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.

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.)

After some time on the show floor (which I will cover in the next post), lunch and dinner, some rest, and breakfast, it was time to get back to the tournament. Saturday’s play would have four rounds or eight games.

It was already looking rather bleak for me, but I decided to stick around and play the remainder of the tournament for the experience. Prior to this year, I had zero experience with this format.

My group for Round 7 would be Michael Hendrick, Laurie Abel, and Nolan Mitchell. We would play the first of the two games of the round on Road Show. This was another game where I just couldn’t get much going and signed off with an embarrassing 53M+. (The scores in order were 119,743,750 for Michael; 141,941,940 for Laurie; 202,080,490 for Nolan, and 53,101,240 for yours truly.)

The choice of Grand Prix for the second game offered some hope. Unfortunately, I was equally unlucky here as well, only able to cobble together a 165k+ which was well out of the running.

For round 8, I’d be grouped with Ariel Dutton, Kris Thompson, and Scot Love. Our first game would be on Foo Fighters, a game I at least felt reasonably confident on. I would get off to a rather miserable start with all of 1.6M+ on ball 1 and 33.3M+ after ball 2. I would be staring down 87.7M+ from Ariel, 105.3M+ from Kris, and 123.1M+ from Scot. It would take a minor miracle just to salvage third place, and a spectacular performance to squeak into second or even first. Amazingly, I did manage to come all the way back and sign off with 115.1M+ good for second place, which I believe to be a personal best on this game. I’d consider this another highlight of the tournament.

If only I were able to do just as well on Rush, the second game of the round. Scot would run away with the win; I only needed to beat Kris’s 25.0M+ to at least salvage a third place. I really never got much going this game. My first ball scored only 21,320 (that’s unit points, not thousands or millions). I would sign off with a very disappointing 7.6M+.

In round 9, the penultimate round, I would find myself playing against Ethan Wade, Paul Borth, and Josh Craig. We would start on White Water. I got off to a slow start but did have multiball ready to go on ball 2. Somehow I manage to hit quite a few jackpots worth 28M apiece to catapult in front to 147.4M+ (helped also by a good bonus with multipliers) after ball 2. Ethan was the only serious threat the whole way but his 43.8M+ would only be good for second. I would sign off with 154.3M+.

The second game would be F-14 Tomcat. I consider this a game I am competent at. The settings included turning off flight insurance, and possibly making the table steeper than it ordinarily would be. It turned a game where the strategy would normally be “go for multiball” into “just try to survive and scrape together points”. I managed to salvage a 400k+ for second, which at this point feels like a moral victory.

Finally, the last round of the tournament was here. I would be grouped with Brandon Chapman, Clark Ogrin (again), and Seth Gibson. We would play the first game of the round on Road Show. I would get a multiball going, though I would only score the one jackpot despite having it maxed out to score again. Nevertheless I would finish with enough for a decisive first place with 436.4M+ (scores were  323,175,810 for Brandon; 49,443,800 for Clark; 436,470,020 for yours truly; 161,409,980 for Seth). Another moral victory, and perhaps another highlight of the tournament overall.

The last game of the tournament for me would be Iron Maiden. It would be the first game I played in which there would be a major malfunction during the game. Brandon would have the unfortunate luck of the right flipper button coming detached during his first ball. The repair would delay the game by a good 12 minutes or so. I had a relatively lackluster game but it was good enough for second given at this point I was being grouped with the lower part of the standings. Brandon would get a consolation ball but he would not score enough to move out of fourth place.

Adding all the standings points up, I would finish tied for 53rd out of the group with 76. This was only 4 points out of the running for novice division, and 12 points out of A or B division. (In our group there was a massive 6-way tie for the last A division seed, with four of the six players only being eligible for A division playoffs.) Four points is two places (in a four player game), so basically a couple of games where I finish higher would have been enough.

Despite it being 20 games instead of 25, this format felt like much more of a grind. I’ll come back to summarize all of the highlights after the next post about the games I played on the show floor.