Josh! Ah! Savior of the universe! One dollar at a time, time, time, time, time! Josh! Ah! He saved every one of us! No, he won't. He won't even beat us either. It's time for another Pinball Profile. I'm your host, Jeff Teolis. 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. Let's bring him on, Josh Sharpe. How are you, buddy? It's kind of like deja vu. I feel like we've done this before. I hate redoing. It drives me nuts, Jeff, that we have to simulate the questions that you're going to ask me that I genuinely answered the first time, and now I have to think about what I answered the last time and re-say it now. Did you ever think that maybe your answers were so bad I didn't want to embarrass you? Yeah, I thought, this guy's the president. Maybe he should sound more presidential. My answers are gold, man. I think what it is is you were flubbing some of your lines that you wanted to say, and he just didn't want to air it. You threw the baby out with the bathwater. Wow. First, let's begin right away. I have to do an apology to the millions and millions of Pinball Profile listeners, followers on Facebook. You know how Mrs. Pin has a doppelganger for me and doppelgangers for everyone, right? I've seen it, yeah. Good stuff. Well, there's obviously a doppelganger that I don't know about for myself because he sounds like me and he had access to my Facebook because on the Christopher Franchi episode, I talked about how I really like you and I respect you and all that kind of stuff. Somebody got a hold of my mic. Somebody produced that. Somebody put that through. Somebody typed on Facebook that I'm a big fan of you and Ryan C. I'm just here to say that wasn't me. Now, just that part wasn't you or everything that you wrote in that post wasn't you? Because there was a lot of good stuff in there too. Are you only claiming the non-me and Ryan C. stuff as your own? Yeah, I think so. That's about it. because listen could you imagine if Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd were best friends pretty boring cartoon yeah rabbit season not rabbit season are we in rabbit season right now duck season duck season that's right so anyway what's up doc my flight leaves in three days or whenever you're posting them yeah we're recording this on Wednesday I believe Wednesday the 23rd but it'll air a little bit later I have to clean up your mistakes it's not an easy job tell me about You should talk to my wife sometime about that. I did try talking to your wife. By the way, for those who don't know, I did send an email to Amanda. Hi, my name is Jeff Teolas. I'm a big fan of Josh. I would love to interview you. Well, when you were watching the New York City Pinball Championship and I was on the screen talking to whomever, you said, that's the guy who's emailing you. And still no response from Amanda. To be fair, her sister had a baby yesterday, so she's a little preoccupied right now. I'll go with that excuse, and I hope that's it. That works. That works. I'm an uncle today. Woo-hoo! Congratulations. You'll be an uncle later this year, too, as well. I know, man. It's crazy. Congratulations to the Sharp family. Yeah! IFPA 15, we're here getting ready for Press Start Arcade in the week that has all those different events. It's major time. Is this when you start sweating? Let me see. How did I answer this the last time? Stop it. Is this panic attack time for Josh Sharpe? I don't panic, man. I don't panic. For this event specifically, Zach and I are organizers first, players a distant second. So a lot of our anxiety for this tournament falls around, please, Lord, don't have like, I don't know, in Denver when the roof collapsed on us and it was pouring inside the tournament facility, that kind of anxiousness of like, what's going to go wrong? Sorry, you got to tell me what that story, what was that? I know some people know that. I don't know that. It's crazy. In Denver, they have since gotten their roof repaired, but there was a crazy thunderstorm, and the roof collapsed, and it started literally pouring into our pool of games. And there was standing water that was approaching one of the banks of games, and we were trying to get people off of the games. You know how hard it is to pull people off of a game that they're playing? They don't want to leave ever. people were concerned that they were going to lose their status of their scores. And it's like, you're going to die. Move away from the game. Everybody, please, before anyone dies. And it was that nuts. It was all the Game Exchange guys did the best they could to sort of put up barriers for the water to not keep entering the room. But it was extreme high anxiety. Well, hold on a second. I've done my share of match play, and I've done a few pump and dumps, and I've even done the heads-up challenge, pin golf as well. Well, I like the idea of this Survivor Series where last person not electrocuted. It's dead. We almost had it. I think it was like someone was on Sorcerer and like literally, I think it was like an international guy who maybe didn't speak a whole lot of English but would not leave playing his ball. He was asking for it, man. I get high anxiety about organizing this, especially because we don't have a dedicated facility like, you know, the Papa guys do. We're a traveling road show. So, you know, when we show up, we're not confident in what we're going to expect on the other end. And, you know, we don't have the opportunity to fly in a couple of months earlier and sort of check and see how it's going. And for this year, obviously, with Adam, who's an integral part of, you know, what IFA does day to day, it's the most confident I've ever been going into World Championships from an organizing side of things. Very confident in what Adam has done and all of the time and effort and money that he's spent to build this freaking facility specifically for this. It's nuts. You tell me. Calm my nerves even more or give me some anxiety to worry about. I can't imagine a place. And you know what? You think of how many people run the PAPA facility and how great it is with all those techs. It sounds like I'm overstating it, but Adam has done such a great job in those games. And I think you're going to see that kind of level. Now, obviously, things can happen once you start playing the tournament. Things can break down. That happens, but I'm telling you, they're in tip-top shape. He has done a couple of tournaments where he's basically looking for people to break the machines. Try this, try this. Let me know about every detail, and he's very, very good. I mean, this is his pride and joy. This is definitely a big moment for him and for IFPA and for Canada, too. We're excited to have the big event here. And that being said, we might as well announce it right here because some people are worried, oh, what about passports? Don't even bring them. You don't need them. Trying to get into the tournament. I know, I know it. Maybe a little bit. Sneaky, sneaky, sneaky. There's no point bringing your passports. It's going to bulk you down. We're a friendly country. Just come on in. There's no wall here. It's exciting, man. It's great. You know, one of my favorite parts setting up this championship all those years ago was getting to experience, you know, the whole world of pinball players. You know, there's these people, you know, especially from the country, some of the bigger Swedish guys or whatever, that attend other majors. You know, there's a lot of people, this is their one big event a year that they go to, whether it's like you get to see like a Christian from Hungary or Julio from Spain. There's these guys, like I'm looking forward to seeing Johannes from Germany this year. He's sort of the new like hotness of what's going on. He's the new hotness? Is that what you just said? He's the new hotness, man. He's like 16 years old and he's ranked like sixth today. He's like top six or seven. He's 16. So, thank goodness Adam has everything set up for IFPA 15, and there's going to be the exciting pre-tournaments at Bluffs, at Eddie's, at the Durham League, in Pickering, and then also at Cabin Fever on Bloor Street West in Toronto on the Tuesday, Wednesday. Lots of pinball, even if you're not in IFPA 15. And, of course, it will be streamed by our good friends from Buffalo Pinball, Nick and Kevin, and they're going to be posting that after the fact, not live because of, obviously, the Internet connection that is up in Keswick. But anyway, that aside, it's going to be great to see all those people there. I do think so. I think Adam is going to attempt to stream the Epstein Cup on Thursday night. Okay. And just see how it goes with his Internet connection. No guarantees, but like the Buffalo guys, we will make sure we have something quality in the can for the archives. That chat room will be mighty quiet, though. Speaking of chat there been a lot of talk about the major thing that you talked about the 25 boost Want to bring that up There has not been a lot of chat Oh, there's been tons. You did not know that that was brought up until I brought it up to you the last time we tried to record this. I have no idea what you're talking about. Just go with me here. Tell me what it is, and I will confirm or correct you since everyone's talking about it. What have you heard, Jeff? Well, there's the four majors that, I mean, you know so well. I do. I may have finished second in all of them. Not here. Go on. There are other events that are pretty significant. A case in point might be the North American Championship, the country championships. Those might get a little boost of 25% in Whopper points in the future, correct? That is correct. That'll be a 2019 change. Some people are saying, wait a second, that's not fair because I'm not in the top 24 or whatever the qualifiers are for the country. But I actually can't believe I'm doing this again. Oh, my doppelganger is in here again defending Josh. Everyone can qualify for that. You just have to play a lot of tournaments in your country and then you get to the top 24. So I kind of side with you there, Josh. Oh, gosh, I feel sick. Yeah, well, it's like, so the real reason for why we have these artificial booths is, like, I think I use the example of Bluffs, which is a very, it's a very solid example. There's an opportunity at one of these pre-tournaments for everyone that's going to IFPA 15 to play in the Bluffs event. And according to our formula, the value of Bluffs would be exactly equal to the value of our World Championship. and I don't think that those should be worth the same. Way to make friends at Bluffs. Make sure you stop by there when you're in Toronto. Way to go. You know what I mean? You can sense the difference between what's online in terms of the prestige of the history of competitive pinball and what it means. I know there's been some people that have not supported our artificial increase in the past, and there will be people that don't support it this time as well with the country championships that we are hosting now through all the countries that are participating around the world. But to us, there is something significant outside of the numbers of what the event means that we deem to be valuable. Will this be retroactive or only moving forward? It will be retroactive. Are you serious? I think so. I don't know. Probably. Hold on a second. Now I do have a bone. because isn't one of those major minors perhaps the Stern Pro Circuit Finals? It is not. Oh, you're not going to do it. I stand corrected. I thought you were going to boost up your little belt trophy there. No, no, no. I couldn't do that. Me? Help myself in some way? Are you nuts? Only on April 1st, right? Hey, that worked. That was much better. This year's April 1st went way better than last year's April 1st. You know, I do want to compare this year to last year. We're now almost coming up to the halfway point of the year. There's been a big change this year with the dollar membership. What are the stats like? I know it's going to be difficult because you're driving and talking and texting. I'm looking at the total events. In 2017, there were 4,830. This year, and we're not even at the halfway point, 1,790, just under 1,800. so not quite half but you kind of thought we would lose a little bit didn't you i did but i also don't like usually fourth quarter and becker's probably a better person to talk to since he does all of the approvals and submissions these days but the fourth quarter we see a spike of people that are like trying to get into their state championship so you'll see people running especially in december like more events to try to make a cut or not so i think like through may or We didn't check through May because it's still May, but through April, it's pretty much even with last year. So there hasn't been a drop, but they're also, like, if you look back, you see the numbers in front of you that go like 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014? Yep. We're definitely not seeing the growth that we've seen in all of the previous years for all of time. You know, we've never stayed the same. If you look at those numbers, and I think Dennis from Eclectic Gamers did some research on those numbers, and it's been like double-digit percent growth every year, and we are not seeing that this year. So it's safe to say it's contracted a little bit, but when we have been working through the details of the dollar, the fact, like, there's a lot of weekly tournaments now that submit monthly instead of weekly, so they don't have to pay every week. It's more economical for them. So they're playing as much, just not as many quote-unquote events. Well, also, too, that's a smart thing for you, too, that you capped the number of events that count for your state or provincial championship, too, because you only get the top 20. You can still have a lot of events, but only your top 20 count. So if you've got a decent 20 base or maybe it's not worth a lot, maybe you don't show up. So that might have changed things a little bit as well. Yeah, yeah. And that was part of the, you know, we weren't sure if we were going to do the cap or not, only because it's one of those things where if everything was a failure, you'd start pointing to, well, why did things blow up? Was it because of the cap? Was it because of the dollar? Was it because of the this? You know, changing one thing at a time is usually the best way to go. Did you ever look in the mirror and say, maybe it was me? Maybe. Maybe. Just saying. But no, I am super, super pleased. I mean, I think even the haters that I think like after a month in, there were sort of people were prodding me for like, do you think it's working? Where do you see it now? And it's like people have stopped even asking me how it's going because I think it's pretty clear that it's going fine. You know what I mean? Like it's not destroying everything, but I mean, it is definitely adjusting what we're seeing down a little bit. Hold on a second. I'm just getting a message from Wisconsin. Are they still ticked at you? No, not that I see. And even I know Hilton has his Matt Rowland event that's in September. And I saw that they have a sponsor that's going to cover the IFPA fees. So, you know, someone that went, I'm totally done with this, is now, obviously, it's one of the biggest tournaments in Wisconsin. I'm a big actions over words guy. So, you know, there was a lot of noise around the changes. So that's just, there's a lot of noise around everything involved. So for me, it just comes down to the numbers. I haven't noticed. Well, what about locally? Because you had some league stuff, right, with the Dots. It hit you guys specifically, right, like your area. It did, and we respected that some people didn't want to be associated. We did lose some members that just didn't want anything to do with the IFPA, even though in these seven years they've always been in the IFPA. But it was a principal thing. So myself, a player named Mark Foy, and Ian Ian Harrower, we're all the executive of this one league. We decided, you know what, we'll pay for the league. We'll pay for the players anyway. Pretty good chance we're going to be in the provincial championship anyway, right? So, you know what, we'd rather... You'd rather give that back? Well, it's not so much that. It's just, you know, if you don't want to contribute to it, that's fine. It's not a lot of money. We're not going to be making or losing. So, you know, we want people to play because we really like the league. So that being said, and there are other leagues that do that too. I understand that. So the numbers are going to be down a little bit as far as events, but the real question is what about the players? And looking at last year in 2017, just under 20,000 different people played pinball. This year, and we're not even at June already, there's almost 12,000 people that have played. No shit. You can't swear on the show, you big mouth. Deep it out. Deep it out, man. I didn't know that, actually. I hadn't looked. I figured we were at like eight. I figured we were lagging. So that probably means we are still seeing a growth of pinball. Maybe not in events, but that's really not the metric you need to look at. It's total number of players. Which brings me to my next point, Josh. And I'm asking you because you know a lot more about pinball than anybody. You've been to so many different tournaments. You've been there before when there wasn't the Never Drains software. And you had to take the score and put it on the board and then see where you stood and all that kind of craziness. Well now thank God we have the never software and other great software programs like Match Play These tournaments are still getting pretty big Lineups are still pretty big Do you think we going to get to a point where TVs are like it just too much Maybe there's some people that aren't happy. They have to wait 40 minutes in between games. If there's a tournament, they're kind of stuck there. Do you think we'll see more limited entry tournaments? I think it really depends on the motivation of the tournament directors and what else there is, the other entertainment, right? For me, I never get to enjoy replay because I'm playing Pinberg. But obviously, that's a format that's limited, but it takes up a lot of time, not more time than most unlimited tournaments. Yeah, you didn't look like you were enjoying replay. Good point. Not at the end, especially. No, but I do think that managing, and you were in New York, so I don't know how bad the queues were, but like trying to manage like do we want to squeeze more people into this to do that and keep it unlimited we need more games i mean it's like a spinning plates act so at some point you just need to decide as a td crew like if it was oversaturated you need more games for the same amount of people and it's like if you want more people then you need even more games and at some point if you're limited on games like for us for pin masters you know we're limited on games because of the course that we designed that were sort of stuck with 72 players as sort of that max for us come hell or high water because we don't want to open a third tee time and be there, you know, for 13 hours a day, 15 hours a day. But I think it's just because the TDs are the ones that are volunteering their time and effort, I think it falls on them to make what they want. I do think that it is far easier to run a limited entry event than an unlimited entry event as a TD. you don't have to worry about scorekeepers for 24 hours a day and two-hour shifts. Well, the big thing we're seeing is even some great players say, you know what, yeah, there's a main or there's a classics or there's a women's, and maybe you can play in all three, but I'm picking and choosing because I want to qualify in at least one of them, and if I spend attention in different ones, I might not qualify in any of them. So we're seeing some top players, a lot in New York, say, I'm just going to play one and not the other. Anybody who avoided classics in New York? Steven Bowden only played like a few hours. Oh, no kidding. Was it because of like focusing on A or whatever? Yeah. So it's a good data point. Yeah, I did it. I did it for Papa last year. Yeah, but you were going away, though. You had to go to your child's birthday. I did, but like when I came back, there's still, I mean, it's like a buffet, right? Like all the options are out there. I could do whatever I want. Except when? I think it's, except when, oh, come on. I can do. Hilarious. well i guess good man it's good it's good to have a smorgasbord is that a word of of things to choose from and if there's 18 classics divisions and women's and split flippers and teams and main and whatever like it's great it's great if if the teens are willing to put in the time and effort to do it it's cool to have to make a decision as a player to be able to like partake in as much or as little as you want. So before I leave you, I do want to ask you about... Please, please. I only have 43 minutes left on my drive. Please, hurry. Yeah, I don't want to do 43 minutes with you. I don't. That's like head-to-head territory. That head-to-head championship was a lot of fun, actually. I really enjoyed it. And I was a doubter. You know that. Yeah. I didn't know if I would like it because I don't know a lot of the new rules and maybe even how to do some of the things, but the objectives were pretty easy. And you could ask, this time, unlike the first time down in Vegas, how do I do that? Or at least just explain what the mission really is. And it was explained. Then it was kind of a fair game. Then it was, you know, not based on rules knowledge. It was based on skill and timing. And not that I did well, but I'm just saying at least I felt like I had a fair opportunity. And it was fun. And you'd see some of the people glance over. How are they doing? I'm so into that. I think if you get a chance to play the Heads Up Tournament, you've got to do it. and it didn't hurt that there was a great prize to give away when Zach won that new machine. Everyone needs a WWE in their lives, Jeff. Let's be honest, Zach doesn't have that now, but somebody's very happy. Somebody's happy, and Bowen's half happy. Yeah, you get none of that, don't you, because you're split. How does that work? We have a clause in our brother contract that we don't split games. So I hired Adam Lefkoff as my attorney for the evening as Zach and Bolin were discussing splitting, that does that make the game then a cash transaction that would then fall into the brother split? And Zach's argument was, no, the prize is the machine. And then what he does with that or whatever is his business. So I got nothing from that. But technically, Zach won half of my winnings. And I won like $300 or something. So from Zach winning, I had to pay him half of my winnings. Wow. How fair is that? The last time I hired a left-calf, man, he let me down. Aren't you two like black belts? Why don't you guys just duke it out? Go Mortal Kombat on each other. Where did you hear that? Zach told me. Oh, okay. I was making fun of Zach online. We were talking about things, and he goes, it's Zach, it's not Josh. And I went, ah, yeah, same boat. And he goes, hey, I just want to warn you I'm a black belt. I'm like, whoa, stand down, Cobra Kai. Second degree, man. I've had second degree burns, same thing. Oh, you missed your chance at a, Of course I would be a second degree because it's the number two. You missed the cheap shot, man. You missed it. They set you up. Higher level comedy, all right? Too easy. Too easy, all right. Don't worry, I'll get you on the extra. I got you. I can't wait. I can't defend myself. But no, heads up was super cool. We removed the cheese factor with some of the challenges, which was a great change. And then, yeah, we were just super supportive of making sure the players understood what to do. So we get into, like, you were a part of that drama, right, with your Guardians of the Galaxy crap that went on. Do you want to explain what happened to you and how we were then able to use that going forward to make sure nobody else got screwed? Well, they have full code now, so maybe that's not a factor, but I picked the antiques mode, and the challenge was light the novas, the five insert lanes, the two up top and the two on the left and the one on the right, and then that sets up your multiplier, and you had to shoot a specific multiplier that was picked. Well, when you pick that antique mode at the time, I don't know if it's like that on new code, the rollovers don't count towards your Nova. I was like, hey, I rolled over it. I rolled over it. Zach was there. He watched it. And we had to stop. Yeah, I think we even tested, like we went into the switch test to make sure the switches were working. Yeah. You didn't know. We didn't know. And then in subsequent games, they said, look, this is the challenge. Don't pick that mode because this will happen. Yeah. That's just. Sounds good. It was nice. It was versus, I think, you know, if it was set up, I wasn't there in Vegas, but I would assume that we were a little bit more strict about just sort of how things got done, that we would have been like, good luck to you. And at some point then, someone's losing because they inadvertently did something stupid. And it has nothing to do with their play. It was a good change for everyone but Tim Sexton, who kind of liked the cheese. Oh, yeah, he was such a dirtbag about that. But anyway, we loved him. Yeah, the rules minutia, man. There's people that really dig that stuff, and I can respect it. I don't think that that's this place for this tournament. We're definitely going in the direction that we went with this last time, and I'm looking forward to hosting it again, hopefully as part of the Stern Pro Circuit Final, as part of that weekend. I thought it was a nice sort of dessert course from that main course. Did you hear that call on Colin MacAlpine about rules? Doesn't make you a better player just because you know everything, you son of a gun. The last thing I did want to talk to you about before we got off tangent was Iron Maiden. You saw a lot of footage on the New York Championship, so many different times it was played, and we learned a lot about it too, which was good. Did you notice there's no action button on there, Josh? I know you're a big fan, and you think that's a great evolution of pinball. The greatest player of all time didn't put one on it. My kids can't launch the ball into play. Too bad. Missing an opportunity to get youth into pinball. I'm just saying. What do you really think? About the game? Well, about, of course, the game, but there's no action button. It's still great. You don't need it. Sure. I mean, you don't need it. I think to me I would rather have the action button than the start button if it was me just as the start button on the lockdown bar But we can digress on that forever Well I was like hold on a second My kids literally cannot plunge a ball into play So they play Attack from Mars, and they play Batman, and they can play ACDC, because they can launch the ball into play. But that's a Stern thing. Stern always has plungers, right? So if it has a button, yeah, that acts as the plunger. But they put a plunger on World Poker Tour, right? What are you really plunging? There's no skill shot in that. You just have to get it from A to B. But the reason the plunger is there is because if the button doesn't work, you've always got a plunger and you can still do it. So that's why they did it. Is that why you were there in the offices in 2005? That's why they did it? Tell me I'm wrong. You're wrong. Okay, why am I wrong? Why is there a plunger on World Poker Tour? Because him all machines have plungers. But you just said... I'm saying, that's why World Poker Tour has a plunger. But you just said your kids play these games because it has a start button. Or old games that have triggers or whatever the case may be. Yes. That doesn't mean that Gary Stern understands that or understood that in 2000. I sure as hell didn't understand that 10 years before I had kids. Do you think 10 years from now, all Stern games will have just plungers? Who knows, man. Who knows where pinball is going to go. Anyway, I was talking about Iron Maiden. Great game. I'm still kind of lost. There's so many different. It's neat to watch the way they played that game, the final four, and four amazing players in Steven Bowden, in Keith Elwin, in John Rapogle, and Bowen Kerins, who won the thing, they all played kind of different, and it all kind of worked. That's a sign of a good game, man. No kidding. When there's multiple ways to attack a game, it's what makes it great, versus everyone just doing the same thing and seeing who executes that one thing. I have no inside knowledge, but I would have to say the safest bet of the year is that's going to be on the main stage at Pinburgh. It has to be. Is that fair if Keith's in the Final Four? I guess he didn't win the last game of Iron Maiden. What do you think about that? What do you think about designers being able to play their own games in tournaments? What if it just came out and nobody else had played it yet? What do you think, Jeff? What do you think about that? Hmm. Well, dialed in last year was still pretty new, but I don't know. I mean, okay, Lyman's... Let's say Lyman's next game comes out, and it's been out for two weeks. Nobody knows how to play it, and it's in Pinberg finals, and Lyman's in the final. No, I don't think that's fair. I think that's fair, but also we're talking about Iron Maiden, which came out in early April, late March. So, Pinberg, there will have been four months of playing that. What if the next Stern game is out and used in the Pinberg final? I don't believe the Pinberg people would do that. Okay. Should they? Or should any big tournament do that? If you have, like, Zach, Keith, Tim Sexton, Lyman competing, and these guys already have hours and hours into games that don't exist yet in the real world. What's the proper amount of time that you feel is fair? Because it is, back in the day, Jeff, before you played pinball, there were tournaments that would have manufacturers divisions for specifically that reason, because there was a strong feeling from the organizers of those events that these people that worked for the pinball companies had an unfair advantage to the games that were not yet released and then suddenly sprung into the world, and then there was a tournament on it, you know, two weeks out, three weeks out. There has been some talk, as you know, about what's fair and what's unfair at a tournament. And you want to know where I stand? I do. I do. If you're putting on a tournament and you're inviting a bunch of people to come, I'm fine that there may be a home field advantage. Because I'm fine with the tournament director playing in it. I'm amazed when they don't because that's a big, big sacrifice. And I'm okay with that because if you don't put on the tournament, we're not coming so it's the give and take is it i guess is it is it an advantage yes well tournament directors playing is one thing with the complexity of games these days when i went and played iron maiden over at stern and i have like tim and keith making fun of me for like why aren't you shooting that thing no they know they're making fun of you for other things but like no seriously it's already second nature to them or what the rules are in the game because they've already had that sort of just hit the fast forward button when you've had like six months on a game and how comfortable you are and what to do versus what i was doing stepping up to the game for the first time at what point if i had to go play a tournament on iron maiden that night so how big of an advantage would tim zach and keith have over me a ton like anybody would over you but anyway i mean like i do know you mean that's fair is it fair no but again i know Is it necessary evil? No. I know in the older days, the finals would be played on a new machine. That would be the introduction, right? So maybe it wasn't even playing field unless you were working for that company. I'm not talking about that because I don't think we're seeing that. The final game is going to be played on Alice Cooper's Nightmare Castle. And, oh, first up, here's Bo and Karen's. You know what, though? Like, we're living in an era now where there's a lot of really good players now on the inside, right? Yes. Between Keith, Zach, Bowen, Lyman, and Sexton, believe me, I mean, back in the day, there was an advantage given to the Chicago people because we had access to test games before they shipped. So, you know, there was a lot of hemming and hawing about the advantage that we had getting to play a game on test for maybe a few months before the rest of the world could see it. And there was no streaming. So there was no way that people would have any idea what to do. You know, five years from now, when we're playing for a million dollars, as G Fuel Esports presents, whatever. On the Ocho. Exactly. Is that ever going to be an issue that we really have to deal with, of these best players being on the inside if new games are being used? I don't know the answer. Well, this week, the IFPA 15 is at Adam Becker's Press Start Arcade. Adam Becker is already probably a favorite to win that, as he would be at any tournament. It is at his house, but that doesn't mean he's going to knock it out and win it for sure. No, that's true. He has an advantage, just like we saw that thread about the people at Texas Pinball Festival, and I was okay with it. You know what, though? He doesn't have an advantage over knowing how to play the game, whereas that's where the new games coming out and the use of them in high-profile tournaments quickly, There is a learning curve to these events that people that have access, I think the advantage is far greater than a person playing on their home games of like Adam's Family, Twilight Zone, all these games where you know what to do. I think the biggest thing is players not knowing what to do when they step up to a game and then having to play someone where they know what to do. Josh, this has been fascinating. I'm really looking forward to you coming up to Canada without your passport again. No need to bring that. Good. Josh, I've got a song to play you out, and we'll do that in a second. Have yourself a good one. I'll see you in a few days, all right? Are you going to win the big one? Is this the one? Does Josh Sharpe come away the IFPA 15 champion dethroning Raymond Davidson? Is it going to happen? In my home country? Yeah, I like my chances this year. I like my chances this year. Last year I missed the cut. The year before I finished second. The year before I missed. I'm wildly inconsistent like everything I do. And I think I'm due. And without the anxiety of having to host, knowing that Becker has everything fully prepared, I'm going to be in an extremely relaxed state as an organizer that my playing skills are going to be off the charts, my man. I do wish you the best of luck, and I'll see you soon. You got it, brother. And, of course, if you win, you come on here right away as your biggest fan. You're going to be there, right? So, like, we'll do it right away. Right away. We'll be like Bill O'Reilly. We'll do it live. We'll do it live! I'll let you do the awards ceremony if I win. How about that? So long, Josh. Later, Mr. Teolis. This has been your Pinball Profile. You can find our group on Facebook. We're also on Twitter at pinballprofile. Email us pinballprofile at gmail.com. And please subscribe on either iTunes, Stitcher, or Google Play. Or Overcast. I'm Jeff Teolis. my wife won't let me play i'll never win a major i'm an idiot i'm an idiot i'm an idiot люд.