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It Never Drains in Southern California 2018 - Friday Night Qualifying

IE Pinball·video·1h 15m·analyzed·Jan 16, 2018
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.030

TL;DR

It Never Drains 2018 tournament coverage with Scorebit tech debut and gameplay analysis.

Summary

Coverage of It Never Drains 2018, a major pinball tournament at the Museum of Pinball in Southern California, featuring qualifying rounds with 14 machines and approximately 200 competitors. Hosts Jeff Teolis, Jay Addleson, and Brian O'Neill provide live commentary on gameplay, showcase the prototype Scorebit leaderboard technology, and discuss machine design, strategy, and the competitive pinball scene. Notable players from across North America and internationally compete for Papa circuit and Stern pinball circuit points.

Key Claims

  • It Never Drains tournament goal was to attract about 200 people

    high confidence · Jeff Teolis stated this as the event target

  • This is the first Stern pinball circuit event of 2018 and also a final Papa circuit event

    high confidence · Brian O'Neill explicitly stated the dual circuit significance

  • Top seed at It Never Drains gets to remove any game from the 14-game bank and replace it with a game from a different bank

    high confidence · Hosts explained the tournament format rule

  • Theater of Magic has a tournament ROM installed that prevents the left loop exploitation strategy

    high confidence · Kyle D'Angelo confirmed the ROM change and described the modified ball feed

  • Total Nuclear Annihilation is one of the fastest games at the tournament

    high confidence · Brian O'Neill stated 'This is the fastest game I've played here today for sure'

  • Scorebit is a new product that automatically extracts scores from DMD displays in real-time and sends them to a cloud service

    high confidence · Jeff and Brian demonstrated the prototype installed on Theater of Magic

  • Approximately 25 of the top 100 IFPA-ranked players are attending It Never Drains 2018

    medium confidence · Jay Addleson stated this statistic

  • Danielle Peck turned 16 in April 2018, making this her last year as a youth player

    high confidence · Hosts acknowledged her age milestone and upcoming eligibility change

  • Houdini Master of Mystery began shipping the previous week

    medium confidence · Jay Addleson mentioned 'It's been shipping, I think, last week' regarding the Joe Balser game

  • Pool Sharks requires choosing between 8-ball and 9-ball modes, with 9-ball being the strategically superior choice

Notable Quotes

  • “This is probably the most competitive tournament I've played at... like 25 of the top 100 players are here today.”

    Jay Addleson @ ~11:30 — Establishes the high competitive caliber of It Never Drains 2018

  • “What it's doing is it's installed on this Theater of Magic and is recording the scores in real time and passing them to our service in the cloud.”

    Jeff Teolis (describing Scorebit) @ ~14:20 — Introduction of Scorebit prototype technology at a major tournament

  • “Theater of Magic, you can just hit the left loop all day long. And so what these guys have done is doctored it so that it makes it a little bit more difficult to do those typical strategies.”

    Kyle D'Angelo @ ~26:45 — Explains tournament ROM modifications to prevent machine exploits

  • “I mean, there really is something for everyone... pin golf tournament in the main museum. It's nine holes. It's tomorrow only. It's $10 to enter.”

    Kyle D'Angelo @ ~1:36:00 — Demonstrates the breadth of tournament formats and accessibility

  • “This game is just so brutally hard... there's no ball save, so you're going to have these really short balls.”

    Brian O'Neill (on an unnamed difficult game) @ ~10:00 — Characterizes the difficulty curve of tournament machines

  • “Theater of Magic... the game that sort of introduced me to pinball, and it got me hooked on it, it got my family hooked on it.”

    Jeff Teolis @ ~23:30 — Personal connection to John Popadiuk's design legacy

  • “I have no idea what you're talking about there's some guy who looked just like me who played five seconds on whodunit but that's about it.”

    Jeff Teolis @ ~1:29:00 — Humorous commentary on a quick elimination from Whodunit

  • “It is true that the worst themes end up being the best pinball machines.”

    Brian O'Neill (on Barb Wire) — Reflects common pinball design observation about theme vs mechanics

Entities

Jeff TeolispersonJay AddlesonpersonBrian O'NeillpersonKyle D'AngelopersonCarl D'AngelopersonDanielle PeckpersonDavid PeckpersonMartin RobbinspersonKeith Elwin

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: It Never Drains tournament achieving strong participation with ~200 players, attracting top international competitors and multiple circuit point opportunities

    high · Hosts note ~25 of top 100 IFPA players attending, participants from New Zealand, Australia, and across North America

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Strong positive reception to Total Nuclear Annihilation as fast, competitive-depth game despite difficulty

    high · Hosts repeatedly praise TNA's speed and competitive viability, note it survived tough tournament conditions

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Pool Sharks competitive strategy emphasizes 9-ball mode over 8-ball due to specific target design and skill shot availability

    high · Kyle D'Angelo explains rule mechanics and target design differences between modes

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Theater of Magic tournament ROM modifications prevent classic left-loop exploitation, indicating active tournament management to preserve game integrity

    high · Kyle D'Angelo explains ROM installation and ball feed modifications to prevent traditional strategies

  • ?

    event_signal: It Never Drains tournament expanding scope with pin golf side event, multiple divisions (main, classics, A/B, women's, youth)

    high · Kyle D'Angelo describes pin golf tournament (9 holes, $10 entry, 2-6pm) and other division options

  • $

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.226

0:00
Brings you back right Jay? It brings you right back. Back to the old days. Revision 3. Excellent. it looks like we're live here at indisc it never drains in southern california they've let me out of canada hi it's jeff deolos from pinball profile along with jay addelson here and brian o'neill and we're both from northern california yep what a great facility here at the museum of pinball and thanks for everyone watching on ie pinball on twitch carl d'angelo with a great setup here you're seeing some of the games right now 14 in the main bank and we've got seven in the classics right behind us and you have to have the best seven games out of these 14 banks to qualify for the top 24 it's quite a competition these machines are are truly in excellent condition i mean i've never seen anything like this before and they're set up brutally hard well you expect that for a not only the final papa circuit event too but the stern pro circuit the first one of 2018 and it's certainly been very very exciting so far and their goal was to get about 200 people you're looking at total nuclear annihilation the great spooky game from scott denisi timothy street is boy he's he a great player or what brian yeah he's fantastic yeah he's been playing great all day today putting up some awesome scores and this game is fast this is the fastest game i've played here today for sure we've seen some streams of tna and it's it's certainly playing tough here in this competition the main goal of course you want to get your multi-ball going like that three by three grid get into the scoop and then uh blow the thing up and do it all over again sounds easy doesn't it brian yeah yeah you got to get those reactors um which i have done only once yeah
2:10
Glass on or off. Exactly. It is super difficult. But I think I like it better when I haven't actually tried these games before. Going up to TNA, I've never played the game before. It was all new. It was really an experience. No pressure. Did not think I would be able to survive and kept that thing going. It's probably the best score I put on today, which doesn't say much for me. again we mentioned 14 games and you can follow along on neverdrains.com we'll show you some of those 14 throughout fantastic all right so who's up next here so we got uh matt i think he's a a local player from down here maybe it should have like where they're from i think i think it how about like a flag from their country yeah um no work at all for you. But yeah, he's not doing too much so far. 14,000.

high confidence · Kyle D'Angelo explained the rule mechanics in detail

@ ~1:35:00
person
John Popadiukperson
Joe Balserperson
Matt Scottperson
Museum of Pinballvenue
It Never Drainsevent
Scorebitproduct
Total Nuclear Annihilationgame
Theater of Magicgame
Houdini Master of Mysterygame
Spooky Pinballcompany
Endless Pinballcompany
Captain's Auction Warehousecompany
Comet Pinballcompany
Stern Pinballcompany
PAPAorganization

market_signal: Spooky Pinball demonstrating production capability and market viability through successful TNA tournament participation

medium · Hosts praise Spooky for producing game, getting it public, and having it survive competitive play

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Martin Robbins (Head to Head Pinball Podcast host) from Australia attending It Never Drains 2018

    high · Jay Addleson notes seeing Robbins at the event, confirming international media presence

  • ?

    announcement: Houdini Master of Mystery by Joe Balser recently entered production/shipping phase

    medium · Jay Addleson states 'It's been shipping, I think, last week' regarding the game

  • ?

    technology_signal: Scorebit prototype demonstrates real-time DMD score extraction and cloud-based leaderboard system for pinball tournaments, eliminating manual scorekeeper entry

    high · Hosts demonstrate Scorebit technology live on Theater of Magic, explaining API integration and real-time score transmission to cloud service

  • ?

    venue_signal: Museum of Pinball positioned as premier tournament venue with 600+ playable machines and flexible accommodation for competitive events

    high · Hosts express amazement at showroom size and availability, $20 day/$50 weekend pricing for public play

    • 3:12
    Yeah, one of the difficult things is there's nothing really easy on this game. No. There's no simple trick. Yeah. See, there you go. And there's no ball save, so you're going to have these really short balls. Yeah. That's challenging.
    3:28
    And I'm sure 18,000 is not the lowest score of the day. So this game is just brutally hard. You're crazy. What do you think there, Brian? You ready for it? You ready? How do you feel about your games today? I'm feeling okay.
    3:45
    These games just play really tough. Carl and Jim are mean. They're mean people. They're mean people, and they don't want us to have any fun here.
    3:57
    I kid. You know, this is my first time I've ever played in a competition like this. Ever. What do you think? The pressure is high. I think I probably chose the wrong one to try first from the sense that everyone here is so incredibly good. Just incredibly good. This is probably the most competitive tournament I've played at. Really? Like, there's so many great players that showed up for this. I think a lot of it has to do with the double circuit points you're going to be getting. and yeah it's people have come from all over the world yeah this is this is really serious yeah i think like 25 of the top 100 players are here today okay so this is my strategy lose as fast as possible so i can spectate and learn from all these incredible players yeah that is actually the way i have to keep going we also are uh experimenting today with a little bit of new technology And here it is, the score bit. So Brian and I, as our second job or our hobby job here, is we put together a new product called the score bit. And what it's doing is it's installed in this theater of magic and is recording the scores in real time and passing them to our service in the cloud. It's pretty cool stuff. And Brian wrote the code for that. What do you think, Brian? And some of the nice things about it is, yeah, we get to keep track of these scores, so you don't necessarily have to have a camera on every DMD.
    5:35
    It's also nice for the scorekeepers, so they don't have to enter the scores in manually. One of the tough things about scorekeeping is that for some of the games, if you miss the score, you've got to wait for the whole process until the frame comes back again so you can actually record the score. and this just sends it right to the scorekeeper's device. That's right. This is an API that you can integrate into your software if you want. Yeah. But also, obviously, it's great for players because it could connect to how they play in the cloud and save their scores on a leaderboard. Wait a second. You were just watching Theater of Magic? I was just watching you play. Showing what not to do? Well, we were showing our funky tech here that is pulling the scores off of... Isn't this amazing? It apparently only goes up to 200 million. That's the problem, I think. So this version, this is our prototype, and it's got a refresh rate that we chose. Sometimes a little bit of lag on this game, but the idea here is that it pulls it in real time. Yeah, and so what it's doing is it's looking for a score frame, and you'll see that when you're in multi-ball, it doesn't necessarily... Those aren't the greatest frames. Those aren't the greatest frames, and so we wait for a score frame. When it's one player, it's going to be right big in the middle. When it's four players, you'll see all four at the same time. So it's waiting for those, then it records those and sends it out to the API. I'm sure that's a game that's going to be picked for sure in the playoffs, so we'll see some four-player action. That'll be nice. That'll be really cool. See, it's up to the – one of the cool things about this tournament, or maybe not so cool things, is that the top seed gets to take out any game out of here and replace it with one of their choosing from a different bank. Well, from a different bank. Yes. So let's say Keith Elwin, if he ever shows up, is going to be the top seed. He could take Tron and take out, you know, Barb Wire because that's such a weird game. He could replace it. Yeah, but they're not going to take out our beautiful theater of magic. Yeah, I hope not. Come on. This is like one of the best games of all time. Absolutely. John Papaduke's greatest achievement, for sure. This is a fantastic machine. Is that your favorite Papaduke game? It probably is. I mean, I like them all. I'm a Totem fan. I have them both. Oh, do you? And I'm a big fan. I do not have a Magic Girl, though. Don't worry about it. I only have World Cup. Oh, World Cup is fantastic. Yeah, yeah, that's a lot of fun. Oh, great. And they're beautiful. But this game is the game that sort of introduced me to pinball, and it got me addicted to it, it got my family addicted to it. And it's all Brian's fault because he called me up one day and he's like, Hey, I heard there's this really great theater of magic that's available.
    8:31
    Ah! And then I never could escape. Jay, the theme of magic is certainly fascinating, And aren't you kind of holding your breath to see what Houdini will be like? Don't you think that's going to be – if it comes together, if they can make the game – It's been shipping, I think, last week. No, but I mean if they can mass produce them is what I'm saying. Oh, right. It's a fun game. I think it's really beautiful. It does look great. It's really beautiful. That's Balser? Joe Balser made that one? Yeah. I think so. And it's really incredible for any company to produce even a small number of machines. super impressed with Spooky at this event playing TNA, just producing a game, getting it into the public, and then actually have it be able to survive a competition like this. This is pretty much where you go to test whether something can survive hardcore playing. Yeah. We've got a green screen behind us. It's a good thing I didn't wear green. I've got this old Arrested Development shirt on. You're a little see-through on your banana. Oh, there you are. Yeah, you got a little banana seat. Oh, that's true. Yeah, yeah. I see some of our sponsors here, Comet Pinball. Very nice. Ryan Wagner and those guys. Those are fantastic LEDs for everyone. Yeah, Pinball, yeah. Still trying to decide if I should put LEDs in my future spa or not. Don't do it. I say don't. You don't think so? Why do you want to do it? Just so you don't have to change bulbs? You know, part of it is that. That part I like about it. I think part of it, I mean, I like the fading in and fading out of the bulbs, though. And that's what I don't want to lose. yeah it's so beautiful all right here we go this is a game that is just so brutally hard uh those drop targets in the middle are just uh drano you know um but yeah right underneath that pop bumper you can you can't see it but it's the ace there you go that's right yeah there you go thanks carl look at carl it is yeah that's right we can draw on this screen so so brian can you instruct us on how to win on this game so the goal of the game is um you want to get to this 10x playfield.
    10:34
    The way to do that is to get all five drop targets down right here. All these drop targets, you want to get all those down. That'll complete the line of cards. Then you want to get the two star targets on either side. When you do that, you'll get 10x playfield for about seven, eight seconds. Enough time to rip that spinner as hard as you can. And right now the spinner's at 2,000, and it can go up to, to increase the spinner, it's right here on the captive ball. Yep. And so actually I was watching Jermaine play it, and the first thing he was doing was cradling up on the left flipper, like right here, and then just backhanding it. Yeah, it's a lot easier from the backhand, it looks like. So he was getting it up there, and then when he was close to the cards, he would go for the two stars, and there you go. But I haven't seen too many people do it successfully. Yeah, it sounds a lot easier. One rip and you've won the game. Yeah.
    11:31
    Sounds a lot easier said than done, that's for sure. Because those drop targets are so brutal. You hit those and they're going to come screaming back at you. Yeah, you don't want to hit the queen. A dead shot center, no chance.
    11:42
    Watching other people play this game today, it was very clear to me this is not going to be one of my introduction games.
    11:48
    We see Sanjay from Pittsburgh. He's been here before. He certainly loves it. But it's funny because I was asking about some of the games. He had a really good game on pool sharks. and I said, what do you do? He goes, I don't know. I've never played it before. Still put up $7 million. Yeah, you know, it just comes naturally for some people. Yeah, it's one of the fun things about this tournament is you're going to see a lot of weird off-the-wall games that you're not going to know and not going to have played anywhere else. Barb Wire, that's the first time I've ever played this game. Yeah, there's just not one around. Hit the big boss. Well, I assume they've been burnt to the ground. Yeah, and then Pool Sharks, I've never played competitively on Pool Sharks. And then, yeah, Robo War. Pool Sharks is a cool game. I like Pool Sharks. It is interesting, Jay and Brian, how we've seen some of these oddball games. But games you don't see in tournaments often, and they're here at Indus, Theater or Magic, you don't see too many times in theater. And you definitely don't see Whodunit, which they've got in here, because I think we all remember when Kaylee just blew that up that one time. Or Carl. I'm top liver, huh?
    12:53
    Remember, he beat me by, you know, we both rolled it twice. Yeah, that cat's pretty impressive. That cat, he's dreamy. I mean, really, he really is the best. Carl, last year's winner of InDisc here, and Carl, you've done a fantastic job, all these big screens here. Now, why don't you see Whodunit Theater of Magic as often? Exploits. Yeah, that's the problem. People know tricks to basically make the game. Yeah, Theater of Magic, you can just hit the left loop all day long. And so what these guys have done is doctored it so that it makes it a little bit more difficult to do those typical strategies. There's a tournament ROM now for Theater of Magic. That's probably the change. They've installed that as well. But also that left feed that comes down to the right, it's not going to be a nice, easy feed to your flipper. It's hitting off the top of the slingshot and then bouncing across. Yeah, it ruined me. It completely ruined me. Yeah. It is great to see the turnout here. There you go, David Peck from New Zealand, and he's here with Danielle. I mean, those two are fantastic players. Danielle, this is going to be her last year being one of the top youth players. She turned 16 in April, but she's having a great turnout, and we expect good things for her not only in this main division but also classics and women's as well. That is amazing. I'm so glad to see them here. I saw Martin Robbins from Australia from the Head to Head Pinball Podcast. He's here as well. So you're getting a lot of people, not just you Cali boys. Yeah. Well, I'd like to remind you, though, that we have traveled to come here. Yeah, we still had to get on a plane. Planes, trains, and automobiles. Many hours. Seven-hour drive, right, or an hour flight, right, from San Fran? Yeah, that's right. And there's a lot of San Fran. I saw Robin. I saw Gene and Allison. That's right. Allison, congratulations on your wife. Didn't she win the league, I thought I saw? Yeah, she beat Andre in a best-of-five finals for SFPD League. It was unbelievable. I will say congratulations, but I won't say I'm surprised because I've seen her at Vancouver and other events where she just blows up games. So it was just a matter of time. She's been on a great trajectory. Yeah, it is. And so have you, Brian. It's completely believable because she's an amazing player. So there you go, jackpot. Wow, I mean, here's the whole thing right now. And now, Brian, you probably know this best. Who's done it, right? Who's done it, yeah. I don't think we're saying anything that people don't already know. I mean, you can certainly find it on Pintips.net. But I guess the roulette wheel, you lose the first time, you win the second time, and it alternates, correct? So you want to risk very little on the first part when you hit the spinner. Exactly.
    15:30
    Still, though, it's still scary to know that I have to lose all those points in order to get back to roulette again. I'd ask Carl how to play it, but, you know, how would you play it if Haley's not here? How do you exploit it like you did at Pembroke? Well, this ROM doesn't have that exploit in it. Oh, I see. So that's the key. Okay. We can't keep the elevator down. That's the reason we went back to 1.0. Oh, okay. But again, the roulette is the lose-win-lose-win combo, right? Yeah. Yeah, it is. It is. Couldn't have told me that before. I pumped in about 20 bucks. Thanks, Carl. Now, one of the keys to this game is you want to collect the revolver before you get into this multi-ball. Because your jackpot's increased by 5 million per pop-up or hit instead of 1 million, I think it is. And that's during multiball that it will increase. Right. And then does that stay for the rest of the game? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So any jackpots you collect off the slot machine will be whatever value you extra did the multiball at. Well, I'm sure I'll show you how it's done. I'm up in the queue after Robert Gagneau, who's next after David Peck. That's exciting. Yeah. And then we can huckle you from here. Please, please, please find another game. And there are a lot of games, you know. I don't know. Should we pick another one right now, Carl?
    16:36
    What are we seeing? Paragon's been beating up a lot of people. Metallica, you've got the LE. Lady Luck. and we talked about that. That is a fun game. But Pool Sharks, I have to tell you, I really am enjoying Pool Sharks. Yeah, it's a fun game.
    16:50
    Completely. She's going to barb wire. There's not much video of that out on the Internet. That is a good point. A Gottlieb masterpiece, right? One of the things I like to do as a preparer is to watch some competitive play on some of these rare games, and there's nothing out there. Here we go. Wait, something's happening. we got uh captain's auction warehouse yeah outstanding www captains auction warehouse.com they uh they do a lot of pinball machines at their auctions and that's where jim goes and buys a lot of his games where he finds them yeah i i just can't believe the showroom the 600 games i'm just i'm just in awe and there's like and you You can play whatever you want. There's barely anybody playing. Everyone needs to come out and play. This is great. $20 a day, I think. It was a $50 weekend pass.
    17:46
    When I checked in the hotel, I said, oh, why are you here? I said, I'm at a pinball tournament. A pinball tournament? I didn't know they had that. Yeah, they have pinball tournaments. And the biggest one's right here in Banning. This is great. They keep getting bigger. Yeah. And they keep getting more popular. You're in San Francisco right now. It just seems like you can't go into any evening establishment without pinball. Yeah. There you go. Thank you. There it is. Here we are at the Museum of Pinball. Cool Sharks. DJ.
    18:17
    So what do you want to do on this one, Jeff? What do I want to do? Yeah, what's the secret? Because I know this. Carl, feel free to jump in at any time. Now, you have a choice of taking eight ball or nine ball. If you take eight ball, that's a mistake. What's wrong? No, I'm pointing. I just want to make arrows if you if you choose eight ball You can't see that's on the it's on the display right here when you start, okay If you do a ball you got to get one through seven first and then I believe you hit eight and then you have to do The high balls to yep Yeah you got to do a rack over again So it kind of but the thing about hitting 1 through 7 you don have to do it in any order If you play 9 ball it that diamond that pool players know about You have to go 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and then hit 9 at the end, which I believe is that one right there. This is Mark from San Diego. And most people I've been seeing have been playing 9 ball. I'm doing 9 ball too because, yes, it's a specific target right there, but if you get the skill shot, which is just right about here, If you kind of soft plunge, it splotches. Oh, he got it. Three balls. So right there, you can see, sank three balls. Oh, okay.
    19:23
    I've got a mess here, Carl. Can you put it? There he goes. And right there, those rollovers spell Q, which are your multipliers.
    19:31
    But, okay, so that's how you get. So once you get nine ball, which is this shot right here, this right orbit, that will light a three million shot right here. So that's kind of the whole thing. It has to make it all the way around. And it's a hurry-up, so you've got to hit that. Yeah, so that shot is hard, that left orbit.
    19:53
    There are three lights here. Carl, jump in. I know you get their characters. It's hard to see on the screen, but you get one for spelling Q. I think you get one for spelling these three green targets. Am I wrong on that? Yep, that's correct. I'm asking the wrong guy. I haven't played a single game. And then one for a rack. And then one for a rack, yeah. And that will score the jackpot if you hit that. So right now he's trying to complete it by hitting the 8-ball. Yep.
    20:19
    So either that left ramp or the right orbit will do it, and then that will set up the 3 million shot. If he's playing 8-ball, I didn't see what he selected. I assume he is.
    20:29
    Marker gave me a bunch of ideas today for operator features for the score bit. Yeah. That will be really good stuff. He must operate quite a few machines.
    20:38
    Yeah, he's a big operator down in San Diego. He's got the Harbortown Pub and a bunch of other places down there. Now, how far is San Diego from here? I know it's south. I'm trying to learn my geography. It's probably about two hours. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Not too bad. Beautiful city, from what I'm told. Oh, yeah. You've got to visit. Oh, it's fantastic. My wife and I are coming back, but I can't play pinball when we do that or I'll be in trouble. Oh, is that how it works? Well, I want to do a bunch of baseball, too. I want to check out the Dodgers and the Angels and the Padres. See, Brian here figured it out. What? His wife is a hardcore pinball champion. Brilliant. Yeah. Makes it a lot easier to travel. Yeah, completely. My wife's played in a few. She played in Vancouver. She was there. I know you were there, Brian. She played in a few games and then left early. And then we were in Texas, in Austin, Texas, at Buffalo Billiards, a great place there. Yeah. And not part of the circuit this year, but I'm sure it'll be back on again in the future. It was a great June event. Nothing like being in Austin, Texas in late June. Yeah. It was hot down there. That'd be sweaty.
    21:46
    The trick is you've got to introduce couples to the sport. And so then they discover it together, travel together.
    21:55
    I have friends from all over the world who I've introduced as couples, and then they send me text messages with games that they're playing in other parts of the planet. And that's such a great feeling to know that you've brought them into it.
    22:09
    All right, I think he's up. Jeff is off to go play. Jeff is up to play. This is exciting. So can we watch him and heckle him as he plays?
    22:21
    Let's see, where is he going? He's going to whodunit. Yeah. All right. Come on, Mark. So Mark had a good bonus there. I don't know what builds up that bonus, but I know Q will be the multipliers there. So he still needs his nine ball And once he gets his nine ball That hurry up will be lit So it's lit right now on that left orbit And it's going to start counting down from three million Tricky It looks so inviting But yeah it's a tough shot There it is Got one and a half there Not too shabby And you've got to do it all over again.
    23:11
    This is challenging. Yeah, this game is a grind for sure. I think it's fun. Ooh, nice save there. But Mark has already far exceeded my highest score I've ever gotten on this game.
    23:41
    So his best score of the day on this is 5.4 mil. So he's getting close to beating that. So he just needs one more hurry up. He also has jackpot lit right now. He finished all three of the sharps, and so he's trying to backhand into that scoop that's flashing. Okay. Talking about here? Yeah, right there.
    24:11
    Cool. There it is. Nice. 4 mil, 4.6 million jackpot. It's huge. So he just basically catapulted this into his high score. Yeah, this is going to be a really great finishing score.
    24:27
    So what do you do now? Go for more pool balls. He's trying to backhand that number three. It's great stuff.
    24:49
    So something else is flashing, that captive ball. I don't know what exactly it does, but... Up here you're talking about? Yeah, so you want to hit into the captain ball. I think it scores quite a bit of points, but that was a great game from Mark. Did he cross over 10? Yeah. Oh, no. He's very close. Just a little under. It's very close, 9.6 million from Mark Schultz. That should move him up.
    25:19
    Great. the wide world of pinball sports we got we got jeff coming back it must have been a quick game jeff i thought you just left have you started playing yet just went to the washroom i have no idea what you're talking about there's some guy who looked just like me who played five seconds on whodunit but that's about it i think we have a sponsor my sponsor well throw that up again there carl i'll help you out there endless pinball is southern California's premier pinball sales, repairs, and restorations. Over 20 years experience fixing, restoring, and repairing all makes and models of pinball machines. California's only Jersey Jack distributor. We also buy and sell all makes and models of pinball games, as well as specializing in locating hard-to-find collector quality games. Visit us at www.endlesspinball.com. Such a cool name.
    26:17
    And Pinball Star Amusements with Spooky Pinball. We put the boo in boutique pinball. We certainly do. The total nuclear annihilation and Alice Cooper's new game coming out. This is going to be exciting. Good year for Spooky. Yeah.
    26:34
    That TNA is such a great game. I'm bringing it back to the old school with the ballet look. Such a fast and fun game. I love it. One of my all-time favorites. Early on, even after a year. Captain's Auction Warehouse. amusement auctions, appraisals and sales, and endless pinball. SoCal's base pinball sales, repair, and restoration.
    26:56
    All right, here we are. Here we go. I'm Barb Wire. This is the game that we need more video of on the Internet. Yes, so that we can never see it again.
    27:10
    You know. I'll just say this. Sorry, Jay, to interrupt. I played it in one other tournament. The tournament was called the tournament.
    27:19
    The guys from Buffalo. Yeah. It is by far true that the worst themes end up being the best pinball games. Yes. And that is consistent. I wouldn't say this is the best pinball game, though, even though it's probably one of the worst themes. It was really fun for me. It's definitely the best score I got. Yeah.
    27:42
    All you got to do is hit that big boss right in the middle. That is the key. And I believe this one here is named Fatso, correct? Yeah, that's right, yeah. All right. A little bit of body shaming. Nothing like that in 2018. Now, this multiball, what you want to do is just keep hitting that left. The arrow? Yeah, and just keep getting out of balls. It'll give you, like, endless out of balls, I noticed. So, Brian, since you would know this, if I watch the movie, will I learn anything that will help me with this game?
    28:12
    Probably not. You've seen the movie, right? No. Oh, I thought maybe you had. Yeah. Okay. Basically, when I played, I just went for the boss. Yeah. Just go up the middle, hit that dude.
    28:26
    It will start one of four modes, and three of those four modes is multi-ball. Now, I believe you are unlocking things, though. There's, like, weapons that you unlock. Yeah. I don't know much about anything else but hitting the center all day long. So is barbed wire a spy or a superhero? What is she exactly? She's got a badass tattoo. I think that's all it is. Crash the tolls. I think this is a high-scoring mode. Okay. So it's multi-ball. Everything is worth 35 mil.
    29:05
    That's great. So a good score. Jay, I do get a kick. Sorry. I do get a kick that Jay's trying to figure out. What is she? Have you ever watched Baywatch, how all of a sudden they're trying to solve murders? They're lifeguards, for God's sake. This is my point. It's like I want to know more.
    29:22
    Tonight I'm going to rent. I bet you can't even rent it. Yeah. It's probably not on Netflix. Absolutely amazing. So Matt's best score on this is 483 mil. So he's still got a ways to go.
    29:39
    But he's on ball one. Yeah, they're still tight. Carl, maybe you can jump in, talk about some of the different tournaments here. I know, obviously, we've talked about mains and classics. There's the A and the B division. There's the women's. But also, isn't there a tournament I thought I saw where people ranked a certain level? There's a pin golf tournament in the main museum. It's all the way in the corner. It's nine holes. It's tomorrow only. It's $10 to enter from two to six, I think it is. How great is that? Yeah, that's fantastic. I mean, there really is something for everyone. is that open to everyone or uh no i i it is open for people whatever the ranking may be and i'm sorry it's on it is on indisc.com okay but uh i saw that and i thought that's great you know because there's some intimidation when you're playing you know yeah some heavyweight pinball players like keith elwin brian o'neill you know zach sharp is going to be here i'm not very intimidating they say brian i meant else yeah there we go um and then keith hasn't even showed up yet he's probably gonna roll in tomorrow play seven games if you keep trolling him you're gonna you know poor kate had her flight delayed or something like that i don't know really too so my guess is he's just being sympathetic and saying i won't come until you come yeah so that's i have no idea aren't the sharps supposed to show up too not the sharps just just zach and he was at uh he was at the ces show in las vegas so it's kind of an easy jump to get to oh right socal from vegas an easy choice for me between ces and indisc yeah no question well you can do both but uh yeah absolutely this this is you know i think i've told a few people before we started here You know, there's certainly Papa, there's Pinberg is the ones people flock to. I don't know if I've seen a bigger one than this. This is pretty amazing. This could easily be my top three favorite. Yeah.
    31:36
    I could change my mind. If I tank tomorrow, this is the worst tournament ever. Brian's been telling me I have to get exercise before I try going to Pinberg, though. Yeah. Oh, have you never done it, Jay? I haven't done it. Now, why do you say exercise? I find this just as tiring.
    31:50
    You're on your feet a lot longer at Pinberg, I feel like. Okay. So much playing. And it's, I don't know, I think it's one of the best tournaments. It is. But the adrenaline goes. But it's kind of a 10 to 10, right? 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Yeah. And you've got a two-hour buffers there. So there's a little bit of a thing. But we've been starting since 10 a.m. this morning. We're going until midnight tonight. We'll do it again tomorrow up until 11 o'clock. That'll drain you for sure. Yeah. The sanctum. Now you want to talk about draining. You want some endurance. Oh, yeah. 24 hours. How people do that. I think I could do the tournament. It's the day or the day after. That's it. I think I would drop dead. And then you get a special prize if you go all 24 hours, right? You get like a little medal.
    32:32
    That's pretty impressive. Dangerous. This guy's got a good first hole. Oh, yes. And there is no rubber on that post. That's not easy to do. This is a good score. Yeah, he is. So I see a flashing right ramp there. That huge hole scoop. But this is almost like that big hole there. It reminds me of South Park, you know, the big hole in that game. Yeah.
    32:59
    That's a good first ball. That was a great ball one. Well done, Matt. So this skill shot, what you want to do is do a full plunge, let it drop down to the lower flipper, and then hit that center, hit big fat so.
    33:19
    Whoa. Oh, wow. Loving that post. The postman ranked twice. Impressive. I think there's something you need to also fill out this triangle in the middle with all the shots.
    33:36
    Looks like he's got a couple left to hit. And then you get, I'm not too familiar with it. We're going to find out. We can't see on the back glass, but there was a sheet there that kind of gave us the order of, was that modes was that uh mysteries uh it's this it's this mystery right here so that's the like retinal scan okay the retinal scan yeah so he's like he's got something flashing in the middle and that right ramp's looking pretty bright and let you have to get the the word haywire yeah haywire haywire right yeah barbed wire no it's haywire yeah it is haywire you gotta Yeah. Barbed wire wouldn't fit, so they just shortened it to haywire.
    34:22
    Well, he's got all of the triangle numbers flashing. I think he needs one more. Yeah. And then he has a super shot or a super fire.
    34:37
    We're learning along with you all, folks. Yes, we're learning. We're learning. 585 million though he's doing quite well so he finishes with 655 there solid score I'm going to do everybody a favor right now I'm going to give my voice a rest and your ears are rest. But I think we've got a good substitution. He just happens to be the PAPA 20 world champion, Escher Lefkoff. He's going to come in and talk for a little bit. So now 15 years old, grown a lot since I last saw him at Pinnberg and stuff. But a fine young man. I'll pass it over now to Escher Lefkoff.
    35:34
    Hello, Escher. Welcome. I'm Jay. Pleasure to meet you. Nice to meet you, too. Yeah, world champion. Yeah.
    35:42
    Fantastic. We're trying to learn this game. Yeah. I have no clue. So you're like us. You don't know, just like we don't know. I heard that the middle is supposed to be where the big points are at. You've got to shoot the fatso. Over and over, and he closes in like three seconds. It's very hard to hit him. Now, we saw that they were lighting up this triangle. Yeah. But we can't quite figure out to what end. I know each arrow awards a shot, and it's like 100 million to like 5 million. Okay. I'm not sure what happens when you get all of them. He had the red thing. He was really close. What's the thing in the middle say? Yeah. It was like fire shot or something.
    36:27
    Yeah, I couldn't quite make it out. But that 500 plus million, that was a pretty good score. Yeah. It looks like people are putting up big scores. It looks like they might need even a billion by the end. So how's your game been since you've been here at the It Never Drains in Southern California? Yeah, it's been pretty good. I've gotten some good scores, and the games are playing very strange. Has it been hard? Yeah. Not all the games are hard. They're just set up in cool, strange ways that you don't see very often. That you weren't expecting. Yeah. See, I just assumed this is what it was always like for you guys when you went to these things. No, Jim and Carl like to set them up pretty hard and weird. I have never seen a Metallica set up the way that Metallica is set up with five on each shot. Each shot, yeah. Yeah, it changes the game completely. Yeah, instead of going for Sparky all day, you're going for Crank It Up. Crank It Up and then Coffin and where do the big points come in? Yeah. Unless you're Carl, then you just do it on one, crank it up, and get $400 million. What going on with Metallica right now Who playing that game Yeah I just looking over I think Gabe is over there playing He a San Francisco guy Yeah Oh okay Yeah there he is Ryan. No, that's not Ryan. It's not updated. It'll get updated.
    37:52
    Yeah, Metallica is such a beautiful machine. Yeah, and this one's a premium, I believe. Yeah. These guys crank it up lit. Now it's got that hammer So that's only on premium and LE Yeah Is that right? It's not virtual locks It's actual hammer locks Yeah So that changes a lot Because hammer's not 100% on grabbing the ball So is this actually Ryan Lewis Or is this not Ryan Lewis? No, this is him Okay We'll figure it out His crank it up's lit He's just trying to get it in that scoop Oh, that's right
    38:30
    I mean, even though I played terribly, I still enjoy this game. Oh, it's such a great game. Yeah, it's super fun. He's already played Fade to Black, so... Whom the Bell Tolls. Yeah. Come on. Six million. There you go. Yeah, six million. Will it actually award the points, though? Because that's the question. Yeah. Whom the Bell Tolls is actually my favorite one altogether because it has, like, the most available points for the safest shots. And so what's the strategy for this one? So each shot's worth two to two and a half million. And when you get all the way down on the shot, no, it's actually one nine. I'm not sure what builds it. If anyone knows what builds it, I'm intrigued. Yeah, I'm not too sure. But yeah, and once you complete a whole set, so each three, as you can see, they're getting lit up as he's hitting a shot, and it gives you a double award. so and then you can't hit him for the same amount of points but you it's still like good value and he also and also when you hit all the four major shots um the scoop will be lit to cash in um all the value you've earned so far so he just hit it and so you have to decide right now to and yeah he he collected it yeah i got it see yeah because then he gets the uh recollects lit but uh they're hard to do he's at 100 million now so it's a solid game now it said sparky is hard yeah so what does that mean exactly 13 shots for your first sparky oh and normally it's what it's like nine or eight yeah okay so he just started his uh graveyard multi-ball it's a two ball yeah um if he gets all the pick targets he can add a ball he only needs one yeah uh i really like just going hammer here because you can since it's an le you can get all your locks ready in one multi-ball yeah so it wasn't a insane multi-ball but it looks like he's just looking for points here so that's interesting so so in this case the game is different enough and it's le version that the gameplay changes that much yes it does by a lot because it's just the coffin being so much more valuable. It's actually a lot easier to get to. Oh, wow. Okay. So Gabe finished with 115. Great score. That's a great score. Yeah.
    41:01
    Now, do we have the ability to see the highest score? Yes. It's on our phones. Yes. Grab our phone out really quick. Or Carl might have something. Carl has the highest on Metallica by a long, huge amount. There we go. I got it. Coming up magically.
    41:23
    Okay, Metallica, $453 million was the highest from Carl D'Angelo. It goes way down after that. And then it jumps down to $148 million. Yeah. Wow. This is a tough game. Yeah. But, man, it's fun. So is there a game that didn't show up here that you were sort of secretly hoping it was going to be an oddball game, which is in the tradition of this event, that was going to just be there and make your day.
    41:56
    Game of Thrones was that game, but it's not really an oddball game. And how that one's set up, it's just not fun. It's just not fun. I keep watching people walk away from Game of Thrones and saying, ow. I'm never playing Game of Thrones ever again. I saw you earlier leave a little bit of points on the table on Game of Thrones. Yeah, okay. I might not have drained with Hand of the King lit, but I already had 1.5 billion. Yeah, great score before even getting Hand of the King. Well, you guys, I hate you both.
    42:30
    But I will learn to play this game. What was your top score? Oh, I'm too embarrassed to say. I mean, I think it might have been total nuclear annihilation. Oh, yeah?
    42:43
    400,000 for me was like a big deal. Yeah, and when I first played it, I had no idea what I was getting into. My very first game, I had 600,000. Is that a good score or not? You know, I think it's a good score. I'm going to actually, just for you guys, I'm going to humiliate myself, and I'm going to find out what my top score of any score today was. Yeah. Right? It's not going to be good. I'm going to tell you that right now. All right, look at this. Watching some drag racing with logs and cars. We're on Monopoly. So my highest score was 1.5 million on taxi. That's one jackpot. There you go. Yeah. It's a start. I have fun. As long as you're having fun. I'm having so much fun, and I'm learning so much. I mean, just, like, watching everybody play has been the best education I could have gotten. There's so many great players here, and not everyone's even here yet. Keith Elwin and Jack Sharp have not showed up yet. We haven't been talking about that. I'm sure they're on their way. Stern probably has a big presence at the CES conference this year. We were joking that all they need to do is put up their just seven games and they'd probably be in anyway. It's like, oh, yeah, just put me on these seven. I'll get in. Don't worry. I'm sure he could get in with ten entries easily. Now, Monopoly, this is a game I do not see too often. Yeah, it's a lot like Roller Coaster Tycoon in the way that you're just going for modes. And once you get to the super mode, that's the thing, and that's where all the points are at. But it seems like it takes a very long time. It does, but the points are there, and it's relatively safe. It takes a lot of patience. Yeah.
    44:24
    I mean, you just have to hit the ramp, hit the ramp, hit the shot, and occasionally have to drop down the target. Yeah. Now, this spinning guy right here, that just confuses me. I think my ADHD goes crazy. And it just speeds up and... Distracts me.
    44:41
    It's really dangerous when it's going fast. On this one, it's actually fine. Even if it goes in there on the lot, it just kicks it right down the middle. Now, what makes it go faster? I'm not sure. Just time. I don't know Monopoly very well. I had to learn it again today. so we have larry burns and next up your wife allison o'neill is up on monopoly yeah and she loves being on video streams i know right let's not tell her that she's up next okay so yeah so you're trying to plunge into the scoop rather than the flipper because that gives you a mode. Gets you closer to the thing. Right. So is a mode lit at the start of every ball? Yes, I want to say. Because, yeah, it always is. Because you can plunge into it. And how many modes are there before we get to that wizard mode?
    45:41
    I'm not sure. Is it a mode for each of the set of the properties? Eight? Each property set? Yeah, for each property set. One, two, three, it's eight then, right? Right. Each Monopoly. There's a couple really bad modes that lock you out, but otherwise it's mostly smooth sailing. You get a multi-ball or two in there, you're probably at 10 million when you get to the final mode, and then come out. If you have a good one, you're probably at 20 or 25, and that's a good score, so.
    46:11
    Yeah, I think Johnny put up a big score earlier today. Yeah, I saw. I forget what it was, but... I think it was like around 27 or something. Uh-oh. It's brutal.
    46:25
    Do you go for the railroad multiball at all? No. On this one, the kick-out isn't great. I only played it once or twice, but it's just like the kick-out wasn't good enough for me to be interested in going for it. This event is packed. This event is completely packed. Yeah, there's 100 people pre-registered before the tournament even started. This is just Friday. Yeah. Tomorrow's going to be completely insane. Yeah. Well, you know, this is a great sign. Pinball is here to stay. Yeah.
    46:56
    Wonderful. So where are you from? I'm from Colorado. Okay, not too far. Not too far. Where in Colorado are you from? Boulder, Longmont area. I've been to Press Play. Press Play, yeah, that's in Boulder. I go there every now and then. The person that actually runs all the games is here. He's the Comet. Ryan Wagner with Comet Pinball. Yeah. One of our sponsors of this fine event. Yep. A great operator has given me many hints as we've been developing our remote pinball product for operators. There she is, Allison O'Neill. Beautiful Allison.
    47:38
    All right. Brian, are you not allowed to comment on this now at this point? Yeah, I'm just going to watch. see brian brian's got many years of marital experience to know when to speak and when not to speak yep yeah yes but allison is uh fantastic as we were just talking about earlier she won the san francisco pinball league uh yeah pretty impressive yeah she was in a crazy final with Andre Masenkov won on the fifth game on Meteor. Oh, yeah, Meteor. Yeah. You don't want to play Andre on Meteor when he's playing well. He'll just hit that spinner 100 times in a row. I think she was ready to not play Monopoly. Yeah.
    48:27
    All right. Yes, endless pinball. Southern California-based pinball sales, repair and restoration. I saw their truck out front Yep They're quite an operation there Endlesspinball.com And there's Ryan Wagner, Comet Pinball from Boulder Yep Now was it, Comet was Florida And now it's Boulder I'm not sure I think so Comet, great source of LEDs Yep Oh we got Ellen on Junkyard She is also from the Bay Area Yeah. Yep. It's a junkyard. The main strategy I've seen is people just hit the middle until the cows come home.
    49:12
    You can't really see on the screen, but the outlanes are huge. They're enormous. They're like two inches. Everything goes down the outlane. So what's the strategy here, then, if not to go for the middle? I'm not sure. Everyone's been just going for the middle. Because there's two multi-balls up there. and then the super jackpots are like 3 million and then the jackpots can get up to like 3 million as well. So everyone goes for the center. Everyone just goes for the center. And that's what happens. Oh, she got a ball save. All right, she's back.
    49:48
    This is one of the few games here that does have a ball save. Even though it, does it display it? I don't think it's flashing on the bottom. It's like a hidden ball save. Yeah. Wow.
    50:04
    Unforgiving. Yeah. This is an unforgiving game, for sure. I gave it one shot, and it was humiliating, so I stepped away. Yeah. The rule that changes from everyone from just going dog forever is that you can only play it once a ball, so... Okay. Multi-ball is, like, where the next big points are at, so... Yeah.
    50:24
    Dog's still there, but if you get all three, it's still, like, not big enough points, really. Yeah, that was a tough one.
    50:38
    All right. At least these games are playing fast, so keep those cues short. Yeah, this place is seriously crowded. Now, you heard there was 100 people preregistered. Yep. And what's the expected turnout for the entire event? I think there's probably about 150 that have played so far today. That's just Friday. It's just Friday. A lot more people come on Saturday to say they don't have to worry about work or school or anything. Carl, this is quite an operation you've got running here. Yeah. We're pretty impressed. Thanks. Yeah, it's really exciting. Watched him set up for countless hours this morning.
    51:20
    Yeah, and it all works. Yeah. Surprising to me as well. That's amazing. But honestly, I see how you put the screens above every single one of these machines, and they're all so nicely aimed and focused and beautiful, mostly. Until Johnny kicks a camera stand.
    51:44
    Otherwise, everything's been really smooth. Cameras are, like, not in the way at all. They're completely out of your peripheral. You don't even notice they're there.
    51:53
    Up and down. Now, do you have cameras on Classics at all or just on the main games? I was planning on doing a wireless rig, but I think that's going to go away now. Okay. So much going on here on this side. There's plenty to do. Are you guys still going to televise Classics? Not if I can't get that rig up and running. No. Okay. But we'll do Women's. Women's will play their finals on the Modern Bank. Yeah. Okay. So we'll broadcast theirs. Nice. That's good. Yep.
    52:26
    All right, Gabe. You'll miss. You'll see a little bit of video mode here. Oh, it's two for two? Oh, you missed one. What is that video mode? What am I seeing? You're shooting toast at a dog. You're also building junk to build a rocket ship to space. Isn't that also a time machine? Or a time machine. Yeah, I don't know what it is. All of those things. This game is weird. What exactly happened in the 1990s at Williams and Ballet? I think whatever it was, it was in that magic bus. Yeah. That's how they figured out what to do with this game.
    53:09
    Chicago in the 90s, junkyard. He's not really going for multi-ball. He's playing magic buses, which I've also seen a lot of people playing as well.
    53:19
    So what does magic bus get you? It's usually random award, right? Or is it other? I'm not sure, actually. I think it might be random award. It looks like he's starting one of his modes. So Magic Quest is what, up this? No, the other one. This one here? Yeah, that one there. Yeah, okay.
    53:37
    And you've got to hit it three times. Fireworks are three of five, so when you get five, you get the, what's it called? I forget.
    53:50
    Oh, his multi-ball's lit. That could be very lucrative. So he needs to get it into that center hole. Oh, that was close. It's tough. He's only on ball two, right? I think so, yeah. All right, yeah. There he goes.
    54:07
    Check your phone during the start-up. There we go. Jackbox might be pretty big. Let's see. So this is, you just want to keep going up that center. Yep, you hit the captured ball and it'll raise. Oh, you have to hit it by hitting behind first, and then it drops it down, and then the super's behind the captured ball. The super is worth $3 million. Yeah. And then the jackpot can be anywhere, I think, under $3 million, or it could be higher. Yeah, I think it's around, yeah, $1.5 million or $1.6 million, yeah.
    54:43
    All right. I didn't give him a jackpot. he was doing oh wow yeah I feel like a good score on this is once you break 10 you're starting to get into good territory 15 is a very solid score I feel like let me see you want to look at the rankings yeah I got it out Let's see. So a top 20 score to qualify in A is a 10 million right now, but I feel like a 15 to 20 is what you might need for the long run. To survive.
    55:27
    All right. Magic bus. It is random. There we go. White jackpot. Wow. Maybe we can see what the jackpot value is.
    55:40
    He went for it. Let's see. He did it. 1.7. Not bad. Solid points. Must be getting close to his other up. Oh, he got a ball save. Ball recycled. Yeah.
    55:56
    What's nice about this is you get to do another skill shot on those ball saves on the outlanes. Shopping.
    56:05
    Points. Points work. So he's in the running with this score at 11 million. back in time see that wasn't back in time when they made this we were going back in time to the mamushka from Adams is this dog too yes get a lot more points with this one but the dog is a lot faster Yeah The dog baits your toast He does not. He's not. Oh, he got him. Okay, the comeback.
    56:39
    Uh-oh, he's only got two. He's not. He's out of ammo. No more toast. It's hard. It's like the... I just want to know what the boardroom was like at Williams, and they were sitting around there like, okay, here's our proposal.
    56:54
    We are going to have a video mode where you throw toast at a dog. Yeah. Fish bowl. So is there important junk that you need to collect first? Yeah, I think there is.
    57:10
    I'm not sure. I don't know this game very well at all because they never put it in tournaments because the dog is the... Yeah, I see Carl laughing over there.
    57:22
    That's the theme of this tournament. Oh, they never put it in other tournaments. Barbed wire? What is this game?
    57:31
    All right. Looking it up here. Barry Osler. Your buddy. BSO. BSO designed this game. Same initials as Brian O'Neill. Yeah.
    57:47
    So which we move to now? Where are we going, Carl? You get some Robo War I like our green screen The camera's off on Robo War You can't see the flippers I'll do that tomorrow Oh yeah Oh we get to watch The most evil Game of Thrones Of all time Okay so Explain why This Game of Thrones Is so evil It's not At least it doesn't have The upper It doesn't have the upper play field It does No it doesn't It's a pro So it's so evil because usually when you're shooting the green targets, you have one or two outs where it does not go to the out lane. But if you hit the top one, the bottom one, or both at the same time, it will find its way to that out lane one way or the other. So the only way you can do it is either hit the start ramp before or just shake it and nudge it and just pray that it will go in lane or just away from the out lane. And you can't backhand the StarCram, so you can't get the speed going before.
    58:57
    It never drains in Southern California. In fact, it's come a long way since San Dimas. Yes. Too bad you couldn't bring Bill and Ted along. Thanks to our friends at Combat Pinball, our friend Ryan in Boulder, Colorado. master of LEDs and other accessories if they all start alright DJ so which house are you choosing Martel so you always go Martel because the add-a-ball is just huge so yeah okay so you just got a double Greyjoy for that and also The locks are on hard, so you actually have to hit both green targets for it to hit light lock.
    59:55
    He's just going right for Greyjoy here. Is he just going to ignore Blackwater? Some people were doing that. Yeah, I noticed a lot of people were ignoring Blackwater and just going for some modes right off the bat. This is a survival tactic. Yeah, and trying to get to the end goal, which is Hand of the King. Right. And, you know, Hand of the King can go wrong. He did not start any modes, so he's looking for the stack there. Okay.
    60:24
    You know, he has a plan. Okay. Yeah, he clearly knows what he's trying to do. He's going. Oh, he grazed the target right before he hit it, so that's good value.
    60:36
    All right. Yeah, so a good score on this right now is 500 million. Yeah, I know, right? Yeah. That's usually a starter score on this game. Yeah, it's like, for me, when I was like, okay, when we first, oh, Game of Thrones, we're preparing for three billions, right? But no, we're preparing for... A little fumble there. It's all right. He got a lot of progress done. Not a lot of points, but if he's going for Hand of the King, he's well on his way. got some good control yeah he uh out of the pop umbers it's relatively safe for a live catch and even a dead bounce sometimes nice oh that's really smart there so that's the safest way that you can get your locks lit by the little flick i want to see it again yeah do you have Any instant replay?
    61:38
    Maybe tomorrow. No, no. I see. All right. He's just going right in. No time for breaks. Well, so winter is coming. It can really screw up your stack with Blackwater because if it starts right on the same shot that you're playing your modes and your locks, it will lock the ball, start your multi-ball without your modes. Yeah. So you've got to be careful of that.
    62:11
    I'm like on a short leash here. You know why I like this? I'm learning everything. This is the best way to learn. I'm sitting next to two pinball champions while you guys commentate on all these amazing games.
    62:31
    Looks like he needs one more ram shot. Yeah, that Stark ramp will complete both. He knows that he can't backhand it, so post-pass over. Yeah, post-pass. That'll be good value there.
    62:42
    18. Yeah. All right, so. What's he going for next? Not draining. Definitely Blackwater. These guys alert a light lit, so that gives him insurance for it.
    63:00
    All right, so it's fall two. skip Martel right right yeah and then hopefully he okay so our targets are like yeah he's still guys little light lit which is huge so if he does hit that target and goes out lane oh all right oh he tried okay so now he knows like oh Oh, no, I have to hit the hardest, you know, the drainiest shot in this game, which is the bottom Tyrell target.
    63:41
    He's trying to do his flick into the back, which is smart because... It's a good game stole from him. Seriously.
    63:51
    Yeah, I think he was trying to beat his other scorer at 343, so... Yep. Didn't make it. Definitely would have gotten him close if he got that, because then the Ten and the King would have been ready with an add-a-ball right after. But it's one of the most evil Game of Thrones I've ever played. It probably is the most evil Game of Thrones I've ever played.
    64:15
    Yeah, I've found that it's fun for me. Again, it's stern. It's sort of these newer games are really fun for me to play. I was really humiliated at first when I first started playing them because we played so fast. but then I quickly picked it up and now I've got my first I got a Batman 66 which is super fun with the new code I don't know if you've played it I played it at Chicago and I never won on it because everyone did the thing and I was just sitting there in the dust playing my multiballs for 20 million one at a time people would walk up and put 1.4 million multiballs and I had no idea what they were doing
    65:00
    Is this recently? Yeah, Chicago, right when that code just came out. He started on Tyrell, which means his inlanes are lit for his shot multipliers, which is a common strategy that I see, but Martel, I feel like, is just the best. That add-a-ball is huge. Yeah.
    65:21
    And plus, on this one, it's not like lighting your Tyrell is an issue, because if you're going to be going black water, it's going to be lit when you go in. Another issue I have with it is that when you light your lock three, it'll start winter's come or winter's coming, and that will lock you out of your modes. Yeah. So unless you're going straight for hand of the king, I don't agree with that strategy.
    65:49
    That's a good thing. Looks like the top target is not draining as much as it was this morning. You can hear the Gottlieb dangers from anywhere.
    66:00
    It hurts when you do a slide skim. It's like, oh, my ears. It burns. It hurts. I'm surprised I'm not hearing it more, actually. People don't like shaking them for that exact reason. Because it's humiliating. It's loud.
    66:21
    Video mode. Come on, do it. No. So it's actually smart that he doesn't take the video mode there because it gets you closer to your light super jackpot. And that can be extreme. That could just be a billion right there if you can get that to line up.
    66:39
    You know, it's technically a bug. It's still something that you can play around. So for folks that don't know, do you want to explain what exactly? Okay, so on the mystery, if you get light super jackpot times one, it's just a super jackpot on the RAM. If you start your Blackwater with that lit, the RAM will be lit during your multiball the whole entire time for that super jackpot. Wow. So it's like the super phase except all the good parts of it. So you don't have to do any of the work of lighting the super jackpot. And if you accidentally light your super jackpots, then you get screwed. And you lose the bug. But usually you don't get that far. So it turns it off. Yeah, so you don't want to. Well, you get the 20 seconds still, but after that it goes away. Okay. And if you started with 2x or 3x super jackpot on the rim, you were going to get a very big blackwater. I had a 3x super jackpot. It's like 4,000 gold. I started a multiball with it, and it came out at 9 billion. Wow. So Dave wants to get, I think this is his third lock. That's his third lock. Yeah, he just wants some Stark before it.
    68:02
    So usually people like to loop Stark before if they have swords, just to get ready for their multiball, because the sword will increase all your combo multipliers for Tyrell, so all your in-lane lights will be doing more.
    68:20
    And your ram during super jackpots can go up one more level. to a 4X rather than just 3. So he started his multi-ball. What he wants to do is hit all the five major shots. Yeah, he's running out of time on his Greyjoy. All right, there you go. And that's his multi-ball.
    68:41
    Yeah, I noticed the ball save is really short on this one. Probably another change they made. It's two seconds. Yeah. You got it, and then it's gone. That's not fun. That's why you need your Martel. Yeah, you need your add-a-ball there to extend that multi-ball. The add-a-ball time is the same as the normal, so it's like two seconds, but it's still huge if you can add a ball.
    69:17
    You can get away with a lot on it. You can get away with a big slide save. this is the only game that's like not extremely tilty I found that Lady Luck wasn't too bad either Dracula and Metallica too Metallica, what was the other game? I think it's a good shove yeah TNA, Total Nuclear Annihilation their tilts are like way, they swing and they can tilt off of a slap save, and then you can get away with the slide save sometimes randomly.
    69:55
    I only played the Dracula once. Have you guys played it at all? Played it a couple times, yeah. How's it play? I kicked my ass twice. Then I gave up on it.
    70:06
    It treated me nice. It didn't make me want to go home. Once again, it fell into the category of I'm learning. But you know, it's a great game. It's a beautiful game. I love how you can be behind by $3 billion on your last ball and still have a significant chance of coming back. Yeah. Because of that triple stack. It just comes together. I had never played it before today. Really? Never in my life. And I'm playing the game, and no one gave me any hints. Okay. And that multi-ball starts crawling across the play field. He just got in. No, I hit it. You hit it. I did it. Did you add any other multi-balls in with it? Yeah. Everything was going according to plan. The important thing is I was appreciating the design. Can you just give me that instead of just throwing me under the bus with how poorly I played just immediately? I'm just saying that it was a lot of fun to play the game, and it was really cool design. It's got lightning flippers and no outline photos, so it's not very forgiving.
    71:12
    But very cool. So you did okay with your Dracula game today? I had a bad three stack, but it was still a decent game. Okay, fair enough.
    71:21
    How about Paragon? I played it a bunch, and every time I drained, it was my fault. That's the worst. I hate it. It's like I can't blame anything when I flip the upper flipper or I miss my shot. It's like, yep, that was my fault as I watched the ball bounce around and find a way to the out lane or down the middle. Here we go with Taxi. Yeah. this taxi place is really nice I had a good so what you do and this is something that you're probably not familiar with but when you're not someone who qualifies one of the strategies you do is you set yourself a goal yourself that is not related to the ranking and so for this game I needed to get 1.2
    72:08
    or 1.3 million I just needed to do something usually a good goal in taxis is to get a jackpot it's a good starting goal You know, and I made my, hit my number. So I was very happy about my taxi game.
    72:21
    Were you close to any jackpots or anything? Not really. That's, you just got to get jackpots, play multi-balls, get characters and characters. Yeah, absolutely. Pickups and then make sure you got your, the plunger is really inconsistent. Sometimes it'll plunge 1,000 on the 25 and other times it'll plunge through the hundreds. I think I was consistently getting a seven. There's a jackpot right there. A seventh swirl. There's the jackpot.
    72:49
    I found that this game you plunge hard, and it was pretty consistently good. If you power plunge, you could get it around like four times, like around the disc.
    73:01
    So what's the score that Ron is looking for here? Did he play this earlier? Let's see. Yeah, 1.3, so he already passed that. Nice. Yeah. So Ron's doing great.
    73:16
    He's on 3X, so it's ball three. This guy's multi-ball it. That could be lucrative. He can... I was having trouble getting that multi-ball, that left ramp from a trap. It was easy on a trap, I thought. The flippers were really nice when I played it. They might have been on more soggy. They were getting a little soggy when I got to it. Yeah.
    73:43
    Aw, that was unfortunate. You got a jackpot, though. Yeah. Solid game. Okay. Brian, have you played Taxi today? Just once. I should go play it again.
    74:00
    We got the last hour coming up, so I might want to go and run and play a couple games. I just want to point out that you might want to play Taxi. You know why? Why? Because you're beating me right now? Because I'm beating you in Taxi. So I can't let that stand. You can't let this amateur completely kick your butt. Yeah.
    74:19
    Excellent. Well, fantastic. I am going to spectate while you play. Mm-hmm. And cheer you on like the good cheerleader that I am.
    74:37
    You went on too far. Cool. Well, I'm gonna go take off and go play some games. Thank you Brian Up to you if you want. Yeah, I think it I think we're gonna call it
    74:53
    Super fun being with you everybody. Yeah All right, well we'll be running more tomorrow check back in follow the channel and
    75:04
    We'll see you later We'll see you then Thank you.