This week began with high hopes, but yet there was already a playoff elimination feel to the week, at least for me. There was little margin for error after the debacle of week 2. Every point matters from here on out, and could potentially mean the difference between A division, B division… or even missing the playoffs entirely.

I should mention earlier in the day I was feeling slightly ill and there was considerable doubt I would be feeling well enough to try to play by the time the evening rolled around. I went ahead and tried to play and it turned out to be a good thing I did. A 75.4M+ on Metallica during warmups told me all I needed to know about whether or not I was fit to play, and so the night began.

I would be grouped with Jason Cortez, Chris Palis, and Laurie Bender (I would play third in the rotation between Chris and Laurie). We would play, in order, Attack from Mars, Metallica, Iron Maiden, The Beatles, and Monster Bash. Also in the lineup, but not assigned to our group, were Guardians of the Galaxy and Batman. At long last, Ghostbusters would be missing from the lineup for once… good riddance, I say.

Our first game was Attack From Mars. I would begin my first ball facing 125.9M+ from Jason and 47.0M+ from Chris. I would get on the board early with a nice solid 775.9M+, good enough to hang onto the lead by the time ball 2 would come up. I would end ball 2 with a commanding lead of 1.21B+, which would be good enough to win (ball 3 only brought me up to 1.29B+). So the night begins with a first place finish and seven standings points, and one step closer to clinching week 2 as the drop week.

Moving on, the next game would be Metallica. After ball 1 the scores would be fairly close, but in the end Chris would run away with this one putting up a 24.4M+, with Jason also putting up a relatively high score of 10.8M+. It would take everything I had just to finish third with a final score of 8.0M+. This would bring me up to ten standings points with three games left to play.

Next up would be Iron Maiden. Ball 1 for me would be a real lemon with a paltry 279,650. The others would all have least decent scores of 4.5M+ to 16.5M+ for me to look back at as I began ball 2, which wouldn’t go much better. By the time my ball 3 came up I would have 3.5M+ and looking down at 42.0M+, 5.2M+, and 79.7M+ in order. I would sign off with 46.3M+ good for second place, bringing me up to fifteen standings points with two more games to play. It’s starting to look pretty good for the possibility of making A division after all.

We would move on to The Beatles. Going into my third ball, the scores were 903K+, 281K+ (me), 352M+, and 410M+. I would need everything to go right in ball 3 to have a chance to win. I would sign off with 1,043,790. Laurie had a threateningly close score as she drained and it came down to her bonus countdown as to whether or not she would take first place from me in the end. She would finish with 1,032,910–right around 11K short, which is a pretty small margin in this game. Jason would sign off with 557K+ sealing the deal. Here I stood with twenty-two standings points with one game left.

Monster Bash had a surprise in store. Laurie would finish ball 3 with 15.4M+. I would begin ball 3 with 4.4M+ already assured of second as both Jason and Chris had failed to catch up. I unfortunately wound up with a lemon for my third ball and finished with 5.3M+, but second place on this game brings me to a total of 27 standings points on the night and at least a nominal hope of finishing in the top 16 for A division. Nevertheless, I finished this week happy and in eager anticipation of what was to follow.

Upon my arrival at the bar this week, I was greeted by mostly the same lineup of pinball games and mostly the same people. There were a few new faces, and this week Attack from Mars was swapped in for Deadpool.

I would be originally grouped with Erich Stinson and Kevin Lypkie. After we played our first game, Wisdom Mbaluka would be added to our group (and due to an apparent quirk in Matchplay, he would be set to play fourth in the group in all games, with the three of us rotating order as originally scheduled).

We would begin on Ghostbusters. Again, everyone would miss the video mode shot, including me. This didn’t help me any. I would put up a measly 7.7M+ which was nowhere near good enough for second place (or third place, after Wisdom joined us). Okay, so it’s a last-place finish on Ghostbusters, a game I’ve grown to hate, big deal. That’s not too bad until…

Our next game would be Attack from Mars. There was some kind of issue with the saucer not registering at certain times, according to another player. I never ran into this issue; I did, however, have all kinds of problems with a stupidly bad left lean. I managed to put up 689M+, almost good enough to take third, except that Wisdom put up 720M+ on the last ball.

Moving on, it’s time to play Star Wars. I manage a pitiful 48.6M+ after blowing the skill shot twice. I’m not sure that would have helped. Actually keeping the ball in play for a decent amount of time so I could make some higher-scoring shots might have. Needless to say, my score was not in the least bit competitive with the others (Kevin put up 149M+ and they went up from there).

Would I do any better on Monster Bash? Again, this one went by rather quickly; my 2.4M+ was close, but again short of even third place. I tilted two balls trying to save a kickout that would just go straight down the middle. Erich supposedly tried to fix this before we began league play. I don’t doubt that he tried, but this game was not ready for league play and should not have been in the lineup. A mechanical issue combined with an overly sensitive tilt is an outright insult to a competitive player. The last time something like this happened, the result wasn’t pretty. By this point, I had already clinched a drop week for this week (technically, first place here and on the next game would have tied me with my week 1 score, but either way one of the 17s would be a drop week).

We would wrap up the night on Iron Maiden. Finally, during my third ball of this game, I would score enough to clinch at least third place. At least I didn’t go the whole night finishing last. My 39.8M+ was actually going to be good enough for second place when it was all done (there was little chance of catching Erich’s 93.7M+, though I did do the best I possibly could). That’s nine standings points on the night. I would be in a four-way tie for the worst score of the week.

While the situation is now a bit dire, I am not mathematically eliminated from A division yet. As a rough guide for what to expect will be enough for A division, the cutoff last season was 66 points. That’s 49 more points across two weeks (over the 17 from week 1), or second place all the way across in a four-player group. That may not hold true for this season, but the hole I’m in is a bit smaller than it appears. While I’m trying not to think about it, last season’s B division cutoff was 51 points, or an additional 34 points across the next two weeks (six third-place and four second-place finishes in a four-player group, or a similar performance). Certainly, that’s well within my capabilities, though B division is not where I want to wind up.

This is just a quick note, since it’ll be another day or two before I post about this week’s league night results, and I don’t want to bury this in the same post as a league night post. (Especially this week’s… oops, did I really type that out loud?)

Anyway, I was interviewed by blogger and fellow Mastodon user Steve Mays about pinball. I had casually mentioned this blog and it got his curiosity up. It was a good 45 minutes of conversation via phone call (he had originally said 10 to 15 minutes, but I had the whole afternoon open). I mention a lot of games in that interview

I also realized there’s a picture of me playing Goin’ Nuts at the Pinball Hall of Fame in Las Vegas back in 2018 June that I had not posted previously (and that may well have been eaten by my mom’s phone had I waited too long to copy it over). I sent this to Steve for use with the interview/blog post, but I figured I may as well post it here too so it hopefully doesn’t get lost:

For those of you who do not know the history behind Goin’ Nuts: only 10 prototypes were made, and the game was never placed into production; this was apparently because Gottlieb’s executives thought it would be too expensive to make. I wouldn’t mind seeing Stern or Chicago Gaming make this game today, possibly with updated components and possibly a proper launch button instead of just using a countdown timer.

This new season saw the return of many familiar faces and many familiar pinball machines. New to the league were The Beatles and the remake of Monster Bash; returning from prior appearances were Metallica, Ghostbusters, Star Wars, Deadpool, and Iron Maiden.

I got to play The Beatles very briefly during warmups. It’s a very simple “street level” playfield design reminiscent of 1960s electromechanical (EM) games, with an EM scoring motif to match. The only feature really “modern” about it is multiball (and I do realize there were a handful of EM games that did feature multiball, but on the whole, I would think most players would consider multiball a feature most associated with the solid state and later era). I look forward to getting to play it in league play (hopefully, next week).

I say this because our group would wind up drawing the five games all returning from prior league weeks, with neither of the two “new” games. I would be grouped with Bryan Buckley, Tandy Lofland (a relatively new player who first played Season 8 Week 4), and Jeff Mleynek.

We would begin rather unassumingly on Metallica (I played first). All around it was a pretty low scoring game. I would put up a 3.1M+ second only to Bryan’s 3.5M+… until Jeff blows it wide open with a 34.8M+ pushing me down to third. This was a lousy game for everyone until Jeff’s third ball, but it’s really no excuse for laying an egg like this. So I start with a third-place finish and three standings points.

Next up was Ghostbusters (I played first again). The only good thing to happen during this game: none of the other three players got a video mode. Unfortunately, neither did I, finishing with 2.2M+ behind even Tandy’s third-place 2.3M+. Ugh. Really not the look I want to start the season: four standings points after two games (in a 7-5-3-1 scoring league).

The woeful inadequacy would only continue on Deadpool (I played fourth): 1.1M+ after two balls. I would squeak into third place with 20.3M+. Three games, seven standings points, and I have yet to finish any higher than third.

Next up would be Star Wars (I played second). Finally, things begin to turn around a bit, as I would sign off with 169.0M+ eeking just past Bryan’s 158.9M+, but still well short of Jeff’s 268.5M+. But hey, finally I finish in second for once, putting me up to twelve standings points.

We would finish the night’s contests on Iron Maiden (I played third). Again, Jeff runs away with it. I would post a halfway decent 11.7M+ (despite rage-tilting my third ball) good for second. That would make the sum total on the night seventeen standings points, just a shade better than third places all the way across.

For the first time in three seasons, I would begin a season failing to win a single game out of the five played.

Even as I sit here writing a blog post about this, I need to be ready to clear this out of my head tomorrow night and treat it like a whole new match. Which, in a manner of speaking, it is. There’s still a lot of season left at this point, and I need to make the most of it.

So once again, the next season of our favorite pinball league is upon us. I haven’t kept up a whole lot with the tournaments that have happened between then and now, but there have not been too many. Most of them happened in the previous year and thus were for last year’s WPPR (World Pinball Player Ranking) points. This is the first time I can remember that a league season has started this close to the beginning of a calendar year, so it will be a unique experience trying to start the year off with a bang.

I am still on the fence about how much effort to put in towards making a serious run at the IFPA championships (state, then potentially North America and world should I keep winning). After last season, I certainly feel like anything is possible now; realistically, I had doubts about where my peak was going into the season, but I resolved to myself to just play my best and see where it got me. And it wound up getting me a lot closer to where I wanted to be than I expected. It was a heck of a ride, even if I wound up a bit short of where I really wanted to go.

Which brings me to another thing I’ve been thinking about: my intense competitive spirit, which has been both a huge strength and a huge weakness over the years. It is easy to get so wrapped up in the hunt for a championship that one forgets the purpose of playing in the league is to have fun. I certainly don’t want to be remembered as the guy that ruined the atmosphere and camaraderie. Being fiercely competitive but keeping it friendly and social is a difficult balance, and I’m sure I’m not the only one to have found at least some difficulty with this balancing act.

We are always looking for new players, dues are $10 but not collected until the second week of the season (it’s another mini-season with only four weeks of regular season before the playoffs).

Eighteen Twenty Lounge
1820 Franklin
Houston, Texas
76X6QJ5W+8W (what’s this?)
Regular season: 19:00 (7 p.m.); January 14, 21, 28; February 4; Playoffs: 18:00 (6 p.m.) February 18

​Another regular season, another A division finish. I had been looking forward to this day since this “mini-season” started just four short weeks prior. I made sure to eat well and leave with plenty of time to spare for a few warmup games.

I got the night started with four warmup games on Deadpool, the last of which was a solid 247M+. Not good enough to enter my initials, but good enough to get me in a confident, winning mood. The question remained, though, would it be enough to carry me through the entire playoff tournament?

As usual, 4-2-1-0 scoring with the two leaders from quarterfinals and semifinals advancing. Game lineup (not in order of play): Deadpool, Attack from Mars, Star Wars, AC/DC, Ghostbusters, Guardians of the Galaxy, Iron Maiden, Metallica. This was pretty much the usual suspects. The quarterfinals would see me grouped with Fred Revnew, Elizabeth Dronet, and Jim Mueller, and we would be playing Attack from Mars, Star Wars, and AC/DC in that order. I would elect to play first in all games where I had the choice and would wind up playing in the leadoff spot across the entire tournament.

My first ball on Attack from Mars was a dud, with a puny 51.5M+ on a game where decent scores start at a billion. Not good. By the time it got back around to me for ball 2, I would be staring down a 1.37B+ from Elizabeth. A rather large margin, but not an insurmountable one. I proceeded to go to work. I would somehow manage to complete all the shots needed for Total Annihilation within the span of that one ball. Even though it was a relatively low scoring TA, I would see the lead with a 3.97B+ total, tacking on a few more points in a multiball on my third ball to sign off with 4.60B+, good for first place for 4 standings points. (I came within one shot of a second TA in one game, something I’ve never done on a real AFM machine that I can remember.)

My game on Star Wars was overall relatively low scoring. 54.4M+ is usually not a score I’m that proud of, but when two other players I’m up against score lower than that in the second game of a playoff tournament, I’ll gladly take it. At this point, it’s me with 6, Fred with 5, Elizabeth with 3, John with 0. John can’t advance and Elizabeth would need first place and hope Fred finishes no better than third.

I never really got much going on AC/DC. 5.9M+ would be good only for dead last, but John and Fred ran away with it in their respective games, enough to put Elizabeth back in third. I would advance to the semifinals with Fred. I’m starting to feel pretty darn good.

The semifinals would match me against Fred, Matt Quantz, and Cory Westfahl. We would play Ghostbusters, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Iron Maiden. I’ve gone on ad nauseam about Ghostbusters. I was disappointed to see it in the lineup when I arrived. I was hoping I could go the entire tournament without playing it. Now, I’m hoping I could make the ridiculous video mode on the skill shot enough times to put up a decent score.

To say the least, that didn’t happen. I put up an embarrassingly bad 3.4M+ with all three of the other players topping 100M. I’m just disgusted at this point, but I pull it together for the next game.

Right on cue, I start Guardians of the Galaxy with a rather lousy 3.5M+ ball. Cory puts up a 34.8M+ and Fred puts up a 7.8M+. (Matt put up a score very close to mine, basically a tie at this point, not really worth worrying about.) My second ball wouldn’t be much better, bumping me to only 5.1M+, behind everyone else but a particularly distant 50.6M+ from Fred. But this is Guardians of the Galaxy, and based on past experience, if I can get Groot Multiball started, I’m still in it. If I remember right I have either two balls locked or the second lock lit.

Well, I get Groot Multiball started. I concentrate on just keeping the balls in play and trying to make as many jackpot shots as I can. The next few minutes seem like a blur, but I finally get a chance to catch a glimpse the score counter after the bonus countdown: 82,279,870. Enough of a lead that I could feel like maybe it would hold up. Matt signs off with 11.4M+. Fred signs off with 56.0M+. Finally, Cory signs off with 45.8M+ and I have a first-place finish.

The semifinals would conclude with Iron Maiden. The standings are 4-4-3-3 with the 4s being Matt and I. Basically, a second place or better and I’m assured at least a tiebreaker; two points or more ahead of Matt (either a first place no matter what Matt does, or a second place with Matt finishing last) and I’m definitely in. I don’t really have much to brag about through the first two balls. I would start ball 3 with a 19.2M+ behind Fred’s 23.5M+ and Cory’s 53.8M+. The last thing I wanted was to deal with a tiebreaker after this nerve-racking round.

I would start a Warrior Multiball, good enough to rocket me up to 68.3M+ which would hold up for second place and assure me an advance to the finals. I was already assured my best ever finish just making it out of the quarterfinals, and now I am looking at finishing in the top four in league play for the first time ever.

Fred Revnew, Phil Grimaldi, and Bryce Revnew. AC/DC, Ghostbusters, and Guardians of the Galaxy. The opponents are not a big surprise. The games, on the other hand… left a bit to be desired. I had just played the latter two of these games and played the first in the quarterfinals.

There’s really not a whole lot to write about in these last three games, because it got pretty ugly pretty quickly. I would eke out a third place on AC/DC. I would finally make the video mode skill shot on Ghostbusters for once out of the six balls played, but it wouldn’t be enough to even eke out another third place. I’m still not mathematically eliminated from third place after that. Then, on Guardians of the Galaxy, I put up a decent score of 42.3M+, only to watch Bryce, the eventual winner of the tournament, rocket past it with a 744.1M+, with both Phil and Fred able to sign off with higher scores as well. So fourth overall it would be. Phil would once again finish third, with Fred taking second and for the first time in league history a father-son duo would finish first and second in two consecutive seasons. Not only this, but there’s another first of note: three different champions in three consecutive seasons. The last time that could have possibly happened was in season 3, the one after Preston Moncla (commuting from Beaumont!) won.

Honestly, after the three disappointing games of the final round, I was just glad for it to be over. That’s extremely out of character for me, and I don’t really even know why I felt that way. It could have been just fatigue. It didn’t feel normal to me in the moment, but maybe it is normal for how I am now versus how I would have reacted five, ten, or more years ago to a similar situation. Only time will tell.

I take some comfort in looking at the pattern of my playoff finishes thus far (post describing playoffs linked for ease of reference, where available):

• Season 1: League DNP (N/A)
• Season 2: B divison quarterfinal bust (25th)
• Season 3: B division, playoffs DNP (32nd)
• Season 4: B division 3rd place (15th)
• Season 5: B division quarterfinal bust (29th)
• Season 6: B division 1st place (17th)
• Season 7: A division quarterfinal bust (15th)
• Season 8: A division 4th place (4th)

If the past is any indication, I have at least a 2nd place finish to look forward to sometime in 2019. I believe the best is yet to come. I’ll have some more thoughts on the most recent season next week.