it's time now for another pinball profile i'm your host jeff teoles you can find everything on pinballprofile.com we're on facebook we're on twitter slash x instagram you can email pinball profile at gmail.com and if you'd like to show your support on patreon that would be wonderful it is certainly not necessary the show will always be free but i cannot thank the supporters enough like rodney c like william m and david m and gme law and so many others thank you again for your support we are about to start the uk open here in croydon just south of london and in fact there are a lot of people coming this big event run by neil mccray is spectacular and part of the Sturm Pro Circuit. And it brings people from all over the world, certainly from Europe. But there's a lot of North Americans this year, myself included. And I've seen these two travelers and their little exploits on Facebook following along. And I love seeing the excitement of one Rachel Risto and also Holly Koskinen. Hi, Rachel. Hi, Holly. Hi, Jeff. Hey, guys. I love that you've done this, not just massive trip. And we'll get to the UK Open in a second. But that's not where the trip started. You were in Sweden, the Borås Open. How was that, Rachel? It was absolutely incredible. The games were set up very difficult. It was a blast. The people were amazing. I had so much fun. And Holly? I mean, the Borås Open, I can concur with that. The games were set up very difficult. The Swedes definitely bring the heat as far as competition goes. So super stoked to play against them and to see their space and eat their food and see their culture. So it was awesome. I have been to Sweden. Tell me about the food. What do we got here? I've seen the Swedish chef, but it's not really the same, is it? No, not at all. Well, the first thing I want to say about Sweden is that it was incredibly safe for us to travel. Oh, nice. As solo women, female travelers, that was great. Just being able to walk down the street at midnight back from the tournament back to a hotel, I never felt safer. Oh, that's so good to hear. Yes. The food itself, I think, was great. Definitely more, how do you want to describe it, Holly? I don't know. I was absolutely surprised. So you have exuberant amount of Fika's, which are apparently coffee. Those are the coffee breaks. Yes. Yeah. The coffee. I thought I made my coffee strong. Oh, no. I got stepped up a couple notches. And now when I go home, we're going to have to step it up, you know, to drink like tar when we get home. But the coffee was excellent. You can definitely taste like the chemical lack of chemical difference in the food from the U.S. for sure. A lot of Italian food, a lot of pasta, a lot of pizza. Like there was pizza and like coffee. Everywhere. It was unbelievable. And I think kind of to Rachel's point, too, I think walking around in Sweden was the first time that I felt like if I were to be a man walking in America, that's how safe I would feel. That is very encouraging to hear and a great endorsement of Sweden and some of the fine cultures here. But I love that you've taken this trip because first time for both of you to come to Sweden. And is it for UK as well? Yes, it's definitely my first time to Europe, and I can't believe that it's pinball that brought me here. But you know what? You've done it right. This is what I like about this, because, yes, as wonderful as both these tournaments are, it's not like it's just the tournaments. I would imagine the tournaments are going to be wonderful and great, but your memories are going to be probably everything but the tournaments. Yes, absolutely. It was all the sightseeing. Sweden was absolutely beautiful, breathtaking. I am a nature lover, so I was able to find flowers that I've never seen before and take pictures of those to look up later. So things like that mean a lot to me, too. It was just really an incredible, incredible time. Well, that's so nice to hear. And what made you two decide to make this a huge trip? I mean, you're both wonderful pinball players. And Holly, I've seen you do so well, of course, one of the legendary Whipped Wins. And Rachel with the Ray Ray podcast, which I enjoy very much. But you do so much with wonderful Fox Cities Pinball and District 82. So I guess was this just a chance to see different pinball or Europe or all of the above? I think it was all of the above. Neil McRae came to the Super Series at District 82 last year, the last two years, and he was very encouraging about me coming to the U.K. Open. So I just decided, why not give it a whirl? It's also my birthday weekend while I'm here. Happy birthday. Thank you. 25. 25. Yes, exactly. So when I decided I wanted to go, I knew that I really needed to find a travel partner. And so I kind of just put that out. And Holly knew she's big into traveling for different tournaments as well. And it just kind of worked out that way. And once we knew when the date was for the UK Open, we just – The trip got bigger. Well, my pal Ed that's in Copenhagen, if you know Ed. Oh, yeah, very well. Yes. And he was also very encouraging. He's like, take a look at this. There's this tournament in Sweden the weekend before. You should come play it. And I'm like, hmm. Well, if we're going to do it, if I'm going to go for a week, if I have to fly nine hours, we might as well make it as big as possible. I hate flying, Jeff. Oh, do you? Yes. So that was part of the hesitation of the whole thing, but I made it. Good, good, good. And Holly, I can see obviously Rachel's excitement, but I'm seeing it in yours too. It's just, this was an absolutely perfect trip for you. And it's not even done. No, I mean, it's not even done. I mean, this is like the final kickoff weekend, obviously. But, you know, as many of you know, I have had a battle with Lyme disease, and so I finally have regained my health mostly. Thank goodness. Thank you. I'm waiting for my doctor to declare my remission status, hopefully. So, yeah, it's like I didn't get to travel a lot in my 30s, so now it's like how can I make up for lost time and really kind of get ahead and get to see various aspects of the world and meet new people. So it's been a wonderful experience. You know, that's a message I like to tell people. Live every day like it's your last, and don't hold back if you can because this experience is absolutely wonderful, and you've been through hell and back, Holly, and I'm glad to hear things are getting better and you're able to do this wonderful trip. Thank you. Okay, now this is a pinball podcast once in a while, but it's more about the people. I love that. For the pinball aspect of it, the Boras Open, and you're used to District 82, Rachel, there were always kind of three tournaments before things really blew up in the Whopper field and Boras Open was one of them. What they would do with the wonderful Bulls and Balls in Fulda in Germany where we saw some of the pre for the IFPA 18 World Championships And of course your backyard District 82 Yes So I like you to compare because I never been to Boras Open to people who maybe been to one of the other events What's Boras Open like compared to, say, District 82? The first thing is the games at the Boras Open was, the games were set very difficult. I appreciated that there was no rubbers on the outposts. I appreciated that games were set up hard. It really kind of, you know, calls the herd there in terms of the best player in you needs to come out. In comparison to the tournaments at District 82, I mean, Whopper-wise, I think it was a 200% and 300% tournaments that they had there. Because they're multi-days as opposed to one-days and playoffs and things like that. Yes, and it was a classics and an open. And they also did a pin golf, which was a really nice warm-up to the event. So you got an opportunity to play most of the games the day prior, which is nice. Like at District 82, where he does sometimes like a Thursday night event as the warm up before a big tournament weekend. The only thing that was a bummer is that I didn't get an opportunity to really check out the stream much there. But it was nice that they did, I believe, stream finals. So everyone should go check that out. I also believe that it may be the organizer. It sounds like it might have been his last year this year to run that tournament. right which is why it was over 160 players that came out for that event which i thought was crazy which is in in terms of district 82 that's just as many people but in a much smaller space than dd2 is wow yeah it was incredible absolutely incredible and the organizers did such a great job the game techs and the collective of players that that's their house that i got to go play in they were so kind and also very helpful which was also neat was be able to connect with a couple podcast listeners that live over here in europe that was very surreal as well well you're certainly whether it's the podcast or whether on fox city stream you're you're making a name for yourself and as great players as well too rachel thank you holly rachel mentioned the pin golf tournament i just came from dinner uh with peter blakemore and and jim and dina lindsey from jdl pinball and of course Peter's special and lit. And we were actually talking about pin golf, and I was explaining in North America, we do not see a lot of pin golf, very rarely. I mean, we know about pin masters for the Stern Pro Circuit, but you just don't see that happen. Whereas every time I come to Europe, and I've been a few times, pin golf is almost pretty prominent. They really embrace it here, and we just don't see that in the States, or in Canada as much, do we? Yeah, I mean, I have not seen that in the States as much at all, but I do think it's like a good welcome tournament format. I got to get paired up with some people that I didn't know or I knew through somebody else. So that was a nice way to kind of kick things off and get a good kind of understanding of where the games were set. I agree with Rachel. The games were set very difficult. The organizers ran everything very well. And I'm very, very excited to get my Boris Oakman shirt because if it is the last one, I will have been very gracious to be able to have attended. There are people listening to this podcast that may not be tournament players. Obviously, people like pinball. Maybe they're collectors. Maybe they just want to get into it. So when we talk tournaments, it might be foreign to some people. But for me, and I'm wondering the same for you, tournaments took me to a whole new level. I liked playing pinball, but when I found there was a competition, it was, like Holly mentioned, a way to meet people. And now nine years into it, I can say, and you probably can too, I know people all over the world. And I'm not a stranger when I go to some of these places. And here I am traveling by myself to the UK Open. And it doesn't matter because I know so many people. I don't feel like I'm alone. I would imagine you feel that too. And maybe you can explain to people that don't play in tournaments. That's one of the biggest benefits you probably didn't even realize was there. Absolutely, 100%. The number one thing, and I talk about this all the time. pinball it's not just about pinball it's about the people and it's about the connecting with people and if you're not a tournament player and you're looking for a community of your own you can build your own community through people through your hobby and so if your hobby is collecting cars or snowmobiling or whatever the heck it may be and if you can find a community through that but pinball has brought me a huge community in my life and it is like you said Jeff it is to me it's still bonkers to show up in a different part of the world and be recognized. And Tom Graff over there at Foxy's Pinball Stream, I have to thank him for that, for giving me that introduction to the world. I haven't heard of Tom. Some guy in the top 100 who knows. Great Patreon supporter. I love Tom. But yeah, it really is a trip. And to know that I have friends wherever I go and people that care about me and are concerned about my well-being wherever I am, it's really incredible. It's more than just pinball, Jeff. It's more than pinball. Do you know, I know the two of you very well, I feel, and it's great to see you, but Holly, Rachel, and I'm sitting here with Howard from Baltimore and Rodney's from the Delaware Pinball Collective, and we're having a maybe a little wobbly right here, Bradlee Ching Bradlee Ching. But I really don't know much about your lives outside of pinball. I can assume we all come from different backgrounds and stuff, and we don't ever talk politics we don't ever talk religion we don't ever talk things that might be hot buttons for some people it's just pinballs are common ground and when you too do this big trip where you travel across the pond to come to sweden and to great britain you are welcome and that's the nice thing about pinball is you do feel safe and you do feel like you're with your long lost friends almost yeah uh and i'll tell you what like the the columbus girls have really given me a home You know, obviously, I think I've mentioned this maybe before. I grew up as a competitive artistic roller skater for many, many years. Oh, I love it. You know, but I grew up with games like Twilight Zone and TX Sector and Hardbody and, you know, Roller Disco. Like, really good games. No skateboard? No. No skateboard. Funhouse, though. Okay. Funhouse. So, you know, grew up with playing in general anyway. But then I ended up getting into it. A friend of mine at the time, she's like, hey, there's this ladies league. do you want to sign up for this? And I had a completely different friend group then, which is very, very interesting as far as like personal expansive growth and, and reason season lifetime friends kind of thing. Now that person who got me into this, we're still friends, but yeah it like once I met the Columbus girls I was like Oh my God I like I found my tribe I like after how many years And I was like in my early 30s I like I found my tribe I found my people And I always describe our ladies league as like Golden Girls, but on steroids with more beer and more nerdy stuff. And so like, for instance, like right, we're wandering around Piccadilly Circus the other day, and we happen to wander by this candy shop. And I'm like, I don't eat a lot of sugar. You know, beer is probably the worst thing that I do do. but ended up wandering through there. There's these whole walls. There's like four walls of Pez dispensers. And our friend Zan Sprouse, who plays in our league, a.k.a. Zanadu, I was like, holy shnikes, I've got to get this for her. I've got to text Zan and see which one she doesn't have because she has walls of Pez that she collects. She goes to Pez conventions. This is a whole thing. You've got Dave in Colorado all excited. Oh, yeah. So I was like, I texted her, and I'm like, I don't know what time it is in the morning. I'm like, it's probably like 6 in the morning her time. I have no idea. But I told Rachel, I'm like, I'm going to send her these. I go, we're going to wander around, do some shopping. I had to get some tea for my old man. And I was like, is there any of these that you do not have? And she's like, oh, this one and this one. So I'm like, okay, I got you, girl, and went back and picked them up. But that's just, they're like my family now. Isn't this neat, just the way we've all kind of come together. Well, we're here now at the Hilton getting ready for the UK Open, which is a big event. You've seen the schedule, Rachel. You've seen it, Holly. There's a lot to play. You've got the main, you've got two different classics tournaments. You've got the, as they call it here in UK, the ladies bank. You've got the pinball Republic, basically high stakes tournament. There's even a kid's tournament too. I think even though you just turned 25, Rachel, you're too old for that. I know. I look so young. I know. Yeah. But, um, but they do have a lot to offer here and it's going to be go, go, go. Like it's, have you looked at the schedule and go, what am I going to do over three days? Where am I going to place my time? Because time management is really important. I have never played a card format before. So I just anticipate crying in between because I hear it's going to be pretty brutal. But I've had a lot of actually really good encouragement. And I actually look forward to that and being able to play all three of my balls versus standing around waiting to play in between them and growing cold. And also, like, I think maybe I'll learn more from the game playing all three balls at the same time, if that makes sense. But, yeah, I think it'll be interesting. We'll see. I can't say that I've ever played a full card format either. I don't anticipate any crying. I might try to sneak into the kids' tournament if I'm exuberantly failing. We'll see if Mom and Dad's genetics hold up enough to get me to sneak in there. We'll find out. I don't think the beer's going to help with the age differential. But, you know, we might have to hold out. It's the burps you have to worry about. Yeah, yeah. You know, sneak that off. You know, it's fine. But overall, it seems like I already can tell there's some games that I have not encountered before. So I think that's going to make for a very interesting experience. And obviously, any tournament that you're at, it's always try to learn more and grow from that experience. And whether you play well, whether you play don't. So the card format for those, again, not in tournaments, probably played in match play tournaments. Okay, if I win this game against somebody else, I get more points than them and advance and go to different rounds. Of course, there's pump and dumps, a lot of similar. Or how many times can I play this game? And it's really only my best game that counts. Well, this card format, which you'll see it in disc, which you saw years ago at Papa. I see it at other formats too. Northwest does it as well. This is really testing how consistent you can be. You don't have to blow up scores. You just don't want to have any bad ones. So consistency is really the key for what is about to happen in 2024 as the Whoppers change. And you both are competitive players. And Whoppers 6.0. and this podcast just turned ugly really quickly. You see the faces on Rachel. Okay, okay, your thoughts on 6.0 because really it is about how efficient you are. Go ahead. I think that it's going to humble a lot of players. Especially in Wisconsin. Yes and no. Because I think like where I play at District 82, I play against a lot of very good players. There's several players in my league that are in the top 100. And so when I play them two Tuesday nights a month, it makes it good and bad. I'm always learning from them, but I often lose to them. So I feel both ways. My Whopper efficiency is fairly low. I've been working very hard this year on just trying to play better pinball, which is good. But the Whopper efficiency is so screwed up because when I first started playing, people were like, play everything. Play as much as you can. And so that now... That was the way the format was. Yes. And so now that's coming back to bite me. And I play less over the last year. But when I first got into it in 2019, when I got into it, everyone's just pushed me into playing more and more. So it's disappointing that that's going to bite me in the rear end. But at the same time, it's forced me to think more about my game and to play my games smarter. It sounds really dumb, but just to play smarter games, to make smarter decisions while I'm playing. But you also mentioned, too, because of where you play, especially at District 82, what they call the strength of schedule. You're playing harder competition, so that's why your efficiency might not be as strong. So that needs to be a factor, too. What were you saying, Holly? Rachel and I actually, this actually came up during our trip earlier on before we even got over here. I think one of the main things, I don't, you know, from an athletic perspective, from my whole background, it's been very interesting to try to find, you know, what works, what doesn't work, trying to find that level of consistency that I seem to be struggling to have, which it feels very foreign to me to not be able to find that because usually, at least with my skating and stuff, I was able to review tapes and see what I did wrong. And obviously, if you're on stream, that's great. You can watch your game and say, oh, I should have let this dead bounce, I should have done this, or I should have drop catch this. It allows you to learn how to do things and approach games differently when you're in different situations to learn from those. But you're obviously not on stream all the time, so it makes it more intrinsically difficult to try to understand how to improve. Where I have the concern about how the Whoppers are going to change is the ability to get new people into the sport. I feel like that's going to be a huge, I think that's a huge miss that was not thought about. And I have concerns over that, especially since we are trying to get more women into the sport, but just in general for anybody. Anybody who comes in, male, female, whatever, it doesn matter When you a new player with anything you have a learning curve And I think that only going to potentially discourage people unless there some whip right out of the gate I think I have concerns about that. So hopefully the women's leagues that you were discussing, again, why I love the women's league is it is inviting, it's very encouraging, and hopefully brings more players like yourselves into pinball. I don't even know if women's leagues were what started it for the two of you, but I certainly see great players like yourself in Ohio. Amy Kesting comes to mind, Deborah Tallman, Rachel with you, with Cassidy. Cassidy, Cassidy, Cassidy. But I mean just legendary, not legendary women players, legendary players. Yes. And who just happen to be women, but these women's leagues hopefully are still that inviting aspect to whatever changes are happening in Whoppers. Yeah, and at this point, our last season, one of our last seasons this past year, we had 25 women on a Wednesday night league, so that was our highest participation to date. But we also try to run kind of, we try to have different breaks. It used to be in the summer, it would be like every other week, you know, we would have an official tournament, and then the off week would kind of be a tutorial week. We kind of got away from that. I think everybody's kind of got burnt out. So now we're trying to do more, you know, structured training around, here's how to nudge a game, here's how to post pass, here's how to drop catch. Because a lot of women are still very hesitant to nudge games or learn how to slap games. Or not flip. And that's any player's decision. Sometimes not flipping is the best decision. Take control. Yeah, and so thankfully we've had a couple people step up to offer. Some of our guys have offered their home game collection. So I know that we're planning to have one at Tim Malloy's house. John Reamston, we've already had one at his house, and he's one of our elite players. So it gives women an opportunity to play free play without having to spend a lot of money where we can do training and say, this is what you're trying to go for. And then we also go on and go over rule sets and different things. And we just really try to teach people because what I've seen more often than not is that women who come into the league, they're at a baseline. I think everybody starts at a baseline. And then all of a sudden, it's like everything just clicks. Yeah. And then somebody just takes off. Like Molly Johnson, she has taken off like a freaking rocket. And even despite the fact that she has a broken shoulder right now, the girl is still playing and she's still beating people. So, I mean, our girls are solid. I'm super thrilled. Very exciting. Well, we're getting ready for the UK Open. It starts tomorrow here. We're recording on the Thursday night. But I know you've been here for a few days. I happen to be wearing an Abbey Road shirt. I know, as I look at your Let It Be tattoo, Rachel, on your arm, you're a big Beatles fan. And I saw the pictures of you on Abbey Road. Is that one of the highlights of your trip, non-pinball related so far? It was the epitome. Absolutely. I've been a Beatles fan since I was four. I connect with my father and my mother that way. I could cry about it. I cried a whole bunch at Abbey Road because it was a beautiful thing just to be there to find that connection. And if you're a Beatles fan, you definitely should make the trip to go there. The one other thing I want to say about pinball, you had mentioned about we all gather together. And when we're together, it doesn't matter what you do for a living, Jeff or Holly or me or anybody else sitting here. What it's really about is when you're standing there waiting to play your game, what are you talking about? You're talking about pinball. And I think that's one of the best parts of that. I just wanted to mention that to people that are non-tournament players. It's very inviting. It's very, very inviting, very much so. But, yes, going to Abbey Road was definitely the highlight of my trip. I felt like a lost child who found her home in some ways. It was just really, really amazing. There's not a lot of other music I really like other than older stuff. So for me, again, what an incredible opportunity to be here. Holly, your favorite non-pinball moment so far? Oh, goodness. You know, I would have to say, Rachel and I, I know it sounds a little bit touristy, but we ended up going on this city Antonio Cruz on the River Thames. The hop-on, hop-off, or is this an actual Antonio Cruz? No, this is like an actual two-hour Antonio Cruz. You get a glass of champagne. From the Thames River. Yes. At sunset. At sunset. Whoa. Over the London Bridge, you get to see Tower Bridge. So that was the first time we walked. When we were walking down to actually wait to get on board, it was the first time I saw Tower Bridge, and I was just emotionally overwhelmed. How can you not be? And I'm like, ooh, there's a lump in my throat. We're going to keep that right there. But it was just very emotionally overwhelming, like the architecture and stuff. I really love architecture. Obviously, I'm a designer for a living, so to be able to see so much kind of historical design context is really nice for me. London's got a nice mix of new and old, doesn't it? Oh, yeah. But I'm also a fire sign, so water is a good calming agent for me. So for me to be on the water, like I am a happy child. Don't throw me in the water. I will totally drown. Another story. But, I mean, we ended up meeting this other couple from Rochester, and so we ended up talking with them, and then there was a singer downstairs. So it just kind of set the whole mood and got great video and got to see sites from kind of all different perspectives, and it really gave a good kind of just initial encompassing feel to it. The trip has already been a winner, and the U.K. Open, I mean, this could just be the icing on the cake for the two of you. We'll have to wait and see. Rachel Hawley, thank you very much, and I'm glad you've had a wonderful trip, and it's not over. Thank you, Jeff, so much for the opportunity. Man, I love your voice, and I love you. Thank you. It's been so good to hang out with you, Jeff, again, and hopefully good luck to all of us, and may the U.S. and Canadians represent well. Boom, boom. We've got a few of them here. All right. Anybody here still? You might hear some Americans clapping in the background there, but that's okay. Hey, we're here at the UK Open. This has been your Pinball Profile. You can find everything on pinballprofile.com. We're on Facebook. We're on Twitter. Stupid X, I mean. Whatever it is. Twitter, X, Instagram. You can email pinballprofile at gmail.com. And if you would like to show your support, don't worry, the show will always be free, but it does mean a lot and keeps the show going. Patreon.com slash pinballprofile. I'm Jeff Fields. It's alright. Here comes the sun, here comes the sun, it's alright, it's alright.