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#22 Dave interviews Eric Stone INDISC Open Champion The Classic Pinball Podcast

The Classic Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·53m 3s·analyzed·Jan 17, 2020
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.033

TL;DR

Eric Stone wins INDISC Open World Championship with dominant play and memorable game repairs.

Summary

Eric Stone, newly crowned INDISC Open World Champion, discusses his tournament victory in Banning, California, where he competed against elite players including Keith Elwin, Raymond Davidson, and Escher. Stone details his performance across Classics 1 and Classics 2 qualifying events and the main championship bracket, highlighting key moments including a dramatic Diner malfunction repair during the finals and strategic game selections.

Key Claims

  • Eric Stone won the INDISC Open World Championship in Banning, California

    high confidence · Dave introduces Eric as 'newly crowned world champion Eric Stone with his win at the Open held in Banning, California' and Eric confirms winning Classics 2

  • The INDISC Open replaced the PAPA World Championships after the PAPA facility became unavailable after 2017

    high confidence · Eric states: 'Yeah, this basically replaced the Papa World Championships' and 'the last one was 2017 when Escher won' and the facility 'didn't have that building anymore'

  • There were over 200 players in each Classics day (Friday and Saturday), making it 'probably the biggest Classics tournament ever, ever held'

    high confidence · Eric: 'over 200. Okay. And Bob Matthews was saying that it was probably the biggest Classics tournament ever, ever held with the most amount of people'

  • 317 total players attended the three-day qualifying event with no cutoff on participant numbers

    high confidence · Eric states: 'There were 317 people there, I believe. So there's no cutoff of how many players we can have in this kind of thing? Nope, not at all.'

  • Eric defeated Keith Elwin in the Round of 16 on Jurassic Park and Black Knight, scoring over $100 million on Jurassic Park

    high confidence · Eric: 'Keith Elwin was in my round of 16, and I had to play Jurassic Park and Black Knight... I had well over $100 million, and that was good enough to take first place'

  • Josh Sharpe performed critical live repair on a Diner machine during the finals by accessing the saucer from underneath the playfield

    high confidence · Eric: 'Josh Sharp...said we're going to attack it from underneath the play field and we're going to unscrew where the saucer is. And that's actually how they got the piece of plastic out'

  • Eric scored $8.5 million on Diner after the repair, which was 'head and shoulders above' all other competitors on that game

    high confidence · Eric: 'I wound up with $8.5 million, which was head and shoulders on that game, above the rest'

Notable Quotes

  • “Because when I worked at CBS and, you know, they laid me off, I kind of didn't have anything to do, right? And I thought it would be a good time to maybe see how good I really was at pinball and, you know, start competing.”

    Eric Stone @ ~13:30 — Explains his motivation to enter competitive play after job loss; marks turning point in his competitive pinball career

  • “I picked Comet again, and it came down to the last ball...I did miss the shot, and I took a chance. As the ball was coming back to my right flipper, I took a chance, and I let it bounce to my left flipper. I gave the game a little nudge, and it did bounce over. Then I took a pot shot, and I nailed it, and that's how I wound up winning Classics 2.”

    Eric Stone @ ~38:00 — Dramatic final-ball clutch moment in Classics 2 championship tiebreaker on Comet; demonstrates high-pressure execution and risk-taking

  • “I said, don't worry, Eric, you know, we're going to try to get this. And he said, we're going to attack it from underneath the play field and we're going to unscrew where the saucer is. And that's actually how they got the piece of plastic out.”

    Eric Stone @ ~58:45 — Describes Josh Sharpe's creative problem-solving under pressure; shows camaraderie and technical expertise in high-stakes tournament situations

  • “Yeah, this basically replaced the Papa World Championships. Okay. This is technically a Papa World Championship, but now they're calling it the Open because it's not at the Papa facility.”

    Eric Stone @ ~50:15 — Clarifies the tournament's significance and its relationship to historical PAPA Worlds championship legacy

  • “You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Yep. So, I mean, time is the biggest pressure because you don't have much of it. It's only seven and a half hours of qualifying and if some games are taking 30 to 45 minutes to play one game in line, you don't really have much time in order to complete tickets, you know?”

    Eric Stone @ ~52:30 — Articulates the unique pressure of time-limited qualifying formats with long wait lines at large tournaments

  • “And I think I was telling George that as well. And lo and behold, I make it to the Final Four, and Kaylee George is in my group again. And I think, boy, hopefully I can beat him this time.”

Entities

Eric StonepersonKeith ElwinpersonRaymond DavidsonpersonEscherpersonKaylee GeorgepersonColin McElpinepersonJosh SharpepersonAndrei Masenkovperson

Signals

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Eric Stone won the INDISC Open World Championship, defeating elite competitors including Keith Elwin, Raymond Davidson, Escher, and Andrei Masenkov across Classics and main tournament brackets

    high · Dave's introduction: 'newly crowned world champion Eric Stone'; Eric confirms Classics 2 victory and progression through main tournament to championship

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Record-breaking tournament size with 317 total players, 200+ in each Classics day, unlimited participation cap, and seven-and-a-half-hour qualifying windows creating extreme time pressure

    high · Eric: '317 people there, I believe...No cutoff' and 'over 200' each day; Bob Matthews noted 'probably the biggest Classics tournament ever, ever held'

  • ?

    event_signal: INDISC Open officially replaced PAPA World Championships after the PAPA facility became unavailable post-2017; renamed from PAPA Worlds to 'Open' to reflect new venue

    high · Eric: 'This basically replaced the Papa World Championships...they didn't have that building anymore' after 2017 Escher win; INDISC took over due to facility capacity

  • ?

    product_concern: Diner machine suffered plastic jam in saucer during finals; complex repair required accessing saucer from underneath playfield by Josh Sharpe; machine successfully restored without game restart

    high · Eric: 'A piece of plastic got caught in the saucer...they opened up the game, but they couldn't get to the saucer because the ramp...Josh Sharp...attack it from underneath the play field'

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Eric Stone executed multiple clutch plays under pressure: final-ball nudge shot on Comet in Classics 2 tiebreaker; $98 million Black Knight finish against Keith Elwin; $8.5 million Diner score after malfunction repair

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.159

0:00
Hello everyone and welcome to episode 22 of the Classic Pinball Podcast. My name is George and in this episode Dave drives the bus solo and interviews newly crowned world champion Eric Stone with his win at the Open held in Banning, California.
0:59
When the sky was red I went home On a winter's day I'd be safe and warm If I wasn't around California's green I went home On a winter's day On such a winter's day So true, California, you're getting such a winter's day. We've got Eric Stone here, speaking of California and L.A.
1:37
So, yeah, you have some news out there. I heard you did pretty well. Yeah, you know, you always taught me when you first, you know, you always told me when you first met me that I could be a world champion, and I always told you you were crazy. But it looks like your prophecy came to pass. in Southern California. Awesome, awesome. Yeah, I heard you did Bonkers in Classics 1, number 1. In Classics 2, you got 2. Is that how it went? The other way. Okay. Classics 1, I came in second, and I guess I corrected some things. In Classics 2, I came in first. Wow, nice.
2:19
Yeah, I remember a couple years, I forget how long ago it was this, but I was, remember, I kept seeing these Pinberg championships and Papa championships, and it was like 20 grand for first prize, and we were playing together at different pinball things, and at my house, and up at Fun Spot, and you were like kicking ass, and every time I'd try to antagonize you and get your goat, and say, oh, you can't beat my score, knowing full well you could, but I'd like to try to piss you off enough that you'd come after me.

  • The main tournament featured mostly 80s and 90s games plus only three modern Sterns (Jurassic Park, Black Knight, Sopranos) and one Spooky game (Alice Cooper)

    high confidence · Eric lists the modern games: 'The only sterns it had were Jurassic Park and Black Knight, and it also had the Alice Cooper from Spooky. Other than that, everything else was 90s and some 80s games'

    • Eric Stone @ ~43:00 — Shows competitive trajectory and redemption arc against consistent rival Kaylee George across both days of competition

    Colin Urbanperson
    Jared Augustperson
    Adam Lefkoffperson
    Joe LaMereperson
    Bob Matthewsperson
    Carl D'Angeloperson
    Daveperson
    Georgeperson
    INDISC Openevent
    PAPA World Championshipsevent
    Classicsevent
    Jurassic Parkproduct
    Black Knightproduct
    Dinerproduct
    Cometproduct
    Wizardproduct

    high · Eric's detailed account of Comet final ball: 'I let it bounce to my left flipper...I took a pot shot, and I nailed it'; Black Knight comeback 'had $6 million going into the last ball, and I pulled off about $98 million'

  • ?

    operational_signal: Qualifying wait times of 30-45 minutes per game in Classics created seven-and-a-half-hour bottleneck with 10-person deep lines; time pressure forced strategic ticket abandonment and game avoidance

    high · Eric: 'I played six bad games in a row Saturday. And I avoided all those tickets' to preserve time; 'lines were 10 people deep, 45 minutes to play a classic game'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Competitive format requires balancing high-value game specializations with unpredictable matchups; Eric Stone used game selection strategy (Comet twice in tiebreakers) and copied Keith Elwin's Jurassic Park technique

    high · Eric: 'couldn't pick the same game twice in the entire' finals and 'I was trying to kind of copy what he was doing' on Jurassic Park vs. Keith

  • ?

    community_signal: Tournament officials and technicians (Josh Sharpe, Carl D'Angelo, Bob Matthews) demonstrated commitment to preserving game integrity and fairness; live repair performed to maintain competitive equity

    high · Eric: 'Josh Sharpe...said he'll do anything to preserve a game once it's started and everybody's completed at least one ball'; collective effort preserved Eric's $8.5M lead

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Josh Sharpe demonstrated advanced technical problem-solving and tournament integrity leadership under pressure; recognized by Eric Stone as key contributor to fair competition

    high · Eric: 'I thank Josh personally afterwards because he was really looking out for the integrity...very much appreciative of that'

  • $

    market_signal: INDISC Open expanded championship tournament accessibility from limited PAPA format to unlimited open registration; 317 players represents significant growth in competitive participation

    high · Eric: 'This is open to everybody' with 'no cutoff'; compared to Pinburgh's 1,000-person cap; reflects democratization of world championship participation

  • ?

    design_philosophy: INDISC Open main tournament heavily favored 80s and 90s machines (majority of lineup) with only 3 modern Sterns and 1 Spooky; reflects collector/venue preference for vintage titles in competitive format

    high · Eric: 'The only sterns it had were Jurassic Park and Black Knight...everything else was 90s and some 80s games and one game from the 70s' (Viking)

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Eric Stone transitioned from casual/social player to competitive elite after CBS layoff; progressed through local tournaments to world championship victory within short timeframe

    medium · Eric: 'When I worked at CBS and they laid me off, I kind of didn't have anything to do...I thought it would be a good time to maybe see how good I really was at pinball'

    • 2:48
    I saw you with these mad skills, and I go, Eric, all these guys, I've seen them play, you are at least as good as these guys. You've got to go up against them. There's a lot of big money at hand. And you were saying, no, no, no, all the time, or no, you didn't think you were worthy of it. And I kept saying, no, you've got to go. So I don't know, at some point you finally took what I said to heart or realized it or whatever. But what made you actually finally go after all these records and go after these guys and start playing professionally? What actually made you finally do that? Well, you know, because when I worked at CBS and, you know, they laid me off, I kind of didn't have anything to do, right? And I thought it would be a good time to maybe see how good I really was at pinball and, you know, start competing. Nice. Very nice. and this time around, I mean, you were up against some heavy hitters, Keith Elwin, who I think Trent was out there as well. What are the people you were up against in the big tournament? Well, Raymond Davidson, previous number one player in the world.
    3:59
    Colin McElpine, who won Pinburger a few years ago. Colin Urban, who is an upcoming player. I don't even know if he's 18 yet. he wound up winning last year in disc before it was the world championship and boy I mean the list goes on Jared August is a really good player there were so many players Escher and Adam Lefkoff
    4:26
    and you know among many others so what was it so walk me through I mean you went through Classics 1 and how was that competition like what would walk me through how that went well classics won and you know this is all the ticket system so basically um you know you played four games and all four games had to be pretty good in order to qualify and my first set of four games uh were fair but my second set of four games i put up two number one scores back to back on black pyramid and wizard and i qualified first and the real hard part about the finals were that you couldn't pick the same game twice in the entire and that made it really difficult because there were a few games i was real good at and i wanted to save those picks until i was down and out so i did pretty well another great competitor kaylee george which i think everyone knows who he is he was in my last couple of rounds so the final round I exhausted all my really good picks the games that I was really excelling at, Wizard, Black Pyramid Jungle Queen and so I think I deferred the first, I can't remember if I deferred the first pick or whatever but I had a horrible first game and I didn't have a good second game either. So I actually had two zeros. And Caley had eight, Joe Lemire had four, somebody else had two, and I had zero. So I thought, well, if I can beat the two, I might be able to at least take third place. So Bob Matthews, who was running the tournament, he comes up to me and he says, hey Eric, if you finish in first and Caley George finishes in second, Joe LaMere finishes in last, then there's a way you could be tied for second. So naturally, I wanted to try to force that tie, and I played frontier, and I wound up winning, and Kelly came in second, and Joe LaMere came in fourth. So that put a tiebreaker between Joe and I, and I picked Comet because I had that song in my head all day, the theme music there of Comet. But I wound up, he had a couple unlucky house balls. I had a pretty good first ball, and I wound up winning. So I came back from, you know, looking like I was going to come in fourth to come in second. So that's how the first day went. Now, why do you have Comet in your head all day? Why was that four again? Why you had Comet music in your head? I really don't know. I mean, maybe it was just God telling me to pick that as the last game. And so the song just stuck in my head. Okay. You know, I listened to it, and I picked it, and it worked out. A little Holy Spirit-inspired thing going on there. Very nice. I like it. Could be. You never know. I like it. Very cool. And so then you got Classics 2.
    7:40
    How did that go? Yep, so, well, because the lines were so long, you could only get two or maybe three tickets in. And so I thought, all right, well, if I have a bad game, then I'm just going to kill the game, you know, kill the whole card. and forfeit, you know, avoid it, not forfeit. Well, I played six bad games in a row Saturday.
    8:08
    And I avoided all those tickets. And the seventh one, I played OXO, which is maybe my new favorite game because I really like that game. I put up 212,000 on it, which was the number one score. Is that about just getting tick-tack-toe? You're trying to make O's and X's across the board kind of thing? Is that how the game goes? Right. and then your saucer's light for 5,000, and you can hit the saucer, and it kicks it right back to your flipper. So you can either let it bounce over or you can catch it, and I just kept doing that over and over again.
    8:41
    So, and then I went to play Black Pyramid. I didn't have a good game on it, but I played Wizard, and I had a number one score. So I said, okay, I'm going to play Jungle Queen.
    8:52
    I think, you know, if I get about 90,000, I'd have a good qualifying ticket, and I think I got 111,000. So that actually put me in first qualifying, but overall I was in fourth.
    9:07
    So once again, you know, we go through the top 32, and I struggled the first couple rounds. I had to exhaust my favorite picks. And another thing is Black Pyramid went down. The right flipper got stuck. So that game was out. And here I'm thinking, oh, boy, here we go again. A game that I like is out, so there goes my day. And I think I was telling George that as well. And lo and behold, I make it to the Final Four,
    9:39
    and Kaylee George is in my group again. And I think, boy, hopefully I can beat him this time. Well, we played a game of Ali, and, of course, I always think about your Ali that I played down there. Oh, Ali, great game, yeah. I didn't get the $2.9 million I did at your house. Okay. Extra balls were off. But I did get, I want to say, at least 400,000. And, you know, I wound up winning the game. So then I picked Flash because I hadn't played that game yet. I got almost 400,000 on Flash. But Kaylee George winds up beating me. So it was, I believe it was 6-6, 2-0. And Kaylee and I had the sixes. So the final game, what do I pick? I pick the same thing. I picked Comet again, and it came down to the last ball.
    10:31
    I needed a couple hundred thousand. No, I needed about $150,000. I had one number lit up top to light my five times play field, and I knew if I lit the five times play field and I shot the, I don't even know what you call it, the three circles, even if I got the lower one at $20,000, it would give me $100,000, and I'd wind up winning. Comet was set up really tough because the gate was gone. They pulled it out, the gate on the lower left. So you had to be very, very careful on how you caught balls and transferred balls.
    11:06
    I did miss the shot, and I took a chance. As the ball was coming back to my right flipper, I took a chance, and I let it bounce to my left flipper. I gave the game a little nudge, and it did bounce over. Then I took a pot shot, and I nailed it, and that's how I wound up winning Classics 2.
    11:23
    And so give me some of the titles, like for classic sterns and classic ballets, because that's pretty much what I'd be into playing. Do you remember the titles at the top of your head, what you played for those?
    11:35
    Yeah, I played Comet. That's a Williams. Frontier. Jungle Queen. Black Pyramid. Ollie. Wizard.
    11:50
    Catacomb was in there. Flash, OXO, Dolly Parton was in there. A game called Cosmic Princess was in there. Okay, you don't see that game too often. I wound up with a million. Actually, the final round, my second game was Cosmic Princess, and I wound up with like a million five. I rolled it, and that's what got me. so Flash was the first game and Kaylee beat me 300, 400,000 like 380 and then Cosmic Princess was the second game and I demolished it with a million and a half nobody was even close and that's where we were at the tiebreaker 6-6 2-0 and then Comet was the final game and so this is your first time playing Cosmic Princess I'm sure other people might not have played that game either right it's kind of a rare game yep I think I had one game on it before that and I didn't do that well. But once I found the spinner shots and I found the shots that I needed,
    12:56
    it was like, I mean, I must have played three minutes on one ball at least, four minutes maybe. Wow, nice. It was set up pretty hard with the kind of steep slope and all that stuff and outposts. Oh, yeah. I mean all those games are set up hard You know it looked brutal during the finals of the what do they call the big tournament at the end there What's the world championship tournament that you... Right, right. I was watching that at midnight. I was like cheering for you at the end. Especially that Tomcat, that 14 Tomcat, that looked really tough. Oh yeah, it was. It was playing super fast. it seemed like if the ball bounced on the metal on the right out lane it was always going down the right out lane it was brutal and tell me about the other game there that you were doing really well on you were like head and shoulders above everybody else I forget what ball was on, ball 1 or ball 2 but the game had a major malfunction or it could be considered a major malfunction but the techs there did a wonderful job taking an impossible situation and doing a live repair on it. That was great. What game was that? That was another one of my favorite games, Diner.
    14:19
    And a piece of plastic got caught in the saucer at the top. So they opened up the game, but they couldn't get to the saucer because the ramp and the cup was in the way. and they were very close to calling the game and i would have had to start over another game and i started that game with five million on the first ball a two and a half million cup bonus which was ridiculous and uh you know everyone else had i think a hundred and something thousand five hundred thousand and like a million something well the person that saved the day was josh sharp he came over and he said, don't worry, Eric, you know, we're, we're, we're going to try to get this. And he said, we're going to attack it from underneath the play field and we're going to unscrew where the, where the saucer is. And that's actually how they got the piece of plastic out. So that I think could have possibly saved me. Um, and we played the game on and I wound up with, $8.5 million, which was head and shoulders on that game, above the rest. That's awesome because a lot of times in the past, and you're not the only player, but other players, they'll get some kind of weird malfunction or something like that, and they're doing really well, and there's something that they can't fix. I'm sure you've been there before, too, and it's like you've got to suck it up and move on, but it sucks. They work so hard for a score, and the game gets messed up. and it's nice that once in a while these things go in your favor a little bit, that they actually will fix something like that. It doesn't happen all the time that they actually can do that, which is great. It worked out. Yeah, and that's happened several times to me. I thought, no, not in the finals of the world championship, please. Yeah, yeah. The fact that it wasn't really a major malfunction. It was just the fact that a piece of plastic got stuck somewhere. Yeah, exactly. All you had to do was get the plastic out, and the game was going to play just fine. Right, right. It wasn't like a chip blew or something like that, and you need board repair. It was more like this thing was lodged in there, but how do we get in there to fix it in a reasonable amount of time? And who was the guy that did it? He's a really good player who was the tech that did that.
    16:40
    Well, Jim Belsito. Yeah, him. Yeah. Yep, he did it. I don't know if Carl D'Angelo came over, Bob Matthews was over there, but everybody worked hard to preserve the game.
    16:54
    And I thank Josh personally afterwards because he was really looking out for the integrity. And he said that he'll do anything to preserve a game once it's started and everybody's completed at least one ball. Yeah, it makes sense. No, it's definitely, kudos on him. That's very nice. Yeah, I've got a lot of respect for him, and, you know, I'm very much appreciative of that. Because right before he came over, you know, the talk was, uh-oh, are we going to pull this or not?
    17:28
    Right. And I'm sure you'd be the same way if another player was like, had, you know, had your score and used some other player's score, and they're leaps and bounds ahead. I think it would only be fair for anyone to have that chance that if they're that far ahead, I'd feel really crappy even though the competition, you know, you're still all in it together. You're all kind of friends in this thing and, you know, it's like camaraderie in there.
    17:50
    They're your competition. Yeah, he didn't just do it for me. He would have done that for anybody. Exactly, exactly. Yeah. Yeah, that's very cool. Very good call on that one. So what other things went on there that were any kind of, like I want to rewatch the whole thing because I missed a couple games in there because I got home late that night to watch all the grip and drama. But I did see the diner thing. I did see the F-14 Tomcat thing at the end. And there's a lot of really good play and amazing saves and just some really top-notch play going on, you know, yours included, of course. And this is your first, and I think they were talking about you on the thing, you know, World Championship. If you get this, you're the world champion. and some of the guys are saying, yeah, let's see if he can do it, this will be a world championship for him. And I didn't know that this was actually a world championship tourney. Is this like the first time that it is a world championship tournament, this tournament here? Oh, yeah. Yeah, this basically replaced the Papa World Championships. Okay. This is technically a Papa World Championship, but now they're calling it the Open because it's not at the Papa facility. Okay, so walk us through. now what happened with Papa being the World Championship headquarters how come that changed and why is it over here now I'm not really sure I don't know if the guy who leased the building or if he sold the building it had to do with the fact that where the Papa worlds were held I think the last one was 2017 when Escher won you know something happened to where they didn't have that building anymore whether the guy sold it i don't know the details um and so that's i believe that's why the papa world's um stopped after 2017 so because indisc has so many games you know they just kind of took over like hey you know what we have the facility and the space for all these people so we're going to hold what used to be the Papa World, and we're just going to call it the Open World Championship, where anybody can come in.
    20:06
    So how does it work out? So for your caliber of a player, the Keith Ellens of the world and so forth, is there a special spot held for you guys when there's going to be a world championship somewhere? Do they reserve a spot for you to make sure you get in and you don't get nudged out by everybody else clamoring until you get a ticket to get in? Or does it work like that, or no? No. I mean, it's a three-day qualifying event, so you've got plenty of time. You know what I mean? There were 317 people there, I believe.
    20:38
    So there's no cutoff of how many players we can have in this kind of thing? Nope, not at all. Okay. Nope, this is open to everybody.
    20:49
    Wow. Yeah. That's amazing, because I know when Papa, no, maybe it's Pinberg. What's the one that they do in, that we're doing in Pennsylvania for the classics and so forth? They only wanted so many people because there were so many people trying to get in. They had, like, they had to cut it off at a certain number, like 400 people or 500 people, something like that. I don't know. I mean, that might be Pinnberg. Now it's 1,000 people. Okay. So there is a cutoff. So for classics at this one out in California, is there a cutoff for how many people can be in classics? No. Wow, there were both days, there were over 200. Okay. And Bob Matthews was saying that it was probably the biggest Classics tournament ever, ever held with the most amount of people. Wow.
    21:38
    And Saturday beat Friday. So, you know, I can say I won the biggest Classics tournament, people-wise, that there's ever been that we know of. Now, hold on. I wasn't out there playing against you, so, you know, you've got to, you know. Yeah.
    21:54
    Well, you probably would have got either two or three tickets in. That's how some of the lines were 10 people deep, 45 minutes to play a classic game.
    22:03
    Wow, okay. Okay. And you got your, how did the classics thing go? So there's like a bank, you get to pick a bank of four or something like that? Or how did that work? Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's a ticket system. You pick four games, and however well you do on those four games in a row goes on one ticket. So it's the hardest way to qualify.
    22:24
    Yeah, because if you go out of the four games you did really good on three and one you tanked on, you're going to throw that ticket out typically, right? You've got to be good at it. Right, yeah, exactly. Yeah, you won't make it. Yep, that's exactly it. Okay. Boy, that's rough.
    22:39
    That'd be very rough. Wow. Thanks. Huh. Yeah, I'll have to, I don't know. I haven't, I've done the old, you know, local competitions, that kind of thing. it's fun it's almost like with um it's a different level you know playing with you guys out there you need a certain level of concentration you got you're under the pressure you got all the adrenaline going and it's a different uh it's a different game than playing uh you know friendly competition you know you get a lot of pressure on you so when you guys can do that uh and tune everything out and just kind of focus on the game and just uh block rating out that's a special skill to have. Yeah. You know?
    23:19
    Yeah, I mean, you got 200 people that are breathing down your neck waiting to play. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Yep. So, I mean, time is the biggest pressure because you don't have much of it. It's only seven and a half hours of qualifying and if some games are taking 30 to 45 minutes to play one game in line, you don't really have much time in order to complete tickets, you know? So,
    23:41
    well, in the classic stuff, it's probably better because those are quick games versus the other games that are longer, right? Right, but the line for the main tournament never seemed as long as the classics line because people were spacing out when they were qualifying for the main tournament. But the classics, there's only seven and a half hours. So everybody was just trying to jumble in Friday and Saturday into the classics for seven and a half hours. And it made those lines just crazy.
    24:12
    Okay. So the main tournament, it had a mixture of everything, old and new or mostly newer stuff or 90s? Oh, no. Old and new. The only sterns it had were Jurassic Park and Black Knight, and it also had the Alice Cooper from Spooky. Other than that, everything else, oh, no, there was Sopranos was in there, too. That's, I think, a 2000s stern. But other than that, everything else was 90s and some 80s games.
    24:44
    And one game from the 70s. What was the 70s game, do you remember? Was it XL? It was Viking. But because Keith Ellwin won the tournament, he could take one game out of the classics and substitute it in the main. So he took out Viking and put in Wizard, which was great for me because Wizard was one of the games that I loved. Yeah, well, of course, you growing up with your Captain Fantastic and playing that, it's sort of the same kind of ballet old school feel. Right. Which is nice. Yeah, exactly, yeah. That's great. So I was talking to, you know, I just had a, as you know, I just did this interview with Chronicle in Boston. I saw. Yeah, I loved how it came out. I got a lot of good kudos on it, and it was fun. I'm glad you got to see it, too. So I got a call from a guy who saw the Superman game in that interview, and he called me up, and he actually bought the Superman from Funding Games years ago, and his parents sold it on him. And so he called me up and said, I really want that game. I want that game back. And so he knows I can make him one. So I have an extra one that I'm going to do up for him eventually. And I was thinking, okay, Superman game. And I'm thinking, you know, did you ever play Superman in a tournament format, I've never seen an Atari pin played in a tournament like one of these big tournaments. You said you have, though?
    26:08
    Yeah, I don't know if it was in a big tournament. I know I played it at somebody's house in a tournament before a couple times. Okay, but not like one of these big ones, not like a Pop-R or this IE one.
    26:19
    I don't think so. Okay. I don't think so. Not that I remember. But I love the game. Yeah it a great game I think it might be because the Atari stuff there not a lot of them out there let say and the people that work on them not many maybe as experienced to work on the Atari stuff, and maybe they're kind of afraid of it going down in a little tournament. Can they get it back up again or whatever? Maybe something like that. I don't know. But it would be good to see something. Or it might just be so rare, you know, that they can't get their hands on one. Yeah, it could be. I think they may. I want to say like 5,000 of them, somewhere around there. It wasn't like super rare, but it's not, you know, I think I have two or three of them at last count, but I've been hunting them for years now. I just pick them up whenever I can find one. But, yeah, I'll be restoring one up for myself and this customer over the next year or so. So you get a chance to take me on that game. Good.
    27:21
    We'll play for pink slips or something. Oh, good. Yeah. We'll play for iced tea. Yes, definitely. So you better stock up. Right. No, I'm kidding. You do like your iced tea. Oh, yeah. You know that. So what are any other highlights of the tournament besides the diner drama and the F-14 wonderful thing at the end there, that great performance you had there? I mean, you know, I beat a lot of good players. And, you know, Keith Allen was in my round of 16, and I had to play Jurassic Park and Black Knight. And I had a really good comeback on Black Knight. I had $6 million going into the last ball, and I pulled off about $98 million, and that put me in second place over Keith and Joe and Jurassic Park. I had two multi-balls. I didn't really do much with them, but, you know, I had well over $100 million, and that was good enough to take first place. And, you know, the rounds were 6-6-1-1 after two games. And I had already advanced with a guy named Ollie. I think he's from Holland.
    28:32
    Maybe he's from Germany. Somewhere in Europe, I believe. And, you know, we played on Indy 500, and I wound up winning that. So I had 10 points in that round. And then the next round, I had to play against Escher, who, you know, he won the last pop of worlds.
    28:54
    And, you know, he didn't quite make it. He lost the tiebreaker to Andrei Masenkov. So it was me and Andrei and Colin, and Colin won it last year in Indisc. Andrei was the one that knocked me out of the top four in Pinburger a couple years ago on a tiebreaker. So, you know, I knocked out some pretty good guys. Well, especially with Jurassic Park, you know, with Keith creating that game, you know, and you've taken, you know, I don't know, have you taken to school on it, or you guys were pretty close on that one? No, Keith had, he just, you know, he had a couple bad balls. I don't even think he had 15 or 20 million on the game. Okay, that can happen. But, you know, I was kind of watching what he was shooting for. I was trying to, you know, since he knows the game, I was trying to kind of copy what he was doing. Oh, good idea, because you haven't had much experience in that game. Are you having much time on that game yourself? I've never played the LE before, and I haven't played it with the last couple code updates.
    30:02
    So, you know, I knew the main gist of the multiballs, but I didn't really know, like, the changes in the code. So I figured if I could just, you know, get the multiballs, I could get something going. And they weren't pretty, but it was enough to give me a pretty comfortable score.
    30:23
    Let me see. I've got a guy here. Arnie, are you ready to go, or what? What do you think, Arnie? Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Hold on. All right. We're holding on, Arnie. We'll wait for you. That was Arnie. Arnie Schwarzenegger here.
    30:38
    He's indisposed. We'll get back to this. Terminator 2. I don't know. What do you think, Arnie? Is that right? Don't give me that crap. All right, Arnie. Won't give you that crap.
    30:54
    Love the game. Yeah, he's something. Something about... What do you think? The helicopter? Was it helicopter, Arnie? What was it? Get to the chopper! The chopper. That's right. That's your 911. There you go. Get to the chopper. He's the best. Arnie's always very friendly when you come up to say hello he says, Arnie what do you say? nice to meet you he says nice to meet you he's a good guy you got celebrities over there I do, I got celebrities over here and I'm going to meet them someday you should, he's a good guy he's very affectionate Arnie what time you call me something sometimes it's kind of a little weird hello cutie pie Yeah, that, cutie pie. I don't know where you're going with that, dude, but it's a little strange. He knows what you like to hear. Maybe he does. Sometimes he gets a little too, I don't know.
    31:57
    A little too friendly, huh? A little too friendly. Sometimes he calls me honey. Hi, honey, how are you? Yeah, that kind of stuff. Maureen's going to get jealous. I know, right? Yeah, that's it. I need to speak to my wife. No, your wife ain't here. Could you get on the phone, please? No, I'm busy with an interview right now with Eric Stone, the world champion. All right, so you need to settle down. I'll call you back. Yeah, call me back later, dude. We're talking here.
    32:30
    Hasta la vista, baby. Arnie knows that pretty well. Arnie, what's your favorite line there?
    32:39
    Immediately. No, that's not the line. No, no. Just do what I tell you. No, I'm not doing anything you tell me. And I don't care if you work alone or not. I work alone. I know that. I know you do.
    32:52
    You're crazy. He's funny. He's a cut-up, that guy. I don't know. Tell all our listeners what happens after 1 a.m., right?
    33:06
    After 1 a.m., Dr. Dave gets a little crazy. That's true. I do get a little crazy, don't I? Yeah, I get a little crazy, you know. You're drunk. No, hey, language. That's not nice, Arnie. Bad Arnie. Bad. Yeah, he's talking like me when I'm having a bad game. It's fun, though.
    33:32
    Very bad. Arnie, that wasn't nice at all. Can you, you know. Piss off. Yeah, I know you're pissed off, but settle down, dude. Come on. This is for, you know, little kids listening to this. Little kids listen to you. So, you know. Dinosaurs. That's better. Dinosaurs. Little kids like dinosaurs. So that's better.
    33:52
    He's something else, man. He's a little crazy. He's crazy. But, yeah, so that's an awesome achievement you did there. And I'm glad George actually surprised you out there. He actually was going to go there and do a little business, a little pleasure. He decided to show up. He didn't know you were going to be out there. You guys just kind of bumped into each other and said at almost the same time, hey, what are you doing here?
    34:21
    Yeah, I saw his pinball asylum shirt. And so I'm like, man, that looks like George. And so I patted him on the back, and it was.
    34:31
    And, you know, he stayed all day on Friday throughout the Classics finals. and then he left when I was in the top eight in the day two and then I didn't see him at all after that so he so which he saw which one he saw the he only saw he saw day one on Friday so that's class X1 and he was there until the top eight of day two okay got it so okay then I didn't see him after that was it what's the next pinball thing you're going to? Or do you know yet? Well, a state tournament on Saturday.
    35:12
    Okay. And, you know, hopefully we can win that and go to Denver and be in the Nationals. Nice. Denver. That sounds good. Yeah.
    35:25
    We'll see. We'll see what God has in store. And then, yeah, exactly. Well, so far, I think you're in touch with the big man upstairs because you're doing something right.
    35:38
    I try. You know what I mean? Providence is shining on you which is very nice. Amen to that. Nice. Good to have a thankful spirit and so forth. I think it pays off. Yeah, in the long run. Yep, definitely.
    35:56
    But Arnie over here he's not thankful. He gets a little angry at night. So I've got to put him out the door.
    36:07
    Frickin' Arnie. But we will. Are you going to Pintastic? Oh, yeah. I'll be doing my seminar there. Okay. So it's a how to play pinball kind of seminar? Yeah, kind of like tips and tricks, you know? Yeah. Okay. Just to, you know, give people, let people know that it's more than just, you know, flipping the ball, flipping the flippers. There's a strategy and, you know, different ways to control the ball and maybe help people get a little higher scores. Nice.
    36:44
    Yeah. Yeah, I find especially when you play, I found, you know, as a very decent player back in the day in the arcade, you know, winning free games. and did pretty well and had my stuff, but I greatly increased my flipper toolbox by hanging with other players, really good players, and got to watch what they did, like yourself, and saying, oh, wow, I didn't know you could do that.
    37:08
    Even watching these tournaments and watching people tip the ball over and do some tap pass that I didn't think was possible, it's like, I didn't know you could do that. I've got to try that next time. So there's always little tricks that you learn. I wonder if people are actually picking this up on the fly. They say they just try something and it worked out. They say, oh, I'm going to try to repeat that and do that again later.
    37:36
    I was wondering how people like yourself come up with your skill set, your flipper skill set. You just kind of try different things and see what works over the years? or how did you uh yeah i mean you know many of these things i did when i was a kid before i even knew that there were names to catching balls and tipping balls and chats in and all that i mean i was doing that when i was a kid a teenager um high speed was a really good example i would always chat to the in lane try to get the freeway value up to an extra ball so i could just play the game forever.
    38:12
    And, you know, I didn't know it was called a shots. So wait a minute, wait, you were shotsing before it was actually called shotsing.
    38:20
    What's that? You were stoning, actually. Because the whole shots thing came out later. As I got to play in the classic tournaments, I got to see that when you can't post-pass like a game like Wizard, you can't post-pass the ball. I shat past the ball. And, you know, I thought, oh, that's interesting. So a lot of balls that, a lot of games, rather, that have spinners that are lucrative, I just shat the ball back and forth. Hocus Pocus is another one. Oh, Gorgar. Remember Gorgar you went up to? Well, Gorgar you shat because the inlanes eventually get the snake going for $50,000 and also add to your bonus. Space Lab is another game that you can shats on. Every time you hit the lit in lane, it spots one of your letters in Space Lab for 3,000 points, plus you're getting 1,000 points up and down. So it could be 8,000 points every time you shats. And on Space Lab, that's 8,000 points. It's pretty big. I remember years ago when I was playing 8-Ball Deluxe in the Funny Games Arcade in the early 80s. I could rock that game, just win game after game after game It paid off in specials And I would actually have a technique where I could walk the ball back up the left and right out lane just like shake it just right to oscillate and bring it right back And I'd do that pretty easily, pretty regularly, no problem. And then, you know, over the years, I had a league over here, classic league and so forth, and I would do that on mine and someone would say, oh wow, you're doing a bow and I'd go, doing a what? Oh, I saw Bowen do that. It's like, no, Well, I think I did this first years ago, so I'm doing a Dr. Dave, dude.
    40:16
    So it's just like you were doing it. Yeah, I remember you doing that. So I guess it's all who saw it do it first, and you're kind of going to call it that name, but not necessarily the person that did it first. Well, I mean, as long as whatever you're doing works. Yeah, exactly. And whatever you're doing causes you to win, than, you know, like when I was a kid, I had no idea what anything was called.
    40:42
    It just, I just, you know, I did what I knew to do to control the ball and get it to where I wanted to and make the shots and, you know, get high scores. You know what I really enjoy doing these days, and I never did it as a kid, but doing, what's it called? Is it a trap? No, actually, no, that's another thing I watch you guys do is that trap. The ball comes down, and you stop it dead, I think, in an up, the flipper's in an up position or something like that. Or either that, you hit it really quick, and the ball bounces against the kicking rubber and stops dead on the flipper.
    41:15
    Versus when the ball, what do you call when the ball comes down really hard, and a flipper catch, catch for your flipper, and the ball just stops dead on the end of your flipper? Yeah, it might be called a live catch, I think. Okay. Because I love doing that. I didn't even know the names of these things when I was doing it when I was a kid. Because I didn't do it when I was a kid, that whole when the ball comes rocking down, your flipper's up, and when the ball hits your flipper, you let go of it and it slows the ball down so it stops dead on your flipper, and you can take your shot when the ball's dead on your flipper. I love doing that. It's very rewarding. The other one is tough to do, and I don't know if you do it, is the, what is it, it's like a live tap pass, like a live tap pass, meaning so the ball's coming in the in lane to your flipper as it's rolling through. You tap it as it's rolling quickly through. But that's kind of a little more dangerous. I don't know if you do that too much. Well, what I like to do is I like to wait until the ball is rolling on the flipper and to the very, very tip of the flipper. And right before the ball is going to get out of the middle, you flip it really quickly and it just taps the ball a little bit over to the other side.
    42:21
    Oh, wow. So you're seeing. In multi-ball, I do that a lot. If I have two balls cradled and a third ball goes down the in-lane, it will push the closest ball to the very tip of the flipper. Yeah. And right as the ball is about ready to fall off the flipper down the middle, you just quickly hit the flipper and it pushes it over to the other flipper. I saw you do that. I saw that. That was awesome. I was like, I've got to try that one. Yeah, I love doing that.
    42:50
    That's fun. Yeah, the whole multi-ball thing when you're cradling two balls and getting the other ball going and just having the flipper up and just keep holding those balls there while you're kind of zipping the other ball wherever you want it to go, that's very rewarding. You know, you can just, you know. Yeah. Especially in a game like in, let's say, Fathom, where you're getting three times play field score values when three balls are out. Right. And then hit that spinner for 5,000, but now it's 15,000 a spin. That can add up pretty darn quick. Oh, yeah.
    43:20
    What's your high score on my Fathom, by the way? What do you get, 15 million on my Fathom? Or 21? I don't know what I got on yours. I know I get $18 million. That's my high.
    43:31
    Yeah, I know I rolled yours. You definitely rolled mine. You might have rolled it twice. I don't know. I know your eight-ball deluxe I rolled twice. I remember getting $21 million on that game. Okay, show off.
    43:44
    And I think you wrote it down and put it inside the game. I might have burned that. I don't know. Yeah, you probably did.
    43:53
    And Ali, I had, I think, $2.9 million. and you said, well, I only saw you roll it once. And I said, well, I'm not going to lie, I rolled it twice.
    44:03
    I like giving you crap. It's fun. Yeah, I know. Well, we're at the almost 44-minute mark. So anything else? I think it was a nice little walk through tournament lane here. And any victory laps to do? because, again, congratulations, great achievement.
    44:27
    Thanks, yeah. What does this make you for the World Champion scores? What's it called? The number you're ranking? Yeah, ranking, yes.
    44:39
    Well, right now I'm number 11. Okay. And this will put me over 1,000 points according to what Bob Matthews says, and he's pretty good with numbers.
    44:52
    So it should put me right where I left off when I started working at Foxtel here in third place. Wow, that's great. What a great comeback. Yeah, yeah. So can you keep doing this then? Can you keep, like, all of a sudden, for a while you couldn't do pinball because you were over the tournament stuff because you had such an intensive work schedule and you couldn't really do it. But you freed up a little bit to actually get the stuff done, or how did you wind up? I'm still working on the weekend. Okay. So it's still going to be very difficult to get to a lot of events. I managed to get to four circuit events last year, and I averaged over around 44 points maybe per event.
    45:38
    And so I'll be in the circuit finals in Chicago in March. So this year, if I can get to more circuit events, that would be nice. but I don't think it's going to be much more than four.
    45:54
    The points that I'm going to get from in-disc, people are saying it's going to be over 130 points, which is huge. It's like a pinbird, you know? Okay.
    46:05
    So the cut to make the circuit files was like 170-something, and if I already have 130, you know, I'm well on my way to making the circuit files next year. but in order to become in order to try to become number one in the world I'm still 130 points off I would have to win the world championship in Fort Myers Pintastic, Pinberg and just maybe with those three I would be close you know what I'm saying but I would have to pretty much win whatever tournaments I played this year to have a chance because I'm just not going to get the time from work to be able to go.
    46:57
    Well, it's amazing. Again, Providence is shining and you get the timing just right to get this stuff done. It's great. Well, like I told other people, I had a feeling, and I believe the feeling was from God in November, that I should go to Indisc. And I kept making excuses saying, well, it's going to cost me $1,000. It's far away. And then I was blessed with winning, you know, the Classics and the Main in Freeplay, Florida, and that was $3,200. Yeah. Nice. And so it was like, all right, well, now you don't have an excuse. Right. Take $1,000 of that. And, you know, you just keep having that nagging feeling that you need to do it. So I'm like, you know what, I'll listen to whatever I feel that's nagging me to go to InDesk, and we'll see what happens. It's a little voice inside. The little voice inside is telling you. I saw what happened.
    47:57
    Wow. Yeah, and like I said, I was telling Jeff Teolis in the interview, I said I didn't even want to come out here to California. but I just had that feeling and I just said thank God that I went with that feeling because I never would have known what I missed if I didn't go you know what I'm saying yeah exactly it's a good thing you listen do what you're supposed to do get out there and use your talent and you know yeah I mean I've got the biggest title in pinball I think you know I don't think you can get much better than the world champion.
    48:42
    Yeah, because when they do one of these things out in, I don't know, overseas in Europe somewhere, so it's the same thing, but so it's a world championship once per year? No, no. What they do in Europe is the European championship. Okay.
    48:58
    You've got the world championship that you need to be invited to go to. That's the one that's going to be in Fort Myers in May. that's IFPA. Then you've got the world championship, which used to be PAPA, and that's where anybody can go. And Indisc took over the PAPA world championship. So now Indisc is the open where anybody can go. So the only two world championships are the two that have been going on for several years. And I believe the PAPA world championship started before IFPA. So the one that I just won now would technically be among the oldest world championship from the start date.
    49:47
    If you call this the continuation of the Papa World. Okay, yeah. So, pretty cool. Pretty cool. I'm glad it's kind of come full circle. I'm glad, like you said, we were talking about it years ago and I kept saying, you've got to do it, dude. I saw Alwyn play. I actually played against Keith Elwin years ago. I think it was in, was it 2003? Early 2000s. I was out at California Extreme and I think it was one of these poker tournaments that you play on pinball. So you're going all in or you're betting and all this kind of stuff. And he was in my group of four playing the regular Black Knight, 1980 Black Knight or 81 Black Knight, Williams game. and he had a lousy ball and I was up and I said, I don't know who this guy was. I said, you know what, I'm all in. I remember him looking at me and he said, you don't know who I am, do you? I said, no, who are you?
    50:48
    I found out really quick. Well, I was with you at that California Extreme, remember? Yeah, you were, that's right. Yeah, so... Neil Schatz was there too. I played with Neil Schatz out there.
    51:03
    Or Bowen was out there, too. I remember, I think it was, I might have played Neal Shots and Bowen on Bow and Arrow. Because that was, actually, after playing Bow and Arrow, I didn't really know what kind of good game that was. When I played it with them, I was like, wow, I've got to buy this game someday. And a couple years later, I found a nice one at Allentown and bought it. And one of my favorite EMs to play is Bow and Arrow. It's a great game.
    51:26
    Yeah, it is a fun game. Did you play them? Especially if the feed off the saucer is good. Yeah, yeah, exactly. That game is all about the feet off the saucer because it all depends on where your bonus is too. The saucer bonus. Right. If it's at 5, 6, or 7,000, the ball will have a different kind of strength coming out of there versus like the 1,000 or 10,000. So you've got to know where your bonus is and how much strength that thing's going to kick out at you. It's a quirk of the game. I don't think the engineering designed it that way, but it's kind of unique how it does that.
    51:58
    Right. That's the whole thing. Yep. So, we should probably sign off. Anything you want to say for a sign-off slogan or anything? Slogan?
    52:12
    I don't really know. It's 1 a.m. and I'm getting a little sleepy. I just got out of work. How about keep the faith? Keep the faith. That's good. I like it. I like that. I'm going to go with my usual everyone have a blessed day and be grateful Amen
    52:55
    I'm a California man.