2020 Stern Pro Circuit Championship Game 2

Stern Pinball·video·25m 46s·analyzed·Jun 11, 2023

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.019

TL;DR

2020 Stern Pro Circuit Championship Game 2: Mandalorian ladder finals with elite players competing for championship belt and $5k prize.

Summary

Official Stern Pinball broadcast of the 2020 Stern Pro Circuit Championship Game 2, featuring The Mandalorian in a ladder finals format. Four elite players (Eric Stone, Luke Horniak, Zach Sharp, Jason Wardrick) compete with the top seed choosing the machine and playing order. Luke Horniak is eliminated after placing last, having deviated from optimal tournament strategy by starting multiball without modes.

Key Claims

The Mandalorian was released in 2021 by Stern Pinball, designed by Brian Eddy with software development by Dwight Sullivan
high confidence · Official broadcast commentary
Tournament format eliminates last-place player each game until down to final two players
high confidence · Host Tim Sexton explaining format at start
Winner receives championship belt, new Stern Pinball machine, and $5,000 cash prize
high confidence · Host Tim Sexton describing prize structure
The Mandalorian Premium/LE versions feature two flippers on upper playfield plus moving upper playfield that changes difficulty
high confidence · Broadcast commentary on Zach Sharp's encounter mode gameplay
Recent code update changed progression rules to require Hunter mission completion before advancing through multiball hurry-ups (previous versions allowed continuous multiball/hurry-up progression)
high confidence · Commentator explaining Zach Sharp's confusion about progression path

Notable Quotes

“I'll probably pick The Mandalorian because that's one of the games I really like. It's pretty controllable. If you can catch the ball, make the shots, catch the ball, and just keep on rinsing and repeating, that's kind of my game.”
Top seeded player (game selection commentary) @ ~3:00 — Demonstrates strategic thinking in game selection for competitive play
“So nothing surprises me, especially in a tournament. I mean, that's why you play the game. It's like a golfer, you know? One hole they'll get a birdie, next hole they'll get a triple bogey hitting it in the water.”
Luke Horniak @ ~15:30 — Reflects competitive mindset about variance in tournament pinball
“There's a famous saying, people. The ball is wild. Sometimes it doesn't do exactly what you expect, and that's just part of the game we play: the mechanical action of pinball.”
Tim Sexton (broadcaster) @ ~45:00 — Commentary on mechanical variance in pinball play
“Unfortunately, I didn't follow the strategy that I know to work best in tournament and started a multiball without a mode. And then wasn't able to get back to another multiball.”
Luke Horniak (exit interview) @ ~52:00 — Post-elimination analysis identifying strategic mistake that cost tournament continuation
“I had a chance going into ball three. I only needed 100 million. I had about 30 and a multiball plus a mode I think would have gotten there.”
Luke Horniak @ ~53:00 — Quantifies how close he was to avoiding elimination

Entities

Stern Pro Circuit Championshipevent The Mandaloriangame Eric Stoneperson Luke HorniakpersonZach SharppersonJason Wardrickperson Tim Sextonperson

Signals

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event_signal: Stern Pro Circuit Championship 2020 ladder finals format broadcast with elite competitive pinball players
high · Official Stern Pinball broadcast with named players, tournament structure, and prize structure clearly documented
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competitive_signal: Tournament strategy emphasis on completing modes before multiballs to maximize scoring; Luke Horniak's elimination attributed to deviating from this proven strategy
high · Luke's exit interview explicitly stating he deviated from known best strategy by starting multiball without mode, directly causing elimination
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product_concern: Sensitive tilt bob on tournament machine causing multiple early tilt warnings for players (Luke Horniak took two tilt warnings before Game 3)
medium · Multiple references to players getting tilt warnings, commentator noting 'pretty sensitive tilt bob' and acknowledging game setup is tough
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technology_signal: Recent code update to The Mandalorian changed multiball progression rules, now requiring Hunter mission completion before advancing through multiball/hurry-up sequences (previous code allowed continuous progression)
high · Commentator explaining Zach Sharp's confusion about progression, noting 'previous versions of the code let you just continue through your multiballs and through your hurry-ups, but now it's been updated'

Topics

Tournament format and strategyprimaryThe Mandalorian game mechanics and rulesprimaryCompetitive pinball performance and skillprimaryCode updates and game progression rulessecondaryPlayer psychology and table talksecondaryMechanical variance in pinballmentioned

Sentiment

neutral(0.5)— Broadcast maintains professional sports commentary tone; mixed player outcomes with some frustration (Eric Stone) balanced by strong performances (Zach Sharp). Focus is on factual play-by-play rather than editorializing.

Transcript

youtube_auto_sub · $0.000

foreign pro circuit championships I'm your host Tim Sexton I'm here to bring you up to speed with everything going on in this circuit final so far the stern pro circuit Championship is an exciting ladder finals format we start with 20 players only four play at a time we eliminate the last place player and bring in a new player until we're down to just the final two the winner of that game wins a championship belt a brand new Stern Pinball Machine and also a 5 000 cash prize let's take a look at our field my name is Eric Stone and right now I live down in Tampa Florida my name is Luke horniak I'm from Minnesota and just south of the Twin Cities I am Zach sharp I am from Chicago Illinois my name is Jason wardrick I'm from Park Ridge Illinois in each match the top seated player has the opportunity to choose the game or choose their order on the game I'll probably pick Mandalorian because that's that's one of the games I really like it's pretty controllable if you can catch the ball make the shots catch the ball and just keep on rinsing repeating and that's kind of my game a lot of fun shots good flow in the game there's a lot of things to do you can start modes stack in multiballs with those modes shoot hurry ups and then encounters game in this match is the Mandalorian released in 2021 by Stern Pinball designed by Brian Eddy and software development by Dwight Sullivan player one joining this game is Eric Stone from Fort Myers Florida Eric is a former major champion and he's a very talkative player probably the most talkative player in this event he will sing to himself he'll talk to himself as he goes for his razor Quest multi up the middle shooting a backhand shot into the scoop to try to light his missions now they're shot up the middle his multiballs now ready as indicated by the white green blinking light backhanding the scoop will light his mission once again Eric screaming at himself to try to hit the mission Shot unfortunately an Aaron flip lands him in the right out lane but he will be all set up for the next ball Eric loudly sighing coming up next we have Luke nohorniak we saw in our first game he came in third avoided elimination and he'll be trying to play a little better so he's not at risk in this game of Mandalorian Luke is practicing flipping the upper flippers on the upper Playfield goes for the super skill shot by plunging all the way around when the sea Lane is lit and shooting up the middle like Eric was to get his multiball ready looks like his plan so Luke made three shots in a row the middle takes some warning and he's just gonna go right into the multiball so he's in Ice Spider multivault shots multiball shots jackpots are lived for three million gets three balls in play and he has a ball on the upper flipper now he's paying attention to it flipping it a lot trying to get some extra points possibly an at a ball but he's down to two balls in play now in his multiball he's got his right ramp lit for a jackpot and he's got two balls settled on the right side of his flipper tried to separate he has both out of control and he loses one ball out the out lane that way so multiball comes to an end there he does not have Super Jackpot lit so he does not have his razor Quest Crest lit either he will have to complete a hunter mode to re-light that so he's going to take a backhand shot to the mission scoop boundary scoop second tilt warning there ah that leads to a tilt so Luke made a great slap save there and if he hadn't had that first tilt warning he probably would have been able to continue I mean I had Eric in my last round there and obviously um it's he's intense when you're playing against him he talks a lot to the game and uh I mean he's a great guy good to play with but it can get in other people's head as well I mean I I talk when I'm playing uh I scream at myself when I'm playing I pray a lot you know it relaxes me when I'm talking so I know it sounds kind of weird and played with Zach sharp and Jason woodrick in the first game we played Godzilla and they're both great players I see them at all the different events around the country and uh always great to play with them you know with no ball save these these games are set up tough that you know you have world-class players not breaking you know 50 million but then you have them breaking a billion so nothing surprises me especially in a tournament I mean that's why you play the game it's like a golfer you know one hole they'll get a birdie next hole they'll get a triple bogey hitting it in the water Zach sharp now is stepping up to the game Zach played solid game of Godzilla and we're seeing now he's got the ball in his rifle up here shooting to the race of Crest multiball shots and Zach takes a till morning already so players uh must have must realize now they're dealing with a pretty sensitive tilt Bob they cannot make too many moves on this game before they will go to a tilt like Luke did so Zach's going for his mission start a little earlier he started it now while he still has two shots to bring in multiball but that progress will still be available for him take it he now has razor Crest multiball lit and he started the mode and this is generally where players want to be they want to be in a mission with their first mode running and Zach used the center button to bring in his flamethrower which lights all the shots lit for double value this can help multiply any jackpot shots as well as Mission shots lit two balls in the upper play field both of them are coming back down nice tap saved to keep it out of the right side and Zach's playing uh keeping the balls controlled now there he goes settled into the trap with two balls on the right side one on the left he has a Super Jackpot lit and he can hit this over and over again for the time being an Ice Spider multiball here 19 million points per Super Jackpot shot he makes but he has made that shot twice but he's not repeated that shot and it's still lit but it is timing out now for it again but he was a little early lost the ball that way it's up to 173 million there with that mission Shot completes the mission and the multiball is now finished 173 million is a good good really good start on the Mandalorian so let's see what Zach is looking for next he has his missions lit again he can start his encounters by shooting the left ramp took a backhand shot at the left ramp but gets back at the in Lane and now he's trapped up on the right flipper he takes a shot to start his encounter so these encounters here he'll have since he's playing a premium two flippers in the upper Playfield plus a moving upper Playfield that will change the difficulty throughout the encounter he has to shoot the lit targets a little early on that one comes back down let's set it up top again there he goes so he's on to the bonus level and back down throughout the upper Playfield and right back up there so there can be good points and you make it through these levels um obviously if the ball keeps returning to his right foot he can catch it he can keep sending it back up to that Playfield continue his way through this bonus level of his first encounter there he goes late on that shot so he's got a few more targets left now he's in another bonus level where he can shoot these roving targets for even more points until he loses the ball on this Playfield and that was really good points there so 5 million each time you hit one of those blue shots plus some extra points for completing his first encounter level and now he shot up the middle Hmm this ax glance up at the screen tells me he's not quite sure why he can't advances multiball and another glance at the screen yep still not moving Zach you have to play a hunter thing hunter mission first adventure thing Hunter mode and previous versions of the code let you just continue through your multi balls and through your hurry ups but now it's been updated so you have to do other objectives in the game to keep going through that path so Zach has completed one multiball one Mission and one encounter one of the three encounters and has 200 plus million points so very different game so far has elapsed Eric did not start anything Luke had just played his first multiball with nothing else and Zach has completed one of everything so he has a strong lead here and Jason wardrick stepping back up to the game after waiting for a little while gets the ball under control with some nice moves one more to light razor Crest multiball he could shoot the scoop two more times to bring in a mission which he is aiming for now using the right flipper to go up the middle and using the left flipper to shoot at missions it looks like his Jason's plan right now Jason starts the mission one find the asset shoot the blinking yellow shots and he has his multiball lit and that'll start his multiball and Jason will with his hand use the flamethrower to light all the shots for double scoring as he lights his jackpots admission shots here at 2x for all the shots that are blinking with the flamethrower Jason's not happy though because he didn't hit all his shots lit maybe some other reason so he's stage flipping to get to the upper Playfield keeps that ball trap nicer in the left but now he breaks out of jail to shoot the right ramp for his jackpot and submission points it's up to 84 million looks like he's focusing on yellow shots right now in this multiball you have eight million there on that shot and takes the Super Jackpot which is 27.5 million pretty good you only get one of those coming out of that multiball still in the mode still getting 8 million points per shot shooting left scoop there completes the mode for 16.7 million a little bit of time bonus that puts Jason up to 153 million and then immediately coming out of his mode out the left outline so Eric asking Jason a bit about what he was upset with can't really hear Jason's response but Eric's now back in the game he's focused on getting his mission started before he starts this multiball so he does not want to play it like Luke did where Luke Luke only played the multiball without the mission so Eric did make the shot and he wants to make another shot he wants to make the shutter at the middle he does not make it there yelling at himself and he starts his Ice Spider multiball and he lights up all of the shots of the flamethrower for double scoring in his mission and jackpot shots that are lit after you shoot each shot you extinguish the fire on the flamethrower so Eric's down to two balls in play he's criticizing his own play while he plays oh and he great well that goes the show I suck really not happy with this performance sir I gotta let Eric do his own commentary on these games because other than the words we have to bleep out it's uh quite entertaining But Eric isn't happy because he wasn't making his shots he he really needed to make that left scoop make that right ramp and he's not dialed in and he's only got one ball left to really get dialed in he's in last place now Luke was the only one of these players who went for the super skill shot of ball one he goes right there but he doesn't hit the C letter at the correct time so that does not start his super skill shot he has his hurry up available to him at the middle takes until running already we've seen him twice now Luke is taking a very early still warning and missing up the middle sense of all the right Outland and that drains on him is up so we've got the early riser Zach sharp who's looking sharp he has not really made as many misses as the other players have on there shots and he's got his razor Crest hurry up lit and he will go for it that ball gets a little early to the right side but he makes a huge move and he needed to make that move to save the ball from going out the wide open right Outlet now Zach is in uh mode that will kind of lock everything out for him for a little while the Ambush mode he can complete it by shooting the right ramp and it looks like he's thinking about something it looks like he's thinking about completing it he's trying to shoot the right ramp one of the more difficult shots on the Playfield and that ends fortunately for him with hitting the targets next to the rampant training collecticus bonus here 8 million not too shabby and we're back to Jason already so that was a pretty quick ball from all of the players we only saw the multiball from Eric and Eric did not capitalize in the multi by the way he wanted to now what Jason might see here is that none of the players have made it to their second multiball they haven't even made it to their hurry up round and they can just do so by hitting up the middle a few times wow that no ball save on this game so hitting the right slingshot out the left out lane that's it that's over for that ball for Jason he has no you know normally on location you have a ball so you kick that ball back and play it's not gonna happen here Eric is asking the almighty for some help this is his first game here he picked the Mandalorian going player one he felt he had some kind of advantage on it okay this shot here puts Eric into the razor Crest hurry up round or puts him in the razor Crest area up ready Brad now this hurry up round will start completing this razor Crest shot at the middle will award points every time the amount of points you can earn will count down but every time you make the shot it increases and that was how quickly the round is over but completing the round also means he can progress to his next multiball so for now as long as Eric can make these live catches like he's doing and keep hitting this razor Crest shot oh come on no God please why are you playing stupid come on come left come on please God please let Gary continue with his own commentary there this will start the multiball so he did not bother with bringing in a mission this time he was having trouble with that scoop shot he's asking for a lot of points and he can get him I mean multiball will last as long as there are balls in play so his ball saver is out now any balls he loses at this point will not return to him like that one Eric is also having a dialogue with the game and the call out Center being played on the machine right now more to me than you'll never know I would prefer that too but you're not making it easy all right so Eric has a ball he says he can't stage these slippers so this is uh a skill I guess Eric does not feel he has on this game he could use the pinball buttons The Flipper buttons to only shoot with the top flipper at the time but he just said he wasn't comfortable with it and he let them all come off the upper Playfield Nails is super the Super Jackpot and we'll see the total here 30 million it's a good amount of points you really want to collect those so when you come out of the multiball and now he's in the Ambush round seeing if you can time out this mode and the answer is no because if you do not make any shots the hurry up value will just pause it's not going to continue so hurry up to pause at 4.1 million here and he's going to build it or add time which also builds that hurry up Paul did fly off the ramp there uh he got under control though so he's asking how to get out of it you get out of it by shooting the right scoop and then the right ramp that will collect the value and complete it so Eric did not sell he made a pretty big move but it did not tilt the game he starts his next mission and he made a backhand shot maybe to the left ramp there but he keeps hitting that post between the scoop and the ramp there it goes they've all diverted that time just not going around ramps yeah there's a famous saying people the ball is wild sometimes it doesn't do exactly what you expect and that's just part of the game we play are the mechanical action of pinball and yes it was supposed to divert it was supposed to stay on the ramp and it just didn't happen and Eric's dealing with it okay though he's talking his way through this ball he's not scoring points quickly but he's just kind of continuing to plot along through the game here and he takes out all the lights from that level of the encounter so he's got the two in the middle I don't know why he said no before he even flipped but he did oh no oh damn I see why damn it Eric's asking for a little help because if player 2 licked a horniac passes Eric here Eric will be eliminated after just his first game in the tournament Eric came in with a one by position came in as the 16th seed didn't have to play the first game and he has a lot of games to play if he wants to make it to win the championship belt okay so Luke's plan looks like it's go up the middle Luke wants to go for a multiball it looks like and he's in Sling land not a good place to be bouncing back and forth between those things and once again Luke takes it early in his ball tilt warning but this is how Luke's gonna play he wants to play it fast and aggressive here and make these shots seems like he's comfortable just getting in a Groove middle to make progress to razor crest multiball eliminated and after two games Luke nahorniak is eliminated let's hear what he has to say unfortunately I didn't follow the strategy that I know to work best in tournament and started a multiball without a mode and then wasn't able to get back to another multiball I did end up taking last I had a chance going into ball three I only needed 100 million I had about 30 and a multiball plus a mode I think would have gotten there but unfortunately I didn't get that multiball started and uh drained out and got eliminated so good luck to the rest of the players stick around we're going to be following the entire Stern pro circuit Championship let's see if any of these players can make it all the way to the finals foreign