The Fast forward to the evening of January 1, and my pinball tournament of the year. Once again, it was time to head down I-10 East to Major Drive (FM 364) to Folsom Drive to Colorado Canyon. (Or at least that’s the route I chose this time; taking the freeway around to Lucas Drive is faster but I had more time to spare than usual on this trip.)

Before setting off from Houston, I had thought of this tournament as one of the more important recent tournaments. It’s the start of a new year, which is at least symbolic of new beginnings. In the case of competitive pinball and the IFPA, it’s a clean slate for everyone with regard to state(/province/district) rankings. The players that qualified for the state championships will play those in a couple of weeks, etc. For the rest of us? This is the “next year” we’ve been waiting for after realizing we were out of the running.

There was no fifth game added to the lineup for the evening, though one was not really needed as there were only 14 players. That’s actually a pretty good turnout for New Year’s Day considering the typical overlap between “pinball player” and “party animal”. (And I arguably speak as a member of someone within that overlap, having been at the Cidercade Houston New Year’s Eve event a mere 17-18 hours prior to my arrival at Colorado Canyon.)

So on we went. My round 1 would be on TMNT, leading off against Casey Sudela and Allen Robertson (in order). I had a decent start with a 3.39M+ first ball, though Allen would answer with just short of 6M. The second ball would be a dud for both us, but Casey would regain some ground. Going into ball 3, the scores were 3.65M+ (me), 2.77M+ (Casey), 6.01M+ (Allen). I would once again have a dud for ball 3, signing off with 3.96M+ which Casey would easily pass. So I’d start off with a last place finish.

I would move on to The Uncanny X-Men for round 2. Playing order would be Leon Moncla, Kelly Moncla, Meghan McCormick, and finally me. Leon would jump out to a commanding lead by the end of ball 2 while the rest of us struggled. Somehow I manage to squeak out a second place in front of Kelly. The margin of victory was just over 140k points (10,270,040 to 10,129,640). Still not the first place I was hoping for; I am now  hoping I’d be able to make up for this slow start in the final three rounds.

The third round brings up Godzilla, I would be playing first in front of Trey Gilpin and Johana Mercer. This game, too, would result in a close finish. I would get just enough in end-of-ball bonus to pull ahead of Trey for the win (35.1M+ to 33.8M+). And all of that without starting a single multiball (usually the key to scoring well on this game)! Obviously I prefer more decisive victories, but in this scoring format a win is a win no matter how close or dominating.

And apparently I have angered the RNG gods at some point today, for I would not be assigned to play John Wick for either of the final two rounds. If you go back to December 27 you’ll see that juicy 129.9M+ on John Wick at Cidercade. It’s a game I now feel very confident playing. I mean it’s not like I haven’t run up some massive scores on the other three titles in the lineup.

Round 4 is on guess what? TMNT again. I’m first up, Dennis Moncla is second player, and Meghan would play third. This wasn’t a good game, I would be trailing pretty much the whole way. Going into the third ball I’m at 2.1M+ versus Dennis at 10.7M+ and Meghan at 5.6M+. I get very lucky here and squeak out a second place (6,116,440 to Meghan’s 6,037,750) that I may or may not have deserved.

The final round would once again be The Uncanny X-Men with Trey, Brian Fults, Russell Mercer, and finally yours truly. I would need first place and some massive help to make the playoffs. Basically, Brian also needed to come in third or last and I think some other players would have had to have dud games as well. (In the heat of the action I didn’t take screenshots/photos of the intermediate standings, for better or worse.)

The game began. Ball 1 was a relative dud for everyone, with all four scores well under 1M. Brian jumped out to a lead after his ball 2 though, and the scores would read 3.9M+, 13.5M+, 382k+, 262k+ as I stepped up to play my second ball. I would somehow catapult to a temporary lead, ending ball 2 with 22.1M+ and putting the other players on the defensive. Brian would come back with 24.4M+ with neither of the other two players being anywhere close.

I did everything I could do to squeak out first place; I didn’t have that great of a ball. Once again, it came down to the end of ball bonus, and it was by the narrowest of margins: 24,530,310 to 24,491,000. However, it was against Brian and only pushed him down to second place securing his spot in the playoffs.

At least I ended the tournament on a high note, and Brian did fall to to the fourth seed in the playoffs because I won that last game (otherwise, he would have been second seed).

The final result was a tie for 6th out of 14. Respectable, but I know I can do better. So it was an early departure back to Houston. I don’t regret making the trip, showing up, and playing, as I still had a great time and got some more tournament experience on modern machines.