Super-duper TOPS tourney at Hi-Life Pizza in Oakland

A TOPS tournament has just been kicked off at Hi-Life Pizza in Oakland.  There haven’t been many recent TOPS tournaments in the Bay Area so let me explain how they work.

TOPS is the factory tournament software on many STERN pinball games.  You insert the tournament fee into the game ($2 in this case) and then play your entry.  If you make the top 4, you’re prompted to enter your info.  You can enter as many times as you like during the qualifying period and your goal is to put up a score that will stand until the end of the tournament.  If it stands, you win money!

You can enter as many times as you like to try and get a high tournament score.  Note, also, scores for the TOPS tourney are not related to the regular high score table.

If you don’t want to enter the tournament, or you want to do some warm-up games, you just hit the ‘Start’ button as usual.  Non-tournament games cost the same as always (I think currently $1/game or $2/3 games).

Here’s more details:

– Cash pinball tournament. Starts today 8/5 and ends 9/7/14 at 11:59pm

– Top 4 places will be paid cash prizes.  (Percentage of prize pool paid to each place will be posted as soon as I get the info)

– Each entry costs $2/game. You may enter as many times as you like to attempt to get into the top 4.  Note that as the contest nears conclusion, you might get bumped out of the top 4!

Here’s the good part!

– Prize pool starts at $100 and grows by $1 each tournament play (100% of “premium” for tournament play goes straight into the prize pool!)   This could potentially be a VERY nice payout!

To enter the tournament, insert $2 into AC/DC and push the YELLOW “tournament start” button, not the regular Start button!

Looks something like this

Hi Life is located in Downtown Oakland at 15th and Franklin.  Good luck!