Episode 310 - Play On, Player

NYC PinPod·podcast_episode·33m 44s·analyzed·Nov 4, 2024

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.029

TL;DR

NYC pinball league results, standings, and deep dive into "play on" tournament rulings.

Summary

NYC PinPod Episode 310 covers New York City pinball competition results from late October 2024, including multiple league matches across five divisions with detailed standings and playoff implications. Hosts Benjamin Furiga and Eric Sweetland discuss the "play on" ruling in pinball tournaments—when a game with malfunctions remains playable and competition continues—with examples from recent events and IFPA rule interpretations. The episode features tournament updates, venue reports, and upcoming league schedules across Brooklyn and surrounding areas.

Key Claims

South Slope Strikes October on October 26 had 18 players at Rulos; David Schumister won.
high confidence · Benjamin Furiga reporting tournament results directly
X-Men launch party at Jack Bar on October 27 gathered 30 players with Alex Kelly winning.
high confidence · Benjamin Furiga reporting tournament results
PinballNYC matches on October 28 showed Pin Pals C Barpoons undefeated through 4 rounds; Balls of Steel beat Mutants 11-5.
high confidence · Benjamin Furiga citing league results
At Solid State, a Pulp Fiction machine auto-plunched a ball into dead playfield without warning, ruled as minor malfunction requiring replay.
high confidence · Zenzakniak texted incident details to Benjamin; IFPA Ball League Section L, number 2, letter C rule cited
NYC FSA division leads at 8-0 with 91 points; Mutants in third at 6-2.
high confidence · Benjamin Furiga reporting league standings
Walking Dead at Boat Bar stopped reacting after center drain; Pinnister Six was substituted and won match on Guardians.
high confidence · Zenzakniak texted match details to Benjamin
Cbar Pinball Brooklyn League Finals leaders are Adam Kane (117 points) and Matthew Grady (115 points).
high confidence · Benjamin Furiga reporting individual tournament standings
Eric Sweetland applies "play on" ruling when a ball remains in play and player can continue making shots, distinguishing minor from major malfunctions.
high confidence · Eric Sweetland directly explaining his ruling philosophy
On Godzilla at Jack Bar, a malfunction preventing one major feature was ruled play-on; preventing two major features would be catastrophic malfunction.
high confidence · Eric Sweetland describing past ruling example

Notable Quotes

“Machine failures are part of pinball.”
Zenzakniak @ ~18:00 — Summary statement acknowledging the physical nature of pinball and inevitability of malfunctions
“If there's a ball in play and the player can continue to do things with that ball, the game is playable. We've had a minor malfunction.”
Eric Sweetland @ ~55:00 — Core definition of Eric's play-on ruling threshold
“The unique charm of pinball lies, in large part, in the physical nature of the game. Unfortunately, this means that unusual events and outright malfunctions cannot be prevented.”
IFPA rules (quoted by Eric Sweetland) @ ~58:00 — Authoritative rule justification for tolerating malfunctions in competitive play
“If you just can do the thing that the pinball designer put in front of you to do if it just not possible to do it then that seems like that is inevitably a major malfunction.”
Eric Sweetland @ ~62:00 — Articulation of the threshold at which play-on no longer applies
“One thing that just makes you play a way you don't want to play is something. Another thing that gives you two different ways that you can't play that you want to play, that's a lot.”
Eric Sweetland @ ~75:00 — Rationale for distinguishing single vs. double major feature loss as malfunction severity
“I have the ball, I have trapped right, you said it's gonna be play on.”
Benjamin Furiga @ ~66:00 — Personal anecdote of Game of Thrones beneficial malfunction and play-on ruling
“I find it strategically interesting that with the case of a single minor Malfunction, but one that is still relatively impactful, where some parts of the game aren't playable, I think it's strategically interesting then to have to adjust your play as a tournament player.”
Eric Sweetland @ ~75:00 — Philosophical perspective on game design resilience and player adaptation
“It looks grim for either of us to even make our way into the playoffs. We would both need to win out and hope for some help in addition.”

Entities

Benjamin FurigapersonEric SweetlandpersonZenzakniakpersonDavid SchumisterpersonAlex KellypersonGabriel ChasanovpersonMiriam NadlerpersonAdam KanepersonMatthew GradypersonRulosvenueJack Barvenue

Signals

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competitive_signal: PinballNYC standings show NYC FSA leading at 8-0, tight playoff race in lower divisions; detailed point tracking suggests late-season drama
high · Benjamin reports multiple division standings with specific point totals and playoff cutoff scenarios
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competitive_signal: Multiple tournament winners across Brooklyn venues: David Schumister (South Slope Strikes), Alex Kelly (X-Men/Thursday Night), Miriam Nadler (Pinballoween)
high · Detailed match results reported for October 26-31 events
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product_concern: Multiple machine malfunctions reported: Pulp Fiction auto-launch, Walking Dead unresponsiveness, Godzilla mode access issues, Apollo 13 flipper button sensor problems
high · Zenzakniak and user reports of specific malfunction incidents across venues
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venue_signal: Barcade Brooklyn replaced Junkyard with Whitewater; Uncanny X-Men Pro arrived at Skylark; Uncanny X-Men LE at Sunshine Laundromat
high · Benjamin reports recent venue equipment changes and machine arrivals
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operational_signal: Barcade Brooklyn has operator technical staff available during tournaments to open machines and fix problems on-site
high · Eric Sweetland notes 'blossoming of operator technical support at tournaments' at venues like Barcade Brooklyn
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Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.101

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Record for pedestrians like these opinions and suggestions, thank you. A RAPrique show?! Happy Sunday, Pinfolk or whatever day you're listening. This is NYC PinPod in which a panel talks location pinball in New York City and nearby surrounding Areas. My name is Benjamin Furiga. My initials are BCF and I'm not cooking anything for National Deviled Egg Day. My name is Eric Sweetland. My initials are HIP and I'm a pinball tournament director in New York City. Madeline is on assignment this week. On this week's pod, we'll rundown local competition results, in ball two, we'll have the location update with Eric, and in ball three, Eric and I will discuss the decision to play on by a tournament director and what goes into that. Let's get started. Let's talk about competitive pinball results in New York City in the past week. On Saturday, October 26, Jess Warren gathered 18 players at Rulos in South Slope, 4th South Slope Strikes October, a 3-strike knockout tournament. David Schumister won the day. Thomas Milburn lasted all 10 rounds but picked up his 3rd strike, and Kaitlyn Reese and AJ Gould tied for 3rd, having been knocked out respectively in the 8th and 9th rounds. Saturday, October 26, just up the hill. Many of these same players went to a Halloween pin golf party at a private location. I'm not sure how many people showed up there because, you know, pin golf is often much easier to just do on paper. But there is something in Match Play that has eight players that is named the same thing and shows Kate Martin as the Tournament Director And it seems to me that the top eight after all of the pin golf was played should have been David Barber, Gabriel Chasanov, Gus Gonzalez, Matt Falzone, Matthew Carlson, Matthew Grady, Miriam Nadler, and Thomas Milburn in the top grouping for his second time in the day on Sunday, October 27th at Jack Bar in Williamsburg. 30 players were gathered under Gabriel chasanov's guidance for the X-Men launch Party Alex Kelly took the day on his route to 250, besting Adam Kane, Alberto Santana, and tournament director Gabriel Chasanov, respectively. Also on Sunday, Bells and Chimes NYC Presents Pinballoween was met at a private location in Brooklyn. Tournament director Lauren Burner Lawrence oversaw 22 players, Miriam Nadler took the day, followed by Anna Frankel, Lindsay Rhodes and Morgan Levinson. On Monday, October 28th, PinballNYC was gathered throughout the five boroughs. Pinball Union went to Rulos to face Special When Lit and the home team picked up a 9-7 win. The Pin Pals C Barpoons through four and undefeated for the next three, I believe, bested the two for oneers at McKenna's Pub. These two teams have been in this league pretty much since the beginning. These two bars have been a part of this league pretty much since the beginning. It's still really cool to see them playing meaningful games late in a season, this many seasons into this thing. Balls of Steel went to solid state in Woodside to face the Mutants. 11-5 win. Those are two titans of the division year after year. Zenzokniak texted me and said, and I quote, Machine failures are part of pinball. Again, player four, ball three. Jason pauses for about a minute and a half because of an exciting moment at the World Series. He walks up to Pulp Fiction at Solid State where the game just ended. No ball save, no bonus, the ball just auto-plunged with no warning into a dead playfield when he was not looking. Several other people saw it, Zen notes it as a programming error. Zen goes on to say, and thank you Zen for adding this well-researched part of this, I really appreciate it, it saves me the time to go look it up. Ball League, Section L, number 2, letter C, states, If the affected player has chosen to replay his her game, then that player will step away entirely from the active game and play a solo game immediately afterwards to factor into the scoring. We chose to replay the affected player's game and the mutants agreed with the ruling. Alas, we lost by a lot with a lot of exclamation points. Dan Blanche,cisftrand , bakinger, ACbility questi na Spregular Allado Z fighting Company which the Lunch to a

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new users musimy want call out rotate I pay the war ever keep I don't know what time are any find that he wasn't playing pinball but every time he was playing pinball it is on his head The lesser players went to Gquele's compture팓AinBOT.com1 to F gedacht this nominative intervenstick I과 bunker I That NYC FSA is 8-0 with 91 points. At this point, you have all but clinched a bye as the mutants are in the third seat at 6-2. One more win guarantees you a bye. Two more losses could result in your being in third. Lion Persons are 7-1 with only, he says, 82 points. They are certainly in the playoffs because right now 4-4 is the cutoff. in Funny sale intRobert Thanks, try to subscribe, pleasure give, like, comment, and share. and Pan visitors M resourcei withvous Sunshine drie a lakes shi purple allowed obec Special when lit are also both four and four but they have 64 and 62 respectively Intermission Dolores loss and Pin Pals loss puts them steps farther back if the playoffs started today two of those three teams the deluxe horses and Special when lit would be a top the bottom would get buys in the in lane playoffs and Intermission Dolores the Pin Pals Pinball Union and the Sovi véritopisite,оронalyovile platform 뭔neyo z debt fascination rank juciarg iPhone exp It looks grim for either of us to even make our way into the playoffs. We would both need to win out and hope for some help in addition. On Tuesday, October 29th, Danger Danger went to Jack Bar to face the Ball Drainers. I believe we were told last week that they are the legendary Ball Drainers. Danger Danger. Yes, the legendary Brooklyn Ball Drainers. Danger Danger beat them 11 to 5. Apple's squad went to Boat Bar to face Pinnister Six. Zenzokniak texted to say, At Pinnister Six at Boat, Walking Dead decided to stop reacting after a quick center drain that did not register for the away team. It then proceeded to kick out three balls into the launch. Draining excess balls caused more confusion for the game. Ending balls and ultimately we took it out and moved to Guardians for the match. Pinister Six wins on Guardians He adds Neptune's Treasurewent to solid state and no quarters for Laundry handed them a 10-6 loss. Shlubswent to Bar Great Harry and faced the trolls and they beat them down 13-3. I think there was not a troll story this week. Yeah, no, I didn't see one on Instagram. In the afternoon on Tuesday, our Butterballers captain Courtney Wetzel let us know that Reston Pinball, RIP, was going to need to forfeit. They had some players out sick. We butterballers still showed up at buttermilk after a quick detour to stop by Skylark to try out the new X-Men, but we hung out at buttermilk for the night to play and gain our forfeit points. It shows on the website as 9-0, but it should show as 12-0. I believe so, yeah. Similarly, Kettle's Hand Grenades went to At The Wallace or didn't. Didn't. And Harlem Globe Flippers received a 12-0 forfeit. The Pinbabes went to Rulo's to face The Replays, and this is at least their second tiebreaker in a row. And unfortunately they lost to the home team, unfortunately for them, fortunately for The Replays. The Pinbabes lost 8-8. All of that is to say, this division continues to have clear striations between the top playoffs and the bottom playoffs. At the bottom of the bottom, there's still a little bit to be decided. And there can still be movement. The butterballers can still move up. The globe flippers can still move down. It's unlikely that much more than that would happen. But if the playoffs started today, Danger Danger and No Quarters for Laundry would have buys at 7-1 and 6-2 and 80 and 84 points, respectively. All three are right on no-quarters heels at 6-2 with 79, 79,77 points respectively. That second bye in that top division on Tuesday night is going to be hotly contested. The Harlem Globe Flippers would be the last team to make the upper division if the playoff started today at 5-3 with Pravess incumbing de vieres sposesisés Braomakin Deg Ein- mistakenly, rame- Unless handicap n' Braru byeyr Regionalators Mustachiy at Rix verschiedene All Voices B merk Isaac ole

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Round out the playoffs if they started today at 2-6 with 53 and 51, trolls are also 2-6 with43 so they'd have a lot of room to make up if they can't make it up in wins, and Kettle's hand grenades at 1-7 with only34 points are very likely on the outside looking in. C Baricaid Brooklyn Pinball League Finals are Adam Kane at 117 points and Matthew Grady at 115 points way out in front. C Bar), pinball, Franchi),Front, very likely both of those players will be driving the Bus in A-Finals. The rest of the finalists, if it started right now, are Jeff Anderson, Jonah Shlaes, myself, Mike Pantino, Jose Garcia, and Eric Rabinsky. Woody Richmond and NintHu and Neetsangabai are all just outside the finals cutline but could make it in with a strong qualifying week 6. Also, there will be A B-Finals for Whoppers this time. It is a stand-alone tournament open to anyone who wants to show up. You don't have to have qualified. Come on by. It will be November 13th. November 6th will be our sixth qualifying session and November 13th will have the finals, B-Finals for Whoppers open to anyone. What will be the format of the B-Tournament? Same format as a qualifying week of leagues, five rounds of mashplay, swiss pairings, no finals Also on Wednesday, October 30th, the fifth meeting of Sunshine Fall League 2024 was gathered under Alison Bissette's leadership Five players played five rounds and Sean Grant rained all over everyone with his storm with 32 points On Thursday, October 31st, 12 players gathered at NoBro Presents Thursday Night Strikes Ween Edition, which Hunter Hayden directed this week. Alex Kelly won this night also, that's two wins at Jack Bar last week for Alex Kelly, with only one strike to his name, besting Travis Rosenberg, Ian Leun, and Nint Hu. and Tuesday there is no PinballNYC it's a bye week go vote go vote go vote on Wednesday November 6th at 7pm Sunshine Fall League 2024 number 6 will be met also at 8 o'clock that night at Barcade Brooklyn the 6th meeting of BBPL will be convened as Eric just described go get those standings Eric Rubinsky just put up a first place to sneak into the top eight. Can you beat Eric R. next week? No Bro Presents Thursday Night Strikes will be met at Jack Bar on Thursday the 7th. That starts at 8pm sharp. And at 7 that same night there a secret NYC book signing tournament at Sunshine Laundromat Also on Thursday November 7th the second meeting of the seventh season of the South Slope Pinball League will be met at Buttermilk starting at Pinball 8 o On Saturday November 9th South Slope Strikes will be met with Buttermilk as the registration point I believe registration will start at 5 although sometimes that starts at 4 o Also on Saturday at 4pm at Sunshine laundromat, Eric Ubinski and I will be holding another session of APAB, our gathering for genderqueer pinball players, casual time, come on by. The Month monthly JerseyCityOpen will be convened. On this gutter-prone machine, it just feels greedy. As an editorial note, I believe in standard settings, Twilight Zone only has Ball Save on Ball 1. On Monday, October 28th, user chamber10 went to BarcadeChelsea and left a couple of comments. On Apollo 13, they said, Slipper buttons trigger a sensor somewhere, unable to choose how the game starts, i.e. mode 13 million, etc. Also on Monday, as Benjamin previously mentioned, Barcade Brooklyn added a whitewater replacing their junkyard. On Tuesday, an uncanny X-Men Pro showed up at Skylark. On Thursday, Halloween, user MHG went by Sunshinelaundermat and left a few comments. Of the Uncanny X-Men LE, they said, Maybe 70% of the time Could just be that the machine is just set a little steep because the ramps are pretty unforgiving too The Big Lebowski Out of order And Avatar Playinging great and very fun No About음 Erick in terms of the tournaments and leagues that he is running and the crowds for whom he is doing it. He sees a lot of the New York City pinball community at events where he might be making a ruling. The ruling of play on is, look, there's obviously one thing that is required for it and it's that there's still a ball on the playfield. I mean, I guess it could be play on, you didn't get your multiball and it drained. I guess I've had that happen now or then. What is it for you that goes in either on the beneficial malfunction side or on the minor malfunction side? I guess sort of the general rule I'm running with is if there's a ball in play and the player can continue to do things with that ball, the game is playable. We've had a minor malfunction. and, you know, I mean, it can make for some strange cases of playing a game that doesn't seem to really work but, you know, we're not rising to the level of major until we're losing a ball, really. Is there a situation wherein a ball was lost, a shot was hit something didn't register I'm gonna use The example I have been told that the right ruling on Johnny Pneumonic if you start multiball on a fast one or do the thing hit the shot that starts multiball and the ball drains before it kicks a second ball on that that in fact is a play on I've lost my ball but it's a play on situation because the machine had not yet got itself into the other state that is a consistent thing that would happen ergo it is not Not a malfunction at all, play on. First paragraph under the heading The Natureofpinball states, and I quote, The unique charm of pinball lies, in large part, in the physical nature of the game. Unfortunately, this means that unusual events and outright malfunctions cannot be prevented, nor can they be perfectly compensated for. IFPApapa attempts to strike a balance between compensating for malfunctions and accepting the physical Nature of the game. not even pantolona andarou,Ü A minutes later, words unheard. Off camera Subtitles by the Amara.org community C Bar pinball in the state of C Right Yeah of course If you just can do the thing that the pinball designer put in front of you to do if it just not possible to do it then that seems like that is inevitably a major malfunction Now play on interestingly is a designation that has to start in the middle of a game And I wonder I actually have an example of a beneficial malfunction for me that you were watching I was playing against you and it wasn you couldn make the ruling I was playing Game of Thrones and I had a multiball that should have drained and for whatever reason I think it went back up out the outlane and triggered the ball save or something. And so I had, it wasn't a multiball anymore but I had a single ball back on the playfield. It had used my ball save, it had done a thing and it was a question of like, I have the ball, I have trapped Right, you said it's gonna be play on. I'll get cape, but it will be the ruling. Yeah, if it was going out and rolled up the left outline to trigger Lord of Light, let's say for example. That's the sort of thing you can get on machines with left outline kickbacks. Critical Tyrone ín v í