far as it's scoring um um I generally find Limelight to be the best value and so I will start with Limelight and try to stack it with my um Far Cry and that's a pretty solid foundation um and then after that the next mode I'll try to do is big money um the reason is so big money one of the main shots in it is the center time machine and when the time machine is lit instead of getting you like a nasty return back down to the slings or down the middle or whatever um it'll return it to the upper flipper and so that's a great way to make progress towards your um time machine multiball especially when you need to hit the time machine eight times you know so get get those done a little bit safer and so we're gonna have it explain like I'm five moment choosing your mode is that before the ball launch or are you having to hit a shot to to pick which mode so do you see you can kind of see the records around the Playfield there's one on every main shot um and so when you at the start of your ball like like right now the records are different colors there's a blue one on the right orbit right now there's an orange one on the spinner Lane and each color coordinates to a mode so orange is working man blue is Spirit of Radio um pink is Big Money yada yada um so when you make a record chot um you need a certain number of Records to light your mode and then mode lights on the center time machine and then and the number or yeah so like most of a color you have is the mode you start on so for example when you start the game you only need one record to light your mode shoot a you know a pink record and start your mode it'll be big money um at the start awesome thank you for that yeah that's I will clip that for everybody so they can they can use that as a good uh a good base so vgo comes so Zer uh had a decent ball like I said 40 million ball one one game one of the finals on Rush um I thought his time machine shots were really nice and accurate cuz I know F finding that and dialing it in for me uh is a little tough at the beginning because you think it's somewhere on the right flipper or maybe the backhand will get you there and then you're like no no let me just forehand it um but he he had some good moves there and so uh vgo steps up he had a big move to say kind of a shimmy out of the right outlane um Far Cry right ramp was ready lavila was ready uh but then he had a quick sling drain so he gets about 1 million so you're looking at 3340 and one so ball two eer comes up uh he's into big money uh I noticed he was still struggling a little on that upper flipper shot um but he had a couple nice cash outs on Big Money started red Baretta Baretta multiball so uh how do you start that yeah so um to light a time machine multiball you have to keep bashing the time machine um most rushes it's only four hits to like your first time machine but on this one it was eight um and then the uh the dead end to the left of the time machine when the time machine multiball is lit cycle between the three different possible multiballs to start on so it can either be subdivisions um red Baretta or fly by night um red Baretta is normally the default multiball um so like if you don't shoot the dead end at all you you'll get red Baretta but it's also so by far the least valuable one um so there's a little bit of risk right do you want to go for that dead end and potentially drain off the risky shot or you want to just take red Baretta um and go with it do you have a preferred mode that you would stack with it like big money I think big money is a solid option um Limelight is the easiest good value mode that's definitely the best one I would say in this position position um so yeah there's also Spirit of Radio which I love um I didn't get the chance to do any Spirit of Radio Shenanigans with this rush it was a little too hard but that one can be super explosive most valuable mode in the game yeah this Rush didn't treat you well we we'll get through your balls quickly don't wor true yeah very quickly but you know it it set yourself up set yourself up maybe it help mentally uh for the next two but yeah so sher's ball two he starts red bar shadow with big money uh he's got the mystery gets the adab ball collects a few jackpots gets to about 74 million um and he made uh you know there's a a good note here makes a Grimace face after Double draining out of multiball because he had lavila ready with the record boost and I guess the combo is Right ramp right orbit is that correct yes right ramp right orbit it's a two-way combo so y gotcha so he ends up with about 76 million on his ball two you come up uh for your ball two and let me just go back a little uh the ball was stuck in Sling Town bow and made a great uh comment he's like well thanks for the ball save while I was waiting between the slings uh it just ran out uh you got your Far Cry lock one done unfortunately you got a reject from the right straight down the middle it was just quick it was a very quick uh drain uh and everybody on the commentary noticed it's something times it's just too quick for you even to react no matter how good or uh you know your reflexes are um so you're at about 5 million Zer comes up he uh makes another big move for two dangers starts big money with red Baretta uses his adall collects a Super Jackpot for 14 million now again the scores are 765 right now so 14 million is huge and you just said you got second with 20 million so those are valuable points um he has a really good ball and obviously uh he's a really really really good player how long have you been playing with uh Jason um no I think I met Jason at the pin Masters when it was in Colorado in 2020 kind of the last tournament before covid um you know I I didn't I wasn't going to Papa when I was a kid so you know I didn't get to meet him there but yeah you know I I played with Jason in a pin golf qualifying group and yeah it was you know he was amazing player then he's an amazing player now obviously do you have distinct skills that you know you've picked up from him by any chance is there any technique you've learned from him um I don't know if there's anything specific um know I've obviously I think Jason is the most accurate of us of us kids really yeah um and I think he's super good at keeping things um under control like there's I feel like there's kind of like a traditional um pinball player you know who's very accurate and and plays the game right and just is and keeps things you know under control and and in in good form and I think Jason is like that sense like the most optimal player there ever has been uh in those senses so I definitely I admire that in him and you know when you're playing with against him you got to do it's going to be a marathon on almost every game you know I remember playing against him at at pimber the game last year for four hours you know I was gonna say I remember the aiq uh where you yeah everywhere the aiq yeah and it was just like everybody has their Strat for it but he had another and I know I was was sitting next to eer and you and eer was like hey this is what we were doing but now it's getting publicized cuz Jason's doing it was the long game Strat of reality uh I forgot the next one Soul Gem and then drain out of reality or let let Thanos collect something so you can play reality again oh I think it was time the one that spots the shot so uh yeah that was a lot of fun because you definitely have to you have to put on your your best when you're playing uh Jason absolutely absolutely he's a he's a great competitor you know the reason he's number one in the world yeah I remember my first interaction with Jason was playing against him um up in Delaware the lavish uh pinball Collective and we were playing like an older kind of em I think was like Blackjack or something and um it was it was maybe a game that he hadn't had a lot of practice on it was like maybe they just brought it in recently and uh I'd kind of taken a lead like maybe on invols one and two but he uh I talked to him after the game he he obviously won the game um on his last ball but he uh he said he had to change his strategy multiple times because um just from like kind of seeing other people play in the game and like he really just adjusted so quickly on the Fly and like you know he just something that's like the extra Edge that you have as like one of those higher level players that just you you adapt to you know what the game's giving you and also like you know just just being so quick to quick on your feet you know just to to adjust to to the game and what it's giving you yeah I think know E's also really good at that um you know they're they're both super super good at that as at adapting where and that those sort of skills definitely are shown at a tournament like indisk where you know you're playing Kingpin where nobody has played a Kingpin before in their life or you're playing Galactic tank force and you know most a lot of people haven't really gone deep into Galactic tank force and or bone Busters or deadly weapon you know any any of the got leaps that hundreds of got leaps that Jim somehow find you know it's it's a it's a big skill to be able to um quickly pick up you know what's going on in a game how that game plays um you know what what pattern am I do I need to get into to succeed in this game and and yeah they're they're super successful at that yeah so it was uh it was you know ball tw's coming up and you've got Zer uh running through what he can on red Baretta and big money gets 29 million out of his multi ends up with 135 million which is clearly a solid solid score um I would be interested to see I should have gone back and looked at the uh entries when the women women's Bank were uh putting them through and also through the the playoffs so vgo steps up uh starts Leva gets some huge shots in Leva really good combos gets a fun little left out lane drain but he's sitting pretty with 75 million so he's right there with eer who's around 76 ball three comes up and we've got you know first game ball three got to figure out what's left for you on the board uh he starts eer starts laa uh and uh Kaylee mentions that he had a really nice live catch uh to complete one of these combos he almost hit I think he hit three in a row I got close to it for Leva but he ends at about 125 million to put him uh at the time in second place so uh unfortunately for you um as we come to here ball that did not happen yeah you get the infamous uh Borg uh you had a quick Borg out to the right drain I don't even I I could move it forward I think it happened so quickly but uh what were you thinking going into ball three did you have if you remember like what what was your plan uh going into it yeah I me my plan was I was going to um I I was going to take my upper Loop um shot because it was lit for big money and try to stack that into my multiball um get some value there so it was going for Far Cry and big money just to start it out um and then I would probably work towards my time machine after that to try to catch uh Jason but this would hopefully get me above the uh vgo eer area but not happened you got the the left left bounce to the right uh Borg in lane and then I I really thought the trajectory of that ball was coming back to the left so when it did a little Back Spin maybe it had back spin on it it went out the right I was like that is that's wild like that feels like that's what happens to most people so it gives some not that it it's good for you but it gives some sense of relief to other players like okay it's not just me that it happens to even no matter how much you're bumping it on Borg designs are you um actively nudging more do you know if you find yourself um doing that or is that just you know you're just normally doing what you do um I feel like when you get bored it's not really like a oh I should have uded harder or anything you know it's kind of kind of is what it is I mean there's the best save for it is probably the wicked shimmy you know um out of that outline when it happens but it's it's so quick it's it's tough to tough to react to it yeah I totally hear you so you end up with 11 million um you're taking a zero for the first round which doesn't put you out of it but obviously you're always trying to at least get a point um in this scoring format 4210 Zer steps up he has some some crazy side to side action to start I thought he was done for um starts Tom Sawyer hits his one two3 into Far Cry multiball excuse me he's rolling uh he has a double danger he gets a double danger after trying to cradle separate which I didn't expect because I know a lot of the times when you're cradle separating you're not putting too much force on it so the fact that the ball found its way edging out was a little surprising he gets multiple Sawyer shots to Pro progress through the mode collects his big points and ends up with about 203 million which I'm sure he was uh super happy with vgo steps up um are you watching uh or are you still kind of walking around at that time or what are you thinking after we done with ball three and you're like okay game one's done what are we doing here yeah I mean I'm always pacing so I guess I'm somewhere in the background and you know if you've never been to indisk um but there's all these games and there's a huge ejector and so you know when I'm facing in the background I can still see what's going on a little bit um you know check in see who's still playing and and whatnot um but yeah I mean I think for winning a papa style final you you really need to take the four points on two games right um there's there's ways you can win without that right if if it splits evenly or maybe the 88 happens but really 75 85% of the time the person who wins is the person who won two of the three games so making fourth sucks obviously on the first game but it's not I don't think it's terrible it's that worse of a position compared to third or second really um it's it's basically okay I have three games I need to win two of them I lost one of them I I better win those other two you know do or die moment right yeah yeah because it when it came to game three obviously you you you controlled your own future and it sucks when it's like that sometimes but it's also I don't know for me personally it it gives you a sense of accountability like look I've got to do this no one else is going to do this for me I've got to push through and figure out what I need to do to win um so I don't know if it makes the win sweeter for you for me it would uh um that's that's kind of my thinking on it yeah for sure for sure yeah so I think zero 44 is no the 044 is always a a good feeling to have do you prefer the 4210 or the 3210 oh 4210 yeah any day of the week it's I think it's far far far superior um I mean I'm a little biased I think I'm a more explosive player and so the extra rewards for taking first is beneficial for me um but yeah I think it's just way more fun and interesting format overall I feel like I had a bit of a zmac moment yesterday at a uh we just had like a small local tournament but um it was you know the same 42 one zero scoring and um I was driving the bus for the group and uh you know picked the first game I had to go first and then lost like I put up you know a horrible score on the first game and I knew it was going to come in last but I feel like that that kind of lull in time where you're just waiting for the game to end knowing that you took a zero is uh it's it can sometimes feel like an eternity where it's just like you I just want to move on to the next game you you know and M um I mean like you said with the 4210 it's like you just have to win two games right so you just have to move on to the next game and with the plan to you know obviously win out and then you know win the tournament so yep absolutely Joe do you play in between um balls or games like if you're waiting uh I mean if if the opportunity is there I I like to stay warm um I I don't particularly find Solace and pace sing myself so so uh yeah I mean like if if there are other games available to play I'll just kind of you know flip around just to get you know my my hands busy and um you know wait for the next game to start zmac have you ever I mean I don't know if Pac how long you've been pacing we'll just call it that for now not to put a negative connotation on it because I do it too um but have you ever found yourself uh keeping yourself warm playing you know free play pins practice pins or do you just like to kind of wait until you get back get your hands back on the flippers of the game you're actually competing on yeah I mean I think for smaller local things like yeah you know I like playing pinball so if there's a pinball available I I'll play it around or whatever um but for indisk I normally don't do that um just because I think there's some defitely some changes and how flipper feel and game feel H between between games and that can affect you know how you play on certain things I I prefer to stay more locked in for larger tournaments um but I feel like pacing is what keeps me warm right it's like it's keeping my heart rate going I feel like I'm still in it you know I'm not I'm not getting cold just sitting on the sideline yeah no you're you're definitely you know pumping adrenaline through your body and it's great mentally because I don't know sometimes it clears my mind I I remember at Papa 21 I was walking around uh for the classics uh playoffs and I was just like this is great I can walk around and by the time I get a lap in maybe it's my turn and if that's great that means the other players didn't do anything and if I need a couple laps uh I got some work to do so um uh game one's done your winner is Jason Zer with 203 million vgo in uh eer excuse me in second with 125 million vgo in third with 118 vgo I thought was going to take second um he had a failed tip pass at the end but he tilted out I don't know if he would have had enough bonus I think it was around 118 and he was close to eer cuz he was in uh he had red Baretta he had the adab ball he got the mystery adab ball he was working up cuz ball two he had 75 and he ended up with an extra 43 there I was surprised he tilted because I thought he might have had enough to cash catch eer but um unfortunately it was not enough he got the three so 4210 zer eer vgo and zmac we go on to game two so before we start game two uh zmac do you have any final thoughts on Rush and Joe as well yeah I don't think I got anything uh great game but that one played super fast so uh so yeah yeah on to the next all right so um one of the great things we had at the in our episode last episode for pincinnati was the minute tutorials so I want to make sure we shout out pinball 101 on YouTube I'll put the link in the video description we are going to watch a two-minute video on our next game on how to play it it is Grand lizard uh I fell in love with this at penberg last year um I was talking to ruo about it while she was watching I believe Jordan to Shane just destroy it because I think he owns it and he had like six million and we were all just kind of she was waiting for her turn it was also in the um bash at the Berg bank but I thought it played really well I really like the way it was set up at indisk I kind of wish I had taken the strategy of making this my RIS game and putting it as my first uh game on the card uh but you live you learn so let's watch this video real quick and we'll go from there appealing to herpetologists and pinball players alike Grand lizard Sports f fast play Under the menacing gaze of a giant lizard head the basic strategy is to capture one ball then start two- Ball multiball by hitting the top right release Target Playfield scoring doubles during two- ball multiball the ball lock is easier to hit from the left flipper a post pass helps here although three ball multiball triples Playfield scoring the risk is locked ball s may be stolen by other players during a multiplayer match the upper Playfield Target Banks keep the action fast for the top Bank hitting any Target freezes the flashing score value complete all Targets within the timeout period to collect flashing score the three cave targets Advance the cave value then light and award extra ball and special shooting into the cave Awards up to 40,000 advances The Flash Bank score if timing and starts blinking the 50,000 upper right shot hit the target within the timeout period to collect sweeping either Bank doubles their score and is very challenging Advanced bonus multipliers and light Spinner by completing the lizard Targets this also increases Magna save time indicated above the return Lanes press Magna save buttons to prevent outlane drains shoot the A and B ramps to light bonus hold over outlanes extra ball special and then score 50,000 collect bonus hold over via the right shoot hit the right target to collect extra ball and specials rolling through an in lanane flashes the mystery lamp shoot the ramp to collect the displayed mystery score after the last ball collect an additional multiplied bonus if the holdover is [Laughter] [Music] lit all right so I love the sounds on that game sorry you had to indulge me there they're great for sure yeah but um so this version uh I was surprised they mentioned that the Magna saves were on I don't know if I've ever seen them turned off for a competition uh but you had a huge rubber on the cave lock shot on the left ramp on the right side on the right post and then uh on the right ramp the Left Post had a a giant rubber it looked like may I I'm pretty sure I'm seeing that correctly um uh the tiny flippers in the top yeah zipper tiny flippers and then zipper flippers on the bottom on the bottom um basic strategy uh get your locks uh and then uh take advantage of the the multiplied play field and try to get the center spinner lit and just rip and and go up there I didn't realize there was a uh I think he said oh sweeping the targets up top doubles the value of whatever is lit that's interesting I didn't know that um thoughts on Grand lizard zmac and your approach seeing it as the second game in your bank you were scheduled to go fourth in this um this this round yeah it was really interesting um because I was I was the lowest seed going in to the final four and so I was expecting to go second on everything like like normal but um vgo and Jason chose you know second and third um rather than fourth so I got to go forth on both this and the last game um which which I'll take um yeah normally Grim lizard is a pretty boring game you know it's super grindy you just shoot locks all day and then release and shoot spinner but um with uh tiny little flippers up top that's not really the case and giant rubbers of course um so yeah i' I'd played this Grand lizard at uh IFA um when it was at Jim's house the previous year and I played it against eer in our in our um up eight match and I got uh 10,000 I think I got something it was crazy it was it was very sad it was it was like under under 30k for sure not a single lock not a single release um no Spinners you know it was it was bad so um I didn't repeat that thank God but going into this I was like you know what when the three games were announced at the beginning I was thinking okay well I need to win two of these three games it's probably not going to be lizard so I need to win rush and then win Johnny um so you know taking forth on that I was like okay well I guess I I better figure out how to win on Grand lizard because that's the only way what um do you think that vgo and Zer chose different positions because of the potential lock uh the lock stealing potential um I think I don't know I think that Jason always likes going early rather than fourth you know he's he's a first sort of guy get the momentum going right and you know like I was like I was saying earlier like when you're in the final four it's the stress is unlike you know any other round right like oh yeah it's those going forth can be pretty scary and pretty sketch so I think it's definitely reasonable to not want to be the last person and you know rather than be this be the chaser of scores the one that people are chasing um because I think it's e definitely easier to mess it up in in finals yeah no I think I think this this was probably other than ball three on um Johnny am monic just because of the math that needed to be done this was my favorite sort of uh match to watch because of some of the intricacies that invol are involved in the one of two strategies either multiball or press the um Center spinner you know get it lit and try to separate yourself there and it was interesting because the first ball eer locks one locks the second tilts out unfortunately leaves two for vgo so all vgo has to do is step up uh hit that top right target or lock lock the third ball in the bottom play field and eer is at 242 after ball one vgo steals the multiball starts the three ball multiball loses one cuz once it comes out it's any body's game it's not guaranteed you're going to be able to trap up and he has after that you know three ball multiball he's got the triple Playfield he's got 60k so it's kind of like well I got the gift but I didn't get to I didn't get to use it so he rips the center spinner twice he's got his 2x bonus he still ends up with 200k he's less than eer after getting the gift of the three ball multiball so even if you're given it it's not a guarantee that you're going to be able to take advantage um so zer has no lock setup for him gets one lock and this was kind of my experience on Grand lizard he had like four or five shots on backhanding it off the left to get to the the the cave lock and he couldn't get it so he drains out he's got 232k did you find the backhand um unreliable I know you had a couple really good uh on the- fly shots to lock um you got one free lock from Zer on your first ball the smooth second lock shot we're watching it right now uh off the plunge uh you got in trouble this was fun to this all this game was also fun to watch because watching you guys juggle it and get it back under control or safety was just awesome it was not easy so I saw you guys fighting and sweating it out there um but your thoughts on the backhand and and your ball one yeah um you know I thought the backhand wasn't terrible um I was able to find it at least a couple of times which was which was nice I I I never left a lock so that was that was good um yeah I found the release super tough I I don't think I made it a single ball so it was um you know normally on Grand lizard you you want to lock only one ball and then you know keep releasing and always being a two Ball but with with the releasing those tiny flippers it was I felt like it was a better option just to go for three back hands yeah we're watching the footage of you right now getting to your your three ball I know um you got some 3x upper Playfield shots off uh the bonus hole and the spinner were lit you got a huge spinner shot um the way you drain on this one even even after this was a little unfortunate cuz um they drain at the same time obviously simal drain is not not what you want but sometimes it's it's going getting hectic and your face right there says it all you're like oh come on but um do you ever uh on this on this copy did you ever think about going left ramp or right ramp or just leaving it alone yeah I'm I'm a spinner main that's what I know and that's what I do so that's that's what I that's what I go for um yeah ramps if if I hit any ramps they were not on purpose I would say that that was flaing get the ball out of there sort of shots gotcha yeah you had 625 after ball one you're sitting you know it's not a comfortable lead but it's nice enough to where the other players are going to have to do something whether it's you know hit the lizard St uh targets get their uh you know spinner ready maybe go into the multiball um CU as we can see it can end on this copy with just a 10 20,000 uh result for your ball or you can get everything under control and go up up Center all the time so eer ball two locks one starts his two bowl multiball from the upper play field shot SP Center spinner was lit but he caught he got caught on this one I was a little um a little surprised because I think it sort of uh froze him for a second he had a ball going out the left but then the other one decided to go uh straight down the middle for right here he had the Magna save ready and I think he realized that if he held the Magna saved maybe he could have saved the one on the left because the other one sort of did a small hop uh straight down the middle but a good ball 481 just kind of doubles what he had ball one uh vgo no free locks not this time you don't get anything there um he got his one ball lock uh starts his two- ball multiball he backhanded the left Target nicely with both balls cradled which I realized was a really smart strategy because um when you look at the Playfield you know if you've got your Ard ready and you've got two on the left you have a chance kind of reminds me of two balls cradled on the right on Guardians to get to the scoop you can just backhand it there so he uh got his L Target nicely uh used the magnet save on the right had some huge spinner shots so when the Spinners lit what is that telling the player on the center spinner um that says that the spinner is worth 2,000 a spin so it's it's worth going for yeah so if it's solid it's worth a thousand then I think solid is just part of like the light show animation so like it stops spinning yeah gotcha gotcha Okay cool so uh vgo locked another ball um at the end of this one on his ball too he left one for Jason so Jason Jon had one ready starts his two ball multiball gets a beautiful Center spinner uh shot right here I believe yeah so you can see his I think they were calculating it was like 30 to 40K per rip which is going to come into play um on your ball two so he relocked another ball after his two ball multiball is done he went for the center spinner um that time but it rejected to the right out lane and he is now sitting at 481k so your ball two is coming up you are uh slightly below the lead on vgo he's at 677 um you're at about 625 so you get your two locks do you remember your second ball this was a really uh you know a really good ball for you did you have you have any thoughts about it anything you want to mention on it um if you don't remember I think I I think I went spinner near the end of it rather than locking more balls and that was you know like we like we were talking about right I feel like on in finals it's always just like you want to be the one in control rather than the one chasing because chasing can be pretty sketch in finals so yeah so yeah it was just getting a solid foundation rather than trying to you know put up four million on this game of Grand lizard yeah and I'm going to let the commentary here because this is where you post pass oh he's just he's pressing now yeah for 2000 spin point oh he stopped at 100 going to complete the targets up top come on come on it get close with the little flippers that would be impressive close he almost did they get like four little nudges to keep it in the upper play field tiny flippers were RI into the cave sh yeah I guess lizard there normally uh there's those full three inch flippers but it gives you when they put when they put the tiny flippers that gives you about an inch and a half of just rubber to play around with around there there yeah so they were talking about it right here they were like he's point pressing cuz he doesn't want to you don't want to leave locks for eer um cuz you you have your first game result that you're okay I got to separate myself so I can at least get as many points as possible move myself up maybe take first um but it was a great note from the commentary and that's why I'm glad I'm glad you're here because it looked like okay I'm at a million I just need to separate myself I don't need to go for the locks my Spinners lit let's just keep going up there and you said it you're a spinner main uh you had a great ball you put pressure on your opponents get the locks themselves and hopefully catch up um and it looked like you're getting value up from the drops up top as well I know that's not like a you just stay up there as long as you can basically yeah I mean the drops can be good value on a normal Grand lizard but it's pretty tough to complete them with those with those tiny flippers I mean you can't really directly hit you know this like the ones on the right side you can't really hit with that upper right flipper and same thing with the you know the one on the left with with those farther left targets so it's a lot harder to complete it in the in the time you have to makes sense yeah so great ball you're at 1.2 million what are your thoughts after ball two are you when you're walking around are you um thinking okay hold yeah hopefully I don't have to play ball three like that's that's the dream I don't wanna I don't want to mess it up right at the end so so that that that's very very astute so eer ball three right Magna safe to keep himself alive right there uh gets lock locks one ball um back hands the lizard targets um but unfortunately uh it when during his two ball multiball he had a right L outlane drain to end the multiball um and then he gets a left sling to uh left sling to right outlane and he was trying to I think he was trying to restart that there it is restart his multiball but he is at 653 is currently in third he's looking at I'm assuming Jason's score because he had two from the first game and he's like if I can escape with a point I'm still in it uh and obviously as is a world class player he's always in it um but pointwise right there he's he's definitely hoping for a quick ball for Jason so vgo comes up he's got no locks he gets a forehand shot I hit one forehand lock shot I thought I was like okay I'm good inis over I I'm happy with it I locked one on Grand lizard with the zipper Flipper on the forehand um so vgo comes up locks his uh Second Ball he sent it up a bunch of times trying to get back get control if you're trying to get control on the bottom uh portion of grand lizard are you more often doing the post pass or are you trying to send it up top because it looked like he was trying to send it up top and hopefully getting a rebound uh or some slower friction coming down so that he could get it under control and I would say normally um on this gr lizard I was trying to post pass to hit my locks rather than going up top just because I couldn't make that shot um but you know if vgo was more comfortable with that multiball start up top then you know that's I think is a is a fine option as well yeah I I just noticed that and I I didn't know if he was doing it on purpose I thought he might have um because he had the two locks and this sets up Jason did you know that Jason had two locks ready for him probably I would imagine I was I imagine I was somewhere and I was able to see the the game State when he was walking up I would be like oh come on man you don't need to help him anymore so Z Zer steps up he's got two locks to start ball three he trailing zmac by almost 800k at the time uh he comes up he starts his three ball multiball and he's he's ready to go uh he's got his three ball going he ends it with about 976k so from ball two excuse me ball two to ball three he's getting about 500 uh looks just under 500,000 for that multiball so Zer locked in uh gets another 2x Center spinner rip this was a great ball from him he had some amazing post traps uh I think that's what it's called when it's coming down the in lane and used the bottom of the post to trap it and stop it post catch post catch that's it good thank you see that's why here help me out post catch so yeah he had some really great post catches um so he had already had his one three ball multiball he starts another two- ball multiball and uh ends with about 1.5 million in that ball alone he had I believe three multiballs and I'm pretty sure his thought process was the same as yours I don't want to leave any locks for zmac he ends up with about 1.58 on the uh scoreboard so you're ball three what are your thoughts you come up you see that he's ahead of you by 300 almost 300,000 297 uh what did what were you thinking there uh yeah I mean obviously was hoping not to play my last ball and here I am you know playing my last ball um so you know I think there's like a little it's definitely like know like we're talking about like the the chasing is tough and finals where it's like this this is it it for all three of us right we either stop Jason here or not stopping Jason at all so um yeah there's definitely added pressure there of just getting something done um I almost feel like it's harder in this case of like when it's 300K and it's not like too much and you know just do do anything right don't don't completely fail right like it's it can be tough not to completely fail in those in those moments no yeah it's it's noty so uh this was probably the ball I was most interested to hear other than ball three on Johnny and monic what your thoughts were because you're coming up to it and it's you're down you know a little over 300,000 and you don't have any locks ready for you so I'm going to let the commentary play because um this is a really really good sequence uh where you're postp passing so you can get that Center spin just got to rip it like twice oh he was so late he's going to burn it there it is I think that's fine okay now he's up over the spin could do it it's a good spin not enough off the CER oh the backand rip another Center Post I had to I had to highlight that cuz that was crazy two Center posts in a row what was going through your mind then oh man I mean feel like when those when those things sort of things are happening I'm not thinking like oh I got to do a Center Post here I'm just like you know it's it's the the the thing in my head is telling me all right it's time to do it and there's no there's no mental in there you know thinking about it so um um you know I wasn't really like stressed about it or anything or anything but like going back at looking at it later it's like oh my God that was that was terrifying how how did I not how did I not die there dur that oh during that sequence uh Kaylee chimes in he's he says something along the lines of like that uh that line from uh I think it's like Jango and chain where just like he had my curiosity but now he's got my attention of like you shifting Focus just the spinner and uh yeah I think everyone was just kind of like watching with baited breath you just every spinner rip getting closer to you know the top score and then you know finally when you when you reach that and like that moment of elation where you're just kind of like hopping around and dancing it's like awesome to watch yeah it was a good feeling for sure to not be done right one more game that did that Center Post ever come up in previous rounds where you were you cognizant that you could make a save off of it or CU I know some of them just die there there's there's no there's no bounce on them yep I I that was the first time I played that grand lizard I hadn't heard anything about it earlier um I to be honest I don't even know if I knew there as a Center Post you know like in my mind so trustfall it's yep to total trust right that's awesome well congratulations obviously on that that was just such a wild sequence because it was like okay flip the Strat and then also get two Center posts in a row so you can continue the Strat and catch uh catch Jason so Center Post Center spinner rundown Zer take first you are sitting at four Zer at six CU he takes second vgo at third with two uh he gets another point eer unfortunately takes the zero on that one uh he's at two so you got a 6422 your path to the championship is to win out and hope Zer um uh doesn't take uh second for the tiebreaker and obviously um you you would need to take first so uh we come up on Johnny neonic did you have this on your card earlier this is the last game of the indis 2025 2025 main finals um did you have practice on it uh was it a staple of your card or were you sort of uh coming in a little more blind than normal yeah so I played this Johnny one time in qualifying and I thought it played fine um when I played in qualifying it it messed up quite a bit like there was lots of glove issues I had to like stop halfway through my game and you know take comp balls on a new game so I don't feel like I got I got the best uh Johnny experience but uh but yeah I thought all the shots felt pretty good um the spinner was you know absolute garbage on intentionally garbage uh J Jim did that on purpose to Nerf the spinner Strat a little bit um but yeah otherwise it was a very standard Johnny I'd say so for the uninitiated there was a giant sign on the backl that said don't do it what does don't do it mean on Johnny demonic um okay so you know little road trip down memory lane um so in 2022 I want to say at like the Great Lakes pinball open District 82 um Haley was playing Johnny demonic in a finals and he was behind he burned his spinner Millions um and he had this trick up his sleeve where if you have a lockit and you start Yakuza and then mocka ball then from the hand you can continuously drop it into the mode start hole and it'll just serve it back up to the hand forever and mod Mode start hole will also award you a Yakuza shot for about 60 million and it doesn't really decrease in value so Kaye did that there for you know 30 minutes or whatever right to catch to catch the scores he needed to do uh the game like freaked out I think I think the hand broke I don't know there there was issues with the hand after that um and so it'll forever live on as a banded maneuver that's so funny yeah I I I did try that uh at a local cool after I heard about it I was like all right let me see if this actually does anything and I just dropped it into the hole and the game actually broke it like it just kept going back up into the hand and then I had to restart the game like hopefully he didn't blow a good score on that that's hilarious I you know good for Kaylee for finding that out so Johnny and monic um from what I understand there's there's you know the meta on it is build your bonus take advantage of the scoring bug on the grid for the award Bon bonus I guess there's uh throwing Spike spinner Millions cyberspace multiball and a matrix strategy the Yakuza strike which can give you decent points but I think um the the big Strat is to hit the spinner uh if you want to explain uh in better detail uh I would be more than happy to listen yeah so there's there's two different elements I me there's lots of different elements to Johnny Johnny is a super funky game um but the first two things are um your throwing St strike Awards and your locks so throwing strikes are lit by the left in lane and then it they light for a short time on the right ramp and right orbit um and they give different Awards a set set um list of awards so the first award is gigabytes or big points or something and then the second award is something else and then the third award is light spinner Millions um spinner Millions is spinner and it's worth 10 million a spin for that ball and it Awards it I believe during normal play and then also again during bonus um or for Big Value um so generally like a strong opener is you'll light your multiball and start spinner Millions with your multiball by shooting the right orbit for your last throwing Spike with your multiball start that way you have no chance of wasting your spinner Millions you guaranteed to get a multiball and stack with it um and then and then on top of that there's bonus so hold bonus will re the previous Ball's bonus on the next ball and that includes your spinner Millions but it does it in a kind of funky way where on the display it'll show it'll cycle through like on ball two if you had a hold bonus on ball one it'll show your all these individual awards for ball two your previous ball bonus and then your total bonus bonus which includes your previous ball bonus in actuality it Awards both your previous ball bonus and your total bonus so it effectively doubles your previous ball bonus um so so yeah and you can you can hold multiple balls so ideally you get two holds um that way you have a and then you get your spinner Millions on both ball one and on ball one that way you hold your value for ball two and ball three gotcha so if you get a hold bonus on the grid on ball one does it remove it from the next player um so the grid is interesting so there's nine Awards on the grid and the first grid is shared by all players so the the location of my hold bonus is the same as the location of Jason's hold bonus and E's hold bonus and V's hold bonus um that means that when I place it there they're unable to place it there until that ball is moved now when you lock a ball the glove will randomly remove one of the balls from the grid and hopefully it's the hold bonus one so that you can get it um that's one of the reasons like play order on Johnny can be kind of weird it's almost better to be first in that you're guaranteed that you can get the hold bonus before other people get an opportunity to and are you given any clues as to where the awards on the grid are yeah so when you lock your first ball um crazy Bob will cycle through all of the awards you know very quickly it'll show you know hold bonus 2x whatever just on the display and on the grid it'll light the corresponding um rollover on the on the grid so it'll show you know 2x bonus and show a location on the grid hold bonus show a location on the grid video mode show a different location on the grid and you have to be watching um if I'm if you watch you know players play Johnny when they lock their first ball you can see them wait look at the display wait till they see hold bonus and quickly look down to see where on the grid it is um it's it definitely takes them getting used to to to get the correct locations yeah it is it is a wild wild code um just trying to understand I I'm glad Kaylee was on commentary and on for game three they had Jim bedo on as well uh Jeff Tia stepped out but it was really good to have him because he knows it really really well and I think this is a interesting uh tournament uh Bank game in the bank and just for the finals because there's so much you can uh combine as far as starting off and setting yourself up for Success later on whereas you know on like a grand lizard could you could be a fresh start every time but on this one uh your ball one was absolutely amazing so you know eer get gets they were talking about him getting a lock on ball one he could lock out an award for everyone else he had a quit he got the whole bone B us um quick right outlan drain he ended up with 82 vgo unfortunately Johnny and demonic did not treat him well on this on this round uh he was backhanding the left ramp was you were finding the backhand very consistent right on the left yeah the flippers were definitely strong enough for for the back hand um he took video mode he ended up with 105 million people were yelling snarf at him I felt bad because it's not a not not one to to uh I have never found it easy but I'm sure you know just other people may have so he had a little bounce off the right into the right out lane ends up with 202 Zer did not have a good ball one um Kaylee was talking about forgoing the award bonus um and picking three in a row determined by the hold bonus I couldn't understand what he was um talking about there but he said once you burn through spinner Millions it might be cool to find a valuable mode after that but Jason didn't get the chance he had a quick left outlan drain for 71 million uh so now we get to your ball one um you obviously just explained the strategy did you have anything different that you were thinking about going into this uh it looks like you hit your first throwing Spike you took the lock got the award bonus from the grid um you Reit your lock uh your left ramp combo to right orbit to uh got your next lock shot and then uh there was a moment where you were kind of hyped up and I think it's coming here after your second lock I'm going to let the audio play first and then we'll get your thoughts on what was kind of going on here must to P it up this time yeah so his next throwing Spike if he gets it is going to like the biggest scoring potential in the game right smartly lighting his lock he's going to try and combo his left ramp into the right orbit nice nice Z's excited so his spinner is lit for 10 million a spin got 2x bonus he's going to be able to put it on hold bonus so what were your thoughts at that moment you you you kind of had what you need wanted to set up yeah that's I think the the goal of any game of Johnny is to get your spinner million multiball stack on ball one um that way you have the opportunity to hold your bonus twice and and maximize potential so especially seeing all three other players not do that I thought this was huge potential and if I get a pretty decent um spinner million value uh I I could end it right here you know and yeah would be able to touch me but unfortunately I did not get great spinner value so so that did not happen and you know a more exciting game I did love the the double Andy Bagwell clap after the uh the lock there that was awesome to watch you just got so like hyped up you know it's like all this energy you just can't really exert because you're just playing pinball by pushing two buttons but it was definitely you can see the energy there yeah for sure I remember after I after this game you know I I texted with Andy and I was like I had some Andy Bagwell moments you know some some Bagwell claps in there that's awesome so yeah so this one just a great start to set yourself up to take the four uh on on Johnny and monik so I think there was um I think you had a little flip or hop on on one once the once the multiball was out you're cracking up there you're already at 9:42 in your quick multiball um by the time it ends I think I think you were at your bonus there is 754 and then obviously there was the addition of uh the prior the prior bonus amount that you're talking about gets added to it so you at 1.9 billion um they said on the stream and I think this is correct uh your next ball you would have had a one and 1.5 billion on bonus and doubled if you could find the collect bonus on the grid um so we're going into ball two eer starts cyberspace multiball gets the left ramp to right Orit for his quick multiball uh he had an amazing ball too uh his spinner Millions were at 3x uh by the time we get to he starts Yakuza uh right around here he's already at 1.7 billion on the footage and we look at his Yakuza strike I think he had the same sort of flipp or ho straight down the middle that you had on your ball one but you're looking at his total right here and there's his 490 excuse me 1.8 billion uh and then obviously added in with whatever else was there he's already at 3.56 billion out don't knowwhere huh that 1.8 that he has aser has is that that's what is carrying over to his final ball right oh yes but not just 1.8 because 1.8 is his previous bonus and it Awards your previous bonus twice that's that's part of the bug so it's really what 3.6 that he's gonna be getting on his ball three okay um so that's yes and that's like Johnny like if you mess up your the thing um normally it's just it's over there's no way to come back it's who does the thing best and who does it earliest to maximize that value um so I think I actually got pretty lucky that spinner was pretty trash on this Johnny and that normally with with the the amount of spinner uh it's AER had versus me like he would be in the 20 billion range and I would be in the seven or eight right like the Gap would be a lot bigger and a lot harder to to overcome that's that's yeah I was just thinking about when you said the spinner was trash in the beginning and now he had some really good you know shots at it but because it was trash it worked out yeah thanks Jim you know thanks Jim um vgo unfortunately had a uh missed a key shot he lit his locks he tilted he's at 466 million Z ball two uh did not go well um he was at a uh for ball one he was at 71 million he got a little bit of a a jump there but he had a failed Loop pass and he ended up with 275 million so your ball to were coming up and um the the commentary was indicating there was some confusion on about uh the grid does it stay did the positions stay for from ball two to ball three uh do you know anything about the how it how it's supposed to act or how it did act during the finals yeah so I'm basically in this position um the only way I would catch eer was if I had a if I was able to get to the award bonus um because I'm I was behind by a lot and also eer needed to not get the award bonus um and so yeah compared to previous multiball the grid completely randomizes again it's totally different Awards and locations and your um your first lock doesn't cycle through all the awards so the only way to find out where things are on your grid is by shooting the Bob hole and it will show you one at a time uh what each location Awards so potentially nine times to find what you need um so the thing with with Johnny is like your first grid your first multiball is shared by everyone the hold bonus is always in the same location for all players the second grid that's not the case everyone has a different location for different Awards um so so sher's award bonus was not the same location as my award bonus um but between balls that's it Remains the Same your your grd your second grade is always your second grade and it never changes as far as I'm aware you know I'm not I'm I'm no Kaylee uh on on rule knowledge on this game so we just saw on that ball you hit Bobs twice so you had hold bonus on five and then award bonus on two so you kept that in mind going into Ball three yeah so I knew where it was and what I needed to do um to get that that's awesome yeah and they they were saying for ball three now ashers up he uh um they they mentioned the randomized grid when I wanted to confirm it with you because I think they had some sort of confusion uh so for ball three end of your ball two you're at 3.58 n billion and eer uh at the time was at 3.56 so you're close but obviously you know he has uh I think he had 3.8 in bonus uh at the end he uh commentary was saying he wanted to get back to the ramps get back to spinner Millions oh I was going to ask about if you're stuck with a bad setup at the initial on your initial outset are you ever thinking about is there a reset if you get to power down and then you could try everything again or it just isn't feasible because because it takes so long to get there so power down um as far as I'm aware will clear your grid and that's a way in which if you know where the award bonus is on ball um on second grid you're able to recollect that value uh two times effectively um as far as throwing spikes go I believe the only way to relight them is by completing a Yakuza on your previous ball um which eer did but I did not do so I was unable to get spinner millions eer could go um so yeah now eer on his ball if I remember correctly um locked a ball in position two where my award bonus was and that meant that I when I went to the grid I had to lock other balls and hope the hand took away the right ball in order to get to the to position two yeah he got a 100 million for his grid award and they were mentioning there's like a mode that locks him out of getting a lock um so the the grids were different here but he puts up an eerik performance and does really well and he ends up with 3.8 in bonus he's got 7.9 in first he needed to win and for Zer to get a zero to force a tiebreaker at least at the eight level um Vigo steps up he gets a quick straight down the middle uh and a tilt he's at 546 million so his um his time his game three is over and zer at the time had 275 million so he at least had to pass vgo to get the point to end up with seven which would then force you to have to get the four to take the eight and win so Zer steps up uh and he got one quick danger started Yakuza strike he was picking his ramps off and going back to what you're saying about his accuracy just left and right uh on Yakuza starts his quick multiball ends it with 1.1 billion and he takes third uh for one point well at the time third no yeah it would have been third anyways based on the scores at the time and so he has 1.4 and so now your ball three is up um there was a little bit of waiting people were doing um but what were you love this moment yeah there were some you guys talk about it right everyone was like in the chat is coaching allowed but they don't realize coaching is allowed as long as the ball is not plunged and active so what were you talking about here with eer um yeah we were just talking about getting to the grid right how to because because you know like I said like eer blocked my award so we were talking about whether it was worth it or try to go um throwing spikes or whatever but yeah it was it was just confirming like yep going for grid that's the only way that's what we got to do so that's what we're gonna do so see yeah so yeah so you get to the grid uh I think a couple times so you know here you are you step up um you they were talking about how you had 1.8 in bonus which would have put you at about 5.3 so obviously you have to P Esther's Ester 7.9 you get to the grid you lock your first ball you got 100 million for your first award did you think that was your award bonus no so I know I knew where it was and it was on two two was blocked so I was I was just placing it hoping it would move it um and it did not I'm pretty sure I think it moved a different ball so I I still did not have uh hold bonus cleared you started um you got another one and you started touchone multiball and Kaylee was saying you know there's some okay points there but uh obviously when you had it up you were um you just decided I'm going to drain it out right yeah I thought the risk of losing my left outlane save was too high for me to play this multiball or double draining right I felt yeah it would feel terrible to lose because I just played a multiball that was not going to get me there for schmeg points um so so yeah yeah that was awesome because uh everyone's like they they mentioned your left outline say they're like yeah draining it draining it makes sense just get back up there um and obviously on your third lock uh I think it's coming up we'll just let the footage play but you needed to find the award bonus you were at um 3.8 right there and uh you had a couple shots at it he was getting a little s a little squirly people were getting nervous and then here it comes what the one the one uh the one symbol there and we'll we'll let the footage luck yeah so you just had to get it wear up here you got the post pass that looked dangerous right there it looked like it was coming down um it's going to there's a nice catch and O just wouldn't go so you have to to get a lock and Johnny um you have to hit the for a second lock you have to hit the target up the middle and that lights the luck for the lock um so yeah you have to for every lock you have to survive a dangerous a dangerous drop Target yeah so you're you're you're putting it I think was on the two spot you got your award bonus on the two another another hype moment here yeah more Bagwell claps he really doesn't want to tilt right now like the worst thing he could do is in instinctively try and save something so did you know you had it here um I thought I had it but then when I looked at my score and I was only at 5.6 um you know I thought I had about 1.5 is in um in bonus so I thought I needed another like 800 million in order to eer and make it make it done yeah I think I think based on the ma the math it was like you might have been at uh 7.5 and you you were needed 7.9 but go ahead yeah oh so so yeah I was I I I I definitely remember telling myself all right you know we're not done here we gota we got to work through this multiball yeah it was uh it was great because you got a couple jackpots um and then you started uh yakuzi out uh after and then a really really great moment near the end once you got to about uh 6.2 you were at 6.6 by uh the end of of Yakuza I think it's coming here let me see if they this held light is off is it going to say previous bonus on it anymore yeah I mean all sorts of things well I'm going to get to that moment but there was the moment where a plastic something fell out what happened there that was insane oh yeah I remember I I like hit on the left side and the screw was out and then I started Yakuza so I couldn't trap up you know was my value I I didn't know if I needed it or not so I just I just kept on going yeah you have to right it's like too much on the line you're not going to trap up and have him open the game like you just have to play it out so we're going to watch this moment here and we'll get your reaction after that on what you were thinking we'll let the audio play and then I'll I'll queue you up what is it what is it what is it there's the previous bonus he's going to get both of them Z only the most dramatic finishes for indis dude bonus countdown ball three player four so just your thoughts uh on your ball three um and the Jubilation you felt uh obviously backtack amazing amazing feat so congratulations and yeah let's get get your get your thoughts on it I mean it was best feeling in the world right you know it's it was it was awesome um I think it was definely like a really exciting way to win um you know the previous year I had to play I I was picking the games so I was playing like first one all of them and so I feel like I didn't get the I didn't really get the like hype you know ball three comeback sort of uh experience so that was that was really cool to have um and of course you know awesome getting the love from you know my my Colorado buddies eer and and Adam and everything so so yeah nice man again congratulations uh I'm not I'm sure I'm sure it feels nice if you're up eight you know you get two fours and you're like all right I got it I don't have to worry but coming back on a ball three especially on Johnny and monic where there's so much at play just has to feel great and uh it's really fun watching you and I I appreciate you coming on on on with us um uh just comparing uh this year's win to last year's win um I know it it feels good and now it's going to give you some momentum for for uh Nationals coming up soon Joe did you have any questions we're going to play a little game with you real quick at the end but any questions for our esteemed guest while he's here no no I just just to kind of add on to that um I think the camaraderie uh between players in the finals just so awesome to see like stepping up to the ball like you know talking the strategy out with eer like going into that you know it's like as the you know as the point stood it was like Jason getting one point even with eer getting four like that means Jason's winning unless you know you put up a Monster Ball and it's like um draining out of that multiball it's it's what we talked about with the 421 Z scoring it's like you have to go for the home run and that's exactly what what happened so it's incredible to watch man congrats yeah absolutely and it's it's awesome was like you know in that finals I was playing Jason eer and and vgo and all three of them are like really good friends of mine and you know it was it was definitely it was a very fun finals you know like a nice kid kid final four boo no just kidding no again we I've said we've said it millions of times but I'm sure you've heard it from a lot of people too uh it was super fun to watch and it's a great start to the year for competitive pinball um again this is wizard Wizards and Warriors episode six uh with our guest Zach McCarthy AKA zmac your 2025 indisk main Open winner back-to-back champ call him momes or I don't know if you want to call him Mahomes because he's lives in color maybe he's a Broncos fan but but uh just some uh quick game we're going to play with you just a raer fire round just come say what comes first in your brain your first thoughts uh flipper skills or nudging skills uh Clipper skills you accuracy and and drop catches is what wins you know EMS DMD or LCD uh DMD uh love love some data East and you know early Sterns favorite pin favorite pin uh ACDC least favorite uh Adams Family it's boring and repetitive super overhyped I think uh a I think you had it was a favorite non pinball arcade game yes on there yeah well favorite non um I'd say joust I had one my parents had one growing up so it's a good one that's F that's classic yeah that's a good one uh you ever play the Jou pinball machine oh yeah there was one in uh in Lions Colorado for for many many years so I played that one nice uh favorite city for pinball tournaments um I mean I'm super biased but Riverside is great I think uh I love it for pinball I love the late night midnight Ramen and the chibba hatut for for dinner yeah the ramen was jam-packed the one night we tried to go we and Joe red together we're like ah this isn't going to work all right uh last one it's fine or Bozo it's fine yeah Joe do you have any for him no man that's that's it dude awesome again thank you so much uh for joining us I appreciate you taking time out I know you're busy uh with school so it it really means a lot it's always fun to I I could talk all day as you can see um whoops and there that goes so let me just go back to this scene sorry um I forgot it ended so uh yeah we really appreciate it uh this was a great great IND disc and I can't wait to play with you guys uh some more best of luck and congratulations uh once again and and keep on pressing bye everybody yeah absolutely bye see ma thanks everyone welcome back everybody that was coverage of Zach McCarthy's amazing win at the indisk main 2025 indisk main open finals uh really really hardfought battle especially coming down from a last place on the first game but it's not over because we have lots of other tournaments to go over especially something uh hot I forgot to mention uh during that interview that was actually the most uh wer points ever earned in a single event oh really 400 points for winning yeah so that's massive that is crazy yeah and I to go on that too Bob Matthews mentioned that this might have been the biggest stat side Classics tournament as far as number of participants that he's seen um what else yeah it was 400 yeah he he it was like just over 400 for winning uh to Zach so that's I before that I think it was um I want to say it was ifpa 19 was like 392 points or something like that but um but yeah this is the the most points ever earned in a single event so soive penberg keeps growing then it's basically goingon to be a battle between the two yeah well that's good because then you'll have match play one that's match play and one that's card which is all I really I would love some variety I understand why they give more of a boost a card it's very hard but man it's I don't want every tournament becoming a card because then it's just like I I I get sort of fatigue out of it but TDS you do your thing I'm happy just to be able to attend so thank you but with that we are going to talk about one of the other tournaments which was the classics Target match play so this was a cap tournament at indisk uh for 120 players and it was a um a bear of a tournament to say the least because uh you want to go ahead and talk about the format and I'll get the footage ready sure yeah so the qualifying format was match play um 3210 uh pin pin scoring um so you uh sorry Target match play yes so um it was the first uh what was it 24 players to hit the target um were qualified for the finals and um with that scoring uh you can't you know fail your way into the finals right you have to finish at least third in each of your games in order to earn any points uh so it's very difficult um I was uh lucky enough to qualify for finals off of a tiebreaker so I think there was uh eight of us who tied for um five spots in the finals so we had a one game tie one full game tiebreaker uh per the 6.1 rules um and we played it on Atlantis which uh was kind of a a thorn to my side all for that entire tournament but um Faithfully was able to qualify off the tiebreaker uh I know there were some jokes about um Richie Terry uh having I think he had a tiebreaker in the a previous year where he was the first player to go and he he tilted his uh his ball uh like ball one or ball two with like a very low score um in that game tilt ends game right so um he was uh the the eighth player to to play in the tie break and uh was able to kind of uh you know see the scores that he needed to beat and uh and get in so yeah yeah it was it was great yeah congratulations man that's not easy I I think through eight I had like seven or eight I had like 15 points I was like okay I just need 10 more I can do this and then it was literally a string of zeros I was like oh my God this is a great way to start but it's not an easy feat because you're going up against a lot of tough players and what was the pairing it was not tiered Swiss what was it um I think it uh was it tiered Swiss it might have been tiered Swiss yeah it the the tournament was run through you know Carl's uh never drain software right so it's I don't know if it was um it it should have been been on the you know the event page somewhere but I believe it was here was yeah it was something new that I hadn't I think done before but again kudos to you got a lot of great Whoppers out of it uh you finished seventh or um I believe it was eighth yes eth overall um and then uh yeah no just just out of finals but um I was really happy with the result and you know got to play against uh Josh Sharpe in the semis and then and also the eventual winner Conrad who you see on the screen now yeah so knowing what you know about uh um C uh ctmp pros and cons we we've we've gone over that would you do it next year again or would you focus on qualifying because I know some people say that it takes away your time to put in cards for main qualifying because Classics isn't open yet um and that and that's a time that is very valuable yes yes so um that's something that when I was uh you know signing up for the tournament for for indisk um I remember Zach McCarthy chiming he's like hey don't don't sign up for the Target match play it's a trap and someone else even chimed in as well I think it might have been Jared Garvey saying that no one who's ever won indisk played in that classic Target match play um but I mean yeah like you said it's it is a big um time commitment uh because you have the qualifying portion which takes up essentially an entire day right that's all of Thursday for qualifying and then for finals on the following day Friday um I mean depending on how far you go right right that that could take up another good chunk of the day so it is it is going to be a lot of time if um if you do plan on playing in in Classics and uh Maine uh in a card format you know it's those lines only get longer as the days go on right so it's um you definitely have to be kind of picky uh or efficient right exactly and you really have to with the target match play I'm looking at the Whoppers now 16th got 40 points basically so you really do need to get into the playoffs to get a something that will you know not the top 10 but something that may show up on your cards so getting eighth got you 67 points which is awesome but if you're not into the finals you're kind of like okay how many I think I got like seven or so I'm like well you know I could have spent that time putting in a card that with the main open you're getting you you can be top 150 and get much more than the top 10 got here or you know relatively speaking I'm not going to say that's exact but um so yeah so that's that's the trade-off I think I'd do it again next year um I'm going to adjust the way I approach uh the card format for indisk or just how I do my entries so I think uh I think I would do it again just to give it a shot but I I do completely agree with everybody that said it takes away your time and unless you're getting in the finals uh plus then if you get far in the finals you got to get far enough to where the Whoppers matter and your Whoppers per dollar aren't uh aren't aren't too too inefficient so um as we go on to our review of the classics Target match play we had Conrad rustad Ron Hallet Josh Sharpe and Richie Terry Ron howlet Jr for those of Slam tilt podcast Josh Sharpe ifp president Conrad is we don't know games on Twitch but also a local Washington player really really doing well he killed it at ypin and then Richie Terry obviously another amazing Washington player um Washington state champion yeah state champ back there you go the back to man the back to backs it's you guys are awesome so game one is Safari as you see on your screen um it is a em typical of the classics not one that people were looking forward to and uh yeah I get why he reminded me of uh oh sorry go ahead no no go you're good yeah the uh the center pop is pretty much dead and I know that was something a point of a conversation among like you know Richie and yeah we saw just a moment ago one of his balls it he was really trying to you know get some up nudges but that pop just would not fire yeah and it's crazy like you had to play two players because it's only a two-player game but the thing I learned about Safari and just general tips are okay you're looking at that Center pop bumper and if it's got enough oomph on it enough Gusto you can get it to shooting where you need to be uh giving yourself a save but it doesn't really do that it just dies on you and um a lot of players you could move this pin a good fair amount but was it enough to get it back on the 2-in flippers probably not so Conrad had the right um strategy I think uh where you look at the mushroom targets around the uh the Playfield and those were worth 100 points each and his ball one he already had 561 points and if you look at by the time Richie's on ball three he had 682 so Conrad uh right out of the gate I think made the right decision his ball one he gets 561 points he hit him five times basically you would shoot up the middle and then you might graze one or two on the way up or one excuse me and then it would come down and hopefully you get some more 100 points but again massive points on the mushroom targets Conrad's ball to he's at 1,381 um his third ball he does more of the same more shots to the mushrooms 2,164 ball four 2,365 and then he got the skill shot which is hitting the right um uh I think it's either either of the upper slings yes either of the upper slings and then you have to get it down the middle but then you look at it and that's only 100 points it's it's great if you get it but it's not really necessary so Conrad ends up with 2,885 um Richie got the skill shot on his ball three but again by then he's got 682 points what's funny is the right upper the upper right lane people were shooting for that but the feed on that the return feed nasty was death so what's the point in my mind obviously looking back on it now we can Monday Morning Quarterback but it was 100 points for that I don't know what the switches were on it so the upper right shot they were shooting because it also opens the gate on the right out lane that's what it is okay on which outlane the right the right right out l so that's I don't know if anyone even drained out of the out very much I don't think I saw one of those either but we've got Josh going up so anyways Richie ends up with 1,773 he got the skill shot twice on his uh game got some solid mushrooms on ball four so he was about 1,142 but by then Conrad's already close to 3,000 so Conrad with a commanding lead um Josh took off his sweater for ball one a prove Strat if you've ever seen one uh we got Ron H coming up for his uh ball one I believe um but Josh had a great great set of uh shots to those mushroom targets ended up with 831 points which again if you look at what Conrad did um he had 561 on ball one but Josh you know focusing on those mushrooms are already halfway towards Richie score on ball one um yep that was something that was mentioned during the commentary too I know zmac was in the booth for these finals and I think it was rid yep um but after each of the balls you know Zac was saying that he's on Pace right yeah so you look at the score per ball and um compared to the you know the top score for the group and as long as you're keeping Pace with the you know the leader that's a a good ball right kind of measure that exactly and they were smart to bring it up because they were like everyone already had a sour face looking that it was Safari as the game and they have to commentate it but then they're like okay what can you do on this you can flail and it was a great point that was brought up you don't want to try to get tricky with the flippers you literally just have to send it because when you have these small flippers and you have no real friction um coming towards you either with the center pop or any sort of Bounce you just want to send it off hit as many mushrooms as you can and pray that you don't end up in the out lane or on the center pop uh which is lit we just oh sorry we just saw also you mentioned Josh Sharpe he shot the uh that upper right lane Y and it immediately just went and fed the left uh like inlane slout Lane exactly that is kind of what we were seeing uh watching the footage like there was no safe feed from there so you shoot it up there get your gate open but it's coming right back down the middle so so he's on ball three right now he I believe gets a quick ball here yep right down the right drain in the center uh he ends up with 1532 points by his ball three um Ron uh I we can watch this because there's going to be some solid nudging here Ron's at 582 81 points starting his ball um three and he's going to go up eventually but you're going to see him move the pin he he's shaking his boom one there is going to flip it up try to get to that right uh upper right lane um but he really was moving the pin like just some really good bumps right there to keep it safe he actually was able to cradle up here which is amazing um and then it's out the left left out Lan all that all that work for like no points I know that's the crazy thing he making All the Right Moves yeah he was making all the good bumps and nudges that you need to but it didn't reward him and you looked at Conrad's ball uh Conrad's game and it was literally just cuz he was sending it and getting those um getting those uh 100 mushroom targets so Josh on Ball Four uh mushroom to left outlane and he ends up with about 1782 and so he's ahead of Richie on his ball four so he's getting a point at minimum Ron has a really decent Ball Four gets about 560 points um for his troubles and so it comes down to Josh on ball five needing to catch Conrad who's at 2,885 so he's about 113 points away which is a lot yeah which is a lot on this so 10 mushrooms if you can manage it and there's a nice yeah see Ron did not unfortunately have a good finals but he I feel like he really really made some excellent uh pinball moves and I just don't think the games were cooperating with him so yeah I got I got to play against him in the the first round of the finals and he uh he played exceptionally well to you know me and him Advance out of the group but um yeah I think he's really known for his his Classics play really well on on the classics games something else to note um I know when I was rewatching this uh this video there were people in the chat and also I think even the commentators were kind of like questioning the game choice and so like Conrad as the number one seed he was driving the bus for the group um and something a little Insight I know I talked to him while he was kind of or after he had chosen the games for his group and he mentioned um picking Safari because he was like Hey I can't I'm not going to beat these guys on like those other you know really controllable games so I might as well just pick this game see what happens uh I know a few people in chat like yo why did he pick this like this is such a wild card pick you know for a game to play in finals but it it looks like it paid off yeah it's just funny to see the chat during the selection and reveal of safari cuz you got a lot of people watching because it's one of the most viewed pinball events on Twitch and uh you see everybody going who the hell picked this what is this I've never seen this before get this off my screen uh but good job Conrad you know you gota you gotta some gotta sometimes trust yourself I found myself deferring more but um so something else to note though too is with a high seed when you have game picks you're you're actually not able to pick a game that you've already picked in a previous round until all the games have been picked so that was another reason why this game was selected because Conrad having the top seed you know he'd already chosen so many games in previous rounds for his bank of available Games available games to play um was very limited and we'll we'll reveal a special little fact about Conrad um qualifying and entering this tournament at the end but yeah so you saw there with the footage again if you're watching uh please go to you or if you're listening you can also watch the footage along with us at uh first go pinball on YouTube and then shortly after usually in a day or two the pinball network will show the footage um on their YouTube channel which I'm really appreciative of so we get more eyes on this I know it's a nich podcast uh but we really appreciate everybody watching and giving us really good feedback at indisk too um thank you so much to everybody that came up to us and said they enjoyed it uh we always get jokes about how long it is but guess what put it on 3x as you sleep as Los does and you'll you'll enjoy it you'll absorb the information via osmosis so uh don't don't tell you we don't teach you things here uh but next game up is Target pool so before we go on to that um I do want to replay this footage of Target pool because it's very important on what happened during this game I didn't notice it until obviously there was some commotion but your recap of game one Conrad in first with four points Josh Sharpe in second with two points Richie uh Terry in uh third with one and then Ron Hallet Jr in fourth with zero now we are going to game two of Target pool and the target pool sort of um rules are uh you know from what I understand you collect uh 15 14 of the 15 available numbers so that they're worth the most um have you had experience on target pool I've only played it once that was at pinberry in the previous round um Josh Sharpe selected the game for us in our group and um so I believe that's what allowed uh Conrad to select the game for this group in the following round but it's something that we did not notice in our game but um it was definitely apparent because I remember looking back at the footage it did happen in our game as well but no one brought up the yeah and kudos to Richie so we're gonna I'm going to let the uh footage play with the Audio I kind of want everybody to watch this so Conrad is going to step up to his ball one and you need to focus on the 6 seven and 8 because something interesting happens with those switches so here we go don't tune away we're still going here at the classics Target match play finals at it never drains in Southern California look at that we're magically already on the next game all right target pool another twoin flipper game so as you saw there he plunged the ball let's see if I can go back just a little again he plunges the ball and the um here it is so he plunges there goes his six when it hits the top uh rubber stop gets down the seven and then the eight goes as well so what happens when you get all three of those yeah so normally you have to get the six seven and eight um which is all the three top Lanes in order to light that pop in the um top center of the game and that's a very important um component of this game because that pop is fairly active and then it's also got right below that pop bumper there are two slingshots which will send the ball up uh into the play field as well so um a big you know priority for the game is to find the plunge and um get those top Lanes in order to light that pop bumper to get you know kind of maximize your points um so we find out that uh that Center seven Lane is actually just spotting um the six and the eight so his pop gets lit after just getting the single Center Top Lane yeah and it's crazy because when you're looking at the scores for this game 100 points is a lot especially up there when you can get like five to six rebounds or hits off the pop just for sending it up there and Conrad was smart he saw it lit and then eventually uh you know from his first ball he had a,2 points by the end of ball two he was already at 2,857 just from literally going I'm sure he hit some other of the 300 so to get 300 points you hit the lit Target right and that's on the center targets the center and the side targets I believe also uh whichever one is lit but I think there's only two at a time that are lit right so you have to kind of hunt them down exactly so a little bit of a um unintentional beneficial malfunction for Conrad because this is single player game so everybody's going on their own uh five ball so five ball game so if you don't know about Target pool again there's bunch of targets it's got ton of standups around Center pop at the top three rollover lanes and then a center Bank of Targets in the middle uh 2-in flippers again uh in Lane out lane standard but if you have that popet that changes your whole strategy you're not going for just the 14 so when you do the 14 of the 15 how much are the standups worth worth while they're um not all reset is that something that's is it like a 100 or I think an unlit Target gives 50 right yeah let me pull this up it's um when it's lit it's 300 and then unlit is 50 50 yes and then each lit number is what 100 I feel like [Music] that's yes I believe so awesome okay so yeah so the the strategy from um uh Classics players like Bob is get the 14 of the 15 and then get your pop and then just keep sending in hope you don't reset the uh lights so Conrad has his game done he's got 4,725 points by ball five a little flipper fumble on Ball Four he went from 1,2 from ball one to ball two 2,857 gets 500 on ball three 700 on ball four and then another 700 on ball five so he is he's in charge and then uh Richie steps up and uh we'll take a look at what Richie does because it's interesting that um he has a very very uh quick ball so he hits the seven it'll wait till he plunges here plunges away so he hits the seven but his eight doesn't doesn't get activated he goes you know up the center off you know rebounding off the right rebounding off the left and eventually Center drain almost had a LZ but what he does notice is his pop isn't lit so he hits the center roll over or the seven and he's like wait a minute yep there I got to tell you something what just happened here so kudos to Richie for noticing it I wouldn't have noticed not it and what's crazy is the commentators didn't notice it until they started rewatching the footage because again Conrad hits the doesn't even hit the six hits the upper leftmost um rubber stop it comes back and then it goes down the seven and is six is already unlit then he gets the 78 so what they did was uh what did they do to uh make it equal for everybody yeah so what they did was they spotted the six seven and eight lanes for the rest of the players um so that Conrad score can stay right he doesn't have to replay a whole game um it kind of legitimizes uh his score but then uh I know something that you know Colin and Zach mentioned in in the commentary Booth is that um Richie kind of gets screwed here because uh his ball one you know he he has to play his ball one without getting that um the Top Lane spotted right yep and another very insightful comment from Colin is that every with every ruling in pinball um you know at least one player will benefit and at least one player will get screwed right I'm so glad you pointed that out yeah yeah that was a really insightful comment and it's like wow I I hadn't really thought of it in terms like that but it's so true yeah because someone has to get it almost feels like someone has to get some sort of negative effect even though you're trying to put everybody in the same player State kind of like a game uh and make the fair ruling I'm glad glad they did this too and that I think you agree with that right making this ruling instead of having Conrad replay everything right yeah it's it's a very uh they mentioned it's a very creative uh solution to a unique problem but um yeah I mean they they have a really strong TD team there so they were able to come up with that and I think it worked out um you know for everyone Fair again a really really good job to everybody at um indisk for uh all their hard work I know we've um mentioned everybody's name uh before but there was also uh some names that I wanted to to make sure we gave kudos to I know uh Carl mentioned it on the stream but there's Dave Hill Dave Zuckerman Dina Fran Jonathan Kate cat Kyle mumi Michael Poo staff media Jean Emoto and Jeff tiolis stream assistants Andrew Goran Brian Dy Derek kareah Jordan Burger Kelly Mona Neil McCrae Raymond Ashby and Rebecca and then game text the uh unsung heroes of the tournament uh Bill long Chun Chuck Casey Dave Hill Dave volansky Hans milberger Jeremy Oaken Matthew tally and then uh the rest of all the volunteers and setup and tear down thank you all for uh your hard work I Know Carl made mention to uh specifically point out his text that really kept everything going so kudos to everybody there so we get through the uh h of of Target pool and it was crazy cuz I didn't understand how Conrad got such a high score until I saw him going for the pops and I was like oh how do you like that I I haven't played Target pool a lot and then I watched it again I'm like holy crap he got like uh the ghost of uh indisk pass like pressing the buttons for him uh and so I'm glad they came up with this but again ball one Richie gets screwed he only had 250 but the only Devil's Advocate I guess you could say is okay this changes your strategy though so now you've got a lit pop all you have to do is what send it as they say so Richie comes up and he starts playing in his ball too uh everything's everyone's getting the pop gper pop pop bumper from the get-go they're minusing the switch hits for the subsequent players the 30 or 40 whatever it is his pop was lit and he ends up on his ball too with 2,431 points as you see here so he's already caught up to Conrad for the most part you know getting closer uh where his ball two was um ball three he unfortunately has a small uh flipper fumble on the catch and um he ends up with 2,921 points but then is ball four absolutely Monster Ball Four he gets to uh 44 4,443 points he went for the center bank at the end but unfortunately that just goes straight down the middle it's such a um tough tough shot to to kind of gauge because you've got your 300 Point lit Target there but I don't I honestly think if I was in this situation not that I was and these guys are playing better than me um but I think I would have kept sending it even with the temptation of the center uh 300 Target what do you think yeah uh I mean the it is I know this is a game that has the shorter mini flippers but um surprisingly they were pretty controllable like you could drop catch on this game um a lot of times if it's feeding an in lanane you can ski pass over um so I mean it's it's pretty situational but like you said it's kind of a sended up top all day kind of game um something else uh worth noting so I I did look at the uh the rule sheet and getting all 15 numbers it changes the value of your inlanes and outlanes from 100 points to special oh which um in tournament mode special is nothing useless so yeah so you you basically want to keep those uh you know like you said the 14 out of the 15 numbers lit um so that you get points from even from trining from an out lane nice yeah and so you know there's no bonus so Richie ball five gets the beneficial or because he noted The Beneficial malfunction for Conrad understands the strategy and his ball five he takes over first with the extra pop hits he gets 4,987 um so then we go up to Josh and Josh is uh saying hi to his son there as he does now he facetimes his kid and uh G gives him a little bit of good luck I love that I love that Strat get the good Aura from our kids and so Josh has some fast play on ball one um we'll kind of go through a little bit of this because it's sort of the same Strat now so as you can see everybody's getting 678 taken down your pop uh is worth a th000 so Josh is on his ball too I wanted to show this he had a really I don't have the time stamp but he had a really good ski pass with 6in flippers uh which was awesome or excuse me two inch flippers so we just saw it on the screen it just showed up awesome so yeah he's by his ball to he's at 2026 as you said we're keeping up with the pace of everybody try to maintain um and his ball four is absolutely excellent he had gets a ton of Pop love gets some 300 hits and by the time he's done with all four he's at 4,769 so he's right there he's already passed Conrad and Richie guaranteed two points now he just has to pad the lead so Ron doesn't uh catch him and he ends up with 5,000 I think I think he was just short of Richie so that's why's you kind of see the video he's asking what the scores are so he knows kind of what he needs to get good correction thank you I was looking at Richie's ball Force score he's at 4,987 so he needed 200 18 points and you get which he immediately got from the pop on the train ex punch exactly that's he had a good plunge CU on his next game his plunges weren't working as well so it's good that he had it on this game he ends up with 5,329 so then um we've got Ron coming up for his uh ball uh Game On Target pool you can see them the Tex taking off the uh taking off the glass using their little tool to give him the 100 pop unfortunately for Ron uh ball one 453 points had a little tip sort of flip that he couldn't save um quick drain on ball two for uh 613 points ball three gets the pop to the left out Lane right down he's at 923 he had a better ball on ball four um I think that's where we are here he missed the flip but you know at least he got some points out of it um he got about 500 or so 504 he ends see him moving the again he was making All the Right Moves and I you know it's not that you feel bad because they're in the finals and they're great players but you kind of want to give them an opportunity to play everybody always says if you have the one thing that you could uh sort of display as the common complaint is I just want to be able to flip just let me flip and I'll I'll be happy but everybody gets a house ball so so Ron ends up with 14427 points um he almost had a save there I thought I thought he he might have had that but his last ball he ends see oh sorry you see him kind of test The Flipper so something else I remember from this game or this copy specifically that left flipper button was kind of uh inlaid into the um the side of the cabinet so you really had to be intentional with with pushing the button okay it kind of looks like he he may have missed the you know the flipper button there took a little more Force then to make sure that see that's that's the good sort of info that you don't even get unless you're playing that or you're you know coming into the finals hopefully added on a prior round and so that's sort of the things you learn in tournaments because you're not going to get a chance to play everything for the most part so um Conrad choosing Safari Target full uh you know that time it didn't work out for him as much but he still got a point which is crucial uh so Josh in first with four points gets him six Richie in second with two gets him three in third with one gives him five and Ron unfortunately is knocked out of winning the 2025 Classics Target match play uh with another zero so we I know sorry real quick the I think Josh won the game with 5,300 points yes the in the previous round in the semis he rolled the game he put up like I think it was like 1,300 points so it really I remember Adam was in the booth for that round and he was was saying that they should just put that video on pinball videos as the the torial it was just a master class in in in I want to watch it now to see if he got any of the 678 spotted uh because that oh yeah I'm I'm sure it was it just uh but but still I mean to roll this game is is pretty incredible oh yeah I think um did Deborah do it at penberg I feel like she did in one of our I think she did um because I remember watching or no maybe it was Zoe Zoe or Deborah one of them rolled the yes rolled it was awesome so good job Josh you continue to hot streak on target pool so we've got Jack's open now what do we know about Jack's open it's a sort of progression on the rollovers and I want you to take a look at Conrad right now because the footage show him shows him I'm going to replay that real quick so and we'll have the commentators announce what he's doing and why it's important um but with Jack's open one of the biggest things you need is getting those rollover lanes because that sets up the value of your targets down below and here's Conrad everyone involved in indisk as well all right we're on the oh this looks familiar we just played this in the tiebreak tiebreaker game and full three in of flipper and this this is not the uh lucky hand where you can start getting 50,000 Point uh Wows this is all this is just classic Jacks open where you he got three lanes on from the plunge now that this was legit there was no spotting that that it was legit wizard mode activated so that is awesome for Conrad because his drops are now worth uh what is it three or 3,000 3,000 it might be 4,000 yeah you're right so and it's amazing because you spend you try to spend as little of the balls as you can getting up there and progressing and you don't want to hit that fourth one like he almost did there and the announcers are like oh Conrad don't hit that last one cuz then it resets uh your value but the other part of Jack open is what the uh cards on the bottom and yes so oh sorry no no you're good you're good yeah so you you basically want to do the opposite of what it's telling you to do so with the Queens you know you're shooting if you shoot the three queens it will reset the bank um but you want to keep shooting you want to do the opposite because you want to shoot as many targets as you can for that you know the value that you have um from the top Lanes um in this case it's 4,000 per drop um and then also in traditional em fashion um if you shoot two Targets at once it's only gonna give you credit for one of those targets exactly it's like volum the EM reels just don't keep up as you know as quickly as like a digital display wood get with the times em no I'm just kiding right but yeah no that is exactly the strategy that they were mentioning you really just want to drop as many targets as you can down there and this one is very particular because you've got that little exit out of the inlanes on the left and right so you don't want to shake it too much because what happens tilt ends game on this and we are unfortunately going to see that from one of our contestants but Conrad here um just literally picking things off and this was five ball so uh he cleared three of the four rollovers on ball one and you know it it does take luck to get that I don't think there was um a ton of movement up there but you take what you get picked off a ton of drops um he ends up with 33,8 190 by ball one he almost hit that last roll over on ball two uh to reset the drops but luckily he didn't he's at 41,100 points and ball three really good nudge to save um the from the left outlane Nook uh ends up with 60,000 after ball three 20,000 points on Ball Four for 79,90 and then he almost cleared his third set of cards on ball five he's sitting at 95,0 90 points which is a really good score I know you had to sort of roll it to be in contention during qualifying but it wasn't or um during the the match play session but like Raymond said it's not lucky hand where you have the 50,000 Wows which can go crazy for you so Richie um an unfortunate controlled catch sends it up the left out lane which is something that the announcers has mentioned uh you have to be careful with your catches on this because if you catch it incorrectly it'll roll up right to that little Nook on each uh in lane and then send you send send you into your next ball so Richie with 7,220 points after ball one second roll over clears but he missed the catch on ball two so he's at 12,550 now he's on ball three this screamer comes down the uh left out Lane right there boom it's over like there's nothing you can really do with that yeah he's already over halfway through his game he's at close to 20,000 points much better ball on um Ball Four as you can see he goes uh clears a lot of his drops he's got two down so those are worth 3,000 each and uh he's just so which what are you trying not to clear you're not trying not to clear the Jacks then right or are you I mean for this Bank uh since he has the Jacks lit once he clears the Jacks it will reset the drops okay but so if you you know if you can hit all the other targets continue to shoot them until until you know they clear and then it resets gotcha so go for everything but what what telling you to do exactly okay so Richie has um 43760 by the time he is on his ball five so he's got a ways to go he needs um 52,000 53 51,000 to catch Conrad more than double his score yeah basically exactly and he's got his third rollover up there so he's got a chance to pick everything off um we're extra ball BS there weren't up and he tilts so he caught the right outlan and just tilts it out so might as well yeah he's at 57370 um so Josh is going to step up so we're going to get um Josh Sharpe on the game right now here he is with his ball W some really really nice saves he had one rollover and he managed to turn that into 16 almost 177,000 points which if you're taking score at home that's about eight or uh you seven or eight drops minus whatever ever else you're hitting uh but his ball to is really where um he comes into play as far as catching up on and pacing Conrad so by ball two Josh is still only has one rollover and they were mentioning it you know in the announce Booth you know you got to you got to plunge correctly there to at least get your second one so everything can be worth 3,000 and if you look he has such a great ball but he was working with the 2,000 um special 2,000 value there so he's he's he's working and he ends up with to go but ball three house ball doesn't want to move it too much gives the little George castanza pose right there and um plunges the same further leftmost roll over Lane and he gets a house ball there sort of they said he might have been able to hit it I don't think he could have I think it was too far left um but he missed the skill shot again and this is what we were talking about uh earlier on the skill shot is so important on this game to at least clear if anything two of the four rollovers by Ball Four uh so house ball a bad angle from the right sling on Ball Four it went straight down the middle he ends up with 50 8,000 by ball four so again ball two 57,000 ball four 58,000 so he really got screwed or you know didn't get the the shots that he wanted um finally gets his second rollover on uh ball five and nailed some drops only to get to not only but gets to 71,500 points so now what happens here Josh is in second which means he will have a minimum if the things play out of uh eight points so what does he need to happen he needs Ron to win so that he and Conrad go to a tiebreaker so let's take a look at Ron's ball because um he on his ball one we we'll kind of go to ball two here or middle of ball one so he got one rollover shot so Josh is rooting for Ron as much as he can Ron not a um slouch in the classics as you said really good player knows the rule sets has been playing a lot for a while picks off a ton of drops with his one rollover Lane cleared up top so he's looking at 2,000 each and he's at 13,210 points we're going to watch this ball now in its entirety skills and application of them on this particular game is very very good oh he keeps hitting that nice uhoh where's it going out there F it's fine that's not fine oh no no no Ron Ron takes it good though he smiles he said you know sometimes it's just not your day you know and Conrad smiling from ear to ear off camera somewhere because that tilt ends game gave him the championship congrats to Conrad rustad rustad I don't know how to pronounce that yeah congrats Conrad congratulations Conrad unfortunately Ron um tilted on ball two he's tried to save it out of that right Nook and I think it's this I think it's the smart move to make at that point um but with that uh because of those results Conrad takes first he ends up with nine points Josh Sharpe in second with eight Richie Terry in third with fourth and Ron um unfortunately gets a last on that with zero but congratulations to all the classic Target match play players your prize pool for that um that competition was $2,300 for Conrad $670 for Josh Richie Terry walks away with $1,150 $730 for Ron and the rest of the competitors you got 420 bucks 5th through e8th 210 for 9th through 16th 17th through 24th get your money back 155 so uh what do we know about Conrad well how did he get into the tournament he was the first person off the weit list and the only person off the weit list so from the weit list to the podium name on the banner they can never take that away from you unless you're Josh Sharpe and they give it to somebody else uh but congratulations to Conrad on your well-deserved Victory off the weight list into the Champion Circle really great competition I enjoyed Classics Target match play I'll probably do it again and I'm glad they have it um what are your thoughts yeah no was great like you said he's off the wait list I believe in his uh interview afterwards with uh Jeff toolis he shouts out Rebecca Salam because she was the one who dropped on the day of the tournament and was able to let him in so yeah he uh gave her a little shout out there um and yeah kudos to him man for qualifying first overall and and winning the whole thing that's uh no easy feat especially at indisk none at all and so I will let you take the honors uh since you play so well uh and with recapping the Whoppers for Classics Target match play for it never drains in Southern California January 24th 2025 yeah so we got Conrad rustad in first place with 13.38 points congrats Conrad uh Josh Sharpe the uh defending Champion I guess he uh was just fell a little bit short but still great job he got second place with 111 at. 35 points uh we've got Richie Terry in third with 10.52 points and then Ron how Jr in fourth with 91.9 one points and don't forget yourself there at eigh 67.4 eight really great Whoppers Josh illis um Bob Caldwell Peter Anderson uh Germaine in ninth just look at Steve B it was not an easy tournament it was not like all the good players were just focused on uh qualifying in the main in the main it was a lot of Heavy Hitters so uh kudos to you kudos to everybody for going through the grind and um coming out very very successful uh I had a lot of fun and I hope everyone else did too now we are going to move to and then here's the finals if you're watching the video we've got the the the data up but we are going to move now to the classics portion amazing hey there's me that was doing semi-finals commentary on um uh Classics it was a really really good time and we are going to set up with our uh Classics tournament finals coverage right now this was the other sort of main tournament in uh the indisk uh the indisk event excuse me uh a lot of Whoppers here um the winner got over almost 300 and I made a note to myself from last year to focus on this because this is a place where you could pick up some decent Whoppers um even by getting a top 100 so uh you can see you'll see when we do the Whopper re recap 24th got 132 Whoppers for basically qualifying and it wasn't like the pins were super difficult they were you just had to do it five times so what your thoughts on the classics Banks classic bank I will go after you and kind of give my pros and cons thoughts on the the games there and we we'll go from there yeah um excuse me the the class Classics Bank was great um so it was half of the bank from the classics Target match play uh qualifying right so um I guess that is one small advantage of playing in the classics Target match play uh event is that you can play the same Bank of games that are going to be used in in the classics um open indisk uh event um so so yeah uh they I think it was a great selection of games there's a lot of uh you know um a lot of EMS uh there was some got Lees in there um a lot of games that I personally have never played before um but uh like you said I mean getting a a decent placement can still get you a lot of points in this event yeah we had um the just the the the pins there were so interesting they had Victory which I'd never played um Trident played amazing C which was great obviously Harlem was there I was going to try to show some of the scores but I don't think it's um popping up correctly so that's okay we'll uh we'll do that for next time but yeah we had um alien star uh what else um Centaur which which was a crazy Centaur yeah uh Monaco which was a lot of fun nine and then I don't think there were too many people on Oxo and x's and us but but they were there and then Dixie Land was my card Killer I had a really good chance at making playoffs and then I put game five on Dixie Land cuz Harlem had screwed me before and I was like I can't I should have just went to Harlem um and done it again that's one of the lessons I learned but Classics uh really solid selection I liked it more than the main bank only because I felt there was a less Focus on sort of wacky and wild pins and more on some of the standards that you see which is good and bad you know people want variety so I don't I don't have any any qualms with that um it's just I think coming from last year's indisk it was sort of a shock to see the the main bank and try to get used to that versus um the classics which you have most people have ton of experience on so our classics final had uh four of the top players in the world had Arvid fer Timber englman the Belgian Beast as I learned his name is called uh Neil graph uh great player out of Wisconsin uh you know top ranked player and John shael so we had three kids and the guy we were all rooting for if you're over 30 John um congratulations John Chappel for making it to the uh finals and not saying that in any negative way just saying to to to get through the grind of qualifying and to all of them and then getting through the playoffs and making a stand hopefully against the kids our first game up for the classics finals was um Joker poker so what do we know about Joker poker yep so Joker poker it's a five ball game um the ball each of the balls uh you can see in the middle of the Playfield it's kind of sequential so the first first ball will light your 10 the second ball will light your um Jacks third ball will light your Queens Kings and then Aces um the other important thing to note is that finishing the ABC top Lanes at the top will light your extra ball which is uh playable on this copy um so the extra ball there's a standup Target on the top right of the game kind of right above the right upper right pop bumper um so you'll need to hit that once it's lit to collect that extra ball there is another way to collect an extra or to light an extra ball which is completing the aces at the very top of the game awesome yeah great great explanation and I know when you clear the card that is lit you'll get your 5x bonus so I think one of the strategies that was explained was just go for Queens once you've hit what Target your 5x or your uh aces up top what is the move for keeping focus on the Queens yeah um so I mean hitting the Queens I think it's mostly because it seems to be the safest shot out of the uh out of all the cards um relatively safe return um and they're also relatively easy to hit compared to the other targets I know a lot of the players you'll see I think avoided the Kings Al together on Ball Four just because it's so difficult right yeah you had Karl DeAngelo Jeff tiis and Bob Matthews doing commentary and they made a point they made it a point to say look if you go for that lower king drop it is almost certain death because of the way it angles to the right out lane or just gives you a bad return feed and you're you're getting all squirely going left and right so um we had ball one arvit uh stream started his mid ball hit his 10 for the 5x cleared his Queens ends up with 40,600 JN has uh no 5x on his ball uh he gets a quick one 15,420 uh Neil unfortunately has a house ball gets 11,110 but Timber has a really good good ball as far as clearing the tens and q's gets 56,0 450 so Arvid uh stepping up for his ball to which is an absolutely great one um in my mind uh along with what JN is about to do uh this is a five ball game so it can be three ball too right you uh it can be three ball um which is weird because it it skips the uh the Jacks and the uh Kings but um yeah in this case I think it's was the right move to set it to five ball um I did also look up so once you clear a bank of targets it increases the value of those drops to 5,000 per drop got it so that's another reason you know people would just focus just on one uh card in this case probably the queens and a great great point you made about the queen uh Queen's being safe cuz when you look at the footage or you review it um whether you're watching this or for Carl stream again also please make sure you go follow And subscribe to I pinball on Twitch and YouTube that is IE pinball that's Carl D'Python Anghelo stream was able to give us all this great footage thank you Carl uh for allowing us to use it um but when you look at it and there's Arvid with a ski pass or shats to or excuse me a shats to not ski pass shots to the left in Lane um when you look at the hits to the queens and they're circling it right now it's just a much safer return even if it's going all over the place so he had his um that was his extra Ball but he cleared his 10 Jackson Queens got his 5x bonus twice and so he had 157,000 by the end of his second ball and if you look at it compared to the other scores really great pacing there um just based on uh uh sort of also qualifying so the top score in qualifying for Joker poker was 488,000 so Arvid I'm looking for his name here to see if he did play this I don't see it um on uh I don't see him in the top 10 or or whatnot so he was on a really good Pace cuz to get top 50 all you needed was 228,000 which is phenomenal so 157 by ball two you're you're you're looking good so John shoel steps up um cleared his Queens for the 5x uh cleared the 10 he had an amazing ball in bonus alone he had 75,000 so by the time this ball is over he's still going right here as you can see and he's got um yeah he's still going and there it is so he's at 154 and then his bonus will count up he had the extra ball lit unfortunately couldn't grab it which is a bummer I I think I remember him saying afterwards that he someone had talked to him after the game and was like Hey man like I I think he didn't realize it was lit that's why he wasn't shooting for it comment like I don't know if he knows that the the target's lit um so that's that's why which is crazy because this match between him and Arvid was so close so it's like that one thing whether the drop value could have got him there or the extra Ball but it's funny that then this is why I I kind of love doing this and thank you for doing it with me because it's teaching me about these pins so that when I go in I'm like oh hey okay I remember don't do this do this um so we've got deal stepping up but again John ends up with 224,000 so he's within Striking Distance um timber for his ball two clears the Jacks but gets a left out lane drain and so then we are off to uh ball three for Arvid um solid ball gets his 5x on the Queens uh ball three again which is great cuz it focuses on the Queens so you're you're shooting for those and hopefully getting a safe safe return uh he gets around 204 660 for his troubles he does clear it gets the 5x um Jon unfortunately has a uh small flipper catch and fumble here gets no shots uh remember he had 224 going in so he's already only at 233 so now it's a lot closer those house ball become important uh Neil uh some more unfortunate um angles and geometry from the pin on him he has a quick ball ends up with 85,86 but he does get to 110,000 so he gets about 22,000 for his ball three so Ball Four we Step Up Arvid plunges and he basically gets a house ball he get he gets a couple flips but we'll call it an honorary house ball um there so let me make sure okay it's still playing right there uh I it looked like sorry so that was his Kings ball right on ball four and I remember him kind of talking to some other players on the side and his strategy here was just to send it up right because you want to send it to the top lanes and and you can still you know earn an extra ball from completing those ABC Lanes so I think that was kind of his game plan but unfortunately to didn't work out for him that ball yeah and sending it up top from the left was interesting cuz you could kind of send it through the middle and hopefully get a rebound but I know Bob mentioned send it off the left from the right flipper and you might get a bounce off sort of that left Edge and maybe get a pop and and get a shot can that upper right flip upper Center flipper get you up there or is it too angled uh I don't think I don't know if I've saw anyone I'm sure it's possible but um I it seemed to be pretty uh s not safe but um kind of a reliable shot if you're accurate right just to send it straight up from the left flipper all the way to the top because you know the way that the the top of the play Field's angled it would probably just hit the rail and then hopefully you kind of just sneak into one of those top ABC Lanes I think that was the move and I think that's what we see everybody sort of do so Neil gets the C off the plunge here for his ball four um Jon had a great dig let me get to his ball for actually cleared almost cleared his KS uh ends up with 265,000 so he's um 40 uh 7,000 ahead of Arvid going into ball five Neil unfortunately gets another quick drain it just wasn't his uh finals but kudos to him for making it again and ball five for Timber uh house ball ends up with 126 so um Arvid steps up for his ball five he had some great saves here and he cleared clears the ABC for the extra ball so all he had to do was get it up there he alley passes and unfortunately I think it misses and then here does it go straight down the middle it's one of yeah there's his ski pass and then there is one part where he um shot it up there he realized he he's he's yelling at it right now and uh there's his uh alley pass and then right down the middle unfortunately an inaccurate shot off the left flipper trying to get to the a it goes straight down the middle but he ends up with 283,000 points this is very important because John shoel is stepping up with 265,000 so he just needs uh 18, 600ish 780 is points so here comes JN and we'll take a look at this ball there's 5,000 he's got five in bonus keep that in mind just needs to get on the flip get some targets BNC are also worth 5,000 not enough not enough by just oh my not enough 560 points 560 points he literally if he was able to catch it on one of those flips I think it bounced up and I think he sent it I think if he had caught it and sort of given himself of a second to maybe send it back up he would have had it but what have should have could could still a great a great game for both him and Arvid uh he ends up 560 points shy so he's sitting in second Neil does uh get a solid ball here focusing on the Queens all day gets over to 150,000 points for his troubles Timber miss a right flip on the tip but he does pass Neil which is what he needed to do cuz he was sitting at 126 so he had to get about 24,000 and then for timers troubles uh he ends up with third at 159 so your winners of the first game Arvid with four points JN with two Timber with one Neil with in fourth with zero what are your thoughts on Joker poker yeah it's uh I love this game um it's it very much focuses and rewards accuracy um and yeah in this case I mean you saw a few of the players kind of strategize on playing or earning and collecting extra balls right because those are all playable uh in this in this case so uh yeah it was a great match I mean photo finish you know for arvit there and uh unfortunate for JN to to lose that one by such little points yeah it ends up coming up ends up being important later on but obviously out of the gate arvit is looking to put his name on the banner here uh in one of the tournaments and getting a four is the way to start so game two is Lady Luck I had no clue about this pin I've played it before but I the rules are sort of not as I don't want to say complex but they are sort of intricate and Carl and Jeff did a really good job along with Bob of explaining it um from what I understand is you've got those five five cards uh going uh excuse me five card Graphics in the middle of the Playfield and you're on a set of them and then your drops sort of the center drop Target Bank you you want to clear a set for what reason yeah so each of the uh four suits are represented by the rows and then each of the cards are the columns right um so you want to complete a row ideally but it's very dangerous to do that right because you have to shoot those five Center drop targets um see completing the row uh I think it lights the side targets and then um for 10x for 10x Playfield yeah and I think they were talking about the two strategies the strategies are for your stars and the 10x or do you go for the spinner and hit the captive ball to increase your spinner value so I think what was um really good to see here on Lady Luck was Timber strategy so he ended up starting first on this and I think that was his choice I'm pretty sure um so he ends up going first uh he has a really good [Music] ball see he can yeah he I think was really focusing on that left orbit all day which um in I think it's increases the value of the spinner or no sorry the left over to the left uh captive ball left capall just right and then focusing on that spinner shot on the right which um Spinners as you know in in disc are usually pretty juicy yeah the Belo Spinners are nice right right so his his strategy was very different from everyone else's um because he was only focusing on really those those two shots and then you've got your rollovers up top but what is interesting is your rollovers are spread out throughout the whole Playfield you've got P up at the top enr on your inlanes at the bottom but you can cycle those with your flippers so that you only need to stay up top to advance your bonus multiplier and so he was advancing I think when he hits the spinner it does advance it as well um I thought they that's what they were saying but regardless um I know the captive ball will advance your spinner value too but he was Focus on those spinners he only had one 10 Target left off that Center Bank as you can see right now in the footage we're watching on the right side and they they circled it right there um so the he's got his left star already hit his right star is ready he had the right most drop Target um ready as well but he was focusing on the spinner and it turned out to be a really good strategy cuz by ball one he's at 428,000 John Chappel was up next he hit the two stars but he missed the Target and went out the left out lanane so he ends up with 56,000 uh for his troubles uh the three ball game uh Neil gets one star down um but he shot it straight up the middle to the targets and then it went straight down the middle I think we can see that here um or at least coming soon but he ends up with 65,000 yeah right there screamer down the middle uh yeah so Neil is at 65320 so then this is kind of what I was sort of focusing us towards here cuz he was Arvid was going for that um captive ball to advance the spinner he had a nice tap tap pass his right spinner was set up at 20,000 uh 20,000 value so the commentators mentioned that by the end of this ball he was uh he set himself up nicely so it looks like the cards carry over your progress yes okay yep so you're looking at on the footage right now he had it on his clubs and he hit I believe most of see he was backhanding and Carl mentioned that you could backhand that captive ball which was interesting that maybe Timber didn't know because if he's going for spinner all day maybe that's the Strat then just backhand it hopefully you get a nice feed and then keep feeding it after a couple times which reminds me of arvid's strategy in the UK open when we were playing Centaur together in the quarters he was going for because multiball was disabled that left Loop and then hitting the captain ball once the value was established um great ball for Arvid which is crazy that he only ends up only with 184,000 but it's based on what Timber did versus arvid's strategy so they were both it looks going for the spinner but Arvid did have the um uh four four suits down he only need one more and same with uh timber here he you can see right now he's on the hearts and you don't want them to change uh and that you change them by hitting the twos I believe uh the top go ahead oh sorry I was just goingon to say the other thing that's very important on this game is that so completing those Lanes the top Lanes yes um will increase your bonus multiplier and that bonus multiplier carries from Bal ball ohn yeah it's hu it can be huge right that's awesome yeah and then the other thing is so the the spinner value I think starts at 2,000 and then maxes at 10,000 from that captive ball okay but then if you if you get 10,000 Value Plus 10x running you can get 100,000 a spin on on a juice spinner so it's like anyone you know anyone can really get that done in one ball if you if you play it right exactly and and that's what they were mentioning about the 10x like do you go for it or do you look at the scores around you and say oh I could just win this with just ripping the spinner and the danger of changing your suit as we see right here is that now you have to drop all the targets to reset it and then hopefully move it to the one where you only needed one more drop Target left so he was on the hearts and now he's on the Spades and he's got to clear that but he's just going spinner all day and this ball for him is absolutely amazing by the time we're done he's already at um he had 4X bonus multiple good rips on the spinner he did have the 10x right there but it immediately drained and they circled it uh unfortunately he wasn't able to collect on it but he still ends up with 1.36 million so John shoel coming up gets a good dig unfortunately quick sling uh sling to the left out Lane right there he's at 96600 um Neil on his ball to finished his rows of tar finished his row of targets but look at this backspin that is some crazy nasty work and they were really nasty yeah and they were talking during the commentary about um Bob and somebody else being able to recognize oh yes the reflection yeah Roger sharp was talking with Bob about seeing how where you can see the backman I'm like that's wild so they were like is this on new balls Bob he's like no he got to be yeah got be some markings on it um but that's such a crazy skill to to recognize so Neil then on his uh ball two finish the road of targets Back Spin and ends up with 7,900 7954 we get to arvit excuse me uh for his ball too he has a quick drain left drop in the middle to drain and so he ends up with 20 235,000 Timber looking at the Strat and uh here we go continues his spinner Strat on ball three uh just the move to make it looks like because that's all you really need to do and he ends the game with 1.4 million Jon ends up getting two warnings on this it's the first I heard of The Dangers I don't remember hearing anybody sort of activate one but they were as far as tilt sens sensitivity very fair I think what are your thoughts about the tilts for the classics or even the mains at indisk yeah I thought they were pretty fair um I don't think anything had like a really hair pin tilt um and I think that's pretty much expected um I know zmac and our interview kind of mentioned the the tilts for him seemed very uh lenient compared to previous years um so I I don't know if I can really speak to that since I've only gone you know once before this but um I trust his insight as a as a multi-winner as a champ yeah yeah so uh I think I think they were very fair as well so uh what's funny is um so JN ends up with 349,000 [Music] sort of things sort of and it happens on newer ones too it's sort of what comes first if the game's able to catch up but Neil gets 178,000 points so he is now uh unfortunately getting another zero so he's out of the running for first Arvid only needs uh let's see he was at 235,000 JN was at 349 so he had a chance to get the two points unless he caught Timber with a great 10x maybe um get the get the two points so he would be at at six but unfortunately he gets a quick right out lane drain on the house ball right there 276,000 Jon takes second and as you were saying the multiplier carries over so it was a possibility um with that Timber takes first ends up with five total points through two JN with four in second Arvid gets one so he has five Neil has zero so we do have 5540 there is a chance um Neil could play for third and there is a lot of uh traffic for the fight for first thoughts on Lady Luck yeah um it's an interesting game I don't think I played it once uh the entire weekend even when it was on free play I just uh it wasn't really on my radar um but it was fun to watch them play it and see the different strategies that uh they use and you know next time I have the opportunity to play it I'll definitely give Timbers strategy a shot with that spinner captive ball combo I think so too I think may maybe I'm going to try the backhand from the left and then see if I can find the spinner I feel like it was in the high stakes last year and I just got wrecked by it I'm trying to think if it was another got Le uh perhaps it was Lady Luck there's another one with cards but I think it was Lady Luck so Chuck wart um Eric kudos to your got Le love I do like the fact that there's a couple strategies you can play there uh on Lady Luck so congrats to Timber now we go to game three a fan favorite one of mine I'm sure one of yours uh and almost everybody it's Harlem Globe Trotters I'll let you do the honors of speaking about this wonderful wonderful pin yeah sure um so yeah this is actually one of the state on my my classic Classics card um and I was I felt like it pretty it played pretty consistently well um I know a lot of people like to so um a couple things for scoring you can spell Globe you can collect the letters from primarily that top saucer which um usually you can collect from the plunge um and then otherwise there's a spinner on the left that you can kind of send it up to uh hopefully get it back into that saucer um I typically and I feel like a lot of people uh prioritize the inline drops on the right side of the Playfield um because that increases your bonus multiplier from 2x to 5x um right below that bank of inline drops there is a standup Target that will open your gate on the right so it's kind of a you know right outlan ball save um the multiplier or the inline drops also increase your spinner value from 100 up to 2,000 points per Spin and then they also um SP a letter in Globe um for the for those Inland drops so yeah I think you're going to see a lot of people prioritizing those Inland drops and then just kind of sending it up to the spinner uh to keep you know getting more points yeah and you can see it right here just masterful tap passes if you're on the right flipper I feel like it's only right to send it up if you're close to spelling globe or if you've got a juice spinner value ready um otherwise you really need to on ball one lock in um as big a bonus as you can so here the super bonus didn't hold over but you can still get some great value at least that's what they I think it I don't know if it changed it yeah but it it did hold over the super bonus you can kind of see on the the backlash there's a piece of paper that says super bonus does not hold over and the word not is is crossed out with a pen I thought that because John has such a great ball one and I saw his 40K like carry over I'm like are they sure it didn't carry over so so another feature um of this older solid state is that if you get enough of a bonus uh value it'll carry over ball the ball and so John uh so Timber's first ball get grabbed the letter off the plunge had three beautiful tap passes to get the inline drops ripped the spinner spelled globe and then unfortunately went straight down the middle but for his ball one he ended up with 134,000 so this game itself was um in qualifying on a lot of people's cards the top score was 1.43 million a a score of 144,000 was already halfway up the leaderboard and that was his ball one so he can just absolutely move and make um I think my top score it looks like was 6113 so you can really get some good good value um just playing this the right way now here's John uh we can just watch this for a little bit because he has a absolutely amazing ball Championship winning ball he's already at 116 right now as we see the footage I'm going to move it just a little bit more because he's still going he's at 275 I'll let the announcers do their thing especially with bedo spinner right Bob oh yeah it basically it depends on how it's approaching the left flippers if it's ideally uh if the speed and angle is such that it's a good dead bounce you let a dead bounce that was a phenomenal ball you're going to like that five he's going over yep John yeah look at that great way to put pressure on your players on your ear Yeah Carl said it right I mean he got a letter off the plunge three quick drops on the Fly which is not easy um because you don't want to hit the first drop from the upper left flipper because it feeds it straight down the middle you want to hit it off the bottommost left flipper and get a safer return so he hits the 5x gets the globe grabs his collect bonus rips the nice spinner on 2K a spin drops reset hits the left spinner again spells Globe again rinse and repeat uh hits the second drop from the second set ends up with 54,8 points that is a third of the Way to the Top scor in qualifying plus he has his bonus carryover uh I don't think you could have set yourself up any better yeah amazing ball yeah so Neil steps up just unfortunately gets more bad luck gets a couple drops ends up with 19,000 which is crazy cuz you do the thing you get a couple drops and then you're like okay I just got to get it back up top maybe get the last letter and then um do you ever go for the center Spinners I don't um no yeah okay just because the you know it's got those rubber posts on both sides so if you I mean if you miss that shot it's just super dangerous I feel like anytime I hit those Center Spinners it's just by accident yeah right and sometimes that'll carry you up to the next level of the super bonus I'm like all right I'll take it whatever but if I'm flailing it's like going up uh going up the middle so Arvid gets a letter off the plunge nice dig to avoid disaster three drops good Reaction Time 46,000 points so we've got Timber coming up next for his second ball a good drop catch but it was sort of hanging on the edge of the left Plastics on this and so I don't know if we'll get a chance to see it we might be able to get it see it right here and boom and then right there I feel like there was a chance to nudge but Bob was saying in the commentary there's some sort of uh hanging inlay where it looks like it's sort of in the middle but it's really more towards the left so yeah I think he was saying the plastic extended a little bit further than the actual rubber did so it's a little hard to judge you know yes exactly that's exactly what he said and so uh great Insight from Bob there uh because he played it a lot I'm sure uh and now we're on to John's second ball he cleared two drops for another Globe uh straight down the middle could have probably saved it but honestly not tilting preserves that bonus so why not uh just let it go and not really worry about um you you've got a really good granted anybody can come back on this we saw that uh eer had an amazing ball at pinburgh on Harlem or amazing game so he's already at 745,000 points save your super bonus uh Neil steps up for his ball to three drops but the rebound from the inline unfortunately go straight down the middle I think this is it right here and no it's the next one um but that's the danger of sending it up there from and there it is right there so it's supposed to be given if you're going if it's sort of to the left it's got a better angle than hitting the little um post uh on the right side and bouncing over and slowing the velocity so Arvid steps up spells Globe gets two drops with the flipper fumble off the tip he is at 109,000 so he's actually in last right now Neil in third U Timber this is kind of what most people see at least once on uh Harlem Globe trouts he gets the saucer right there and then what does he get house Bal so he ends up with 171,000 he cannot um win I believe John with the minimum of you know if it played out would have had first um but Timber the best he could have done was second would have put him in seven at seven and so Jon had four oh so wait maybe you could have won forget my math uh let's I think both Arvid and Timber had to beat John had to beat John right okay that's what it was um so yeah he could not have won outright and here is Jon's last ball three sitting at 745,000 points and what does he get for his troubles he gets what uh Timber got house ball uh he ends up with seven 94 110 congratulations John on an amazing ball amazing game of Harlem uh we have Neil here we're going to step up uh and he's going to plunge he's at 110 uh by the end of ball two he gets his uh ball right here to come down and then he goes for the tap pass and unfortunately it dies on him but he's still at 117 and then Arvid steps up and he has a failed catch unfortunately is sometimes those Classics do they hit some sort of insert or something and they roll a little with that Jon takes first with eight points Timber with second uh gets seven Neil gets third with one point Arvid in last with five so John Timber AR viid Neil congratulations John Chappel you took out the kids we love you for it and thank you for an amazing final Classics finals that was a lot of fun to watch I learned a lot on those first two hopefully by now everybody knows Harlem um uh your your opinions your analysis your thoughts on Classics finals yeah no it was really well played by all four the the finalists um something that I L that I think someone pointed out Ryan uh uh egg uh in Discord is in the post interview with Jeff tiis John mentioned um or one of the quotes that he had was when you're playing pinball you're always Young I love that yeah um something just throw it on a shirt or something you know it's uh such a great uh you know great Sportsman ship from him and from everyone else and um you know gracefulness win uh congrats to him and also congrats to him on I believe he's also the Arizona state champion as well so we're going to see him coming up uh this week so it'll be good to I I was looking at my star Fighters results from last year I'm like oh I got last I was in a group with him a couple of times I'm like don't kill me too hard but kudos to you uh and all the competitors arv Neil Timber uh well well done I will go over the Whoppers for you real quick um for it never drains in Southern California 2025 Classics John chopel in first with 28090 Whoppers massive massive performance Timber with 260.000 for second Arvid fer in third gets 247.240193 you didn't get a lot of chances to flip or some uh good luck from where the ball bounced but hell you got 2377 for Whoppers congratulations Jack slovich in fifth Peter Frank Nick Stein Derrik Thompson Lucas a and eer leof rounding out your top 10 and with the classics done we now pivot over to the last major Tournament of the uh indisk 2025 Festival if you'll call it and that is excuse me the women's portion so very cool Bank super jealous that the uh women got all these amazing pins uh did you get a chance to play on any of them after uh all the tournaments were over I did yeah um I definitely wanted to play some hoops I remember Hoops was in the main bank last year and was one of my um games that I stubbornly focused on on my card even though uh it probably wasn't my best game but I just loved playing it it's such a such a great game to play yeah I remember Hoops I played it once and then after watching after watching this footage I was like damn it I wish it had been in the main like I love the way it played I love the uh super slams and you know catching it so what we're going to do is explain to you who was in the women's final we had Kaylee Campbell Deborah tman Anna Neil and Kate Martin so Kaylee was the one seed Deborah 6 Anna n Kate Martin 14 plinky plony pinball shout out to you Kate um uh out of New York and we had Dave Stewart Allison O'Neal KY Hill on commentary they did an excellent excellent job so the first game up is the aforementioned one that we just talked about Hoops can you give us a little of your knowledge about Hoops yeah um my priority uh was just to start multiball um so off the plunge um there's a little standup Target on the top uh right above the two top lanes that um gives you a little hangtime bonus and then um plunging the correct uh lit Lane will light your lock uh for multiball and those locks are um lit either on the left of there's a left scoop and there's also a scoop at the very top of the uh Playfield um sorry there's a third scoop on the right uh top right as well um so you see Anna here she um she does exactly that she plunges the lit lane and then immediately locks a ball to start multiball um which uh you'll get a ball in the shooter lane and then as soon as you plunge it and hit a switch it will start the multiball for you that's awesome yeah and the great thing is you only get the the one lock option right off the plunge you have to then after your first multiball is done lock all three and so the lock is up at the top right or how do you activate the locks that blue Target over the rollovers on the top or is um I I think it I think it's the uh that Top Lane um switch whatever whichever Lane is is lit but you can you can send it back up from the right orbit okay got it oh that makes sense okay and so once you've started your multiball and two ball multiball you want to lock it in the saucer on the left and then shoot it up the middle to get your Super Slam your Super Slam has a ton of awards but what award do people mostly pick the one million point yeah a million points obviously so Anna uh is up here Ana Neil from hot nudge pinball started her multiball twice ended her first multiball with around one and a half million so um before we go I'm really I'm just going to go really quickly to check the scores for the um Hoops in qualifying so the top score was an Anil with 12 million and that's important because you're going to see the scores here so if you got anywhere from 5 million and up you were in the top 10 so basically if you can in were three balls get to the two ball multiball send it lock one in the left saler and then get a couple super slams or three super slams you're looking pretty good already and so she gets her Super Slam she started her three ball m multiball and by the time she is done with her ball one and then there's also the hangtime bonus oh the baskets you collect baskets throughout your uh play you only collect them though on ball three so it's very important that you do not tilt on ball three how much are they worth per basket is it 100,000 or 10 feel like it's 10 I think it might be 10,000 yeah because you can get a lot of points like basketball points right in terms of scoring but yeah that's all collected on the third ball like you said so it comes into play because you've also got this cumulative collection of baskets working to help you at the end and if you're down by a million if you have a 100 baskets you're you're right there just don't tilt so Anna with her um ball one ends up with uh 5.43 million so Kate off her rip gets a great dig to start to start her ball uh she locks her ball one gets them both uh locked little LZ off the locks which was kind of cool this had a lot of um awesome Center Post saves and also lazarus's laes if we'll call them she ends up with a right outlane drain off the sling still you know gets over a million 1.42 one 1ou 1, 421,000 for her troubles Deborah is player three she had a good tip pass locked her ball got a nice LZ but drained out of multiball so after her first ball you're looking at the first two scores and she's only at um right there 190,000 so this game can reward you if you're accurate in getting your multiball started and then locking it up at the center so then we have Kaylee step up really nice Center Post save um her ball one just like Anna absolutely masterful uh after her first multiball only had 180,000 starts a second multiball as the three ball multiball got her million locked her two balls again in the saucer got her million rinse repeat she kept getting Super Slam and that is that is the move get the Super Slam collect your you know Advance your hangtime bonus you can also collect that when it's Lin on the left am I correct on that I believe so um your hangtime bonus is that flashing green insert right yeah I believe so okay okay so ball two we're going to watch an amazing sequence that I wanted to highlight because it kind of shows how well this game played and um the awesome skills of these uh participants in the women's finals so here we go I'll let the commentary play I like how Anna is taking a minute having a deep breath playing calm ooh nice that was awesome again yes she had the last to the last to the tip save and then another Center Post save uh absolutely amazing she started her three ball multiball ends up with 6.8 uh Million by the end of it really good backhand lock too off the left which is um not easy cuz you're trying to hit it from the right which is what most people were doing but it rolled just enough where um uh she was able to to backhand it there was a move that I wanted to show uh Kaye do I don't think I got the timestamp for it but she was doing really awesome um flipper passes from the right into the right in lane and then getting it bumped ski passed over to the left and then sending it back up top uh or sending it up the middle to when she needed to lock her second ball for the three ball multiball just absolutely uh masterful play from Kaylee in this final so Anna on her ball two uh had a quick drain at the end rebound off the right plastic to the left out lane really good hangtime bonus she's already at 10.3 million so Anna's already like and she had it looks like 146 baskets so she's got 1.46 million in bonus she's almost at her qualifying score um for the finals so we've got Kate coming up some really good saves uh from Kate here really moving the machine a lot trying to stay alive she finishes with 1. 1475 million Deborah had great exe execution on her hangtime spinner to light lock uh but then she got Center trained so it's like all that hard work and you you don't get too much she's at 458,000 Kaye steps up for her ball to just really well controlled gets into her two- ball multiball hits the saucer left saucer then Center takes Super Slam multiple times again I wish I could show you all of the times she did it but it would get sort of redundant but that's the move if you're in two ball left saucer up the middle take the million they come down she had some great she figured out sort of where the angles were to catch them on both flippers and then do it again so yeah um really really uh good ball too for her she collect our Hang Time took another million finished with 8.38 million and so we are in ball three and Anna is up she gets uh her two bow multiball going again off the plunge you can just lock one send it up and then you know start your two ball multiball she gets one Super Slam and she had uh two million in bonus about so Anna is looking good she's passed her qualifying score in the top qualif flying score she's at 13.8 million great game for Anna uh Anna Neil out of Chicago 2 million in bonus um unfortunately Kate gets a straight down the middle quick ball she finishes with 1.9 I think it's right here I think she went to the pops was it I think it was like right around there maybe let me just see thinking about it and uh it was like a quick rebound I remember but anyways um Kate with one .9 Deborah gets a her ball three she has a fortunate flipper fumble off of dead bounce does not pass the 1 million Mark so it's up to Kaylee she's here she's on ball three she had 8.3 million she needs 5.5 million she had 160 baskets or so so 1.6 so what do she or she had 1.8 in the bank excuse me she had enough in bonus with at the end with her amazing uh with an amazing save like she was just all over the place saving everything just digging it through sheer will and skill boom right there boom right there oh my God yeah it's crazy like she was fighting for her life for this there's another Center Post so her hangtime bonus was at 8.91 see she's at 11.7 well take your hands off oh my gosh so she's just absolutely locked in she's got looks like 701 maybe hang or no she had collected her hang time so she's 11.7 with 187 baskets so that's 13.5 she's basically there but she has to keep playing it out because you never want to count on the bonus she's at 12.9 and then with like one more shot she gets it and she finishes with uh the winning score Kaylee wins it on Hoops first place Four Points an an Neil with second with two Kate Martin in third with one and Deborah tman in fourth with zero I loved watching this I could watch this match plenty of times just to learn Hoops um your thoughts yeah I mean those are two in amazing scores I mean to get second place with was it over 11 million or 13 million points is uh kind of unreal um you know having that's what you said it was better than the top scor and qualifying top scor and qualifying so Kaylee had to literally put up a better score than that and she did it so crudos to her out of hundreds of games in qualifying and you're like great so I've got to beat the top qualifying score twice because from the same person that did it so yeah Hoops is Hoops is a blast um just well well well done ladies uh so our second game now we move on to the second game Argy what do you know about Argy I know from watching it last year I feel like it was in the banks for Classics maybe I watched it somewhere and I really fell in love with it um yeah but tell me your thoughts if you if you have any yeah yeah um it's a it's an em it's great game uh we have one locally here at at vck over in Washington DC um I think it's one of those games where you just kind of want to send it up top all day um you can build your bonus uh I believe it's from is it the drop Targets on the left uh also the center Center rollover yes that's right there's a center there's a roll over in the top which you can actually kind of roll over a couple times off the plunge um depending on how um hard you plunge the ball um you want to Max your bonus out at 100,000 and then um typic well I'm just kind of reading off the Matthews guide but uh and then shoot the drop Target Bank to light the right side saucer to get double bonus upon the first completion of the drops and then second completion of the drops earns an extra ball which I don't believe are playable yeah the big the big thing was here was getting that bonus maxed out and then either you'll see it on kayle's balls either ripping the spinner when it's lit or risking it and going for the double bonus so what's what's what's worth more getting 18 to 20 per rip or trying for that extra 100K which is risk reward in pinball I would would go for the saucer just because that's a lot uh you're counting on the ball coming back to you safely through multiple spinner rips you know you need four to five I would say um and then there's also the gate which opens up um from the center rollover Lane I believe yeah that center lane at the top which you can also get off the plunge um I'm not sure if it was possible on this copy but apparently you can try to shats that left end Lane M uh to open the gate you know forcefully but I I'm not sure if we're going to um if that's if it was even possible on this cop I think someone mentioned that they they had noticed that on their local copy I don't know if it was the same here so um out of the gate Deborah gets a very you know solid ball 141,000 she opened her gate um so Deborah's going first Kate is going second she has multiple multiple amazing digs and rips of the spinner maxed out her bonus Kate's ball one for Argy was just Splendid absolutely Splendid you couldn't really ask for more because you're she gets almost halfway to Rolling it she was dialed in with that right spinner she got the max bonus so 200k there and then um finishes with uh 448,000 points you really like I said you couldn't ask for more on your ball one to set yourself up which uh Anna is then she's she's playing for like it's crazy she's played for like 10 minutes which sometimes is my full game on Ary so Anna gets her drops down uh unfortunately has a quick ball 46820 Kaylee uh stepping up needs a first here because with the 4210 if she gets a first she doesn't have to worry about game three she is your 2025 indisk women's champ she maxes out her bonus on um ball one and actually you know what I'm sorry this is the game it wasn't Hoops it was Argy that I wanted to Showcase kayle's skill here so at 5327 is what I was talking about not for Hoops pardon me I got my games mixed up so I'm going to let this play here and let you watch it read on that uh about keeping the ball as safe as possible which is on top so from those rollovers okay right here at this point is it come down watch her right flipp AC or just play a little safer just keep shooting on top and grind at 10,000 at a time so she does it there she was actually getting it all the deciding to to where she could be able to ski pass and then she did that when her spinner was lit and that's the move don't send it up from the right flipper up to the top get it back to that left flipper and rip your spinner continuously uh she just ton of spinner rips absolutely fantastic ball one just like Kate nabs her dumble bonus off a rebound she wasn't going for it she was going for the spinner rips uh throughout her Ball but she was able to get the right saucer and she gets 4 35,400 points for her ball one five ball game of Argy we're going to kind of go through most of the rest of it because that's kind of where the scores end up settling ball two for Deborah okay ball 244k Kate gets her eight gate open on ball two gets a really bad kick out though from the um the saucer yeah from the saucer which was surprising cuz I hadn't seen that happen before maybe it'll happen right here for us on the footage but it was sort of wild cuz you're like trying to get there there it is and then yeah it was it's [ __ ] absolute like it's crazy like it's supposed to give it to you somewhat safely but she's at 5245 uh 500 points uh 524k Anna uh her ball too failed catch the straight down the middle with that little hop that we've all done 101k for her kayy failed flipper pass went in Lane to out lane so that's the sort of thing you have to worry about where you push it too much um you try to pass it too much from the right flip and it goes up the in Lane over the out lane which is really unfortunate because you're doing so well uh but she still had a really nice ball she ends up with 593 th000 so she is now your leader after two she can smell Victory coming um ball three we have Deborah get one rip and then bounce to the left out lane for 315k Kate missed the spinner rip to the right out lane 688k so now she's back in the lead uh Anna scoop to left sling to in LAN out lane drain that's just brutal it's going here and then it hits your in lane from the bottom of the flipper and then it goes out like just end my game right there for me uh Kaylee maxes out her bonus very quickly on ball three went for the double bonus but drains and she is now in first with 82,000 two balls left um Ball Four uh we've got Deborah making great save she takes a breather after she makes those saves and then unfortunately goes straight down the middle I think it was a missed shot that's the worst you're like giving yourself a breather you're like okay let me get this let me just slow down and then you shoot it and it's like I should have just kept going crazy yeah sometimes I don't like to pause I just like to kind of stay and I mean I know it helps uh a lot of people just to recollect yourself especially after like a big save or like a danger or something but I feel like that for me it kind of takes takes me out of the game a little bit you know yeah no I I think I can understand where you're coming from there cuz sometimes when you're in the flow you're just shooting and you know where things are as they come down the flipper if you're shooting on the Fly and you've kind of got the angle and geometry right so I I totally get that that's nothing more demoralizing than setting yourself up giving yourself a break because you're out of control and then being like well I should have just stayed out of control so we are on ball five right now now um after four Kaylee was still in the lead everybody had a quick ball on ball four um Deborah gets a short ball Kate is the only one right now uh excuse me Anna was the only one that could stop Kaylee from winning Kate ends up with a center pop straight down the middle uh her final score 767,000 points um congratulations Kate for that score because that was a top five score in qualifying which means that an a Neil would have to pass Kaylee to prevent uh K but she unfortunately got a house ball so she ends up with 176,000 Kaylee gets to walk up right here I'll let the footage play outstanding tournament and the best feeling in pinball is the walkoff congratulations Kaye is your 20 2 inis Women's Champion congratulations what were your thoughts on Argy yeah uh it's a it's a great game uh you know five ball em um I feel like you're always kind of in it uh where I mean there there is a you can build up that bonus to 100K you know and and try to Max it out and get that you know doubled through the saucer so you're always kind of in it I feel like um but uh but yeah I mean really great display of skills there like you said I we saw just now um kayy had a lot of really skillful moves so there's some post catches there um some post passes uh you know just pretty much everything you can think of that you can do on an em with uh with those like long flippers like that yeah that was fantastic to watch because you got a little bit of everything and from all the competitors um these ladies really showed up and showed out uh Kaylee takes your first she has eight points so she is your guaranteed champ Kate in second gets three total Deborah takes third with one Anna uh Neil takes last with two uh she ends up with a total of two uh game three we're not going to go over because it was kind of already determined um but it was Rush uh we already discussed this also if you want to know how to play Rush go check the zmac interview uh Kate took second Deborah took first which created a second place tiebreaker and on the tiebreaker for second um it was Paragon which was one of the ones I really wanted to play in the main or in the Classics uh Kate Martin uh one over Deborah to take second place and so with that we're going to show you the um Whoppers earned for the ladies in it never drains in Southern California but before I do that I do want to show the prize pool for the women's that was first place to kayy 879 bucks 623 for second for Kate Martin um $476 for Deborah tman and then 366 for Anna Neil uh in fourth good job ladies your um uh prize pull was well deserved well earned Kaylee Campbell ends up with 99.16% um in the previous round I strongly suggest you go watch that because it was really really good just like the hoops and the Argy was here uh that is your indisk 2025 coverage I'm going to leave it to you for some thoughts overall on indisk I'll finish this off and then we'll uh say our goodbyes yeah um no indis is a worldclass event it's I know it's a lot of people's favorite event to go to for the year um and yeah it's just Kudos I know we kind of went over earlier kind of all the names involved for the you know the staff and the volunteers um it's not none of this is possible without everyone's hard work and uh dedication so really really thankful for um you know I pinball and Carl and his team um for putting this on you know Jim bedo obviously um yeah just really great event and I I can't wait to go to the next one I know I'm already licking my chops right like I want revenge um but it was great seeing you there thanks for being a great roommate the Airbnb uh we almost got killed both of us and it was kind of sketchy walking walking alone sometimes it was a lot of fun um I'll see you at Star Fighters this coming week we'll be with Jeff tiolis and Friends uh rooming together uh good luck on tomorrow's tournament hopefully safe travels safe flights everybody stay safe with the winter Carl Weathers but I Am hotti SE Ali Frisco pinball that's jayen Jo this is episode 6 of wizards and Warriors and we are going to bid you a do goodbye everybody see you the lights are flashing the Bells Are Ringing I step up to the table my heart is singing the crowd is watching the tension is high I'm ready to play it's time to Def fight [Applause] [Music] in control wi we got the Chas in the light the arcades alive my every command and the kingdom I make my stand fight and in control we got the soul [Music]