Pull out your inner meta-nerd for this one: a Street Fighter and pinball-themed piano, and the Guile theme played by a gorgeous pianist.  My cup runneth over…

I had an awesome time at The Gridiron Classic and got to see and compete with a lot of longtime friends.  It was a great time!

The format was a full Round Robin, which, if you’re not familiar, means every player plays against every other player.  A coin flip decided who got choice of game or player order.  The top six at the end with the best win/loss record went on to the finals.

There were 22 entrants so that meant 21 matches for each player.  Entry was steep at $40 + coin drop, with $30 going to charity, but everyone who entered at least got a good amount of matches for their entry fee.

Matches went quickly because Phoenix Games in Concord  has 13 games.  As soon as a match was done, there was always another player who needed an opponent.  And the rule was you could only pick a game that was either open or on ball 3.

As for me, I started pretty cold.  I got a couple warm-up games, caught up with old friends, but my first ten matches were a wash, basically winning one and losing one.  Trading wins and losses, I knew, wasn’t going to cut it.  I took a break, got something to eat and re-assessed.

It’s a tournament, it’s a grind, I’m here to try and win.  I started choosing the games I knew I could consistently win on, even if they were boring to me.  I went to my ‘bidness’ games and I shoved a couple players out to get a spot in the finals, but just barely.

And in the Finals?  Eh, played okay, but not good enough, ended 6th.  Still, against such a tough field, I’m not complaining.

All around a good time and some bucks went to charity.

Full Results:

1. Aaron Nelson
2. Walter Hurwitz
3. Chris Heilig
4. TJ Beyer
5. Alex Samonte
6. Jon Olkowski
7. Tom Collins
7. Robin Lassonde
9. David Rockholt
9. Stephen Kleckner
9. Usama Farage
9. Rich Machado
13. David Joud
13. Aaron Wong
13. Josh Warren
13. Ellen Frankel
13. Mitch Tunick
18. Kevin Riekki
18. Bob Matthews
18. Chris Kochan
18. Jay Sandy
22. Mike Glick

If you’re itching for some competition footage, check out this SPL vid with commentary by PAPA Champion Cayle George.

“You don’t have to ‘get her’ to give her GAP”

Clicky: http://www.adforum.com/people/alex-da-corte-81822909/work/34505547

Sorta catchy.

East Bay Gridiron Classic 2014

Sunday December 7th, 2014 at Phoenix Games East Bay, CA. 

Kickoff is scheduled for 11:00 PST.  It will be completely based off of the 2014 NFL schedule including the playoffs. That means there is room for 32 players, no more, no less. The format is head to head casual flow. It will be first come first serve basis with the only way of ensuring a spot is by pre-registering. The entry will be $40 The entry fee covers the mandatory $30 per player charity donation and allows $10 to go to the prize pool.  All players will receive HOF football medallions.

To register you can either sign up at Phoenix Games, with Aaron Nelson, or you can send a donation through paypay to steele1927@yahoo.com and I will send you a confirmation email once I receive it. If you know how the NFL season and playoffs work then you know how this works. Players will be randomly assigned an ‘NFL team’. There are 2 conferences, within each conference there are 4 divisions and each division has 4 teams. That makes 32 teams hence the 32 players. Each player will play their division foes 2x (home and away, 6 games), they will also play 4 against one entire division within their conference and 1 each against a team from the other 2 divisions (6 more games) the remaining 4 games will be played against one entire division from the other conference (4 more games) totaling 16 games/rounds. Each team will have 8 home games and 8 away games. A home game means you get to choose the game. So there will be 16 rounds of 1 on 1 play. The home team will choose the machine and a coin flip will determine order of play. You will either get a 1 if you win, or a 0 if you lose. At the end of all the rounds your total record will determine your playoff fate. 12 players make the playoffs. 4 divisional winners from each conference and 2 wild cards from each conference. Wild cards are awarded to the 2 players within a conference with the best record that did not win their division. The top two records in each conference get a bye. Playoffs will be best 2 of 3 with the higher seed getting home field position in 2 of the 3 games. We will go over this more at the event or if you have questions feel free to ask.

This event is a part of the Flippin With The Greats Fundraiser Campaign to benefit Mike Ditka’s Gridiron Greats Assistance Fund (GGAF).

The winner of this event will also be invited to compete in the Grand Final in Las Vegas for a chance at a NIB machine, prizes, and WPPR points.

There will also be a side event for $5 and the format is still to be determined.

I hope to see you there.

Cheers, Aaron Nelson

PAPA TV covered the recent Chicago Pinball Expo tournament.  Here you go: nearly 10 hours of tasty competitive goodness with commentary.  And if that’s not enough, go to their Youtube channel and they have even more.

The PPM will be hosting its annual Halloween party including a dance party and live Comedy.  Only 20 bucks, you cheap bastards.  No better Halloween deal in the Bay Area.  See you there!

Embedding disabled so click the link: http://vimeo.com/105089731

A soccer promo.

This pic will get out there anyway so I might as well post it…

Bonus hidden cow in this pic

Huge thanks to Brad Grant for opening his home and collection for the Pin a Go Go volunteer appreciation party.  It was an awesome time.

The next PAGG is May 15 – 17, 2015.  The show keeps getting better.  Book your hotel/motel/No-tel spots early!