Welcome back It's time for another Pinball Profile I'm your host Jeff Teels You can find everything on pinballprofile.com We're on Twitter and Instagram at pinballprofile You can email pinballprofile at gmail.com We have a great Facebook group as well And if you'd like to show your support Don't worry, it's not necessary The show will always be free But you can show your support on patreon.com slash pinball profile like great people including Colin M, Cliff A, Tony V, Rodney C, and so many others. Today's a pretty big day. Here I am getting ready for Indisc next week, one of pinball's majors. You know, there are three majors. Oh, wait a second. There are four because guess what's back? Pinberg is back and joining me right now, the TD organizer, if you will, Doug Polka. Doug, how are you? Very exciting. I'm doing great. It's great to hear somebody say Pimberg is back. Oh, well, for those that don't know, I mean, people have heard of this mythical, wonderful tournament and we last saw it in 2019. Where did it go? Well, unfortunately, this stupid pandemic kind of ruined everything. But here we are with Pimberg again, kind of building back up, if you will. Yeah, it's super excited. We've been, you know, me and basically a team of locals have been working for pretty much the last two and a half years to try and make this a reality. I didn't see this coming. And the reason I say that is the Replay Foundation back, and I can't remember the year, maybe 2021, sold all of the games. I know people that have bought several of the games. So the games are gone. So I didn't think Pinberg would ever happen again. But I guess some of the games stayed local too or were purchased locally. Yeah, there were a few local collectors. I won't mention their names in case, you know, they don't want to be outed here, who bought a sizable chunk of the old Replay Foundation slash Papa Games. I was one of them. And the idea even back then was we want to buy some of these games that we know we aren't going to be able to see again in hopes that we could use them in another Pinbird tournament. And here we are. It made sense that the Replay Foundation went away with the unknown entity of the pandemic. And look how long it took for things to get back to quote-unquote normal if we're even there yet. But I guess it's exciting to hear you and some of the other locals have always kind of, okay, you know what? It's gone now, but we can get it back. And here we are for 2024. We've got what is known as the Pinberg World Match Play Championships in July, but there's a lot more than just that. What's going on that weekend? Pinberg is going to be the same format as it's been in the past. You're going to play against three other people in banks of four games across all eras of pinball. We've also added a couple other tournaments. Whipped will be returning again. That was in the last few years of ReplayFX, the women's event. We're also going to be adding a strikes event at the location of Pinberg the night before Pinberg. So it's a really good chance for actually any players that are in the event. We're also welcoming anybody who's not in the event that just wants to come out and play on the Pinberg Games to enter into that as well. And we're kind of re-theming the old Intergalactic tournament as something we call Bash at the Berg, which will be a best game format as well. And that will be open to, once again, anybody who wants to come out and play in it. So that's four different events here. And the dates are? So the entire thing runs from July 24th through July 28th, with Pinnberg running the 25th through the 27th of July. WIPP takes place on the 28th, and again, that three-strikes tournament is on the Wednesday, the 24th, and they bash at the bird, kind of qualifying throughout. So you can find out more information at pinberg.com, but it's great to have you here on the podcast to go over some of these things. You just said something there that's pretty awesome. So if you're not one of the lucky people that gets into the Pinberg World Match Play Championship, you can still play in the Strikes tournament on Wednesday. You can still play in Bash at the Berg. Maybe you could be lucky enough to get in one of those 64 spots of Whipped. So there's other things going on should you not make the match play event. That's pretty exciting. Yeah, we wanted to provide an opportunity for, since we have to scale it down a little bit this year, we wanted to provide an opportunity for anybody who might be interested in just traveling out and seeing what we're doing, or any locals maybe that don't get in to come out and play some competitive pinball. Well, you mentioned scaling it down a little bit. Yeah, in 2019, a thousand players. All the games were sold, so it makes sense that you have to walk before you can run. And to build this up right now, we're looking at about 120 players. That number may change a little bit. Yeah, we're looking at 120 tickets are going to go on sale for Pimberg. Working with venue we have. There's a possibility we'll be able to expand that a little bit. But for this first year back, we're really just focused on making sure we can still run one of the best tournaments in the world. And rather than trying to jam as many people as possible into it, we want to create one of the best tournament experiences we can. Well, that's the reputation that Pembroke always had. You know, there was the wonderful social aspect of different groups in each round over the two different days. And really, it was how well run it was. All these people that are running this, like yourself, like Elizabeth Cromwell, like so many other people, Bowen Cairns is going to be part of this as well. We always admired on the outside looking in, holy cow, these people are dedicated and giving up their time. And it's not just that weekend. It's the weeks and months beforehand to put this together. And they're not even getting to participate in it. They're making sure everybody who comes to Pittsburgh and this Pinberg event, if you will, has a wonderful time. And that kind of really set the bar and made this reputation. I've come across so many people in the last four years, oh, I wish I never got to go to Pinberg. It's my big regret. Well, here we are in 2024 with an opportunity. And you have mentioned to me that this is going to happen in the future years and with some opportunities of growth as well. Yeah, I'm hoping people take our announcement well and sign up to play in this year's Pimberg. And we've already got a tentative agreement with a venue for 2025. We're looking to at least double the size of the tournament for 2025 and continue to grow it further and further every year after that. Okay, so that's very reassuring for people thinking, oh, I might not be able to get into this. Well, it's like that even when it was 1,000 people. whatever number you came up with, there are going to be some people that are going to be disappointed that they didn't get in. Understood. But I would say to those people, it better that you doing this and doing something than nothing at all Doug you said plans to grow That is very encouraging because so many people over the last four years have told me oh, I never got to go to Pinnberg, and now it's back, and it will grow from year to year. It's certainly starting off small, but you have to be able to do something that's manageable. And you found a new location. Let's talk about where we're going to be for 2024. So the location for 2024 is Resonene Esports, which is basically an esports arena slash business that's located in Bridgeville, Pennsylvania, which is not actually it's probably only about five minutes from the old Carnegie Papa building. So if you're an old school Papa fan, you've been to this area before. It's a brand new facility. It just opened this year, 2023, and been hosting eSports competitions. And they've hosted some smaller pinball tournaments that we've run for them. And the opportunity basically came up when we were looking for potential hosts. We mentioned the tournament forum and they're like, how can we help you pull this off? So we suckered them in and now they've got to help us pull it off. No, it looks great. You showed me a video of this place and I was just in awe. I think that's going to be very unique and very welcoming to a big pinball tournament like this and everything that's going on that entire week. The tickets are going to go on sale on February the 5th. That's a Monday. And I couldn't help but notice that's F5 day. I think Steve Bowden once called it getting past round zero, getting your ticket. I love that. Yeah. So that was intentional as we were kind of figuring out where the dates were going to fall for everything. We thought that F5 would be funny to people that have been through the ticket buying experience before, or maybe completely frustrating to the people that have been through the ticket buying expense before. We thought it was a nice little nod to the past. Mac users have no idea what you're talking about, but us Windows users know what you mean? They do not. I actually told somebody local about that, Jake Kolajacek, who's helped us in the past and was part of planning this one out. And when we came up with that date, I mentioned it to him and he's like, I don't get it. And then I found out he was a Mac user. I got it. I thought it was funny. So we're going to start with 120 players so far with the possibility of expanding for the World Match Play Championship. Yeah, we're starting out with 120 players this go-around. We're really focused on running one of the best tournaments and providing one of the best experiences in competitive pinball. There might be a little wiggle room to add some more people, but at this point, I wouldn't be willing to promise anything. So the divisions have changed, an A and B division only with 16 players in each making the playoffs. Yeah, we're going to do two divisions, 16 qualifiers per division, so no buys, But there will be top qualifier prizes for both A and B divisions that still give players that incentive to go for first overall in their division. I see $25,000 in prize money. That's pretty impressive, and I want to put things into perspective. I thought it was amazing when you had 100,000 out of 1,000 people, but you have 120 players and you have 25,000. Proportionally, that's a lot more in prize money. Yeah, it was important to us to have a decent-sized prize pool because we know that does attract some players and that draws some attention. And we really want to have that feeling that comes with pinball being a big, important event, even if it can't be big in player size. Well, we should definitely thank the title sponsors, if you will, because they're a big part of that prize pool. And that would include Flippin' Out Pinball Distributor, Zach and Nicole Menne, who do wonderful things in North America. Barrels of Fun. They gave us a great game. In fact, I believe Elizabeth Cromwell might have game number one of Labyrinth. She did purchase the first production Labyrinth. So if you want to play the first production Labyrinth, I can pretty much guarantee that we'll be at Pimburn for you. There you go, your first game reveal right now. But that's good. And thanks to Neil McRae and everyone there at Pinball Republic. Look, UK Open is a big sponsor of this Pinberg activity. So, again, flipping out barrels of fun and UK Open, thank you so much for making this possible because I would imagine, Doug, it's probably not doable without great sponsors. Yeah, we're very grateful that when we approached them with the idea of what we were doing, that they believed in the idea and they believed in the people behind it, that they were willing to sponsor it and help make this possible. So it means a lot for us. I know you got Josh's blessing to bring back this as a major because of what you're doing, what you've done in the past, what you're planning on doing beyond this year. So that's exciting to see this come back. And another piece of good news, you know, if you're going to put on this World Match Play Championship and be one of the IFPA majors, you better have a pretty good streamer there. You got IE Pinball, somebody by the name of Carl D'Angelo. I hear he does good things. Yeah, and somebody had suggested we go with this Carl guy, and I really haven't seen his work, but I hear it's pretty good. Well, you're charitable. Fingers crossed. You've got some months to get up to speed. Oh, we'll find out what he's doing next week at Indisc, and I know it's going to be a lot of fun. So all the pieces are there. This is big. I'm excited beyond belief. And, again, February 5th, go to pinberg.com to find out the details and the times of when you need to be hammering that F5 button and get your ticket. Whipped, we haven't really talked much about. 64 of the best women in the world. It's always been one of the biggest women's championships that you can find anywhere. We've had some great winners. I know Nicole and Holly were previous winners. Who will it be in 2024? We'll have to find out. I'm glad to see even smaller scale this year in 2024 that Whipped is a big part of what you do this year and moving forward. Yeah, it was really important that we bring that back as well. So we reached out to Kate Martin and her and Elizabeth Cromwell and Sarah Kweichen are working on that tournament and getting it up and running. But we're really excited to bring that back as well. So I guess there's a lot to happen between now and July 24th when the big weekend happens again. February 5th is the day you can purchase tickets. Some more announcements will happen between now and then. Eventually, we'll find out what the banks are. You've been planning this for a while. What's it like for you and the rest of the people organizing this over the next few months? because in years past, you used to have things like Fight Club to get the games ready. So I guess that's part of the reason for the Strikes tournament and other things that you're going to be doing. What goes on in the next few months for you Over the next couple of months we going to continue to work on getting the rules and everything up to date Obviously there a lot of stuff that we have to repurchase that we had for previous Pembergs like the banners and stuff. We do want to display that kind of stuff at the location. But the banners we had before were scaled so big as to fit the convention center, and it's too big for where we're at now, so we've got to get all new banners made. We've actually had techs working on games for months already, believe it or not. We will have some testing sessions as well for some of the games. We won't be able to do what we did before because we don't have the same facility as we had before, but there's going to be a lot of game testing going down, a lot of refining the banks before we announce them, reaching out to people to finish out our volunteer base and all that stuff. There's still a lot to do, but we're really excited to be doing it. It's the most difficult tournament to run, and I've done a small, small, small scale of something like that. It wasn't even four games in a bank. It was three games in a bank. I cheated. And I see the wonderful work, and you've probably seen and heard what Derek and the Die Hard crew do out in Edmonton with their Yegpin wonderful match play event, and they've had it over a couple hundred people, and they're doing it again in June. It's not easy to do this, to have that many machines, to have that many techs, TDs, volunteers. If it was easy to do, everyone would do it, but it's not. And I know the reason I bring up Derek and Yagpin is his favorite tournament has always been Pinberg, and he wanted to kind of recreate it, especially with The Void, and they do a wonderful job. And that's got to make you feel good to know, okay, we've certainly done some inspiring of other tournaments and kind of set the bar, really. Yeah, I was really happy, actually. when I saw that places like Yagpin were running the Pinberg format because we weren't doing it anymore. It was nice to see that tradition carried on. A funny story about just how mind-bogglingly difficult everything is when you look back in hindsight. I was at the Pittsburgh Pinball Dojo about a week ago, and they have some of the old replay games there. and going into the last year of Pinnberg, we had numbers on the games basically saying what bank it was going into, which game number it was. And I walked up to Medusa that's there and the number on it was 83. And I was like, holy crap, we had 83 banks in Pinnberg before. 83 banks of four games apiece. So I think for the last one we ran with 1,000 people, we had over 400 games just used in Pinnberg, which we won't be at that this year. But that, you know, it's kind of amazing that we had built up a team that could do that. And quite frankly, the team was so good at doing that, that it didn't really seem that difficult to pull off. You know, and it's a lot smaller scale this year. But like I said before, I hope we give people that same experience. What I remember was there were three groups of four assigned to a bank, and one would start on, say, the solid state, one would start on the EM, and one would start on maybe the DMD. One thing I always admired, I don't know how you did it, I guess the testing and the experience, and one thing I loved about PIMBURG, and I'm sure we'll see it again in 2024, is that you always knew when you started. Your group was so dedicated to making sure things were punctual, and that's a nice comfort level as a player, too. not having the stress of, oh, when am I up, when am I up, or I've got to wait. You know, if you get done early, great. Maybe you can go over and do some best games on Bash at the Berg or whatever. Grab something to eat. I assume that's going to be the same case, maybe three groups per bank? Yeah, we're going to run 12 players per bank, so three groups of four. And we will use some of the past Pimberg data we have on game timings and some new data that we will create this year, I'm sure, to try and dial those in. because that's probably the most difficult part of running a tournament like this, is to make the games difficult enough that you can still hit your windows for rounds without having to shorten anybody's gameplay time, and not make the games ridiculously difficult, which I know there will be people out there that said we made some of them ridiculously difficult, but we really tried not to. We tried to make it so that the games were playable and everybody still had a chance. So on day two, because this is a tiered Swiss format, if you're doing well near the last few rounds, you're going to be playing with the quote-unquote better players. And for some stupid reason, I was flying too close to the sun, and I got stuck with nobody will know these names, but I'll just say them anyway. Escher Lefkoff, Raymond Davidson, and Derek Thompson, who I just mentioned from Yagpin. So these slouches and myself were in a group of four, and for some strange reason, we were playing really well. and I kind of said, hey, you know what? I might not win Pinberg, but we can be the last group done, and there's honor in that.