Episode 117: Stern Pro Circuit recap (2018)

Pinball Profile·podcast_episode·23m 17s·held·Mar 27, 2018

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.032

TL;DR

Stern Pro Circuit Finals 2018 recap with player interviews and Iron Maiden announcement.

Summary

This podcast episode covers the 2018 Stern Pro Circuit Finals in Chicago, a 40-player ladder tournament held at Bottom Lounge. Host Jeff Teoles interviews multiple players including Josh Sharpe (the tournament winner), Keith Elwin, Colin Urban, and Greg Pavarelli, discussing their performances, game strategies, and tournament format. The episode also features interviews with community figure Crystal Gemnich and detailed game analysis. The episode concludes with the announcement of Iron Maiden as the new Stern pinball machine designed by Keith Elwin.

Key Claims

Josh Sharpe won the Stern Pro Circuit Finals tournament in 2018
high confidence · Jeff Teoles announces 'Josh Sharpe, the PAPA Circuit Champion' as the winner and refers to him wearing the 'Papa belt' after winning
Zach Sharpe won the Heads Up Championship on Sunday
high confidence · Jeff Teoles states 'The Heads Up Championship went to Zach Sharpe, who beat Bowen Kerins in the finals'
40 of the top 2017 circuit players attended the Stern Pro Circuit Finals
high confidence · Jeff Teoles announces 'Welcome to the Stern Pro Circuit Finals here on Pinball Profile' and later refers to '40 of the best, well 39 of the best players here' to Colin Urban
Iron Maiden (Legacy of the Beast) was announced as a new Stern pinball machine, designed by Keith Elwin
high confidence · Jeff Teoles states 'it is going to be an exciting week with Iron Maiden being announced as the new Stern pinball machine at the Saturday night event. congratulations to Keith Elwin on your first mass-produced machine'
Keith Elwin was one of the top players competing at the Stern Pro Circuit Finals alongside Trent Augenstein and Bowen Kerins
high confidence · Jeff Teoles describes playing in a foursome with 'Trent Augenstein, the top circuit player in 2017, Bowen Kerins, who probably more than likely has done a tutorial on every game there, or soon will, and luckily, a guy in semi-retirement. Oh, wait, no, it was Keith Elwin'
Crystal Gemnich runs PB Toots, a blog that breaks down tutorial videos and rule sets
high confidence · Crystal Gemnich explains 'PB Toots is a blog where I basically take a tutorial video, like one that Bowen does at the Papa facility, or, you know, if Keith has done one, and I'll kind of break it down, and I'll just sort of outline it'
The tournament featured newer Stern games with no ball saves and older games set in a challenging but fair manner
high confidence · Greg Pavarelli states 'The Stearns are draining with no ball saves, and the older games are set fair, but they're always challenging'

Notable Quotes

“If you're a golfer and you had a chance to play in a foursome with Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, and Tiger Woods, wouldn't you do it? Yes, you won't win, but maybe you win a hole or two, and the experience would be amazing.”
Jeff Teoles @ early in episode — Sets the tone for how Jeff frames competing against elite players like Keith Elwin, Trent Augenstein, and Bowen Kerins
“I'm tired, and I wish I understood how today's tournament was going. I've been told it's going to go very quickly from here on out. I hope it does.”
Josh Sharpe @ winner interview segment — Reflects the exhaustion of winning a long ladder tournament format
“Yesterday was a day of playing just well enough. I had a ton of third-place finishes, which normally I'd be eliminated. You play three third-places in a row and you're out in a pop-up group, but that's three advances yesterday.”
Josh Sharpe @ winner interview segment — Shows Josh's winning strategy was consistency rather than dominance; acknowledges some luck in advancing
“The Stearns are draining with no ball saves, and the older games are set fair, but they're always challenging, so it's going to be good stuff.”
Greg Pavarelli @ Greg Pavarelli interview — Explains tournament game setup philosophy balancing difficulty across old and new machines
“PB Toots is a blog where I basically take a tutorial video... and I'll kind of break it down, and I'll just sort of outline it, and maybe I'll add my own sort of thoughts about how to play it.”
Crystal Gemnich @ Crystal Gemnich interview — Describes the content and mission of PB Toots resource
“I got a physics lesson. Don't shoot lock targets.”
Keith Elwin @ Keith Elwin interview about Batman — Keith's humorous explanation of his loss on Batman in the tournament
“Congratulations to Keith Elwin on your first mass-produced machine to Tim Sexton and the rest of the Stern programming team that helped bring Eddie to the pinball world with Iron Maiden: Legacy of the Beast of the Beast.”

Entities

Jeff TeolespersonJosh Sharpeperson Keith ElwinpersonTrent AugensteinpersonBowen KerinspersonCrystal GemnichpersonZach Wollensperson

Signals

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event_signal: 2018 Stern Pro Circuit Finals ladder tournament held in Chicago featuring 40 top IFPA circuit players competing across modern and classic pinball machines
high · Jeff Teoles covers event in detail across entire episode with multiple player interviews; describes format, game selection, and final results
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announcement: Iron Maiden (Legacy of the Beast) officially announced as new Stern Pinball machine designed by Keith Elwin
high · Jeff Teoles explicitly states 'it is going to be an exciting week with Iron Maiden being announced as the new Stern pinball machine at the Saturday night event. congratulations to Keith Elwin on your first mass-produced machine'
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competitive_signal: Josh Sharpe wins Stern Pro Circuit Finals; Colin Urban finishes second; tournament used ladder format with mixed modern/classic machines; Zach Sharp wins Heads Up Championship
high · Multiple interview segments confirming results; Josh Sharpe described as winner and wearing Papa belt; Colin Urban interviewed as second place finisher; Zach Sharp named Heads Up Champion
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design_philosophy: Tournament operators used newer Stern games without ball saves and older classic games with fair but challenging setups to create equalizer format allowing diverse players to compete
high · Greg Pavarelli explains 'The Stearns are draining with no ball saves, and the older games are set fair, but they're always challenging'; Kevin and Colin discuss strategy implications of this setup
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content_signal: Community content creator Crystal Gemnich runs PB Toots blog breaking down pinball rule sets and tutorial videos for educational purposes; appears regularly on DeadFlip with Jack Danger

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.070

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Help! I need somebody. Help! Not just anybody. Help! You know I need someone. Help! It's time for another Pinball Profile. I'm your host, Jeff Teoles. You can find our group on Facebook. We're also on Twitter at Pinball Profile. Email us pinballprofile at gmail.com. And please subscribe on either iTunes, Stitcher, or Google Play. Well, I spent my weekend in Chicago, and I left with two sharp pains. But it was great to chill in the Windy City. Got to see some cool places like the legendary Logan's Arcade. Great venue and incredible lineup of games. The place was absolutely packed. A good way to start your warm-up before the main events at Bottom Lounge, which for me was a four-player match with myself, Trent Augenstein, the top circuit player in 2017, Bowen Cairns, who probably more than likely has done a tutorial on every game there, or soon will, and luckily, a guy in semi-retirement. Oh, wait, no, it was Keith Elwin. A scary foursome at best. I thought it would be fitting to wear a Beatles shirt with the word help across the top and a name tag that represented my place in this foursome. It said, hello, my name is Ringo. I even had friends back home say, why are you going to Chicago when you're just going to get killed? Here's why. If you're a golfer and you had a chance to play in a foursome with Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, and Tiger Woods, wouldn't you do it? Yes, you won't win, but maybe you win a hole or two, and the experience would be amazing. And it was. In fact, I've never actually played against Keith or Bowen, and I enjoy playing Trent, and I didn't go down four straight in each game. I was shocked, too. I even had a chance to advance in my last game, but Keith made sure that wasn't going to happen. So much good pinball press, too. A nice ABC piece done at Stern headquarters on Friday, plus Melissa Thornley recording many player and spectator interviews on camera on Saturday. And, of course, you can watch the entire stream on YouTube on Papa Pinball. The weekend concluded with the second ever Heads Up Championship. It took place on the Sunday with another generous gift, a new in-box Stern pinball machine for the winner. But there was something on Saturday in which 40 of the top 2017 circuit players attended. Welcome to the Stern Pro Circuit Finals here on Pinball Profile. Joining me right now, three players that advanced to round two in this field of 40. Zach Wollens, John Rapogle, and Brian O'Neill. Zach, did it come down to the last game? You were in a good group. It did come down to the last game. It was 7-5-5-4, and I needed to not lose, and I came in second place and advanced. I don't know which one got in, but one of the sharps got in. Please, please, please, please, please. Which one? Josh Sharp advanced. Great. Awesome. All right. Well, good luck in the second round. John, how about you? What was your match like? That Aerosmith was deadly. That Aerosmith, I won with, what, 9 million points on Aerosmith? It was very mean. Who advanced in your group? Alexander and myself. Oh, the games came from Pittsburgh. All right, whatever. Nothing wrong with that. I'm just kidding. You guys are great players. And Brian from San Francisco, how are things for you? You did well. It came down to the last game for you. Yeah, it came down to the last game. Eric Stone was already through, and so it was down to me and Bob. And so whoever won between the two of us advanced on Star Wars. And even came down to the third ball, too, didn't he? Yeah, it came down to the third ball. I got multi-ball, and that's the rest is history. All right, I'll be watching from the sidelines. Well done, guys. Congratulations. Thanks, Zach. Thank you, Brian, and thank you, John. I am almost embarrassed that I've done, what, 120 of these pinball profiles, and I have yet to talk to one of my favorite people, Crystal Gemnitz, right here. PB Toots here at the Circuit Finals. How are you doing? I'm well. How are you? Good, and I'm loving your fine city. Last night was at Logan Arcade, and today here at the Bottom Lounge for the four games I got to play, but what great facilities here in Chicago. Aren't they awesome? They're very, very good. And you gave me some good recommendations, too, for food. Maybe you want to share some of those if you're in Chicago? Oh, God. Well, if you want to go deep dish, you go to either Lou Malnati's or Gino's East. There's, like, so many different deep dish places. Please say Giordano's. Giordano's, yeah. Go to Giordano's. Oh, God bless you. Go to Giordano's. Do that. Get the deep dish. I'm not a deep dish fan, but. But what was the first one you said? Lou Malnati's. I think that's the one that Roger Sharp told me to check out. That's, like, a classic one, yeah. That's what the locals know about. See, us tourists, we're always into the Gino's and Giordano's. Sure. I want to feel like a local. Yeah. There's also Al's Beef. Al's Beef? Yeah, if you want to get a thing that people in Chicago love. Okay. It's not deep dish pizza, but it's good. God bless the food here in the Midwest. If I'm here a full week, I'm coming back 400 pounds easily. Yeah. Oh, yeah. It's so good. Now, I know we see you a lot on Dead Flip with Jack Danger, who's doing great things. You get a real kick out of it, don't you? I do. I love it. It's fun. I mean, he taught me so much that I know of pinball, and I still get to hang out with him. And, oh, yeah, it's wonderful. Wow, you say dead flip and everyone claps. Or that might have been an event. And let's talk about PB Toots. I mean, that's really incredible what you started there. I think everybody knows. If the one person doesn't know about PB Toots, explain. So PB Toots is a blog where I basically take a tutorial video, like one that Bowen does at the Papa facility, or, you know, if Keith has done one, and Nate Shivers is down the coast-to-coast with the pros. And I'll kind of break it down, and I'll just sort of outline it, and maybe I'll add my own sort of thoughts about how to play it and what I think of it and what I like about it or don't like about it. And I try and just break down the rule sets a little bit and kind of write it in a little bit of a different way so if you learn in a different way, you can understand it. Why is pinball such an obsession for you? For me, it really goes back to my youth. Yeah. It just something you know I like technical things a lot So it kind of a physical game which is really cool I like being able to actually control have some control and I mean there things about pinball that are just wonderful to me Lights you know art everything I just I don know It great So where are we going to see you next? I know obviously on Deadflip. And what about other events for you? You know, I've been kind of ramping up how much I've been going to tournaments. So slowly but surely I've been going to a little bit more. I'm not competing at Pinberg, but I'm going to hang out. Okay. So, yeah, I go to a lot of the local events. I'll go to Bells and Chimes sometimes and stuff like that. So, yeah. I got a nice Bells and Chimes pin from Kate. So did I. From Kate, yeah. Very, very nice. Hand them out like candy. I love seeing them pop up everywhere, and it's just exploding. Oh, it's wonderful. It's so great and positive. The website for Crystal and PBtoots? pbtoots.tumblr.com Or pinballtoots. It's pinballtoots.tumblr.com. You know, just Google it. We're busy having fun. Crystal, great to see you. You too, Jeff. Thank you. Here with one of the top ten finishers at the circuit finals, Greg Pavarelli. You know him as the new Darth Balls on Slamtail Podcast. You won two rounds. I know you're disappointed in the ladder match that you finished fourth on Meteor. But, Greg, honest to God, this field, to win two rounds and to make it to the top ten, congratulations. Thanks, Jeff. Absolutely. I'm actually not that disappointed. It was a close game on Meteor. I probably needed one more shot, but I felt great playing today, and it's always a lot of fun competing against everybody at this level. I think the games are set up in such a way that anyone can get eliminated in this ladder at any moment. So it's going to be extra exciting. The Stearns are draining with no ball saves, and the older games are set fair, but they're always challenging, so it's going to be good stuff. Now, some of the newer games, I assume, came from Stearns. The older ones came from Papa. Were you familiar with all the older games? Actually, believe it or not, going into the second round with Trent picking, It was me, Trent, Josh, and John Rapogle. He picked Galaxy, which is a game I've only played in free play areas, events. And then he picked Catacomb, followed by Free Fall, neither of which I've ever played before. But they're relatively intuitive, and I got lucky on ball three and got a lot of right traps on Free Fall, and I was able to accurately shoot the spinner, so I won that, and that locked it up. I was actually happy Trent was picking the older games. Even if I don't know them, I always feel like it's a little bit more likely that you advance in a round like that. I noticed on Meteor, they took off not only all the rubbers, you know, the center post rubber, the rubbers on the outlanes. They took off the rubbers on the posts on the outlanes. You notice that? Yeah, it's brutal, man. I mean, when you're playing the game like that, every single mistake can kill you. So it's so intense. But the spinner was juice, and you could hit your shot. So it's the same stride as normal. And then on a game like Galaxy, Galaxy, they left all the rubbers on, which I thought was interesting. But it was playing tough. I mean, if you try to hit that candy cane and you hit it hard, it's going to bounce right back. Oh, yeah, that happened to me, definitely. You have to hit it, like, just soft enough. It was at the point where you just want the spinner lit up the middle, and if you get a good shot on it or two, that's going to be enough. And all things considered, even though I love DMD sterns, the way that these are set with the no ball save and the hard settings and, like, the outlings, rubbers off, like you said, it's an equalizer. I think anybody can take a zero playing this Star Wars or this Batman. Okay, interesting. Greg, thanks very much. Hey, thanks for having me, Joe. Where are we going to see you next? I know Sunshine on Wednesdays. Sunshine on Wednesdays, and then where am I going to be next? There's a circuit tournament at Allentown. I'll be there. And then, of course, NYCPC. Everybody should come check it out. And I know I'll be seeing you there for at least in New York City, right? That's right. Absolutely. Well, I'm going to make a prediction here. I've got a feeling that I think Escher Lefkoff is going to make a run for the Final Four. He's had an awesome game in Sea Witch. He had a tiebreaker against Eric Stone, and he blew it up, almost 2 million. Almost perfect ball, too. Yeah. He only played two balls, plunged on third. Thanks, Greg. Thanks, Jeff. If you watch the stream of Galaxy as we were in the final ten, I think it was probably seed 5, 6, 7, 8, give or take one. Keith Elwin, Aaron Grabowski, Escher Lefkoff, and Josh Sharp. We were talking about how to play the game properly, and I'm here with Bob Matthews. Bob definitely knows how to play Galaxy. If you're trying for a decent score on this, basically you want to get two things, the multiplier drop targets and the spinner. I don't like doing transfers from ball to ball. If the ball is coming on the right flipper or I have a cradle there, I'll go ahead and shoot the drops to advance the multiplier, which carries over from ball to ball. If I have the ball on the left flipper, I'll shoot the spinner even when it's not lit. Basically, you need to get the letters up top to light the spinner. But when you do get the spinner lit, it's huge, and basically that and your multiplied bonus beats anything else you can do on the game, whether it's just random saucer collects or the candy cane galaxy letters at the top. That's something no one's going for, the candy cane. It's too dangerous. Right, right. The candy cane, the only time you really want to go for that is if you have the value maxed out. Well, three things. The value from it is maxed out, the kick out from it is reasonably safe, and you don't have the spinner there. And also, you know, your bonus multiplier is maxed. Basically, if there's nothing else worth shooting at, then, you know, then you go ahead and take your Galaxy points. Spinner or Galaxy. At that point, just Spinner or Galaxy. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and Aaron Grabowski was the one person who played it, in my opinion, most correctly, and he got the high score as a result of that. Yeah, okay. Because he was basically shooting it up top to get letters to light the spinner, and then to feed from up top, basically, usually after you throw it through the spinner, it'll come out the right-hand side and hit that upper right bumper and just kind of rattle around, and normally it won't drain on you when it comes out of those bumpers, so it's actually a relatively safe shot. Okay. whereas if you shoot the drops the rebound from the drops can go wherever so I consider trying to light the spinner a safer path to good points than going for the drops but like I say the drops are where your bonus is so if you have it on the right flipper I will take the drops over the spinner most of the time It looked like California was going to be doing okay in your one group. You had Zach Wollens, I believe. You had Brian O'Neill from San Francisco and yourself. And you and Brian came down to the last game, right? Came down to the last game, yeah. And basically, Brian blew up Star Wars. He told me he didn't win it until ball three. He said you were way ahead. Yeah, I was heading in on ball three. He basically blew it up. He got one of the multi-balls. Yeah, not the TIE fighter, you know, like one of the mode multi-balls or whatever, and passed everybody up. And, you know, that's a machine where you can get sling-drained real easy, and it's painful, and it's Star Wars, and that happens. Bob, thanks very much. Thanks, Jeff. Keith Elwin, Final Four at the Papa Circuit event. A tough game of Batman there. What happened on Batman?

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Congratulations, I'm a big fan and I was rooting for you. I'm supposed to say something. Oh, I hate when you do that. I'm supposed to say something. Hold on, I hate when you do, oh my God. Nonsense. Congratulations. Nonsense. Congratulations, Josh. How are you feeling? I'm tired, and I wish I understood how today's tournament was going. I've been told it's going to go very quickly from here on out. I hope it does. I'm feeling good, man. He's sidestepping the big win at the Papa Circuit event, but we are here the next day. He's still wearing the Papa belt. I know you can't see this because it's a podcast. I assume you slept with it last night? I don't have my Papa belt. Just lie with me. This is the theater of the mind. So I won Zach's belt, so I kicked Crystal out of bed and I cuddled with Zach and the belt last night. How's that? Is that good TV? I think good TV. Yeah, yeah. I was wondering, because of the split you and your brother have, it doesn't count for things like pinball machines or belts. Or do you actually have half of his belt last year? Now, hardware we keep ourselves. Okay. The cash, after taxes. Oh, of course. After taxes, the split is after taxes. Elizabeth Caramo sitting beside us here, a representative of the IRS. So now that you won, have you made officially in IFPA the Papa Circuit event a major? No, I've proven that it's not. You will never win a major. Oh, Elizabeth! Second place all day. Actually my favorite thing you said yesterday you were in a four game and you weren sure of the order and you go am I in second And I yelled out Always But that was not the case yesterday No it was a good day It was a good day And what about the cheers Now, people watching the stream on Papa Pinball were hearing you against Colin Urban, and there was huge cheers when you won. I want to point out to everybody here, Josh is from Chicago. He had several family members there. There was not one pinball player that cheered. It was all family members. Family members are the people that I paid to be here. That too, exactly. I mean, it's hard for Colin to get people from Portland. You stacked the place, man. You know, you can mess with a kid's psyche much easier than an adult's psyche. So that's what I did. So now that you won, are you going to be able to convince Amanda? What is this, now that I won what? Like, I've won before, Jeff. Whoa! God! Now that you've won your first tournament in what seems like forever. Since Freeplay Florida Classics, yeah. Go ahead. Listen, I made the finals. Somebody else did that. I made the finals there. It wasn't that big of a deal, all right? You wait until all the heavyweights come this year. You had to knock off me. That's not a win. Although, who won the heads-up challenge? Uh-huh. Who did? You and I had a little match play challenge. Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, I forgot that, didn't you? Yeah. That was direct. No, that was for charity. Yeah, exactly. Anyway, now I have to ask you that you've won this big tournament. Yes. Finally. I've won other big tournaments. I haven't heard any of them. Anyway, has Amanda said, okay, maybe you can play a few more? Are you still? Are you nuts? You know how much trouble I was in last night? Because I was almost literally after two balls. I was in fourth place after two balls every round. So I was texting like, I'll be home after this next ball. And then I was like, sorry, just kidding. Next round, I'll be home after this next ball. That is a good point because I think of the game with Escher and I think of the game with Stephen Bowden when they played and picked the games and they just got terrible house balls. But you were not as good. Like you really squeaked in on those two rounds. I did. Yesterday was a day of playing just well enough. I had a ton of third-place finishes, which normally I'd be eliminated. You play three third-places in a row and you're out in a pop-up group, but that's three advances yesterday. To be honest, before we started, two things happened. One, I wished you good luck on video. It's been caught on Pinball Profile. And two, you were sitting looking for handouts and I threw a dollar in your cup. That made the difference. Admit it. It helped. I can't lie. It helped. It was a big weight off your shoulders to have the pinball profile karma on your side. I'm going to take it and run with it. The real question is, will you give it to me again at some point? Maybe. Or is that too much to ask? I don't know. I don't know where this relationship is going. I want you to know that I'm making, and these are going to be for sale, Team Josh shirts. They're going to have the pinball profile logo in the O. It might say in small print underneath membership a dollar. But these will be available soon. We're here at the Heads Up Championship at Bottom Lounge in Chicago. My first time doing this challenge, and I wasn't sure what I was going to think about this. You know, it's not really the way people play pinball. I have to say, first-hand experience, a lot of fun. Congratulations on that. And do you think there'll be more of these? I mean, it's easy to have these when Stern is sponsoring the event with duplicates of every title. That's a pretty big hurdle to be able to run stuff like this. But, I mean, and also the prizes are fantastic. Now, let's not forget that Stern Pinball has now twice given away a great pinball machine. Yeah, for this. And it doesn't have to be a machine to do this, but that certainly makes it nice. And it really has attracted a lot of people. So congratulations, Josh. Oh, this is... Thanks. I'm going to, you know what, record like five more minutes privately of you congratulating me so I can hear it for the first time. Well, I have sound bites of you. We're good. Anyway, thanks, Josh. Yeah. Josh Sharp, the PAPA Circuit Champion. Let that sink in for a little while. I got to say, I am glad I was there to see it when it happened. I know he'll screw up later, but this weekend was one for him. And the Sharps, yes, Sharps. The Heads Up Championship went to Zach Sharp, who beat Bowen Cairns in the finals. Congrats to Zach. And can I tell you, if you've never played in a Heads Up Challenge and you get the chance to do it, do it. It was way more fun than I thought it was going to be, so I'm looking forward to the next one. Well done to Josh and to Stern Pinball for making it happen. You can probably count on one hand the number of times annually that a pinball machine is given away in a tournament. If you watch the stream on Papa Pinball on YouTube, make sure the next time you see people like Fred, Elizabeth, Doug, John, and all the people, Mike Primo was there as well, all the people that put that broadcast together. It's one thing to be there at the event and jump in the booth, which is great help too, to bring it to everyone. The setup involved to make this tournament happen, the truck from Pittsburgh with the games, the entire day of setup, and then the entire day of loading up. I wish more people saw how much effort was put in by the good people of Pittsburgh at PAPA. So as we wrap up, I think that's about all the nice words I could say to the Sharps in one show, maybe even for the entire year, so who knows. But it is going to be an exciting week with Iron Maiden being announced as the new Stern pinball machine at the Saturday night event. congratulations to Keith Elwin on your first mass-produced machine to Tim Sexton and the rest of the Stern programming team that helped bring Eddie to the pinball world with Iron Maiden Legacy of the Beast if you're interested and I imagine you will be perhaps tune in to Dead Flip with Jack Danger on Tuesday could be worth your while until next time this has been episode 117 of Pinball Profile you can find our group on Facebook we're also on Twitter at Pinball Profile email us pinballprofile at gmail.com and please subscribe on either iTunes, Stitcher, or Google Play. I'm Jeff Teolis.