Texas Pinball Festival 2025 part 2: The first six rounds

This entry is part 2 of 2 in the series Texas Pinball Festival 2025

We move on to Friday and the first day of the first year of the new format for the Texas Pinball Festival Wizards tournament. For those who don’t keep up with the ins and outs of the competitive pinball scene, I will summarize the changes briefly.

In 2024, players had 25 entries (game plays) of which the best 12 counted towards the final score, and at least three games from each of the three eras had to be played. The highest score on each machine scored 200, second place 195, third place 190, fourth place 189, and then each additional lower place was worth one point less. (In 2022 it went 100, 97, 95, 94, etc which resulted in a lot of players winding up with zero ranking points, including yours truly. Most of these zeroes probably did not affect the final ranking, but it was changed nonetheless due to player feedback.)

In 2025, all of that went out the window in favor of a group matchplay format, split across two days. Standard IFPA matchplay scoring is used, with first place getting 7 points, second place getting 5 points, third place getting 3 points, and fourth place getting 1 point. (In three player groups, second place gets 4 points and third place gets 1 point.) The setup was ten rounds of two games each, or 20 games in total. I will discuss in detail what I see as the pros and cons of each format in a later post.

I didn’t get to practice on anywhere near all of the games during the allotted practice time (which had been moved up a half hour from previous years to 08:00-09:00; I didn’t arrive until around 08:15 or so). That said, many of the games were set up reasonably, with only one tilt egregiously tight and unpredictable to the point of being insulting (Black Pyramid).

I’m just going to summarize each game and briefly list any highlights I can remember, as there were a lot of games and a lot of things that happened. I may mention a few scores in passing but not many. The final scores are all shown in the pictures and will only be mentioned in the text where the pictures are difficult to read (mainly for Road Show which had some display issues).

My group for the first two games would be Mark Gunter, Daniel Martin, and Tom Graf. Game 1 would be on White Water. I just never got a lot going this game. The first ball was basically a house ball and the other two weren’t much better. I’d start off the tournament with a disappointing last place.

Game 2 would be on Grand Prix, same players (two game rounds). This was a much closer game, and I feel like I had a decent chance to at least finish second. Unfortunately Tom’s come-from-behind ball five would dash those hopes and I’d have to settle for third.

On to the next round, grouped with Jack Revnew, Ken Kemp, and Laurie Abel (née Bender). If nothing else, regular readers will remember Jack from previous TPF tournament posts, while Laurie I haven’t played against since league nights in 2019 and even then not a whole lot. We would play Black Pyramid and Foo Fighters. I somehow squeak out a third place on Black Pyramid, despite having a really lousy first ball.

The second game of this round would be Foo Fighters. I had a decent first ball (playing fourth). Unfortunately, Jack just ran away with the game early on, posting an impressive 441M+. I would wind up taking third behind Ken.

My luck would change a bit in the next round. My group assignment this round would be with Susie Sprankle, Seth Gibson, and Tracy Abrahams. While Seth would run away with the game on Pulp Fiction, I would manage to squeak out a low scoring second place (in fact, embarrassing would probably be a more fitting descriptor). Our game on Attila the Hun (a relatively rare GamePlan title) wouldn’t be nearly as kind. Again Seth would run away with the lead. This time the other two players would both catch up leaving me in last.

The next round would finally be what I’d consider my first real highlight of the tournament. My group would be Clark Ogrin, Chris Noah, and Christopher Welch. Our first game on Jaws would end in a rather disappointing third place for me (behind Christopher and Chris). But our second game on Ali would be an entirely different story. I would ride a nice 194k+ ball one to a first place finish with 257k+, narrowly edging out Chris’s 221k+.

My relatively good luck would continue into the next round. The other players in my group would be Clark Ogrin (again), Paul Borth, and Elaine Hecht. We’d play Rush first. I had what could only be described as a real stinker of a game. It probably shouldn’t have been good enough for third place, but somehow it was. We would then move on to Bow and Arrow. I would manage to stay in contention and take a small lead into ball 5, finishing with 65k+. Clark would almost catch up with 59k+ but I get to celebrate another win. I call this a highlight as well; I had never even played Bow and Arrow prior to this tournament.

On that note, we would segue quite nicely into the next round where I would find myself grouped with Marc Gammons, Phillip Pomeroy, and Jokton Strealy. Our first game would be on Flash Gordon, which is a game I’m at least fairly confident on having played it extensively at the Houston Arcade Expo in 2021, and which I played as part of TPF Wizards qualifying in 2022.

I would start off this particular contest on Flash Gordon with a decent lead after each of the first two balls (105k+ to Marc’s 66k+ after ball 1, 152k+ to Marc’s 102k+ after ball 2). That’s already superb, but then the real magic happened. My third ball was probably my best ball on a single-ball game in the entire tournament. It’s almost like I couldn’t miss anything I aimed for. By the time I finally drained and the bonus finished counting, I had 883k+. This would dwarf the rest of the group (Marc would sign off with 252k+) and easily be good enough for first place. (For comparison, my weekend best was 920k+ at Houston Arcade Expo 2021. My score in Wizards qualifying in 2022 was a mere 751k+.)

If only my luck on John Wick was as good. This would be a relatively low scoring game, but I would never really get anything going. Philip’s rather meager 4.4M+ would be good enough for third place, the other two players would finish with a bit over 5M each. I would not even break into the seventh digit, signing off with 728,750. This is an unfortunate “low-light” immediately following a great game.

That would conclude Friday’s play, with the final four rounds set to take place Saturday morning. My update on Telegram would read:

That’s a total of 44 standings points on the day, with the current B division cut off at 53 and the current A division cut off at 54. I’m currently sitting in a tie for 56th of 80 in the group.

So at this point I wasn’t looking too bad despite my actual ranking being near the bottom of the group. I held out hope as I got a well-deserved meal and proceeded to check out some of the games on the show floor. (I elected not to try to participate in any of the other tournaments this year due to concerns about scheduling.)

Texas Pinball Festival 2025 part 1: Northbound and down

This entry is part 1 of 2 in the series Texas Pinball Festival 2025

And so it began.

Months of anticipation and many emails from both the main Texas Pinball Festival staff and the tournament directors later, the day had finally arrived. I had stayed up later than I wanted to packing everything in a carry-on-sized suitcase and two backpacks. (This was about the equivalent of one checked suitcase and one carry-on suitcase, though since I was driving I only needed to worry about what could fit in the trunk and not airline regulations.)

The first stop was to get a quick snack and drink from QuikTrip on I-45 at Richey Road. This store has become my go-to in the area (over the Flying J across the street), primarily due to their roller grill items.

After that it was non-stop to the Golden Chick in Corsicana, West 7th Avenue (aka Texas 31 Business) and South 18th Street. The only hiccup was a stretch north of Huntsville, which if I remember right was construction (I only have the GPS trace to refer back to, I did not take many notes of the trip). My hope was to check into the hotel and make it over to get my wristband and name badge, and hopefully have enough time to enter and play in the Thursday night scrutinizer tournament. I would need to be in line at close to 16:15 to 16:30 for that to happen.

After missing the first turn given to me by my navigation app (which would have been a slightly more direct route via I-45 Business instead of US 287 Business), I arrived at Golden Chick at 13:47. After another brief stop at the CVS just east of Golden Chick (West 7th Avenue and South 16th Street) to get some cash from the ATM, it was back on the road.

The freeway traffic was not moving, so I took a detour. My navigation software naively directed me west on West Roane Road and then north on I-45 Business/North 7th Street. I would arrive at the ramp to get back on I-45 North only to find out it was closed due to construction. So I would have to backtrack to FM 3041/West Roane Road and this time head east.

I got around the traffic jam via two roads called Northeast 1040 (great road for a CPA/tax preparer to put an office!) and Northeast 0220. The trip down Northeast 1040 was interesting. What appeared to possibly be the northbound half was gravel while the southbound half was paved. We all wound up using the paved portion while being ready to move over for oncoming traffic if needed (there was none). Northeast 0220 wasn’t like this, it was more consistently paved after the first half mile or so.

This road ended in a T intersection with FM 1603, which would, thankfully, lead back to a free-flowing I-45. And that was the last hiccup before Buc-ee’s in Ennis, where I made one more brief stop for supplies and another drink.

I would get back on the road at 15:37 and everything would go smoothly until… yep, Dallas rush hour traffic. I would arrive at I-45 near Bryan Street at 16:18, and would exit the freeway at that time to take the surface streets. At this point I’ve given up on making it to the scrutinizer tournament so I’m taking my time and trying to relax a bit for the rest of the drive.

I would proceed up Lemmon Avenue (including a one-way portion named Lemmon Avenue East) to Inwood Road, which joins the Dallas North Tollway just south of I-635. I would go ahead and hop on the (relatively) free-flowing tollway all the way to the exit for Gaylord Parkway. Then, back to surface streets once again to the hotel. Check in, bring my bags up, and then walk over to get my wristband and name tag. I walked in, waited in line for a brief time, got my wristband and name tag, got to play a quick game or two at the Wormhole booth, and then went back to the hotel to relax, shower, and ponder my options for dinner.

I considered everything from old standbys like Subway, Denny’s, and Chipotle, to slightly pricier options around the area. My eventual choice was Boomer Jack’s over in Plano (a short drive south) where I ordered the Texan Flatbread (smoked brisket, mozzarella, BBQ sauce, red onion, and cilantro). It was a hearty meal and I feel like I had earned it after the rather tedious drive north, especially on the legs between Corsicana and Frisco. (I had briefly considered the Carnivore Flatbread instead but wanted to try something a bit outside my usual tastes.)

And with that, time to get some well-deserved rest and prepare myself for the weekend.

March 19 Cidercade Houston

So on the morning of March 18 I get a text about my free admission rewards at Cidercade expiring in three days. Ordinarily I wouldn’t have dragged myself out to Cidercade this late on the night before I’m set to drive up to Frisco for the Texas Pinball Festival, and after a day on which I have to get a ton of work done to boot. But, it was a good excuse to get in some last minute pinball practice, though most of the games I played were not part of the tournament lineup.

Given the hour and my state of relative exhaustion, a lot of these scores weren’t all that great. I actually wound up playing quite a few video games before going back to pinball at the end of the night. I feel like despite this being a somewhat abbreviated visit, I got what would have been $12 worth of play out of it.

Highlights: 68.4M+ on Iron Maiden, 43.9M+ on Led Zeppelin, 101M+ on Star Wars. 47.7M+ on Metallica Remastered, 146M+ on Game of Thrones (Premium/LE, I forget which).

March 16 Einstein’s Katy

And then it was time once again for the monthly Einstein’s visit.

There were a few of relative gems on this outing: 150k+ on Stars, 54.3M+ on Black Knight: Sword of Rage (Premium), 3.9M+ on Rick and Morty.

I would fit in one more arcade visit before it was time to head north to the Texas Pinball Festival.

March 3 Little Dipper

Highlights in brief: 80.5M+ on Star Trek, 796k+ on Jacks to Open. The rest weren’t really anything special.

(This was originally supposed to be a league night for Bayou City Pinball League, but cancelled due to low attendance.)

Texas Pinball Festival 2025: Back in the saddle again

It’s that time again. The Texas Pinball Festival is this weekend, March 21-23. As you may have heard, the tournament format has completely changed this year. Instead of the previous “limited entries” format, the field of 160 players will be divided into two groups of 80, an “early” group (Friday 09:00-16:00, Saturday 09:00-14:00) and a “late” group (Friday 17:00-24:00, Saturday 14:00-19:00) for a matchplay qualifier. This year, I am in the “early” group.

One good change deserves another. The live updates will be moved to a new Telegram announcements channel. This should hopefully be easier to follow and will allow me to keep announcements separate from my usual posts to Mastodon.

I may or may not be able to update this blog post with the tournament scoreboard link when it becomes available. It will likely be posted to the Telegram group linked previously before I update this post.

The livestreams of the finals will once again be on Wormhole Pinball’s Twitch feed. With the new format and required schedule, this unfortunately wreaks significant havoc on my plans to play in other tournaments being offered over the weekend. If those happen they’ll be on the Telegram channel.

I’m looking forward to being “back in the saddle again” for what is now the fourth year in a row. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

It’s now time for me to start packing and rest up for a long drive tomorrow. See you in Frisco.

(Edit: I will likely have one or two arcade visit posts to make before the TPF recaps. There’s just not enough time left to catch up.)